This again. The New York Times:

Francesca Hogi, 40, had settled into her aisle seat for the flight from New York to London when the man assigned to the adjoining window seat arrived and refused to sit down. He said his religion prevented him from sitting beside a woman who was not his wife. Irritated but eager to get underway, she eventually agreed to move.

Laura Heywood, 42, had a similar experience while traveling from San Diego to London via New York. She was in a middle seat — her husband had the aisle — when the man with the window seat in the same row asked if the couple would switch positions. Ms. Heywood, offended by the notion that her sex made her an unacceptable seatmate, refused.

Yes, sorry, guys – you can’t do that. We discussed it, and decided. You can’t refuse to sit next to people on public conveyances because of their category. It’s not allowed. You don’t get to treat certain kinds of people as a contaminant.

A growing number of airline passengers, particularly on trips between the United States and Israel, are now sharing stories of conflicts between ultra-Orthodox Jewish men trying to follow their faith and women just hoping to sit down.

Fuck “trying to follow their faith.” They can do that at home. They can do that in public if it doesn’t affect other people. They can’t do it in public when that means treating other people as a contaminant.

The Times finds a haredi Rabbi who says the phenomenon is rare and the haredi men he knows have no problem sitting next to wimmmmmmmin on public transportation.

But multiple travelers, scholars and the airlines themselves say the phenomenon is real. The number of episodes appears to be increasing as ultra-Orthodox communities grow in number and confidence, but also as other passengers, for reasons of comfort as well as politics, push back.

“It’s very common,” said Rabbi Yehudah Mirsky, an associate professor of Judaic studies at Brandeis University. “Multiculturalism creates a moral language where a group can say, ‘You have to respect my values.’ ”

So when unreconstructed Afrikaaners fans of apartheid get on planes they can refuse to sit next to people who aren’t sufficiently pallid?

Rabbi Ysoscher Katz, a Modern Orthodox Talmud scholar who grew up in the ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect, said, “When I was still part of that community, and on the more conservative side, I would make every effort I could not to sit next to a woman on the plane, because of a fear that you might touch a woman by accident.”

That’s the problem – that’s a stupid fear. It treats women as a contaminant.

The issues on airplanes echo controversies over efforts to separate men and women on buses and streets, as well as to remove women from some news photographs.

“The ultra-Orthodox have increasingly seen gender separation as a kind of litmus test of Orthodoxy — it wasn’t always that way, but it has become that way,” said Samuel Heilman, a professor of sociology at Queens College. “There is an ongoing culture war between these people and the rest of the modern world, and because the modern world has increasingly sought to become gender neutral, that has added to the desire to say, ‘We’re not like that.’”

Gender separation is a terrible issue to make a litmus test of anything, because it can’t avoid subordinating women, just as racial segregation did and does subordinate one race in relation to another.

So just knock it off.

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

I found such a treat at the top of my email queue this morning, from one Daniel Paden (not a name I recognize, though I do know of a Reap Paden). It’s a link to and the text of a fundraising appeal for said Daniel Paden.

I’ve been a podcaster for the last 8 years. If you have been entertained and/or educated by

•ReapSowRadio,
•The Angry Atheist Podcast
•Modern Satanism
•DREAD Radio
•The Apartment J podcast
• Reap Rants (heard on American Heathen)
•FCUK Radio
Or any of the other videos, blogs, interviews that I’ve done in the past here is the chance to say thanks. Once I get past this revenue hurdle then I can get back to creating content and addressing whatever is being done that is unfair, plain stupid or just deserves to be mocked. Thanks

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

No

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

Now for a happier item – a taxi driver who did the right thing. Twice.

A Watford cabbie who pulled a pregnant woman and baby from a burning car wreck has been honoured with a bravery award for his heroic actions.

Azhar Shah witnessed the horror smash at the junction of Stratford Road and Park Road, in Watford, while driving his taxi just days before Christmas 2012.

The 44-year-old was overtaken by a car speeding at about 60 miles per hour through the cross roads.

He saw the car crash into another vehicle crossing the junction with such force that the second car twisted around in the air and dropped down in smoke in the carriageway.

He ran over to help, and pulled a woman who was eight months pregnant out of the car.

