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POPS The Object at Hand: His Majesty King Mongkut of Siam
It was there that royal emissaries found him one steamy April morning in 1851, when they brought the news that his half brother, King Rama III, was dead. Within days, the 47-year-old monk stepped from monastic life into the rich temptations and intricacies of the palace, with its inner city thronging with hundreds of women, its precincts patrolled by female guards and its life revolving entirely around his royal person. The holy man was now officially the "Lord of Life," the fourth ruler in Siam's Chakri dynasty, able to exert life-or-death control over some 5.5 million subjects. (As king, he banned the death penalty for monks who broke their vows of celibacy, putting them to work, instead, cutting grass for the royal elephants.) A spectacular coronation inaugurated the reign with great pomp. Brahmin priests sounded ceremonial conch shells. The new monarch, clad in golden robes, was carried off in a gilded palanquin. Even in that moment of glory, though,
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POPSAndreu Balent recalls their history SAINT-LAURENT-DE-CERDANS ~ election of Joseph Nivet The historian André Balent came to inaugurate a cycle of four conferences programmed this summer by the municipality on topics touching with the life, the history or the culture laurentine. In the room of the syndicated Workers which was one of the high places of antagonism between the two districts of the borough, el Moli and el Castell, André Balent provided the enthralling ones and clear historical explanations. It avoided any over-simplification and any caricature, on the genesis and the development, between 1815 and 1945, of this complex competition, more or less violent according to times', intersected with periods of unanimity when the good of the village community required it, and of the sometimes paradoxical or ambiguous characteristics, based on economic and social criteria, one and the other of the rival camps.
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POPSMy non-feminist approach to Vampire Edward Worse than pushing gender stereotypes Twilight is turning an obvious case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder into a romantic character and nothing could be less desirable than a relationship with a person of the kind. I mean it. I have been there. "I worry about the girls who seem, with quite a bit of personal conviction, to put one of the main characters of the Twilight "saga,” the vampire Edward Cullen, on such a high pedestal that they think he is the ultimate ideal of a boyfriend. That he is not. These girls need a wake-up call: Edward Cullen is a caricature of an emotionally, psychologically and physically abusive boyfriend -- and one with supernatural powers no less. It can’t be healthy to have an attachment to a fictional character with those qualities, much less a real person."
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POPSA Canadian doctor diagnoses U.S. healthcare Very informative comparisson. If we can just prevent the warmongering Republicans, neo-cons, racist and right-wing nut jobs from shouting down the debate -- and prevent their growing fascist use of thug politics -- we may be able to make some real progress here.
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POPSCatherine Crabill, VA GOP Candidate: We May Have To "Resort To The Bullet Box" (VIDEO) UPDATE: Crabill has defended her words in an interview with the Washington Post. "Those are my convictions," Crabill, 52, said in a telephone interview this morning. "I am a full-blooded, freedom-loving American, and what we're seeing in Washington is domestic terrorism at its worst." But as a video of some provocative remarks zipped around the Internet, she also worried that she would be caricatured as an extremist. And she said she wanted to make clear that she was not advocating armed resistance. "I have no desire to see this country erupt in any kind of violent revolution," Crabill said. "I don't even own a gun."
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POPSCount Sparkula, teaching girls to love abusive boyfriends "To put it simply, dear reader, I was horrified,” says Kellen Rice of Blast Magazine . "Not just by the sickeningly purple prose or the lack of general writing quality, but the books themselves are insulting on every level -- as a woman, as a teenager, as a literature student, and as a graduate of the Harry Potter craze. What’s worse is that so few seem to realize it.”
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POPSMJ's tribute/service-true colors.. i didn't think i'd find myself so glued to this-- but i wound up being so impressed by what his peers said about him- particularly brooke shields. I pretty much wrote him off years ago, but todays service made me rethink a lot about him.
