Second time I come across this idea...

The first time was in a sci-fi book, I think Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson. That one also had a strong soporific effect, which I believe makes it much more useful as the use of force is the first thing one wants to avoid in case of rape, and more so in the event that one retaliates...
Click on the photos to surf the original site.

Femdefence — an idea for a rape-protection device

The project Femdefence is an attempt to contribute to the debate on men’s sexual violence against women in society, using the esthetics of design, and the semiotics of marketing.

Femdefence is an on-going project first presented in 2003. The project includes the creation of an imaginary product, which bears the project’s name. The “product“ is a kind of protection against rape, somewhat similar to a tampon in that it’s user carries it inserted into her vagina. The basic idea is that the woman carries the protective device in her vagina. In it there is a sharp pin which has a penetrating effect on the perpetrator’s penis in the event of a rape. The construction is such that the pin still cannot injure the bearer.

Uc Ekoloji'nin Yeni Sayisi Cikti!

Üç Ekoloji - Doğa Düşünce Siyaset 7
Yeşil Politika ve Özgürlükçü Düşünce Seçkisi

DOSYA – Nükleer Enerji: Rönesans Masalının Arka Planı

• Umut İnsanda... Yeni Nükleer Kabullere Bir Bakış - Ayşem Mert
• Rebecca Harms ile Söyleşi - Üç Ekoloji
• Nükleer Rönesansa İtiraz - Ömer Madra
• Helen Caldicott ile Söyleşi - Gregory Dicum
• Siborg Bilimin Enerji Bağımlılığı Üzerine - Gediz Akdeniz

POLİTİKADAN DÜŞÜNCEYE

• Bilge Contepe ile Söyleşi - Dilek Özkan & Ümit Şahin
• Tarihsel İnsanlık Durumu - Ümit Şahin
• Önce Köylü mü? - Joost Jongerden
• Konukseverliğin Mırıltısı - Dilaver Demirağ

YEŞİL DÜŞÜNCE KLASİKLERİ
“Conspiratio” Kültürü - Ivan Illich

TARTIŞMA
Hepsi Kazanacak Bu Bebeklerin! - Mehmet Ali Üzelgün

KİTAP
Yaklaşan Küresel İklim Krizi - Engin Berk

SAYFA SAYISI: 160 FİYAT: 10 TL

SECIMLERE 5 KALA

Yeşiller Partisi seçimlere parti olarak katılamıyor, ancak ortak adaylarda temsilcileri var. Parti, seçim kampanyasını "Bağımsız düşün, yeşili seç" sloganıyla başlattı. Yeşiller İstanbul'da feminist adayları destekliyor.

Yeşiller Partisi 29 Mart yerel seçimlerinde bir ilçe ve bir beldede bağımsız yeşil belediye başkanı adaylarını, üç ilçede de bağımsız yeşil belediye meclis üyesi adaylarını destekliyor. Ayrıca üç büyükşehir ve bir ilçe belediyesiyle bir muhtarlıkta, içinde yer aldığı ortak aday platformunun adaylarını destekliyor.

Bugün "Bağımsız düşün, yeşili seç" sloganıyla kampanyasını başlatan partinin açıklamasına göre, "Yeşil adayların amacı, yeşillerin nasıl bir yerel yönetim anlayışı, nasıl bir yerel demokrasi modeli ve nasıl bir yeşil gelecek istediğini göstermek ve yeşil belediyelerde bu ideallerin uygulanmasını sağlamak."

Yeşiller'in seçimlerde desteklediği adaylar şöyle.

Bağımsız yeşil belediye başkan adayları: İzmir Konak'ta Derya Özgüzel, Hatay Samandağ Tomruksuyu beldesinde Sarpkaya Öz.

Bağımsız yeşil belediye meclis üyesi adayları: Bursa Nilüfer ilçesinde Sevgi Mutlu, İstanbul Şişli'de Sabri Ender Eren, Tekirdağ Merkez'de Kahraman Şahin.

Parti, Kadıköy'de "birlikte başarabiliriz" platformunun ortak belediye başkanı adayı olan Nursel Şengür'ü, belediye meclisi üyeliklerindeyse DTP listesinden seçimlere giren ortak bağımsız adayları destekliyor.

