Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

December 9, 2009 By Fausta

Why we kiss?

It’s a dreary Wednesday and to be truthful, I’m finding politics (American, Latin American, or any politics) exhausting. The Anchoress has an Advent pause for weary minds, but being much less spiritual than her, imagine my delight when I saw this from John Derbishire, whose book, We Are Doomed I just finished reading,
Why We Kiss?

Razib goes on to speculate that: “Perhaps then bad breath and poor oral hygiene are simply a fitness indicator, and kissing evolved as a method for humans to evaluate each other’s health as an ‘honest’ signal?”

Maybe that’s how it got started; but we kiss because it’s so good.

Here’s my favorite kissing scene on film, the final scene of Cinema Paradiso, a movie I loved when I first saw it years ago,

Warm kisses, all.

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Filed Under: entertainment, films, men and women, relationships, romance, YouTube Tagged With: Cinema Paradiso, Fausta's blog

February 10, 2009 By Fausta

And now for a change of pace,

Betty Jo Tucker’s podcast on Blog Talk Radio was talking about favorite love scenes. My favorite love scene of all times is Cinema Paradiso’s final scene, which I also consider a real tear-jerker,

Also on Blog Talk Radio, tonight I’ll be Political Vindication‘s guest at 10PM Eastern. The subject will be Iran, Israel and Venezuela.

Because of that, might as well post now tonight’s Tuesday Night Tango, from another favorite film. Assasination Tango, which a friend and I talked about at last night’s tango class:

Robert Duvall is one of my all-time favorite actors and this scene is tops.

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Filed Under: Blog Talk Radio, dance, movies, romance, tango Tagged With: Fausta's blog

February 5, 2008 By Fausta

This morning’s podcast on relationships

This morning Siggy chose the subject of relationships and spoke eloquently about love and sex. We had the pleasure of having Julie of Happy Catholic, Laurie Kendrick, Shane of Political Vindication, another caller and the people in the chat room joining in the converstation.

Siggy already posted about it,

We talked about men and women, how and when we successfully communicate and how and when we don’t. We discussed how friendship enhances intimacy and we discussed how intimacy without real friendship is destined to block real intimacy.

Most of us find it easy to forgive the differences we have with friends or their idiosyncrasies and imperfections. Why? Because they are our friends, and we love them. We don’t care about their religion, weight, color or ethnicity. We don’t even see those things.We are intimate with our closest friends in a most profound way.

It is also true that physical intimacy cannot ‘speed up’ the friendship part of a relationship. There is a reason friendships take time to build. There can be no love if there is no trust or respect. Physical intimacy alone will not deepen the emotional part of a relationship. As Shane so succinctly noted, ‘Sex changes everything.’ No matter the ground rules, no matter the agreement, sex does change the dynamic in a relationship.

Laure Kendrick also posted,

I now fully grasp how important respect is and it is paramount. It is the respect you must have for your partner; that which you must have for yourself.

Respect is a principle component to being happy and happiness is key. But I can’t tell you how to find it. I’m convinced that for some people, on those rare occasions when the cosmos aligns just right and Lyndon LaRouche elects NOT to run for president for once, happiness can find you. When you least expect it.

And it’s in those “in between moments” when it hasn’t found you and you’re desperately looking for it, that I wish I could bottle up that particular endorphin-fueled jolt o’joy I’ve felt in my life. I’d mass market it as a panacea that would cure all the world’s ills.

Happy Catholic had a blast.

We’ll continue this conversation in another podcast. I’m trying to schedule it right now.

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Filed Under: Blog Talk Radio, podcasts, relationships, romance

June 19, 2007 By Fausta

Tuesday afternoon romance

I just witnessed a moment of sheer joy,

Kill Devil Hills beach, North Carolina, Tuesday, June 19, 2007, 4:55PM

technorati: weddings

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Filed Under: romance

May 2, 2007 By Fausta

Late afternoon blogging: Besame mucho


Here are the lyrics.

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Filed Under: men and women, music, romance, videos

April 5, 2007 By Fausta

Late afternoon blogging: One for Obi’s Sister

Obi’s Sister and I were discussing Venice just now, so here’s a late afternoon You Tube for her,

Here are the lyrics in English

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Filed Under: Charles Aznavour, music, romance, videos

February 14, 2007 By Fausta

Valentines to vaginas

*** UPDATED – scroll down for updates ***

It’s a sad state in affairs of the heart that across our country Valentine’s Day has become “V-Day”, as in Vagina Monologues Day. V-Day was born on February 14, 1998. It stands for “Violence, Victory and Vaginas”.

Sad for a number of reasons:

  • To begin with,the premise of a monologue by one gender complaining about the opposite gender on a day where supposedly love is celebrated doesn’t bide well for relationships between men and women. Obviously.
  • The Vagina Monologues describes the seduction and statutory rape of a thirteen-year old girl by a lesbian as a romantic “event”. Let me point out, this is morally wrong. Statutory rape is statutory rape, folks.
  • Then there’s the objectification of women as vaginas. Ensler claims that “Vagina stories found me”: Women are their gonads and nothing more.
  • And worst of all, the premise that all men are predators and pervs – and women their eternal victims.

