There is evidence that Hume existed, at least

god

Aww, I got mentioned in a paper published in Philosophia Christi. I’m only an afterthought, brought in at the very end — the paper is primarily a criticism of Richard Dawkins — but it’s always nice to be remembered.

It is, however, a rather strange paper. Erik Wielenberg’s argument is basically that The God Delusion was not written by David Hume, and that everyone ought to go read Hume instead of Dawkins. Which is fine; Hume is devastatingly thorough. But then why am I wasting my time reading Wielenberg? Just go read Hume instead. (It’s easy, too: Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion is available online, and it’s shorter than The God Delusion.)

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Gender Workshop: Justice Foreshortened is Justice Only in the Eyes of Jerkwads Edition

Online Gender Workshop, as ever, is brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood Crip Dyke.

Recently prolific news aggregator Lynna brought to my attention a legal case concerning someone guilty of sexual assault out of the Land of Silver that, shall we say, fails to glister overmuch. Unlike the attractive sparkle of a rich acanthite vein (which, it should be noted, was never found in Argentina: a premature naming by aspiring and greedy colonizers), this case burns with the unflickering monochromaticity of a neon sign reading, “ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS”.

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Online Gender Workshop: Be Confused, Be Very Confused Edition

Online Gender Workshop, as ever, is brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood Veronica Quaife Crip Dyke.

When we last left our intrepid heroes, they were slogging through the twists and turns of translating “transsexual” into the language of a hypothetical world where sex == gender. As expected, there were some difficulties. Some of these difficulties arise from confusion at the statement, “just what does it mean to say that sex == gender”? While frustrating for those honestly attempting to answer the question, the confusion, I judge, is fair given that actual advocates for using sex in place of gender or gender in place of sex rarely show much of the totality of what they intend to convey by conflating the two.

There are, of course, languages where there is only one term for both sex and gender. Those folks will have had some leg up on the work. Nonetheless, the confusing world of communicating across others’ assumptions that sex == gender does not end at the creation of a definition, not even at the creation of a satisfying one. While the discussion about the implications of those definitions will continue in the original thread, here we will take things just a step further.

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Online Gender Workshop: Put Your Definitions Where Your Genitals Are Edition

Online Gender Workshop, as ever, is brought to you by your friendly, neighborhood Crip Dyke

There have been quite a few thoughts expressed, here and elsewhere, about the appropriate uses of transsexual, transgender, trans, and trans*. The separation of sex and gender, while ostensibly default in a number of academic fields and feminist and trans philosophies or movements, is not something challenged only by right wing advocates of trans* oppressive policies. Many non-trans* feminists and many trans* liberation advocates openly oppose the use of these terms as separate. Some of that spills over onto debates about terms such as transgender.

I’d like to attempt to further explain why I believe it is so necessary to separate gender and sex in the first place, and thus at least some of the major reasons why I care about the particular uses of those trans*-community specific terms.

But I won’t.

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Sleep is for the weak

I have arrived at my hotel in Köln. I did not sleep at all on the flight. It is a bright sunny morning here in Germany, and I’m still wide awake. I’m afraid my brain has been whipsawed through so many time zones lately that it has decided screw it, it’s not going to bother sorting out that pointless sleep/wake cycle anymore, which probably means I’ll muddle along in a delirium until I die.

Who decided we should live on a spinning sphere anyway? It makes no sense.

Look at all the white people

Once again, the timer has run out on the ongoing discussion of American racism, so here’s a fresh thread for you all. I thought you might appreciate the magnitude of the Black Problem: black people get gunned down by the police. The police are far less trigger-happy when it’s a mob of hundreds of heavily armed white people shooting each other.

A composite image of handout booking images made available on 19 May 2015 by the McLennan County Sheriff's Department showing scores of men and women arrested and charged with crimes stemming from a large shootout and fight between biker gangs outside the Twin Peaks bar and restaurant at the Central Texas Marketplace in Waco, Texas, USA, 17 May 2015. Reports indicate that nine bikers were shot and killed and 18 other wounded. Police have announced that 192 people face charges of engaging in organized crime. EPA/MCLENNAN COUNTY SHERIFF HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY

epa04757409 A composite image of handout booking images made available on 19 May 2015 by the McLennan County Sheriff’s Department showing scores of men and women arrested and charged with crimes stemming from a large shootout and fight between biker gangs outside the Twin Peaks bar and restaurant at the Central Texas Marketplace in Waco, Texas, USA, 17 May 2015. Reports indicate that nine bikers were shot and killed and 18 other wounded. Police have announced that 192 people face charges of engaging in organized crime.

I think this suggests an easy solution to the problem of police brutality. Instead of 40 acres and a mule, give every black person in the country a black leather jacket and a shotgun.

Don’t worry, though. The Waco incident was completely thug-free.