Fascinating! EDIT:And also rather wrong, apparently.

There's something about Monotheism

Via Dave Bath, I’ve learnt that leading Spanish director (he won Best Foreign Language Oscar in 2005 for Mar adentro) Alejandro Amenábar has made a film about classical scientist Hypatia. It’s to be called Agora and stars Rachel Weisz. For those unfamiliar with the background, Hypatia (an astronomer) was killed in appalling circumstances by a Christian mob shortly after Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius’ ‘Edict of Intolerance’ in 391AD.
That’s my moniker, of course, but it sums up pretty accurately what Theodosius did: made all non-Christian religions (bar the very limited exception of Judaism, although the stinging slur ‘Christ Killer’ was beginning to make its presence felt) illegal, confiscating their property and giving it over to Christian churches, breaking up community associations and desecrating public structures associated with paganism. The most dramatic of these acts was the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, which although a public building for the citizens of the city, was maintained and paid for by worshippers of the Hellenized Egyptian God Serapis. Theodosius did other nasty things at the same time, like banning same-sex marriage and generally taking what had always been a matter of private contract in the Roman world into the hands of the State. He’s the reason why churches in Italy with names like ‘Maria Maggiore’ will have a Temple of Cybele underneath, or why the crypt is so often a mithraeum.
Here’s a rather bitty outtake from the film; the panicked reaction of library staff once they realise what’s coming is well done.

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This viajsl32 is the actual history...

The Hypatia of History

The real Hypatia was the daughter of Theon, who was famous for his edition of Euclid's Elements and his commentaries on Ptolemy, Euclid and Aratus. Her birth year is often given as AD 370, but Maria Dzielska argues this is 15-20 years too late and suggests AD 350 to be more accurate. That would make her 65 when she was killed and therefore someone who should perhaps be played by Helen Mirren rather than Rachel Weisz. But that would make the movie much harder to sell at the box office.

She grew up to become a renowned scholar in her own right. She seems to have assisted her father in his edition of Euclid and an edition of Ptolemy's Almagest, as well writing commentaries on the Arithmetica of Diophantus and the Conics of Apollonius. Like most natural philosophers of her time, she embraced the neo-Platonic ideas of Plotinus and so her teaching and ideas appealed to a broad range of people - pagans, Christians and Jews. There is some suggestion that Amenabar's film depicts her as an atheist, or at least as wholly irreligious, which is highly unlikely. Neo-Platonism embraced the idea of a perfect, ultimate source called "the One" or "the Good", which was, by Hypatia's time, fully identified with a monotheistic God in most respects.Fanatical Christians still killed her, but the reason was... Also, the Great Library of Alexandria was not burned down by a Christian mob. It was probably done in by a fire started by Julius Cesar's soldiers...Oh. lesbiassparrow comments that thats not accurate either. The library went to its doom in a different manner And the director of the film is Chilean, not Spanish.helenadaxclarifies the identity issue re: the director This entire post is amusing me no end...

International blogging against racism week is here!

Welcome to International Blog Against Racism Week 4!
For 2009, IBARW will take place between July 27 to August 2.

For how you can participate click here

I haven't screamed about Avatar in a while, have I?

via: racebending
Chaobunny's Guide to Casting Fail

our enemies in blue EDIT:switched musical selection

Digby sez:

DASH CAM VIDEO: http://www.cnjonline.com/video/?video...
Tucumcari Police Chief Roger Hatcher has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into last weeks Taser shooting of a teenage girl.

Hatcher said he shot two Taser darts at Kailee Martinez, 14, Thursday while responding to a domestic dispute between the girl and her mother. One hit her in the head and the other struck her back.

Martinez said she was released from Albuquerques University of New Mexico Hospital on Sunday following a two-hour surgery to remove one of the darts from her head.

The surgery left her with 18 staples and six stitches.

"I feel good being home," Martinez said Tuesday. "It is a lot better than being in a hospital."

