Author: Ophelia Benson

  • Philip Kitcher on “scientism”

    Since the conclusions reached in analyses of human behavior will be socially consequential, the evidence for them deserves to be closely scrutinized.

  • Richard Carrier interviews Susan Haack

    A must read.

  • The in-laws

    And then, speaking of where you’d prefer to live, there’s life with Ismail Belghar of somewhere in New South Wales.

    Belghar, who has been married to his wife for 11 years, became aware she had been to the beach in late 2009 because her shoulders were slightly sunburned.

    He rang his sister-in-law and said: “You slut, how dare you take my wife to the beach.”

    Just before Christmas, 2009, Ms Kokden came face to face with Belghar while out shopping with her brother at the Broadway Shopping Centre.

    Belghar slapped her across the face then carried her to the railing around the car park where he held her out over it.

    She was freed when her brother tackled Belghar.

    Family life, eh?

    The court heard, because of his religious beliefs and because he thought he had absolute authority over her, Belghar felt it “abhorrent” that his wife, Hanife Kokden, had been to the beach where she “displayed her body”.

    In March, Judge Ronald Solomon had granted Belghar a trial before a judge sitting alone after agreeing he may not receive a fair trial with a jury.

    “The attitude of (Belghar) … is based on a religious or cultural basis. In light of the fact there has been adverse publicity regarding people who hold extreme Muslim faith beliefs in the community, I am of the view that the apprehension by (Belghar) that he may not receive a fair trial is a reasonable apprehension,” Judge Solomon said.

    Nicely circular, innit. Belghar has disgusting religious beliefs, along with an opinion that he has absolute authority over his wife. He might not get a fair trial because a jury might dislike his disgusting religious and spousal beliefs. Therefore he can get a judge all to himself.

    So the more disgusting your beliefs (and their resulting actions) are, the more special treatment you should get? Is that the logic?

    An appeals court overruled the judge, so if that is the logic I guess the court didn’t accept it.

  • The clerics who have sucked the joy out of our lives for centuries

    Nice. Last month the Muslim Canadian Congress gave Irshad Manji a freedom of speech award – the first “Mansoor Hallaj Freedom of Speech Award.”

    I like the picture.

    I also like the way Tarek Fatah explained it in the Toronto Sun.

    Earlier this week, the Kuwaiti parliament voted to institute the death penalty against any Muslim who is judged by Islamic clerics to have insulted God.

    As medieval as this may sound to the ears of the Western non-Muslim, the threat is real and the target is the millions of Muslims, like me, who are fed up with the clerics who have sucked the joy out of our lives for centuries.

    The tradition of silencing dissident Muslims by beheading them is not new; its most famous victim was beheaded in Baghdad over a 1,000 years ago and the most recent ones are the victims of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    Today, at the Toronto Public Library on Palmerston Street, a group of Muslims are going to say “Enough is enough.” They will honour a 21st century Muslim reformer in the name of a 10th century Muslim rebel who died for speaking the truth. This will be their rebuke to the Kuwaiti parliament.

    Where would you prefer to live? Tarek Fatah’s Toronto or Kuwait?

  • Tarek Fatah on death threats over free speech

    The celebrated and controversial Canadian author Irshad Manji received the first “Mansoor Hallaj Freedom of Speech Award” by the Muslim Canadian Congress.

  • “You slut, how dare you take my wife to the beach”

    Ismail Belghar slapped his sister-in-law across the face because she and her sister went to the beach.

  • Indonesia: politician says attacking people is wrong

    Members of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council, who initiated the attack, have defended their action.

  • They hid behind masks & helmets while beating up ordinary people

    Actually, that Jakarta Post account of the “protest” at Irshad Manji’s bookstore talk was a good deal too minimal. Manji gives a fuller account on (ironically) Twitter.