But when the shocked woman was safely in his taxi, sheltered from the cold, Azhar heard her screaming “my baby, where’s my baby?”

The child was still in the burning car.

Knowing the car could explode at any time, Azhar raced back to pull out the baby from the mangled wreckage.

He disclaims the title of hero, saying it’s human nature to want to help.

H/t Tehmina Kazi

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

Milton Nkosi reports for the BBC on heartbreak in Nairobi as parents collect the bodies of their children murdered in the Garissa slaughter.

I watched mothers, fathers, other relatives and friends break down in tears at Chiromo mortuary in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, as coffins of their young sons and daughters were handed over.

There could not have been a more poignant moment to witness the deep pain and grief suffered by families of those who perished in the Garissa University College attack last week.

They are taking their children home to the hills and valleys of this beautiful land for burial.

No more college. No more future.

Back at the mortuary I heard about 23-year-old Susan Kwamboka Onyikwa.

She was studying to become a teacher and her uncle Ngunyi Yusuf, a former banker, had come to fetch her body.

“Susan was marvellous. She loved cooking and being at home. She was loved by everybody in the family,” he told me.

With tears swelling in his eyes, the 42-year-old continued calmly: “She was a very good lady. We are devastated.”

She would have been a teacher. Now she won’t. Now her family is devastated.

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

PZ has an amusing post about his latest excommunication from something he wasn’t part of in the first place.

Next time I’m waiting for a bus I think I’ll fantasize about all the groups and organizations I’m not part of that could excommunicate me. The Air Force. Focus on the Family. The League of Left-handed Botanists. God-lovers United for Cheese-flavored Dog Food.

Read PZ’s post for the full entertainment package, but I just want to poke at the excommunication a little myself because it’s so…classic.

It’s handed down by the Secular Policy Institute, which started life as the Global Secular Institute (which was so funny because it was neither global nor an institute) and then morphed into something else and then morphed into the Secular Policy Institute. Maybe in a few months it will be the Interfaith Doughnut Factory. Anyway…they don’t write any better than they did under the original name. That’s funny too, in a way, since they don’t do anything else detectable – you’d think they would bother to get the writing done properly.

The secular movement has a problem, in that some of our foremost leaders get media attention by causing controversy. While this helps them draw in followers, it causes an atmosphere of infighting in the secular community that hinders us from partnering, takes our eye off the ball of important issues, and makes us look crankypants to outsiders. No wonder the stereotype of a secular person is condescending and angry.

I know. I told them some of that when they started (as the Global thing). Dawkins on Twitter for instance; he’s notorious. He keeps getting into the papers in the UK for saying absurd things on Twitter.

On the other hand I hate that word “infighting” because it always means pesky feminists messing up all the nice smooth atheism by objecting to sexist bullshit. Also…”crankypants”? Crankypants? This is a serious Statement, not a blog post. It’s a serious, professional statement by a serious, professional organization.

At the Secular Policy Institute, we know that the problem comes from who we partner with, in two ways.

First, we want to positively partner with anyone who will work with us, including religious organizations. We don’t bash religion and we seek to partner with everyone. This prevents doors from closing with politicians and other big decision-makers. We even have several churches in our coalition because plenty of liberal churches support our goals of separating of church and state, and ending discrimination against nonbelievers.

That’s some really awful writing. But more substantively – what do they mean they “seek to partner with everyone”? Everyone? The Vatican? The OIC? White supremacist organizations? Concerned Women for America? Tobacco lobbyists?

No, apparently not everyone, because they promptly specify liberal churches. So don’t say everyone then. Think while you write; it helps a lot.

Second, we also avoid partnering in some situations. We believe the secular movement should stop rewarding those who cause discord. Why are “shock jock” bloggers invited to lecture at major secular conferences?

Oh bloggers! So they don’t mean Dawkins after all. They mean people like me.

Of course they primarily mean PZ, since this is an excommunication of him, but they also mean people like me. They ask why we’re invited by way of saying we shouldn’t be invited. Fair enough. I don’t think anyone should pay attention to the Secular Policy Institute, and they don’t think people like me should be invited to talk at conferences. Ain’t this country great?

