Patriarchy poisons everything

This is Franklin Graham, evangelical leader of the Southern Baptist convention, son of Billy Graham, yesterday, the 23rd of May. He’s got his priorities.

What’s somewhat surprising about this is that the day before, the Washington Post broke the news of a major scandal among the Southern Baptists. You’d think this should be a 5-alarm crisis for the evangelical leadership.

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday released a major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include shocking new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. They also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders were secretly keeping a private list for years.

The report — the first investigation of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination like the SBC — is expected to send shock waves into a conservative Christian community that has had intense internal battles over how to handle sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with other religious institutions in the United States, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total number of abuse cases among Southern Baptists was small.

Somehow, I don’t think the campaign to bring back McDonald’s fried apple pies is going to be an adequate distraction from the bad news.

Franklin, and the rest of the world, might want to read that 300 page report. It begins…

For almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention (“SBC”) Executive Committee (“EC”) to report child molesters and other abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church staff. They made phone calls, mailed letters, sent emails, appeared at SBC and EC meetings, held rallies, and contacted the press…only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC.

Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse. They closely guarded information about abuse allegations and lawsuits, which were not shared with EC Trustees, and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations. In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation.

It’s a familiar story that we’ve seen again and again. Women are harassed, they report the problem to a designated authority, said authority buries the report, the offenders continue to offend (maybe with the advantage of being reassigned to virgin territory), and the hierarchy responds to queries with What? No, we don’t have a sexual abuse problem. My files are empty of cases!. We’ve seen it in the Catholic church, and also in smaller entities like the James Randi Educational Foundation.

Maybe the problem isn’t religion. Maybe the real root of the problem is patriarchal social structures. We should start dismantling every organization that has a mob of men at the top, where processing reports of abuse is handled by a chain of men. That seems like a reasonable starting point to fixing an issue.

Alternative explanation: maybe Franklin Graham is right and the real problem is that McDonald’s now bakes their apple pies, rather than frying them.

After all, God speaks directly to the Graham family.

Bring on the pain!

I’m beginning a course of physical therapy this morning — my back pain is currently at manageable levels, so it’s time to work it over and get my core up to a better state for the long term. I am not looking forward to it, but it would be nice to get into a stable shape.

Hey, I’m back already, and that wasn’t nearly as bad as I imagined. I pictured brutal gym coaches yelling at me as I worked out on big heavy machines, but it wasn’t like that at all. I got an ultrasound treatment of my lower back, and then a nice firm back massage (it was difficult to stay awake), and finally we ran through a set of 3 stretching exercises I have to do every day. They were exercises I can do lying down in bed! I’m also supposed to continue taking long walks, but I was doing that anyway.

Now the only danger is that I’m feeling so relaxed that I want to go take a nap.

Know wonder we struggle with French pronunciation

Maybe if I had more French, I’d be able to appreciate these more. There exists a book of Mother Goose rhymes written by Luis d’Antin van Rooten that has to be mind-bending if you are bilingual.

His book Mots d’Heure Gousses, Rames, as you might expect from the title, is written in French – but rather odd, archaic-sounding French. The book ostensibly contains a collection of poems, which have scholarly footnotes attached to them. In fact, the brilliant idea behind this book is that if you read the French poems aloud they sound exactly like English nursery rhymes spoken with a French accent. This is called homophonic writing and here’s an example from the start of the book:

French poem Nursery Rhyme
English translation
Un petit d’un petit

S’étonne aux Halles
Un petit d’un petit
Ah! degrés te fallent
Indolent qui ne sort cesse
Indolent qui ne se mène
Qu’importe un petit
Tout gai de Reguennes.

 Humpty Dumpty

Sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty
Had a great fall.
All the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty
Together again.

 A child of a child

Is surprised at the Market
A child of a child
Oh, degrees you needed!
Lazy is he who never goes out
Lazy is he who is not led
Who cares about a little one
All happy with Reguennes

That almost makes me want to learn French just for the wordplay. My second language was German (now extremely rusty, I’m afraid), and I don’t think you could do anything similar, because the pronunciation is so close to English already. I wonder if you could do something similar with Italian?

Why would anyone trust Greg Locke?

I did suggest that Greg Locke’s tax exempt status be revoked, as did many other people. It is now being reported that Locke has “dissolved” his status as a 501(c)(3) organization.