Martinez mother, Stacy Akin, said she drove her daughter to police headquarters after they fought about a cell phone.

Hatcher said the girl walked away from the police station and when he talked with Akin she had a bloody lip and scratches from a fight.MORE

The she links to a guest post on that cesspool of Repubublican crazies known as the Corner, in which a police tells us what we all know already, they are in authority and we all need to sit down and shut up and don't give them any lip. OR ELSE. The next jackass who tells me anything about protecting and serving will get a pile of expletives. Yes, I am that pissed at the mo'.


To make matters worse...Taser International has just announced an improvement to their abomination of a weapon. It can now fire three rounds without needing to be recharged. YIPPEEE!!!! I am sure we will all sleep better at night with this info. And fuck it, while they are at it, why don't they get some federal dollars for that shit, so that law enforcement can continue to torture people with them? I mean, stimulus and all, right?

After all, there are so many people to torture:In Mobile, Alabama this week, policemen used lethal force on Antonio Love, a deaf and mentally disabled man, who would not come out of the bathroom. Because he had a lethal weapon. An umbrella

And in something I should have blogged but managed to forget, which sucks:In the memory of Robert Mitchell can we please stop calling tasers nonlethal force?


Annndddd: Assault on Black Women - Tasered While Black After her toddler Murdered

Immigrants, of course tend to get some of the worst of police violence directed towards them:Homeland Security and racism


Of course, it is no wonder that those same racist, entitled, I-have-a-gun-and-a-badge-so-I-can-do-anything-bastards, pull these shenanigans: a study has found that ICE agents are breaking and entering people's homes to look for illegal immigrants. This because they are under pressure to fulfill their quotas.

The researchers sketch out a harrowing scenario of a typical home invasion:

There is story after story of ICE agents, armed with only an administrative warrant, yelling and banging on doors and then forcing their way into homes in the pre-dawn hours by pushing their way in if residents unlock their doors, and otherwise climbing through windows or kicking in doors. Some residents report being awakened by the presence of armed ICE officers in their bedrooms who illegally gained entry through unlocked doors.

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And, finally, we come to Sheriff Arpaio

In case you don't know who Sheriff Joe Arpaio is, he fancies himself as "America's toughest sheriff". By "tough", he means "racist, sexist, and costing Arizona money hand over fist". The Phoenix New Times has an entire archive based on this guy's antics, and it's updated regularly. Highlights of Arpaio's 17-year reign include breaking a woman's arm, crushing a prisoner's larnyx, taping women inmates in the restrooms, some financial funny business and the occasional baby death. MORE

And thats just the start. And why does he get away with his unlawful, illegal, sick twisted cruel fucked up behaviour that has cost the state 43 MILLION DOLLARS in lawsuits? Even though the crime rate hasn't moved?

Well. His district is full of mostly conservative whites. And great many of his victims are suspected illegal immigrants So he is powerful enough, therefore, to quash dissent.


I mean, I thought this was crazy: Sheriff Arpaio has suggested raiding the town of Mesa because the wife of a mayor there had the temerity to say during jury selection that Joe was not her hero..


But this:

The Phoenix New Times ran an investigation of Arpaio's real-estate dealings that included Arpaio's home address, which he argued was possibly a violation of state law. When the paper revealed that it had received an impossibly broad subpoena, demanding, among other things, the Internet records of all visitors to its web site in the previous two and a half years, sheriff's deputies staged late-night raids on the homes of Michael Lacey and James Larkin, executives of Village Voice Media, which owns the New Times. The deputies arrested both men for, they said, violating grand-jury secrecy. (The county attorney declined to prosecute, and it turned out that the subpoenas were issued unlawfully.)

Is fucking nuts. And he's untouchable.

And please please please don't make the mistake of thinking that these are isolated cases. Cut that the fuck out.


EDIT: via:colorblue a dead on musical selection
Sabac Red Feat. Immortal Technique - Fight Until The End

EDIT:Our whackos in red too?!?!?!?!?