UPDATE #4, THURS, 11:20 pm PST (scroll to bottom to see previous updates):

Still no word or follow-up from Kiana Firouz, or anyone in the Cul de Sac camp. I’m worried by lack of communication or verification from them, and since this post has gone viral, I’ve had mounting concerns. Please stand by.

UPDATE #5, FRIDAY, 4:41am PST:

Okay, I’ve received confirmation of the basic facts of this case from a reputable source: Stefano Bucaioni, who sits on the executive board of international affairs at Arcigay. Stefano informed me that he’s in direct contact with Kiana and the emails she’s sent to him do confirm the full story. He’ll be meeting Kiana in person in London next Thursday. He’s said that she is currently overwhelmed with requests from journalists. Arcigay will be posting an official press document concerning Kiana Firouz’s case either later today or early tomorrow. When they do, I’ll post that link in an update. Grazie, Stefano. Good luck, Kiana.

UPDATE #6, Tuesday, 3:30pm PST:

Arcigay posted their press release for Kiana Firouz today. It’s in Italian, but scroll down more information in English.

Kiana Firouz in a still from Cul de Sac.

Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, is an outspoken Iranian LGBT rights activist, filmmaker, and actress. When clips of her video documentary work featuring the struggle and persecution of gays and lesbians in her country were acquired by Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow Firouz around Tehran, harassing and intimidating her. She fled for England where she could safely continue her work and studies.

She plays a starring role in Cul de Sac, a documentary film produced in the UK about the condition of lesbians in Iran, and based heavily on Firouz’s own life story. Directed by Ramin Goudarzi-Nejad and Mahshad Torkan, the movie will premiere in London in a few days. Since the trailer was posted on YouTube in December 2009, Cul de Sac has attracted global media attention, with thousands of views. Apparently, some of those views included members of Ahmadinejad’s puppet media in Iran. They know who Firouz is and what she stands for. They may want her to come back to the country she was born in to answer for it.

Still from Cul de Sac.

Firouz, understandably, has requested asylum from the British government. Much to everyone’s shock and dismay, the British Home Office has rejected her application for refugee status. Yes, they know she’s gay. Yes, they know she could be deported back to Iran at any time, and that if this happens, Firouz will most likely be sentenced to torture and death after being found guilty of the “unspeakable sin of homosexuality” because she has participated in explicit lesbian sex scenes in the movie, and been a fierce proponent for human rights in her country.

In Iran, the punishment for lesbianism involving mature consenting women consists of 100 lashes. This punishment can be applied up to three times. After a fourth violation of Iranian law, a woman convicted of “unrepentant homosexuality” is finally executed by hanging, often publicly, in front of a howling mob.

From EveryOne Group:

Kiana filed for a court appeal following the Home Office’s decision to reject her application for asylum, but the judge overruled her appeal. According to Kiana’s lawyer, the last remaining chance is to appeal the judge’s decision, but the risk of deportation is imminent.

The EveryOne Group, an international human rights organization, which was involved in the asylum cases of the lesbian Pegah Emambakhsh, who risked being deported from London to Tehran in 2007, and of the Iranian gay, Mehdi Kazemi, appeals to the British government and the democratic forces of the European Union, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, that Kiana Firouz be immediately guaranteed adequate humanitarian protection and that the order for her deportation be repealed, given that on return to Iran she will face a death sentence not only because a lesbian but because of her civil rights activism.

The EveryOne activists invite concerned readers to send protest e-mail messages to the British Home Office (public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk) requesting that Kiana receive refugee status as soon as possible, for she is a symbol of the international fight against homophobia and repression of gays and lesbians in Islamic countries.

I’ve spent a fair amount of my day researching, fact-checking and [edit for clarification: attempting to] verify this story, and I can’t figure it out: why is this news not EVERYWHERE right now? Why is this petition for Firouz so anemic? There should be hundreds of thousands of names on that list.

All images by Jonas Lara.

