Denis Mukwege

Oct 7th, 2016 12:30 pm | By

NPR reports: a doctor in DR Congo who treats rape survivors is a contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.

45,482.

That is the number of rape survivors treated by Dr. Denis Mukwege and his associates at Panzi Hospital between 1999 and 2015. Some 35,000 of those survivors, who range in age from toddlers to seniors, suffered complex gynecological injuries, inflicted by members of rebel groups and the Congolese military.

Mukwege, who for the past several years has been considered a strong candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, began his career as a gynecologist wanting to help the women of the Democratic Republic of Congo, his homeland.

When he opened Panzi Hospital in 1999, he envisioned it as means to improve the maternal mortality rates in Bukavu, the capital of Eastern Congo, where about 1 in 100 women died during childbirth. “But our first patient did not come to deliver a baby,” the 61-year-old gynecologist explained in a speech he gave on Thursday accepting the Seoul Peace Prize in Korea. “She had been raped with extreme violence.”

While Mukwege was known in international circles for years — he has collected many humanitarian awards — popular knowledge of his work has come through The Man Who Mends Women: The Wrath of Hippocrates, an award-winning documentary that was shown this year at the Africa Diaspora International Film Festival.

The film, by Thierry Michel and Colette Braeckman, focuses on issues of physical healing and justice. It also paints a stark picture of the landscape around Bukavu and Panzi Hospital, visiting villages and jungles where the afterlife of the Second Congo War still rages.

The film, which was banned by the government of the DRC, raises the voices of the Congolese women, who often have no place in the international dialogue. Their words help convey the depth of the trauma. They also reveal the depth of humanity and care in the doctor’s work. “I felt love for him and myself again,” one woman says in a scene.

Have the trailer:

 



Not “woke” or “with it” or one of the cool kids

Oct 7th, 2016 11:38 am | By

Bruce is wondering what’s taking the bus so long.

[I]t’s not as if I haven’t made comments that should rile these people. Yet, I’ve been left alone. People haven’t got the message that I’m persona non grata. Allow me to make a few more inflammatory comments that I regard as true, in one convenient place so as to incriminate myself. As I’m not trying to convince anyone, but rather trying to get them to condemn me, I’m not going to put too much effort into justifying myself.

***

Not all oppression is based on identity. Do you think the oppression suffered by pigs entails their identity as porcine? An organism doesn’t need to be self-regarding in order to be oppressed – it doesn’t require an ego, just nerve endings and oppressive surroundings. Oppression can be and often is arbitrary and indifferent to people’s inner states. Sure, the likes of fascists can and do attempt to author the identities of the people they oppress, and it’s even possible to harmfully foist an identity on another inadvertently, but while often relevant, identity isn’t anecessary criteria of oppression. The humans who oppress pigs aren’t trying to get the pigs to identify as tasty, they’re just trying to eat them, and indifferently going about a lot of cruelty in the process.

If you’re a Vegan because of the way the dairy industry handles bobby calves, but you embrace the sex industry despite its involvement in human trafficking, you’ve got one hell of a blind spot. I can’t believe how often I’ve seen Vegans failing to generalize this kind of analysis, all while managing to be condescending to people who do. (Disclosure: I don’t eat meat or dairy).

That’s a small selection. They’re all that good.

Normally I wouldn’t be so ‘splainy, but for quite some time now I’ve been waiting for the bus I’m supposed to have been thrown under and it still hasn’t arrived. I belong under that bus. I’ve said The Things.

So go ahead and call me a “TERF” or a “whorephobe” or a “shitlord”, just don’t address me personally if that’s your take; I don’t owe you that. Shun me if that’s the case. Add me to your block-lists. Unfriend or unfollow me on social media. Dis-approve of my person. Don’t put me on your Christmas list. I’m not “woke” or “with it” or one of the cool kids, and I don’t care to be. I will insist though, if you’re going to consider me at all, that you give me the same degree of smear you’d give to women for writing what I have. I’m rather over this particular form of special treatment I seem to be getting.

Have you noticed that? That it’s women who get thrown under that bus while men are mostly ignored? Funny, isn’t it. It’s almost as if the whole thing is absolutely riddled with misogyny, and people are positively vibrating with excitement at having a gold-plated pretext for shitting on women again.

If on the other hand, you think any of what I’ve written above is even defensible, but you still treat claims of “TERF” status, “whorephobia” and crypto-right-wingedness as self-evident, semantically obvious and unchallengeably evil, well, you may want to consider the possibility of contradictions in your political view, or that there are definitions of “TERF”, “whorephobe” and “right-wing” in circulation that  you don’t actually agree with. I’ll leave dealing with that up to you.

We’ll wait.



