Latest news with #MadameBovary
CTV News
3 days ago
- General
- CTV News
Boucherville restaurant Madame Bovary targeted by fire
A Longueuil police badge is shown in Longueuil, Que. (Source: Longueuil police) Madame Bovary, a restaurant in Boucherville on Montreal's South Shore, was targeted by fire early Friday morning. Longueuil police (SPAL) says it received a call at 3:40 a.m. from firefighters asking for assistance at the scene of a fire at 20 de Mortagne Blvd. 'The first information indicates that the fire was intentionally set,' said François Boucher, a spokesperson with Longueuil police. There were no reported injuries, and none of the neighbouring businesses suffered damages. Investigators remain on site to determine the circumstances surrounding the fire. Anyone with information is asked to contact 450-646-8500 or visit the Info-Azimut webpage.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
After a sometimes graphic debate, Texas House advances bill limiting kids' access to sexually explicit books in libraries
A debate in the Texas House over whether to limit children's access to books with sexually explicit material in libraries turned heated and philosophical Friday: What's the definition of sexual conduct? How should teens learn about sex? Are classics like The Bluest Eye and Madame Bovary explicit? 'This is a simple bill intended to protect our Texas kids,' Rep. Daniel Alders, R-Tyler and author of House Bill 3225, said on Friday. 'This bill addresses a real issue that we have seen in our public libraries across the state, and it does so in a way that is reasonable as well as effective. It's not a complicated bill. It shouldn't be controversial.' Nearly two hours of debate following the bill's layout stood to differ. Democrats lined up one after another, offering numerous amendments and rebuttals to argue that the bill was too sweeping and would restrict teenagers from accessing books that could help them make sense of typical teenage tribulations — from puberty and relationships to sex and masturbation. 'You are conflating sexually explicit or dangerous conduct with basic health information for puberty, which hits people in their early teen years,' Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, said in opposition to the proposal. House Bill 3225 would require public libraries to require parental consent for anyone under 18 to check out books deemed to contain 'sexually explicit' material. The bill defines such material as depicting 'sexual conduct,' which includes 'actual or simulated sexual intercourse,' 'masturbation,' and 'sado-masochistic abuse.' The bill allows for a civil penalty up to $10,000 to be imposed on libraries that do not comply, and it tasks the Texas State Library and Archives Commission with establishing guidelines for libraries to annually review their collections. The House preliminarily passed the bill, 82 to 53, on a largely party line vote. The measure is part of a broader effort by state leaders to more tightly control the books put in public libraries and remove sexually explicit literature. Critics have argued the efforts target books that explore themes of gender and sexuality, and that center LGBTQ characters and people of color. After one more vote in the House, usually a formality, the bill will move on to the Senate. Books that could fall under the bill's definition of 'sexually explicit' include classics and common high school reading including Wuthering Heights, The Lord of the Rings, As I Lay Dying and Catch-22, Rep. Erin Zwiener, D-Driftwood, said. (The bill maintains an exception for 'religious materials.') She emphasized the value of teens reading and engaging with stories that covered topics like puberty and sex, and argued that public libraries were a preferable site to social media for teens to learn about those topics. 'It is actually incredibly valuable for our young people to have the opportunity to enter the lives and experiences of others, to figure out how they feel about some of these things,' Zwiener said. 'Reading a book about another 16-year-old who is making a decision about whether or not to have sex helps that minor who's reading that book make a good decision.' She offered an amendment to lower the bill's age restrictions to apply only to those under 13 years old. Lawmakers rejected the amendment, 86 to 58. 'We all know that the five-year-old and the 17-year-old are very different,' Zwiener said. 'Teenagers have a different experience. They need access to different information. Being minors does not prevent them from potentially ending up in a sexual situation.' Republicans said that the bill would not regulate the kinds of information young people could access, and simply seeks to give that ability to parents. More importantly, they argued, the bill would protect children from unwittingly encountering explicit material. 'It's important that we protect our kids in the state of Texas and ensure that they can access the books in their public library for their benefit, for their good,' Alders said, 'and are not confronted unknowingly with material that is going to potentially traumatize them for the rest of their life.' Democrats said they agreed that children should be protected from pornographic material, and noted that it is already illegal to share pornography with minors. But the bill, they argued, was misguided and overly broad. And they worried it could functionally lead public libraries to deny teens access to any book outside the children's section. 'The over sexualization of children is a problem — but it ain't happening in your public libraries,' Johnson said, adding that she felt like she was in the movie, 'Footloose.' Libraries are 'a healthy place of education,' she said. 'And for all these parents that always say, 'I don't want my kid to get access to this information,' — I promise you, they are getting access to the information. And the ones you should not be afraid of are the books that are in your public library.' The debate itself grew personal and graphic at times, with Johnson pressing Alders on the definitions of 'sexual bestiality' and 'sado-masochistic abuse,' and on when he, as a teenage boy decades ago, first learned about masturbation. 'Masturbation. Do we know about it?' Johnson said. Alders denied that it was a tenant of standard health education. 'Masturbation is not basic teenage health? Do you really, as a young man, want to describe to me when you had to learn about that?' Johnson said. 'I would bet, at some point, you as a young man needed to have the discussion with somebody about what masturbation meant.' 'That's not a question I expected to be asked on the House floor,' Alders said. Zwiener, advocating for her amendment lowering the age restriction to those under 13, shared that she was sexually assaulted at 17 years old — and reflected on the difference a book mirroring her experience could have made. 'The right book might have helped me figure out that I didn't make a mistake — that somebody wronged me — much earlier,' she said. She highlighted a scene in The Perks of Being A Wallflower, a young adult novel, in which a young man witnesses a sexual assault at a party and understands that something wrong is happening. 'That's a scene that encourages our teenagers to intervene if they see sexual assault occurring,' she said. 'It is a scene that encourages teenagers to be mindful of consent when they're in situations with each other, and it's a scene that helps victims of sexual assault understand it's not their fault. Our teenagers should have access to books that help them learn those lessons, regardless of whether or not their parent will sign a permission slip.' First round of TribFest speakers announced! Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Maureen Dowd; U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-San Antonio; Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker; U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff, D-California; and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas are taking the stage Nov. 13–15 in Austin. Get your tickets today!
