Hi, Joe!

William Cronon is a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and he recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that placed the recent labor troubles in Wisconsin in historical context — he explained how many of the progressive policies in that state were actually the product of Republican lawmakers, that the state has long been a battleground between the progressive and conservative wings of the Republican party, and that a good part of the liberalism in the state is due to a reaction against the autocratic hand of Joe McCarthy, who violated the traditions of the state and its people and basically inspired a lot of revulsion. And it concludes by pointing out that Governor Walker is making the same mistakes as McCarthy, forgetting the lessons of good government.

It’s a great essay, even-handed and informed, and reminded me that yes, once upon a time, Republicans weren’t the party of insane corporate tools who got their instructions direct from god, and that there are common principles of good government that liberals and conservatives could agree on.

The response has been interesting (in the sense of the Chinese curse) for Cronon. The Wisconsin Republican party is dunning him with an open records request demanding all emails that he has received mentioning any of the players in the recent labor conflicts in Wisconsin. Why? Because they’re planning a witch hunt with Cronon as the prey, and they want to find any damning connection that will allow them to claim that Cronon is an apparatchik and propagandist, rather than an independent historian with a serious scholarly focus. Cronon himself has put together an analysis of the request — it’s an effort to silence a critic with intimidation.

Well, hello there, Joe McCarthy! How nice of the Rethuglicans to confirm the comparison in his op-ed for him.

You should read Cronon’s own discussion, but also, Gary Farber has assembled a thorough discussion of the tangled path from history professor to stage-prop villain. His greatest crime may have been exposing to the light of day a quiet organization, ALEC, that has been drafting the most conservative legislation for our government in collaboration with the wealthiest corporations in the country.

You just knew there was going to be a connection to greed and big money in there, didn’t you?

Fat Christians are a lie!

How can our news media get the story so completely backwards? MSNBC is reporting a correlation between religiosity and obesity, which simply can’t be true. Aside from the difficulties of going from a correlation between two complex phenemona to an assumption of causality, we have it from an unimpeachable, objective source that the opposite is true.

That paragon of scienciness, Conservapædia, has been arguing that atheism leads to obesity, and for proof, they have photos of grossly pig-like PZ Myers contrasted with slim, muscular Christian Chuck Norris. This is, of course, also evidence for their claim that “excess weight impairs brain function.”

PS. As many of you already know, the word “conservapedia” is a filtered term here, because way, way back, the Schlafly consortium had their crack team of home-schooled kiddies spamming us with spammy links to get their page ranking up. I strongly recommend that any mention of them be spelled “conservapædia”, because they also really, really hate those effete European spellings.

I wonder why there are relatively few women engineers?

You would think Canadian universities would be particularly sensitive on the issue of discrimination against women scientists and engineers—it is, after all, where the École Polytechnique murders occurred in 1989 (major trigger warning! That is the coroners report, containing a detailed, dispassionate description of a man hunting down and butchering women), one of the most horrendous crimes against women in recent history, in which a gunman singled out women engineering students for execution, killing 14.

During this time, Lépine moved a little closer to the group of 9 girls who were standing together at the back of the classroom, with no possible exit. He said to them: “Do you know why you are there.” One of the girls answered “No”. He replied: “I am fighting feminism.” The student who had spoken added: “We are not feminists, I have never fought against men.” He immediately started firing on the group, from left to right.

Now it’s clear that most men are not murderous, woman-hating lunatics like Lépine; the very remote possibility that a deranged maniac might murder them for the act of being intelligent is not going to discourage most women, since it is such an unlikely event. But what is going to hurt is the constant, grinding obtuseness of non-murderous male engineering students and a culture that belittles feminist concerns. That is the mind-killer; we can lock up all the guns and issue all the bullet-proof vests we want, but that isn’t going to correct the blithe, gutless privilege of some individuals.

The University of Waterloo is an excellent university with a prestigious reputation, but lately there have been a few chilling incidents. Someone has been anonymously plastering posters on campus.

