The UN says Ireland’s investigation into mother and baby homes isn’t good enough.

It says the Commission of Investigation as established may not uncover all abuses inflicted on women and girls in these homes, the perpetrators of which should be “prosecuted and punished”.

In its “concluding observations” report – following examination of Ireland last month – the UN Committee on the elimination of discrimination against women (CEDAW) says Ireland has, “failed to establish an independent, thorough and effective investigation, in line with international standards, into all allegations of abuse, ill-treatment or neglect of women and children in the Magdalene laundries in order [to] establish the role of the State and church in the perpetration of alleged violations”.

The terms

Point of order.

The word is not “close-minded.” It’s “closed-minded.”

I see the former written more and more, no doubt because the two sound alike when spoken. But come on – what would “close-minded” even mean? The mind in question is closed, to new ideas or information or argument. It’s a Trump-style mind.

Thank you for your compliance in this matter.… Read the rest

I saw dark murmurs about a pattern on Facebook a couple of days ago and wasn’t sure how well founded they were, but now that the Independent is murmuring…

When Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations died suddenly in New York last week, he became the sixth Russian diplomat to die unexpectedly since November, leaving internet conspiracy theorists trying to spot a pattern.

Vitaly Churkin, 64, was rushed to hospital from his office at Russia’s UN mission on 20 February, after becoming ill without warning on his way in to work.

It was initially reported that Mr Churkin may have suffered a heart attack, but following an autopsy medical examiners said the death required further study.

Media company

Samantha Bee and Jo Miller were on Fresh Air yesterday; it was good.

An excerpt:

Jo Miller is the head writer and showrunner.

GROSS: Let’s get back to, Jo, your work studying medieval Jewish history and planning to become a history teacher or a history professor. Was there a part of you thinking, what I really want to do is comedy, but I can’t do that…

MILLER: Yes.

GROSS: …I can’t become a comedian or a comic writer, so I’d better just keep to history?

MILLER: Yes. Yes.

GROSS: Why did you think that?

MILLER: Because I’m a girl.

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER: I hate myself like girls do. That’s exactly why. I was in – well, when Lizz Winstead started

Allison Stanger, a political scientist at Middlebury, wrote:

I agreed to participate in the event with Charles Murray, because several of my students asked me to do so. They are smart and good people, all of them, and this was their big event of the year. I actually welcomed the opportunity to be involved, because while my students may know I am a Democrat, all of my courses are nonpartisan, and this was a chance to demonstrate publicly my commitment to a free and fair exchange of views in my classroom. As the campus uproar about his visit built, I was genuinely surprised and troubled to learn that some of my faculty colleagues had rendered judgement on Dr. Murray’s

The Times on that secret Facebook group for male Marines to degrade women.

Now the Defense Department has opened a criminal investigation and the Marine Corps is facing its latest unwanted controversy after it was revealed over the weekend that a secret online Facebook group of active-duty and veteran Marines shared thousands of naked and private photos of Marine Corps women.

The invitation-only group, called Marines United and made up of more than 30,000 active duty Marines and veterans, built online dossiers on Marine women without their knowledge or consent, listing dozens of women’s names, ranks, social media handles and where they are stationed.

…

Several Marines said the Marines United postings are an evolution of a retaliatory practice

Sarah Ditum in the Independent on Jenni Murray and the BBC and who gets to say what a woman is:

Jenni Murray has presented the BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for 30 years, and she’s been a woman for even longer than that. At the weekend, the Sunday Times published an article by her titled “Be trans, be proud — but don’t call yourself a ‘real woman’”. Under that headline, Murray criticised some claims of trans activism (and she was careful to say she was talking about the extreme of the debate): that anyone who identifies as a woman has “always been a woman” no matter the age at which they transition, and that references to the female body

One more Donnie bulletin, because it’s kind of funny, and because it’s about how miserable and furious he is.

He had a bad weekend. A bad bad weekend. Ivanka and Jared were with him but they couldn’t mellow him out.

Trump was mad — steaming, raging mad.

Trump’s young presidency has existed in a perpetual state of chaos. The issue of Russia has distracted from what was meant to be his most triumphant moment: his address last Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. And now his latest unfounded accusation — that Barack Obama tapped Trump’s phones during last fall’s campaign — had been denied by the former president and doubted by both allies and fellow Republicans.

Well if … Read the rest

Jenni Murray, longstanding presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, wrote a piece for yesterday’s Times (the London one) about women and trans women. We all know what happened next.

The reporting, predictably, is not accurate. It never is, is it. Maev Kennedy at the Guardian for instance led with this:

A chorus of protest – and some support – has greeted an article by the broadcaster Jenni Murray, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, that questioned the claims of transgender women to be considered “real women”.

That “real women” is tricksy, because in fact it’s Murray herself who put it in scare quotes, but that’s not what that sentence looks like, is it. I’ll just quote the … Read the rest

Now for the Reveal article.

The U.S. Department of Defense is investigating hundreds of Marines who used social media to solicit and share hundreds — possibly thousands — of naked photographs of female service members and veterans.

Since Jan. 30, more than two dozen women – many on active duty, including officers and enlisted service members – have been identified by their full name, rank and military duty station in photographs posted and linked to from a private Facebook page.

In one instance, a female corporal in uniform was followed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, by a fellow Marine, who surreptitiously photographed her as she picked up her gear. Those photographs were posted on the Facebook group Marines United,

Remember Tailhook? This may be even worse.

The Marine Corps is looking into allegations that an unknown number of potential Marines, as well as current and former service members, shared naked and compromising photos of their colleagues on social media, Marine officials said Sunday.

The allegations were first reported by the War Horse and published Saturday through the website Reveal. The author, a Marine veteran and Purple Heart recipient, as well as members of his family, have received numerous death threats since the article was first published. It is unclear how many people are involved in the scandal and how many photos were posted online.

I read the War Horse/Reveal account yesterday last thing, when I didn’t have the … Read the rest

The Journal.ie publishes, via Catherine Corless, the names of the 796 children who died at the Tuam “Mother and Baby Home” i.e. prison for unmarried mothers and their babies.

Very few pictures from the home exist but thanks to the tireless work of historian Catherine Corless, we do have the names of 796 children who died there between 1925 and 1960.

The infant mortality rate at the home was double that of even other mother and baby homes around the country at the time. Young children in the Tuam home succumbed to deaths from afflictions as heartbreakingly banal as the flu and, although only in a small number of cases, ear infections.

Flu is far from always “banal,” but that’s … Read the rest

Olivia Becker at Vice reports that reproductive rights activists are resisting the right wing campaign to make women prisoners of their own pregnancies, in Republican strongholds as well as less hostile territory.

In Missouri — which has some of the harshest anti-abortion laws on the books —  Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill to recognize abortion “as an essential component of women’s healthcare” and that it “shall be made affordable and accessible throughout the state and integrated into the health care safety net.”

…

Some of these bills have already been shot down. In Virginia, Democrats introduced one of the most comprehensive pro-choice measures this year in the form of Whole Women’s Health Act, which sought to make sure that