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mjranum — Love Doll - 8
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Published: 2008-05-18 20:24:30 +0000 UTC; Views: 14227; Favourites: 72; Downloads: 885
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Yeah... it turned out to be more of a creepy idea than either of us originally thought.
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Haha, I like where this is going!
Reminds me of buffallo bill from Silence of the Lambs!
By they way mjranum, I read your book. Interesting and good stuff, even though it had a little bit of the post 911 hysteria in it. Also, today I noticed that NATO is looking to create an anti cyber-war unit based in Latvia, and they are looking for 40-50 experts. Might wanna give them your resume!
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Reminds me of buffallo bill from Silence of the Lambs!
Yeah, several people have commented on that. It hadn't even occurred to me. I was trying to make a statement about women being comfortable/uncomfortable in their skin, and artificiality, and so forth... But, good old Buffallo Bill.... (ugh!)
I agree about the post 9/11 hysteria. Particularly in that I hadn't realized what a complete and utter loser Bush was going to turn out to be. To deal with the Israel/Arab issue, we need a leader with great resolve - and brains and common sense. Unfortunately, we just got a stubborn idiot without the sense to come in out of the rain.
With respect to working another government job - even NATO - all I can say is "ha ha ha ha!!"
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Fully agree. One funny thing though is that good old GwB said that he is convinced that the Israeli-Palestine conflict will get solved this year, before his term is over, at the World Economic Forum in Egypt a few days back.
The guy got a great sense of humour, gotta give him that!
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he is convinced that the Israeli-Palestine conflict will get solved this year, before his term is over
Maybe he's expecting the rapture. What an idiot.
Oh, BTW - I got and read that book on Islam you suggested. It's a much more favorable treatment than Lewis, for sure, though it made me uncomfortable because the author was obviously buying into the supernatural aspects of religion. She was careful not to specify her particular faith, but she completely glossed over a couple of obvious "durrrr, whups" contradictions between the claims of the faithful and thier actions. That's typical of all apologists for religions, but it strikes me as intellectually bankrupt (obviously). Anyhow, thanks for the reference.
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I am glad you read it. Karen Armstrong calls herself a monotheist, she was actually a Christian Catholic nun for 6 years.
And the book does indeed seem a bit short on the militant and extreme aspects, but then again it was written before the shit really hit the fan 2001 and radicalism was not as widespread and actually on the way of getting stomped out. 9/11 can be seen as a desperate and violent death twitch of a dying movement.
Still, a very good book for a historical sociological view on Muslim society, and it explains nicely how the religion became corrupted just 2-3 generations after Muhammad's death, and became something political. But not exactly the best book for trying to understand contemporary radicalization.
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she was actually a Christian Catholic nun for 6 years.
Aaah, that explains a certain bit. 
9/11 can be seen as a desperate and violent death twitch of a dying movement.
I agree with that assessment. The extremists in islam appear to be about as well-supported as the christian nutbar conservatives who blow up abortion centers and so forth. In both cases, what bothers me that's missing is the vocal outcry against it. It really didn't help that the cameras were aimed at people dancing in the streets with joy because someone had struck a blow against the US - that was when the real damage happened and I personally give the media about an 80% share of the blame on that. I do know muslims who were as horrified as I was.
As I've said elsewhere - I am not anti-islam. I'm anti-religion. I think they're all ridiculous and dangerous insanity. Even the !(&!!^&*!(!&! buddhists, who a lot of people seem to think are peace-loving (WTF!?) have a history of horrific bloodshed between eachother and other sects. (The spiritual buddhist and shinto leaders of imperial Japan offered plenty of divine justification for red-handed slaughter of Chinese based on religion. But most people sweep that under the carpet the same way that they turn a blind eye to the fact that Hitler spouted a tremendous amount of christian nonsense in justifying his anti-semitism and the German people - good christians - responded to it the way good christians have been slaughtering jews since the dark ages) My point: islam is a young religion, relatively, and its adherents have not had as many centuries, yet, to grow tired of the taste of blood. They will, eventually and eventually islam will become a fragmented, decrepit, relatively powerless thing like christianity. By then, what'll be next? Scientology? Obviously, I wish mankind would just Grow the Fuck Up.
