All entries by this author

Rimsha Masih released, removed by helicopter *

Sep 8th, 2012 | Filed by

A Pakistani military helicopter plucked her from a prison yard on Saturday and flew her to a secret location after she was granted bail.… Read the rest



Hatred and the hijab

Sep 7th, 2012 6:03 pm | By

Via Lauryn Oates, a terrific article on the myth that the hijab protects women against sexual assault.

I was only 6 years old when my family was forced to flee the civil war in Afghanistan for Pakistan in the late 1980s. My sister, Neelo, who is five years older than me, was enrolled in a Saudi-funded Muslim Brotherhood-inspired public school for Afghan refugees. She, like many Muslim women, wore a simple headscarf.

I remember Neelo picking up her tiny bag, wrapping her scarf around her hair, and going to her first day of school. I also sadly remember her coming back from school that day and telling our parents: “The guards told me, ‘Either you are going to wear

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



The myth that hijab protects women *

Sep 7th, 2012 | Filed by

Even if the only part of a woman’s body that shows is her shadow, harassers will sexualize and fetishize it.… Read the rest



No emerald palace

Sep 7th, 2012 3:54 pm | By

The good news is, Rimsha has been granted bail. The bad news is, it’s about $10,500 or £6,200. The worse news is, would anyone keep her safe if she did make bail?

The BBC’s M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says Rimsha is the first person accused of blasphemy to have been granted bail by a trial court.

Blasphemy is not a bailable offence but her lawyers pleaded that she was a juvenile.

Blasphemy is not a bailable offence. Blasphemy is not a bailable offence. Would you believe it? It shouldn’t even be a crime, yet it’s such a crime that it’s not even bailable.

Honestly, you would think that Allah really existed and lived in an actual palace … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Kurdish DGHW

Sep 7th, 2012 3:41 pm | By

There was huge (two people) demand for a picture of the book so I took a video still. What Kurdish readers will see:

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Huge ugly cruise ships wrecking Venice *

Sep 7th, 2012 | Filed by

They are out of scale.… Read the rest



Arctic ice melting fast *

Sep 7th, 2012 | Filed by

“This is not some short-lived phenomenon – this is an ongoing trend. You lose more and more ice and it is accelerating.”… Read the rest



Canada closes Iranian embassy, kicks out diplomats *

Sep 7th, 2012 | Filed by

Foreign Minister’s statement said Canada viewed Iran “as the most significant threat to global peace and security in the world today”.… Read the rest



Pakistan: bail granted in “blasphemy” case *

Sep 7th, 2012 | Filed by

Blasphemy is not a bailable offence but her lawyers pleaded that she was a juvenile.… Read the rest



Fielding and MissSpidey

Sep 7th, 2012 11:32 am | By

Neil Denny of Little Atoms pointed out to me this piece on comedians using their fans to gang up on critics yesterday.

Being a public figure on the internet means having to deal with a barrage of abuse, which has been covered on this blog before, in my podcast interviews with Jonnie Marbles and Charlie Brooker.  It’s unpleasant and unnecessary, but people quickly become emboldened by the deindividuation that occurs when their identities are withheld, given that there’s no chance of getting a punch in the hooter.  Stewart Lee’s current show, Carpet Remnant World, involves a whittled down list of the most frothingly insane online critiques he could find on internet messageboards and social networking sites.  The “40,000 words

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Everyday sexism

Sep 7th, 2012 10:49 am | By

Just a small one, and utterly routine, but then that’s just it – it’s routine.

An ad I saw on tv last night, or half saw, because I was doing something else besides – probably playing “toss the squeaky hedgehog” with Cooper. Something about a thing for guys, a thing guys like, a guy type thing. A cable channel, or service, or something like that. Anyway the “don’t you wish you could join all this fun” part was guys watching a game on tv and doing the usual sporty chatter and laughter.

Line of dialogue:

He throws like my sister!

Jolly guyish laughter.

