Dental implants and fillings are artificial too.
May 6, 2021
Dirty protests: why Irish republican prisoners smeared their cells with faeces to make a political statement during the Troubles
Why would a group of people decide to spend months and years living semi-naked in squalid conditions?theconversation.com
For almost thirty years (1969-1998) Northern Ireland was gripped by violent conflict. Republicans wanted an end to British rule and Unionists and Loyalists wished to preserve their citizenship and place in the United Kingdom. Bitterness and animosities intensified on both sides and reciprocal atrocities spiralled. Almost 4,000 lost their lives, thousands more were injured, and the economy and social fabric were torn apart.
Those convicted of paramilitary offences came into the prisons in their hundreds and then thousands. Insisting they were soldiers, they behaved differently from ordinary prisoners. They were at first mainly members of the IRA, but significant numbers of Loyalists soon followed. Both factions rejected the legally established prison rules which they said criminalised them and their cause. They particularly objected to the requirement that all should wear a uniform and perform prison labour. The resultant standoff launched a series of bitter struggles.
In the search for peace, significant concessions had been made on prison rules in the summer of 1972. These conferred “special category” status on people who had committed crimes of a paramilitary nature. The various privileges associated with this status met most of the paramilitaries’ demands. Amid continuing violence, the UK government decided to withdraw the 1972 privileges from all whose offences were committed after March 1976. After due process and sentencing, the people convicted after this date began to arrive in the prisons a few months later. Their rejection of the ordinary prison regime initiated almost five years of intense protests.
Most of the newly arrived Republicans refused to wear the uniform (Loyalists accepted it). No other clothing was permitted and so protesters went semi-naked, covering themselves in a blanket: this was the strip strike.
Extreme measures
It eventually became clear that this approach put no pressure on the authorities. With this realisation, the dirty protests commenced. This new form of action was so extreme, entailing such an astonishing degree of self-inflicted hardship for the participants, that even the hard-line secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Roy Mason, gave it grudging acknowledgement as “a brilliant stroke”.
The authorities and the protesters settled in for the long game. Months and years of close and semi-naked confinement followed. Cells were less than 100 square feet, and the protesters smeared every hard surface with excrement, into which they worked particles of rotting food. Urine was used to dilute the mixture before it was spread.
Beyond most people’s imagining, this world of faeces-handling, unremitting stench, and contamination was frequently shared with a cellmate. There was no cell sanitation, so each performed bodily functions in front of another. They slept on mattresses on the floor because their organisation decreed that they should destroy all cell furniture. Even the mattress covers were torn apart to spread the foul mixtures.
There were short, out-of-cell periods. The law stipulated a minimum amount of exercise. In addition to this, there were trips to the visiting room and periodic extractions for medically mandated washing and haircutting. These were resisted with varying degrees of force, and there were regular tussles and sometimes violent battles with staff. Both sides alleged brutality.
This was the nightmare of the dirty protest in the Maze prison, outside Belfast. It lasted for 40 months and was the most remarkable campaign in any prison anywhere, certainly in the 20th century, and possibly at any time. It was the springboard for the better-known 1980-81 hunger strikes and created an indirect but certain path to the protracted peace process that began in the mid-1980s, after the collapse of the hunger strikes...
I heard in the female prison they would smear their period blood onto the walls.
This sounds like it is misrepresenting Jo Rowling's views entirely with an "all she said was..."
Transgender rights: activists call for rethink on confrontational tactics
After the “painful” election of Donald Trump, some in the movement question the effectiveness of an all-or-nothing approach.www.smh.com.au
This might be one of those long posts, so much to cover and the end result still won't be enough.
That's an opinion. One I'd agree with, without giving it overlong consideration, but it leaves out one rather important question - why?
Of course it does. We're a complicated species, and any tech will tell you the more complicated the machine, the more chances there are that something can go wrong. An interesting complication to that is that in a very complicated machine, something can go wrong and the machine is still able to function, provided what went wrong wasn't catastrophic.
I'd argue that what you have is theory - which is the point I made - and practice - how things are applied in the real world. You can absolutely split the conversation between theory and practice, and you can absolutely leave the sports stuff to one side in order to purely discuss theory.
We have exceptions to pretty much every distinction between the genders you choose to point to, though.
That's a great question, but not really one for this thread or the SRP, really. It'd be a hoot over in Science.
It's always funny to me that people think humans are above evolution. Our evolution never stopped and continues to happen; the only difference is that we shape the environment that continues to shape us.
I've always been a low key fan of a deistic position: god exists but doesn't care. Abandoned creation after having created it. Moved on to the next thing.
... evolution can't 'go wrong'. To go wrong implies value, and there's no value inherent in it beyond humble survival.
I come to my final impression when I read your post this morning.
XX women with PCOS are the most common disorder among elite female athletes with high T (approx 37%) in elite women’s sports.
Female hyperandrogenism and elite sport - PMC
Emerging evidence indicates that testosterone, which can increase muscle mass and strength, stimulates erythropoiesis, promotes competitive behaviour, and enhances the physical performance of women. Indeed, the levels of testosterone within the ...t.co
Are you serious?
The small population size is one of the reasons they are going after trans rights.