Jonas Lara is a celebrated artist and photographer who “has made a career tilting his camera toward the unconventional terrain of urban landscapes. He first developed his unique visual approach capturing high school friends’ nighttime antics in skateboarding and graffiti. Lara strongly believes he shares a visual language with architects, engineers, painters and other artists who challenge the conventionality of gravity and space.”

Last February, Lara was arrested while documenting graffiti artists painting a mural in Los Angeles. The photographs he took that night were intended to be part of a series Lara’s been developing for years– a “body of work [that] involves documenting artists both in their lives and in the process of their artwork.” This series focuses on a wide range of artists, not only graffiti writers.

Lara was “apprehended” along with the two graffiti artists by the LAPD, and charged with felony vandalism. His camera and equipment (lenses, memory cards, batteries) were all taken as evidence, and have yet to be returned to him, in spite of his dependence on them to make a living. Lara’s charges were later lowered to a misdemeanor, then changed to “aiding and abetting”, which carries the same sentence as the crime of graffiti-painting. Lara says:

“I have gone through the several stages of this case and my next step is the Jury Trial. If I lose my case, I can face up to a year in jail and have my license suspended. I need your help raising money to cover costs to hire a private attorney and related legal expenses…  Part of the artist portrait series was featured in an exhibition put together by the Cultural Affairs Department of Los Angeles.”

According to a PNDPulse article about Lara’s arrest, the artist appealed for help with the case to rights organization like the ACLU, but was told him they do not get involved in criminal cases. “If convicted, the Art Center College of Design graduate and former US Marine would be unable to enter the MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, into which he was recently accepted, in September.”

Does something about this irrational, bullying, trumped up, effed up charge rub you the wrong way? If so, donate to the Jonas Lara defense fund. You know how it goes, comrades. A dollar here, a 5-spot there… it adds up so quickly. Let’s make sure this artist gets a fighting chance.

Photo of columnist Margaret Wente via The Globe and Mail.

We try to keep the rants to a minimum here. Coilhouse is a love letter, after all;  we’d rather be supportive of what’s beautiful and nourishing. But Ross just linked to something that has left me (almost) stunned speechless. As an active female blogger with a pulse, it’s impossible for me to ignore the topic of Margaret Wente and her latest pile of myopic, belittling, divisive, unsubstantiated garbage.

Some quick background info: Wente’s a popular, award-winning Canadian columnist who writes for The Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto. Reviewing some of her previous pieces at the Globe’s website, I’m flummoxed by all of the accolades, if not her success. The only reason I can see for continuing to employ this poor, unfortunate soul is that her output must regularly trawl in tons of infuriated traffic, a-la Coulter or Limbaugh. Get a load of these excerpts from her latest journalistic triumph, entitled Why Are Bloggers Male?:

Guys seek thrills and speed. They go for the adrenalin rush. They get pumped by going higher, faster, farther than anyone else. They want lots of action and instant gratification. That’s also why guys like blogging – instant opinions, and lots of them.

Men clearly have an urge to blog that women lack. Like extreme snowmobiling, the blogosphere is dominated by men. Not many women are interested enough in spitting out an opinion on current events every 20 minutes.

Are these things cultural? Not entirely, perhaps not even mostly. For most of my adult life, I was almost struck dumb in the presence of strangers. I managed to complete five years of university without raising my hand, and the idea of a dinner party used to make me faint. Several of my female friends tell similar stories. No matter how brilliant they were, they lacked the confidence to express themselves in public.

Fortunately, something happens to women in midlife that disinhibits them. It is the same thing (in reverse) that turns bold, extroverted little girls into painfully self-conscious adolescents: a drastic change in hormones. These days, I no longer care when someone calls me an idiot, and my husband often has to drag me home from dinner parties.

But blogging? No way. That’s guy stuff. And they are welcome to it.

JEEZUM CROW. Where to start? Why even bother? I almost regret giving this drivel the extra boost in publicity, but it’s just too out-of-touch, sexist, and insulting to ignore. I’m actually more skeeved out by The Globe and Mail’s crass capitalization on the furor than I am by Wente herself, if that’s even possible. When news sources stoop this low for increased traffic/sales, they need to be called out on it.