    Four years ago, I came to Indonesia and experienced a nation of tolerance, openness & pluralism. In my new book, I describe Indonesia as a model for the Muslim world. But things have changed. Last night at LKiS community center religious extremists assaulted about 150 citizens of Jogja, as well as my team. My colleague, Emily Rees, was struck with a metal bar and had to be rushed to hospital. Her arm is now in a sling. Two other attendees sustained head injuries. I have spoken with them both and, by God’s grace, they will recover. But the reputation of the criminals should never recover: They hid behind masks & helmets while beating up ordinary people & destroying property. These men are cowards. In sharp contrast, the moral courage of several citizens saved my own life. As the gangsters shouted, “WHERE IS MANJI?” citizens shielded my body with theirs. I am immeasurably grateful for and humbled by their bravery. They have proven that Indonesians can unite for human dignity. Indonesians tell me that their police and government are capitulating to the thugs.

    But the people needn’t capitulate, she adds.

    Anyway – bad stuff. Thugs in masks hitting people with metal bars in an effort to silence a liberal Muslim woman who has a “wrong” kind of sexuality. Bad bad bad stuff.

  • A much more conservative vibe in the capital

    Irshad Manji has been getting some unwelcome attention in Indonesia.

    During a discussion and an event to launch her latest book, Allah, Liberty and Love, at Salihara in South Jakarta last Friday, she said she sensed “a much more conservative vibe” in the capital.

    As if on cue, Manji had barely finished her opening talk when a police officer announced that the event had to be postponed partly due to protests from local residents and hardline groups.

    Minutes later, shouts of disapproval from those claiming to be local residents were heard. The discussion was cut short formally and Manji had to be escorted out of the venue.

    Manji faced more protests from various groups during her next few days in the country with the largest Muslim population in the world.

    Hundreds of members of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI) attacked the LKiS publishing office in Yogyakarta where she was speaking about her book on Wednesday night.

    Because they don’t want no stinkin’ liberty & love along with their Allah.

    The Trouble with Islam Today, which addresses issues such as alleged animosity towards Jews and inferiority of women in some Muslim-dominated societies, and calls for Muslims to be more critical of their own community, was, according to Manji, driven by anger.

    “That anger was real … and it needed to be expressed at least for me. But in the last 10 years as I have been engaging with people like you all over the world, my own anger has been replaced with aspiration. I now believe that we shouldn’t just expose the corruption. That we can strive for better and that we can, as the Koran tells us, change ourselves in order to change the condition of our society,” Manji said to the audience at the Salihara discussion, which was mostly composed of young people.

    That’s nice, but it’s not just the Koran that tells us that.

    I know Manji knows that. I know she says it to make the point that changing ourselves and the condition of society are compatible with the Koran. But still – it’s not just the Koran that tells us that.

  • Indonesia’s record on human rights has tainted its image

    “The government has obviously failed to guarantee basic freedom for the people, which is the freedom from fear.”

  • Jakarta Post on Irshad Manji

    Hundreds of members of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council attacked the LKiS publishing office in Yogyakarta where she was speaking about her book on Wednesday night.

  • 2012 Global Atheist Convention – Redux

    I’m back home in Adelaide now, trying to mellow out after the trip, and dealing with things that have popped up in my absence – such as the contents of an abused toilet drain which I’ve had to shove my arm down. The house sitter’s 3-ply was a bit much, it seems.

    These are some of the tribulations of travel (and of being too cheap to call a plumber).

    Trains, as it happens, are an interesting way to travel across the big dry continent that is Australia. At first, I considered it the scenic option, never having done it before. If I didn’t like it, at only 828k (514Mi), it was one of the shorter interstate train rides in the country. Allow me to summarise western Victoria in a single photo…

    [media id=48753 title=”westvictoria” width=”213″ height=”159″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-48753″ ]

    Western Victoria is a bloody great paddock…

    Passing through most of the west end of Victoria was like this, but with the exception of the

    Grampians (Gariwerd) in the distance.

    If you’re a geology nerd, short of actually getting off the train and travelling to the pictured mountains, the main feature of interest on the trip is the difference in the amount of topsoil between departure and destination; South Australia having much less. Exciting, huh?

    Debbie Goddard, at drinks at The Moat (opposite Embiggen Books), made the observation that Australian place names, particularly in rural settings, sound odd. I’m at a loss understanding what she means.

     [media id=48754 title=”funnyname” width=”213″ height=”159″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-48754″ ]

    ‘Weird’? ‘Funny’? I’m not seeing it.

    ***

    It’s been my intent, in covering the Global Atheist Convention, in as much detail as I can muster, to convey some of my subjective experiences in the hope this helps put the reader on location. I’ll try to flesh out the overall experience somewhat, in summary.