Theocrats call LGB activists “far right”

Oct 7th, 2016 11:07 am | By

The AhlulBayt Islamic Mission, which as Peter Tatchell said is hosting the Islamist preacher who advocates death for lesbians and gay men, has issued a statement on how wrong people are to object to clerics who advocate death for lesbians and gay men. The AIM is an offshoot of an Iranian organization, and is a big fan of the theocratic regime in Iran.

The AhlulBayt Islamic Mission (AIM) issues this statement to clarify its position on the baseless allegations made against Shaykh Hamza Sodagar by far-right media outlets.

AIM prides itself for being active in campaigning against extremism, sectarianism, intolerance and racism both locally and globally. We have been consistent in our efforts to spread justice, peace, and tolerance; and to promote social harmony as contained in our rich and abundant Islamic heritage. Since its inception, our organisation has been steadfast in promoting this message because these values are enshrined in the Islamic teachings that we uphold.

Notice something? It prides itself on campaigning against racism…but not against sexism or homophobia. Those are not random omissions. The “Islamic teachings” they uphold are thoroughly sexist and homophobic.

The unfortunate rise of right-wing extremism has resulted in a malicious campaign to misconstrue the positions of Islam and dehumanise Muslims.

We are saddened that the UK media is able to publish materials that clearly follow a right-wing extremist agenda of spreading hatred and Islamophobia.

We are surely meant to infer from that that the AIM is left-wing as opposed to right-wing.

Ha.

The theocratic Islamist regime in Iran is not left-wing, and neither is the AIM, and neither is Sodagar.

Shaykh Hamza Sodagar is a reputable religious scholar who has studied the sciences of the religion and is considered an expert in theology, history and jurisprudence. He has a lengthy record in serving the Muslim community around the world.

In remarks made in 2010, as part of a series of lectures delivered on mercy, love and hatred in Islam through a commentary of a supplication from the Islamic tradition, Shaykh Hamza explained the position of Islam on homosexuality, and that it [i.e. homosexuality] is not compatible with Islam. This is a clear and undeniable position that is upheld by Islam as found in Islamic scripture and tradition. In this regard, it must be understood, as was mentioned in the very same lecture series, that Islamic penal code cannot be administered outside the framework of law-enforcement and legal process within a legitimate government.

Bracketed interpolation mine.

Yes, we’ve seen this “explanation” before, in fact we’ve seen it ad nauseam. Islam says homosexuality is not compatible with Islam, and Iran executes gay men, but that’s ok because Islamists won’t put that into practice unless they have already taken over the government. Oh that’s fine then.

We’re not the “far right” in this picture.



It’s not a subtle point

Oct 7th, 2016 10:23 am | By

Trump says it’s all a joke,  it’s for laughs, it’s entertainment.

Donald Trump said Wednesday that derogatory statements he has made toward women were all for the sake of “entertainment” and did not reflect his true feelings.

“A lot of that was done for the purpose of entertainment; there’s nobody that has more respect for women than I do,” the real estate mogul told Las Vegas’ KSNV-TV in an interview taped Wednesday ahead of a rally in Henderson, Nevada.

Oh Donald. Donald Donald Donald. Don’t be ridiculous. Of course there’s anybody who has more respect for women than you do. There are billions of people who have more respect for women than you do. Billions. With a B.

Mind you, now I think of it, I doubt you have anything that can be called “respect” for anyone apart from yourself. I think your narcissism is that consuming and that absolute.

But your contempt for women is something special, and it’s not at all an act done for laughs. The distinction can’t really be made, anyway. If you hold people up for mockery and ridicule, even if you do it just for laughs, then you don’t respect them.

The assholes of the world don’t seem to grasp this point, do they.



Pence talked about the beauty of adoption

Oct 6th, 2016 5:21 pm | By

Katha Pollitt wants us to make sure we understand how terrible Mike Pence is on abortion.

Mr. Kaine talked about trusting women as decision-makers. Mr. Pence talked about the beauty of adoption — in the context of criminalizing abortion, that really means forcing women to bear children for other people — and “health care counseling” for women. When he says that, he is surely referring to so-called crisis pregnancy centers, which try to dissuade women from ending a pregnancy, often through deception, scare tactics and Christian proselytizing, and to which Governor Pence has funneled millionsof Indiana taxpayers’ dollars.

Mr. Pence’s demeanor on Tuesday may have been calm and friendly, but his record on reproductive rights is horrendous, and voters need to be aware of that. A few highlights: As Indiana governor, he promoted a law, stayed by a federal judge, which would have banned abortion for fetal disability. The law also mandated the cremation or burial of aborted — or miscarried — embryos and fetuses, no matter how early. He slashed Planned Parenthood’s budget, which led to the closing of five clinics that provided testing for sexually transmitted diseases and coincided with a rise in H.I.V. infection in his state. And as a congressman, he led the fight to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding in 2011.

