All entries by this author

Anything that moves

Jan 29th, 2013 9:33 am | By

There was an interview on Fresh Air yesterday with a guy who’s written a book about civilian massacres and other atrocities in the Vietnam War, Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. Apparently the received wisdom is that My Lai was an aberration. I actually didn’t know that – I thought My Lai was just the one that got a lot of publicity but that there were plenty of others. It’s the nature of that kind of war, and of that particular war. I even thought I remembered reporting on it from the time (yes I’m that ancient!), but the author, Nick Turse, says there wasn’t much in the US. (But there was in the … Read the rest

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Any time

Jan 29th, 2013 9:14 am | By

Ahahahahaha – I usually never do spam jokes but this one is too good to pass up.

Perfectly composed articles, thankyou for entropy.

Thank you for entropy! ♥♥… Read the rest

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Asking for brickbats

Jan 28th, 2013 3:48 pm | By

Laurie Penny says that internet misogyny should end.

“There’s nothing wrong with [her] a couple of hours of cunt kicking, garrotting and burying in a shallow grave wouldn’t sort out.”

Like many women who have public profiles online, I’m used to messages of this sort – the violent rape and murder fantasies, the threats to my family and personal safety, the graphic emails with my face crudely pasted onto pictures of pornographic models performing sphincter-stretchingly implausible feats of physical endurance.

There’s more attention to the issue (and yes, it’s an issue) now because Mary Beard spoke up about it.

According to its creator, Richard White, a lettings agent from Sidcup who started Don’t Start Me Off! “as a

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Writing to be understood

Jan 28th, 2013 11:22 am | By

Greta did a post the other day about someone who rethought something she wrote and then took it back. I hadn’t seen it until this morning.

This is how it’s done, people. She didn’t double down. She didn’t insist that she hadn’t done anything wrong; she didn’t equate “lots of people disagreeing with you” with tribalism, bullying, McCarthyism, or witch hunts. She kept it short and sweet, without a “making it worse” morass of defensive rationalizations/ making it all about her hurt feelings about people being mean to her. She heard the criticism, accepted that she screwed up, and apologized. This is how it’s done.

([cough] Michael Shermer [cough])

The result of course was that – starting in comment 2, … Read the rest

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What we need is a filter

Jan 27th, 2013 4:00 pm | By

Cath Elliott writes about What it’s like to be a victim of Don’t Start Me Off’s internet hate mob.

Note from Helen Lewis, who republished the post on her New Statesman blog:

Note from Helen: Cath Elliott’s Blog, An Occupational Hazard, was one of the pieces which inspired me to collect together the experiences of female bloggers about online abuse. I thought Cath was incredibly brave to write about the hatred she was subjected to – particularly since it was deliberately as humiliating and obscene as possible.

Funnily enough, her internet tormentors were from a site called Don’t Start Me Off! – which was taken offline last week by its owner after the unwelcome glare of publicity fell

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Will the archbish be a temporary floor mop?

Jan 27th, 2013 11:44 am | By

I tweeted a link about an upcoming debate at Cambridge between Dawkins and Rowan Williams a few hours ago. There are replies saying Richard will wipe the floor with him. I’m not so sure. Williams was an academic before he was the archbish, and now he’s not the archbish any more.

He almost certainly knows of better arguments than the kind of highflown archepiscopal bafflegab he gave to the House of Lords and so on while he actually was the archbish. And since he’s not the archbish any more, he may feel less of a duty to sound churchy and archepiscopal.

There’s no chance that he’s actually stupid. The fact that he used to say a lot of stuff that … Read the rest

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Richard Dawkins and Rowan Williams will debate *

Jan 27th, 2013 | Filed by

Prominent atheist Prof Dawkins and the former Archbishop of Canterbury will discuss whether “religion has no place in the 21st Century” on Thursday.… Read the rest



The right to complain does not turn women into pathetic victims

Jan 27th, 2013 8:11 am | By

More from Nussbaum on Christina Hoff Sommers and on “equity” v “gender” feminism more generally. It’s a very packed, dense essay.

From the end, this time. The penultimate paragraph.

In short, the feminist views attacked by recent critics are not the monopoly of a sect of radical extremists. They are commonplace in mainstream liberal, and even some libertarian, thought. These theoretical ideas have a very close relationship to the critique of existing preferences that led to the critique of rape law and to the demand for laws and policies dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace. These changes certainly seem to have enhanced demcracy rather than to have undermined it – for surely it is not better for democracy that

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What they did about it

Jan 26th, 2013 4:48 pm | By

The BBC’s Andrew North tells us more about the Delhi rape victim.

Like the student’s family, at least two of the accused are from impoverished villages in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, and source for many of the thousands of migrants who come to Delhi every year hoping for a better life
- the same journey her father made nearly 30 years ago.

And the other men are from similar migrant backgrounds. Where they differ, though, was in what they did about it.

“We gave our all to our daughter,” her mother told us, still devastated with grief. She says she can barely leave her bed, complaining of frequent headaches and chest pains.

