On drama vs conflict regarding harassment policies

I made a snide remark aimed at certain trollish parties in a comment at Almost Diamonds in a post that probably could stand far less of my snideness. Stephanie describes the repeated and disdainful dismissal of the conflict between folks who want harassment policies and folks who don’t, and the repeated and disdainful reductionistic treatment of that conflict as one between DJ Grothe and Rebecca Watson, two players who, while leaders in our skeptical communities, are really both adjunct to the overarching question of whether or not our communities need better harassment policies. You should read that post in its entirety before coming back here.
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On drama vs conflict regarding harassment policies
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Kid tries to prove his masculinity by shooting himself in the head on live video

See, it’s bullshit like this that motivates me to destroy gender roles, not just for feminism’s sake, but for men as well. This child did not, obviously, think things through before he tried to prove how “manly” he was to his friends on video chat. He put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, not realizing that the gun was loaded.

About 1:15 a.m., the teen was video-chatting — police believe it was either over Skype or another video-chat service called ooVoo — with an as-yet-unidentified person while his brothers were asleep in the room in their Kensington house.

Sometime during the video chat, things went horribly wrong.

“His manhood or his ego was challenged and he said something along the lines of, ‘I’ll show you,'” Gallagher said. “He thought he was clowning around, trying to shock the other party on the Internet site.”

That’s when the teen picked up his older brother’s gun and, believing it was unloaded, put it to his head and pulled the trigger, police said.

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Kid tries to prove his masculinity by shooting himself in the head on live video

Creating the Mobee (the Monolithic Bee)

This is a fascinating video about the creation of a dime-sized robot flying machine. I have to say, every step in the process is at once innovative and scary. How long til the future of miniature spy drones? We’re already very likely to end up with Man-Hacks drilling into our brainpans when we least suspect them. Why not fly-shaped spy robots in every home?

Okay, seriously, this would be great for mass-production of tiny exploration bots so we could map areas on other planets or what have you. Imagine sending a probe with a compartment full of these things, each with a mini cam that feeds live video streams back to the probe, out to another planet where they could map the whole thing in no time flat.

Creating the Mobee (the Monolithic Bee)

Memo to Americans: Canadians exist, Bigfoot doesn’t

A shocking and horrible poll published by Angus Reid declares, “Americans more likely to believe in Bigfoot than Canadians”.

I know you folks might never see us very often — we haven’t had a war with you in a very long time, and I can understand why you might be inclined to forget about us given our cultural contributions have included Celine Dion and Justin Bieber. But I’m telling you, we exist. We don’t even have flip-top heads, like your Sunday night educational programming “South Park” might lead you to believe. Hockey was invented here. We make good beer.

Wait, what? That’s not what the survey says? Hang on. Knew I shoulda read it before starting this post. *grumble grumble*
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Memo to Americans: Canadians exist, Bigfoot doesn’t

Mock The Movie: She Gods of Shark Reef transcript

This Mock the Movie event was everything we expected it to be, and so much less. Your usual Corman film from the 50s/60s, with all the drama coming from a hamfisted villain and a nonexistent deity, and the best acting came from the so-called shark, that you could almost believe was actually a full-sized and dangerous creature that was interested in these characters — as long as you squinted and kinda looked at the screen using your peripheral vision.
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Mock The Movie: She Gods of Shark Reef transcript

Tropes v Women In Video Games is under troll attack

I’ve mentioned the Tropes vs Women in Video Games kickstarter project before, along with the FeministFrequency series of 101-level videos about feminist concepts as regards popular culture. These videos, by the way, are excellent — they’re so excellent, in fact, that they’re even used in schools. The kickstarter exists to help keep FeministFrequency making new videos, as well as to fund the concerted research and time spent on this specific video that FemFreq is making.

In taking on this topic, however, it seems she’s stumbled onto the hornet’s nest of misogyny that is the online video game community.
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Tropes v Women In Video Games is under troll attack

You Must Always Be Nice: why I’m not being nice to DJ Grothe

Women supporting harassment are told they're just recounting "locker room tales" and "sexual exploits"... BUT SOME GUY CALLED ME A DOUCHEBAG SO BOTH SIDES ARE EQUALLY BAD.

