The Salvation Army gives in

Ok this is big. The Salvation Army caved on a religious discrimination case it had been fighting for years. I first read about it in Michelle Goldberg’s great book Kingdom Coming. Dan Arel reports at the Huffington Post:

In 2004 a group of 19 plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against the Salvation Army. The group claimed that the organization, which is a registered evangelical church and charity organization in the United States, was using public taxpayer money to proselytize their evangelical religious beliefs, discriminate, and terminate employees based on religious beliefs. [Read more…]

The infinite table

The Huffington Post reports that some creationists are demanding “equal time.”

Sure. Let’s do that with everything. There’s a documentary about the Holocaust? Give equal time to David Irving. PBS broadcasts Eyes on the Prize again? Give equal time to someone from the KKK. A documentary about the millions killed by Stalin? Give equal time to a Stalinist – if you can find one.

There’s a show about epidemics? Give equal time to people who think bacteria and viruses are a myth. A show about antibiotic resistance? Another opportunity for creationists! [Read more…]

We have strict laws

Uh oh, did somebody somewhere disturb the conventional wisdom? Quick! Hurry! Get someone to repeat the consoling fictions, before there’s a tear in the space-time continuum and everything falls off.

To the rescue: Caroline Kitchens in Time, with all the clichés piled up next to her keyboard ready to go.

There is no rape culture, there is only rape culture hysteria.

There we go; everyone can go home now. [Read more…]

Not all the fatalities are on construction sites

Remember last fall Nick Cohen wrote about the appalling conditions for migrant workers in Qatar in the run-up to the World Cup? Like, How many more must die for Qatar’s World Cup?

Not all the fatalities are on construction sites. The combination of back-breaking work, nonexistent legal protections, intense heat and labour camps without air conditioning allows death to come in many guises. To give you a taste of its variety, the friends of Chirari Mahato went online to describe how he would work from 6am to 7pm. He would return to a hot, unventilated room he shared with 12 others. Because he died in his sleep, rather than on site, his employers would not accept that they had worked him to death. There are millions of workers like him around the Gulf. [Read more…]