Links! (Victorian sex survey, Assyrian tablets, Constance McMillen prom)

1) Victorian sex survey:

“I opened it up and there were these questionnaires”— questionnaires upon which dozens of women, most born before 1870, had inscribed their most intimate thoughts.

In other words, it was a sex survey. A Victorian sex survey. It is the earliest known study of its type, long preceding, for example, the 1947 and 1953 Kinsey Reports, whose oldest female respondents were born in the 1890s.

2) What can happen to an absolutely priceless artefact during WWII:

Within a few years, he’d pawned the tablet, along with rare coins, to purchase the liquor store, the attorney said. But he soon paid back the pawn broker and reclaimed the coins and tablet.

3) Constance McMillen thing. By now everybody surely must know what happened, so I’ll just point to the account of her school mate about the school mate’s trials and tribulations at the hands of the omnipotent attention-whoring Gay Mafia, pulled straight from the comment the cross-burning ignorant hick’s left at another blog (her name was later pulled from her public Facebook profile, and how stupid you have to be to have a public profile when there’s a bunch of data-hungry lawyers prowling the internet in search of damning evidence? The lawyers who, I hope, do have the Screengrap app). Gee, it’s JUST LIKE In the Grove:

What people are failing to realize is that much of the fault of this whole stink lies with Constance, not her mistreatment by the school district, but her crazy-reckless need for attention. It sounds mean and horrible and like we planned it all specifically to embarrass Constance, but we didn’t. We let her have her prom with her girlfriend and her tuxedo and we went to party it up in the “boondocks” not because we wanted her rights violated, but so we could salvage what has turned into a total fiasco

Well. I can think of someone who’s failing to realize things; it’s not “the people” (whoever they might be).

Also, there are some photos from the no gay, disabled,  and otherwise different folks allowed prom here (again, pulled from Facebook accounts of those involved, and  again, not very smart, I’d say. Good for Constance though).

The most spectacularly failtastic bit of fail comes with this, though:

So, I guess it’s OK for two girls to kiss, as long as they aren’t real lesbians? Very cunning. Also, a girl in the other photo is wearing JEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANS.

I mean, jeans. This is hardcore stuff, guys. Like, a step away from fully fledged lesbianism or something. I’d pray for that girl, just in case.

As usual in cases like that, a plucky internet detective uncovered the Facebook groups those people (that is Itawamba blahblah  Highschool students) belong to and unsurprisingly:

And, if you look at the facebook profiles for the “secret prom” attendees you see the same pages recurring in their profiles:

Greenville Christian School
The Charleston Baptist Congregation
Little Creek Baptist Church
“I’m Proud To Be Christian” by Aaron Chavez Religious Center
Prayer In School Religious Center
I Love Jesus Religious Center
Freedom Rally 2010 “A call to Revival”
Dedicated to Christ
Going to Church Religious Center
God id Love Religious Organization
Jesus Daily Religious Organization
I’m a Christian & I’m Proud Religious Organization
The Resolve Tour Religious Organization
ChristBuild Inc Religious Organization
Christ In Action Non-Profit

CUTE. Clearly, what they need is moar Jesus in their lives OH WAIT-

Also, I personally agree with the following comment made about the latest developments in the Constance McMillen’s prom case:

If they [people who organised the no-;esbians-allowed prom — Sendai] keep digging that hole, they’ll soon be swimming in magma.

…

Dig faster.

I hope the original commenter will forgive me for quoting her verbatim, but I believe the comment i’s indicative of the attitude a sane person ought to preserve in face of the fail exhibited repeatedly by the Itawamba Highschool students, their parents and teachers, may a concert piano fall on their bigoted heads.

4) (I’m thinking about having a book-by-book reading orgy progress report on Twitter. Hmmm)

Spring linkspam!

(Because I have to take a break. Pshaw, internet forms, pshaw. Especially if they’re really stupid pdfs that need to be filled out FAIL and sent to like five different secretaries HUMANITY WHAT’S WRONGH WITH YOU *HATES*)

1. Hipster racism – I think this post very articulately sums up what people like Amanda Palmer do.

2. Female astronauts! PRETTY!

3. Goerge Takei in uniform, Brad Altman in a tinfoil, uh, headdress.

It was the tinfoil that totally sold the vid to me.

4. No aliens at Area 51. WO must be terribly disappointed (hurr hurr).

5.  10 Dinge die Sie nicht tun sollten beim Gottesdienst (Ten things you shouldn’t do during a mess)

5, 7, 8 = cool, but the transphobia in 6, not so much.

(Incidentally, this is the first vid that pops out if you search YT for “Gottesdienst”, hurr hurr)

6. Hilarious April Fool’s posts:

6a. by CERN:

“It’s awful”, explains Alain Grand, still shocked by the discovery. “It left horrible tracks inside the detector that made the physicists on duty at the time feel quite sick”.

6b.  via Language Log, the best story of the year: Doctorow and Stross to Write Authorized Sequel to Atlas Shrugged

“But then we realized that both of us shared one important trait with Ayn Rand: all three of us really, really like money. That made it much easier for Cory and I to cash the seven figure check.”

Hurr hurr hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

6c. Silent no longer.

7.  A very insightful post about framing reading books as a moral issue. While I dislike books like the Twilight series as the next sentient person, I also believe that arguing that they ARE BAD FOR THE CHILDRUNZ will get us nowhere. I mean, when you’re a 11 year old, you simply don’t notice stuff like sexism they way you notice it, say, even ten years later. I mean, I do know I would have hated Twilight even as a 11-year old, but only because it was boring, also romance, also boring.  I was into Tolkien and Philip K. Dick when I was 11.

(OTOH, I think Justine Larbalesier goes on a crusade against strawmen when she argues that the issue of reading versus going to play outside is some sort of a problem. I seriously doubt there are parents telling their kids to not go outside to play BECAUSE BOOKS. C’mooooooon)

8. The “new written language” thing everybody and their cousin’s talking about. Seems like a load of bullshit to me, haven’t had the chance to look at the actual paper yet, though.