Freedom of speech is a confusing issue, but it means that each person can speak freely through his or her own channel. It does not mean that angry voices have a right to dominate unmoderated discussions on our own Facebook pages and forums. Perhaps as a community we are responsible for leading a cultural tone and guiding people towards constructive debate.

See what I mean about the bad writing? Do they make the interns do all the work?

Apparently we are not alone in wanting to look more professional as a movemnent to the outside world. This week, SPI coalition member Atheist Ireland publicly dissociated itself from blogger PZ Myers in an open letter.

What are your thoughts? Do you feel that strident internal criticism makes us stronger, or that our generosity to be inclusive to all voices is being taken advantage of? Let us know on our Facebook page and on Twitter.

Hmmmm good question. Is their generosity to be inclusive to all voices being taken advantage of? After all, if it weren’t for them, PZ and I would be unable to be shock-jock bloggers at all, and here we are taking advantage of that generosity.

Oh wait, no we’re not, because no we wouldn’t. We don’t depend on them at all in any way in order to blog. They have nothing to do with it. Zip, zilch. It’s the same with Atheist Ireland – it can’t excommunicate PZ because he was never a member of it. This business of “disassociating” is just trying to make “I hate you I hate you I hate you!!!” look official and important. I don’t think many people are fooled.

Stephanie has some excellent, and horrifying, and hilarious background on the Secular Policy Institute today.

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

Another cartoonist being punished for being a meanie to people in power. (I thought that was what political cartoonists were supposed to do.)

Malaysian cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Alhaque has been charged with nine counts of sedition for criticising the country’s judiciary in a series of tweets.

Alhaque, known for ridiculing the ruling coalition, had criticised the judiciary in a series of posts on Twitter on 10 February, when opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was due to start a five-year prison sentence on sodomy charges.

He had tweeted: “The lackeys in black robes are proud of their sentence. The rewards from the political masters must be plenty.”

In another post he said: “Today Malaysia is seen as a country without law.”

According to Malaysian laws, if the cartoonist is found guilty, he could be jailed for up to 43 years as sedition is defined by the country “as promoting hatred against the government”.

Cool law. A law like that means no one can criticize the government at all, because any criticism can be described as “promoting hatred against the government.”

Alhaque – who is known as  Zunar – was charged as the government launched a crackdown on opposition politicians and the media, using the colonial-era law, which has been slammed by critics in the country and abroad as a move to stifle freedom of expression.

Ya think? A law that allows the government to “crack down” on opposition politicians and the media might possibly be a move to stifle freedom of expression?

So far, numerous politicians, activists and journalists have been investigated and charged under the Sedition Act since 2014, for criticising the government.

Ahead of the 2013 general elections, Prime Minister Najib Razak had said that the government had planned to abolish the Sedition Act of 1949, but backtracked after he was elected.

Funny how that works, isn’t it.

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

There’s this article at the Gatestone Institute – a source I’m wary of, because I don’t know how reliable it is, but it provides some material I don’t see anywhere else.

After weeks of diplomatic wrangling and recrimination, the Saudi government on March 27 announced that it would reinstate its ambassador, Ibrahim bin Saad bin Ibrahim al-Brahim, to Stockholm. The ambassador had been recalled on March 11 as a protest against Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström’s criticism of Saudi Arabia’s legal practices and treatment of women.

“Weeks” of diplomatic wrangling is a strange way to put it, because March 11 to March 27 is 16 days. It’s two weeks; “weeks” sounds like more than that. Anyway, Saudi said the ambassador could go back. Did Sweden do any backing down to make this happen? Hard to say.

It is not exactly clear what motivated the Saudi king to resume diplomatic relations with Sweden. What is known is that Foreign Minister Wallström and Prime Minister Stefan Löfven have been quick to stress that is had never been their intention to slight Islam, which they now claim has made great contributions to human civilization, nor the Saudi kingdom.

Yes but they can say that while still criticizing the human rights mess. That’s what diplomats do.

Three letters to King Salman — one from Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and two from Prime Minister Löfven – were hand-delivered in Riyadh by Björn von Sydow, a high-ranking emissary of the Swedish government. Their contents are unknown, following a decision by the Swedish foreign office to classify them as secret. This decision came after the foreign office claimed it could not find the letters.