He puts his belief that women’s bodies are public property right up front.

When Mr. Kaine mentioned that Mr. Trump had called for punishing women who had abortions, Mr. Pence brushed it aside. His running mate, the Republican nominee for president, talked like that only because he’s “not a polished politician.”

No, he said that because he’s not a decent human being and because he has nothing but contempt for women.

Pence would much rather talk about so-called partial birth abortions, and those mythical day-before-birth procedures anti-abortion groups want to portray as the norm. Surely he knows, though, that a woman has already been punished in his own state. In 2015 in Indiana, a woman named Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 years in prison for what the prosecutor said was a late self-abortion. (Last month a judge overturned her feticide conviction.) Twenty years for taking a pill you can buy over the internet? That sure sounds like punishment to me.

Public property is public property. If it won’t obey, it must be punished.



Second – burn them to death

Oct 6th, 2016 4:08 pm | By

Peter Tatchell urges the Home Secretary to revoke the visa of an Islamist cleric who endorses killing of gays.

“In a free society, Hamza Sodagar has a right to believe that homosexuality is sinful but not to preach about ways to kill lesbians and gay men. Many people with far less extreme views, who have never advocated violence, have been banned from entering the UK. Calling for death to LGBT people crosses a red line. The Home Office was wrong to grant him a visa and should now revoke it. The cleric should be ordered out of the country,” said human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell.

US-born radical Shaykh Hamza Sodagar – who has dubbed non-Muslims “kuffars” and released a video detailing “one of five ways” to kill homosexuals – is speaking at the Islamic Republic of Iran School in London. His lectures started on October 4 and run until October 12.

According to a speaker biography, Mr. Sodagar regards himself as a “role model” for “young Muslims all around the world.”

A recent video of the preacher features Mr. Sodagar stating: “If there’s homosexual men, the punishment is one of five things. One – the easiest one maybe – chop their head off, that’s the easiest. Second – burn them to death. Third – throw ’em off a cliff. Fourth – tear down a wall on them so they die under that. Fifth – a combination of the above.”

Watch the video of him saying this.

“The event is being organised by the Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission, which also hosted Mr. Sodagar in 2014. It is a pro-Iranian regime organisation. Iran has the death penalty for homosexuality,” said Mr Tatchell.

Tell him thanks but no thanks.



An intimidation tactic masquerading as an economic theory

Oct 6th, 2016 12:23 pm | By

The propaganda about the terrible consequences of paying workers more is just that: propaganda, aka lies. Nick Hanauer explains it.

Minimum wage opponents continue to deride every proposed increase as a surefire job killer, while reporters and pundits reliably characterize the passage of every minimum wage ordinance and statute as a dangerous experiment that threatens to harm the very people it’s intended to help. “California makes itself a guinea pig in a massive and risky minimum wage experiment,” tweeted the New York Times’s Noam Scheiber. “Raising minimum wage risky,” the Lexington, Kentucky Herald Leader’s headline tersely warned its readers following $15 victories in faraway California and New York. “Raising minimum wage hurts low-skill workers,” the Detroit News bluntly chimed in. “Even left-leaning economists say it’s a gamble,” Vox solemnly cautioned (without actually managing to cite a single left-leaning economist willing to pejoratively editorialize $15 as a “gamble.”)

It’s odd that that’s such a mantra when another top fave mantra is that spending fuels the economy. How are people supposed to spend if they don’t have enough money? Why wouldn’t more discretionary income put all those factories to work making more socks with separated toes?

Anyway, they crunched the numbers, and…

A small army of economists has tried to test this theory over the past few decades. It is tricky, because unlike the simplified models in Econ 101 textbooks, real economies are messy and complex: technologies change, the Fed moves interest rates, oil prices fluctuate, the business cycle swings, a hurricane hits and so on. The challenge is to isolate the impact of the minimum wage from all of these other factors that might affect growth or employment. Through various sophisticated statistical techniques, researchers have attempted to separate the minimum wage signal from the economic noise, and while economists never agree on anything, they have produced a range of consistent results: from zero to zip to nada to a very small effect. In a 2014 letter to President Obama and congressional leaders signed by more than 600 economists (including seven Nobel Prize winners), the authors concluded that “the weight of evidence now show[s] that increases in the minimum wage have had little or no negative effect on the employment of minimum-wage workers, even during times of weakness in the labor market.”

And, you know, there are actually some advantages to not keeping a quarter of the population or so in dire poverty. I know, I know, that’s hard to credit, but it’s true.

