Since I'm in the UK on a slow link, here's a linkdump:
- Brad DeLong links to a cautionary tale about how Bush policies are fostering American decline.
- The NYT gets around to writing an explainer about how the Yee prosecution could go so wrong. Bottom line: bigotry and stupidity in the military, seasoned with unsubstantiated rumors produced by the FBI. Add prosecutorial incompetence, remove due process, and voila! The dark side of military justice is balanced by the sterling efforts of the lawyers representing incarcarated at Guantanamo.
- Want perspective. Try this story about Tihun Nebiyu, a seven-year-old Ethiopian girl being forced to marry.
- The German language apparently suffers from an English invasion, producing “Denglish”.
- Techie fun. Coke machine hacks and peronalized M&Ms and online PDF conversion tools, all via boingboing.
- News about the Open Office 2.0 preview release.
I am only 23 so bear with me on this, my first foray into anything of this nature.
As “civilized” westerners it is easy for us to sit back and say how horrible that is. I, myself, think it is crazy to wed a 7 year old girl. I could not imagine anyone that age being married. I am 23 and still have a hard time grasping the idea of marriage. Granted, I am engaged to a girl two years my elder. Yet, I am still not completely ready for marriage. I want to marry the girl I am with. Just not yet. I am 3 times that Ethiopian girl’s age and I am too young. That girl is not ready on either an emotional or a physical level for the path her life is about to take. She is so immature that she thinks bug bites will enlarge her breasts. Giving new meaning to the term “mosquito bites.”
On another subject, how old is the guy she is marrying? I never bother to fill out those registration forms for online newspapers…Google News has everything I need.
Marriage means commitment and children. 7 year olds can neither birth, nor care for babies. Atleast I do not think it is is possible for her to bear a child. Crazier things have happened I guess. As far as commitment goes, do I need to actually go into that?
Cultures like India, Japan, and Ethiopia have had arranged marriages since the dawn of time because their cultures dictate it. More so these days in Ethiopia and India than in Japan. The logic behind this, as I see it, is that people cannot be trusted to choose who they have a family with because emotions can make people do irrational things. People’s emotions should not be trusted to make such important decisions. That is why people who love and care for them, usually parents, pick the man or woman these people are to wed. In theory this is a great idea. In theory.
In India they atleast way until the girl is in her teens or older, still a bit young; but better than 7. Usually the man will have a family with this girl and screw around with another woman (if not 2 or 3) on the side. The wife spends her life at home taking care of the man and his family. He, in return, provides her with the money she needs to do this and to live a normal life, most of the time.
Living in Japan for two years I grew to understand their culture quite deeply. Years ago that’s how it was in Japan too. My fiance’s mother and father were an arranged marriage. They are very traditional Japanese. She was lucky, he turned into a multi-millionaire investment banker…but he was a violent, angry man in his younger days. So she put in her time to rreceive the lavish lifestyle she has now. Not all people are as lucky in the end.
In Africa, if a lady is so much accused as cheating she is stoned to death in many countries. These same guys that stone her to death go out and screw around all the time. They think us westerners are crazy to have a wife and be faithful to her for the rest of our lives. Even Japanese men still think that way. Many men have proven how hard it is to stay faithful. It is very hard…but the way I see it “the short term reward is not worth the long term loss.”
So I guess, in conclusion, I understand why this is practiced in the countries it is practiced in. However, understanding and agreement are two totally different things. I definitively disagree with it on many levels. Especially when it involves a 7 year old girl.
I am only 23 so bear with me on this, my first foray into anything of this nature.
As “civilized” westerners it is easy for us to sit back and say how horrible that is. I, myself, think it is crazy to wed a 7 year old girl. I could not imagine anyone that age being married. I am 23 and still have a hard time grasping the idea of marriage. Granted, I am engaged to a girl two years my elder. Yet, I am still not completely ready for marriage. I want to marry the girl I am with. Just not yet. I am 3 times that Ethiopian girl’s age and I am too young. That girl is not ready on either an emotional or a physical level for the path her life is about to take. She is so immature that she thinks bug bites will enlarge her breasts. Giving new meaning to the term “mosquito bites.”
On another subject, how old is the guy she is marrying? I never bother to fill out those registration forms for online newspapers…Google News has everything I need.
Marriage means commitment and children. 7 year olds can neither birth, nor care for babies. Atleast I do not think it is is possible for her to bear a child. Crazier things have happened I guess. As far as commitment goes, do I need to actually go into that?
Cultures like India, Japan, and Ethiopia have had arranged marriages since the dawn of time because their cultures dictate it. More so these days in Ethiopia and India than in Japan. The logic behind this, as I see it, is that people cannot be trusted to choose who they have a family with because emotions can make people do irrational things. People’s emotions should not be trusted to make such important decisions. That is why people who love and care for them, usually parents, pick the man or woman these people are to wed. In theory this is a great idea. In theory.
In India they atleast way until the girl is in her teens or older, still a bit young; but better than 7. Usually the man will have a family with this girl and screw around with another woman (if not 2 or 3) on the side. The wife spends her life at home taking care of the man and his family. He, in return, provides her with the money she needs to do this and to live a normal life, most of the time.
Living in Japan for two years I grew to understand their culture quite deeply. Years ago that’s how it was in Japan too. My fiance’s mother and father were an arranged marriage. They are very traditional Japanese. She was lucky, he turned into a multi-millionaire investment banker…but he was a violent, angry man in his younger days. So she put in her time to rreceive the lavish lifestyle she has now. Not all people are as lucky in the end.
In Africa, if a lady is so much accused as cheating she is stoned to death in many countries. These same guys that stone her to death go out and screw around all the time. They think us westerners are crazy to have a wife and be faithful to her for the rest of our lives. Even Japanese men still think that way. Many men have proven how hard it is to stay faithful. It is very hard…but the way I see it “the short term reward is not worth the long term loss.”
So I guess, in conclusion, I understand why this is practiced in the countries it is practiced in. However, understanding and agreement are two totally different things. I definitively disagree with it on many levels. Especially when it involves a 7 year old girl.
The Washington Post calls it what it is:
War Crimes
Thursday, December 23, 2004; Page A22
THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA — truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration’s whitewashers — led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false.
SEE EDITORIAL
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20986-2004Dec22
While in the UK, take some time to compare UK radio/TV/printed news with that in the US.