Think it’s pointless to protest? Could be. After all, we’re talking about arguing on the internet. Then again, if there’s even an outside chance that the “professionals” at The Globe and Mail might chastise Wente, or issue a retraction, after receiving an onslaught of disgusted comments from their readership, maybe it’s worth it taking a few minutes to weigh in.

Or, alternately: “Boys are dumb, and girls aren’t talking!”

Heh. Honestly, I feel pretty naive even typing that out. But I just can’t let it go, because there are still plenty of folks who expect their media sources to conduct a bare minimum of research and fact-checking before printing something. (Yes, even some blowhard Glennbeckistani-level op-ed piece.) Someone as spectacularly ignorant as Wente, standing on a platform that high, needs to be knocked down. With more solid facts. With meaningful statistics. With pure, undiluted, well-heeled contempt. And so does the platform itself, with dollars and cents, with pulled advertisements, and with bloggitysphere-wide denouncement by male and female writers alike.

Do a bit more friggin’ research next time, Wente. Then, if you’re up to it, present your opinions in a halfway decent and intelligent fashion, not like Betty Draper on three valiums and a bottle of wine. The scolding goes double for your editors. Seriously, Globe and Mail, talk about multiplying zeroes.

As you may or may not know Lou Dobbs — journalist, Birther, and cranky old man — resigned from CNN last week for the second time, for reasons that have not been made clear though it is speculated that he wanted more time to devote to his hobbies, like hunting illegal immigrants for sport; a hobby which has single-handedly kept this wonderful nation of ours from being overrun by a merciless tide of humanity intent on taking all the jobs that no one like Lou Dobbs wishes to do. Besides his outdoor hobbies, however, there are whispers that Mr. Dobbs may seek some sort of public office, thereby helping him to protect even more of America than he could alone in a tree stand armed with only his trusty rifle.

With that in mind, Mr. Dobbs has been making the rounds, getting his fleshy face out there and shaking his jowls gravely for the benefit of the public so that they may become more accustomed to his craggy, experienced folds. No appearance thus far typifies the direction that the Lou Dobbs Express will take than this recent interview on Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor in which the GOP’s favorite amateur pornographer asks the Border Baron — without even the slightest hint of irony — if he thinks that Barack Obama is the devil to which Lou, sounding every bit the glorious statesman he is destined to be, answers that no, Barack Obama is not the devil. He is just a terrible president. And a terrible person. Also, he may eat babies. In fact, he likes the taste of babies so much that he may mandate that every heterosexual couple in America must produce an extra baby which will be harvested by illegal, Mexican laborers for his sole, gastronomic satisfaction.

Or not, I’m just still flabbergasted that this question can be asked in full view of the public with a seriousness usually reserved for matters that are, well, not insane.

Various works by sculptor John T. Unger.

John T. Unger is a fabulously inventive artist, environmentalist, writer, small business owner and the creator of copyrighted sculptural Artisanal Firebowls. He crafts his wares with primarily recycled or re-used materials, designing for permanency and functionality. His work has been featured on Etsy, BoingBoing, Neatorama, and by Craft Magazine, Variety and VenusZine, to name only a few.

Right now Unger’s mired in what he has dryly referred to as “an unwanted education in copyright law” and boy, does it sound like FUN!  Unger, who obtained legal copyright a while back to protect his original sculptures from piracy, says a man by the name of Rick Wittrig, owner of FirePitArt.com, has not only begun manufacturing and selling products which are extremely similar to Unger’s, but has even gone so far as to bring a federal lawsuit against Unger to have the copyrights for Unger’s own original artwork overturned.

Repeating for emphasis: Unger is being copyright-sued by a guy who makes knockoffs of his own work. Wooo!

Fire bowl, mask, and “fire imp” figurines by John T. Unger.