İstanbul'da feminist adaylara destek

Yeşiller İstanbul Beyoğlu'nda ortak aday platformunun adayını değil, bağımsız feminist aday Saime Ülfet Taylı Taş’ı destekliyor. Beyoğlu'ndaki Katip Mustafa Çelebi Mahallesi’nde de Lambdaistanbul, Amargi Kadın Kooperatifi, Mor Çatı ve Sosyalist Feminist Kolektif’in bulunduğu mahalleyi "gökkuşağına" boyamayı hedefleyen Belgin Çelik’i destekliyor.

Parti, ortak adaylardan İstanbul Büyükşehir'de Akın Birdal'ı, İzmir Büyükşehir'de Arif Ali Cangı'yı, Bursa Büyükşehir'de de İkbal Polat'ı destekliyor.

Veysel Eroglu'nun demokrasi anlayisi

Taraf
Çevre ve Orman Bakanı Veysel Eroğlu, Hasankeyf'e baraj kurma konusunda kararlı olduklarını söyledi. Bunun için Hasankeyf'e sandık kurmayacaklarını ve halkın görüşünü almayacaklarını belirten Eroğlu, "Çünkü vatandaş çok yanlış yönlendiriliyor. Biz tarihi mekanları ortaya çıkaran, eserleri taşıyarak Hasankeyf Kültür Parkı yapacağız. İddia ediyorum, üç-dört yıl sonra Hasankeyf turizm cenneti olacak" dedi.
5. Dünya Su Forumu'nda konuşan Eroğlu, önceki gün forumun açılışında gösteri yapan eylemcilerin davranışlarını kınadı. Eroğlu, "Biz her türlü görüşe açığız. Gelip düşüncelerin insani ölçütler çerçevesinde burada anlatabilirler. Onlar nümayiş yapıyordu. Nümayiş yapmak, insanları taciz etmek doğru mu?" diye sordu.

İki kişi sınırdışı edildi
Bu arada Dünya Su Forumu'nda "Riskli barajlara hayır" pankartı açtıktan sonra gözaltına alınan Uluslararası Nehirler çalışanları Payal Parekh ve Ann-Kathrin Schneider dün sınırdışı edildi.
ÖDP İstanbul Milletvekili Ufuk Uras, uygulamayı protesto ederek Meclis Başkanı'nın vereceği yemeğe katılmayacağını söyledi.

I'm reading...

I'm reading The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood... And being deeply traumatised by it. Not only because it is so close home, but also it is unbelieveably successful as a novel. Writing a novel with a female narration is something on my mind these days, and when I read masterpieces like this, I get slightly discouraged. But that on the side, it is indeed a must-read, and that's why it is on all "best of English literature" lists...

the superhero quiz

My result:
Spider-Man (intelligent, witty, a bit geeky with great power and responsibility).

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

perfections no.1

Alice came to a fork in the road. "Which road do I take?" she asked.
"Where do you want to go?" responded the Cheshire cat.
"I don't know," Alice answered.
"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter."

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

common stuff...

I've two favourite comedians, Bill Hicks and George Carlin (unfortunately both have failed to continue with their biological existence, but I believe they both knew what was coming and were cool about it...). They both reflected extensively on things that are common to humanity as a whole. Carlin had a series of jokes about it in his Jammin' in New York show (after a wonderful take on the war in the Persian gulf).

so, I would like to use this opportunity to share another video Basak sent me, about what we have in common with other animals: dreams...

green city tips I -yesil sehirler I

yerel secimler yaklasiyor... Elbette bagimsiz yesil adaylara oy verecegiz, ama bu arada onlardan neler bekledigimizi de acik etmek gerek. Burdan basliyorum...

Yes, yes... we're all for free speech...

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. "

Joseph Alexandrovitch Brodsky

Brodsky Anectode from Wiki:

In 1963, he was arrested and in 1964 charged with parasitism by the Soviet authorities. A famous excerpt from the transcript of his trial made by journalist Frida Vigdorova was smuggled to the West:

Judge: And what is your profession, in general?

Brodsky: I am a poet and a literary translator.

Judge: Who recognizes you as a poet? Who enrolled you in the ranks of poets?

Brodsky: No one. Who enrolled me in the ranks of humankind?

Judge: Did you study this?

Brodsky: This?

Judge: How to become a poet. You did not even try to finish high school where they prepare, where they teach?

Brodsky: I didn’t think you could get this from school.

Judge: How then?

Brodsky: I think that it ... comes from God.

