In a better world

Meriam Ibrahim arrived in the US a few days ago.

Mrs Ibrahim flew from Rome to Philadelphia with her husband and two children, en route to Manchester, New Hampshire, where her husband has relatives and the family hope to settle.

The mayor said nice things to her there.

Her next stop was Manchester, and there were about 40 relatives and supporters at the airport to greet her, some of them chanting “Long Live America”, says the BBC’s Gringo Wotshela, who was at the scene. [Read more…]

Why did not they remove the Qur’an from the mosque before destroying it?

There’s a rather depressing piece in the Guardian by Fazel Hawramy and Mohammad Moslawi about the beginnings of resistance to ISIS in Mosul.

Iraqis living under Isis rule in Iraq, where non-Sunni residents have been forced from their homes and tens of mosques have been deemed idolatrous and marked for destruction, have started to push back against the extreme interpretation of Islam being imposed on them.

…

In Mosul, despite its military triumphs, Isis is losing the hearts, minds and obedience of residents who say they have had enough. [Read more…]

And even the obligation

Oh yes, the ever-popular Incitement to Murder as Political Dissent routine.

Knight Science Journalism’s Paul Raeburn has weighed in on the increasingly sordid Mike Adams fiasco.

He writes: An anti-GMO activist has compared some science journalists and publications to the Nazis, saying they are “Monsanto collaborators who have signed on to accelerate heinous crimes being committed against humanity under the false promise of ‘feeding the world’ with toxic GMOs.” [Read more…]

Well done Uganda’s Constitutional Court

One piece of good news: The Pink Humanist reports that Uganda’s Constitutional Court has annulled the anti-gay legislation passed and signed into law last February.

It ruled that the bill was passed by MPs in December without the requisite quorum and was therefore illegal.

Homosexual acts were already illegal, but the new law allowed for life imprisonment for “aggravated homosexuality” and banned the “promotion of homosexuality”. [Read more…]

Guest post: You teach reason, not emotions

Originally a comment by Brony on Vulcans can’t argue.

@ brianpansky

Accepting that our primary motives are not rational (and not even conscious) is not , however, the same as saying – as Hume did – that reason should be the slave of emotions. Indeed, if that were the case, we should abandon any hope of progress in ethics and general well-being. Fortunately we do, in fact, use reason all the time to shape our emotions. What else is psychotherapy, if not a (mostly) rational attempt to modify our emotions? What are penalties for, if not to curb some desires?

Reason is in fact the slave of the emotions because reason is software carved into existence through the emotions. Emotions are tagging systems for transforming experience into memory, and recalling events stored and contextualized via those tags. You teach reason, not emotions. Psychotherapy is about modifying emotional contexts. Alterations of the tags and how they relate to stored memories. [Read more…]

Guest post: If you want to have that conversation, go have it

Originally a comment by Nathaniel Frein on Public property.

@sonof: I think what Ophelia is saying in response to your #16 could be paraphrased as ‘bothering men that way is bad but doing it to women is WORSE so shut up and go away’, so apparently she is learning a lot from her new friend (Richard).

Oh do fuck off. Seriously.

You have the wide wide internet to make your point that “People in general should not have their emotions audited by others”, and instead you choose to come here and criticize one blogger for choosing to focus on a behavior that by far happens to women much more than men.

Lets have an anecdote off: I have never been told to smile. I have watched people tell my wife to smile constantly. Hell, I worked retail for a year and while I have what, on a woman, would be called a “bitchy resting face” I never got told that I needed to smile more, by customers or by management. In fact I often got complimented for my helpfulness and friendliness. Without smiling much.

Here’s another anecdote. My grandfather died three years ago, and my grandmother passed on about six months ago. My father has for the most part dealt with this loss, but the family home just sold and he commented gamely that he felt a bit uprooted. Now, I’ve never been in one place more than three or four years (largely due to choices made by my father), so I quipped “I wouldn’t know”. And immediately felt guilty. Cuz it was an asshole thing to do. I saw my father dealing with his personal loss, and I made the conversation about me.

You guys are that asshole right now. Stop it. Ophelia is not saying that your experiences are less than women’s. What she is saying is that this is not that conversation. If you want to have that conversation, go have it. I doubt anyone here would come over to say “but what about the women?” You’re pulling the same bullshit as people who say “I’m not a feminist, I’m an equalist”.

Fuck

Off.