![\"capt_photo_1224071924862-1-0\"](\"https:\/\/hoochiewoman.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/07\/capt_photo_1224071924862-1-0.jpg?w=610\" "\\"capt_photo_1224071924862-1-0\\"")
<\/a>Therefore it is with great sadness that I learn that the president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, has announced his intention to ban<\/a>\u00a0female genital mutilation. President Museveni addressed a gathering in his country\u2019s eastern Karamoja district: \u201cThe way God made it, there is no part of a human body that is useless.\u201d Nice to see that the President still supports the ancient art of theologically medieval, ad hoc rhetorical justification \u2014 the way God mad it, indeed! \u2014 even if advances in so-called medical science and moral ethics are forcing him to retire his country\u2019s corps of genital mutilators.<\/p>\nLet me propose\u00a0a means by which\u00a0this revered craft can be preserved.Let\u2019s relocate a colony of labia carvers and their apprentice scalpel handlers to, say, Vermont or New Hampshire. They can set up a craft community, give tours and daily demonstrations for the Luddite looky-loos \u2014 like Sturbridge Village, if instead of hammer and anvils the blacksmiths did their work with artfully jury-rigged genital mutilation tools of the kind displayed by the genital mutilator in the photo here. Oh forces of modernity. Is there no tradition or trade that you won\u2019t destroy, no custom you will respect?<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I confess to an electic nostalgia \u2014 I recall rotary phones with fondness, and the note-passing that was en vogue during high school, when texting meant one wrote in block characters rather then cursive. Accordingly I mourn the passing of trades made obsolete by so-called advances in technology, and the loss of all the technical … Continue reading Modernity claims another victim<\/span>