Still, a very good book for a historical sociological view on Muslim society, and it explains nicely how the religion became corrupted just 2-3 generations after Muhammad's death, and became something political.
I agree. Being the skeptic that I am, I, of course, see the roots of most religions as being political in origin rather than something that started out true and was corrupted by politics. Many of Muhammad's personal actions can be interpreted as the self-serving maneuvers of a power-hungry ordinary human. What I find fascinating is that most of us can watch a political candidate on television and think "what a power hungry !(!(&!!" but lose track of that feeling when considering historical figures of hundreds or thousands of years ago. Would you trust Hillary Clinton (a person who obviously will say anything to get elected)? The pope is just as much of a political gamesman as Hillary; the dalai lama is a hereditary monarch, etc. These people are all cold-blooded politicians, not philosophers or great thinkers. Even jesus (I assume he probably did actually live) sounds like a political pawn in a power game between the jewish leaders of the sanhedrin and the romans. ... And so it goes.
In other words, I agree with you about the corruption in islam and all other religions; I think where we may differ is that I think they simply started out corrupt from day 1.
With respect to contemporary radicalization - I really dislike Lewis' analysis, and many modern thinkers' analysis. They go into all this crap about "islamic rage" etc. I don't think explanations like that make a lot of sense. If you look at the actions of the religious leaders as simply economic and political you have all the explanation you need. It's not that there is a core population of muslims that are angry because god has allowed the west to become powerful and wealthy - it's that there is a small population of the power-hungry who have discovered that they can personally accrue power by playing up the difference in power and wealth among their flock. Lewis, as a religious (he's jewish, right?) non-muslim, is as incapable of thinking clearly about the problem as Armstrong (a catholic) because their inability to see things clearly is clouded by their own respective faiths. And, of course, my lack of faith makes me approach them all with the same skepticism. None of us can ever see clearly, because the lenses of our own eyes distort the outside world.
mjr.
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Great post mjranum, I appreciate that you took your time and elaborated your stance and analysis. I do enjoy this discussion we have had as it helps me to see things from other perspectives.
Atheists like yoursef are very hard to come by, and by that I mean intelligent atheists with a well founded, unbiased and well researched base for their argument and outlook. Basically every atheist I have come across on the Internet is the teenager who wants a cause to rebel against, and they always seem to be biased towards a certain religion or rank religions differently, like your example with the Buddhists. Same goes for Falun Gong. Any kind of debate with them will show their lack of knowledge in sociology and especially history. You however have a solid base for your arguments and that is something I can really appreciate, hat's off to you.
And regarding the public outcry against extremism, there is one within the Muslim world, but the problem is that it does not make the headlines. Like with your example of 9/11, a group of Arabs Celebrating and dancing in the streets got MASSIVE media attention. But the huge Iranian candle light vigil that was held on 11 September for the victims of the attacks wasn't really that important for the media. Who wanna see thousands of people paying tribute and showing solidarity when you can show a 1 minute snippet of 20 Arabs dancing in the street.
Again thanks for your time and perspective, much appreciated.
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But the huge Iranian candle light vigil that was held on 11 September for the victims of the attacks wasn't really that important for the media.
See? I had NO FREAKIN' IDEA that happened. And it SMOKES MY BLOOD that the media here didn't report it. ARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!! :headdesk:
Falun Gong has all of the attributes of a cult. I have not made any effort, I admit, to read any of their "teachings" - I've kind of given up on reading the teachings of various religions and cults after my brain nearly exploded when I started reading the Scietologist's level 8 operant thetan manual (that someone slipped me) - utter incoherence. I've read the Koran (I forget which translation) as well as the bible in english and latin, the baghvad-gita, a bunch of the buddist books (the teachings of the buddah) the book of mormon (omg! it's crap!) and as a kid I studied comparative religions including zoroastrianism, greek and roman mythology (of course), celtic paganism, druidism, and a bunch of the norse legends and sagas. It's all interesting stuff and all of it represents (to me) mankind's endless (and fruitless) quest for place in the universe. I came out of it all with some respect for Confucious (but not confucianism) because at least Confucious actually did his own writing and never claimed to be a transcription of divine inspiration - a claim that most holy books make and which dooms them, in my mind. Anyhow...
