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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Brothels were the "birth control" of the day, if you will.
and the ladies there too, got pregnant--
Yes...and, unfortunately, the female babies there were pretty much born into the life. Raised by their brothel mothers, they were then actually marketed by the madam as virgins, when ready, for inflated fees....sometimes disgracefully underage. An excellent study of this was the Louis Malles film, Pretty Baby, which looked at the late 19th century New Orleans "Storeyville" red-light district through the eyes of famed lithograper, Toulouse-Lautrec. And, remember, New Orleans was the Bible Belt, and still, the well-to-do gentlemen had a second life in these dens of iniquity. It was a magnificiently photographed art film that saw wide release at the time (1978)...but I don't know if it could even get made today with shots of a naked 10 year old actress (Brooke Shields) with her mother (Susan Sarandon), and the not visually graphic but audio-graphic deflowering scene. The other double-standard, of course, was that "good women" (wives) were not supposed to *enjoy sex. Only whores enjoyed sex. Ergo a woman who *enjoyed sex was looked down upon as something of a harlot. And that attitude lingered well into the 1960s...and still does in some quarters today. So husbands looked to their wives to make babies, and to the brothel for their *pleasure. Lusting for one's wife would degrade her virtue.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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REa:these dens of iniquity
boy,thats a blast from the past!--it was one of the phrases my mother used to put down places we hung out (local soda shop!) when i was teen!
and when some one was a dissevled, "they looked like the wreck of the Hesperus"
and when she complained about our rooms being a mess, she likened them to 'the black hole of Calcuta'...
look out Juan, you're turning into my mother!
and remember, New Orleans was the Bible Belt-- this is not really true..
NO was, (and all of louisiana,) very catholic-and its still very french
in fact, its state constitution,is not based on english common law, as are the other 49, but on napolianic code- and this shows up in accounting, were "General Recognizes Accounting Practices"- a guide to accounting, notes that lousiana does not follow the same rules..
--it even plays out in vocabulary-- the state has parishes, not counties.. and of course it still celebrates Mardi Gras... in a big catholic way.. (and only in Spanish South America so you get anything that comes as close-- Rio's "carnival")-- the catholic influence is so strong, that before the US civil war, it was the second choice for irish immigrants, (after NY, with boston 3rd!)
the irish weren't treated any better there than in NY or New England, tho
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member
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Does anyone follow the "Word Fugitive" column in "The Atlantic Monthly?"
This month, the challenge is to come up with a word "...for the common experience of saying something to your child and then realizing--often with shock--that you sound like one of your own parents."
(The other challenge this month is to come up with "...a word for a fear of running over squirrels.")
If you're not familiar with this enjoyable column, you can find it on line at <http://www.theatlantic.com/fugitives>
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The last time I looked, Good Friday was still a legal holiday in Louisiana. To give public employees a day off to go to church on Good Friday has been held, by courts in other states, to violate the First Amendment, but it seems not to trouble the justices in Louisiana.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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To give public employees a day off to go to church on Good Friday has been held, by courts in other states, to violate the First Amendment, but it seems not to trouble the justices in Louisiana.
This is a timely remark for me, Father Steve. The other day I went to my daughter's Honor Roll ceremony. She goes to a public school. Now, Kentucky is most definitely in the Bible Belt; if memory serves me correctly, it took a Federal court order to get the Ten Commandments out of Kentucky schools (posted on the wall, they were), and there is still a lot of controversy over it. However, it has pretty much become accepted that staff cannot lead students in prayer, nor can they advocate any particular religion. So it came as rather a surprise to me when the school's chorus sang a VERY Christianity-based song. And for the first time (mind, it had been a long, long time since I'd heard something like that), it bothered me, sitting there listening to what I would expect as a matter of course--in church. I certainly never gave a thought to it as a child; being a WASP, it did not occur to me that familiar words and songs might be strange, or even offensive, so other kids. But this day, it did bother me; I glanced around, wondering how many in the audience might be non-Christian or atheist, and I thought it was rather unfair to force them to be a captive audience.