    I’d been in a bit of a loving mood throughout the whole experience, and I hope this is obvious to those of you who at least aren’t tone deaf. With the exception of Jim Jeffries, who genuinely pissed me off, at worst it’s been occasional reprimand (Dick Gross), and effusive praise (Sam Harris, Jason Ball, Marion Maddox, Kylie Sturgess et al.), with affectionate piss-taking (PZ Myers, Simon Taylor, Melbourne, the English) taking up a good part of the disposition I’d taken towards the adventure.

    Also, I’d hugged the bejesus out of people; Chrys Stevenson (par for the course); Dave the Happy Singer and Jasmine Marosvary in one lovely group hug; Jin-oh Choi (who looked a little worried) and an obliging Jason Ball. Luckily for Marty Pribble, there were people between us or he would have been hugged to death, and it’s probably lucky for me (‘HELP! SECURITY!’), I didn’t hug-attack Dan Dennett when I had the chance, opting instead to settle for a mutually shared nod.

    No offense to the rest, but I have to say that Jason Ball earned his hug the most. Jason was instrumental in helping with the personal matter (that’s not my story to tell) I mentioned in regard to my absence on the Sunday morning. This even though he was speaking on stage the same day, with everything else on top of that that comes of being an organiser. Also owed hugs in this matter are Rod, Leigh and Donna, and anyone else involved I’ve missed (with hugs going to Fin if he wants them, although I suspect he’d be satisfied with a handshake).

    It’s gobsmacking, how warm people can be towards one another, despite having at most previously only ever met online. It was like a family reunion, albeit without the contempt that familiarity breeds. People actually got on.

    The pub out by the bridge was the de facto meeting location, but I was left wondering if there’s a next time, if there couldn’t be a slightly more purpose-specific meet-up area designated. People could wear little paper hats with Twitter account names on them, so as not to be stalked offline by giving their real names.

    (It has to be mentioned that I find the meeting-up with people I’ve interacted with online, in the free thinking community, more exciting that the prospect of getting to shake hands with any of the big-name speakers. My priorities may be a little out-of-whack, with an anti-fan-mentality bias. I’m not a convention goer by nature. I don’t even like book signings.)

    ***

    Interactions with the religious..?

    Part I: Smell the testosterone.

    Okay, there were more guys than girls at this thing. A lot of people have written a lot on this topic already, and while broadly it still needs more discussion, I’m going to focus on a very specific part of the sausage-fest phenomenon.

     [media id=48764 title=”strut” width=”213″ height=”159″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-48764″ ]

    Strut!

    This was one of the more cheerful scenes of defiance by the young infidels in attendance. I like funny walks. But then there was the one-upmanship…

    ‘’Cause if you’ve gotta do a silly walk, I’ve gotta man-up and stand face-to-face with the Muslims from only an inch away!’ – This actually happened.

    It seems some young men learn way too much of their social skills from professional wrestling. The fact that there was a shorter supply of mates women on location possibly accentuated the competition, leading to much pomp and wankumstance. Indeed, the ratio of men to women seemed greater around our fundamentalist guests, than in the convention proper, with a bias toward younger males.

    (I’m making the assumption, from null hypothesis, that the proportion of heterosexual men in the atheist crowd is significantly similar to the proportion of hetero men in the greater population; i.e. the majority).

    The kiss, was the ultimate counter-protest, I feel, followed by the chants of ‘where are the women?’, and then a number of the fearless, exhalant poses by free-thinking women (most quite good, but with some others being simple works of copy-cat, me-too-ism). I’m not sure to what extent self-aggrandizing posturing detracted from the better counter-protests, but I’m left wondering if there were more even demographics at the event, whether the dynamic would have been different.

    (Near-omnipresent cameras tended to lend to this effect, I suspect.)

    With young men less competitive for potential mates through displays of plumage, and women less pressured to demonstrate worth within a boy’s club, and without the run-away distillation that occurs when congenial people find such atmospheres uncongenial and leave, I can at least imagine things improving. Could this help the way in which we confront/interact with, the loyal opposition?