Attempts at settlement have failed. Unger, who has already spent $50,000 fighting against Wittrig, says that “seeking a judicial ruling in federal court will cost more than any artist or small business can afford on its own”, yet the lawsuit continues to move forward. Apparently, Wittrig has money to burn, so to speak. Unger isn’t taking it lying down:

A life in the arts is all I have ever really wanted. After more than 20 years of working towards that goal I have achieved success… It isn’t easy to make it as an artist and I didn’t have a lot of initial support. When I started my art business as a full time occupation I was homeless, $20,000 in debt, and had few tools but a laptop. I joke that “I did it with nothing, because nothing is free,” but there’s truth in this… I built what I have now from the ground up because I was passionate enough to keep doing the work no matter what else happened.

I don’t understand why a person would fight as hard as Mr. Wittrig has to profit from the work of another. It baffles me because I have devoted my life to making things which are unique and to marketing them as unique items crafted from a detailed personal philosophy. I don’t view original artwork as a commodity. I have no interest in imitation. If he had spent the time, energy and money that has gone into this lawsuit on designing original work, with its own story and its own unique appeal there would be plenty of room for both of us to succeed on our own merits.

Guys, I realize it’s important to pick one’s battles carefully in life. This might seem like an oddly piddling skirmish for me to throw in on, but honestly, supporting an artist like Unger is at the heart of why I got involved in an online community like Coilhouse in the first place.

If Wittrig wins by outspending, Unger could lose everything. Not just the rights to his own designs, but his house and his studio as well… basically everything he’s been working toward for roughly a decade. But at the heart of it, this is not about financial loss or gain. This is about not letting a bully with a big wallet ruin a truly creative person’s reputation and credibility. When basic protections like these are overturned, it weakens the law for all artists.

We can help: spread the word and if you can afford to, donate a buck or two to Unger’s defense fund. If you have a bit more spending money on hand, check out his incredible, lovingly made fire pits or other pieces– the integrity and beauty of Unger’s work speaks for him better than any press release ever could.

Unlike many, I have no particular quibbles with Scientology. In terms of belief their particular brand of lunacy is no more abhorrent than omnipotent bearded men, elephant-headed deities, or reincarnation. There is something intrinsically modern about Scientology’s aliens and space-faring DC-3s. It is a a belief system with a mythology that could only have been invented by an author of science fiction. No other person would have that complete a vision or be willing to go so far beyond the pale. In that regard it is no surprise that the likes of Anonymous have pursued the organization as it has. They are, after all, infringing on prime geek territory.

In keeping with that same tone, Scientology has started a new advertising campaign comprised of a trio of commercials aimed at enticing the public. The one above is most interesting. If one didn’t know better one might speculate that it was aimed squarely at the aforementioned 4chaners, as it appears to be a none to subtle nod at a similar speech from Fight Club which, among other things, inspired the boards’s rules. Perhaps it is merely a byproduct of the organization’s many ties with elite Hollywood actors. Either way, the ads are undeniably slick and handily fit in with Scientology’s sci-fi roots. These are ads you would expect to find on the television in a Philip K. Dick novel; plastered on the billboards of some dystopian, near-future Los Angeles.

Mostly, though, they bring me back to my childhood, staying home sick from school and watching daytime television. Family Feud cuts to commercial break and a series of insightful questions flash on screen, appended by page numbers. How can a person suddenly lose confidence? Can your mind limit your success? Paper or plastic? Then, CRASH, a volcano explodes on the screen, churning up a hellish cauldron of white-hot magma, an ominous voice intoning the words “Read Dianetics, by L. Ron Hubbard. It’s the owner’s manual, for the human mind.” It had a profound effect on me as a child. At least, until The Feud came back on.

• Previously, on Coilhouse.

