The cardinal tripped and fell below the standards

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, after saying “I never!!” for several days, has given a delicate admission that he was sexually…well he doesn’t say exactly, apart from admitting that it wasn’t quite the done thing. Well he’s a Catholic priest, and a high-ranking one, you can’t expect him to just come right out and say he fucked goats or had affairs with slabs of liver or raped children in the confessional. [Read more…]

Another “resistance movement”

The Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser does not welcome the “Vaccine Resistance Movement” on campus. It has issued a statement to say so.

FHS disavows any support or affiliation with Vaccine Resistance Movement

The Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) was surprised to learn that SFU has rented space to the “Vaccine Resistance Movement” for their Summit 2013 at the Harbour Centre Campus. Renting space to  outside organizations for events such as these is done without any  academic oversight. FHS disavows any support or affiliation with this  event which we believe to be  anti-science and contrary to good public  health practice. We are deeply concerned that the public will perceive  the SFU venue as legitimation of the dangerous misinformation that the  Vaccine Resistance Movement is known for. Please accept our sincere  apologies for the inappropriate use of SFU facilities to promote this  event.

That is forthright. Well said.

 

One particular kind of harassment is “just a joke”

Catching up. This is from way back in January but I didn’t get to it then. It’s a post on the Ms blog about online harassment of women and what men can do about it, by Ben Atherton-Zeman.

He starts by saying that women get more online harassment than men do.

Racists harass people online; so do homophobes. Most people agree this is harassment. But my gender’s online harassment of women seems to go unquestioned, even defended, in most circles. Yet men’s online abuse of women has been well-documented by women such as Laurie Penney, Jennifer Pozner, Emily May and many other women.

“The sad part is that it works,” says feminist blogger Soraya Chemaly. “I have spoken to many, many women writers who ‘tone down’ their voices or stop writing entirely as a result of threats. … I mean, who wants to wake up in the morning to ‘Stupid cunt’ or ‘I’ll go from house to house shooting women like you.’” [Read more…]

Who was that masked pineapple?

By the way, that whole pineapple thing? Mayhew’s witty “Pineapple go home!” on Facebook, Vacula’s witty repetition of “Pineapple go home!” farther down the thread on Facebook, “Pineapple go home!” as the title of the first episode of Vacula & Porter’s new podcast, Mayhew’s witty cartoon of “Pineapple go home!”?

I take it they have no clue what the pineapple is about. It’s about something. I didn’t make my profile picture a pineapple just because I wanted a piece of fruit as my profile picture. No. No, I made my profile picture a pineapple in solidarity with the Reading University Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society. There was a little incident last October, which I blogged about several times. I first blogged about it on October 5.

I will just repost the whole thing here, because it’s mine, and I can do that.

Either the pineapple goes, or you do       

 

And on the same day, in another part of the forest…

…another busy representative of another university Student Union meddled with another Atheist, Humanist, and Secularist Society. Reading University this time, and RUSU and RAHS. This time not a Jesus and Mo toon on a Facebook page, but a pineapple named Mohammed.

The NSS quotes a statement by Tim Rouse of the Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Society:

Among the material displayed on our stall was a pineapple. We labelled this pineapple “Mohammed”, to encourage discussion about blasphemy, religion, and liberty, as well as to celebrate the fact that we live in a country in which free speech is protected, and where it is lawful to call a pineapple by whatever name one chooses.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we were informed by a member of RUSU staff that there had been complaints about the pineapple, despite the fact that no complaints had been made at any point to anybody on the stall. Our commitment to freedom of expression meant that we refused to remove the pineapple from our stall. After a few minutes, we were told by another member of RUSU staff that “Either the pineapple goes, or you do”, whereupon they seized the pineapple and tried to leave. However, the pineapple was swiftly returned, and shortly was displayed again, with the name Mohammed changed to that of Jesus.

Shortly afterwards, the second RUSU staff member returned and ordered RAHS to leave the Freshers’ Fayre. At this point, a group of around five students, some of whom self-identified as Muslim, approached the stall and began to criticise us, asking and telling us to remove the pineapple. Though these students mainly engaged in discussion, one removed the label from the pineapple without our permission.

And on it went, wrangle wrangle, until they felt forced to leave, although they continued to hand out leaflets outside the event.

One fire is put out while another is set ablaze.

———————-

Back in the present now.

So you see the pineapple has a meaning – one that even Justin Vacula and Sara Mayhew might appreciate. But they’ve been too busy making videos and podcasts to jeer at us, or cartoons of angry pineapples to jeer at us, to pay attention to things like the above incident. So they jeered at the poor loyal pineapple. Sad, isn’t it.

No thinking involved

Five students have been arrested in Dhaka in the murder of the atheist blogger and campaigner Ahmed Rajib Haidar. The police say all five confessed to involvement in the murder.

The detectives identified the five as Faisal bin Nayeem alias Dwip, 22, Maksudul Hassan Anik, 23, Ehsan Reza Rumman, 23, Naim Sikder Irad, 19, and Nafis Imtiaz, 22.

Dwip and Anik, who hail from Matuail and Keraniganj in Dhaka, are students of electrical and electronic engineering, while Rumman and Irad, who hail from Jhenidah and Brahmanbaria respectively, are students of electric and telecommunications.

Imtiaz, who hails from Sandwip in Chittagong, is a student of business administration.

Notice all the high tech. I mentioned this to Tasneem Khalil, who sent me the link, and he told me that Islamists recruit the brightest in high tech and finance.

Makes sense. They would, wouldn’t they. But notice how brightness of that instrumental kind can be compatible with moral idiocy. [Read more…]

How to read satire

Stacy alerted me to a good (feminist) analysis of the Onion tweet.

First of all, she says, Quvenzhané Wallis is terrific, no question.

But you know what? All of the women at the Oscars last night are awesome. Just to have survived to that level in an industry that, at best, ignores women, and, at worst, actively despises them means they have to be awesome. Maybe they’re not awesome in ways that everyone sees or acknowledges. But in their own way, they’re fierce and strong and bursting with personality in an industry that is designed not to see women that way…

The best examples of how Hollywood hates women were supplied by Oscar host Seth MacFarlane himself. He sang an entire gleeful song about how he saw famous actresses’ breasts in movies, as if he were 12 years old and had no hope of seeing breasts in real life (maybe, with his attitudes, he doesn’t), including movies in which their characters are abused, even gang-raped. [Read more…]

Imagine

Michael Nugent asks what if Ireland discriminated for atheism instead of for religion?

Imagine if 96% of our primary schools were run with an explicitly atheist ethos – not a neutral, secular ethos, but an explictly atheist ethos – where children were taught that there is no god, and that ethos was permeated throughout the entire curriculum.

The idea seems bizarre, doesn’t it. Surplus to requirements, just as god is. It would be odd to have schools run with an explicitly atoothfairy ethos, too. Secular is all that’s needed. Don’t teach math with extra added gremlins, don’t teach biology with added ghosts, don’t teach geography with added atheism. Just skip it. Don’t pack more than you’ll need. That bag will get heavy, so don’t pack a big coat if it’s not going to be cold. [Read more…]