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It’s ahistorical nonsense, of course. Marie Curie was not the inventor of the atom bomb, men are not blameless for the creation and use of it, and Curie was not the one great mind in all of womankind. But it has to be frightening and oppressive to be aware of another kook working himself up to a woman-hating fury on the campus. The administration and police are working hard to track this fellow down, although I also get the impression that what spurred the university to take action was more that the guy impersonated the university president in email than that he’s creating a bad atmosphere for women.

But let’s set that aside, too. Let’s pretend that these relatively rare anti-feminist fringe monsters aren’t a major contributor to the discouragement of women in science. Even if these creatures disappeared from our culture, never to appear again, there is something even more insidious: the belittling attitude of their peers.

Here’s how one engineering student at the university reacted to the concerns of a woman student.

Really Sherlock? UW is a male dominated campus, I wonder why… oh, let’s see, UW is in the top for Engineering, Math, and CS, given that most girls doesn’t want to give the effort and sacrifice needed to go through the Engineering or Math program at UW, you are going to bitch and cry that the university is male dominated? Really? So if you want a female dominated campus, try “Bryn Mawr College”.

You have no right to bitch that the campus is too male dominated, when there are literally no girls in the Engineer or Math faculty, even though there are scholarships and extra benefits given to females that are in the Math faculty.

Very, very few women have been shot by a male gunman, but virtually every single one of them has regularly encountered men like the privileged scumbag who made that comment. If you want to know why an engineering school can be a “male dominated campus,” look to the people who feel that women don’t work as hard, aren’t as capable, don’t belong in a science and engineering world, and that male privilege is an earned status. And let’s also not forget that it requires this kind of culture to allow misogynist extremists to flourish.

Tear the posters down and find the culprit, but don’t forget that those are only symptoms of a miasma of seriously screwed up attitudes.

Sweet Jebus, but I hate the HuffPo

It’s a woo-infested sewer, a cesspit of inanity and exploitation, and they cheat their writers. There is a strike/boycott in operation. This is what you get when an unprincipled, opportunistic hack like Arianna Huffington runs the show.

Guild tells HuffPost writers: ‘Don’t work for free’

The Newspaper Guild is calling on unpaid writers of the Huffington Post to withhold their work in support of a strike launched by Visual Art Source in response to the company’s practice of using unpaid labor. In addition, we are asking that our members and all supporters of fair and equitable compensation for journalists join us in shining a light on the unprofessional and unethical practices of this company.

Just as we would ask writers to stand fast and not cross a physical picket line, we ask that they honor this electronic picket line.

The Newspaper Guild, a 26,000-member-strong national union of media workers, is committed to fair compensation for all workers, whether they are freelance bloggers or traditional employees. We are further committed to promoting quality journalism. Working for free does not benefit workers and undermines quality journalism.

In response to the Huffington Post’s refusal to compensate its thousands of writers in the wake of its $315 million merger with AOL, the Newspaper Guild has requested a meeting with company officials to discuss ways the Huffington Post might demonstrate its commitment to quality journalism. Thus far, the request has been ignored.

Visual Art Source, http://visualartsource.com, an art publication, represents more than 50 writers who have said they will no longer write for the Huffington Post for free and who object to a company that depends on unpaid labor for its success.

As Cherie Turner, one of the former writers, explained, “Certainly, we all have written for free for the great exposure the Huffington Post can give us, but what’s the cost? Those of us on strike feel it undermines the value of our profession and is unethical, especially in light of great profits by those at the top. We are only asking for a fair share of what we are helping to create. We are also speaking out against real journalism being run side-by-side with advertorial.”

We feel it is unethical to expect trained and qualified professionals to contribute quality content for nothing. It is unethical to cannibalize the investment of other organizations that bear the cost of compensation and other overhead without payment for the usage of their content. It is extremely unethical to not merely blur but eradicate the distinction between the independent and informed voice of news and opinion and the voice of a shill.

The Newspaper Guild and Visual Art Source urge others to join forces and no longer contribute their labor until the following demands are met:

• A pay schedule must be proposed and steps initiated to implement it for all contributing writers and bloggers; and,

• Paid promotional material must no longer be posted alongside editorial content; a press release or exhibition catalogue essay is fundamentally different from editorial content and must be either segregated and indicated as such, or not published at all.

