Althouse: Goddess's purity tainted...

July 3, 2007

Goddess's purity tainted...

... by traveling to the U.S.

19 comments:

MadisonMan said...: Did she visit DC?; 7/3/07, 12:19 PM
Drew W said...: I bet that's what Sir Salman said about Lady Rushdie after she left to do that cooking show. (Personally, I wouldn't have let her out of my sight, but I guess that could be considered a bit too controlling.)

Even though she's a free woman now, something tells me our paths will never cross. (sigh); 7/3/07, 1:11 PM
KCFleming said...: Sajani Shakya: I am your Goddess!

Woman: Well I didn't vote for you!

Sajani Shakya: You don't vote for goddesses.

Woman: Well how'd you become Goddess then?

[Angelic music plays...]

Sajani Shakya: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering silmite held aloft Vajracharya from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Sajani Shakya, was to carry Vajracharya. THAT is why I am your Goddess!

Dennis interrupting: Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' Vajracharya is no basis for a religion! Supreme godlike power derives from itself alone, not from some farcical mandate from the masses!; 7/3/07, 1:22 PM
Tibore said...: Man, if they think America is bad, what would've happened if she travelled to Rio during Carnaval? Whoooooooooooooooooee!; 7/3/07, 1:35 PM
Ruth Anne Adams said...: Pogo: Oh, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a Vajracharya at you.; 7/3/07, 1:55 PM
George M. Spencer said...: ..."Thighs like those of a deer and a neck like a conch shell."

And she's how old?

Plus, I'm not getting the conch shell=neck image.; 7/3/07, 1:57 PM
Anonymous said...: Now that she's been here they can no longer trust her not to sneak some video games and a supply of Doritos with her into the underground coffin.; 7/3/07, 2:05 PM
Laura Reynolds said...: That's why I'm going to Katmandu,
Up to the mountains where I'm going to.
If I ever get out of here that's what I'm gonna do.
K - k - k - k - k - Katmandu,
Take me, baby, 'cause I'm going with you.
If I ever get out of here I'm going to Katmandu.; 7/3/07, 2:21 PM
clint said...: There's something phenomenally creepy about an order of monks inspecting the thighs of little girls, choosing their favorite, isolating her until puberty, and then casting her out and picking a new one.; 7/3/07, 3:06 PM
Ron said...: clint: How different is this from Miss America again?; 7/3/07, 3:54 PM
bearbee said...: Her purity was tainted because she visited the US, or because she was promoting a British documentary?

Actually she was considered tainted because she left Nepal. Leave it up to the BBC to spin it as an anti-American thing.
The tradition forbids Kumaris of her rank from leaving Nepal so they can continue to bless devotees and attend festivals.; 7/3/07, 4:48 PM
ricpic said...: Godess shmodess, I'm quittin' this two bit Nepal for America because I wanna be a S*T*A*R*; 7/3/07, 5:32 PM
ricpic said...: Godess shmodess, I'm quittin' this two bit Nepal for America, where I can be a *S*T*A*R*!*; 7/3/07, 5:37 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Re "creepy." Note that the article talks about how the Nepal Supreme Court is looking into whether this thing is abusive. I've written about it before. There's a whole problem of how the girls have a bad life after they are cast out.; 7/3/07, 6:07 PM
PeterP said...: Last November Nepal's Supreme Court ordered an inquiry into whether the Kumari tradition has led to the exploitation of girls.

When anyone starts deciding that a two year old girl has 'thighs like a deer and a neck like a conch shell' then I am seriously concerned.

Temple elders? All men by any chance. Sounds like Lewis Carroll would be in his element here.

Ah well, these foreign places eh?

Over here we have a story:

Hundreds of young Asian girls - mostly of Pakistani origin - are disappearing from schools around the age of 12.

Mostly they are being shipped home for arranged/forced marriages.

By and large people keep quiet about this, apart from Ann Cryer, MP for Bradford where many of these girls live. Brave, strong woman.

We are told 'this is a sensitive cultural issue.' Like hell it is. It's child rape.

We are also told that schools de-register these girls as soon as they can. Why? Because absentee pupils count against them in national league tables.

Now that is one hell of a loss of purity.; 7/3/07, 6:41 PM
Tim said...: "We are told 'this is a sensitive cultural issue.'"

Indeed. Multiculturalism excuses all manner of evil that would not be tolerated amongst the peers of the "monoculture." Codified multiculturalism is legalized balkanization which, I'd bet, no nation can long survive in its traditional form.

Not that half of us care much.

And cudos to bearbee for catching the misleading BBC headline and article. Too funny the BBCers have to fortify their ever-so-pathetic sense of self-esteem by slagging on the U.S. I'm of half a mind the next time the Henckels and Junkers put London ablaze, they're on their own.

Let the Vichy bail them out.; 7/3/07, 7:03 PM
clint said...: Ron: "clint: How different is this from Miss America again?"

The enormous difference is this: The girls are aged 2-4 when they are judged.

There is a phenomenal difference between inspecting a 3-year-old girl for the perfection of her sexual parts (in the list of conditions, there's one explicitly about her sexual parts... it's just not as printable as the one about her thighs) and inspecting a 20-year-old woman in a swimsuit. Even when the judging is primarily by sixty-year-old men.; 7/4/07, 12:25 PM
Galvanized said...: clint, what is creepy, though, is that the inspection of these beauty "queens" indeed begins very early, some in toddlerhood, for them, as well. There is a great amount of sexualization and related exploitation in the beauty pageant culture...also by older men and pushy, unstable parents. There is nothing normal about it. There truly is no difference.; 7/5/07, 9:34 AM
Galvanized said...: the pageant place images

I rest my case.; 7/5/07, 9:43 AM