Prime Minister Löfven and Foreign Minister Wallström have said repeatedly that the letters do not contain any apology to Saudi Arabia. According to the daily Expressen, however, Saudi Arabia demanded a number of concessions from Sweden –­ one of them, an apology. It is clearly the impression in the Arab world that Sweden has in fact apologized.

Well, I hope not. I hope they gave some kind of ersatz apology while sticking to their position that Saudi Arabia shouldn’t do things like flogging people for talking about human rights and secularism.

On March 28, Expressen quoted Löfven as saying: “We have explained [to the Saudis, ed.] that we regret if there is something that has been perceived as if we have criticized Islam, which we have never done.” The Prime Minister added that Sweden has no intention of ever criticizing Islam. He continued: “We have the greatest respect for Islam as a religion.”

Löfven was keen to emphasize that “Sweden still stands for human rights. It is immensely important for us to do that. At the same time we also wish to develop cooperation with Saudi Arabia.”

Ah well there you are, you see, there’s the escape clause. “We wouldn’t dream of criticizing Islam. We’re criticizing you.” Of course they said it in a more oily and flattering way than that, but it’s what Löfven seems to hint.

The rest of the piece is speculative bullshit, thus confirming my doubts about Gatestone.

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

Originally two comments by Tom Foss on The words spoken.

“We need to stop spending our money on military and police and start spending it on education.”
“He wants to eliminate the whole military and all police! It’s exactly what he said!”

There’s a phrase missing from your strawman here that would actually make your “charitable” reading accurate: “so much.” We need to stop spending so much of our money on military and police and start spending it on education.

We keep hearing all this about charitable readings and giving people the benefit of the doubt when the people in question have given no indication that they deserve it. Regardless of whether or not she meant the actual words that she said, her claim about the “worst thing that can happen” to a gay person in the US is insultingly, dismissively false. There is literally no reason for her to so blatantly distort the actual situation for gay people in the US to make her point, because the death penalty as actual policy is worse whether American gays are being denied cake or being denied employment. The same is true for her comments about women’s rights. Why dismiss these issues if your point isn’t to say that we need to switch our focus to the real problems? Which, again, is what she actually said.

It’s the same bullshit Patricia Arquette was peddling a few months back, it’s the same bullshit intersectional feminists and civil rights activists have been talking about for ever. Some outside observer sees that a civil rights movement has made some high-visibility victories and declares that the war is over, so now we can focus on the issues that really matter (to me).

Maybe it’s uncharitable to read the words as they were actually said. I suggest that Ali’s comments about the “worst thing that can happen” to gays are far less charitable. At least our reading has a basis in reality.

Funny how charity and benefit of the doubt never go both ways. Ali apparently wasn’t writing her speech thinking “gays in the US still spend a lot of time lobbying and campaigning for rights reforms. Maybe they dohave worse things to worry about than Christian bakers.” No, it was all “they must not know about how bad it is in Iran. I need to tell them how silly this cake nonsense is by comparison, and then they’ll totally see it my way.”

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

A news story from what must be a colleague (so to speak) of the Onion.

The catering team on BBC quiz Have I Got News For You have been placed on ‘high alert’ after increased chatter surrounding Jeremy Clarkson’s appearance later this month.

With the risk of serving cold food higher than ever before, the catering team are said to be undergoing extensive training and new performance drills ahead of his 29th April appearance to ensure all food in the green room remains warm at all times.

Caterer Simon Williams told us, “This is not normally a dangerous job, but frankly we can’t afford to make the terrible mistake of serving Jeremy Clarkson cold food. Real human lives are at risk.”

Me, I’d put on a fencing mask and serve him piping hot melon and barely-thawed grilled salmon on a bed of stone cold arugula purée.

One former HIGNFY guest told us, “I once had a luke warm sausage roll in the green room, so I hope for all our sakes they’ve managed to rid themselves of such sloppiness.”

“If Clarkson goes off, it could cost hundreds of lives.”

Give the man some nice warm raspberry gelato for dessert.

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

C J Werleman claims that New Atheism – all of it, not just Sam Harris and Bill Maher – is pro-white supremacy.

[The New Atheist movement has] become a pro-white supremacy movement. New Atheism is anti-Muslim, anti-Arab bigotry dressed up with a thin veneer of fancy sounding words.

