It isn't often that I get to start a blogpost by talking about my penis.
But, this being San Francisco, it was bound to come up.
[Please excuse the startling images conveyed by that sentence.]
Well, actually, this isn't so much about MY penis, as about the penises of little children.
Many penises, many little children, all colours and creeds of penis.
Lots of infant wangly-dangly.
It turns out that the citizens of the City by the Bay may be thinking about foreskins next year.
"If a San Francisco man named Lloyd Schofield gathers a shade over 7,000 signatures, San Franciscans will actually get the chance to vote on whether or not to ban the practice of circumcision."
[From 'San Francisco Circumcision Ban Aims to Spice Up Your Sex Life' by Joe Eskenazi, in SF Weekly blogs.]
Given what else we've banned in this city recently, I have to conclude that foreskins are the moral equivalent of a happy meal. Or smoking.
Or perhaps the opposite. I'm not sure.
Either way, no littering is involved, and that's a good thing.
PREEPOOZ
Personally I would be just as happy if Lloyd Schofield kept his attention off of the end of my penis, and everybody else's. How our members terminate is, strictly speaking, not any of his beeswax.
I've always been mighty pleased with my penis ("hi there, you handsome fellow!"), and have never lamented the removal of my praepuce.
I don't miss it, and wouldn't wish it on anyone else.
But Lloyd Schofield has 'aesthetic' issues about it.
I can understand that our early hominid ancestors probably benefitted from having that little roll of skin protecting their glans as they ran through the savannas of Africa trying to get away from sabretooths - waisthigh thorny spiky shrubby things and all that in the undergrowth - but in the modern world, that extra baggage just isn't very useful. Besides looking rather ugly.
Lloyd Schofield would disagree.
In the locker room at school, I was always amazed at how animalistic many of the natives looked, and how ridiculous and impractical foreskins really were. Do I need to mention that little boys are not very fastidious even at the best of times? A foreskin does not add to their cleanliness, and argues very much against employing Italian plaster statuary to decorate your apartment.
Lloyd Schofield would disagree.
I would actually quote him on this issue, but I can't be bothered to ask him for a statement. It's doubtful whether someone so obsessed with the final few inches of a penis can actually say anything I want to put on my blog in any case, and hell will freeze over before I allow some loony to go on and on about the appearance and sensitivities of the male regenerative organ in this space.
Lloyd Schofield would disagree.
“Men who are uncircumcised are more likely to have a variety of infections under the foreskin, and the inflammation from those infections could increase the risk of ulcerations, which could also increase the risk of infection”
[From Circumcision Ban Could Make Ballot in San Francisco, by Althea Fung in the National Journal.]
Prickly burs, mister Schofield, prickly burs.
Don't ever go camping.
If Lloyd Schofield's foreskin-loving proposition passes, there will be illegal circumcision parlous springing up all over the city, you can be sure of that. Not only will the Muslims and Jews see eye to eye (or external urethral orifice to external urethral orifice), but many others will spontaneously decide that, like tattoos and body-piercings, circumcision is a delicious exhibition of rebellion against the squares, and a cut penis visibly proves the unique individuality and independent-mindedness of the bearer.
Why, it's positively Bohemian!
Lord knows, I don't want that.
I'm perfectly happy keeping my penis in my pants in public.
Really, no one should be encouraged to flaunt their penis as a statement.
Not even Lloyd Schofield.
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THE ADDENDUM AT TEA
Tea time, as regular readers know, is very important to me. But instead of going to one of my regular places I gave it a miss today. I just ...
10 comments:
It is an odd thing to be so preoccupied with, however, its stranger still in a particular case. In this case, a 36 year old "student" ,who occasionally asserts a Jewish identity, is both highly preoccupied with two issues: the first is such anti-circumcision issues as "mourning for his foreskin" or "foreskin restoration", AND, the second, equally as obsessive, anti-Israel activities. Isn't it rather obvious to everyone except for our subject case, that this "Anti-Zionist" clearly has a psycho-sexual problem, not a political problem ,with Israel, as a Jewish state?
Surely you’re not refering to Mr./Mrs./Ms. Matthew Taylor?
He/she/it of the Foreskin Restorationist League?
http://matthewtaylor.net/foreskinresources.htm
http://matthewtaylor.net/foreskinresources.htm
Quote: "If you were circumcised, ask yourself: "How would sex feel if I had my foreskin?"
If you are intact, ask yourself: "How would I feel if tomorrow a doctor strapped me down and cut off my foreskin without my consent?" If you are a woman, ask yourself: "How would I feel if something like this had been done to me when I was a baby? ""
And, if you are a normal person, ask yourself why anyone would be so obsessed?