For his "parasitism" Brodsky was sentenced to five years of internal exile with obligatory engagement in physical work and served 18 months in the Archangelsk region. His sentence was commuted in 1965 after protests by prominent Soviet and foreign literary figures, including Evgeny Evtushenko, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Jean-Paul Sartre.

In 1964, Leonid Brezhnev came to power. As the Khrushchev Thaw period ended, only four of Brodsky's poems were published in the Soviet Union. He refused to publish his writings under censorship and most of his work has appeared only in the West or in samizdat form.

Only in Britain!

One of the usual mysteries in my life is that however apologetic I might try to sound, and sincerely feel, most people from the US feel offended when I share my difficulty with appreciating the "American" culture (way of life?). I usually get frustrated with myself too in this regard, but when something is fed down your throat, it is difficult to appreciate the taste. Hence, most my friends from the US either do not live there, or dislike that "American way of life" equally as I dislike certain things about where I come from -usually both.
In either case, just to emphasise my feelings about the matter even more clearly (and to highlight that I feel equally offended by cultural stereotypes when they are applied to the US as much as anywhere else), I would like to introduce you Stephen Fry's wonderful commentary on his travels in the "real America". Although he has written this in his "quintessentially British" way and for Britons, with a few changes (enter being obsessed with food, weather, and the whole rhetoric about how life is best and only possible in the [enter south european country name]) it could apply to any southern european country.
Anyhow, I will copy some of it below, and for the whole of it click here. (on a final note, I would like to establish how British/European it is to actually realise what Fry tries to make us realise... and how enjoyable his language is to read... oh well...)

"For years then, I have harboured deep within me the desire to make a series of documentary films about ‘the real’ America.
...
I have often felt a hot flare of shame inside me when I listen to my fellow Britons casually jeering at the perceived depth of American ignorance, American crassness, American isolationism, American materialism, American lack of irony and American vulgarity. Aside from the sheer rudeness of such open and unapologetic mockery, it seems to me to reveal very little about America and a great deal about the rather feeble need of some Britons to feel superior. All right, they seem to be saying, we no longer have an Empire, power, prestige or respect in the world, but we do have ‘taste’ and ’subtlety’ and ‘broad general knowledge’, unlike those poor Yanks.
What silly, self-deluding rubbish! What dreadfully small-minded stupidity! Such Britons hug themselves with the thought that they are more cosmopolitan and sophisticated than Americans because they think they know more about geography and world culture, as if firstly being cosmopolitan and sophisticated can be scored in a quiz and as if secondly (and much more importantly) being cosmopolitan and sophisticated is in any way desirable or admirable to begin with. Sophistication is not a moral quality, nor is it a criterion by which one would choose one’s friends. Why do we like people? Because they are knowledgeable, cosmopolitan and sophisticated? No, because they are charming, kind, considerate, exciting to be with, amusing … there is a long list, but knowing what the capital of Kazakhstan is will not be on it.
The truth is, we are offended by the clear fact that so many Americans know and care so very little about us. How dare they not know who our Prime Minister is, or be so indifferent as to believe that Wales is an island off the coast of Scotland? We are quite literally not on the map as far as they are concerned and that hurts. They can get along without us, it seems, a lot better than we can get along without them and how can that not be galling to our pride? Thus we (or some of us) react with the superiority and conceit characteristic of people who have been made to feel deeply inferior.
So I wanted to make an American series which was not about how amusingly unironic and ignorant Americans are, nor about religious nuts and gun-toting militiamen, but one which tried to penetrate everyday American life at many levels and across the whole United States.
...
There is one phrase I probably heard more than any other on my travels: Only in America!
If you were to hear a Briton say ‘Tch! only in Britain, eh?’ it would probably refer to something that was either predictable, miserable, oppressive, dull, bureaucratic, queuey, damp, spoil-sporty or incompetent - or a mixture of all of those. ‘Only in America!’ on the other hand, always refers to something shocking, amazing, eccentric, wild, weird or unpredictable. Americans are constantly being surprised by their own country. Britons are constantly having their worst fears confirmed about theirs. This seems to be one of the major differences between us."

song of the day (AND the lyrics...)

Instant street
dEUS

(Several of my friends from Istanbul know how deeply attached I am to dEUS already -if you didn't here is why... They strike a certain sensitivity that makes my life possible here. When everything looks senseless and remote -and yet so logical a social order exerts power on me despite being closed and incomprehensible, or even obscure-, dEUS is there for me to turn to, and show the intricate fragilities within that senselessness... Reminds me that that distance hides beautiful cracks and sensitive souls.
The video is so fitting to the song that I couldn't bring myself to just post the lyrics this time. So, enjoy...)

