The “Shiv explodes from stupidity” program re the Orlando shooting

I just got back from a vigil held in Edmonton in solidarity with the victims of the Orlando shooting. So, first up, I’ll be posting my coverage of that event.

Second, there is way, way, way too much stupid on the internet regarding the shooting. I have to say something to set the record straight. I think I can even parse it down to a few hundred words, though no promises. When I get angry, I get wordy. I feel like it will be important to try and distill this if I can.

Depending on how things go I might be able to tie points one and two together, but then it definitely won’t be a short article.

Third, I’ll need a mental health break, so when I’ve finished point number two, I’m taking at least a week off from the internet and FTB for some full time self care.

The roommate’s kitties are going to hate me.

-Shiv

Blag surgery was successful

Okay, it’s the same =AtG= you all know and love, only without needing the =AtG= at the top of the post.

You might be confused.

New Frontier is a group blag, something of a probationary test. I shared it with 2 other authors, hence demarcating my posts with an abbreviation of my blag’s name, Against the Grain. Now that I have my own column, I don’t need to do that.

My work was transplanted from New Frontier, so all the same articles and comments should still be present. Nothing is changing in terms of the content I’m covering, I’m just posting it on AtG proper instead of the group blag.

Special thanks to PZ for pulling the levers and pushing the buttons and doing the techy ish stuff to make it happen. :) Thanks to my peers on the network who supported the move.

On my to-do list for the new column:

  • Set a comments policy
  • Get a proper avatar
  • Get a proper banner

For you guys, things are basically business as usual.

-Shiv

50 murdered in gay night club during domestic terrorist shooting

The night of June 11th now marks the worst mass shooting in US history, as 50 were murdered and another 53 injured in a domestic terror incident at a gay night club:

A gunman opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub in Orlando, killing 50 people and injuring dozens more in a rampage that was the deadliest mass shooting in the country’s history.

Authorities in Orlando said Sunday that the siege at Pulse, a popular gay bar and dance club, was quickly deemed an act of domestic terrorism. In addition to the 50 people killed, another 53 were injured, officials said.

Police had said earlier Sunday that 20 people were killed before saying that the toll was significantly higher. Until Sunday, the 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech — which saw 32 people killed and 30 others injured — was the country’s worst mass shooting.

Orlando Police Chief John Mina said that the toll from this latest mass slaughter could have been even greater, saying that a SWAT team “rescued at least 30 possible victims and brought them to safety.”

The gunman was killed by police officers in a shootout after the rampage, authorities said. It was not immediately clear if the death toll included the gunman.

While police have not publicly identified the gunman, law enforcement officials and relatives on Sunday identified him as Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old from Fort Pierce, Fla.

“We’re dealing with something we never imagined and is unimaginable,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer (D) said during a news briefing Sunday.

Dyer said he had issued a state of emergency in the city and asked Gov. Rick Scott(R) to issue a similar order for the state. Scott said he was traveling to Orlando to meet with officials there.

Police have not identified a possible motive, and details about Mateen’s background were scarce on Sunday morning.

The article goes on to describe a text message exchange with one of the victims and their mother shortly before their murder.

My thoughts go out to the victims and their families. A crime, a chilling message sent straight home to all of us, so soon after my local city celebrated Pride. My rainbows are back on today.

Comments policy for this: We focus on the victims and the families. We can talk politics and the shooter’s motivations on the next post.

-Shiv

Edit: It has also been brought to my attention that last night was the gay Latinx night.

Signal boosting: Consider the Tea Cosy nails relationship abuse

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Aoife covers relationship abuse over on her blag at The Orbit and abso-fucking-lutley nails it:

You don’t want to. You don’t want this to be happening. You don’t want to believe that Bob- who you respect and like- could have done the things they’ve been accused of. Similarly, Alex has never shown signs of being manipulative or a liar before. You feel like you’ve been dragged into this circus against your will. So you decide to withhold judgement.

What effect does this have?

It strengthens Bob’s standing, and weakens Alex’s.

How does it do this?

Before Alex accused Bob, things were pretty great for everyone but them. Even if Bob was doing something abusive, it didn’t affect anyone but Alex. Everyone (except Alex), without knowing it, believed that Bob wasn’t abusing anyone. That’s the status quo.

When you claim the middle ground, what you’re really claiming is the status quo. You want things to be like they were before. Like it or not, the person who changed everything was Alex. Alex is the one who asked everyone to look at things differently. Alex demanded that we acknowledge that there’s an abuser in our midst.

And your middle ground? It’s not backed up by evidence. If Alex was as likely to be lying as telling the truth, it would make sense to withhold judgement. However, when it comes to rape or abuse accusations? While we don’t have exact numbers, it’s very likely that rates of false accusation lie somewhere somewhere between2% and 8%– although there’s a good argument to be madethateven those numbers are high. Even assuming them to be true, however, this leaves a 92-98% chance that Alex is telling the truth. Only somewhere between one Alex in twelve, or one Alex in fifty is making it up- at most.

Please go read. Her analysis is astute. I’m not happy to say I’ve lived her hypothetical example, but it feels good to know that some people get it, y’know?

