Federal Abortion Bill Advances

Last week, I received this action alert from CFI’s Office of Public Policy:

Help Defeat Proposals That Would Ban All Abortions in U.S. After 20 Weeks

Rep. Trent Franks is at it again. Last month, the Republican Congressman from Arizona introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would outlaw all abortions in Washington, D.C. after 20 weeks — with saving the mother from death being the only exception.

Now, Franks has announced his intention to amend the bill and expand its reach nationwide. That’s right: Rep. Franks wants a nationwide ban on abortions after 20 weeks. The bill has quickly racked up 133 co-sponsors in the House, and has a companion in the Senate, S. 886.

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) considers these proposals an outrage and urges members to contact their elected officials in Congress to oppose them.

As you might imagine, I agree with the OPP on this. I’m passing this on now because the Republican majority of the House Judiciary subcommittee assigned to evaluate the bill disagree with me. Continue reading “Federal Abortion Bill Advances”

Federal Abortion Bill Advances
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Women in Secularism Speakers Letter to CFI Board

This letter was emailed today to the Center for Inquiry board in care of board secretary Tom Flynn. I am one of the speakers who signed it.

June 3, 2013

Board of Directors
Center for Inquiry
c/o Secretary Tom Flynn
PO Box 741
Amherst, NY 14226-0741

Delivered via email.

Dear members of the board:

We write to you as speakers at the Women in Secularism conference last weekend to say that Ron Lindsay’s conduct during this conference was unwelcoming, obstructive, and highly unprofessional. From his opening speech to his use of social media during the conference to his use of the CFI blog to attack a speaker during the conference to his interactions with conference-goers to his current silence on several matters, his behavior as CEO of the conference’s sponsoring organization was unique in our experience as speakers. It made our work at the conference more difficult and has increased the level of ongoing harassment that some of us face as women working in the secular movement. Continue reading “Women in Secularism Speakers Letter to CFI Board”

Women in Secularism Speakers Letter to CFI Board

The Ethics of Unmasking

Despite how lawmakers and law enforcement in certain places treat them, masks are neutral things. They can be used to facilitate crime, of course, but they can also be used to bring justice, to fight power that is unethically used. Or they can be used neutrally, to give us some space to explore new behaviors or new identities separated from the continuity of the rest of our lives.

That’s what masks do, of course. While you’re wearing a mask, you’re free the burden of being the person you’ve always been. A masked person doesn’t feel the social pressure of what “everyone already knows” about them. They can explore different behaviors, different preferences, different levels of risk without violating anyone’s expectations. They can shed history that has resulted in trust, and they can shed history that has resulted in wariness.

Conversely, a person who wears a mask while behaving in ways they normally would not doesn’t change the way anyone who knows them without the mask views them. They are insulated from the consequences of their actions, for better or for worse. Those around them only see part of the person they’re dealing with and aren’t likely to accidentally uncover the rest.

Because masks are neutral, there is no one common thing to be said about the ethics of wearing masks. The same is true for the ethics of unmasking.

Continue reading “The Ethics of Unmasking”

The Ethics of Unmasking

Hitting the Wrong Target

Every once in a while, I feel sorry for people who have names or Twitter handles close to mine.

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/SkepDirt/status/337658467093458945″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/SkepDirt/status/337659317035606019″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/Mykeru/status/337659897724403712″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/SkepDirt/status/337662283536814080″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/Mykeru/status/337687122960068608″]

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/SkepDirt/status/337692486124322816″]

A year or so ago, the person who has the @svan handle had an unprotected Twitter account, even though people had misdirected tweets meant for me that way since I joined Twitter. It’s protected now. Anyone want to guess why?

But, hey. No gender- or sex-based abuse happening here, folks! Move along. Nothing to see.

Hitting the Wrong Target

Gratitude

Most of what you’ll hear about Women in Secularism 2 will be about the talks, but some of us got an extra treat. At Saturday night’s fundraising banquet, Shelley Segal played a set for us. I already knew Shelley was lovely and that her album was good after Brianne interviewed her for Atheists Talk. (That was that long ago?!) If you haven’t heard An Atheist Album, give it a taste.

What I didn’t know, and what you should give yourself an opportunity to find out in person, is how much more powerful Shelley’s songs and voice are in person. Here’s a little sample:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkOaqod_AlI Continue reading “Gratitude”

Gratitude

Saturday Storytime: The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue

Dark stories for children and young adults are nothing new. Holly Black, however, writes stories like Doll Bones for middle-grade readers and Tithe for young adults in which that darkness has sharp edges and real consequences.

Once, when Nadia had a different name and lived in a small town outside of Toronto, she’d been a different girl. She took ballet and jazz dancing. She had a little brother who was always reading her diary. Then one day on her way home from school, a man asked her to help him find his dog. He had a leash and a van and everything.

He ate part of her leg and stomach before anyone found them.

When she woke up in the hospital, she remembered the way he’d caught her with his snout pinning her neck, the weight of his paws. She looked down at her unscarred skin and stretched her arms, ripping the IV needle out without meaning to.

She left home after she tried to turn her three best friends into werewolves too. It didn’t work. They screamed and bled. One of them died.

“Nadia,” Rhonda is saying.

Nadia shakes off all her thoughts like a wet dog shaking itself dry.

The casting director is motioning to her. “We’d like to see you again,” the woman with the necklaces says.

“Her?” Rhonda asks.

When Nadia goes back on stage, they tell her she has the part.

“Oh,” says Nadia. She’s too stunned to do more than take the packet of information on rehearsal times and tax forms. She forgets to ask them which part she got.

That night Rhonda and Grace insist on celebrating. They get a bottle of cheap champagne and drink it in the back of the restaurant with the cook and two of the dishwashers. Everyone congratulates Nadia and Rhonda keeps telling stories about clueless things that Nadia did on other auditions and how it’s a good thing that the casting people only wanted Nadia to dance because she can’t act her way out of a paper bag.

Nadia says that no one can act their way out of a paper bag. You can only rip your way out of one. That makes everyone laugh and—Rhonda says—is a perfect example of how clueless Nadia can be.

“You must have done really well in that final jump,” Rhonda says. “Were you a gymnast or something? How close did you get?”

“Close to what?” Nadia asks.

Rhonda laughs and takes another swig out of the champagne bottle. “Well, you couldn’t have made it. No human being could jump that far without a pole vault.”

Nadia’s skin itches.

Keep reading.

Saturday Storytime: The Aarne-Thompson Classification Revue