Die, hipster scum, die!

Oh, I swore, I SWORE I wouldn’t blog about celebrities ever again. But. Amanda Fucking Palmer, seriously.  So ~edgy~! So ~quirky~! So ~unique~!

(Btw, I’m no fan of AFP. All I know is:

1) she was 1/2 of the Dresden Dolls duo *yaaaawn*

2) her occupation on the internets is being a bratty drama queen, and

3) she doesn’t use capitalisation DIE DIE DIE)

Anyway, AFP’s new artsy!edgy!unique! project involves ficational conjoined twins, Evelyn and Evelyn who:

(…) were born on the kansas-colorado border in 1985.
their mother died in childbirth…their parents were really poor and couldn’t afford decent healthcare.
then, to make matters worse, they also lost their father.

after that, their childhood was immensely strange. they were raised by a farmer and they had almost no social contact until the age of 6, when they wound up moving to manitoba, canada.
up in manitoba, it’s pretty certain that they were being exploited by the child porn industry.
(with my support they’re looking into possibly pressing charges. life is crazy.)

Exploited by child porn industry! So ~*crazy*~ right? Completely blew my mind, really.

The story is: 1) offensive, 2) exploitative, 3) uses some really offensive tropes, like egdy! neo-Victiorian circus freakery stuff. It should, therefore, come as no surprise that disabled people are not amused.

Also, AFP and her partner will be performing in crip drag. CRIP DRAG WTF is wrong with humanity AFP WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU SRSLY!1111.

AFP’s reaction to the lack of amusement is full of fail, persecution complex and offended edginess:

that is, the blog represents the feelings of some of those
who are disabled in some ways

though i’m glad the internet gives them a place to share and vent,
i hope they get beyond it, and have (imho) a better life

sad they haven’t realised that everyone is disabled in their own ways.
part of the human condition.
some ‘worse’ than others. (emphasis mine)

~*flounce*~ ~*flounce*~ ~*flounce*~

‘Cause we’re all part of one huge disabled family! That is also black! and gay! and AFP totes understands how it is to be disabled and all that weird stuff, guys.

Up to this point, this was like standard AFP drama. I just harrumpfed and decided to move on. Until this:

setting aside 846 emails and removing the disabled feminists from her mental periphery, @amandapalmer sat down to plan her next record.

She’s so egdy, see! SO EGDY!1111!!! Dare I say, even, hardcore?

At this point, I should think, it was  time to realise that something was wrong with ~*AFP*~ and not bloody 846 e-mails from disabled feminists? But, AFP had none of it! Not afraid of controversy and painful backlash, standing up to feminist bullies, only she had the courage to staunchly uphold the status quo by saying exactly what everybody was thinking anyway, namely, that one doesn’t have to care about disabled feminists.

(It’s, like, the Law of Dogpile: when one person disagrees with you, you can have a discussion. When a whole bunch of disabled feminists disagrees, maybe it’s time to step away from the internets and invest in a mail-order degree in self-awareness?  I mean, if Ken Ham could get one…(1))

Also, hypocrisy much?  In her original post, AFP writes:

we wanted people to hear them.

But when  real disabled people dared to speak up they were swiftly “*~removed from the mental periphery*~”. Because almost-human-beings are only useful as long as they can be exploited in order that AFP be  provided  with cheap opportunities of further self-aggrandisement. Classy, really classy.

Disabled people: only have voices when AFP and other nitwits say it’s OK.

What she reminds me of is Aya Matsuura in this song, but without any of the glittery pink cuteness of the original:

2. A hipster scumbag in Melbourne is running a social experiment in pretending to be homeless, taking away resources from people who really need them and being a class A douchebag. Also, his mum come to help defend him on the internets, which is a whole new level of fail in itself. Creme de la creme of douchebaggery:

Someone once told me that if you go without shampoo/conditioner for 3-6 weeks, your hair starts producing the relevant chemicals naturally. I was planning to use this month to see if that worked, but I completely forgot, and I wash my hair. I also use my time in the shower to remember/devise a back-story for when the questions inevitably come up.

Uh-huh.

9:20am – Someone in the comments referred to what I’m doing as a “camping holiday”, and now that I’m a bit over 30 hours in I can see what they mean. Because I don’t have any kind of substance abuse problem, or the added pressure of trying to find a job and somewhere to live, as long as I have enough money to get food, I can spend the day doing what I like.

Cute! He hasn’t got any substance abuse problems unlike the regular homeless people, see?

6:30- On a whim, I went up to a donut shop that was closing and explained that I was homeless and couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a donut. The girl behind the counter looked extremely sympathetic, but explained that they couldn’t give out donuts due to store policy. I said that I understood, and went back to doing the sudoku in the paper.

A few minutes later, she snuck over with a bag full of donuts. “Don’t tll my boss, and you can have these,” she whispered.

I was floored and thanked her profusely. I wasn’t sure what to do, but I ended up taking one and giving the rest to the homeless guy outside the station.

Classy!

If I had access to razors, a shower and a washing machine, and didn’t enjoy the internet as much as I do, I think I could easily get a part-time job and live my life like this (during the summer, at least).

Hipster scum is hipster scum QED.

At Coles I bought another loaf of bread. It turns out they do have the cheaper bread and I just missed it last time. But I got the lightly more expensive stuff, as I prefer multi-grain. I also bought an orange and a carrot, which I then ate.

DIAF DIAF DIAF DIAF DIAF DIAF.

Of course, he is also raising money for charity, so this makes lying and taking away resources from people who actually need them totes OK.

DIAF DIAF DIAF DIAF DIAF DIAF DIAF.

(1) Not surprisingly, his wasn’t in self-awareness, though.

So next time I might just tell you to DIAF when you’ll try to shove your privilege down my throat. Or wait. There will be no next time!

I want to preface this post  with a warning sort of preface saying that, well, I am a bit irritated at the moment. The bit of irritation being a Dur-Untash-ziggurat-sized burning-hatred-of-ten-thousand-supernovas-filled fury.

Also, I’ve  been contemplating a FList purge for days.