-Shiv

Sizable minority of Canadians oppose Bill C-16

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MetroNews collected not only some opinions on Bill C-16 and the concept of extending explicit protections to trans Canadians, but also the demographic data of the respondents. So who is actually against and in favour of the Bill?:

The poll found most Canadians to be in favour of the provisions included in the proposed legislation.

Three in four Canadians (74 per cent) agree with a provision in Bill C-16 that would make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity and gender expression, and 71 per cent are in favour of updating criminal laws to make it a hate crime when someone is targeted because of their gender identity and gender expression.

In addition, two thirds of Canadians (65 per cent) agree with extending hate speech laws to include the terms gender identity and gender expression.

So why is Metro more optimistic about the findings than I am? Simple: It all falls apart once you actually apply  those protections.

A majority of Canadians (55 per cent) think transgender Canadians should be allowed to use the public bathroom of their choice, while one third (32 per cent) believe their public bathroom use should be based exclusively on biological sex.

There’s a discrepancy here–26% of respondents were not in favour of adding explicit protections to trans Canadians, so if the respondents actually knew what the fuck they were talking about, we would expect close to the same amount opposing the use of appropriate facilities for trans folk. Yet it jumps up to 32% when you actually frame the issue as being about bathrooms. On the inverse, 74% of respondents agreed it was wrong to discriminate against trans folk, but you ask them about washrooms and the portion of supporters sinks to 55%. The bathroom question doesn’t add up to 100% because the rest answered in one of the ambivalent categories.

Now are there any differences by demographic response?

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The Canadian National Anthem is now gender neutral

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…And no one (important) cares:

Bill C-210, which passed 219 to 79, proposes to switch just two words in the lyrics of “O Canada” — changing “in all thy sons command” to “in all of us command” in one verse. The simple substitution is meant to do away with the exclusively male phrasing in part of the song, but it’s also causing an uproar among some conservative members of Canada’s government.

Yes yes, we know the story. Fabric of society, insulting to our glorious history, yadda yadda yadda.

Conservative MP Peter Van Loan also accused the Liberals of trying to impose their worldview on Canadians.

Coming from the political party that only weeks ago updated their definition of marriage?

Tastes like irony.

Now if we can go about getting rid of that “God” business, I’ll be… well, slightly less apathetic. I frankly give zero shits about our anthem.

-Shiv

Wooooo I’m employed

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Blaral;gha;eslkrhta;seltkhas;elth I got the job offer guys.

Hurrayyy material security.

You know you’re making it in life when you move up a tax bracket.

-Shiv

Topless women and arbitrary nudity laws

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This is old hat but it came up on my feed, and I have some thoughts:

A B.C. woman who asserted her legal right to go topless said she was told to cover up by a police officer, and then wrongly told by two other officials that she had broken a law.

Susan Rowbottom said she was tanning topless with a friend last week on a beach in Kelowna, B.C., when a male RCMP officer approached her and told her “put your top on.”

She said she complied, but then asked, “Why? Is there a reason, a law or anything?”

The officer informed the women it was against a city ordinance, Rowbottom said.

When she called a police station, a female officer told her the same. When she called bylaw officials, the person who answered the phone also agreed going topless was illegal.

Finally, she got a call from a city clerk who she said correctly informed her “it’s perfectly legal.”

First of all, this is ridiculous. The police assert that they have discretion to enforce something that isn’t against the law? Who the fuck is training these officers?

If any of you need a demonstration of how arbitrary topless laws are, allow me to ask a very poignant question:

At what point, exactly, does it become illegal for trans women to go topless?

I’d really appreciate a rational explanation for these laws that didn’t amount to, “let’s literally police women’s bodies.”

-Shiv

Wednesday Addams was always my fav

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Retrospect is 20/20, so they say, and I can certainly tell you why I identified with Wednesday as a young, highly gender confused child.

I revisited some of the more (relatively) recent Addams iterations and found that the Addams family from ’91 onwards snuck by as sex-positive kinky commentary. These concepts weren’t really in the public consciousness (sex-positivity is arguably still largely unknown) so the Addams family didn’t seem to ping anybody’s moral crisis radar. Or maybe they did? I was definitely too young to be paying attention to politics when this material was new.

Morticia and Gomez’s continuously passionate and loving relationship, despite the years of familiarity, is contrasted with the “typical” married couples who were often resentful and borderline abusive to one another. Gomez and Morticia are enthusiastically expressing their love and sexual desire for one another, and this is seen as contributing to their outsider status. Married couples were supposed to be spiteful, so obviously Morticia and Gomez were freaks if they actually behaved like people who routinely bubbled with love, especially sex-filled love, for one another.

Morticia: “Last night you were unhinged. You were like some desperate howling demon. You frightened me. Do it again.”

Mmmm yassss girl. Right there with you.

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Signal boosting: Middle Eastern feminist edition

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Linda Sarsour hosts a political talkshow on Youtube, and keeps herself busy by getting so much (so frickin much) done on the ground. Her activism was galvanized by the 9/11 hysteria, as is probably the case with most intersectional Muslim feminists. I started paying attention to her for her opposition to Islamic conservatives by being able to engage in debate in Arabic, blasting them for their anti-black racism, among many other things. Her channel is by no means prolific, but she’s a little preoccupied doing the things. Just keep an eye out for her in the news and on Twitter!

Slay, Linda, slaaaay.

-Shiv