Great post, Amanda.I think good riligeon has to be explicitly, thoroughly, vigilantly, and relentlessly anti-patriarchal, especially when it comes to valuing sensuality, sexuality, and bodies (especially women's bodies) during worship, prayer, ritual, etc. In my experience, hatred toward and fear of women and femaleness can always be found at the root of hateful faiths. Sadly, I have found this to be the case even when a faith tradition has plenty of women practitioners or even women leaders. I guess I'm an old-fashioned radical feminist on this front. Phoebe

LINK TV had a very compassionate program from Japan on Dyslexia - where a whole bunch of Anglos, who are accused of being lazy or stupid, talked about how they are creative painters because of a unique brain function. Well it so lovely to see such compassion from a country that was hit by a terrible nuclear catastrophe, while England focuses on some Amy Whinehouse, and America goes on and on about Syria and Libya - much of the information cooked up or exaggerated. Compassion is a two way street. The problem with so many Asians (that includes whole of Asia) is that they seem to not have enough pride in their heritage and history in the right way. They either cling to patriarchal customs and traditions blindly, or they tend to mimick everything Western or American - looking to the White man as the eternal boss.They need to know how to be compassionate without giving up accountability and responsibility on the part of people, including Anglos, who commit crimes (henious ones) and then want "compassion". Is this another "alternative American media trick"? I tell people, "move out of California or New York and then see your country better". 70% of America is Anglo, Anglocentric and Anglo driven. We now have a young group of foriegn students who paid for an education in the US...only to end up working at Hershey's as low wage workers. They are now encouraging the employers give to American workers. Does it take a young group of exploited foreign students to hold American companies, even the ones that produce yummy (not so yummy anymore) chocolates, that what they are doing is unethical and sick? It used to be exploiting foreign students for cheap academic and intellectual labor...now it is actual physical labor. And it is always immigrants, minorities, people of color and nice people who are exploited like this. My Anglo partner, soon to be ex, said, "I pray that more of these men, and their women, die young...we need to get rid of these people physically and get them out of the system!" If I spoke like that, as a colored person, they'd lynch me! But I went to college without support, got my doctorate and now we have to patiently wait for every mediocre White man and their women to be elected to office before fairness comes our way. Here is a strategy..."Don't come here, take your education elsewhere, and learn to treat America and Americans with contempt for a change!" Try!

And that social worker/academic "MS" or whatever needs to be less academic, and less caring about everything. Woman your heart is going to explode or get dragged down. Get into the judicial system and try to get these guys, and some of their gals (including some in the media), in the jailhouse. These people want it both ways, "Support for everything they say and do, justice for others (including guys who committed Nazi crimes eighty years ago) and then they want compassion after they have killed innocent people (in other countries and cultures). Wow...some twisting of words and justice...and the term compassion itself. Was I clear or did I get my "a" and "d" mixed up? :))

As regards the governments' medical experiments on unsuspecting victims, I feel more needs to be researched about what the government might be up to now. These scientists were never exposed or busted, so why should we automatically assume that they are not continuing to do this sort of thing more carefully and secretly now? What after all, ever became of the "Project Paperclip" NAZI scientists imported after the World War 11 such as Eric Traub who was researching weaponizing insects. Why do these stories always end in a dead end, as if it's being taken care of now.

Vivian Warkentin