Women clawing women again

Not very sisterly

The Daily Mail has come under attack from media executives for shaming a high-profile woman for the way she looks.

The notorious Daily Mail website, best known for stealing content from rival media outlets, has humiliated a woman based on her appearance, deliberately buying the most unflattering paparazzi photograph taken of her from a recent shoot to imply she did not look good for her age.

In an attack one media executive described as “one of the nastiest things I have ever seen written about anybody”, the Mail published a story that at its premise argued Laura Csortan, a former Miss Universe Australia, is less attractive than the images that appear on her social media accounts.

The full set of photographs offered to the Daily Mail by photographic agency INF, and used as the basis of the story it published this week, shows the media outlet purchased an image where Csortan was mid-conversation, and ignored pictures where she looked attractive.



The Australian purchased for $250 one of the images offered to The Mail, pictured above, and it shows the difference between how Csortan appeared at Bondi markets and how The Daily Mail chose to portray her, below.



The Mail also took an image and zoomed in on some minor blemishes she had on her cheek.

It looks as though a colour-enhancer may have been used to make Csortan’s skin appear worse than it was.

In an original photograph, as seen to the right, Csortan’s blemishes appear minor.

The photographs were taken by paparazzo Jonathan Marshall, on a Saturday morning, when Csortan, who finished her eight-year stint at The Great Outdoors in 2008, was having a relaxed breakfast with friends.

In the article, The Daily Mail included Csortan’s age in the headline: “The real Laura Csortan, 38, revealed as she goes makeup free to Bondi markets.”

The article was written by a woman, The Daily Mail’s entertainment editor, Amy Croffey.

Pacific Magazines publisher and former editor-in-chief of Marie Claire magazine, Jackie Frank, said it was “not fair” of the media industry to attack women for their appearance.

“Women are scrutinised differently to men in the public eye and are held to different standards,” she said.

“They wouldn’t be looking for pimples, for blackheads, for ­wrinkles on a man.”

Frank said women were sometimes the worst culprits of attacking other women and it did not surprise her that the article’s author was female.

“Women can be harder on women when we need to support each other. We need to treat each other the way we want others to treat us,” she said. One senior media executive described the article as “one of the nastiest things I have ever seen written about anybody.” “It’s quite incredible,” he said.

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Are Women without Kids Failures?

Vox Day is being VERY politically incorrect

Dr. Helen disagrees with my description of childless women and asks if women without kids are failures:

"I don’t think men who have no children are “failures” and nor do I think women who have no children are “failures.” I think that people make choices in life that are right or seem right for them at the time. People are autonomous beings who may or may not want children. While I agree that our culture is a negative one that often mistakenly tells women to go only for careers and other pursuits rather than have children, I do think there are some women who do not want them. This choice may be wrong for some but not for all."

I had a friend in college who didn’t want kids. She is happy today many years later without them. That is her choice. It should be everyone’s to decide what is right for their own life. To call that a failure for that decision seems extreme.
I like and respect Dr. Helen, but I disagree with her here on two grounds. First, one's success or failure as a human being are not determined by whether or not one is happy. That way lies, quite literally, madness. I'm sure John Wayne Gacy was quite happy when he was raping and killing little boys, and that was his decision about what was right for his own life, but I don't think we would be well to describe him as a success as a human being.

Second, it's simply not possible to argue that a woman who is childless is not a failure at reproduction. That is a tautology; a childless woman has, by definition, failed to reproduce. Moreover, unlike men, this failure to reproduce is very seldom imposed by others, or by external circumstances. And while this doesn't make her a failure at anything else, it does mean that she has failed in her singular duty to her species, to her sub-species, and to her genetic line; she has failed to continue it.

 And as a human being, what Earthly responsibility could possibly be greater?

In our present age, young women are being actively dissuaded from fulfilling their primary role and responsibility as women and as human beings. It should be no surprise that women have never been unhappier or less fulfilled. This is a consequence of the true Female Imperative being replaced by a false one.

The only way to effectively dispute the definition is to a) claim that women have a more important purpose in life or b) to claim that women have no purpose in life at all. And the latter, I submit, is entirely more damaging and degrading to women than to suggest that they have a extraordinarily important purpose at which they can fail.

As for the former, well, what is it?

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Prominent Catholic Archbishop: Americans ‘Increasingly Subject to a Soft Despotism’

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who serves as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, has delivered a sermon warning that religious liberty is under attack in the United States and that American Christians “are being increasingly subject to a soft despotism.”

A transcript of the archbishop’s sermon--which was delivered at a special mass for Catholic lawyers in Broward County, Fla.--is now linked to a page on the USCCB’s website that is dedicated to the issue of religious liberty.

“While atrocities are committed against peoples and institutions of all the world’s religions, the International Society for Human Rights estimates that 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed at Christians and that some 150,000 Christians are killed for the faith every year,” said the archbishop. “So the Age of Martyrs did not conclude with the Peace of Constantine; it is still with us.”

“Even in our Western liberal democracies, discrimination against religion in general and Catholic Christianity in particular is growing--albeit in perhaps more sophisticated and less violent ways,” the archbishop said.

“But even as de Tocqueville pointed out almost 200 years ago, despotism comes in both soft and hard forms,” said the archbishop. “Your patron, St. Thomas More, beheaded for refusing to consent to King Henry VIII’s takeover of the Church, fell victim to a hard despotism. This type of hard despotism is decimating the Christian populations of the Middle East. But, in this country and other liberal democracies, people of faith are being increasingly subject to a soft despotism in which ridicule, ostracism, and denial of employment opportunities of advancement are being used to marginalize us.