Anyway!

Probably every ethnic/sexual minority person ever(1) had to deal with Privileged Arsehole  Friends (PAF).

A PAF is:

1) privileged in that they belong to their respective majority group.

2) arsehole in that they repeatedly fail to own up to and confront their privilege, which in turn leads them to be:

a) completely ignorant about everything ever that is a little bit different than their tiny-not-tiny mainstream environment, which in turn

b) leads them to being offensive and insufferable all the time, but

c) even when their arseholisheness is remarked upon, the only thing they’ll invariably do is to engage in some serious denial, because, they obviously didn’t mean it that way! Also, they have minority friends!

But we’ll get there.

1) Privilege

A member of a majority group will always have some privileges that the members of minority group will not have. A refusal to own up to the majority group privilege is motivated solely by intellectual indolence and can be interpreted as another privilege, which is apparently all-encompassing enough to allow the members of the majority group to control the discourse in such a way that they can dictate the other groups what should and should not be acceptable, and what should and should not be offensive.

This is obviously not fair, because when a member of the majority group says something that is offensive to the member of the minority group, it is the member of the targeted minority group who has the right to decide whether it offended them or not. However, the usual case with PAF is that PAF will try to derail the minority member by saying one of the following things:

a)”But I didn’t mean it to be offensive!”

This is of course ridiculous in the extreme. When you say something that is, for instance, considered a racial slur, do you actually seriously expect other people to think that the sole fact of the utterance coming from your special snowflake minority-allied lips will somehow annul and cancel out the offensiveness, the sociolinguistic context of the utterance, and the historical baggage of thousands or hundreds of years of oppression and discrimination? Seriously? PAF, are you deluded or what?

b)”You just enjoy being offended!”

Yeah, totally. It is a well-known fact that all members of minority groups undergo a compulsory masochism and humiliation kink screening before we can be taught our secret handshake.

We are also prohibited from ever having safewords.

c)”Aren’t you just overreacting?”

My favourite derailment tactic ever; has obvious roots in the inability to think beyond PAF’s privileged experience and the lack of empathy. For PAF the offensive things they said weren’t offensive at all; this is, because to them, not belonging to the targeted, offended group, they actually are not offensive. When something is not offensive to them, it couldn’t possibly be offensive to anybody else, because their experience is universal and therefore representative of everybody else’s experience, therefore all other experience is non-existent and invalid, therefore, in the vapid mind of a PAF, our irritation at yet another offensive turn of phrase is indeed much ado about nothing.

d)”I totally agree with you, but shouldn’t you just be less angry/more polite? You’re hurting your own cause.”

Brilliant. Instead of focusing on the real issue, which is the PAF being a jerk and a bigot, the discussion is derailed so that we can analyse the impudent conduct of the offended member of minority.

This is because when someone says something hurtful and offensive to you, the proper answer is to be appropriately humble about asking them to stop. It’s not like you have a right to feel entitled to be treated like a human being, OK?(2)

Also, there is no fucking way I’m going to be polite to a bloody bigoted person.

Unless I’m paid to do so.

***

What I don’t understand is,  why not just take our word for it when we say we’re offended? Why is it so hard to accept that when we’re saying we’re offended we really actually are, and for a good reason? Is it really that plausible that we would want to arrange to have an uncomfortable situation like that, where we are  hurt and have to call our supposed friend out on being bigoted,  just for fun? Do you really think we would lie? Is the perspective of having done something wrong really so terrifying?  Or have you got member-of-minority friends something you only do  for status and progressive self-image, and, hey, you do let us use your bathroom, so why all the nerves, man.

2) Ignorance

Not confronting their privilege allows PAF also say things like:

“So, I guess you, lesbians, must totally hate dildos, since they’re vaguely penis-shaped”

or

“So, I hear Thailand is totally an undeveloped country, so you had to go to school on an elephant, right?”(3)

When their curious questions and/or creative witticisms are met with uncomfortable silence, displeasure or outright anger, the PAF want to know what went wrong. However, they will not do any independent research googling. They want everything handed to them on a silver platter. With a bow, and a nice note, and a pat on the head.

After all, they apparently are unable believe we wouldn’t lie just to make them feel bad about themselves and their level of progressiveness(4), so we’re liars until proven otherwise. The burden of proof lies entirely on us, so we have to spend hours hunting links, writing posts, explaining stuff during conversations and so on. PAFs universally assume that we have nothing better to do – after all, we are their token minority friends, not actual persons with lives, hobbies, and everything, but their own private minority spokespersons – than to waste our time and resources on continually explaining the same basic stuff all over again.

Bugger that, I could stand to explain something from time to time, but seriously, when I’ve tried and tried and tried with no results? No fucking way.

Also, if we’re really friends, PAF, if you’re really friends with a member of a minority group, why can’t you just devote an hour or so – in the name of a friendship which is, as you say, so important to you – to google the stuff before you:

a) make a PAF out of yourself,

b) upset us?

Is that really such a terrible effort?

And while a simple assumption that we will tell you when we feel uncomfortable and upset over what you said  is more or less correct – don’t you realise that it would be nice to maybe try avoid making us uncomfortable and upset in the first place? Since, as PAFs like to say, we’re friends? The thing with us, minority group members, is that we don’t actually exist to provide you with a Meaningful Learning Experience every other day, you know?

Then, there is the tiny wee little detail that even if we do make the effort and explain something, the PAF will invariably start the denialist  bullshit from 1). So we might actually not bother in the first place.

We are also not obliged to know everything about our minority group stuff, so if you assume that every Asian person must speak Chinese, or every lesbian has to know everything about LGBTQ-themed films, you are actually being a complete arsehole.

In short: what my PAF experience taught me is that I’m totally heterophobic and don’t care about straight people. I also don’t need friends like that.

BRB. Have an address book to purge.

(1) While I’m not trying to say that all kinds of oppression are absolutely like each other, I’d like to point out that there are in fact several universal constants.

(2) The people who made a complaint like that personally to me should be advised to admire my formidable restraint, because what I actually wanted to do was to beat them with a stick.