But while there’s no evidence that raising the minimum wage is the “risky gamble” doomsayers describe, the devastating economic costs of keeping wages too low are very well documented. After decades of stagnant wages, 73 million Americans — nearly one quarter of our population — now live in households eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, a benefit exclusively available to the working poor. And according to a 2014 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, rising income inequality (and the reduced consumer demand that comes with it) knocked 6 to 9 percent off U.S. economic growth over the previous two decades.

See? What I’m saying. We’re supposed to be a consumerism-based economy, but how can we be that when so many people can’t afford to buy a shiny new Roomba?

People on the minimum wage tend to spend everything they earn. Increases in the minimum wage thus flow back into the economy (again, like the tide flowing upstream), generating increased demand, which in turn increases hiring and investment. It is a basic principle of capitalism that when workers have more money, businesses have more customers, and when businesses have more customers, they hire more workers. This income effect may not have left a large mark on the historical data, because historically, most minimum wage increases have been relatively small. But it is real and should be taken into account. And in an era of depressed demand and consumer spending, as we are now, higher wages are exactly what our economy needs.

What I’m saying. The money paid in wages isn’t just lost. It’s part of the economy.

But of course the employers want other people to pay higher wages while they go on paying lower ones. A minimum wage means they all have to do their bit, so fight fight fight.

And that’s what it is, Hanauer says – it’s not a theory, it’s a scam.

The claim that if wages go up, jobs go down isn’t a description of reality at all. Nor, in my opinion, does it reflect legitimate economics. It is a negotiating strategy. It is a scam, a con job, a threat — more precisely, it is an intimidation tactic masquerading as a legitimate economic theory. I believe this is where being a businessperson and not an economist leads to greater clarity. Very few economists have ever run a business or negotiated wages. But the first rule in the businessman’s handbook on wage negotiation and suppression is always, always when they ask for a raise, threaten their jobs. It works like a charm and has since the invention of capitalism. You see, the claim if wages go up, employment goes down isn’t made because it is true. It’s made because if people like me can get people like you to believe it is true, I’m going to get richer, and you are going to get poorer. The lower your wages are the higher my profits will be. It’s that simple.

Yep. The bosses don’t mind if other bosses pay more, but they don’t want to pay more. Get your sheep off the common, damn you, they’re taking all the grass that my sheep should be eating.



Roofless

Oct 6th, 2016 10:16 am | By
Roofless

The BBC is live updating Hurricane Matthew.

Reuters has a photo that indicates a complete nightmare in Haiti:

capture

Reuters

There are photos of long lines of cars evacuating Miami…adding more CO2 to the climate change that has helped fuel storms like this.

 



Where they are fed the lie

Oct 6th, 2016 8:29 am | By

Weirdly, the Daily Mail has a good piece on anti-abortion fanatics (their word) in the UK.

Vulnerable women suffering emotional trauma after an abortion have been referred by the NHS to an extremist pro-life group where they are fed the lie that termination can cause breast cancer.

Patients are left distraught by the devastating claim made by advisers at the Good Counsel Network – but which is dismissed by medical experts as untrue and ‘damaging’.

Yet one of Britain’s biggest NHS mental health trusts, South West London and St George’s, has been recommending patients to the London-based groups via leaflets and its website for five years.

Despite its misleading advice, GCN was described until recently on the NHS website as ‘a leading organisation in the field of mental health’.

GCN – which was censured for misleading advertising under its former name – pays some activists a salary to stand outside abortion clinics, forcing women to run a gauntlet of haranguing protesters as they enter and leave.

Women are handed leaflets referring them to ‘pregnancy crisis centres’, where a mixture of lies and half-truths is peddled, aimed at making them change their mind about the procedure.

The revelations will be exposed in an undercover investigation by Channel 4’s Dispatches this week.

The Mail includes clips from the show.

One paid “activist” admitted telling a woman whose GP had advised her that to continue her pregnancy could put her life at risk, that the doctors could be wrong. Dispatches reporter Cathy Newman later asked her about it and she repeated that doctors can be wrong. Good point; let’s harangue everyone going in for surgery about it.

MPs fear the introduction of aggressive American-style anti-abortion tactics could lead to violence. At least 11 people have been murdered at US abortion clinics since 1990, and there have been scores of bombings and arson attacks.

Keir Starmer, the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service who is now Labour MP, believes that buffer zones outside abortion clinics might be necessary.

He said: ‘These are carefully constructed tactics that are intended to absolutely cause anxiety and concern. In America this has gone even further than we’ve seen in this country, and I think because of that we have to work on the basis that this conduct will escalate here.’