You're probably right, seen from your side, that I've been lucky
but I've been meaning to crack all week.
Yes I've been involved, it never resolved into anything shocking.
Pains playing yoyo in my body as we speak.

And now I found something to look for, but I can't decide,
'Cause I might find that to stroll behind is better than to score.
Just like I did before.

It wouldn't be true, not towards you, to say that I'm staying.
When on every single impulse, on every other move I react.
'Cause in any old creek, with changing technique, you'll see me playing.
After any old motherfucking blow I'll be back.

We turned away from instant stuff
our cracking codes were breaking up
our words were sucked out it made them clean.
And after lowness say it
and after more let it be known
Our codes are grown into something mean.

You're probably right, as for tonight, you're making me nervous.
What is it you want me to be thinking of?
I'll put on a movie, I'll play something groovy as a matter of service
And I'll chuckle when you smile as a matter of love.
'Cause you know it's not my style to be giving up now.
And this pain in my side, I had enough.

This time I go for Instant Street
This life's a soulless excuse for all abuse and parenthesis.
The flyspecked windows and the stinking lobbies
they'll remain all the same, all the same.

This time I go. This time I go...

Wonderful 'Stop Fat Talk' viral

AKP'nin Ömer El Beşir'e serdigi kirmizi halilar...

YEŞİLLER PARTİSİ

BASIN AÇIKLAMASI

Yeşiller'den Sudan diktatörüne destek veren AKP hükümetine uyarı: Dış politikada Türkiye'ye biçtiğiniz rol utanç verici!

İstanbul, 6 Mart 2009 - Yeşiller Partisi, Uluslararası Ceza Mahkemesi’nce (UCM) Sudan Devlet Başkanı Ömer El Beşir hakkında yöneticilerinin başlattığı girişimlerin ve UCM'yi küçümseyen açıklamaların Türkiye'nin insanlık suçu sanığı diktatörlerin yanında yer alması anlamına geldiğini ve bunun kabul edilemez olduğunu açıkladı. Yeşiller AKP hükümetine çağrıda bulundu: "BM Güvenlik Konseyi üyeliğini kötüye kullanmaktan vazgeçin ve UCM Sözleşmesini bir an önce onaylayın."

Uluslararası Ceza Mahkemesi’nin Sudan’ın Darfur bölgesinde en az 300.000 kişinin ölümü ve 2,5 milyondan fazla kişinin yerinden edilmesi, kadınların ve kız çocuklarının tecavüze uğramasının suçlusu olarak Sudan Devlet Başkanı Ömer El Beşir için çıkardığı tutuklama kararını memnuniyetle karşıladığını açıklayan Yeşiller Partisi Eş Sözcüsü Ümit Şahin, yaptığı açıklamada şunları söyledi: "TBMM Başkanı Köksal Toptan'ın yaptığı çarpıtmanın aksine Birleşmiş Milletler bünyesinde imzalanan bir sözleşmeyle kurulan ve şimdiye kadar 106 ülke tarafından tanınmış bir uluslararası mahkeme olan UCM, devlet başkanı olarak Darfur'da yaşanan olayların bütünüyle Ömer El Beşir'in kontrolü altında ve kendi emirleriyle gerçekleştiği suçlamasıyla tutuklama kararı çıkarıyor, buna karşın AKP hükümeti ve Cumhurbaşkanı bu insanı el üstünde tutarak ağırlamakla kalmıyor ve kurtarıcısı rolüne soyunuyor. Bu tutum Türkiye'nin başta Filistin'dekiler olmak üzere dünya üzerindeki barış çabalarında kendisini göstermek istediği yerle ilgili tutarlılığının, AB katılım çabalarındaki samimiliğinin ve uluslararası camiada kendisini koyacağı yerin sorgulanmasına neden olacaktır ve hükümetin temsilcisi olduğunu iddia ettiği Türkiye yurttaşları için aşağılayıcıdır.

AKP'yi bir kez daha insanlık dışı bir şekilde tüccar mantığıyla dış politika yürütmekten vazgeçmeye ve Türkiye’nin hak ettiğini düşündüğümüz saygınlığa uygun bir şekilde UCM sözleşmesini acilen onaylayarak Sudan hükümetine UCM ile tam işbirliği yapma yolunda baskı yapmaya davet ediyoruz."