Not like it could do any damage to the brain, anyway.

(3) Both examples of anecdata were gathered personally by me IRL.

(4) Yeah, like that’s even possible, hurr durr.

My Haiti post (will I get a Canadian passport if I sell mine on Ebay?)

By now everyone must have surely heard about the terrible earthquake on Haiti, a country that has been continuously affected by every disaster possible for many years.

1. The number of dead is estimated to be between 50 – 100 000, and the number of people affected might be as large as 3 ooo ooo.

Therefore, it is imperative that we donate  money!

Medicins sans frontieres (you can select your country from the drop-down menu to the left)

Red Cross (international site, and the donation form is here)

UNICEF (international) (Germany) (Poland) (USA)

Meanwhile, the penny-pinching manwhores from the government of my country, Poland, generously pledged to donate 50 000$. This is FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS. I’m not kidding.

As my friend said, half a cent per dead person, won’t even be enough for the obolus for Charon’s services.

When I go back for winter holidays, I pledge to eat the Prime Minister. I will then sell the footage of me eating the Prime Minister on Ebay, the proceeds will go to charity. DIE DIE DIE DIE DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Meanwhile, the Canadians sure must feel proud to be Canadian:

The Government of Canada will match the contributions of individual Canadians to eligible Canadian charitable organizations in support of humanitarian and recovery efforts in response to the earthquake in Haiti, up to a total of $50 million. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) will allocate these funds to Canadian and international humanitarian and development organizations.

Yes. Yes. This is what everybody else  should be doing, too. Can I get a Canadian passport now? I’m a good law-abiding  investment citizen and will have two PhDs at some point!

2. Meanwhile, concerned Christians are showing the Christian love to the world by the means of, as usual, being complete, unabashed, inhuman, pathetic, self-centered fucking arseholes.

Exhibit one, Pat “Fucking arsehole” Robertson:

PAT ROBERTSON: And, you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, “We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.” True story. And so, the devil said, “OK, it’s a deal.”

And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. Desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God. And out of this tragedy, I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now, we’re helping the suffering people, and the suffering is unimaginable.

KRISTI WATTS (co-host): Absolutely, Pat.

Wow, the stupidity, inhumanity and uncannily hyaena-like behaviour are stupefying, which does not surprise me in the least. I mean, this is Pat Robertson? What did you expect? Pink teddy bears and roses?

Yeah, didn’t think so.

HOWEVER, what at least I didn’t know is that the “pact with the devil” thing is not something Le Fucking Arsehole made up on his own. No; it seems to be a spurious meme that has been circulating among Pentecostals for some time now, according to several sources:

1. Jean Gelin, a Haitian pastor.

For quite some time now, several articles on the Internet have mentioned the existence of an iron pig statue in Port-au-Prince as a monument to commemorate Haiti’s so-called pact with the devil through Vodou. The statue would be in remembrance of a pig that was killed during the gathering by the African slaves. In an effort to know more about that rumor, I contacted several authors about the exact location of the pig statue that’s incidentally nowhere to be found in the country. Their answer was complete silence, a simple apology, or just the removal of the reference from their texts.

2. Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion has several very interesting quotes as well as links to more resources:

This supposed pact has been obsessed over before by neo-Pentecostal Christians who regard spiritual causality as the directing force behind world events. In 2004, The Revealer noted the views of Terry W. Snow, country director of Youth with a Mission, who described the pact but also announced that it was at an end:

“2004 will be the official ending of the 200 year pact known as the Boukman Contract. (See below for more details.) Made by a slave named Boukman, who was considered to be a great witchdoctor, the contract surrendered the Haitian people to spiritual slavery through a voodoo ceremony, in exchange for their physical freedom. On the night of August 14, 1791 the sacrifice was made and the contract agreed to. However, it wouldn’t be until January 1, 1804 that Haiti was recognized as the first independent black nation in the world.”

(Also, another one of Bartholomew’s  entries in which he writes about a Pentecostal who believes that the Japanese (shintoistic) sun goddess Amaterasu is the Biblical harlot. Also, there are demonic influences.

I giggled while typing that. I guess Shinto must be the perfect opportunity for crackpots to emit drivel all over the memosphere. I mean, many parts of many rituals, including the ritual speech, are completely incomprehensible for modern scholars, not to mention modern Japanese. The opportunities for making up stuff are endless!)

3. Linked by Bartholomew is a fascinating, detailed post by Rachel Tabachnick which sheds some more light on the historical background of the entire legend. Unsurprisingly, there’s colonialism, racism, Christian asshattery and blood libel:

The Haitian revolution against their French masters put the “fear of God” into colonial empires around the world. It was believed that the rebellion could not have possibly been achieved by any other power than the devil himself. The myths were embellished by people like Sir Spencer St. John, a British consul to Haiti  who published the 1886 book The Black Republic. He claimed that “Vaudoux” practicing Haitians were cannibals who sacrificed children.  St. John’s writings were widely published to support the claim that Haitians were not capable of self-rule.  The characterization has since been used to justify “recolonizing” Haiti’s land and economy as a source of low wage labor, a struggle which continued for generations.

Gee, who would have thought? Also, more blood libel:

Following is an example of the propaganda used to promote Haiti’s National Day of Prayer in 1997, sponsored by “Vision Haiti.”

“Last week a baby was stolen from the hospital in St. Marc. The reason the child is to be sacrificed to appease the Voodoo gods for the so-called special day of celebration. There are generally two ways they sacrifice children. One is in a large grinding pot. They place the child in the pot and proceed to grind the child while still alive. The other way is even more demonic as they hang the child upside down by his feet and place a large bowl beneath him. The child hangs until dead as the body releases its fluids into the bowl. The bowl is then placed in the sun to dry. Afterward, the priest takes what is left of the young child and grinds the body into a powder to use for his Voodoo ceremony.Can you imagine?

This is the kind of satanic worship and bondage that has gripped the Haitian people for over 200 years.”

I’d like to say this surprises me, but no. Unfortunately not.