Separately, undercover investigators secretly filmed a London conference for pro-life extremists, run by pressure group Abort67. The group was set up by American lawyer Gregg Cunningham, a 69-year-old former Republican politician.

Another reason to be ashamed of my country.

There’s a lot more; read on.



Guest post: There are times when platitudes are not enough

Oct 5th, 2016 2:49 pm | By

Guest post by Maureen Brian.

We have spent the last several decades chipping away at the notion that body conformation = personality = social role = that’s the way things are, folks.

When I say we I mean, primarily but not solely, those of us who over a couple of hundred years of work have managed to carve out for ourselves the right to vote, to have an education, to have a degree of control over our own finances. Many of us have worked to help other people see what can be achieved and to offer help and support as they try out the prospect of being fully paid up human beings in less promising circumstances, perhaps in countries where either the government or the religious authorities can be very abusive to anyone who challenges the status quo.

We no longer have to fight quite so hard if we want to be an astronaut, an engineer or simply not to have children. We do know, though, that around the next corner we may meet with someone who has not kept up with the changes. Someone, perhaps, who says, “I don’t do business with women” which has happened to me, despite his already knowing that I was the one who could commission work from him, draw up the agreement and sign off his payment.

Of course we are going to be mad and of course we are going to fight back when a group of people spring up from nowhere and start telling us how we must perceive ourselves, what language we may or may not use, how their perception of who they are trumps my perception of who I am.

In practice I am entirely respectful of how another person perceives their own gender and careful to use the pronouns they prefer. I just don’t want to spend the rest of my life discussing it. Nor am I either keen or likely to submit to their authority. What authority, anyway?

So, there comes a time when I’ll be doing a cost / benefit analysis. Is what is being asked of me causing me more harm than it gives benefit to the other person? Have we reached the point where “please humour me” becomes an imposition? We’re very close. And there are times when platitudes are not enough.



A woman must be either wholly invisible or public property

Oct 5th, 2016 12:09 pm | By

Victoria Smith aka Glosswitch asks how much of themselves writers should reveal.

If you are male, it doesn’t really matter. You are the default human being and all experiences about which you write – regardless of whether or not you have actually had them – will be universal.

If you are female it is more complicated. Reveal too much about yourself and you are not a real writer at all, just an over-sharer, wallowing in the petty specifics of a non-male life. Don’t reveal enough and you are suspect, manipulative, a tease. Either way you can’t win.

Elena Ferrante avoided that bind by writing pseudonymously.

Unlike female authors who use male pen names, she was still identifiable as a woman – but as a woman who could only be judged by her works, not her background, her appearance or her personal life.

Well, how dare she, right? That certainly seems to have been Claudio Gatti’s view of the matter.

When a male author tells half-truths or plays with facts we don’t call this ‘lying’; we call it ‘being postmodern’ and consider it very clever indeed. When a woman does the same, cleverness suddenly becomes deviousness. If she was never prepared to give us the whole story, then she should not have told us anything at all. Gatti describes Ferrante as “the very first person to violate Elena Ferrante’s privacy.” It is an absurd statement to make, rooted in the belief that a woman must be either wholly invisible or public property.

And the belief that if she fails to be wholly invisible, other people get to force her to be public property, no matter how explicit and clear she is that she refuses.

The same male entitlement leads to women being told that if they don’t like abuse on social media, they should deactivate; if they don’t like being victims of revenge porn, they shouldn’t take photos of themselves; if they don’t like having their body ridiculed on the cover of Closer, they shouldn’t do anything that could remotely lead to them being considered famous. It is a way of controlling women by limiting the space they will dare to claim for themselves.

It’s so habitual and pervasive, this habit of treating women as public property, that I often despair of our ability ever to break it. The ice caps will melt long before we get anywhere close.

A female writer should not have to struggle through all this and then, once she has produced something amazing, have to contend with male journalists telling her what else it is their ‘right’ to know.

A female writer should not have to be public property against her will.



ITV documentary explores the lives of ex-Muslims

Oct 5th, 2016 11:50 am | By

The Independent has a piece on Maryam and the CEMB and ex-Muslims in the UK.

Speaking ahead of the release of Exposure, an ITV documentary that explores the lives of ex-Muslims faced with abuse and discrimination, Ms Namazie told The Independent: “There is a large group of people who are not seen and heard. Many young people living in Britain have left Islam and are facing huge ostracisation and isolation from their communities as a result.

“They’re very often silenced or they’re living closeted lives. They’re still acting as Muslims, still wearing the veil and still going to the mosque, but they’re really atheist.”

Ms Namazie, an Iranian-born activist and ex-Muslim herself, described the “silent challenges” faced by people born into Muslim families who decide they do not believe, and warned that the number of Muslims converting to atheism is growing.