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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come up with a word "...for the common experience of saying something to your child and then realizing--often with shock--that you sound like one of your own parents." I think that's been done, John. Or, at least, I'd call that an ohnosecond!
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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This is such a difficult and fascinating area of the law.
On the one hand, the First Amendment protects us all from some school teacher or administrator indoctrinating our children into their favourite sect or cult ... and the majority thinks that is good. On the other hand, the First Amendments prevents the majority from imposing its dominant religious beliefs on those who do not share them ... and the majority is unnerved by this.
The area of music is especially difficult, but it is similar to many other areas where there is a literature which ought to be studied and enjoyed, but that literature contains or arises from a religious point of view. Surely students of English ought to be able to study the Canterbury Tales without their teacher being accused of a First Amendment violation. Surely students of art ought to be able to view those masterpieces which have religious subjects without their teacher being accused of proselytizing. Just as surely, there are great pieces of music which have religious content and any school system which pretended that they do not exist -- either as objects of study or pieces to perform -- would be delivering less than a complete education.
This subject seems a bit far afield from the normal discourse on this board, and I fear that we may rile up a few sensitive souls by having this conversation here, Jackie. Maybe it ought be continued by PM.
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Joined: Oct 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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, father steve, this could be a subject that slips into a war.. but as see your agruement, Surely students of art ought to be able to view those masterpieces which have religious subjects without their teacher being accused of proselytizing. -- i think about the fact that i was never taught that algerba was an arab inventions..
the whole idea of arabic numbers (a term i never learned till out of highschool!) came from the arab world..
now, i went to a RC school, and they did give a history books with a definate religious slant. (ie, we learned about 'good Queen Mary'--ie, "bloody Mary", Queen Elizabeth's older sister.) and the whole of crusades were very slanted to show the views of christianity.. (and after reading more, i tend to agree with that view)
but no where, were we taught about any of the influence of non europeans --a little snuck in in HS level but really history was all viewed through the eyes of europeans...
china gets a mention in the middle ages,(marco polo) and the idea of orient is kicked around, leading to the discovery of the americas, and then china make an appearance again in the boxer war, --japan is treated the same way too, only of interest when europeans went there.
history books, even a HS level cover "world history" as "the history of european exploration of the world"-- its a very simplistic view.
and the treatment of africa is worse! 99.9% of american think all of africa is inhabitated by negros.. they are unaware of berbers (an ethnic group found on the north edge of africa), or that bush men- (crossing thread) are an other total different groups.. and why should they? the only mentions africa rates is in the history of slavery.. (its as if nothing ever happened there till europeans showed up!)
so i am all for immigrant learning about european history, and culture, it is the predomiante one here in US, and i think it has a lot to offer the world, it is more democratic and tolerant than most other cultures in the world..
but we children of european settlers, and inheritors of european culture, need to learn more about the world!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I think the difference lies in the difference between "discussion of" and "advocacy of".
When I was at primary school we had religious instruction, a very Presbyterian hellfire and brimstone version of Christianity, and the hell with you (literally) if you weren't a WASP.
Even then we could tell that our teacher hated it and everything to do with it; she flatly refused to do the teaching and they got some nong in who ranted and raved at us for 40 minutes every week. We saw it as time out.
But it is very hard to discuss topics like this without being seen to be advocating them rather than raising them as topics for discussion. I found, when I was teaching ethics, that some people simply cannot grasp the idea that it is possible to discuss something without actually taking sides on its legitimacy, especially if there is an emotive element to it.
Staying away from politics and religion on this Board makes a lot of sense ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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...and I fear that we may rile up a few sensitive souls by having this conversation here, Jackie. Maybe it ought be continued by PM.
- and -
Staying away from politics and religion on this Board makes a lot of sense...
I agree!
********
Since 'politics' and 'religion' don't represent two different things (not that they *realistically ever have) why does "the West" continue to attempt to logically divide these two (and fail miserably, I might add)?
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