(Especially not after the blood libel urban legends spread about the Chinese by other fundie groups.)

This quote is particularly telling of the theist research standards:

In 2003 Jean-Bertrand Aristide, then president of Haiti,  recognized voodoo as an official state religion. Link to the BBC report. Subsequently Christianity Today published an October 2003 article reporting that this had created fears among some Christians concerned that Aristide might be planning to “renew the 200-year old pact with the devil.”  Christianity Today also repeated the infant abduction story although they stated that it was “unconfirmed.”

“Unconfirmed”. Awesome. But you know, they aren’t doing anything wrong! Just asking questions! Why wouldn’t they be allowed to just ask question? Think out loud? Wonder? The’re just conceeeerned!!!1111111

4. Finally, the Haiti ambassador in the US pwns Le Fucking Arsehole liek, totally:

“So, what pact the Haitians made with the devil has helped the United States become what it is (…)”

Oops. (Link goes to the delicious video, by the way.)

5. Also, the USian White House did something very right, too:

White House Says Haiti Statements by Robertson and Limbaugh Are “Really Stupid”

Yes, thank you for that.

6. And while we are at it, Le Fucking Dickwad, Rush Limbaugh, also was adamant about letting us know what his thoughts on yaoi Haiti are (I’m not linking to his website. Google it if you like):

“Would you trust that the money is going to go to Haiti?” Limbaugh said. “Would you trust that your name is going to end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes?”

Limbaugh added, “besides, we’ve already donated to Haiti.  It’s called the US income tax.”

Yeah riiiiiiight. Because you’re paying taxes so that the lazy foreign brown people can spend their lazy days not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, while you work your arse off. Taxes, of course, have nothing at all to do with the existence of public schools, or public healthcare (oops, wrong country!), or, I dunno, public roads, maybe? No, of course not. All those things happen thanks to magic, wishful thinking and Jesus.

In that order.

In other words, die in a fire, Rush!

Also, I will now donate moar money out of spite.

It would seem…

…that everybody is racist on the internets today, so I’m looking at wombats.

Wombats!

Oh, everything’s better with wombats.

(If only they would grow claws and teeth and eat Hollywood, the dumb Heroes guy, and basically all the people I’m too lazy to mention? They could also transform into giant robots, sort of like Kim Dzong Il)

I mean, wombats! Adorable!

 

Atheists are rational. Also racist. Also sexist. Also, I’m really pissed (AE)

First off, I believe I have a confession to make:

Guys, I came to your from the dark abysses of the Live Journal, originally. I’ve been there since 2003, at least. I’ve a different nickname, and you’ll never find me, and I don’t really post much anyway(1). I’m also not into fandom. I’m into meta.

And the thing is, if that sort of discussion happened in my happy LJ meta-corner? Several hundred comments worth of dogpile would follow, rightly calling out the racist fuckwads on their racism and fuckwaddery, linking to Derailing for Dummies, and The Linguistics of Colour-Blind Racism, and politely asking the OPs to die in a fucking fire. I personally would lead the Troll Legions, calling people names, being petty, and vomiting thesaurus all over the place(2).

This is what I’m used to. This is what I would like to see in a community that is not made up of disgusting loathsome and ignorant excuses for human beings.

Atheist communities, it would seem, have much lower standards. Yes, lower than LJ(3).

So, what have actually got here? It’s an innocuous link to a rather interesting interview with a black atheist feminist, Sikivu Hutchinson. She makes several interesting points, but also says some obvious stuff about racism and privilege(4).

(The interviewer, by the way, is Greta Christina from Greta Christina’s Blog. This is important, because it’s a good blog, full of sense-making and nice reads.)

Anyway, what are the impressions of the first reader?

I propose affirmative action:
We give privileged access to black people with equal qualification. Don’t let anybody tell you they found it too difficult getting into atheism because all the white people were favored. :)

Yay, making fun of affirmative action, and dismissing valid concerns of a black person who feels marginalised with a lame racist joke. So hilarious!

NOT.

On to the next comment:

I am not qualified

If you’re not qualified, why don’t you just shut up?

to comment on how difficult it is to come out as an unbeliever in theism within the black community, but I don’t think there are any negative pressures from an atheist community to shun anyone of any race or ethnicity.

Holy non-sequitur, Batman! Like it was about shunning. Haha.

NO.

As most of us are well informed thanks to evolutionary biologists such as Richard Dawkins, we can see any prejudice based on race as utterly ridiculous given how we are all African Apes and one species, this nullifying any idiotic objection to equal opportunity. To think for yourself does not require permission in any case.

This is the  “I’m not racist” part of the more sophisticated and sciencey version of “I’m not racist but…”

Again though, I am ignorant of this particular experience

Yes, you are ignorant, so why not shut up like now?

and of the real reasons why, there might not be quite so many non believers of other ethnicities, proclaiming aloud their non-belief. I strongly doubt the idea of prejudice coming from any well educated, free thinking atheist community though.

The education, it didn’t help you at all.

The third comment:

So where are all these “white atheist communities” then? Where do us “white folk” get together and gleefully delight at excluding others?

O WOW.

But wait! The white atheist community, it’s right there where the commenter writes.  Surprise! It’s main preoccupation at the time the comment was written seems to have been invalidating non-white people’s experiences,  and condescendingly whitesplaining stuff by the means of non sequiturs, all the while  telling stupid racist jokes. Ooops!

The fourth:

That woman has one expansive vocabulary… or one heluva thesaurus… Don’t know when I’ve seen so many big words in one place.

There are land-mines placed throughout this interview as well.

EDIT: I smiled at the “white folk” references as well : )

Because racism is so funny, dontcha know? Nudge nudge, wink wink! Also, commenter number two should maybe rectify his take on what real red-blooded atheists think about the education, right? Big words! Funneh!

Commenter 5 loudly proclaims himself to believe in the universality of the atheist experience:

I guess I’ll read the articles later this weekend but just how banal is the premise?

Let’s rephrase it;

What is it like to be a Chinese non-stamp collector?
What is it like to be a white non-basketball player?
What is it like to be an African non-chess player?