    This is in addition to considering how states of sausage-fest could politically undermine atheists criticising religious misogyny; couldn’t greater gender equality within the atheist community simply make us operate better, generally?

    Part II: Meriting a special place in the conversation

    There’s something I want to say about Marion Maddox, as well. While I generally agree with what she had to say, in as far as I understand her comment on Jim Jeffries’ misogynist shtick (it’s not clear she wasn’t talking about Jeffries as a representative sample of atheist culture) I think she may have underestimated the openness of the audience.

    Again, this is subjective, but I’m getting a little tired of people ‘informing’ me that most Australian Christians are for the separation of church and state. Yes, I know this.  To assume that I operate under a different assumption is to misunderstand me, and I’m misunderstood this way quite a lot, sometimes I wonder, if not on purpose. I suspect many of those in the godless community may well share this irk.

    The fact that Maddox’s Christianity wasn’t a big deal with the audience, and that she was well received, even when making strong criticisms about Jim Jefferies, is to the attendees’ credit. At most, the significance of her Christianity provided a small source of irony, but beyond that, people were only really interested on what she had to say, and judged what she said on merit.

    I don’t think this was the kind of audience one could reasonably assume to be so ignorant as to believe that most Australian Christians are just like Fred Nile or Jim Wallace. Perhaps the anxieties surrounding this issue could be talked through, although to be honest, it’s a bit of an imposture. The moderate Christian left, of which Maddox is still a part, has more institutionalised power, and larger numbers, than the ‘New Atheism’.

    It can get a bit much, expecting this kind of thing to be humoured.

    This kind of anxiety – that poor mainstream Christianity may be misunderstood by less powerful groups – in a country like Australia, is only Christianity’s problem, and a problem mainstream Christianity can ultimately only resolve itself. The problem isn’t people being ignorant about mainstream Christianity; the problem is the way that these anxious Christians view other groups.

    For almost anyone else, it’s a waste of time that could be spent cooperating on something more productive.

    That being said, I think that Marion Maddox earned her place on the secular political discussion panel more than anyone else, the atheists notwithstanding – the mentioned perception anxiety wasn’t that big of an issue in this case. Perhaps if there’s a next time, we could have an Australian secular Muslim on the panel as well. The political battleground where parents and advocates engage with evangelical Christians seeking to proselytise in Australian public schools would be a good place to start looking for a meritorious candidate.

    (And I don’t mean someone moderate, safe and inoffensive like Waleed Aly, who’s proven to be somewhat

    hapless in his discussion of secularism, in much the same inoffensive, equivocal manner as Dick Gross. Nor do I suggest that any participant in these discussions should be treated with kid gloves on account of their religious minority).

    ***

    Who would I have liked to have seen in a dream line-up?

    I loathe confected ‘political incorrectness’, whether it’s comedians like Bill Maher, or poor persecuted columnists like James Delingpole; pretending to say the things that can’t be said, for fear of persecution. The origins of the term get overlooked, and the inferences, that of opposition by sections of the left, to its own totalitarian elements, are forgotten.

    ‘Political incorrectness’ has been reduced to a stunt. It’s not like risqué Jim Jeffries is a signatory to the Euston Manifesto*, or the architect of a Sokal-style hoax, nor is he a latter-day George Orwell.

    (The Euston Manifesto: There’s an idea, for anyone wanting to call upon ‘politically incorrect’ atheists as speakers. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.)

    Then there’s the matter of mixing up the academics with the comedians a bit more – especially on the first night, when it was all comedians. Here’s what I’d have lined up for the first night, if I was a quasi-omnipotent organiser.

    An opening by David Nicholls, followed by a meeting of the MCs, Kylie and Lawrence; Ben Elton would have replaced Mikey Robbins’ act, with Kylie and Lawrence continuing MC duties originally taken up by Robbins. Stella Young would follow, taking Elton’s original position, warming up the audience for PZ Myers to perform his bloviated wank, before Dara Ó Briain would take to the stage for the final comedic spot.

    Apparently Ó Briain was in the country at the time, which makes the possibility seem all the more tangible. (If you’re unfamiliar with his work, you can always

    check him out on YouTube).

