A long time ago, when the world was young, John Fowles wrote a fascinating novel called The Collector. It was about a socially inept young man who collected butterflies and then inherited some money and hit on the bright idea of collecting a young woman, which he did. He bought an isolated house and fitted up a bunker in the basement, then collected the woman he’d been stalking and locked her up in it. After a year or so she developed pneumonia and died in the bunker (after begging him to get a doctor) and the novel ends with his stalking a new candidate.

Much of the novel is the diary of Miranda Grey, the collected woman, and she’s … Read the rest

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Well not exactly new, because this was last January, but it’s new to me. I’m quite amazed by it.

Karla Porter tweets

@wbcshirl Have u heard of Women in Secularism 2 and if so, will u grace it with your presence? http://womeninsecularism.org #wiscfi

Shirley Phelps-Roper tweets

@karla_porter Where do they show themselves? Is there a schedule?

Karla Porter tweets

@wbcshirl schedule not up yet May 17-19 wash DC

That’s Shirley Phelps-Roper of the Westboro Baptist Church. She’s the spokesperson of the Westboro Baptist Church.

That is, indeed, a novel way to stir up trouble.

Update May 7

Justin Vacula tweets

If Ophelia Benson really wants WBC at Women in Secularism 2, I can call Steve Drain and

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Jim Underdown puts in a good word for this funny new-fangled plan of having a conference that puts secularism and women together, and for the general idea of reaching out to particular groups by, you know, reaching out to them.

I look forward to being at the Women in Secularism conference next week. The line-up is chock-full of smart, interesting speakers, many of the attendees are friends and colleagues, and D.C. is a great place to spend a weekend.

Not everyone feels that way. Some of the people who are not going are not just passing on the conference, they’re also criticizing that it’s happening at all. It’s not needed; it’s a waste of resources; it dilutes our mission, they

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Is skepticism a “movement” or is it not?

When I read PZ’s post saying goodbye to skepticism yesterday I first thought no, it isn’t, but then thought of all those conferences and events and thought well ok maybe it is. But – I’ve now reverted to “no, it isn’t,” not in the sense that a “movement” is usually understood.

Massimo Pigliucci and Michael DeDora exchanged some tweets about it just now, in the wake of Massimo’s post on PZ’s post and the larger subject. They compared the Civil Rights Movement and the specificity of its goals.

Michael De Dora‏ @mdedora

@mpigliucci Civil Rights Movement had specific and widely agreed upon social and political goals. Can same be said

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Oh, ew. Sometimes people are so gross that I’d prefer to be a tortoise. Like the people who made Obama-resembling targets to sell at gun conventions. You can see the images at Talking Points Memo – I don’t want them garbaging up this place.

It’s disgusting, that kind of shit, but it’s also dangerous. Whipping up people’s murderous rages is dangerous, because guess what, sometimes people act on their murderous rages.

At its convention in Houston, over the weekend, the National Rifle Association asked a vendor to take down a mannequin target that looked like President Barack Obama, Buzzfeed reported on Sunday. 

The vendor, Zombie Industries, produces “life-sized tactical mannequin” targets that “bleed” when shot. Photographs of the company’s booth

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So now I’m reading up on Hefazat-e-Islam. The Guardian had a useful piece on April 16.

It starts with tensions, clashes, religious conservatives versus more moderate, progressive voices.

The most recent development is the emergence of a radical conservative Muslim party, Hefazat-e-Islam, as the standard bearer of the religious right. Earlier this month, at a huge rally in Dhaka attended by more than 100,000 according to police, the party issued 13 demands. They included the introduction of measures to stop “alien culture” making inroads in Bangladesh, the reinstatement of the line “absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah” in the nation’s constitution, which is largely secular, and a ban on new statues in public places.

They … Read the rest

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Well this is scary. Not to say terrifying. As many as half a million Islamists protested in Dhaka to demand the death penalty for everybody who irritated them, according to the BBC.

Clashes between police and Islamist protesters in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka have left at least three people dead and 60 injured.

Up to half a million Hefazat-e Islam supporters gathered in the city, where rioters set fire to shops and vehicles.

The activists are calling for those who insult Islam to face the death penalty.