If I’ve learned anything over the last week, it’s that there are two opposing factions that slaver at the bit to attack us feminists for different kinds of slip-ups — or perceived slip-ups, rather. There’s the “free speech” crowd who think that freethought means you should be free to use whatever racial, sexual or other slurs you want while making your arguments, who will scream and yell and build controversy over your banning them as disingenuous asses. There is, at the same time, another faction who will taunt and misconstrue and manufacture controversy over any perceived instance of being “mean”.

People like me — people who both condemn folks for using sexist slurs repeatedly and with impunity, but at the same time are willing to call people names when I get emotional — are stuck in the middle of both groups. I look like a tasty target to both sets of people because I appear to be a hypocrite. And surely I am! I mean, how could I possibly advocate not using certain insulting words when I’m willing to use other insulting words?

It’s rather easy to sort this out, of course. Though it does take a bit of intellectual honesty. And probably more patience and empathy than a certain class of reader has to hir credit.
Continue reading “You Must Always Be Nice: why I’m not being nice to DJ Grothe”

You Must Always Be Nice: why I’m not being nice to DJ Grothe

Sparlock the Warrior Wizard… IS EVIL

So sayeth the Jehovah’s Witnesses. See, Sparlock is a magical toy, and Jehovah hates magical toys. What’s that? Sparlock is a fictional character, and the “magic” is fictional too? Er, um. It’s ABOUT a magical wizard, therefore magic is real.

See? Sparlock is EVIL. THERE WAS A SNAKE IN THIS ANIMATION! That’s proof enough for me!

Remember kids, don’t participate in popular culture if it involves fictional magic, because there’s only one fictional magical creature you’re allowed to talk about, and that’s Jehovah. And Jehovah will not love you very much unless you obey him, and playing with toys is totally disobeying him. (Why am I reminded of the intro to The Binding of Isaac? Next Billy’s clothes get taken away because he’s still too sinful?)

Not all the JWs agree though. There’s actually a DEEEP RIIIIFT forming in the JW community over this, believe it or not. They’re TEARING THEMSELVES APART.

Hat tip sinned34. Who doesn’t seem to blog any more. Everyone shame him now.

Sparlock the Warrior Wizard… IS EVIL

Fischer: “Discriminate against homosexual behaviour, or you’re discriminating against Christianity”

Bryan Fischer believes that it is discrimination to tell Christians to stop discriminating. And yet gay-friendly Christians wonder where we get the idea that Christianity is opposed to homosexuality, or that they “teach hate”. Maybe it’s because their biggest advocates say nonsense like this.

I’ve never heard a more compelling argument for discrimination.

Waitaminute. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you.

It’s not like this is new for Fischer, but it’s certainly nice for him to just come out and say unequivocally that gay rights and his religion are diametrically opposed. It sounds like a false dichotomy, but in his mind, telling him to stop discriminating is really, truly, discrimination. This guy has a long and storied past of saying bullshit exactly like this, but this is the first time in my memory that he’s phrased it quite so bluntly.

At least he finally agrees that all this anti-gay nonsense is discrimination! That’s… LIKE progress, right?

Fischer: “Discriminate against homosexual behaviour, or you’re discriminating against Christianity”

An apology, a mea culpa, and my stated opinion of DJ Grothe

yes, actually he SAID: "ALL OF THESE POSTS ABOUT SUPPOSED RAMPANT SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND UNNAMED LISTS OF CERTAIN SPEAKERS “VICTIMIZING” YOUNG WOMEN, AND THE LIKE. SO MUCH OF THAT FEELS TO ME MORE LIKE RUMOR AND DISTASTEFUL LOCKER ROOM BANTER"

So, I have this problem. A vacuous shitbag troll is running around telling everyone that I’m a homophobe based on a reading of my comment here:

DJ Grothe is not LITERALLY a douchebag, as he does not store vinegar or other potentially harmful chemicals in his person for the purposes of “cleansing” a woman’s vagina. In fact, I hear he wants little to do with women’s vaginas.

When people who have shown every intention of manufacturing controversy just happen to be right about something, I have this tendency to not believe them because of all the dross they’ve spat out before. I sometimes trust my pattern recognition all too much. The fact that this troll is presently spamming both DJ and all my compatriots, and has been for two days, is galling, but must not blind me to the fact that some people could find that offensive.
Continue reading “An apology, a mea culpa, and my stated opinion of DJ Grothe”

An apology, a mea culpa, and my stated opinion of DJ Grothe