    Other dream changes come to mind, some of which I’ve mentioned before; moving Tanya Smith or Annie Laurie Gaylor to later on the Sunday; dropping Dick Gross, Colleen Hartland and Derek Guille from the political panel, replacing Guille with Meredith Doig, Gross with a secular Muslim, and Hartland with Russell Blackford, Graham Oppy or South Australian Labor MP,

    Ian Hunter; maybe giving Fiona Patten her own spot on the Sunday to discuss sex and religious politics, and maybe, if it could be swung, having Dawkins co-MC the event, with only the one scheduled session, with or without the horsemen (maybe Kylie Sturgess could have a tilt at main-eventing Saturday night, philosophy in schools-wise).


    What else would I have liked to see?

    I would have dropped the opening video. No, I didn’t like it. Bloviated; triumphal; tone-deaf; white-dude; wank.

    httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3OtBFisK-g

    The spirit of a line of white, mostly European thinkers, straight-sailing to Melbourne on a 19th century vessel, to confront superstitious masses; I’m not calling it racist, or imperialist, or whatever-elseist; I’m calling it tactless. In an Australian context, it couldn’t have had much worse connotations than if Readings had announced that each signing of Dawkins’ The Magic of Reality came with a free small-pox ridden blanket.

    The video wasn’t doing anyone, any favours, and this is before considering how cheesy it was! Also, the ‘he’, applied generally to children, gets bonus white-dude points.

    (Honestly, I’m not angry. I’m still laughing, shaking my head, and face-palming. But still, it’s a lesson worth learning from.)

    Preferably, I’d love to see openings a little more Monty Python, preferably with Terry Gilliam-style animations of George Pell, The Rat, Dumbledore and Momo. And I think Terry Jones, or the vocal likeness thereof, would voice a wonderful Karen Armstrong.

    I’m not really sure any of the other things I’d like to see could be integrated without the basic format being radically altered; multiple smaller sessions and events running simultaneously; more stalls with godless knick-knacks from more sources, and an atmosphere that’s more carnival. This kind of change would likely require a different venue, more like a university campus, with suitable open spaces, and multiple lecture halls.

    A celebration of reason meets Lollapalooza meets street market. Materialist, monist, poetry slams; Fiona Patten coordinating a mini-Sexpo; more short film screenings sourced from godless artists around the world; amateur art auctions; a speaker’s corner, and a memorial Carl Sagan ‘smoking paraphernalia’ booth. This, plus all the usual discussion from the quality activists, comedians and public intellectuals, people have come to expect and respect – headline speakers on the main stage.

    This isn’t a shopping list of wants to be taken literally, rather just a few hypotheticals to flesh out an idea (although Geoffrey Robertson doing Hypotheticals with the Three Horsemen and Ayaan Hirsi Ali would literally be awesome). I certainly don’t have a privileged view of how the convention was organised, so I can understand if there are any people in the know reading this, thinking ‘no, no, no’.

    I don’t want to come across like the ungrateful brat, who in a fit of disappointment plans their remedial wish list for Santa, for next year’s Christmas.

    ***

    Really, I enjoyed myself immensely, it’s just I was left a little hungry. Perhaps I should have stayed in Melbourne for longer. Perhaps it’s just a little extra motivation, now that I’ve met a number of wonderful free thinkers in the flesh. Maybe it’s all the possibilities.

    Simultaneously, it was also pretty taxing. I was glad to get going home, or at least I was once I was under way.

    Only, it’s I just couldn’t have taken a picture of the way out of Melbourne, even if I hadn’t fallen asleep. Victorians, you really need to beautify the railway out of the west of Melbourne; I’d rather have left your capital city through an s-bend.

    The ride home wasn’t all bad though, and as I said, I slept through the ugliest of it. Lunch was also better on the return, but the voice-overs used to announce historical landmarks were from the same turgid script.

    Stories about kids putting shoe polish on the tracks back in the days of steam locomotion, complete with kitsch rib-tickling about their parent’s misplaced disciplinary priorities, can be amusing only once at best. Methinks some rail-people need some new material.

    [media id=49138 title=”bruce1″ width=”211″ height=”159″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-49138″ ]

     

    I’d rather read about Kami’s acting-up during his youth, than have to hear about 1920s railroad shenanigans (twice!) and not just because Kami’s writing is better. On all criteria, Kami vs Great Southern Rail, Kami won out.