God damn. That’s the whole population of Seattle! Imagine a whole big city’s worth of people out in the streets to demand death for people who refuse to suck up to a particular … Read the rest

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The bad idea is contained in

legislation drafted by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), chair of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Smith’s bill would require NSF to promise that any research it funds “advance[s]” national health, prosperity, and security, “is ground breaking,” and is not being supported by another federal agency. In a statement released 30 April, Smith said the bill “improves” on NSF’s current process of peer review “by adding a layer of accountability” intended to “ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent on the highest-quality research.”

Well yes, but there are some layers of accountability that are the wrong kind to add. You could pass a law saying all surgeries are required … Read the rest

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Miri has a great post on street harassment. One interesting bit:

Some men who want to compliment random women on the street are genuinely good guys who just don’t understand why their comments might be unwelcome. Some men who want to compliment random women on the street are creepy predators. Most are somewhere in between, and guess what? I don’t know you, I don’t know your life, and I have no idea if you’re going to leave it at “Hey, you look good in that dress!” or follow it up with “But you’d look better without it! Har har! C’mon, where’re you going? I know you heard me! Fucking cunt, nobody wants your fat ass anyway, bitch.”

When you

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Scott Benson’s (no relation) But I’m a Nice Guy

A quick editorial cartoon about the intersection of self-pity, entitlement, rape, territoriality, misogyny and fear of women. You see it all over the place online in the form of Men’s Rights Activists (of whom there are a few reasonable non-misogynists), Men Going Their Own Way, Pick Up Artists, and dudes touting the “Red Pill”, because The Matrix is a good movie. Look any of these up if you have the stomach for it. These are extreme examples, but watered-down forms of these ideas are everywhere.

In lurking their blogs and youtube channels for a while, I’ve noticed that beyond the standard patriarchal chauvinism there is this deep fear of women –

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First, do no harm. That’s a good rule for all of us, not just doctors.

It would be a good rule for anti-vaxxers to pay far more attention to. Consider Marita Howell, who runs a daycare facility in Maroubra, in New South Wales.

Maroubra is one of the nine local areas in NSW identified by the National Health Performance Authority as being “at risk” of outbreaks because of vaccination rates of below 85 per cent.

And you know what else? Howell has a son, age 14, who had chemo for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The chemo destroyed his immune system. He was too sick for school, so he was recuperating at the daycare facility. And oh whoops, two unvaccinated children fuelled an … Read the rest

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May 4

First thing in the morning. Again, why Twitter blocking doesn’t work – because any old asshole can reply to someone you’ve blocked and then her sniping at you turns up in your feed. Lucky you.

AmbrosiaX tweets

One more thing, @OpheliaBenson , try doing some actual critical thinking instead of just applauding any article that makes men look bad.

Pfunk-the original @ Gluonsrule tweets

@AmbrosiaX@OpheliaBenson yeah, maybe that will happen.

“One more thing” is it – so there’s a whole series then. “AmbrosiaX” is obsessed with me, and I don’t even know who the fuck she is apart from being someone who spends hours every day sniping at me and other Hated Ones. Yet … Read the rest

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Josh is wondering why the Obama admin is doing this.

I don’t know, but I think it’s the usual Democratic Party always-feint-to-the-right thing. Why the Democratic Party has such a thing, I also don’t know, but it certainly does. It’s why I don’t always vote for the Dem candidate for president (and then get in huge arguments that go on for years). It seems to me that the only way to convince them that there is a cost in alienating their own side too is to make it cost.

Or maybe in this case it’s not so much a feint to the right as that other fatal urge to be always seen as more Normal and Average and Majority … Read the rest

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Last month a US district judge ordered the FDA to make the morning-after pill available to females of any age without a prescription. This week the Justice Department announced that it would appeal the ruling.

The judge’s ruling was in response to a lawsuit launched by the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The group was seeking to expand access to all brands of the morning-after pill over the counter, such as Plan B One-Step and Next Choice, so that females of all ages would be able to purchase them without a prescription.

Supporters of the ruling called it a landmark decision, while opponents raised concerns about safeguards being eliminated.

“Safeguards” against teenage girls being able to say no to being … Read the rest

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