An open letter from PEN South Africa:

The savage attack on Zainub Dala shows the terror of the freedom to use words, and the desire to obliterate them.

On Wednesday March 18 author, Zainub Priya Dala was violently attacked as she left her hotel during the Time of the Writer Festival in Durban. A woman driving alone, she was harassed by three men who forced her off the road, cornered her, held a knife at her throat, smashed a brick in her face, and called her “Rushdie’s bitch”. The day before she had been asked about writers she admired: Salman Rushdie’s name had figured on a long list of others. People walked out in protest.

Writers do not fear

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

There’s a program at Duke, the You Don’t Say? campaign, in which student athletes say why it’s not cool to use a particular slur.

One sample:

You Don’t Say? Campaign

I had to look through a lot of them to find it, but there is one for “cunt.”

 … Read the rest

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

Humphrey and the boys agree that in principle they’re all in favor. Oh yes certainly. We’re all thoroughly in favor of equal rights for the ladies.

As Sir Humphrey says…

And speaking as an ardent feminist myself -

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhZRDoGZg00

H/t Cassidy McJones… Read the rest

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

Via Musawah – in India the Supreme Court ruled against polygamy.

In a historic decision last month, the Supreme Court denied a Muslim man the right to have more than one wife and upheld his termination from employment for committing bigamy. The court observed that polygamy was not integral to Islam and the practice was not mandated by religion simply because it was permitted. Similarly, in 2005, the SC had boldly acknowledged that, despite codification and the introduction of monogamy, too many Hindu marriages, like Muslim marriages, continue to be bigamous. This latest SC decision is in line with the reform of Muslim personal law that it initiated three decades ago in the Shah Bano case.

In a catena

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

More river graphics.

The Missouri has such an eccentric course. Poor Lewis and Clark, thinking it was just going to flow tidily west into the Pacific and be a super-useful transportation route.

Missouri river basin (Wikimedia Commons)

West! North! West! North north north north! Westnorthwestnorthwest west west west SOUTH!

And then it breaks into three smaller ones and the Pacific is still way over on the other side of a lot of mountains.

And then look at the comparative volumes. I had NO idea the Ohio was 20 times the size of the other two.

Wikimedia

H/t Alex

The Mississippi is really the Ohio. Who knew??

… Read the rest

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

I got curious, for some reason I don’t remember, about what causes one river to flow into another, so I did some Google-work and found a big ol’ source on rivers in Virginia. I love this one graphic:

(Source: USGS National Atlas)

Rivers rivers everywhere!… Read the rest

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

Here’s the thing. If you have a conspicuous history of complaining about “American women” objecting to what you consider trivial problems like sexual harassment, it’s silly for you to insist that you’re an “ardent feminist.” You can’t do both, as the saying goes. You can take constant potshots at feminism, or you can be an ardent feminist, but you can’t do both. You can claim you’re an ardent feminist while taking constant potshots at feminism, but it won’t be an honest claim.

Just last November – such a short time ago – Kimberly Winston made clear what a yawning gap there is between the claims to be a passionate feminist and the reality.

Bottom line: He stands by everything he

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

Shulevitz ends that op-ed with a story that needs separate treatment, because it’s a whole other issue, and one I have very strong feelings about.

A few weeks ago, Zineb El Rhazoui, a journalist at Charlie Hebdo, spoke at the University of Chicago, protected by the security guards she has traveled with since supporters of the Islamic State issued death threats against her. During the question-and-answer period, a Muslim student stood up to object to the newspaper’s apparent disrespect for Muslims and to express her dislike of the phrase “I am Charlie.”

Ms. El Rhazoui replied, somewhat irritably, “Being Charlie Hebdo means to die because of a drawing,” and not everyone has the guts to do that (although she didn’t

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

I saw an oped by Judith Shulevitz being passed around by a lot of AntiSocialJusticeWarriors yesterday, so I’m reading it. It’s about safe spaces and avoiding scary ideas and all that – a familiar enough subject.

If her account is accurate there is some very silly stuff out there, but it’s not clear whether it’s just some patches of eccentricity or a pervasive trend. Still…let’s look at a patch or trend, whichever it is. There was a debate on rape culture at Brown University, for instance.