    I’m going to tell myself that the author of the rail script was Victorian, and chalk this one up as a South Australian victory.

    Oh, Adelaide…

    [media id=49139 title=”bruce2″ width=”213″ height=”159″ class=”aligncenter size-full wp-image-49139″ ]

    See, this is the kind of thing you see when you’re looking out along the rail yard on approach to Adelaide from the South. Even the north, with its industrial areas and bogan suburbs, is more appealing than the western approach to Melbourne – and I suspect, needlessly so. Melbourne has enough space in the west, along the line, to make improvements.

    Travel, notoriously, can make you appreciate home more, and I’m reminded from this trip, not to take Adelaide’s beauty for granted. Instinctually, when circumnavigating the Melbourne central business district, I expected to find it skirted by parkland. Adelaide is hardwired into me as the template by which I judge these things in other cities.

    I found Melbourne’s

    Flagstaff Gardens to be a lot like the Adelaide Parklands, almost like a welcome piece of home. Only, you can see one end of Flagstaff Gardens from the other, which isn’t nearly true of the Adelaide Parklands (which in total, occupies around eighty times the amount of land).

    It was from the Adelaide Parklands that the last leg of my journey, to my own doorstep, proceeded smoothly. There’s a strange kind of connectedness you feel, travelling by train between cities, especially when there are few stops, and only smooth transitions. Melbourne feels like it’s just down the line a little further from another journey I regularly make.

    I rather like this sense of connectedness. I feel connected to Melbourne – its parks, a number of its people, its poetry, art and its comedians. I feel more connected to the wonderful Embiggen Books, which I visited for the first time. I feel more connected to the godless community, Australian, and from abroad.

    Perhaps you can tell that I don’t get out enough, but I don’t think that detracts from the experience. I hope to travel, by rail, to Melbourne again, and hopefully not too far in the future.

    ~ Bruce

     

  • Ew, girl cooties

    In the news from Phoenix (oh god Phoenix – whose bishop is Joseph Olmsted, who tried to force a hospital to promise never again to prevent a woman from dying by aborting her doomed-anyway fetus) –

    Instead of playing in a championship baseball game, Paige Sultzbach and her team won’t even make it to the dugout.

    A Phoenix school that was scheduled to play the 15-year-old Mesa girl and her male teammates forfeited the game rather than face a female player.

    Well that’s insulting.

    Our Lady of Sorrows bowed out of Thursday night’s game against Mesa Preparatory Academy in the Arizona Charter Athletic Association championship. The game had been scheduled at Phoenix College.

    Paige, who plays second base at Mesa Prep, had to sit out two previous games against Our Lady of Sorrows out of respect for its beliefs. But having her miss the championship was not an option for Mesa Prep.

    Excuse me?! Out of respect for its beliefs? She sat out two games out of respect for its beliefs that women are inferior?

    Can we stop doing things out of “respect” for vicious unreformed I’m-better-than-you beliefs that don’t deserve the respect you would give a gob of phlegm on the sidewalk?

    “This is not a contact sport; it shouldn’t be an issue,” Pamela Sultzbach said. “It wasn’t that they were afraid they were going to hurt or injure her, it’s that (they believe) a girl’s place is not on a field.”

    And they believe they have the right to insult her by ostentatiously acting on that moronic belief. They believe they have the right – and “respect”! – for trying to deprive her of the right and ability to participate in a game that she presumably likes and does well. They believe they have the right to try to make her have a smaller more impoverished life, more hemmed in by stupid nasty restrictions forced on her by a gang of Catholic men and boys. It’s revolting.

    Officials at Our Lady of Sorrows declined comment. In a written statement Thursday, the school said the decision to forfeit was consistent with a policy prohibiting co-ed sports.

    The statement also said the school teaches boys respect by not placing girls in athletic competition, where “proper boundaries can only be respected with difficulty.”

    Our Lady of Sorrows is run by the U.S. branch of the Society of Saint Pius X. The group represents conservative, traditional priests who broke from the Catholic Church in the 1980s.

    Oh, that explains it – they’re even more fascist than the church gang. Well you know what then? Nobody should agree to play them. Period. Not if they refuse to play a team that includes a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Nigerian, or a Malaysian – and the same goes for A Girl.

