The World Beard and Moustache Championships were held recently in Austria and attracted over 300 contestants. Here’s one particularly fine specimen …
I spotted this at the A21 road-widening scheme on the way back from Rye a few weeks ago and we were travelling so slowly that I was able to grab a photo (no I wasn’t driving). I couldn’t quite work out whether it was construction site pole vault of tossing the caber.
Apologies for the radio silence over the last week; let’s try to get this show back on the road.
This will be appreciated by all those who provide staff services for cats …
This week I thought we’d have another “Two Types” cartoon from WWII cartoonist Jon.
So soon already we have another collection of links to items you missed the first time round.
This first item will worry many people. According to scientists there are only three things preventing the world from converting to 100% nuclear energy: money, the political will and public acceptance. And it could be done in about 30 years which would likely be enough to put a big dent in global warming. Despite all the challenges this works for me.
We’ve known for some time that foetal cells hide in the mother’s body (and vice versa, too). But what do they do?
IanVisits again, only this time another in his irregular series on Unbuilt London. In the 1960s there was a scheme to remove buses from central London and replace them with a monorail. It never happened, which is a shame as we could have had a rival to Wuppertal’s Schwebebahn.Pope Francis is currently visiting Cuba and the USA. The followning was reported at the end of August by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and summarised by the Weird Universe blog:
Muslim clerics complain of the commercialization of the holy city of Mecca during the annual Hajj pilgrimages, but for Pope Francis’s visits to New York, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia in mid-September, shameless street vendors and entrepreneurs already appear to be eclipsing Mecca’s experience. Merchants said they’d be selling, among other tacky items, mozzarella cheese statuettes of the Pope ($20), a Pope Toaster to burnish Francis’s image on bread, a Philly-themed bobblehead associating the Pope with the boxer “Rocky”, local beers Papal Pleasure and YOPO (You Only Pope Once), and T-shirts (“Yo Pontiff!” and “The Pope Is My Homeboy”). The Wall Street Journal quoted a Philadelphia archdiocese spokesman admitting that “you kind of have to take it in stride”.
Digging back through my pile of unread articles over the weekend I came across one from earlier this year entitled The Troubled History of the Foreskin [long read].
Common in the US, rare in Europe and now championed in Africa, male circumcision is hotly debated. Author Jessica Wapner looks at the prevalence of male circumcision in America, the way circumcision is being forced onto developing nations (especially in Africa) and the evidence for whether it is actually effective.
After reading the literature, I’m unconvinced by the evidence used to justify circumcision for health reasons. I’ll explain why by means of a thought experiment. Imagine that infant male circumcision had never been a part of American medical practice, but was common in, say, Spain or Senegal or Japan. Based on what we know about the health benefits of the procedure, would American doctors recommend introducing the procedure? And would that evidence be enough for American parents to permanently remove a part of their child’s body without his agreement?
Remember what the evidence tells us. Either the benefits can be obtained by a milder intervention (antibiotics and condoms in the case of urinary tract infections and sexually transmitted diseases), or the risk is low and open to other preventive measures (penile cancer), or the concern is rarely justified (HIV in the United States). Remember also that Western countries where circumcision is rare do not see higher rates of the problems that foreskin removal purports to prevent: not STDs, not penile cancer, not cervical cancer, not HIV. It’s hard to imagine circumcision being introduced on this basis. It’s equally difficult to picture studies on the benefits of the procedure being done.
The main reason we have circumcision in the US today is not the health benefits. It’s because we’re used to it. After all, if circumcision is not definitively preventing a life-threatening issue that cannot be prevented by other means, can removal of a body part without the agreement of the child be justified? We are so accustomed to the practice that operating on an infant so that he resembles his father seems acceptable. I’ve heard many people give this as their reason. It isn’t a good one.
It’s disconcerting to think that circumcising infant boys may be a violation of their human rights. We castigate cultures that practise female genital mutilation (FGM). Rightfully so … removal of the clitoral hood … is anatomically analogous to removal of the foreskin. Some forms of FGM, such as nicking or scratching the female genitalia, are unequivocally deemed a human rights violation but are even milder than the foreskin removal …
Thinking about male circumcision as an unnecessary and irreversible surgery forced on infants, I can’t but hope that the troubled history of the foreskin will come to an end, and that the foreskin will be known for its presence rather than its absence.
Yes, male circumcision should be a human rights abuse just as is FGM.
Footnote: Before anyone wants to ask, no I’m not circumcised. I’m very glad my parents thought as I do that the procedure is unnecessary and thus an abuse. Indeed from memory a majority (maybe 60-70%) of the guys at school and with whom I’ve shared cricket etc. changing rooms were also entire.
This week another from our recent short break in Rye. On the way hope we detoured via Dungeness — such a wonderful expanse of shingle and environmentally hugely important. As might be expected there was a lot of sea kale growing; this is one particularly splendid example. But, yes, I’ve tinkered with the photo to make it even more dramatic!
Interesting item in last Thursday’s Guardian.
At last someone is beginning to get the message.
Shame it won’t happen — yet.
Muslim clerics complain of the commercialization of the holy city of Mecca during the annual Hajj pilgrimages, but for Pope Francis’s visits to New York, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia in mid-September, shameless street vendors and entrepreneurs already appear to be eclipsing Mecca’s experience. Merchants said they’d be selling, among other tacky items, mozzarella cheese statuettes of the Pope ($20), a Pope Toaster to burnish Francis’s image on bread, a Philly-themed bobblehead associating the Pope with the boxer “Rocky”, local beers Papal Pleasure and YOPO (You Only Pope Once), and T-shirts (“Yo Pontiff!” and “The Pope Is My Homeboy”). The Wall Street Journal quoted a Philadelphia archdiocese spokesman admitting that “you kind of have to take it in stride”.