Never a dull moment, eh? Al Stefanelli has left FTB, and on his way out he did a podcast with his friend Reap Paden.

I listened to as much as I could stand, which wasn’t much. I transcribed a few high points.

Reap Paden: I guess I pissed some people off with my last. I guess the main thing – I called Stephanie Zvan a bitch. She was being a bitch.

They both agree it’s a good word. “I use it all the time,” says Al. ”So does my wife. I can understand that it’s controversial, but everyone’s entitled to their opinion.”

They say swearing is great, they like swearing. Hooray for swearing. “If it’s a word that offends … Read the rest

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I woke up the other morning, as one does, and found myself reading, at a free speech outlet not a million miles from here, a joke.  At least I think it was a joke.

Hell!  I hope it was a joke.  The notion was that women being systematically shoved from ‘always wear a head covering when you go out’ (which could almost have applied to my late mother) to ‘abaya at all times and a male escort if you ever go out’ should take advantage of their anonymity to create mischief.  Mischief?

Where dress codes are enforced they are, in the final analysis, enforced on pain of death though the death rate may stay low.  And as you read that, … Read the rest

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http://live.huffingtonpost.com/… Read the rest

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Hey remember sexual harassment? Those were fun times, weren’t they?

The implication is that a combination of awareness, women’s growing economic power and legislation that began with the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act and has been updated repeatedly, has stamped out the problem.

Laura Bates, who set up the website Everyday Sexism earlier this year, isn’t so sure. Like those 1970s speak-outs, her site allows women to share their experiences, and over the course of six months 7,500 entries have poured in, “thousands of which pertain specifically to workplace harassment, workplace sexism and sadly, in many cases, workplace sexual assault and even rape”. “What I don’t know is whether the prevalence has diminished or not [since the 70s],” she says.

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Here’s Rebecca at the Humanists of Florida conference last weekend, with EllenBeth introducing her. Two of my favorite women!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez8gs-C53ic

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The Women in Secularism issue of Free Inquiry will be out in late November. Here is what it will look like on the front.

Via Melody Hensley… Read the rest

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Like army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani for instance, who visited Malala in the hospital and took the occasion to talk comfortable pious bullshit. He

said Malala has “become a symbol for the values that the army, with the nation behind it, is fighting to preserve for our future generations.

“These are the intrinsic values of an Islamic society, based on the principles of liberty, justice and equality of man.”

Oh really. Is that a fact. Then why is Pakistan such a shit-hole? Why are all “Islamic societies” such shit-holes? If an Islamic society is based on the principles of liberty, justice and equality of man [sic] then why do so many people think it’s based on the principles of … Read the rest

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Stephanie has some thoughts on Reap Paden. Who? I don’t know, really, except that he’s a friend of Justin Vacula’s. I saw a comment by him, or a mention of his podcast, or something, during the short period in which I was attempting to get Vacula to correct his misrepresentation of me on his podcast. (So many guys, so many podcasts.) That was all. I had no opinion on him until last Saturday, when someone pointed out a shouty podcast he’d just done and I listened to a bit of it. Man, it was shouty all right. He spent the first several minutes shouting at Stephanie louder and louder and louder and LOUDER. Calling her a fucking bitch over … Read the rest

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I heard a long report on BBC World about Malala Yusufzai a couple of hours ago, including a big chunk of an interview with her. On top of everything else, she’s fluent in English. I looked for it via Google and thought I’d found it but was surprised at how cheery the reporter sounded – then I belatedly looked at the date: it was last January. She starts reading from the diary she wrote for the BBC at 1:25 in.

The report I heard today interviewed the New York Times reporter Adam Ellick, who got to know her in 2009. He posted a photo to Twitter. The other guy is her father.

 Nighat Dad tweeted pictures of herself with … Read the rest

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Charlie Fuqua, a Republican candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, wrote a book called (frighteningly) God’s Law. It’s not a satire; he really thinks there is such a thing and that he knows about it. One item of god’s law is that rebellious children should be subject to the death penalty.

The Huffington Post quotes from the book via The Arkansas Times.

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to

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I’m finding a lot of commentary and some (possible) news about Malala Yousafzai on Twitter (via #Malala).

The important item is a new update on her condition.

Doctors at the Saidu Sharif Medical Complex said that Malala was out of danger after the bullet penetrated her skull but missed her brain.

“A bullet struck her head, but the brain is safe,” said Dr Taj Mohammed.

“She is out of danger,” he added.

Dr Laal Noor, from the same hospital, confirmed that the bullet broke her skull but missed her brain.

“The bullet struck her skull and came out on the other side and hit her shoulder,” he told AFP.

The same item includes more evil shit from the Taliban.… Read the rest

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A 14-year-old schoolgirl in the Swat valley in Pakistan has been shot in the head. The Taliban says it did it. Malala Yousafzai is also a campaigner for girls’ education. She was attacked on her way home from school in Mingora. She’s reported to be out of danger.

Ehsanullah Ehsan told BBC Urdu that they attacked her because she was anti-Taliban and secular, adding that she would not be spared.

Clear and to the point.

She kept a diary for BBC Urdu starting at age 11.

Correspondents say she earned the admiration of many across Pakistan for her courage in speaking out about life under the brutal rule of Taliban militants.

One poignant entry reflects on the Taliban decree

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Hey look, Salman Rushdie is on C-Span live right now. Well actually not right now, the woman who co-owns Politics and Prose is on right now, introducing him. Melody was on before that.

Now Robert Siegel is talking.

So watch and listen!

I’ll live-blog it, that’s what.

Paraphrase: It’s very difficult to write about duration. It was like the pampas, as Borges described it. You can’t take a picture of it, because it looks like a field. You can only get a sense of it by traveling in it, and then it just goes on and on, and it’s always the same, and it goes on and on, and it’s always the same, and it goes on and on.… Read the rest

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I’d forgotten about NonStampCollecter (and that that was his name) until Theo Bromine posted a video in The return of snipping this morning. So that’s who NonStampCollecter is! I saw the name in another context but didn’t know who it was. Oh hooray. Boy do I like NonStampCollecter.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk&feature=share&list=PL6D440558124742F5… Read the rest

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Update: this item is from 1996. [hides scarlet face]

There’s an Alabama State Senator (Republican) running for Congress, who says slavery was a good thing for the people who were slaves.

Mr. Davidson referred to Leviticus 25:44 — “You may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you” — and quoted I Timothy 6:1 as saying slaves should “regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.”

“The incidence of abuse, rape, broken homes and murder are 100 times greater, today, in the housing projects than they ever were on the slave plantations in the Old South,” he wrote. “The truth is that nowhere on the face of the earth, in all of time,

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Taslima has a chilling little graphic…

… Read the rest

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