    H/t Michael Fugate.

  • We won’t be silent

    “If you have freedom of speech, please use your freedom to help someone else have theirs.”

    Isn’t it time you spoke out?

    “Think for yourself and let others enjoy that privilege too.” Voltaire.

    Via Tarek Fatah

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv7VdQNC8Yc

  • India’s god laws fail the test of reason

    In the decades since independence, these laws have been regularly used to hound intellectuals and artists who questioned religious beliefs.

  • The bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth

    The Washington Post suggests that maybe the “tense relationship” between the Catholic church and the Girl Scouts is approaching a “resolution” – without really clarifying why the bishops think it’s any of their business or why anyone else does either.

    Potentially at stake is whether troops can continue meeting in Catholic churches, and whether many Catholic girls, who make up a quarter of the nation’s 3 million Girl Scouts, will continue in scouting as the organization marks its 100th year.

    How can the second item be at stake? The bishops can’t actually force people to do things, after all. They’re not cops. They don’t have badges or guns or clubs, and they’re not licensed by the state to enforce the laws. It’s really not within their power to tell Catholic girls what groups they can belong to. (They can tell, but it’s just noise.) They’re not the boss of Catholic girls. They’re not the boss of anyone except their own employees. They can’t stop Catholic girls continuing in scouting.

    “There had been some complaints about the Scouts, and the bishops couldn’t turn a deaf ear,” said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokeswoman for the bishops. “So they want to know, what’s the story?”

    Couldn’t turn a deaf ear? Why not? Who says?

    Critics of the Girl Scouts contend their materials shouldn’t have any links to groups like the Sierra Club, Doctors Without Borders and Oxfam, or other groups that support family planning and contraception. Other critics are unhappy that the American Girl Scouting organization is a member of an international scouting association that supports contraception access.

    Oh yes? Is that right? Well I say the Girl Scouts shouldn’t have any links to the Catholic church, which attempts to mandate and impose a state of affairs in which women are stripped of any right to control their own fertility and are left helpless to avoid or postpone childbearing unless they avoid sex altogether. That’s what I say. Too bad I can’t impose my wishes on anyone.

    For the past two years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has had its Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth ask the Girl Scouts to explain their stances and materials.

    Could you ask for a better list of things the Catholic church knows nothing whatever about, is self-handicapped from knowing anything about, and has no business on earth interfering with? What does it know about laity? Much less marriage? Or family life? And all it knows about youth is how to swear it to secrecy when a priest is caught raping it. Fuck its Committee, and fuck its asking.

  • A pattern

    Not just for Catholics any more. You don’t have to be Catholic to love special rules for child-raping theists. Nothin’ says lovin’ like a district attorney who lets clerics deal with child-rape in their “communities” with no pesky police involved.

    In short, it’s not just Ireland and it’s not just Catholic priests. It’s also the Brooklyn district attorney and ultra-Orthodox rabbis.

    An influential rabbi came last summer to the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, with a message: his ultra-Orthodox advocacy group was instructing adherent Jews that they could report allegations of child sexual abuse to district attorneys or the police only if a rabbi first determined that the suspicions were credible.       

    The pronouncement was a blunt challenge to Mr. Hynes’s authority. But the district attorney “expressed no opposition or objection,” the rabbi, Chaim Dovid Zweibel, recalled.

    This apparently means child sexual abuse by any “adherent Jews,” not just by clerics.

    Mr. Hynes has won election six times as district attorney thanks in part to support from ultra-Orthodox rabbis, who lead growing communities in neighborhoods like Borough Park and Crown Heights. But in recent years, as allegations of child sexual abuse have shaken the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, victims’ rights groups have expressed concern that he is not vigorously pursuing these cases because of his deep ties to the rabbis.

    Many of the rabbis consider sexual abuse accusations to be community matters best handled by rabbinical authorities, who often do not report their conclusions to the police.

    Ah, fabulous. A tight-knit “community” of religious zealots and their unfortunate trapped dependents, who have given themselves permission to do their own policing of child rape, and gotten the district attorney to go along with this arrangement. That should work out well! Just as it does among the Amish.

