How to handle criticism

You may have noticed that all the choices in the Readers’ Choice Awards for favorite atheist blog are white, so it’s not very diverse (two women out of five candidates, though, is pretty good — a few years ago it was a struggle to even get women noticed in this movement). A few people have been criticizing the awards for that, and I noted that this is a problem that plagues online popularity contests — they tend to be ruled by the majority and exclude all minorities.

To his credit, Austin Cline has responded to the criticisms, and he didn’t dig in his heels. Instead, he’s looking for suggestions to improve the breadth of the sample next time around. That’s the way to do it!

I’m still insisting that you go vote for the old white guy every day anyway.

Isn’t the US supposed to be over this now?

A good ol’ boy named Gordon Warren Epperly has filed a lawsuit in Alaska to keep Obama off the ballot. The reasoning behind it is…well, see for yourself.

As stated above, for an Individual to be a candidate for the office of president of the United States, the candidate must meet the qualifications set forth in the United States Constitution and one of those qualifications is that the Candidate shall be a "natural born citizen" of the United States. As Barack Hussein Obama II is of the "mulatto" race, his status of citizenship is founded upon the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Before the [purported] ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, the race of "Negro" or "mulatto" had no standing to be citizens of the United States under the United States Constitution.

What a charming reminder of the United States’ racist history and current strain of virulent racism.

Not as much fun as it sounds

This is Hazel Jones. She has two vaginas.

She has a condition called Uterus Didelphys. Variations of this condition aren’t uncommon, occurring once in a few thousand births. The reproductive tract develops from paired tubes that fuse prenatally, and sometimes the fusion is incomplete, producing a range of arrangements illustrated below.

Would you believe a pornographer has asked Ms Jones to star in a movie? (Of course you would — that’s exactly what you’d expect.) In this case, it’s stupid as well as insulting and offensive. Women with these kinds of conditions often don’t even know it until puberty or later — there aren’t any obvious external differences, so when she takes off her pants she looks like any other woman, and no, she can’t have sex with two men at once. In didelphys, the vagina is divided in two by an internal septum, nothing more. Sex with a man just means he can bear a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right and penetrate one side or the other. And even there, it’s possible to get surgery to reduce or remove the septum.

The primary problems for the woman are a little confusion during menstruation, with awkwardness in using tampons; and it does constrain the birth canal somewhat, so caesarian deliveries are recommended.

So…no obvious external differences; no special kinky sex; some reproductive difficulties; if the condition is known, somewhat more likely unpleasant interactions with dumbasses, like the porn producer. That’s about it.

Here’s another video about the condition (contains closeups of female genitalia, in a clinical setting).

(Also on Sb)

Another poll prompted by an incoherent old priest

The former Archbishop of Canterbury has come out to oppose gay marriage. He says he doesn’t “begrudge rights and benefits to homosexual couples”, and he also made this statement:

The state does not ‘own’ the institution of marriage. Nor does the church.

The honourable estate of matrimony precedes both the state and the church, and neither of these institutions have the right to redefine it in such a fundamental way.

So who got to define it in the first place? What makes an antique definition sacred? Why shouldn’t society adapt to reality?

And at the same time, Lord Carey calls gay marriage “cultural vandalism” and is supporting a group called the Coalition for Marriage, a new UK organization that makes the same tired old arguments.

If marriage is redefined, those who believe in traditional marriage will be sidelined. People’s careers could be harmed, couples seeking to adopt or foster could be excluded, and schools would inevitably have to teach the new definition to children. If marriage is redefined once, what is to stop it being redefined to allow polygamy?

You know, people’s careers are harmed and couples are excluded from adoption right now because of the existing anti-equality policies; the difference such a law would make is that instead of gay people being harmed, it would be bigots who would face the consequences of their beliefs. This isn’t a “save marriage” movement, it’s a “save the bigots” movement.

There’s a poll. Even if it is in that dumb rag, The Telegraph, it’s going the right way. How about pushing it further, and slapping the Telegraph around a little bit?