And their support was working:

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Uncovering Shakespeare

Jan 26th, 2013 4:07 pm | By

There’s a BBC Four series from last summer, Uncovering Shakespeare; I saw the first two episodes last night, Macbeth first and The Comedies/Shakespeare’s Women second, which is the opposite of the order of broadcast.

I thought the Macbeth wasn’t very good. It was way too heavy on “interesting” but totally irrelevant visuals – lots of New York streets packed with cars, for instance; wut? – and way too light on the words. Not enough discussion of the words, not enough saying of them, not enough clips of actors saying them, pretty much no discussion at all of the way the words do the work. On the other hand there were some clips, and the discussion wasn’t actually boring, so … Read the rest

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Equity v gender

Jan 26th, 2013 1:15 pm | By

Chapter 5 of Martha Nussbaum’s Sex and Social Justice is titled “American Women” and it’s basically about the idea that there is sane normal sensible feminism and then there is crazy extremist radical feminism, with the first being sensibly in favor of equality before the law, which we now have, so that’s that, and the second being about crazy wild stuff like distorted preferences and asymmetrical power. Nussbaum addresses Christina Hoff Sommers as the clearest source of this notion (and as a fellow philosopher), but she says the idea is widespread.

Nussbaum points out that the feminists Sommers sees as “radical” are the very people who brought about the changes that Sommers applauds.

It is not only women in the

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Universal human rights in Nigeria *

Jan 26th, 2013 | Filed by

The international community and human rights activists are urging Nigeria to reconsider the bill prohibiting same-sex marriage.… Read the rest



Universal human rights in Nigeria

Jan 26th, 2013 11:54 am | By

A letter to the influential Nigerian newspaper The Guardian defends same-sex marriage and cites Leo Igwe.

The letter points out that religious groups are very opposed to same-sex marriage, while human rights activists support it.

Such opponents include Christian denominations as well as Muslim groups all of which have voiced their rejection of the pressure on Nigeria by some sections of the international community. Among them is the Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), the Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh who has repeatedly opposed the move, saying same-sex marriage is not biblical and therefore unacceptable.

However, Nigerian Humanist human rights activist, Leo Igwe, who is a supporter of the UK gay Humanist Charity the Pink Triangle Trust, said: “The

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Wafa Sultan at Women in Secularism 2012

Jan 25th, 2013 3:50 pm | By

You also get to see Wafa Sultan’s talk…which was one of the most shattering things I ever saw/heard. Be prepared for that. Have a stack of paper towels handy.

But do not miss it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOK-F79aRBo&feature=share&list=PLFo5kdUdZWj6fGZ3Mu6yvxMzfU6Sz_b-BRead the rest

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Interruptions, for example

Jan 25th, 2013 12:15 pm | By

You are so lucky! You get to see Bernice Sandler’s talk at Women in Secularism 2012, at last.

It’s about the subtle, unnoticed ways women and men are treated differently.

What??? Really? Is that true? There are subtle, unnoticed ways women and men are treated differently?

Who could ever possibly have guessed…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyT3uW9Ib9E&feature=share&list=PLFo5kdUdZWj6fGZ3Mu6yvxMzfU6Sz_b-BRead the rest

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Bernice Sandler’s talk at Women in Secularism 2012 *

Jan 25th, 2013 | Filed by

The subtle unnoticed ways women and men are treated differently.… Read the rest



Antibiotic-resistant diseases pose ‘apocalyptic’ threat *

Jan 25th, 2013 | Filed by

Britain’s most senior medical adviser has warned MPs that the rise in drug-resistant diseases could trigger a national emergency comparable to a catastrophic terrorist attack.… Read the rest



He bruised his knuckles when he punched her

Jan 25th, 2013 11:38 am | By

It was all Mary Beard’s fault, as it turns out. No really; it was. The guy who ran that website says so. If he doesn’t know, who does?!

The co-owner and moderator of the website that published abusive comments about Mary Beard has accused the Cambridge academic of using the row to deflect from her own comments about immigration on Question Time.

He said that friends and colleagues of Beard, professor of classics at Cambridge University, had been “trolling” his site, Don’t Start Me Off!, which he closed down this week, by bombarding it with Latin poetry.

Oh my god that is so mean! Latin poetry, when all they wanted to do was hang around peacefully posting comments about … Read the rest

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Observances

Jan 25th, 2013 10:10 am | By

Where is this Big Book of God’s Rules where God spells out all these new rules that some people know all about but I’ve never heard of? Like the rule that a girl who works at Burger King has to wear a long skirt instead of trousers? I seriously have no idea where that rule is but apparently it’s such an important and real and binding rule that Burger King has to hire her because of it and it has to let her wear a long skirt instead of trousers on the job. Also if it slips up and fires her instead it has to give her 25 thousand dollars.

Burger King has agreed to pay $25,000 to a

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Religious exemption from Burger King uniform *

Jan 25th, 2013 | Filed by

Because God said Ashanti McShan has to wear a long skirt instead of trousers to work at Burger King.… Read the rest