If one were to attend law school one could do a lot worse than New York University. The prestigious institution has a long and storied history. It also has an excellent program which invites well educated law professors from around the world to teach at NYU for a semester. This fall, Thio Li-ann will be teaching a class on human rights. Dr. Li-ann has an impressive résumé with degrees from Cambridge, Harvard, and Oxford. She has served on various law and advisory boards and taught at universities in New Zealand, Australia, and Taiwan. She has written papers on international law and human rights. She has also served in parliament in her home of Singapore where she worked tirelessly to protect the public from sodomy by supporting the continuation of legislation that criminalizes homosexual acts.

That last point seems to have angered some gay and lesbian students, many of whom are members of NYU OUTLaw. The group sent out an email to fellow students drawing attention to statements made by Dr. Li-ann in a speech she gave to Singapore’s Parliament on October 22, 2007 (transcript here; video above) concerning the fate of 377A of Singapore’s penal code which states the following:

Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.

Over the course of her argument Li-ann provides a laundry list of reasons for why this statute must stand and just how its repeal would cause society to collapse into a sweaty pile of diseased, unmarried, sex-crazed perverts who would, presumably, roam the streets raping children and feasting on the flesh of heterosexuals. The scope of her speech is, at times, breathtaking. She argues that homosexuality is a choice and homosexuals can change. She supposes that terms like “sexual orientation” can not only apply to homosexuality but to incest, bestiality, and pedophilia. She is also concerned about health, arguing that sodomy breeds disease with this, astonishing simile: “Anal-penetrative sex is inherently damaging to the body and a misuse of organs, like shoving a straw up your nose to drink.”

She then goes on to provide a handy list of five key steps that supporters of the gay agenda subscribe to in order to push their views and undermine society, one of which looks to lower the age of consent and another which looks to prohibit discrimination based and sexual orientation. These quickly bring her back to, you guessed it, pedophilia; going as far as to quote the “motto” of NAMBLA. She wraps up this particular section with a warning for the ladies:

To slouch back to Sodom is to return to the Bad Old Days in ancient Greece or even China where sex was utterly wild and unrestrained, and homosexuality was considered superior to man-women relations. Women’s groups should note that where homosexuality was celebrated, women were relegated to low social roles; when homosexuality was idealized in Greece, women were objects not partners, who ran homes and bore babies. Back then, whether a man had sex with another man, woman or child was a matter of indifference, like one’s eating preferences. The only relevant category was penetrator and penetrated; sex was not seen as interactive intimacy, but a doing of something to someone. How degrading.

She then goes on to blame the invention of marriage on the Torah, which I find not only ridiculous but highly offensive. One would like to think we’ve progressed far enough to where such antisemitism from an elected official would not be tolerated. It seems that people are still more than willing to blame the world’s ills on the Jews.

NYU has, thus far, not elected to rescind Dr. Li-ann’s invitation to teach, but there are questions that must be asked; the first and foremost of those being whether or not she is qualified to teach a class on human rights, something Cary Nelson, national president of the American Association of University Professors — which has advised NYU on this matter — has doubts: “Academic freedom protects you from retaliation for your extramural remarks, but it does not protect you from being prohibited from teaching in an area where you are not professionally competent [...]”

via Inside Higher Ed

Somebody’s Daughter is the title anthem for a Christian-funded DVD/CD set, detailing the trials of five individuals attempting to escape the sweaty clutches of pornography. It’s a sweeping ode to innocence, childhood, and the endurance of the human spirit. It is also unaware that the thought of the young, nude, nubile nymphet fellating a dozen men simultaneously being somebody’s daughter is a turn on for some.

Watching this video one is immediately struck by the simplicity of the views expressed here. Certainly this is no surprise, after all one of the main draws of religion is the distinct separation of right and wrong. There is no room for a gray area where porn may not be manufactured using women enslaved by drugs or, perhaps, actual chains.

What’s more prevalent, however, is the 50s-era sensibilities on display. Maybe it’s the way the vocalist enunciates the word “flesh”, drawing out the first three letters before biting down on the last two, but one gets the sense that these people’s daughters don’t enjoy their sexuality and, if they do, then the least you and your filthy, filthy penis could do is refrain from encouraging them. And it certainly leaves no room for the existence of women who enjoy pornography, perhaps even pornography featuring somebody’s daughter.