“We see this when butchers, and bakers and candlestick makers are being put into the legal dock for refusing to renounce their religious beliefs,” said the archbishop in the sermon that was delivered on April 23 at St. Anthony Church in Fort Lauderdale.

“A new religious intolerance has established itself in our country--and it is being propagated by those who claimed to have been victims of previous instances of intolerance,” said the archbishop. “Christian pastors are stalked and threatened for being ‘Christian’ pastors, social scientists are expelled from universities for having turned up ‘politically incorrect’ facts, charitable organizations and confessional schools are harassed if they take seriously their faith’s moral precepts and required their employees to support their missions.”

The archbishop said that anti-religious forces in the United States are trying to limit freedom of religion to mean merely “freedom to worship.”

“In order to fit new political agendas, religious freedom is being reinterpreted narrowly to mean merely ‘freedom to worship’ but excluding the freedom to serve and/or the freedom to witness,” he said. “The Catholic Church in this country is currently battling in legislatures and in courts against this tendency. And it is not clear that we will prevail.  Education, family law, healthcare are just some of the areas in which narrow readings of religious freedom are paving the way for antireligious policies.”

The archbishop called on the lawyers he was addressing not to surrender to this trend—not to “neuter” themselves in the pursuit of money and status.

“In an environment increasingly hostile to faith, you as Catholic professionals will also increasingly experience the soft despotism of this new intolerance,” he said. “May the integrity and courage of St. Thomas More inspire you – and may his prayers strengthen you so that you will not consent to neuter yourselves just for worldly status and wealth.”

King Henry VIII beheaded Thomas More because More refused to take an oath recognizing the king as the supreme head of the church in England.

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Rev. Graham: Gays’ Assault on Real Marriage ‘Driven by Forces of Evil That Hate the Name of Christ’

That the Supreme Court is even considering a ruling on homosexual marriage shows how “depraved” America is today, said Rev. Franklin Graham, who added that the radical gays’ “attack” on real marriage is an “assault on the church” that is “driven by the forces of evil that hate the name of Christ.”

Further, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of homosexual marriage, said Rev. Graham, it will compound “blatant sexual immorality” and rebellion against God that constitutes a “sign warning of the imminent disintegration of a culture."

“The full-fledged attack on the institution of marriage by gay rights groups is in reality an assault on the church of the Lord Jesus Christ,” said Rev. Graham in his commentary for the June issue of Decision magazine.

“It is driven by the forces of evil that hate the Name of Christ,” he said.

“This is a pivotal moment in the history of our nation,” said the reverend, son of Pastor Billy Graham and president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. “If the nation’s highest court decrees same-sex marriage as the law of the land, the consequences will be grave.”

“It sets the stage for persecution of believers who are committed to the truth of Scripture,” said Rev. Graham. “Can pastors preach against homosexuality without being accused of hate speech? Can Christian schools and colleges deny housing to same-sex couples and maintain their tax-exempt status?”

“The ultimate danger, of course, is the devastating results of disobedience to God’s Word,” said the reverend. “Continual blatant sexual immorality that shakes its arrogant, godless fist before Almighty God is a flashing red sign warning of the imminent disintegration of a culture.”

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case Obergefell v. Hodges in April and is expected to issue a ruling this month.  The case is challenging state bans on homosexual marriage, and the gay activists want the high court to rule that such prohibitions are unconstitutional.

Homosexual marriage became law by popular vote in only three states: Maine, Maryland and Washington.

Currently, 37 states have same-sex marriage – in most cases ruled legal by a federal judge – and 13 states have bans against homosexual marriage, mostly through constitutional amendment and state law.

Before Obergefell v. Hodges got to the Supreme Court, Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Jeffrey Sutton, in ruling against gay marriage, said, “For better or worse, or for more of the same, marriage has long been a social institution defined by relationships between men and women. So long defined, the tradition is measured in millennia, not centuries or decades.”

Sutton further said, “If it is constitutionally irrational to stand by the man-woman definition of marriage, it must be constitutionally irrational to stand by the monogamous definition of marriage.”

In reference to Judge Sutton’s remarks,  Rev. Graham said, “The very fact that the U.S. Supreme Court is even considering a ruling on same-sex marriage reveals the depraved moral state of our nation. Just a decade ago, no one would have predicted the rapid ascent and outsized influence of the gay lobby.”

“Regardless of the outcome” from the Supreme Court’s pending ruling, “the Bible has the final, authoritative word on marriage,” said Rev. Graham.  “No justice, court, state, legislative body, or cultural opinion can change the divine purpose for marriage. It is a sacred institution. It is holy matrimony designed by God for the glory of God.”

“Marriage, defined by God, is between one man and one woman,” he said.  “God created us ‘male and female’ (Genesis 1:27). After fashioning woman from the rib of man, God declared, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife’ (Genesis 2:24).

In concluding his comments on the gay marriage battle, Rev. Graham said, “Pray now. Pray fervently. Pray for the wisdom and counsel of God to work its way into the hearts and minds of the Supreme Court justices who are making this momentous decision.”

“God Himself is the final arbiter,” said Rev. Graham.  “For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our King; He will save us” (Isaiah 33:22, NKJV).

In addition to heading the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Franklin Graham, 62, is president of the international Christian relief group Samaritan’s Purse.  Rev. Graham is married and has five children. He lives with his family in Boone, N.C.

Billy Graham, 96, reportedly is doing fairly well, according to his son, Franklin Graham. Over the years, Billy Graham preached to more than 215 million people in 185 different countries, and he wrote 31 books. For more than 50 years he has regularly been ranked among one of the most admired people in the world.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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