Now, I have and enjoy a vagina, and this focus on vaginal be-all strikes me as silly. Unlike a silly woman that Ensler mentions in The V-Day Edition of her play, I don’t need to spend a whole day looking for my vagina. Unlike my cell phone and my reading glasses (which I have spent a whole day looking for), I know exactly where my vagina is at all times. So do millions of women around the world: it is no big deal. As Kathleen Parker says,

Not to be a spoilsport, but it’s not as though vaginas have only suddenly come to mankind’s attention. And the Big O, though universally regarded with awe, is not advanced physics.

I find it ridiculous that there’s even a need to have to explain this.

While proceeds from all performances of TVM on V-Day go towards local groups that work to stop violence towards women, and the original play did speak out against vaginal mutilation, what does this vaginal mentality accomplish?

Certainly not any better understanding between men and women.
As Mama said,

The endless propagandistic screeching about the evil and inherent treachery of men has taught many women to be acutely and deeply defensive in their relationships with men. The trust is gone, and that trust is what is needed in order to establish the type of reflexively loyal and intimate relationship which we naturally desire and of which we are naturally capable. (That’s men and women!)

College girls who buy into the campus vaginal monologuing will never understand that love, real love, means surrender. For as long as you believe that any man, no matter how good or how much he loves you, is a predator simply because he is a man, you will never ever truly love him.

And you know what? There is no guarantee that you won’t get hurt when you truly love. Even if the guy is a great guy who really loves you. In fact, the odds are very high that you will get hurt down the line. That’s just the way life is.

This is not my vagina telling you: it’s my heart.

Self-realization? More like dehumanization:
Colleen Carroll Campbell explains how:

By explicitly equating themselves with their sexual organs (“My vagina is a shell, a tulip, and a destiny. . . . My vagina, my vagina, me,” “my clitoris . . . was me, the essence of me”), the play’s characters parrot the premises of pornography: That women are objects, not subjects; that women are the sum of their sexual organs; that feminine sexuality and identity can be reduced to feminine body parts. By encouraging audiences to chant vulgar slang words for a woman’s sexual organs, the play dispels any sense of mystery and reverence about feminine sexuality and contributes to the desensitization of a culture already drowning in obscenity. By presenting the lesbian seduction of a minor as a “salvation” experience in contrast to the many heterosexual encounters that portray men as perverts and predators, the play perpetuates the pessimistic view that men and women are doomed to use and abuse each other.

The Monologues defines healthy sexuality as the selfish pursuit of sexual pleasure and encourages audiences to become connoisseurs and voyeurs of all manner of sexual experience. In doing so, the play champions the very commodification of sex that endangers women — including those trapped in a sex trade driven by our culture’s insatiable appetite for unlimited and instant sexual gratification. Ensler may have intended to extol the best virtues of women, but she wound up imitating the worse vices of men.

By no definition of the word do I see any victory in any of this. I see a lot of one upmanship, and a lot of gaining and keeping the upper hand, and a lot of people using each other, and a lot of the characteristics of a culture of pornography, but no victory.

No victory for anyone.

Is this part of a trend towards a neuterized society?
Last year Dr. Melissa Coulther made a very convincing case:

Hatred for both the essential uniqueness of men and women have created a hostile environment for all people. The unintended consequences of neuterizing–both men and women feel betrayed by their innate gender tendencies and with their self-loathing project this hatred on society.

We can argue about that later.

Clearly the notion of celebrating love on Valentine’s Day is a thing of the past. Now it’s all about the alliteration: “Violence, Victory and Vaginas”.

In all this V-Day celebrating, nowhere does the notion of virtue enter the picture. Instead, the day is dedicated to “Violence, Victory and Vaginas”.

Violence, Victory and Vaginas?

How grim.

————————————————–

PS [ ON STAGE ] “The Vagina Monologues”

For the seventh year, George Mason University’s Sexual Assault Services will present the Eve Ensler play (featuring a new monologue about peace), performed by students and others in the GMU community.

Now peace is about vaginas, too.

Update : Larwyn emailed,

Fausta,
I won’t be happy until the entire world has read Gerard’s “Voice of the Neuter” at least twice.
But it would illustrate the last point of your post beautifully.

Here it is, Larwyn, The Voice of the Neuter
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Filed Under: men and women, relationships, romance, V-Day, Valentine's Day

February 13, 2007 By Fausta

The language of flowers

… at least according to this article:

Rose (Love)
Orchid (A Belle)
Iris (My Compliments)
Sunflower (Pure thoughts)
Amaryllis (Splendid beauty)
Tulip (Declaration of love)
Carnation (Pride and beauty)
Hydrangea (Heartfelt)
Bird of Paradise (Joyfulness)
Chrysanthemum (Fidelity)
Daffodil (Chivalry)
Tiger Lily (I dare you to love me)
Anthurium (Hospitality)
Peony (Bashful)
Lilac (Youthful innocence)
Anemone (Anticipation)
Aster (Patience)

But wait, there’s more here, and here. If that’s not complicated enough, the color matters, too.

How about some nice sugar-free chocolates, instead?

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Filed Under: flowers, romance, Valentine's Day

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