More than that, though, I must return to the central premise; the idea that the object of one’s lustful desires is “somebody’s daughter” being a functional deterrent for men wishing to sit down with some porn and massage their genitals. The thinking here is presumably, “You have a daughter of your own, how does the thought of some other man massaging his genitals while viewing video of little Sally fisting a man in a rubber suit strike you?” Really, what is this video talking about here? Is it a serenade to the sanctity of our children’s innocence; the preciousness of their safety or merely the thinking that, if someone masturbates to images of my daughter, she has embarrassed me. If this was your daughter, what shame would it bring down upon you, her father? Wouldn’t it be terrible for you and your family if it was discovered that your daughter was a pornstar or a stripper?

Wouldn’t that just be awful for you?

My parents tried so hard to protect me from the Internet. In my early years online, my dad installed CyberPatrol, a program that changed all my curse words to “****”.  Fortunately, the program wasn’t too ASCII-savvy, and my exclamations of “shít!” and “fück!” echoed loud and clear across IRC. Then there was the time limit: after 2 hours online, a little dialog box would pop up and say to me, “Your Time is Up! Click OK to Sign Off” or something to that effect. Upon clicking OK, the net connection would shut down until the next day. But I found my way around that, too: I just never clicked OK, so the internet stayed on. And thank God, because otherwise I might’ve actually developed an interest in sunlight and fresh air in my teens. Fück that!

Sometime later, Bell picked up on the fears that compelled my dad to install that poorly-programmed piece of shít, and ran the ad above to promote its own version of a web-based parental control tool. You’ll note that the page that looks like the game board from Operation is actually an anatomical textbook, with the breasts, the ovaries, and – inexplicably – the stomach removed. What exactly is this ad saying – about women’s bodies, sex education, the intelligence of the parents they’re marketing to, and/or quality of the software?

Via the venerable SocImages, where commenter pcwhite notes: “I remember the controversy over this ad from several years ago. Bell trotted out the predictable non-apology stating that what they were really doing was *satirizing* the over-protective parents who would censor their kids’ anatomy illustrations. I think that’s a weasely batch of bullshit, but there you are. I also love how this ad is unintentionally truthful: filters routinely deny access to websites about sex education as well as porn.”

“I paid for a lap dance, not a desk dance.” Caption/image via Pop Sensation.

Faux lesbianism – yet another value that this great country has lost. Just look at Katie Perry’s disgrace of a music video, “I Kissed a Girl.” As heyguysitsthebible points out, “Katy Perry is no fake lesbian. She’s fake questioning. She’s fake experimenting. And that’s not good enough.” Indeed. The author proceeds to dolefully recount the good old days, back when this country still had some backbone, in which bands like t.A.T.u had to actually make out with each other to prove that they were indeed true fake lesbians. The depths to which this nation has sunk! Not only does Katy Perry fail to lock lips with a single female in her music video, but to add insult to injury, in the end she actually wakes up next to her boyfriend, realizing that her super-safe, bowdlerized lesbian fantasy (or was it a fantasy about being in an ad for Claire’s Accessories?) was just a dream. Damn it, we are better than these last eight years.

Jill Sobule, whose catchier, wittier “I Kissed a Girl” video became a controversial hit in the pre-Ellen mid-90s (to be fair, her video doesn’t have a kiss in it either, though it does have Fabio in uniform, which somehow makes it extra-gay), isn’t bothered: “I don’t feel precious about the title, but I’ve gotten tons of e-mails from annoyed fans,” she recently told EW.com. “Maybe I’ll write a third ‘I Kissed a Girl’ for fun… it will be about how I kissed her, left the dull boyfriend, got gay-married in California, and really no one gave a shit.”

Meanwhile, real lesbians continue to make music! Uh Huh Her just released a new music video. The luscious Leisha Hailey looks oddly like Cylon Six in it, but the real star is still the hipster unicorn.