Well I doubt that she “warned” – she doesn’t think it’s a bad thing.

Exposure, which will be be aired on 13 October, reveals the dangers ex-Muslims face after they renounce their faith, with many at risk of suicide or self-harm as well as physical and psychological abuse from family members.

That’s one of the problems with intense religion – it sucks up loyalty and love that should go to humans, and directs them at imaginary beings. People shouldn’t love their religion more than their children or siblings.

Ms Namazie told The Independent the problem is exacerbated by the transnational Islamist movement, which has heightened tensions within Muslim communities, and warned distinctions must be made between leading Muslims and leaders of the Islamic movement operating within the UK.

She said: “There are international links with what’s happening here. Ex-Muslims are being killed in Bangladesh, then you’ve got Islamists here threatening Bangladeshi bloggers who have fled to Britain.

“We also need to recognise that many religious leaders in this country are not representative of the Muslim community but really representative of the Islamist movement that is encouraging this discrimination against ex-Muslims.”

Bring on the tsunami of atheism.



Guest post: Against the spiritual turn

Oct 5th, 2016 11:05 am | By

Guest post by Josh Spokes.

Material analysis is the only political analysis that produces results. Religion, spirituality, the ever-proliferating variety of “identities” and “kinds of souls” and all the rest—-it’s vapor.

None of that will get you equal pay as a woman. None of it will make men stop raping and beating women, and raping and beating men they perceive to be feminine. None of it will give you a reliable roadmap on how to extricate yourself from exploitative situations.

The material world is the real world. It’s the only world that exists. We ignore the material world, and we deny our embodied, wholly material human existence, at our own cost and peril.



A travel opportunity

Oct 5th, 2016 8:16 am | By

The protests in Poland worked – the government dropped the plan to pass a total abortion ban, and said it was the protests that did it. Polish abortion law is still horrific though.

A proposed total abortion ban in Poland will not be implemented, a member of the government has said, describing mass protests against the ban as a lesson in humility for the country’s leadership.

Jarosław Gowin, the minister of science and higher education, said on Wednesday that the protests by women had “caused us to think and taught us humility”.

The comments appear to indicate that Poland’s conservative leadership will withhold support from the highly unpopular proposal to ban abortions even in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk.

But the other kind? Still a big No.

Poland already outlaws abortions, with exceptions made only for rape, incest, badly damaged foetuses or if the mother’s life is at risk. In practice, though, some doctors refuse to perform even legal abortions, citing moral objections.

Polish women seeking abortions typically go to Germany or other neighbouring countries to get them or order abortion pills online.

Like Ireland, except for not having to cross a sea.



Schools should be bishop-free

Oct 5th, 2016 7:58 am | By

Goddy UK school punishes students for not attending mass at school.

Taylor High held its Patron Day Mass on Friday with Bishop of Motherwell Joseph Toal in attendance.

All pupils were told to be present as it also served as a memorial service for former members of staff who died earlier this year.

Some didn’t go, and they were punished with a week of lunchtime detentions.

One sixth year student believes it is unfair pupils who are not practicing Catholics should have to sit through mass. She said: “Although pupils are usually forced to go, there is not usually consequences for not being there and I believe it is unfair to have forced religious observance towards many pupils who may not be religious, me included.

She’s right. Education is one thing and religion is another, and religion should not be forced on anyone in a school, whether it’s public or private.

Acting head teacher Nicola Daley said: “Our entire school held its annual Patron’s Day Mass on Friday with Bishop Joseph Toal as its Principal Celebrant. “The theme for the celebration was Saint Teresa of Calcutta and highlighted her work with the poor. It was also a memorial service for two members of our staff who died in May after giving years of service to the school.

In other words it was extremely, gratingly Catholic. I don’t think Catholics should be forced to attend such an event, let alone non-Catholics. I don’t think anyone should.



La plume de mon spuncle

Oct 4th, 2016 4:43 pm | By

There’s a thing called The 519 Church Street Community Centre which has Queer Parenting Programs. There is, naturally, a guide to language. To inclusive language, that is. The kind that includes everyone by carefully avoiding words like woman and sister.

Pregnancy and Birth

Pregnant person

Person who gives or gave birth / Birthing Parent

Pregnancy Leave (vs Maternity Leave)

Parental Leave (vs Paternity Leave)

Carrier Mortality (vs Maternal Mortality)

Carrier mortality. You have to pause to savor that one. They be “inclusive” by hiding the fact that it’s women who die in childbirth. Carrier mortality. Women might as well be incubators.

But eventually it gets funny.