He will mansplain it all! As a real human being to a non-white person, totes!

Commenter 6 is really commenter 4 again, as s/h/it seems to have got really verbose. Let’s not allow him to steal commenter 7’s thunder though:

That’s what we need, more divisiveness in the atheist community.

Yes! Non-white people shouldn’t be such haters! Dontcha know about the importance of always being a team player?

Commenter 8:

“Hence, the European- American atheist community can’t be truly inclusive unless there is some recognition of how privilege and positionality undergird the very articulation of atheism as an ideological space that empowers white folk to deconstruct the cultural tethers of organized religion, without having their authorial right to do so be questioned.”

Is she channeling ‘1984’ here or not? I can’t tell…

Well, what I can tell is that s/h/it fails at reading comprehension. Also:  she’s just oversensitive, all right? Oversensitive! I mean, commenter 8 might even have some black friends, so there!

Commenter 9 mostly copies commenters 2 and 5, but also, you know, everybody, s/h/it’s got a Token Person of Colour Atheist! Look!

In addition, the black female author of Infidel has been welcomed and specifically mentioned in debates and other places by the “white atheist” leaders. Not so because she is black and female but because she is making a worthwhile contribution to the discourse of the role of religion in our society.

A worthwhile contribution, unlike all those black females who don’t. Like, you know. The majority of them. ‘Cause they’re busy. Certainly. With something.

Commenter 9 doesn’t really know, but it must be something black and female. Just so you know.

Commenter 10 is  sane if brief. Impossible! Fortunately, commenter 11 swiftly arrives to set the record straight and make his worthwhile contribution to the  fight against the oppression of political correctness. His special attack is unguided sarcasm. Let’s hope s/h/it doesn’t hurt themselves.

Too much, anyway:

Yeah right. You priveleged white atheist bullshitters. Stop writing books questioning dogs existence until I’ve authorised your diploma in ideological racial right on-ness. WHAT are you thinking off! Tch.

The thing is, no one’s got nothing against the atheist authors, who are cool, and don’t leave racist comments on the internet. This is however irrelevant; non sequiturs are a racist fuckwad’s best friends.

Commenter 12 is a disgrace to all Europeans ever. If s/h/it is really European, that is.

Wow, talk about cultural differences! Just what is this American ‘thing’ with race?
I, and probably 99% of Europeans, don’t give a fig as to who is ‘black’ or ‘red’ or ‘pink’ or whatever, I just listen/read what they have to say. I might disagree with them, but that is not predicated on any personal attribute they may have. Can you imagine an article bemoaning the ‘…ideological space that empowers TALL folk’? or ‘…ideological space that empowers brown-haired folk’?
What (almost racist) nonsense this article is!
Let’s have no more of it….

This would get me several bingos on the racist bingo card. Reverse racism? Check! Concern troll is concerned? Check! Colour-blind racism? Check! Ridiculous  comparing of actual living people to made-up colourful humanoids? Check! No racism in Europe? Check and check! Bravo!

Commenter 13 points out that blond people, much like rich people, are America’s most oppressed minority:

Rather than allow white atheists to control the terms of debate…’

I’m sick of brown-haired atheists controlling the terms of the debate. Where are the prominent spokespeople representing the unique interests of blonde atheists?

This is as  sick as SS is tall, blond and blood-thirsty, and I would call Poe, only I don’t believe in unfounded optimism.

And so on, and so forth. The owner of the first comment that is longer than one sentence and doesn’t make you want to join VHEMT is commenter 16, but then comes commenter 18, who is offended by the ubiquitous presence of sensitivity trainers. Darwin forbid we learn how to treat fellow human beings like they’re fellow human beings or something! I mean, I’m absolutely appalled. The sheer gall of sensitivity trainers! I only hope commenter 16 will be as politically incorrect and unwavering in his controversial convictions as heretofore. The world needs moar douchebags!

As others have suggested (and they got the quotes just right!), Sikivu Hutchinson is a pretentious windbag. Her big claim: “I’m offended”.. not unlike what we hear from some other familiar quarters.

What is she actually asking for? Between the lines: expand the Cultural Studies & Gender Studies and Black Studies curricula to include courses on black atheists and feminist atheists, courses for which she and “experts” like her get to dominate the hiring committees.

The pomo radical feminists and sensitivity trainers have too much influence in the schools and universities, and have contributed (without claiming they are the most important cause) to the lowering of intellectual standards.

She just likes being offended! And wants to leech grant moniez! ZOMD STOP HER BEFORE IT’S TOO LAAAAAAAA-

All I can say is, yeah, I can totally see how the intellectual standards got indeed totally low.

But wait! The most faily of them all, commenter 20 weighs in:

At one time, when I was younger and more insecure, I could be made to feel guilty about being a white male, but not anymore.

OMD! It must have been so hard for him! What with everyone and everything pandering to his white male entitlement, and the one lone non-white feminist harshing his squee, it must have been so terribly haaaard! And yet! It took enormous guts, several enemas, it took courage, and it took unwavering moral principles and intellectual honesty, but here we are!  Commenter 20 was, still is and always will be a complete douchebag. Proud, whiny entitled douchbag. Obviously, atheism needs more people like commenter 20!

Ladies, gentlemen, and poo-flinging monkey, a well-deserved applause for commenter 20, a true rational atheist!

(Via Pharyngula. PZ  is predictably awesome. Still afraid to look at the comments)

(1) More like nothing, really.

(2) This is of course a blatant lie. I troll somewhere else. You will never catch meeee!

(3) In case you’re not internet-savvy, I would like to clarify that you’ve just been terribly insulted.

(4) That it’s obvious doesn’t mean it’s not worth repeating. Many times. If possible, accompanied by beating with the clue bus.

OH WOW

I mean, wow.

A GROUP of past and present University of Sydney students set up a ”pro-rape” page in the sports and recreation section on Facebook, describing themselves as ”anti-consent”.
The students, mostly from an elite, all-male college, initially ensured the ”Define Statutory” group had an open and public profile, and proudly displayed their membership on their personal Facebook pages.