Meanwhile, student volunteers put up posters advertising that a “safe space” would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.

The safe space, Ms. Byron explained, was intended to give people who

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

In Kabul last week:

An Afghan woman who was lynched after being falsely accused of burning the Koran was killed for tackling superstitious practices, witnesses say.

Farkhunda, who was beaten to death by a Kabul mob last week, had been arguing with a mullah about his practice of selling charms to women at a shrine.

In the course of the argument she was accused of burning the Koran and a crowd overheard and beat her to death.

Some people murdered a woman over a single copy of a particular book. She wouldn’t have burned “the Koran,” by the way, even if she’d done it, which she didn’t. She would at most have burned a Koran. It’s not a scarce … Read the rest

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

So this happened. The Irish Independent reports:

Maryam Namazie was due to give a talk to the Society for International Affairs on Monday on ‘Apostasy and the rise of Islam’ but decided to withdraw from the event after college security imposed “certain conditions”.

“I’ve just been informed… that college security (why security?) has claimed that the event would show the college is ‘one-sided’ and would be ‘antagonising’ to Muslim students,” she wrote on her blog.

…

“I was told that two conditions were required for the event to go ahead; one, that it only be open to students of the college, and two, that there would be a moderator to chair the talk”.

Speaking to Independent.ie, Ms Namazie

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

Una Vida Chaco Canyon rock art, enhanced.

Wvbailey

Kivas at Pueblo Bonito Chaco Canyon Ruins.

Wvbailey

Just leave it alone mkay?… Read the rest

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

Let’s see, where are some places it wouldn’t be a good idea to subject to fracking. The center of Florence, probably. Machu Picchu. The Great Wall. Giza. Stonehenge. Chaco Canyon.

Oh wait – that last one can’t be right.

The renowned Native astronomical and sacred site of Chaco Canyon and its environs may be in danger from encroaching fracking wells, environmental groups fear.

“They are not thinking about the spirituality of those lands,” said Jemez Pueblo governor Joshua Madalena to theDurango Heraldin New Mexico, referring to the companies that are conducting hydraulic fracturing in the area.

With companies on the verge of investing millions of dollars into fracking enterprises, a group calling itself the Partnership for Responsible Business took

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

The shutting down of the LSE rugger club came swiftly, after no one copped to writing the leaflet.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, Nona Buckley-Irvine, general secretary of LSE students’ union, said the club would be disbanded for the academic year after the flyer handed out at the freshers’ fair on Friday described women as “mingers”, “trollops” and “slags”.

The club apologised for the offending booklet, which said “outright homosexual debauchery” would not be tolerated and that women playing sports were “beast-like”. The leaflets were confiscated after uproar among students. The LSE and the students’ union launched an inquiry on Monday.

That’s still this academic year, so they’ll be back next autumn, probably with a good deal more … Read the rest

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

Hmmmmmmyes. Holding my nose and watching the first twenty minutes of that TBQ, the part devoted to The Tragic Plight of Blokes and Their Excellent Bloke Culture. I’ve paused at 11:45 and may never watch the remaining 8:15 minutes, but I got a look at the dread Milo Yiannopoulos. At 11:10 a woman interrupts him to correct a factual claim, and he blocks her interruption with “Sorry I’m talking about men darling.” Kate Smurthwaite, I’m happy to say, goes ballistic, and the obnoxious presenter makes an obnoxious patronizing quip about oh dear I’m leaving.

Sexism as all a barrel of laughs for the masses, how revolting.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ncx8NiTbiuw… Read the rest

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

This is heartbreaking. Nazim Mahmood jumped to his death from a balcony seven months ago after coming out to his parents. His partner of 13 years, Matthew Ogston, talks to Sarfraz Manzoor.

The two were soon inseparable. Matthew was working as a web designer and Nazim was a medical student. Their families did not know they were gay. After a year they bought a house. It had two bedrooms so their families might assume they were just housemates. “We used to have to keep the window blinds in our front room closed so no one would see us,” says Matthew. “When we walked down the street we made sure there was some distance between us just in case a

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