Sydney Morning Herald
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Google translate? No thanks, these writers prove their human worth
Consider Homer's Odyssey, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, even the Bible – most English speakers will only ever know these texts in translation. For us to read it, someone with keen knowledge of the original language has taken apart, studied and interpreted every word, re-creating the author's vision for an entirely new audience. It's a behemoth task, and one that is still undertaken on an innumerable number of texts by translators who invariably operate behind the scenes, receiving little public recognition. Today, some are being replaced by artificial intelligence. Translation Slam, an event at this year's Melbourne Writers Festival, aims to correct this by exposing the crucial art of translation. Two translators will go head to head, each translating the same vignette by Argentine horror author Mariana Enriquez into Australian English. They will examine the differences between their work, which will be projected side by side onto a large screen, alongside host and fellow translator Dr Gabriel Garcia Ochoa. Loading 'Translation provides an innumerable number of possibilities to interpret a text,' Ochoa says. 'Two translations are so seldom the same. For this event, I highlighted only about three instances where the translators wrote the same sentence.' This is because translating literature isn't like solving an equation. Rather, it's an art form. Translators aren't simply converting a text linguistically from one language to another, Ochoa says, but from one culture to another. 'The meaning isn't only tied to the words, but to the cultural weight that those words carry,' he says. 'For example, I grew up in Mexico, where Spanish was my first language. There, the way class structures work is often unspoken. In a text, that would be clear to someone who was brought up in that cultural context, but very unclear if you're not from that culture.' Every translator will therefore leave some kind of imprint on the text they're interpreting, says Translation Slam participant Alice Whitmore. 'Translators aren't ghosts or magicians. We leave traces. Even if you were to translate a text as literally as possible, you would be altering the text in a distinct and measurable way,' she says.
The Age
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Google translate? No thanks, these writers prove their human worth
Consider Homer's Odyssey, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, even the Bible – most English speakers will only ever know these texts in translation. For us to read it, someone with keen knowledge of the original language has taken apart, studied and interpreted every word, re-creating the author's vision for an entirely new audience. It's a behemoth task, and one that is still undertaken on an innumerable number of texts by translators who invariably operate behind the scenes, receiving little public recognition. Today, some are being replaced by artificial intelligence. Translation Slam, an event at this year's Melbourne Writers Festival, aims to correct this by exposing the crucial art of translation. Two translators will go head to head, each translating the same vignette by Argentine horror author Mariana Enriquez into Australian English. They will examine the differences between their work, which will be projected side by side onto a large screen, alongside host and fellow translator Dr Gabriel Garcia Ochoa. Loading 'Translation provides an innumerable number of possibilities to interpret a text,' Ochoa says. 'Two translations are so seldom the same. For this event, I highlighted only about three instances where the translators wrote the same sentence.' This is because translating literature isn't like solving an equation. Rather, it's an art form. Translators aren't simply converting a text linguistically from one language to another, Ochoa says, but from one culture to another. 'The meaning isn't only tied to the words, but to the cultural weight that those words carry,' he says. 'For example, I grew up in Mexico, where Spanish was my first language. There, the way class structures work is often unspoken. In a text, that would be clear to someone who was brought up in that cultural context, but very unclear if you're not from that culture.' Every translator will therefore leave some kind of imprint on the text they're interpreting, says Translation Slam participant Alice Whitmore. 'Translators aren't ghosts or magicians. We leave traces. Even if you were to translate a text as literally as possible, you would be altering the text in a distinct and measurable way,' she says.
Washington Post
11-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
In ‘Crush,' monogamy is put to the test
Early in Ada Calhoun's debut novel, 'Crush,' the narrator asks, 'Why were so many tales about women's sexuality so depressing?' Even if you can't still taste the arsenic on Madame Bovary's lips, you know she's right. Women may — for the moment — be allowed to vote, own property and wear pants, but how they pursue and experience erotic pleasure remains more closely supervised than the purification of uranium. Of course, they're free to step outside the confines of monogamy whenever they want, so long as they keep walking toward the waves.