I’m almost tempted to start a page like that in a local language in hopes that it would get flooded with hate-mail and bannination requests, only the cynic in me has very very little hope.

For the sake of their future employment prospects, I hope there’s a cached /screen-capped copy of the Facebook page, somewhere.

(via Unfunny Business)

On smugness (this will be a lot like the arguments for religion that theists make from personal experience)

(Inspired by this post over at Camels With Hammers <3)

Many years ago, Alan Sokal epically owned stupid pomos* by submitting a ridiculous parody article* to their prized journal, Social Text. The article was titled “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”. Its most characteristic features was that it was stupid, ridiculous and also completely idiotic as long as taken seriously.

When it was finally revealed that the article was a parody of pomo “thought”, all hell broke loose in the pomo virtual reality, and Sokal was  criticised by the numerous disgruntled pomos, who were, naturally, wounded to the core***.

Among the vapid and spurious criticisms of Sokal the stupidest was that “wah wah wah HE IS SO SMUUUUG“.

(By the way: I read Sokal’s Beyond the Hoax, but not his first book — yet. I too, thought he was rather full of himself. However:)

Allow me to enlighten you: he pwned the pomos* epically. It was a one-in-a-hundred-years, Iliad-scale epic pwnage. Probably no one will get to pwn anybody like that for years, if ever.  It was awesome. It was spectacular. It was effective.

Therefore, Sokal has a right to be smug.

As a matter of fact, I think that fake modesty, and the emphasis on not being smug or even a little bit proud of one’s accomplishments has a lot to do with that sort of Christianity that was pervasive in Europe and beyond for a long long time, and in which one is never allowed to feel good about oneself, basically.

(A somewhat traumatising**** exchange between Sendai A and her grandmother, when Sendai A was a little kidlet, and her grandmother was still alive:

Sendai A: Look! Look! Look what a pretty princess I sculpted in clay, getting the whole room dirty and clayey in the process! Even the curtains! And so what if it doesn’t look like a humanoid, least of all a princess, I SCULPTED IT YAY! SHINY!*****

Grandmother: Yes, it’s pretty.

Sendai A: IT IS ISN’T IT!

Grandmother: But don’t be so full of yourself. If it weren’t for the talent given to you by God****** you wouldn’t be able to sculpt princesses, or maybe even move your hands and legs or speak. You should pray and say thanks more often.

Sendai A: Whaaaa???

Suffice it to say, the relations became somewhat strained between me and the grandmother since then, until she realised she can’t stop neither me from, um, being me, nor my parents from “worshipping the devil and bowing to the idols”******.)

But I digress.

The thing is, when you do something as epic as Sokal, you are entitled to feeling smug. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.  We’re  entitled to feel good about ourselves when we do something well. We’re entitled to feel good about our accomplishments.

The ridiculous emphasis on always playing down anything you do in western culture is intrinsically bound to the concept of always being grateful for imaginary help to an imaginary bearded sky-fairy. We don’t need that, guys. This might be also why, at least in my experience, the accusations of  smugness usually come from the Xian, right-wing side of an argument*******.

Not to mention that if you consider the accusation of smugness in your opponent a valid argument, interesting things are bound to come up, like here:

They’re really charming, aren’t they? It is as if everything arrogant about the academy and everything sneering about cable news culture is combined into one big snarky smugfest.

And a few lines later:

Maybe they will remind people that between these atheist bigots and these fundamentalist bigots, the appeal of the Christianity of the Gospels shines like the sun (emphasis mine)

GEE SOMEHOW ONE DOESN’T SEE THE SMUG ATHEISTS SMUGLY PROCLAIMING THE APPEAL OF THE WORD OF DAWKINS THAT SHINES LIKE THE SUN THAT VERY OFTEN. I WONDER WHY.
Or not, really.

(Naturally, swiftly followed by a nonapology. Classy, Andrew Sullivan, really classy. But then, I guess you’re just a smug theist engaging in a typical smug theist snarkfest, huh?)

(Also: not agreeing with Andrew Sullivan is bigotry now? Good one. Almost had me there. Awesome trolling!)

* postmodernists.

** OMD I read it, so I know. It makes you head all achey when you realise that at least 20 people must have thought it was a brilliant idea to publish it. Ow! (I do realise Social Text had no peer review policy at that time. Yet, somebody had to read and approve, so.)

*** Fortunately, confirmation bias and complete ignorance saved them from the uncomfortable necessity of revising their views in such a way that they conform to reality or any such nonsense.

**** For both participants, not the reader.

***** Obviously, I haven’t changed at all since then.

****** She might have said “the Holy Spirit”. Batshit Catholic theology is not my area of expertise.

****** My parents are Buddhists.

******* Apart from the pomos*. They’re a separate wing all on their own.

I don’t really know a single English word for “lol cry-baby snotty entitled privileged white people who cry oppression in Japan”, so just imagine I wrote it here, please.

So, I found an awesome blog yesterday, and I spent some time reading through the recent posts (the blog is called Stuff White People Do, and it’s made of awesome READ NAO. Um. The posts are very insightful and often accompanied by even more insightful quotes. This guy, he’s like a quote-magician *salutes*).

Anyway, what caught my attention was this post about the unfair portrayal of white people by Japanese media.

Oh boy.

Apparently, FRANCA (Foreign Residents and Naturalised Citizens Association, and lookie! They have a chapter in Sendai! I didn’t know that) got their panties in a twist over this commercial:

FRANCA’s reaction was thus:

* 1) The character speaks broken accented Japanese (using the katakana script, one used for foreign loanwords). The impression given is that Caucasians cannot speak Japanese properly, which is simply not true for the vast numbers of non-native (and Japanese-native) foreigners in Japan.

OMG SOMEONE DARED TO PORTRAY WHITE PEOPLE AS BEING LESS THAN PERFECT SEMI-GODS THEY’RE NORMALLY PORTRAYED AS IN JAPANESE MEDIA OPPRESSIOOOOOOON!1!!!

