Iago syndrome

Oh good grief – Iago syndrome strikes again.

So this odd tweet flies by me:

Jeremy Stangroom Ed Rybicki speaks out about the consequences of the vile bullying he received at FtB: http://bit.ly/TT9CWz#FTBullies

8:52 AM – 23 Nov 12

#FTBullies. Honestly. Jeremy Stangroom is still regularly using that stupid hashtag, the darling of the obsessive under-motivated frothing haters who rave about the same five or six people day in and day out. You’d think it would be beneath him, but Iago-syndrome prevents.

And…what?

What vile bullying he received at FtB? Rybicki doesn’t mention any in the cited article. None. He mentions hostile reactions in general, and comments on his story itself, but he doesn’t cite any “vile bullying” at FTB. He simply arbitrarily mentions the label at the end, apropos of nothing.

So where am I, now?  Well, pretty much in the same place I was in prior to early November, 2011, because I have stopped reading Hatespace: that’s right; I no longer bother to check in on the circle-jerk that FtB had obviously become.  I also got good news which completely distracted me from the bullshit: my long-shot effort at getting my 30-year dream project funded struck gold, and yes, the wonderful person who walked into my office and asked “Does anyone here know anything about viruses?” and I will be exploring oceanic viromes (thank you, Maya!).

So – all I can say is that I am wiser (but not sadder); that while as an atheist, humanist and liberal, the FtB blogs would look like they were made for me – they can Fuck.  Right.  Off.

That looks as if he’d already cited FTB earlier in the piece, but in fact he didn’t; those are his first mentions. So…what vile bullying? What, exactly, is Jeremy Stangroom talking about?

PZ points out that Rybicki’s article was widely criticized, not to say rebuked; it was far from being a Freethought blogs exclusive.

It was a not-very-good piece that relied on sexist stereotypes for a crutch. It gets a very thorough going over in the comments section there — a great many people were appalled that such a “tongue-in-cheek” exercise in perpetuating falsehoods about women could get published, even as fiction, in a science journal. It also got slapped down by Jacquelyn Gill, who compiled a huge list of negative responses, such as this one by Anne Jefferson. This wasn’t an FtB-led rejection — it was a massive, science-internet-wide gag reflex that puked all over poor Ed Rybicki’s story. Dana Hunter was our local huntress spearing the wild Rybicki, with follow-ups that included Ophelia Benson.

But to claim it was “bullying” or that FtB was responsible…well, that’s typical Jeremy Stangroom, not letting the evidence cloud his hatred of everything on this network.

Typical Iago syndrome.

Iago and Hippolytus

Ever read Euripides’s Hippolytus?

It’s interesting because Hippolytus is very like a Taliban dude. He loves Artemis and hates Aphrodite, and he keeps telling everyone how pure he is. In short, he hates sex.

It has this one speech of his, starting at line 617…

Oh, Zeus! Why did you bring woman into the light of the sun? Woman, this impure, this evil destroyer of mortals! If you wanted to sow the seeds for the mortal race you should not have done it through women but a price. [Read more…]

His wife had left the international airport

Another new wrinkle in the project to make sure that women are kept under ferocious control at all times no matter what – Saudi Arabia has now arranged things so that when a woman leaves Saudi Arabia, her male “guardian” gets a test message saying “Hey! Did you know your slut has crossed the border?”

Since last week, Saudi women’s male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together.

Manal al-Sherif, who became the symbol of a campaign launched last year urging Saudi women to defy a driving ban, began spreading the information on Twitter, after she was alerted by a couple.

The husband, who was travelling with his wife, received a text message from the immigration authorities informing him that his wife had left the international airport in Riyadh.

Women are not allowed to leave the kingdom without permission from their male guardian, who must give his consent by signing what is known as the “yellow sheet” at the airport or border.

This of course is to make sure that they don’t run around naked begging foreigners to fuck them.

Steve Moxon goes to Parliament

From the C of E we drift over to the Houses of Parliament in all their Victorian Gothic splendor. What’s going on there? An influential committee is taking advice on women from Steve Moxon. Victoria would be proud – she hated feminists.

Women are biologically unfit to rise to the top in business, according a self-described academic speaking before an influential parliamentary committee.

Steve Moxon, author of ‘The Woman Racket’, appeared at the business select committee on Wednesday as part of an inquiry into “women in the workplace”. [Read more…]

For theological reasons

A member of the General Synod of the Church of England explains about the vote not to allow women bishops.

The legislation we voted on needed to achieve two outcomes: the ordination of women to the episcopate; and sufficient provision for those who, for theological reasons, find this innovation unacceptable.

For theological reasons – that’s important, you see. They can’t be political reasons or moral reasons or we just don’t like them reasons. Why? Because it looks bad. [Read more…]

Prioritizing agreement

Let’s try this again. I keep seeing discussions of Chris Stedman and his new book that complain of how personal and hostile and unfair the criticisms of him are. Let’s see if I can spell out my dissent without sounding (or even being) personal and hostile and unfair. Religion News Service has an interview with him, so that provides an occasion.

On the blog NonProphet Status, and now in the book, Stedman calls for atheists and the religious to come together around interfaith work. It is a position that has earned him both strident — even violent — condemnation and high praise. Stedman talked with RNS about how and why the religious and atheists should work together.

One. Calling for atheists and the religious to come together around interfaith work seems to me (and others) to be a strange project, because it seems to be a rejection of the very idea of basic disagreement. [Read more…]

Mabus re-arrested and re-released

Tim Farley’s eagerly-awaited post on desperately tracking Mabus.

This post is the story of how those posts once again led to Markuze’s arrest by the Montreal Police. As in 2011 it took quite a bit of work to make this happen. Tedious, painstaking, often thankless work.  But this is the type of work skeptic activists need to be ready to do in order to get results.

Really – incredibly tedious and painstaking. I find it tedious just taking a screenshot; the thought of tracking down endless IP addresses makes me want to run away and join the circus. Thank you Tim. [Read more…]

Refusing to mtfo

Meanwhile, from the guys in purple shirts – the general synod of the Church of England has voted against allowing the appointment of women as bishops.

Well you know how it is. It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it; you know, it’s more of a guy thing. Women aren’t so good at that. Women prefer to sit down and not talk about it. They prefer to stay home and not speak about it and to be intellectually inactive about it. Women are timid and quiet and tongue-tied and lazy. They don’t make good bishops. [Read more…]