Emery Emery, the “Great Penis Debate” guy, the Ardent Atheist, the guy who wrote that stupid piece about how we all just hate sex – Emery Emery has a new wheeze. His new wheeze is a fundraiser to donate to Michael Shermer’s legal fund.
I’M JUST A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY
- My name is Emery Emery and I am launching this fund raising effort for two reasons.
1. As a show of public support for Michael Shermer. [Read more…]
Via Sanal Edamaruku, NDTV on the passage of that law in Maharashtra.
The state government today cleared an Anti-Superstition and Black Magic Ordinance to replace a Bill that had been approved by the cabinet but had lapsed before it could be taken up in the assembly. The Bill has been pending for eight years.
Among other things, the law seeks to make it punishable for self-styled godmen to prey on people by offering rituals, charms, magical cures and propagating black magic.
Dr Dabholkar had relentlessly campaigned for a law against superstition and black magic in the face of criticism from right-wing groups who had called him “anti-Hindu”.
Sanal also linked to a separate story about a “godman” – one charged with sexual assault on a minor. Funny thing about those “godmen”… [Read more…]
The IHEU has compiled reactions to the murder of Narendra Dabholkar.
The Humanist and rationalist community in India has reacted with dignified anger and sadness, remembering an effective and stalwart campaigner, dedicated to the people of Maharashtra but always ready to cooperate across organizational boundaries. He was one of India’s foremost rationalists, working for social justice, against caste discrimination, and exposing the so-called miracles of exploititive ‘godmen’. His work was well-known, and some aspect of it is widely believed to have motivated his killers.
The law against fraud via superstion was passed. [Read more…]
The BBC reports a situation.
Some young HIV patients are giving up their medicine after being told by Pentecostal Church pastors to rely on faith in God instead, doctors warn.
Medical staff told the BBC a minority of pastors in England were endangering young church members by putting them under pressure to stop medication.
It’s a test of faith, you see.
I wonder if those pastors ever test their faith by walking in front of trains. [Read more…]
A major problem with Massimo’s post, as commenters reminded me, is that it’s no good just looking around and saying X doesn’t have a particularly bad sexual harassment problem when we know that most sexual harassment is hidden. It’s a secret. It’s done when no one else is watching.
That’s not a reason to go all Recovered Memory, devil-worship in the day care center, arrest all the people. But it is a reason not to take a look at the surface of things and decide that everything’s pretty much ok. [Read more…]
Massimo Pigliucci asked yesterday, “Does philosophy have a sexual harassment problem?” He asked it in response to Jennifer Saul’s article in Salon, which was titled “Philosophy has a sexual harassment problem.”
Last week Jennifer Saul, a philosopher at the University of Sheffield, published an article in Salon entitled: “Philosophy has a sexual harassment problem.” While there is much substance and nuance in the body of the article, I sincerely hope that Prof. Saul did not actually choose the title herself (editors often do that sort of thing), because the message it sends is anything but nuanced, and if taken at face value also not particularly constructive.
And that’s what he got from that article? That saying philosophy has a sexual harassment problem is overstating the problem? Rather than that, say, the sexual harassment there is in philosophy is a problem? [Read more…]
What the hell happened to personal responsibility? Eh? Waah waah waah, they provoked me, make them stop – that’s all we ever hear. Man up, anti-choicers! If someone offers you more wine an abortion clinic to target with violence, you can just say no.
Amanda Marcotte tells us the anti-choicers in Wichita are arguing over this point, now that a new clinic has opened where Dr Tiller’s used to be until an anti-choicer shot him dead in a church.
But now there’s a new clinic in town where Dr. Tiller’s used to be, and irate anti-choice groups are petitioning the city to have it shut down.
Their reasoning is that the clinic, the South Wind Women’s Center, provokes them into harassing the people going in and out of it, and because they understand that they are super annoying people, they would like the provocation taken away. [Read more…]
Sanal Edamaruku talks to Arun George about the murder of Narendra Dabholkar.
The murder of noted anti-superstition activist Dr Narendra Dabholkar in broad daylight in Pune not only highlights the risk a rationalist faces in the country, but according to some like activist Sanal Edamaruku, it should serve as encouragement to others to take up his cause.
“He was one of the most wonderful soldiers of rationalism in Maharashtra because he was taking the movement down to the villages on one side and the legislature on the other,” Edamaruku told Firstpost.
Terrible news from India today –
Renowned rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, who fought for a law against superstition and black magic, was shot dead this morning in Pune in Maharashtra, an incident which sparked grief and outrage in the city and his hometown Satara. [Read more…]
Aha, a gap in my knowledge of popular culture. (There are a lot of those.) I didn’t know kawaii was a thing. I knew about the Japanese cult of cuteness, but I didn’t know it had a name, or that it was a fashion outside Japan.
(I know a woman, a PhD-MD, whose parents left Japan for the US when she was a child because they couldn’t stand to let her grow up under that kind of pressure – and that was decades ago.)
Wikipedia clued me in.
Kawaii (かわいい [kaw͍aiꜜi], “lovable”, “cute”, or “adorable”[1]) is the quality of cuteness in the context of Japanese culture. [Read more…]