A personal act of worship

The Independent gets a woman who wears the niqab to explain to the benighted rest of us why she’s so right and right-on and good for doing so.

The common impression that many people have about those that wear the niqab is that we are oppressed, uneducated, passive, kept behind closed doors and not integrated within British society.

So you know what’s coming next. She’s none of those things; she’s the opposite of all of them. Therefore the niqab is great. [Read more…]

“The trophies of the feminist agenda”

And now for a visit to the WorshipFamily crowd. This time it’s a site called Fix the Family, whose subject and theme and purpose and enthusiasm seems to be loathing of feminism. But don’t be confused! This is not the slime pitter, Twitter harasser, Thunderfoot, call them all cunts brand of feminism-loathing. It’s the other kind. The family values kind.

It offers reasons not to send your daughter to college. (I guess daughters aren’t allowed to read it, and neither are people who don’t have daughters.)

Probably the most controversial and rejected position we have at Fix the Family is that parents should not send their daughters to college.  It is even more vehemently opposed than the submission of wives to their husbands.  Both of these positions we have are a threat to the trophies of the feminist agenda, so the rejection we receive is always emotionally charged and ends up insulting, since once explained logically, the opposition runs out of substance and is only left to hurl insults and presume and misconstrue this practical wisdom into some chauvinistic evil. [Read more…]

The loneliness of the Malcolm Gladwell scholar

The Onion reports on a guy who’s just too intelligent for the women he dates.

MILWAUKEE—Describing his mind as both “a blessing and a curse,” local man Benjamin Walker, 27, told reporters Thursday that his intellect was probably just too intimidating for most women to engage with romantically.

“I’m a very, very smart guy, and I guess most women are pretty scared off by that, you know?” said Walker, confirming that women often seem extremely uncomfortable and agitated around him, most likely because of how cultured and well-read he is. [Read more…]

Speak up, secularists

Abhishek Phadnis considers the silence of secularists in the face of the left-Islamist alliance.

Radical Islam mines a rich seam of support in the British radical Left, nowhere more so than in our universities. In light of the Birmingham reversal, it may be instructive to take stock of the role of this unholy alliance in other recent events in British academia (of which I present a small selection) and what this implies for those of us who seek to keep this space secular. [Read more…]

Leo Igwe on The Story

This is exciting. A few weeks ago I got an email from a producer at National Public Radio’s The Story; she wanted to be put in touch with Leo Igwe. And so –

Result:

Leo on NPR’s The Story.

When Leo Igwe was a child living in Nigeria, he saw his father beaten after being accused of witchcraft. Accusations of witch craft run rampant in many parts of western Africa, and Igwe has made it his life’s work to bring attention to the problem. Many of those accused of witchcraft find refuge in “Witch Camps,” which offer safety after an accused individual has been ousted from a community. Igwe has visited camps in Nigeria and northern Ghana and tells host Dick Gordon what life is like inside them.

This is great, because it will inevitably get Leo more support for his work.

 

Look out! Fascists! Right there!

Dang but some people like to over-react to mostly-imaginary entities like “Atheism Plus” or “FTBullies”.

Like “the Denver Atheist” (there’s only the one?) for instance, in a post reasonably titled Atheism Plus Is A Fascist Movement Within The Atheist Community. Here’s how the one atheist in Denver arrives at that conclusion.

 Let’s define our terms up front, shall we? Here’s the definition of the word “fascism”:

Fascism: any movement, ideology, or attitude that favors dictatorial government, centralized control of private enterprise, repression of all opposition, and extreme nationalism

Here’s how I’m relating it to Atheism Plus:

Atheism Plus: a movement, ideology, and attitude that favors dictatorial organization, centralized control of atheism, repression of all opposition, and extreme loyalty to the movement, ideology, and attitude. [Read more…]