Families

Sparkle (an older beloved one, e.g. vs Auntie or Uncle)

Sparkling (a younger beloved one)

Spuncle (a known sperm donor in the child’s life: sperm + uncle)

Spauntie (female-identified partner of a Spuncle)

Grand Spuncle / Grand Sparkle (parent/s of the Spuncle)

Spuncle. Spuncle. Spuncle.



The last great days

Oct 4th, 2016 10:57 am | By

Bill McKibben says it’s worse than we thought just last week or so.

Scientists say that to have even a two-thirds chance of staying below a global increase of two degrees Celsius, we can release 800 gigatons more CO2 into the atmosphere. But the Rystad data shows coal mines and oil and gas wells currently in operation worldwide contain 942 gigatons worth of CO2. So the math problem is simple, and it goes like this:

942 > 800

“What we found is that if you burn up all the carbon that’s in the currently operating fields and mines, you’re already above two degrees,” says Stephen Kretzmann, OCI’s executive director.

And two degrees is no longer the red line anyway.

Two degrees Celsius used to be the red line. But scientists now believe the upper limit is much lower. We’ve already raised the world’s temperature by one degree—enough to melt almost half the ice in the Arctic, kill off huge swaths of the world’s coral, and unleash lethal floods and drought. July and August tied for the hottest months ever recorded on our planet, and scientists think they were almost certainly the hottest in the history of human civilization.

In some places it approached too hot for humans to survive.

So last year, when the world’s leaders met in Paris, they set a new number: Every effort, they said, would be made to keep the global temperature rise to less than 1.5 degrees. And to have even a 50–50 chance of meeting that goal, we can only release about 353 gigatons more CO2. So let’s do the math again:

942 > 353

A lot greater. To have just a break-even chance of meeting that 1.5 degree goal we solemnly set in Paris, we’ll need to close all of the coal mines and some of the oil and gas fields we’re currently operating long before they’re exhausted.

And…it won’t happen.



Oligarchy in America

Oct 4th, 2016 9:57 am | By

Jane Mayer wrote in the New Yorker yesterday about Trump the oligarch.

Now, with the Times reporting that congressionally crafted loopholes for real-estate magnates could have enabled Trump to legally evade all income taxes for eighteen years, while earning as much as fifty million dollars a year, we have a perfect example of how oligarchic interests have made inroads in the United States. The question now is whether the American public favors this trend.

One definition of an oligarch, according to the Northwestern University political scientist Jeffrey A. Winters, the author of “Oligarchy,” is an individual with enough money to employ the protection of what he calls the “wealth defense industry.” Oligarchs worldwide face threats of different kinds, but in the U.S. the greatest threat is from redistribution—which is achieved by the state imposing progressive income taxes. So the “wealth defense industry” in America—sophisticated accountants, consultants, lawyers, lobbyists, and think-tank apologists—is uniquely focussed on carving out tax loopholes for its rich clients.

Result: the 1%.

The defense of tax avoidance by Trump and his surrogates may be a particularly hard sell in light of his relentless trash-talking of America’s roads, airports, schools, military, and other publicly financed projects. “Our country’s becoming a Third World country!” Trump reiterated at a rally in Manheim, Pennsylvania, on Saturday night. If so, voters might fairly say, as Hillary Clinton did at last week’s debate, “Maybe because you haven’t paid any federal income tax for a lot of years.”

During that debate, Trump’s best line of attack was to hit Clinton for having been involved in politics for thirty years while so many problems have festered. But the same point could be made about him. For decades, Trump has been part of the private sector that has used its wealth and power to carve out tax loopholes for its own self-interest. This may be acceptable in Russia, and other oligarchic parts of the world, but whether it’s O.K. in America, too, is now on the ballot next month.

Among other things.



But no, they talk, they give interviews

Oct 4th, 2016 9:08 am | By

The Columbia Journalism Review interviewed Claudio Gatti yesterday.

What’s your response to those who say she’s entitled to her privacy? That she’s not a mafia boss or politician, but just a writer of fiction?

No, she’s not. But she’s a major public figure. Do you know who the Italian minister of the economy is?

No.

Do you know who the CEO of the Italian oil company is?

No.

But you do know who Elena Ferrante is. What I’m saying is, the biggest mystery about Italy from outside Italy is, “Who is Elena Ferrante?” It is a major issue, not that I made it such. When readers buy books by the millions, they have a legitimate desire to know more about who wrote the book. I’m not saying that; Sandra Ozzola said and wrote that.

Point comprehensively missed. The issue about politicians and CEOs and mafia bosses isn’t whether or not we know who they are without looking it up, it’s the power they have. They have real, material power; novelists don’t. That’s the relevant difference when it comes to the right to remain anonymous.

It doesn’t matter how big the mystery is. The size of a mystery doesn’t determine our right to know its solution.