Four things you can do NOW, if you choose to join this effort:

• Stop providing free content to Huffington Post and let your editor know you are choosing to take this action and what your demands are if he/she would like to keep you writing for HP (see above);

• Please respond and let us know you’re on board and that we are allowed to use your name in any press materials we send out regarding this strike;

• Please pass along the names and e-mail addresses of your colleagues who contribute to the Huffington Post so that we may ask for their support;

• Send a letter to your local media op-ed section letting them know how you feel about this situation.

Thank you for your consideration in joining in these efforts. Our intent is to encourage the Huffington Post to do the right thing. We would all love to continue contributing, but only if the terms are fair and promote good, healthy journalism. This is about supporting the quality and integrity of a vehicle for progressive expression, to actually help Huffington Post succeed, but on the right terms. We call on Arianna Huffington to demonstrate her commitment to the working class she so ardently champions in her writing.

For more information see:

Facebook: “Hey Arianna, Can You Spare a Dime?”

TNG-CWA Freelance Project

TNG-CWA Freelance Project Coordinators:
East Coast: Lauri Lebo, laurilebo@gmail.com

Those are reasonable demands, but realize, O Writers, you are in an abusive relationship, and you are trying to bargain with someone who doesn’t give a damn about the quality of your work. It’s never going to improve with Arianna at the helm. Let all the talent leave, and starve the monstrosity until it dies.

Well, it won’t die. It’ll still feature Andrew Breitbart on the front page, which is another reason to let it wither away.

Danged dirty hippies!

The fine folks at Answers in Genesis are working themselves into a good lather over the fact that they were expelled from homeschool conferences for being too obnoxious and intolerant. Recall that the the Christians doing the banning are also young earth creationist/evangelical/fundamentalist crazies when you read this characterization by Nathan Ham, Ken’s son:

Some Christians today are like the hippies of 50 years ago who used the word “love” to justify their fornications and sins against the word of God. The hippie culture is often pictured as a group of drug-addicted, fornicating drunks whose catchphrase “make love, not war” gave their movement a false sense of piety.

Sir, I have known many hippies in my life, and I have greatly admired them. I resent the fact that you have such a grossly muddled idea of what being a hippie is all about to the point where you think the puckered-sphinctered, pursed-lipped, suit-wearing, dogmatic, jebus-lovin’ dingleberries of the Great Homeschool Convention’s Advisory Board are anything like hippies.

An Irish sex poll

That title should lead into a joke…but I’ve got nothin’.

Apparently, some Irish politicians are arguing for the legalization of prostitution, and there’s a poll about it.

Should Ireland legalise paying for sex?

Yes 65%
No 26%
I don’t know 8%

That’s a tough one. On the one hand, the way prostitution laws are enforced generally means that they contribute to the oppression of women, but on the other hand, prostitution itself oppresses women. But in the end, I had to vote yes, because clearly this is another attempt to infringe upon the magisterium of the Holy Mother Church, and it’s about time those clerical bastards stopped getting it for free.

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Conferencing this weekend

I’ll be in Portland, Oregon this weekend for the Northwest Freethought Conference, which I’m sad to say, is completely sold out. You procrastinated, didn’t you? You dawdled over making the decision, and now it’s too late — you’re going to have to stay home and weep sadly over lost opportunities, and you’ll try to drown your regrets in a bottle or two of cheap wine. Then you’ll wake up Sunday morning feeling nauseous and wishing you could take it all back and fly straight and focused, and you’ll resolve to make your life better and more purposeful. So there is that.

If it’ll make you feel better, my talk is all sciencey and anti-teleological, so it might make your head hurt, too. Go ahead and rationalize your lost chances by telling yourself it’s going to suck, anyway.

You could also run over to the SkeptiCal site and sign up for their 29 May conference in Berkeley. It doesn’t have me in the lineup, but you know you’ll always have me right here, on the intertubes.