“Thank You Hater” went viral yesterday; I saw it everywhere. It was all over my Twitter feed, including via Roger Ebert and Stephen Fry. Isabel Fay tweeted about the phone ringing off the hook and interviews lining up to be done. The Guardian reports on the instant virality.

It also reports a different cyber-bully story.

A woman has won court backing to force Facebook to reveal the identities of cyberbullies who targeted her with a string of abusive messages on the website.

Nicola Brookes was granted a high court order after receiving “vicious and depraved” abuse on Facebook after she posted a comment in support of the former The X Factor contestant Frankie Cocozza.

The woman, from Brighton, was falsely branded a paedophile and drug dealer by anonymous Facebook users who set up a fake profile page on the website.

Now Brookes plans to bring a private prosecution against at least four alleged internet trolls, after the high court said Facebook should reveal their identities.

Interesting.

 

 

Sarah El Deeb is a journalist with the AP in Cairo; she tweeted about the protest against violence against women, and then about the attack on the protest. Before the attack she posted a nice hopeful photo –

 

That was before a mob of men attacked them.

Holy shit. Holy fucking hell god damn it piss crap.

A mob of hundreds of men assaulted women holding a march demanding an end to sexual harassment Friday, with the attackers overwhelming the male guardians and groping and molesting several of the female marchers in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.

What is the matter with them? What the hell is their point – that assaulting women is good? That women’s wish not to be assaulted is evil and deserving of punishment in the form of assault?

From the ferocity of the assault, some of the victims said it appeared to have been an organized attempt to drive women out of demonstrations and trample on the pro-democracy protest movement.

Misogynist fascists then. Lovers of violence, force, hatred, crazed hyper-and-pseudo-masculinity. The worst kind of people imaginable.

Friday’s march was called to demand an end to sexual assaults. Around 50 women participated, surrounded by a larger group of male supporters who joined to hands to form a protective ring around them. The protesters carried posters saying, “The people want to cut the hand of the sexual harasser,” and chanted, “The Egyptian girl says it loudly, harassment is barbaric.”

After the marchers entered a crowded corner of the square, a group of men waded into the women, heckling them and groping them. The male supporters tried to fend them off, and it turned into a melee involving a mob of hundreds.

The marchers tried to flee while the attackers chased them and male supporters tried to protect them. But the attackers persisted, cornering several women against a metal sidewalk railing, including an Associated Press reporter, shoving their hands down their clothes and trying to grab their bags.

Turning everything into shit. Nice job.

I saw this via Mona Eltahawy on Twitter. Three of her best friends were attacked.

 

Dear Friends and Colleagues

The scientists at Rothamsted Research want to record their sincere thanks for the amazing, spontaneous outpouring of support for safeguarding their research on aphid repellent wheat. As you all know, this project represented years of painstaking discovery research and the careers of a number of dedicated scientists. The idea that a self-appointed group would decide to destroy this was unconscionable and the researchers felt that they had to reach out to reasonable people for support. No-one expected such enthusiastic and heartfelt support, but it had a number of very positive effects.

You brought the discussion about the research into the realms of sensible debate. Your support really affected the attitude of commentators, who realised what strong support there is for public sector research even when it involves transgenic plants. It also had an effect on those threatening the work and certainly helped to reduce the size of the demonstration that was intent on destroying the experiment. Finally, it was a great source of encouragement to our scientists, even in the depressing period leading up to the direct action, when everyone was feeling under siege. They would read some of the comments and were re-energised to go ahead and struggle for the right to do good science despite the threats. [Read more…]

It’s good that forms of group-hatred like racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia don’t really matter, because they never make anything bad happen. It’s good that they’re all just words, just being “offended,” and basically just a kind of fluff blowing around on the surface of life.

Right?

Buddhist residents in western Burma have killed at least nine Muslims as sectarian tension worsens in the region, police say.

…

Rakhine is home to Burma’s largest concentration of Muslims, including much-persecuted Rohingya Muslims, and their presence is often deeply resented by the majority Buddhist population.

In a joint statement quoted by Reuters, eight Rohingya rights groups based outside Burma condemned the attack on the Muslims on the bus, whom they termed “Muslim pilgrims”.

Although it appears those on the bus were not Rohingyas, the groups said the attack followed months of anti-Rohingya propaganda stirred up by “extremists and xenophobes”.

Yes but propaganda doesn’t matter. Propaganda never makes anything happen. It’s just words. Grow a thicker skin. Ignore them.  Complaining about it just makes potential victims afraid when they otherwise wouldn’t be. Grow a pair. Get a life. Move on.

Football fan racism.

Uefa has confirmed there were “isolated incidents of racist chanting” aimed at Netherlands players during an open training session.

But the governing body has not revealed whether it is investigating the incident in Krakow, Poland.

Dutch captain Mark van Bommel said monkey chants were directed at players.

…

While Van Bommel complained specifically of racist abuse, the Dutch FA had earlier said this was mixed with anti-Euro 2012 chanting believed to have been prompted by the fact the city has not been given any matches in the tournament.

When this was put to Van Bommel on Thursday, he said: “Open your ears. If you did hear it and don’t want to hear it, that is even worse.”

Yes sounds familiar. “Oh that’s not racism, that’s just me hating you. Totally different thing. The fact that I use racist words or chants or sounds is neither here nor there.”

 

 

Via Kylie – a brilliant thank you note to The Footsoldiers of Commenting.

You know it’s Secular Student Alliance week, right?

Right now, SSA supporters Jeff Hawkins and Janet Strauss have pledged a $250,000 matching offer. That means that every contribution is matched dollar-dor-dollar up to a quarter of a million dollars.Hitting the Hawkins/Strauss match means we can offer previously unimagined levels of support for our affiliates during the coming fall semester.  But we need help from the non-students to get there.

The goal of SSA Week is to raise $100,000.  Is it ambitious?  Yes.  Can we do it?  Yes.  Surely there are 20,000 people out there who support the cause of empowering secular activists at the college and high school level.  $5 apiece from each of them gets us to our goal.  The little box over there on the right sidebar will tell you how we’re doing.

There’s one here too, over there on the right sidebar.

I’m going to do a piece of that blogathon thing. Not 24 hours like heroic Jen, just a quarter of that; six hours. Sunday 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Pacific Time.

Got any subjects you want me to blab about? Donate and make a request. Lots of people are doing this, on FTB (hive mind! anarchic hive mind!) and elsewhere. There’s a big ol’ list and schedule on the SSA week page.

SSA is a good thing. I will give you just two words to explain why: Jessica Ahlquist.

Via Christopher Moyer – women tennis players are given their own special court to play on.

…the revered Stade Roland Garros, which first hosted a national women’s  tennis tournament in 1897, had turned a court bright pink and set up an on-site salon and spa for female sportswriters in honor of “Ladies Day.”

Well good good good good. And female surgeons will get their own special bright pink OR, and female pilots will get their own special bright pink cabins, and female judges will get their own special bright pink robes.

More from Joanne Gerstner, who was there. [Read more…]