The Coffee Shop

[E-DigitalFantasy]

I know we have quite a variety of animals on this forum (cats, squirrels etc), but if we have any raccoons, can we please make sure no-one is actually feeding them.

https://imgur.com/MRp0nGH

More than 100 raccoons besiege house of woman who had been feeding them

The woman, who has not been named, near Poulsbo, Washington, called the county sheriff, who sent deputies

www.theguardian.com

The house I bought 20 years ago had 3 old sheds in the back. All painted btight red. One looked like a caboose. The 2nd was set up as a nesting home for racoons. Neighbors tell me the prior owners had 12 nesting pairs in their at one time. They definitely were a major contributor to the racoon probkem in the area. The shed was clear when I bought the home, but 10 years after the shed was torn down I still had 8 racoons (3 generations) tearing up the pond I built on a nightly basis.

 

[fallenmystic]

When AI tries to RP :

 

[fallenmystic]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1852787623544467469

I've never posted a pic or video of ordinary people as porn, so I have no intention of showing this in such a context here.

Still, I find her very attractive, for she perfectly matches my definition of "a strong yet beautiful woman".

It's easy to act like one in films, wearing a catsuit or cape and beating up the bad guys, but it takes much more than that to protest like that woman in a place where even showing her hair in public is considered a crime, not to mention her body.

I hope she's ok. Maybe her video going viral on X could make them think twice before harming her.

 

[Jollyrei]

I hope she's ok. Maybe her video going viral on X could make them think twice before harming her.

I doubt she is okay, and I doubt a viral video or all the news reports in the world will have any impact on the attitudes of the Iranian regime or their response. Reuters reports that she has been detained and the story is that she was under stress and has severe mental illness as a result. It is speculated that she will be put into a mental institution. So, she has been effectively "disappeared" for as long as the regime decides she should stay away. Her family will not make a fuss, because the alternative is that they and she are directly accused of anti-islamic behaviour. In a country where a woman not wearing a headscarf is seen as an existential threat, one treads carefully, or not at all. I expect she knew what the consequences were, and as you say, she certainly fits the description of a beautiful strong woman. Perhaps she was hoping to become a martyr for the freedom cause - the "mental institution" response looks to me like regime damage control ("she's not a martyr - she wasn't fighting for freedom; she was sick and we're caring for her"). This is, of course, a complete tragedy. </politics>

 

[fallenmystic]

I doubt she is okay, and I doubt a viral video or all the news reports in the world will have any impact on the attitudes of the Iranian regime or their response. Reuters reports that she has been detained and the story is that she was under stress and has severe mental illness as a result. It is speculated that she will be put into a mental institution. So, she has been effectively "disappeared" for as long as the regime decides she should stay away. Her family will not make a fuss, because the alternative is that they and she are directly accused of anti-islamic behaviour. In a country where a woman not wearing a headscarf is seen as an existential threat, one treads carefully, or not at all. I expect she knew what the consequences were, and as you say, she certainly fits the description of a beautiful strong woman. Perhaps she was hoping to become a martyr for the freedom cause - the "mental institution" response looks to me like regime damage control ("she's not a martyr - she wasn't fighting for freedom; she was sick and we're caring for her"). This is, of course, a complete tragedy. </politics>

The fact that she's still alive sounds like "good news" to me, at least in a country where women regularly get lynched or tortured to death for similar actions. I just hope she can be remembered as an icon of resistance rather than a martyr in future. And if they didn't kill her yet, I think at least I can still hope.

 

[Frank Petrexa]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1852787623544467469

I've never posted a pic or video of ordinary people as porn, so I have no intention of showing this in such a context here.

Still, I find her very attractive, for she perfectly matches my definition of "a strong yet beautiful woman".

It's easy to act like one in films, wearing a catsuit or cape and beating up the bad guys, but it takes much more than that to protest like that woman in a place where even showing her hair in public is considered a crime, not to mention her body.

I hope she's ok. Maybe her video going viral on X could make them think twice before harming her.

Mental institutions were a tool in the USSR, too.

 

[Jollyrei]

I suspect they won't just execute her - the regime wants to appear civilized. But they also know that this story will fade into obscurity very quickly.

 

[Morticia]

What did Ms Daryaei expect the response to be, she is enrolled in the Islamic Azad University, there is a massive clue in the title.

Ms Daryaei is obviously a intellectually talented young lady, i so wish she had used that intellect to better the cause of females oppressed by the Iranian regime, this act of defiance will change nothing, other than remove a fine intellect from public view.

If she is removed to a mental health institution, then the regime has the opportunity to hide her and her case from public scrutiny, as the State are 'protecting her rights' at a time when she is diagnosed as being 'mentally unwell'.

 

[Jollyrei]

I don't think she would have been surprised or found what happened to her at all unexpected. She would have calculated for it, I suspect.

 

[malins]

Well what I have heard she was first attacked by regime thugs for 'bad hijab' and they tore at her clothing, which may have pushed her over the edge for a spontaneous form of protest. Not everything is 100% calculated and there are different ways people can suddenly rebel, or outright snap, when continuous oppression suddenly becomes no longer bearable.

 

[steph2000]

I hope she is ok
I really fucking do. She's brave and I hope I would be brave enough to do same as her.
May She be ok please. I wanna go out and hug her and hold her hand xx

 

[RacingRodent]

I don't think she would have been surprised or found what happened to her at all unexpected. She would have calculated for it, I suspect.