So. Young girls exposed to that get more twigs added to the stereotype that Girls Can’t Throw … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Chocolate chip ice cream

Sep 7th, 2012 10:02 am | By

There’s been a fair bit of discussion of Edwin Kagin’s post on atheism+ yesterday. I haven’t read most of it though, just seen it in passing. I want to comment on a couple of things.

We are now experiencing a most divisive phenomenon where some atheists are viciously excoriating other atheists for not embracing loudly enough certain of a list of worthy causes to which they are joined.

That seems a very back-to-front way of putting it. The vicious excoriation has been coming from a coalition of haters of feminism and of feminists and, arguably, of women in general. It’s been coming from them for more than a year. It comes with (at the extremes, and there are lots … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



More

Sep 6th, 2012 5:56 pm | By

Rebecca says she’s just going to do it more. I say that too, likewise.

Let’s do it more.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



That is some boring “story”

Sep 6th, 2012 5:07 pm | By

Ew. One of those Creepy Moments in Cyberstalking things, when you realize there’s a whole level of stalking you didn’t know about, and you’re being itted.

I hadn’t bothered to find out what Storify is. Then I saw a piquant tweet of Martin Robbins’s -

Martin Robbins@mjrobbins

40+ yesterday. When Mabus did this, skeptics were up in arms. When a deranged ‘skeptic’ targets women, silence. http://bit.ly/OTNg9Z

So I followed the link and found myself at the Storify of [shudder] the stalker behind ElevatorGATE, who took the time to make more than 40 stories out of Twitter conversations in one day. Including one of mine. Or maybe more, I don’t know.

I should start charging a percentage.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



In Kurdish

Sep 6th, 2012 4:38 pm | By

I got two copies today of Does God Hate Women? translated into Kurdish. The alphabet is Arabic.

The cover is beautiful. In pale green, with a faintly William Morris look, a woman’s face with snakes for her hair, a holy book, chains, lizards, a hand with an eye in the palm…very cool.

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



It’s all in your head

Sep 6th, 2012 12:30 pm | By

Misogyny? What misogyny?

I don’t know what you’re talking about! There is no misogyny!

Via Coffee Loving Skeptic on Facebook.… Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



A throwaway piece of old fashioned Australian slang

Sep 6th, 2012 9:41 am | By

An unpleasant man, who is the Executive Director of The Sydney Institute, a conservative think tank, talks some drearily familiar unpleasant crap about Jane Caro and sexist epithets and destroying the joint.

Who would have thought that a throwaway piece of old fashioned Australian slang  could, within a few days, become a matter of international interest?  But that’s  the modern world of instant communications , home to the ”IIA” syndrome.   Meaning ”insult, indignation, apology” in that order.

And?

That’s not necessarily a bad thing. If the “throwaway piece of old fashioned slang” (of whatever nationality) is a sexist or racist or homophobic epithet, it’s not automatically a bad thing if someone kicks up a fuss about it and attention is … Read the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Reporter stunned to learn that poverty makes people desperate

Sep 5th, 2012 4:50 pm | By

The BBC’s Rahul Tandon reports on a woman in India who gave her daughters away because she was too poor to give them a decent life.

Media reports in India suggested that she sold the girls for 185 rupees ($3; £2).

When I ask her if that is true, her voice rises: “I could never sell my children. I could never do such a thing. I gave them to good families where they would be well looked after.”

Purnima is now in a shelter in Bijoygunge, about 60km (37 miles) from Calcutta, and her daughters Piya (10), Supriya (eight) and Roma (four) have been reunited with her.

Even taking into account the helplessness of her situation, I find it hard

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



India: woman gives away daughters *

Sep 5th, 2012 | Filed by

Reporter is incredulous to discover poverty so desperate. Where’s he been?… Read the rest



California bans therapy aimed at ‘curing’ homosexuality

Sep 5th, 2012 | Filed by

The bill to prohibit children and teenagers from undergoing conversion therapy
was passed by a vote of 51 to 21.… Read the rest