That’s not a very effective way of making his claim, since white-supremacy isn’t the same thing as anti-Muslim bigotry which is not the same thing as anti-Arab bigotry. There’s overlap, but it’s possible to be one of those things without being the others, and it’s possible to be two of those things without being all three.

Individually, and on a personal level, however, New Atheists can be good people. Collectively and unwittingly, however, they not only espouse white supremacy but they also speak in a language that is every bit as crude and racist as fascist, neo-Nazi, movements. Although a little more discreetly.

Hm. He’s really not good at noticing when he contradicts himself between one sentence and the next, is he. If the language is a little more discreet, then it’s not every bit as crude and racist. The language can’t be both a little more discreet and every bit as crude and racist.

While New Atheists don’t use the overt racial epithets of say the Ku Klux Klan in the US, or Pegida in Europe, they use dog whistle terms like “barbarians,” “backwards,” and “violent”.

Some do; some don’t. Also, “violent” won’t do as a dog whistle, because it’s an indispensable word. If you treat “violent” as racist-dog whistle, you’ve made it impossible to use a necessary word.

Moreover, New Atheists enthusiastically, and often unintentionally, promote western imperialism, and any individual who supports an erroneous narrative (“clash of civilisations” is the theme of New Atheism) that, by design, attempts to justify western intervention in the Middle East, Africa, or Asia is, ergo ipso facto, a white supremacist.

Jesus – what a terrible writer he is. No wonder I’ve never bothered with him before. Again with the confusion – “enthusiastically, and often unintentionally” – that doesn’t really cohere. And then the random jumble of clauses, and then the silly “ergo ipso facto” – what a mess. Oh and a wrong factual claim – no, “clash of civilisations” is not the theme of new atheism.

Like their anti-theistic genocidal forefathers of the middle 20th century, New Atheists dabble in the dark arts of scientific racism. “The cult of science promises to eradicate or reform the tainted and morally inferior populations of the human race,” warns Chris Hedges. Today’s New Atheists proclaim science and reason will save humanity; bring an end to all wars; and bring about a more perfect civilisation. On the way to this imagined utopia, however, and again like their genocidal, anti-theistic forefathers of yore, they champion those who urge violence and discrimination.

Which anti-theistic genocidal forefathers of the middle 20th century are those then? And name one new atheist who says “science and reason will save humanity; bring an end to all wars; and bring about a more perfect civilisation.” Just one. He offers Bill Maher as an example but forgets to include the part about how  science and reason will save humanity; bring an end to all wars; and bring about a more perfect civilisation, so that’s not an example of what he just said.

As for Hirsi Ali, no New Atheist alive in America today is unfamiliar with her story. But it’s not the retelling of her story they seek. They want to rehear again and again how “Islam is one of the world’s great evils”, or “the mother lode of bad ideas”, or the greatest threat to Western civilisation, a “nihilistic, cult of death” and so on. They want to be made afraid of Islam in order to justify their hate of Muslims.

Except that maybe, just maybe, that’s not true. Just maybe it really is Islam that they dislike, and that leads some of them into rhetoric that does look anti-Muslim, and sometimes is anti-Muslim.

Sam Charles Hamad is a journalist with great expertise on the Middle East and US foreign policy. On the day Hirsi Ali spoke and received “a standing ovation” at the American Atheist’s convention, Hamad posted on Facebook:

“You’ll find that the vast majority of Ali’s fans are white males who hate Muslims and, in her, have found a perfect little brown-skinned conduit for their bigotry. I’m not a racist or prejudiced, they can say as they spout racism and bigotry. I’m a big fan of Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The fact that she’s a complete fraud making a shitload of cash at the expense of these slobbering white bigots would be rather funny if she also didn’t appeal to genuine fascists and demonise Muslims in such a fascistic and potentially dangerous manner.”

Notice the sexism that slipped in there? That Werleman apparently didn’t notice? That tell-tale “little”?

There are plenty of assholes in the atheist/new atheist movement, for sure. I wouldn’t dream of denying it. Lots of them are sexist men, and some are also racist. But is the whole movement “white supremacist” (or sexist)? Nope.

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