‘If a picture paints a thousand words …’:the development of human identification techniques in forensic anthropology and their implications for human rights in the criminal process

Newly developed techniques in forensic anthropology offer great potential to assist in identifying, and ultimately convicting, perpetrators of serious sexual assaults, particularly those involving young children. They can also facilitate the prosecution of those who create and disseminate child pornography. They do, however, require that photographs be taken of suspects' hands, and sometimes their genitals. This article explores the human rights implications which arise from the intrusive procedures needed to obtain the photographs necessary for comparative purposes. It assesses police powers; the rights of suspects to privacy and bodily integrity; the privilege against compelled self-incrimination; and the right to legal advice, and addresses the question: what are the permissible limits of intrusive searches

Something to do With a Girl Named Marla: Eros and Gender in David Fincher’s Fight Club

David Fincher’s 1999 film, Fight Club, has been characterized in many ways: as a romantic comedy, an exploration of white, middle-class male angst, an existentialist search for meaning amidst the moral ruins of late capitalism, an anarchist manifesto, and so on. But common to nearly every reading of the film, critical and laudatory alike, is the assumption that Fight Club is indisputably a celebration of misogynistic, masculinist virility and violence. On its face, this assumption appears so overwhelmingly obvious as to render superfluous any argumentation in support thereof, and absurd any opposing argumentation. Consider the ubiquitous homoerotic adulation of the male body; or Tyler Durden’s (Brad Pitt’s) lamentation at being part of a “generation of men raised by women;” or the titular subject of the film – a self-help group for men only, founded on the principle of life-affirmation through physical pulverization; or the fact that, besides the momentary appearance of a terminally ill cancer patient, there is but one named female character in the entire film; or the obsessive fetishizing of male genitalia, coupled with anxieties over phallic substitutes and the concomitant fears of castration. From the opening scene – the narrator kneeling with a gun barrel forced into his mouth, to the film’s crescendo – the destruction of a dozen major credit card buildings, Fight Club relentlessly assaults the viewer with visceral images of shirtless, full-throated hyper-masculinity and violence, and with the quasi-philosophical misogynistic sermons of Tyler Durden. But in spite of all this, Fight Club’s thoughts on gender and violence are far more complex than they first appear. We should keep in mind that the film’s embodiment of hyper-masculine aggression, Tyler, is a projection of a suffering and fragmented subjectivity amidst a psychotic breakdown. His status as the film’s antagonist severely complicates any putative simple heroizing of Tyler’s character or philosophy. We would also do well to note that despite her singularity as the only named female character in the film, Marla Singer is arguably the most interesting and admirable character in the film, with an evolving character arc that does not easily conform to traditional gender stereotypes or to standard Hollywood conceptions of feminine love or beauty. She is both strong and nurturing, brazen and uncouth but beautiful, and by turns confident and independent, vulnerable and insecure. She is the catalyst for the narrator’s path to selfhood, without recapitulating the Western myth of the “eternal-feminine” – the pure, selfless, virginal ideal who, from her unattainable heights, motivates the “hero’s quest”. Marla does not “complete” him, nor he her. She conforms to no ideal, and she is neither a prize nor a simple plot device. Whatever else one might say about Fight Club, its attitudes toward gender and violence are not cut and dry

Beiwelt

Short stor

Management of a Retained Bullet in the Corpora Cavernosa after a Civilian Gunshot Injury: A Rare Scenario

A 24-year-old man presented to King Saud Medical City emergency department with a retained bullet in his penis following a civilian exchange of gunfire. After an initial assessment, the patient was taken to the operating room. Penile exploration was performed, the bullet was extracted successfully, and the corpora cavernosa were repaired properly. A 6-week follow-up showed full healing with preservation of erectile function. Immediate surgical intervention is mandatory as the primary treatment for penile gunshot injury to ensure proper anatomical and functional recovery

A Look at Female Genital Mutilation

Female Genital Mutilation is deeply rooted in misogyny and sexism. This paper looks at current and past efforts of NGOs and other organizations that have tried to eradicate the practice in many countries, mainly in Africa. The strategies and techniques of these organizations have failed for many reasons, this paper highlights those that have worked and those that have failed. The next possible steps to reduce the practice have been proposed in the paper

‘Ways of death: accounts of terror from Angolan refugees in Namibia’

In their accounts of the war in Angola, refugees from south-eastern Angola who now live in Rundu (Namibia) draw a distinction between warfare in the past and the events that happened in their region of origin after Angolan independence in 1975. Although they process their experiences through recounting history, these refugees maintain that the incidence of torture, mutilation and massive killing after 1975 has no precedent in the area's history and forms an entirely new development. This article investigates the reasons for this posited modernity of killing, torture and mutilation. The placement of the recent events outside local history is shown to represent: an expression of outrage, anger and indignation at the army's treatment of the civilian population during the recent phase of the war. The outrage not only concerns the scale of the killing, torture and mutilation but is also linked with the issue of agency. The informants accuse UNITA army leaders in particular of wanton disregard for the lives and livelihood of their followers. They furthermore maintain that UNITA ordered ordinary soldiers to take part in killings which released powers the soldiers were unable to handle

Ariel - Volume 8 Number 3

Executive Editor James W. Lockard, Jr. Business Manager Neeraj K. Kanwal University News Richard J . Perry World News Doug Hiller Opinions Elizabeth A. McGuire Features Patrick P. Sokas Sports Desk Shahab S. Minassian Managing Editor Edward H. Jasper Managing Associate Brenda Peterson Photography Editor Robert D. Lehman. Jr. Graphics Christine M. Kuhnl

New Approaches to HIV Prevention: Accelerating Research and Ensuring Future Access

Summarizes the state of research on new HIV prevention approaches and recommends ways to accelerate research and ensure rapid access to new prevention methods

Some Introductory Notes on the Development and Characteristics of Sabah Malay

This is a preliminary description of the Malay variety used as a lingua franca in the Malaysian state of Sabah at the northernmost top of Borneo. The paper discusses a number of common linguistic features that distinguish Sabah Malay from other Malay varieties and analyses these features from a historical linguistic perspective. While it is argued that Sabah Malay has a close historical relation with other Malay dialects spoken in Borneo, especially Brunei Malay, the vernacular is also influenced phonologically and lexically by Sabah\u27s indigenous and immigrant speech communities. Words and sentences recorded or elicited during fieldwork in various parts of Sabah illustrate these points