Gail Dines wonders why the outrage of what was done to David Dao is so obvious while the outrage of what’s done to women in porn is so obscure.

People saw the video, put themselves in Dao’s place, and came to the very sensible conclusion that what they were watching was a level of callous brutality that is unacceptable in a civil society. Andrea Dworkin would not have found our empathy strange because, despite her sadness and anger at the cruelty in the world, she always had faith in the ability for people to do the right thing.

What is strange, however, is that there is no public outcry over porn. You can type “porn” into Google and in 10

I was chatting with latsot on Twitter about worrying or weird or cryptic song lyrics and mentioned Emmylou Harris’s “If You Were a Bluebird” as the most random song lyrics of my acquaintance. So then I decided I needed to revisit them to see, and yes, they’re still that random.

If you were a bluebird you’d be a sad one.
I’d give you a true word
But you’ve already had one.

If you were a bluebird,
You’d be crying
You’d be flying home.

The way Emmylou sings it, it seems to mean something…but then when you think about the words with your brain, you see that there is no something that the words mean. You’ve already had one? You’d be … Read the rest

Foreign Policy on the death of modern Turkey:

The new country called Turkey, quite unlike the Ottoman Empire, was structured along modern lines. It was to be administered by executive and legislative branches, as well as a Council of Ministers composed of elected representatives of the parliament. What had once been the authority of the sultan, who ruled alone with political and ecclesiastic legitimacy, was placed in the hands of legislators who represented the sovereignty of the people.

The yes vote represents a rejection of all that.

The AKP and supporters of the “yes” vote argue that the criticism of the constitutional amendments was unfair. They point out that the changes do not undermine a popularly elected parliament and

Caroline Criado-Perez has some thoughts on Fearless Girl versus Raging Bull, and whether or not artists get to have a veto on artistic responses to their work.

She knows something about statues and women, especially in the UK. The upshot: there are very few statues of women, especially of women on their own; most of the ones there are represent mythical or royal women; this matters.

I will admit to not having counted all the statues in the US, but given the recent news that every statue in statue-filled Sofia is of a man; given there are more statues of animals in Edinburgh than of women; given in New York’s Central Park there are 22 statues of men and

Seen on Facebook:

… Read the rest

Spicey does Passover.

… Read the rest

Hurriyet reports:

Some 51.3 percent of the more than 58 million Turkish voters said “yes” to the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) constitutional amendment package in a tight race to decide on whether to shift to an executive presidential system.

The gap between the two votes stood at around 1.3 million according to midnight figures by the state-run Anadolu Agency. The turnout exceeded 84 percent.

So there will be more Erdoğan, and more and more and more. He’ll never leave.

Authoritarians are on a roll.

The BBC’s Mark Lowen in Ankara:

They are rejoicing into the night here outside the headquarters of the governing AK party (AKP), confident in the victory claimed by President Erdogan.

He and

Nick Cohen looks at the hatred of the nationalist right for George Soros.

During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump ruled that Americans protesting against him were “professional” agitators. Roger Stone, who has worked for the filthy wing of the right since Nixon’s day, followed up by announcing he had discovered the agitators were “paid for” by none other than Soros.

Now it is commonplace for right-wing Americans to say that only Soros’s corrupt influence can explain why their fellow citizens take to the streets. A typically sly report in the Washington Times said one in three Trump voters believed Soros paid protesters to join the women’s march on Trump’s inauguration day.

One in three Trump voters believe a … Read the rest

Alt-right fake news impresario Mike Cernovich is threatening everyone in sight if anything bad happens to that wonderful guy Steve Bannon.

Cernovich made the claims that he’d release a series of “scoops” if Bannon is officially pushed out of the White House on an eleven-minute, self-recorded Periscope Thursday night.

“If they get rid of Bannon, you know what’s gonna happen? The motherlode. If Bannon is removed, there are gonna be divorces, because I know about the mistresses, the sugar babies, the drugs, the pill popping, the orgies. I know everything,” said Cernovich.