I mean, we all think about sex, regularly. But it's plenty enervating without speculating about prickky little details, or how Matthew Taylor's winky would feel if it hadn't been neatly trimmed.
Instead, please consider the halachic point of view that a kosher brit milah, even if undone by subsequent plastic surgery, is still a brit milah. Mr./Ms. Mrs. Matthew Taylor can never run away from the fact that he/it/she is Jewish. No matter with how much current distaste he holds his member.
I’m not surprised that someone who identifies himself/herself as ‘Foreskin Man² would immediately have thought of the current bad boy/bad girl//bad thing of JVP and the delegitimization mafia. There cannot be that many people with interesting thickenings and subcutaneous scar tissues on their "minds" walking around, even in the Bay Area. Even with Scrotal Inflation Guy still on the loose.
But please, no matter how richly deserved, do not say anything unkind about Comrade Taylor. He/She/It/them-they is/are traumatized enough already.
And pushing a middle-aged asthma sufferer to the ground, as you can probably guess, jangles the delicate nerves. Can you say 'Angst'?
So keep it nice.
Please don’t assume from the foregoing that I am accusing Matthew Taylor of being actively involved in that incident. Far from it.
The victim described the anti-Israel activist perps as “young people”.
Besides, who on earth would risk the sutures snapping by strenuous behaviour?
I’ll credit Matthew Taylor with some intelligence.
There's already ONE zipper down there. That's plenty.
Concerning the event at JVP mentioned above, please note that the VICTIM contradicts Jewish Voice for Peace's smarmy self-serving press release.
As you may read here: http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2010/11/jewish-voice-for-peace-and-bully.html
http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2010/11/jewish-voice-for-peace-and-bully.html
And note that at the very least, the healthy young bullies of JVP should have been themselves arrested.
---Grant Patel
"Were the first words spoken after thatJVP meeting, 'hey, let all get our stories straight before the cops come,so we can make a disabled, late middle age woman defending herself with non lethal means against half a dozen much younger people, including an athletic,Trotskite software engineer half her age seem like a threat, when she is assaulted and her camera thrown to the ground.". So many Berkeley police came, that it must have been called in as a riot or something. No, it was just an old Disabled, asthmatic lady protecting herself and her camera. Do the avowed haters of Israel, always lie? And, the foreskin impaired MAtthew Taylor did not intervene to help save the disabled lady while Jvp told wild stories to the cops.
No foreskins?
Please note that one of the people who was there witnessed the assault on Robin by the JVP’ers very clearly.
This is what he wrote:
" I witnessed the assault on Robin Dubner on 11-14-10. I heard a fracas to my left and behind me. I turned and saw a blonde woman with short hair and a man with glasses pushing Robin backwards, toward a wall of windows and a plaster wall-- a corner, essentially. Robin had both hands above her head and the two JVPers were shoving her backward and grabbing at Robin's hands. Another two persons were behind the two assailants, all moving forward on Robin, who was retreating backward from them. Robin was screaming words to the effect of: "Don't touch me; let go of me." I didn't catch the JVPers' words, but several people were yelling at Robin at once.
I saw Robin's camera fly out of her hands and the attack on her let up for a moment. When Robin picked up her camera from the floor, the attack started again, with more pushing, grabbing and screaming at Robin by multiple people. Robin took out her pepper spray and sprayed the blonde woman; I didn't notice her spray the man but I understand he was also sprayed. At that time, Robin was able to move away.
I can testify in court that this was a brutal attck by multiple cowards on a disabled person (Robin) and that Robin was justified in protecting herself with pepper spray. The spray was used solely in self-defence. Even I feared for Robin's safety at the hands of these thugs who unjustifiably, physically attacked Robin."
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7769014608405032519&postID=1365509266879443823&isPopup=true
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7769014608405032519&postID=1365509266879443823&isPopup=true
Comment string underneath this post: http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2010/11/jewish-voice-for-peace-and-bully.html
http://proisraelbaybloggers.blogspot.com/2010/11/jewish-voice-for-peace-and-bully.html.
And bear in mind that there are other witnesses. Unlike JVP, they will tell the truth.
Circumscion is a deeply entrenched cultural custom of both Jews and Muslims. "Foreskin restoration" is so very odd and self obsessive, that I wonder how the Muslim members of "Jewish Voice of Peace", like Mohammed Talaat, feel about this issue? Mr. Tallat did not chose to weigh in on this issue on Sunday evening when it was raised, but perhaps he'll take a moment and offer his thoughts here.
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