(NSFW) “If you are denying yourself pleasure then you have to take responsibility for where you are right now. When you get to a place where you are happy then love comes into your life. When you begin to love yourself then people recognize that and you can start receiving it. Self-pity will get you nowhere. Our society is sexist, racist, ageist, but I am a biological creature with all these amazing gifts of orgasm and I cannot wait for the world out there to change for me to be happy. I have all the happiness I need inside myself and I’m keeping it. I have denied it and avoided it for myself for too long. I have waited around for other things to be arranged before I gave myself happiness and I’m not going to do that anymore. It wasn’t until I stopped wallowing in all that self-pity and took matters into my own hands that things started to change for me. . . . Don’t wait around for another person to give that to you, give it to yourself. . . . We have been taught to not like ourselves and it takes a lot to unteach that to ourselves. There is a lot of conditioning and everyone has their own kind of conditioning that they have to unlearn. . . . All I can tell people about myself is that I give it to myself just as I can. My area just happens to be sex, while others have art, painting or public health or whatever. I’m just as true to myself as I can be.” --Nina Hartley
posted by jason's_planet on Sep 23, 2006 - 79 comments

America's craziest bookstore has gone out of business. Loompanics, a libertarian publisher in Washington State, has gone out of business. Some blame the changed political climate after 9/11. Others blame Amazon.com and the big bookstore chains. No matter what the cause might be, I will miss them. What will I do if I decide I want to try to cook some crank? And if that doesn't succeed in paying the bills, what if I need to go dumpster diving for my dinner? And if get truly desperate, what if I decide to rip off a drug dealer instead? I'm glad that Amok is still with us.
posted by jason's_planet on Jun 30, 2006 - 23 comments

Ever wondered about Islamic law? This site hosts a series of essays and papers on various areas by Mohammad H. Kamali and others on topics such as Freedom of Expression in Islam and critiques of contemporary attempts at huddud implementation. All nicely indepth and referenced, some good, some not so good, but all intriguing.
posted by Mossy on May 6, 2004 - 21 comments