I'm not just an atheist, I'm also a post-nationalist and anarchist. I find it ridiculous that a child is born and is immediately assumed to be a member of whatever religion its parents are part of - and I find it equally bizzare that the mere fact that a person is born in a particular place automatically subjects them to a political doctrine. I didn't ask to be an american and to pay taxes, vote for presidents, etc. I didn't ask to be anything else, either. In fact, I just want to be left the F*ck alone. I don't expect that the Iranians are going to attack my property (and if they did, I'd have to die along with a few of them, I suppose) but the posturing between "americans" and "iranians" is actually a reflection of the will of the political leaders - political leaders being members of the political class, and the cause of a great deal of the trouble in the world. I am quite sure that I could sit down with a typical group of people from anyplace in the world and we could listen to some music, eat, and drink, dance, make friends and maybe even fall in love - and there would be no problems what. so. ever. as long as members of the political class didn't get involved and whip up hatred and members of the religious over-class didn't begin using their beliefs to divide us.
As I write this, I must thank you, my friend, because I suddenly remembered what it was about Bernard Lewis' book that made me rate it extremely highly. I had remembered this point so deeply and internalized it so well and forgotten the specific source. Anyhow, at one point he makes a throwaway observation that really clarified a lot for me - which is, namely, that religion and empire need eachother. Religion is a great excuse for the political class to gear up and fight wars of expansion. That way they are not obviously just greedy and power-mad. So imperialists tolerate and even foster religion as a tool (Marx said this as well) for social control. The religious overclass, in turn, need the political class - because stripped of temporal power, most people wouldn't put up with some of the crazier demands of religion. Put another way - without the King of Carthage supporting the priests of Moloch, most Carthaginians would not tolerate having their children burned to death before their eyes. And, of course, the King is happy to support that because it's not as if his child is going to be sacrificed. Anyhow, Lewis summarized the relationship between statists and claimants of spiritual power quite brilliantly.
I read Marx when I was a kid and when I was able to figure out what he meant about the "opiate of the masses" thing a whole lot became clearer to me. But the relationship between the clergy/clerics/priests/imams/whatever and the kings and dictators wasn't clear until 10 years ago, or so.
peace,
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First of all, sorry for the late reply. My Internet access is limited and when I get a hold of a connection, I usually just get to have it for 20 minutes or so.
Secondly, thanks for your reply, very enlightening and high quality, just like the rest of our discourse. And I agree with you about post-nationalism and the relation between clergy and directing the disposable masses to further their own imperialistic agenda. The Iran-USA situation right now is pathetic in my eyes, as it is all power-elite and zero reality. The US government are trying to convince people that Iran is a threat, imagine that, USA won over Soviet that had 15k nuclear warheads aimed at American cities, and now they mean to tell you that we, Iran, that haven't even been fully industrialized, is of ANY kind of threat. It is beyond absurd. And it was just 20 years ago we had our last war that took the lives of millions and made even more orphans, people here just like you want to live in peace and be left alone.
My time at this computer is almost over, and I gotta give the computer to the next guy.
Take care, mjranum.
Peace and Respect.
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Brilliant.
Expected 
Was there an intentional subtext with your beautiful model's Asian ethnicity and old stereotypes, or was that just a fortuitous coincidence?
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No, there's a couple things at play in my choices - mostly that I knew Rayn would do a good job with the idea and that she's really small. I had no idea how small the blow-up dolls are, but even she couldn't wear one like a skin.
Playing off the stereotypes was a plus that we got a chuckle out of.
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I knew she was going to wear it! Only for the past photo or two, but still.
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This is the romantic version of horror movies. She's putting on someone elses skin without all that messy gore. She's looking like she's a bit upset that it doesn't fit. She may have to go after a LARGER DOLL !!!!!!!
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It turns out that they're made pretty small. Rayn's pretty small, herself - we were both surprised that it didn't fit.
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I hope she is, that would make for some totally awesome shots, haha!!
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then she could lay around until her "crush" got horny....now i feel like dressind up like a guy love doll...
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Better and better...curiouser and curiouser...
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i really didnt see this one coming, like a sex toy buffalo bill.
very very good
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wow this looks so original and well thought up. I wish I was this good at photography.
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Thanks for your kind words. The technical details of this shot are pretty simple and are given on the first image of the set.
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