So there’s this comedy writer Kurt Metzger, who’s on the staff at Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer. You know the next line already.
Lindy West and Sady Doyle, two outspoken critics of rape humor in comedy, are accusing Metzger of an online harassment campaign that started more than a month ago. Doyle is taking the evidence straight to Amy Schumer and Comedy Central.
Are they sure it’s harassment? Couldn’t it just be…you know…comedy? [Read more…]
Oh by the way did I mention that I’m back? I am, I’m back. It was a looooooooong trip. Jane and Michael picked me up at 11:15 yesterday (Tuesday) morning and I got home at 7:30 the next morning Dublin time. That’s 20 hours. Lordy.
I had a bit of good luck though, that made it a little shorter than it might have been. I looked on the board at JFK to find my gate and saw that there was an earlier flight in half an hour. Ooh, could I get them to put me on that one? Could I get there in time? [Read more…]
Anne Ferris TD, Vice Chair of the Oireachtas Committee for Justice, Defence and Equality, has a scorching article on the Magdalene laundries. If you read it it will make you feel angry.
In 1955 Halliday Sutherland was doing research for a book on Ireland and managed to visit a Magdalene laundry in Galway.
The day before he visited the laundry in Galway, Dr Sutherland visited the Mother and Baby home in Tuam. He noted that the accepted practice was that unmarried mothers in the Tuam home ‘agreed’ to provide a year of unpaid domestic service to the nuns, and that in addition to this servitude, the home received State support, via Galway County Council, to the tune of £1 per child or mother per week. [Read more…]
The Irish abortion bill passed, 138 to 24.
It’s very limited though. Don’t go getting any ideas about a general right to decide about your own life.
Mr Kenny issued a stern defence of the legislation in his own speech to the Dáil, saying it was not possible to remove the suicide clause. He also rejected demands for a time limit to be applied to when a termination can take place.
“To those who fear that this Bill is the first step towards a liberal abortion regime in Ireland, I say clearly that this extremely restrictive Bill is the only proposal that will be brought forward by this Government on this issue,” he said.
What about those who fear that this bill is a great deal too restrictive?
The videos are flooding in now!
Rebecca Goldstein’s amazing talk at Women in Secularism 2 is one.
It starts with a bang.
I probably agonized over this talk more than any other talk in my entire career.
…
The source of my agony is this: do I, for the first time in my life, publicly address the gender issue. My MO has always been to try to behave as if my being a female doesn’t matter insofar as my professional life is concerned.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that? The trouble is, other people don’t try to behave as if our being female doesn’t matter as far as our work is concerned.
Big Dublin-explore this morning.. Where did I go, you don’t ask. Let’s see…
Through the back gate to Trinity College to the far (west) side, to College Green and Dame Street and Lord Edward Street. (Funny the way the streets get a new name every few yards or meters). Along the north side of Christ Church cathedral, down the hill to the Liffey, along the south bank to the next bridge and across, along the north bank to the next bridge and cross back, up to St Audouen’s church, to the castle for a look at the courtyard, to the spectacular St George’s Street shopping arcade…
To a modern version of that near Stephen’s Green, like Joseph Paxton but with bigger clocks. (Clocks, I said. There’s a gigantic clock on the third floor, with two different faces. I want it.
To Stephen’s Green, to Iveagh Gardens, through Stephen’s Green (yes, again) past Merrion Square to here.
Now for chapter 2. This pesky cold is making me want to laze, but I can laze on the plane, so
…onward.