    There’s been a crackdown of sorts, leading to arrests – but there are still special rules.

    Mr. Hynes has taken the highly unusual step of declining to publicize the names of defendants prosecuted under the program — even those convicted. At the same time, he continues to publicize allegations of child sexual abuse against defendants who are not ultra-Orthodox Jews.

    This policy of shielding defendants’ names because of their religious status is not followed by the other four district attorneys in New York City, and has rarely, if ever, been adopted by prosecutors around the country.

    Some sex-crime experts and former prosecutors said the policy contributed to a culture of secrecy in ultra-Orthodox communities, which made it harder to curb sexual abuse.

    Well it would, wouldn’t it. Why else would the DA be doing it? You can’t keep secrets of that kind without contributing to a culture of secrecy. No one must know that Daddy raped a few kids. So nobody knows, and Daddy is more careful in future, and he rapes some more kids.

    Marci A. Hamilton, a professor of constitutional law at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, blamed Mr. Hynes for not speaking out against the ultra-Orthodox position that mandates that allegations must be first reported to rabbis. The position potentially flouts a state law that requires teachers, social workers and others to report allegations of sexual abuse immediately to the authorities.

    She said Mr. Hynes was essentially allowing rabbis to act as gatekeepers.

    “That’s exactly what the Catholic Church did, what the Latter-day Saints did, what the Jehovah’s Witnesses did,” said Ms. Hamilton, author of “Justice Denied: What America Must Do to Protect Its Children.”

    Quite. It would be nice if secular law enforcement would refrain from helping them to do that.

     

     

  • Brooklyn district attorney has special rules for rabbis

    Many of the rabbis consider sexual abuse accusations to be the business of rabbinical authorities, who often do not report their conclusions to the police.

  • About the questions being asked

    Another thing, on the matter of Edwina Rogers.

    I was re-reading that contested part of Greta’s interview with Roy Speckhardt in a post of Chris Hallquist’s –

    I don’t take your characterization as accurate that she was being evasive. I listened to her interview, and actually, the first thing I thought of was, “Gosh, you know, I’ve done a lot of media interviews, and if you do media interviews, you learn how to get your talking points across and not worry, necessarily, all the time about the questions being asked. If you want to get your own message across, this is a technique that you’ve got to learn, to get out there and put across your viewpoint.”

    And I had another thought about it.

    Yes, ok, it probably is a technique you have to learn, if you want to get your own message across. It’s true that we don’t want to be naive about this and just say let the best argument win, because interviewers can have agendas and it would be stupid to simply comply with what the interviewer wants no matter what. But.

    But. Doing things that way rules out doing things a different way, and if you learn the technique so thoroughly or enthusiastically that it becomes the only one you know, then you become simply a talking agenda, and that seems a bad thing for the Executive Director of the SCA. It might be all right for a designated PR person for the SCA, for someone whose only job was to get a particular message across, but surely as ED Rogers has more jobs to do than just getting a particular message across. I get that that’s a big part of her job, but it’s not all of it, is it?

    And it’s not a good general technique to focus like a laser on your own message and blank out all questions. That’s not a technique so much as a disability. An unchanging pre-determined message that is non-responsive to questions makes a good definition of religion, and secular thinking should be the opposite of that. Secular thinking (properly conducted) is responsive and open and cumulative and flexible. Dialogue is of the essence. Dialogue isn’t dialogue if one party just sticks to a message the whole time.

    I think this is part of the broad unease about the appointment. She might be a brilliant hire as the head of PR, but not as ED.

  • What you can see on a walk

    I took my friend Cooper to the beach yesterday afternoon.

    Not that beach, but that Cooper. He’s a little over a year old.

    This isn’t about him though, it’s about sea stars. It was very low tide, so I went squidging and mincing through the intertidal zone with him so that he could swim after the tennis ball, which he loves doing with a passion that never fades. I eventually noticed a sea star, and then a couple more, and then another.

    One was a rather faded dry purple; maybe it was dead. The next two were a vibrant deep purple – probably Pisaster ochraeus.

     File:Seastar.JPG

    The last one was red, and many-armed, and it had spinelets along each arm, that were moving. It was extraordinary. Maybe the rose sea star, Crossaster papposus.

    How about that?