Should gay marriage by legalised?

Yes, everyone should have the right to get married no matter what their sexuality 81.12%
No, marriage should be between a man and a woman 18.88%

Segregation lives!

The Dallas Independent School District spent $57,000 to send students on a field trip, which sounds like a lot, but given that 5700 kids went on it, it isn’t that bad, and is a fairly routine expenditure. So the story is OK so far.

They went to see a movie, Red Tails, as part of Black History Month. Now it’s getting a little sketchy: that’s a commercial, Hollywood piece of entertainment, and a new release. But OK, I’d let it slide as an opportunity to couple history with an entertaining story. (If it had been for English and a chance to learn about the language from George Lucas’s dialog, though, there would be hell to pay.)

Here’s where it goes really, really wrong: only boys were allowed to go on the trip, and girls had to stay behind under the supervision of substitute teachers.

Their excuse: “it was something the boys would be interested in because it was about African-American men” and:

“There is only so much available space at the movie theater, so the decision was made for boys to attend the movie. Girls stayed at school but principals were given the option to show them ‘Akeelah and the Bee.’”

The girls’ movie is an uplifting story about a girl going to a spelling bee. The boys’ movie is a big-budget sfx-fest with explosions and airplanes. The girls’ movie was an inexpensive afterthought shown in their classrooms. The boys’ movie involved an expensive field trip.

Oh, yeah, that sounds like an equal opportunity for both.

The not-so-Amazing Atheist self-immolates

There’s a youtuber who goes by the name “the amazing atheist” who I’ve never cared much for — he’s a raving MRA who ought to change his name to “the asinine atheist” — who has just flamed out on reddit in a revealing long angry thread. I don’t recommend it. It’s very ugly. The only virtue is that this already marginal hater on the fringes of atheism just made himself even less relevant, and we can all wash our hands of him now.

I’ll put a few highlights from his rants below the fold; these aren’t really surprising, since this kind of thing has always been part of his youtube schtick, but you might want to brace yourself for the virulence. He really, really hates uppity feminist women, and he finds threats of rape to be an appropriate response to them. This whole affair was prompted by a poster on reddit going by the nickname “ICumWhenIKillMen”, which I find reprehensible too, but it in no way justifies the eruption of even greater hatred that this “amazing” atheist (going by the name terroja or TJ) spouts.

[Read more…]

Good news from the Susan G. Komen Foundation!

Karen Handel, the conservative anti-choice executive who led the foundation into an embarrassing public relations debacle, has announced that she is resigning her position. This exit is most excellent news on a couple of levels. It means one bad apple has been shooed out of an influential position. It means that the Susan G. Komen Foundation recognizes the importance of the whole of women’s health issues (we hope!), and could signify a smarter, better direction for the organization and make it a palatable option in the future. And what’s really cool about this whole noisy process is that the pro-choice movement flexed its muscles and won.

Rise up! We are strong!

Worst valentines ever

Valentine’s Day has always been a cheesy, awful little holiday. I remember the ‘parties’ in grade school — the ones where you were expected to give a cheap paper card to everyone, which made expressions of affection totally meaningless, and the way just neglecting to give one to the unpopular kids in class was a way to do a major snub. I learned all about the true meaning of passive aggressive on 14 February in second grade.

And sometimes, they were freakin’ racist. I remember the generic Native American caricatures in that linked post; I was swapping those cards in the 1960s, so I probably wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with portraying Native Americans as hatchet-wielding, pidgin-speaking, buckskin-wearing Caucasians, and the only thing that spares me from direct personal guilt is that I don’t think I would have bought valentines that didn’t have comic book superheroes on them (which was also kind of racist, too: they were all white, except for the one guy, who was emerald green.)

But this…this transcends awful. There was someone who once upon a time thought this was cute, and gave it to children.

Because lynching is adorable.

Holy christ, but the United States is a screwed-up country with an ugly history.