There’s the already-notorious Trump-impersonation:

Do you have any regrets about doing this story?

Absolutely not. None whatsoever. All the people that hate me for what I wrote are bad people, and I don’t mind the fact that they hate me.

The likeness is uncanny.

What about her personal preference to remain private? 

It is her personal preference; we know that. But then if it is, you don’t fuel the frenzy with Frantumaglia, you just say “I’m sorry, I’m not giving interviews.” But no, they talk, they give interviews, they write a fictional autobiographical book, and then they say, “I want to keep my privacy.”

Right, and if you don’t want to be raped, you stay home with the doors locked. You don’t fuel the frenzy by going out, you just stay inside with the curtains closed. But no, they go out, they walk around, they talk and laugh, and then they say, “I don’t want to have sex with you.”

Explain to me how knowing that Elena Ferrante is Anita Raja would change anything for readers. I really don’t get it. Why would it change anything? People read the books because they are fascinated by them. I don’t see what argument she could have to claim that she needed to be out of the public eye to write fiction. She had no reason to hide anything. I’ve proven that there is no autobiographical information in any of her books. How can the ability of Ferrante to capture the inner lives of women in any way require her to be shielded from the public sphere?

It doesn’t matter. It’s not for Gatti or any of us to decide that for her. It’s not our decision to make. There is no law or rule against writing books anonymously, and it is just bullying to out people against their clearly stated wishes. Gatti does not get to substitute his judgment for hers on a question of her right to be anonymous.



“Newsworthy” is not a justification

Oct 4th, 2016 8:24 am | By

Emily Nussbaum tweeted

A wise and balanced Ferrante-take corrective by @NoreenMalone, which I agree with 95%:

and linked to Malone’s article, Elena Ferrante’s ‘Unmasking’ Wasn’t the End of the World.

Sigh. Yeah great, but nobody said it was the end of the world. Why do we have to be “balanced” about everything anyway? Why is “balance” necessary in this case? Why can’t we say authors have a right to be anonymous if they want to, and journalists have no duty or responsibility or obligation whatsoever to strip them of that right and that anonymity, and that it’s that much more ugly and domineering when it’s a man stripping a woman? Why is it “unbalanced” to say that?

Malone’s piece is annoyingly dismissive.

Gatti’s logic here is not exactly airtight, and does have an unfortunate whiff of “she was asking for it.” But Ferrante’s true biography had long been an object of interest in newspapers and magazines…Despite her anonymity, Ferrante has given plenty of interviews,especially recently. If the pseudonym allowed us to encounter her work in a specific way initially, the status of the work has changed in the last several years: Enormous success comes with burdens as well as benefits, but it certainly makes her identity more newsworthy than it was when she first started writing under a pseudonym.

What the hell does “newsworthy” mean? Other than “people are interested in it”? People are interested in lots of things that they have no right to know more about. Again: having a desire does not create a right to have that desire satisfied. I realize that’s a terribly “unbalanced” claim, but I’m sticking to it. Curiosity about other people is all but universal, but that doesn’t translate to some universal duty to make everything public. It doesn’t matter that Ferrante’s identity was “newsworthy”; it was still hers to keep to herself if she chose.

According to the current conventional wisdom, the exposé was a kind of emotional violence, both against the writer and the readers; further, goes this thinking, there is a particular roughness inherent to a male reporter unmasking a female author who has asked for privacy. The New Yorker’s Twitter account uses the language of consent: “In his apparent unmasking of Ferrante — the journalist does not explain why he felt free to take her ‘no’ as his ‘yes.’” As does Charlotte Shane, a writer and co-founder of TigerBee Press, who tweeted, “Leave it to a goddamn man to decide that the tremendous gift that is Elena Ferrante’s writing needs to repaid with senseless violation.” In The Guardian, Suzanne Moore writes that “those who love Ferrante’s work are appalled, partly of course because she writes so well about the ways in which men humiliate women.”

How is that “the conventional wisdom”? Yes a lot of us thought it and said it, but that doesn’t make it the conventional wisdom. I’m not sure it’s particularly “balanced” of Malone to call it that.

It is true that, thanks to the searing portrait of male cruelty her novels paint, the mere mention of Ferrante’s name might get many of us in the mood to discuss a generalized terribleness of men. And yet this all seems to me both an almost-insulting underestimation of the fortitude of the author, and a severe overestimation of the harm that might be done by connecting universally praised work to its actual creator.

That’s not your decision to make. It’s not ours. It certainly isn’t Claudio Gatti’s. It’s not anyone’s but Ferrante’s. “Consent,” anyone? I don’t find Malone’s callous dismissal the least bit “balanced”; I think it’s quite warped.