One of the issues here is the discussion is focused on the Western News cycle which is likely not her target audience. Her target will be Iranians talking to each by the old style method so flapping their physical mouths in range of other's physical ears. Novel I know for most of us resolute netizens but while Iranians may not always be touching grass but they do hang around in coffee shops of the physical kind for example.

Also while the more refined might whisper the name Daryaei that video is going to bouncing back into Iran on the backs of young men's phones for years if not decades. So it will get ogled in gyms because she is sexy but some of those men will ask what happened to her and a few of those will have a pang of conscience.

Now I am not insisting everyone finding themselves caught in a dictatorial regime try out some individual act of demonstrative resistance, it has consequences but I will point out that the brave few who do can add up. It can be a rough trip, it typically takes years and it might be decades but acts of defiance do accumulate and they do inspire until one day the regime falls to the crowds in the streets and the soldiers disobeying orders and going over to them.

 

[malins]

I suspect they won't just execute her - the regime wants to appear civilized.

Well a thing to consider is what is 'civlized'?
The Islamic Republic and all its enforcers consider themselves a civilizational project.

'Spreading corruption on earth' and 'Waging war on god' are legally codified capital offenses in the Iranian criminal law.
Thousands of executions have been carried out based on these laws https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mofsed-e-filarz

So all it takes for a 'civilized' outcome under the 'guardianship of the righteous' is for a court to pass such a sentence.
Then it's a sentence under the rule of law.
Western concerns play no role except perhaps as an opportunity to prove that the regime will not submit to any outside interference.

 

[Eulalia]

It's difficult, though I think very necessary, for us in the West to understand just how powerful the cult of voluntary martyrdom, shahid, is in much of the Islamic world today, and especially in the Shi'a version of Iran and its proxies. Of course, it's part of our, Judaeo-Christian, heritage too, and the self-sacrifice of Jesus, and the motives and experiences of the early Christian martyrs, are a fascination and source of fantasies for many of us here on the Forums. But for us, it's a strange, alien part of the past, it's hard even to believe, let alone understand, the very real, powerful aspiration for martyrdom for themselves - and for their children too - that is a driving force through the whole spectrum, from Islamist fanatics and terrorists through to rebellious students.

 

[fallenmystic]

It's difficult, though I think very necessary, for us in the West to understand just how powerful the cult of voluntary martyrdom, shahid, is in much of the Islamic world today, and especially in the Shi'a version of Iran and its proxies. Of course, it's part of our, Judaeo-Christian, heritage too, and the self-sacrifice of Jesus, and the motives and experiences of the early Christian martyrs, are a fascination and source of fantasies for many of us here on the Forums. But for us, it's a strange, alien part of the past, it's hard even to believe, let alone understand, the very real, powerful aspiration for martyrdom for themselves - and for their children too - that is a driving force through the whole spectrum, from Islamist fanatics and terrorists through to rebellious students.

Without intending to contest your observation of Islamic culture (a subject about which I can't say I am very knowledgeable), I'd like to add that such a mentality can also manifest in various forms in different places.

My country, for example, also has a long tradition of using suicide as a means of protest, and many of those who had chosen this path are remembered as martyrs. For example, the whole labour movement in my country was initiated by the self-immolation of a factory worker in the 60s. Similar incidents have continued through the 90s, as the road to democracy was a slow and laborious process in my country.

Notably, 8 students took their own lives by self-immolation in just two months in 1991, in protest against the government led by the conspirators of an earlier coup (not counting one who attempted but survived and 3-4 others who were murdered by the police). I went to a university a few years later and remember how they used their martyrdom to inspire new students.

I have mixed feelings about the practice, but I wouldn't deny that I'm partially indebted to them for the freedom I enjoy now.

 

[Eulalia]

Oh yes, the more I learn about other cultures, in the past and present, the more conscious I am that the modern West may be the odd one out - not 'superior' or 'inferior', but exceptional in many ways. Self-sacrifice is, of course, regarded as admirable and honourable, but when it's glorified as something to be aspired to, as the highest 'end' of life, it can easily tip over into fanaticism.

 

[malins]

the modern West may be the odd one out - not 'superior' or 'inferior', but exceptional in many ways

there's a technical term for that oddness, it's WEIRD as in https://weirdpeople.fas.harvard.edu/qa-weird - though this framework struggles with understanding such systems that have the E,I,R properties but not the others...

 

[Eulalia]

Interesting. A sort of social-psychologised historicism. I'm not sure that the WEIRDness of the West can be fitted into quite such a neat explanatory framework, but it's a novel way of thinking about it.

 

[supplice]

Self-sacrifice is, of course, regarded as admirable and honourable, but when it's glorified as something to be aspired to, as the highest 'end' of life, it can easily tip over into fanaticism.

The higher social echelons in Japan still think of life as a preparation for an honorable death. It's a strange idea to most of us, but it is a holdover from attitudes for centuries before World War II. A journalist I know was speaking with a Japanese man (business unknown to me) and was discussing all this with him. The Japanese was very straightforward about the concept. As it was related to me, he told the journalist "You will never understand. It's that white skin of yours."

 

[Mikerytel]

Oh yes, the more I learn about other cultures, in the past and present, the more conscious I am that the modern West may be the odd one out - not 'superior' or 'inferior', but exceptional in many ways. Self-sacrifice is, of course, regarded as admirable and honourable, but when it's glorified as something to be aspired to, as the highest 'end' of life, it can easily tip over into fanaticism.

The Japanese kamikaze pilots pole vaulted Into fanaticism.