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POPSWhy some still support Ahmadinejad The internal politics of Iran are complex and certainly not the cartoonish people vs. the government caricature being promulgated in the US. Much of internal politics is governed by perceptions of old actions of interference by foreign powers and national pride as this letter to the BBC can attest. Yes, the people of Iran do need change, yes the government is not of all the people (and likely a minority of the people), but there are many there that support the government as well. Knowing why and understanding how to weaken that support so that sane governance can return to Iran should be the key strategy for world governments.
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POPSWhen Rape Fantasies Involve Conservative Women, Feminists Are Silent
Playboy made the miscalculation of assuming that conservative men are misogynistic pigs and, yes, sent the press release to them. They thought they would have a friendly audience that would link back. Did liberal men bloggers get the list? Probably not, but Playboy would have found more sympathy with them. As conservative women know, the most vicious attacks come from leftist male bloggers. Spending some time in the comment section of an opinionated conservative woman blogger will curl toes. It’s not for the faint of heart. Conservative women bloggers are used to being sexualized, objectified, and called names. Conservative women generally know that any voiced public opinion or any public involvement will mean attempted personal destruction. Which is the point of the Playboy list — get conservative women to shut up. Specifically, get beautiful, smart, young conservative women to shut up. Get them to leave the public sphere. Can you say Sarah Palin?
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POPS It's All Goode The Goode Family . . . It's So Hard Being Goode Nowadays ``King of the Hill'' creator Mike Judge dreamed up this new animated comedy series about a clan whose members are obsessed with doing the right thing, although their efforts usually produce unintentionally comic results. Premiere: May 27, 2009 Original Network ABC Website: http://abc.go.com/primetime/thegoodefamily/index?pn=index youtube video (2:26) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvr3i-JWSG4
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POPSObama on the abortion debate at Notre Dame Contrast this with the previous post from Alan Keyes. Obama said: "Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature. Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words."
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POPS"Smart People" Decided Obama's Budget You almost certainly intended this reporting to paint the bold new Obama team as principled and sublimely competent architects of a fair new society. It's darkly amusing to me that you can't see that you've instead confirmed them to be worse than the worst caricature of spendthrift Democrats that any fiscal conservative of either party has ever dreamed up. (The balance of the article is equally terrifying, for essentially the same reasons. E.g.: " balanced budget is not something that is fiscally conceivable without fundamentally just deconstructing the federal government" and "Obama’s budget assumes that, even after the recession passes, the government can live with deficits indefinitely." It's a tedious tale of unrelenting irresponsibility, the proud internal newsletter of an asylum written after the inmates have taken over.)
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POPSPhoto to canvas uk Just 2 Canvas transforms your photo into a beautiful canvas print. Or why not let our artist transform your photo into a caricature - making a unique gift or keepsake.
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POPS NewYork Times Useful Idiot & Tehran Apologist I'm familiar with the synagogue and attended it when I lived in Isfahan. I chatted with some of the university-aged students who had taken shelter in an attached guesthouse because, as Jews, they were beat up in the university dormitories. Cohen has earned a place in Times history next to Herbert Matthews and Walter Duranty. Update: Perhaps Cohen should talk to Roxana Saberi, 31, who has reported from Iran for the BBC and NPR. If he can locate her, with the help of his good friends in Iran. The UK Times reports: called her father in the United States on February 10 to tell him that she had been arrested for buying a bottle of wine. "She called from an unknown place and said she's been kept in detention," Reza Saberi said. "She said that she had bought a bottle of wine and the person that sold it had reported it and then they came and arrested her." Buying or selling alcohol is a crime in the Islamic republic.
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POPSTexas: The state of sex (mis)education Suicide, death, murder? These programs gotta be pretty good at scaring teens out of having sex, right? Mmm, not exactly. Texan teens "rate well above national averages on virtually every published statistic involving sexual risk-taking behaviors," according to the report, and the state has the third-highest teen birthrate in the country.
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