How not to help girls and women escaping from forced marriage:

The Foreign Office is seeking to recoup the cost of repatriating young women who have been forced into marriages overseas, it has been revealed, prompting charities to criticise the government for making women “pay for their protection”.

An investigation found that many of the 82 victims of forced marriage repatriated in 2016-17 had to pay for living costs incurred between making distress calls and returning home, as well as their airfare, while others received loans from the Foreign Office.

They had to give up their passports as a condition of the loan until they repaid the debt, with a surcharge added to unpaid bills after six months.

That. … Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknklast on $1000 a ticket.

As an American (sigh), my experience here in the Midwest is that the people who vote for Trump (and those who didn’t) pretty much regard the president almost as a king in terms of power (he isn’t; the Constitution left him weak, but 20th century presidents grabbed tons of power and Congress let them do it). The Trump voters actually think that stuff is good, and will make America Great Again, by which they mean 1950s for women and children, and 1880s for business [women baking cookies all day and vacuuming in pearls; children being whacked in school when they act up (not their children, because their children are brought … Read the rest

Elinor Lipman has another of her brilliant short topical poems:

Who said my wall’s a "metaphor"?
I’ve never heard that word before.
To me it sounds elite and funny.
At Penn, I only studied money. #StableGenius

— Elinor Lipman (@ElinorLipman) January 2, 2019

… Read the rest

Back in September…

India’s supreme court has ruled against a ban on girls and women of menstruating age from entering a prominent Hindu temple in southern Kerala state, upholding rights to equality of worship.

The authorities at the Sabarimala temple, which attracts tens of millions of pilgrims every year, have said the ban on women and girls aged from 10 to 50 was essential to the rites related to the temple’s chief deity, Ayyappan, who is considered eternally celibate, and were rooted in a centuries-old tradition.

Yes, so much suppression and exclusion of women is rooted in a centuries-old tradition. It’s been a centuries-old tradition to treat women as the property of men and as fundamentally insignificant for millennia. … Read the rest

News from Kerala:

Women in the southern Indian state of Kerala have formed a 620km (385-mile) human chain “in support of gender equality”, amid a row over access to a prominent Hindu temple.

The Sabarimala shrine was historically closed to women of “menstruating age” – defined as between 10 and 50.

Because they’re dirty? Because they can be impregnated? Both? Is there any difference?

It’s interesting, isn’t it, as an aspect of human nature, that the thing most humans probably value above all others, to wit the ability to keep the species going, the tribe going, the village going, the family going…is also the thing that is seen as dirty, disgusting, contaminating. Women are magical because they can make … Read the rest

Twitter bans Meghan Murphy for saying true things about Jonathan Yaniv, but refuses to do anything about a rapist who uses Twitter as a tool for collecting victims. Interesting priorities.

The Twitter account for a rapist photographer has finally been removed after a judge had to order the company to take action.

Nigel Wilkinson was recently convicted for a second time after drugging and raping young men he had lured with free photoshoots.

After Twitter initially failed to remove his account, the judge in the case issued the order forcing the firm to take it down.

…

In 2016, he was jailed for 11 years and six months for a series of sex offences.

The court heard he preyed

So much woke bro.

https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1079872396230868993

https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1080101494895112192

https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1080159100992921604

https://twitter.com/SpillerOfTea/status/1080173592589914112

Funny how hating women is the new right-on, isn’t it.

Jan 2: updating to add: account suspended. Those tweets will never appear again!

… Read the rest

Sigh.

NARRATOR: There are in fact no "heads of countries" calling asking why Sen. Schumer is not approving "otherwise approved Ambassadors." The heads of other countries know that McConnell, not Schumer, is majority leader, and that there is only a 50-vote threshold for confirmations. https://t.co/R9RBbfP7aG

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) December 31, 2018

… Read the rest

https://twitter.com/DeneMiles/status/1079797266603335680… Read the rest

It seems Louis CK is back, and Matthew Dessem at Slate has heard the bootlegged tape.

And what he’s been up to, judging from the material, is bemoaning the money he lost, fuming over young people and political correctness, and writing some really killer jokes about the respective penis sizes of various ethnic groups. It’s not just that it’s not funny: it’s positively sickening. Here, for example, is the way C.K. ends a bit about visiting his doctor (described earlier in the joke as old, and Jewish, and touchy-feely):

And he said, “You need to stop eating ice cream.” I said, “You need to go fuck yourself. And don’t ever touch me again, you old faggot. You old fucking

This isn’t particularly terrible in the great scheme of things, but…

…but it irritates.

I have a couple of minor resolutions for 2019 (draw more, cook more) but my major one is to understand my own gender identity and expression better. If that means nails and dresses, fabulous; if something else, I'm excited to find out.

— Josh Spero (@joshspero) December 30, 2018

Why does it irritate? The public announcement of plans for self-absorption, for one thing. “My major resolution for 2019 is to spend more time contemplating the glory of me.” That and the fact that it’s presented as right-on and enlightened. That, to my mind, is one of the most glaring problems with the ideology of transitude: the … Read the rest