Furmanifesto

Photo: Brigada Creativa

To The Person Who Just Used The Word “Retarded”,

I know you aren’t a jerk, but you just used the word “retarded” regarding the line at Starbucks.

I know you didn’t think twice about it, it probably just rolled out as you described something that you find worthy of ridicule.

If we’re being honest it probably wasn’t the first time you’ve used it that way right?

You’ve probably used it to describe a movie you didn’t like, or a product you found defective. You’ve probably also said it about a person that you were angry with, or a rule that you think is too restrictive.

I’m not guessing when I say that you aren’t alone in using the word this way, because I hear it all the time. Sometimes it gets said by adults, often by kids. It gets used by “regular Joes” as well as the rich and famous.

I know that a lot of people think that it’s really funny. To get laughs they’ll shorten it to “tard” or over pronounce the “Re”.

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It’s been said that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and in the 38 years I’ve been alive I’ve found it to be true.  So true in fact that men go out of their way to consistently behold women…

and rank them…

placing them on detailed lists…

from top to bottom.

While the women at the top of the list are celebrated, and the women at the bottom are ignored, they’ve all been degraded.  Whether they know it or not.

In some places this isn’t publicly allowed, the viewing of women is restricted to their husbands and family members.

This week, in an unpredictable move, hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refused to support a nationwide “Islamic dress code” for women.

You can imagine that this maneuver prompted open hostility from the other conservative members of his oppressive regime.

A prominent cleric reacted by complaining that President Ahmadinejad should “open up a nightclub.”  He was then quoted as saying that the president’s views on the Islamic dress code allows women, directly and indirectly, to dress in a way promoting “sexual provocation.”

“They have actually allowed sexual provocation… and now, they should think of opening nightclubs and cabarets,”

In case you are wondering what he was talking about, he went on to expound on the immodest attire that the women were using to “provoke” the men of the nation.

“Ahmadinejad and his chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie have promoted a situation in which girls now “wear (in public) trousers, and coats that don’t cover the knees…”

In the mind of the cabinet member, the indecency of pants and knee length coats are a provocation towards indecent and sinful behavior by men.

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The young Iraqi pictured here is dead.  I don’t know his name.  I don’t know how old he was.   I don’t know about his family, and  I don’t know about his politics or his relationships.

What I do know is how and why he died.

He’s dead because he was murdered by men who believed that he was gay.  In the past 3 weeks at least 14 young men suspected of being homosexual have been beaten to death with stones and bricks.

There have been more than 200 similar murders reported since 2006.

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