For real, though. Mr. James’ accent is actually quite good, you dunderheads. Also, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with speaking with accent. They’re  alienating a whole bunch of foreigners who actually WILL NEVER learn to pronounce Japanese perfectly.
There are people like that.
There are people who don’t have perfect pronunciation in all sorts of  foreign languages, for fuck’s sake, and they’re being treated as if they were some sort of inferior immigrant person or what not.

(Seriously, this is biased anecdotal evidence, but: I know a USian guy who’s been living in Japan for 9 years, and was only able to learn really really basic stuff, BUT THERE’S NOTHING INTRINSICALLY WRONG WITH THAT. You can not learn if you don’t want to. You might miss out on a lot of fun that way, but so what, it’s none of my and other people’s business, and it doesn’t make you an inferior person. In the end, this guy’s Japanese wife learned English, and everybody was happy.

In fact, I know a whole bunch of USians who have less than perfect pronunciation, despite having lived in Japan for years. This is because some people just ARE NOT ABLE to learn the perfect pronunciation, and some people don’t care, and finally, because English and Japanese sounds are completely different, native English speakers are at a disadvantage from the very start.

I’m only talking about USians because US is a big country, and there’re a lot of them immigrating to Japan, not because they’re worse or better than other foreigners here, of course.
I’m not saying my pronunciation is perfect either. Of course it’s not. For real, people.

I only know one person whose pronunciation is seriously 100% perfect. She’s awesome, and Thai, and I want to smuggle her to Europe, so, darling, if you’re reading this, I want you to know that we can totally gay- marry in Germany, so you won’t have any problems with your visa or something <3)

* 2) The character is called “Mr. James” (again, in katakana), promoting the stereotype that foreigners must be called by their first names only (standard Japanese etiquette demands that adults be called “last name plus -san”), undoing progress we have made for equal treatment under Japanese societal rules.

Nope, sweetums, not “foreigners”, it’s USians who “have to” be called by their names. At least get your stereotypes right.

However, nobody calls foreigners by their first names just so. In fact, I have to use my first name, because my family name 1) is terribly long, 2) has a lot of consonant clusters, which are difficult to pronounce for the Japanese who end up inserting extra vowels between the consonants, and my family names gets even longer and even more impossible to pronounce. However, everybody just ends up thinking that “Sara” is my family name, and they are usually quite surprised to learn that it’s not. Also, nobody will address you with your name instead of family name without your express permission.

Sometimes the Japanese start using a bit less polite speech when talking to you,  but ONLY WHEN THEY SEE THAT YOU CLEARLY DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY’RE SAYING, for fuck’s sake. Polite speech in Japan: it’s much more complicated-sounding than the um, less polite speech*.

* 3) The image used, of a clumsy sycophantic “nerd” for this Caucasian customer, is embarrassing to Caucasians who will have to live in Japan under this image.

O LOL. It’s clear now that it was all about the “nerd” thing. How is being a nerd a bad thing? Also, sycophantic, bwah. Weeaboos**, anyone?

Also, I’m Caucasian and I don’t feel offended at all. I wonder why? Is it the lack of entitlement? Well, relative, anyway.

FRANCA makes accusations of oppression and racism, and in the process manages to make clear that for them 1) speaking with a foreign accent is a bad thing – and let’s face it, most JSL learners, like most foreign language learners, WILL NOT SPEAK WITH PERFECT KYOUTSUUGO/perfect standard accent of their new home country PRONUNCIATION EVER***, also this sort of attitudes only foster a creepy standard language ideology, which, no, thank you, or, in Japanese, 御苦労様でした, 2)  being a nerd is a bad thing, thus alienating a large part of their potential membership base, 3) a foreigner = white USian, because, seriously, whenever they say “every foreigner” the statement can only be more or less correct if the foreigner is a) white, b) USian, and possibly c) male.

That is of course not to say that there aren’t problems with the treatment of foreigners and naturalised citizens in Japan. There are. However, precisely because FRANCA chose such a poor example of alleged “oppression”, the future real problems might well be ignored.

Also, where’s FRANCA when Chinese and Korean people are constantly portrayed in negative light, ridiculed and villified? For example, there’s a quite  old stereotype about the Chinese not being able to learn the polite forms, so in books and comics (well, rather on the more lowbrow side) their dialogs will often end with aru (plain = not polite form of the verb “to be”), regardless of whether it makes grammatically and/or semantically any sense in the context. This is clearly racist, why isn’t FRANCA protesting that?

Because poor woobie white people aren’t made fun of? Oh, my.

Also, darlings! There’s Axis Powers Hetalia**** to protest and boycott <3<3<3.

(For the lazy and link-phobic: APH is a comic about mostly male anthropomorphizations of various countries having gay sex with each other, and also, Nazi uniforms)

And it’s actually seriously disturbing, and possibly includes every xenophobic stereotype ever made, in Japan and other countries.

Axis Powers Hetalia 1 Eng Sub – The funniest videos are a click away
*retches discreetly* Voila!

* There are many degrees of politeness, actually. I could go on and on about that, so I’ll just stop now.

** Read the Wikipedia entry. It’s got some seriously bizarre quotes.

*** There’s actually solid, scientific research that proves that. Statistically, language proficiency is correlated with the age at which you started learning. Therefore, most people who haven’t started learning a language before their teens, have small chances of having perfect native-like pronunciation and grammar. This is not to say that people shouldn’t make the effort, or that they can’t learn anyway. This is a statistical thing, and of course, a lot depends on the amount of work you put into learning.

I’d like to say that my English and German are cool anyway, but unfortunately, I started learning when I was about four and five, respectively.

Meanwhile, my French pronunciation laesst zu wunschen uebrig, and lo, I started learning French when I was 16 or so.

I’d write in which book you can read moar about that sort of stuff, but unfortunately, I shipped my books overseas earlier today =_=.

**** There’s one positive thing about Axis Powers Hetalia (and no, it’s not cute Nazis in their cute uniforms *retches*).

Poland is a cross dresser. WIN!