“If they go after Bannon, the mother of all stories is gonna drop, and we’re just gonna destroy marriages, relationships—it’s gonna get personal.”

Such lovely people.

Alt-right leaders

Yes but sexism is over, women have all the rights and freedoms men have now, there is nothing left to object to or campaign for and anyone who thinks otherwise is just playing victim and a horrible tribal SJW and Regressive Leftist. Sexism is over.

Last fall, in the weeks after 21st Century Fox struck settlements with two women who said that Bill O’Reilly had sexually harassed them, the Fox News host went on morning television and offered a harsh assessment of women who had come forward with complaints about the network.

“Look, it’s open season,” he said, visibly irritated, when asked about a recently published book by Megyn Kelly, his colleague at the time. In the

Today in measles outbreaks:

Three in Hennepin County, Minnesota.

The Minnesota Department of Health is investigating three measles cases.

All three patients are toddlers from Hennepin County. State health officials say they haven’t figured out how the children contracted the disease and are trying to track down anyone who may have had contact with them.

Most people who get measles in the United States have contracted the disease while traveling abroad or from someone who has recently traveled overseas. That’s not the case for these children, said Kris Ehresmann, the state health department’s infectious disease director.

They had not been vaccinated.

Most people in Minnesota are vaccinated against measles. But the state health department said immunization rates among some

So we’re playing “Let’s Relive the Cuban Missile Crisis!” these days. I’d so much rather not.

China has warned that “conflict could break out at any moment” as tension over North Korea increases.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi said if war occurred there could be no winner.

I wonder if possibly it was a mistake to elect a narcissistic ignorant bully president at this particular moment.

Adding to Chinese unease, President Donald Trump said on Thursday that “the problem of North Korea” would be “taken care of”.

“If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A.”

That was a tweet. It wasn’t something he said in a press release or … Read the rest

In Livonia, Michigan:

A Michigan doctor has been accused of performing genital cutting on two 7-year-old girls at a medical clinic, in a case that federal officials believe to be the first prosecution under a law banning the brutal practice.

The doctor, Jumana Nagarwala, 44, was arrested on Wednesday on charges that she performed the genital cutting at an unnamed medical clinic in Livonia, Mich.; transported minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity; and lied to federal agents.

“Cutting” aka mutilation.

One of the girls told investigators that she thought she and the other girl had gone to the doctor because “our tummies hurt.” The other said the cutting procedure was so painful that she screamed and

Well that figures.

The new acting head of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights once complained that she experienced discrimination because she is white.

As an undergraduate studying calculus at Stanford University in the mid-1990s, Candice Jackson “gravitated” toward a section of the class that provided students with extra help on challenging problems, she wrote in a student publication. Then she learned that the section was reserved for minority students.

“I am especially disappointed that the University encourages these and other discriminatory programs,” she wrote in the Stanford Review. “We need to allow each person to define his or her own achievements instead of assuming competence or incompetence based on race.”

I don’t see color! All … Read the rest

Michael Shermer’s been shedding his light on the world again.

Sure, by all means, talk about it, but don't obsess over it, don't assume everyone is a racist, & don't try to find racism in everything. https://t.co/g2QcyiQBkR

— Michael Shermer (@michaelshermer) April 12, 2017

The “it” in “talk about it” is race and racism. Shermer with his 118 thousand followers says sure by all means talk about race and racism but do it within these limits prescribed by him.

That’s not a good look. It’s not a good look for a prosperous white guy to issue short sharp instructions on how much and in what manner people can talk about racism.

But it gets worse.

No! If you are against

So they can just say anything, and then say its opposite a few months later, and not be held to account – even when the “anything” in question involves existential threats to the polity and the country.

In his first speech as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo, the former Republican congressman who once applauded disclosures by WikiLeaks, attacked the group on Thursday as a stateless hostile intelligence unit eager to do the bidding of Russia and other American adversaries.

“WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service,” Mr. Pompeo said. To support his assessment, he cited how the group had encouraged followers to join the C.I.A. and steal