However, I have to bring up two facts. (1) This is a self-assertion that has not been verified, and (2) Greg Locke is a loud-mouthed liar. I’ll believe it when I see evidence that Locke’s church has started paying taxes on his revenue.

For now, you should look at the IRS statement on tax exemptions for churches.

Churches (including integrated auxiliaries and conventions or associations of churches) that meet the requirements of section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code are automatically considered tax exempt and are not required to apply for and obtain recognition of exempt status from the IRS. Donors are allowed to claim a charitable deduction for donations to a church that meets the section 501(c)(3) requirements even though the church has neither sought nor received IRS recognition that it is tax exempt. In addition, because churches and certain other religious organizations are not required to file an annual return or notice with the IRS, they are not subject to automatic revocation of exemption for failure to file. See Annual Return Filing Exceptions for a complete list of organizations that are not required to file.

See that bit in boldface? Most churches do not have to apply for 501(c)(3) status. Just say you are a church (I presume you could have to show that you have a congregation, etc., or I could do the same), and the IRS doesn’t require you to file an application for that status. Locke very likely has never had to apply for 501c3 communism and didn’t have anything to renounce, and will probably not pay any taxes on his church by default.

Never ever take a Christian at their word, and especially don’t trust evangelical fanatics.

A truly sinister trend

Look at the data, scientifically!

In 1900, only about 3% of the population would admit to being left-handed. In the mid-1970s, it was up to about 11%. I don’t want to know what it’s like now, but being left-handed is clearly trendy, and if we just extrapolate from those numbers of an 8% increase in 76 years, I’d estimate that the population must be about 16% left handed today, and that the lefties will have completely taken over by 2800. We righteous righties are on the path to extinction! This is the real Great Replacement! Someone needs to alert Tucker Carlson and get the word out!

It’s always timing and chance

An article in the Star-Tribune caught my eye: Why did Scandinavian immigrants choose Minnesota? Even before I read it, I could guess why. I could also guess what other people would say.

Minnesota’s Scandinavian roots are a big part of the state’s national identity, from the Vikings football team to the Norwegian bachelor farmers of Lake Wobegon.

That Scandinavian stereotype harks back to an era when thousands of Swedish and Norwegian people traveled across the globe to establish thriving enclaves in the burgeoning frontier of Minnesota. But why Minnesota?

“When I ask anyone just in casual conversation, they all just say, ‘Well, because it’s cold here too!'” said reader Terri Stough, who moved to Minnesota in 2018. “And that kind of indicates to me that nobody knows the real reason.”

Right, it’s because Minnesota is like Norway and Sweden. Wrong. I’ve been to Norway, and there’s no way anyone could confuse Minnesota with Norway. One is flat, the other is mountainous; one is near the ocean, with deep fjords, the other is mostly landlocked, with one shore on a huge freshwater lake; one is prairie, the other is pine forest. They’re both in northern regions, with cold winters, but that’s about it.

The better answer is that it was all about the timing.

The abridged explanation is that America’s westward expansion — and the displacement of Native people that accompanied it — reached Minnesota around the same time that Swedes and Norwegians were fleeing bad conditions in their home countries. Aided by free land from the federal government, new immigrants formed settlements and encouraged friends and family back home to join them.

Another contributor is 19th century propaganda.

Prominent Swedish author Fredrika Bremer helped establish the area’s reputation as a hub for Scandinavians. Bremer journeyed to the Minnesota Territory in 1850 and wrote letters home that were later published into a Swedish book.

“This Minnesota is a glorious country, and just the country for northern emigrants,” Bremer wrote. “Just the country for a new Scandinavia.”

Minnesota is a fine place, good farmland, the weather isn’t as bad as its reputation would imply. The bandwagon effect also helped, with the early Scandinavian settlers writing home to tell everyone that they should join them. They were probably desperately lonely.

Among those letters was one sent by Norwegian immigrant Jens Grønbek, who wrote to his brother-in-law in Norway in 1867 trumpeting, among other things, the free land available through the Homestead Act.

“If you find farming in Norway unrewarding and your earnings at sea are poor, I advise you … to abandon everything, and — if you can raise $600 — to come to Minnesota,” Grønbek wrote, according to the book.

Grønbek told his friend that he should not worry about the voyage, adding this racist assessment: “Neither should you be alarmed about Indians or other trolls in America, for the former are now chased away,” Grønbek wrote.

There’s always racism, too.

Minnesota’s majority population is of German descent, though. So why doesn’t the state have a reputation as a Little Germany? Again, history.

But that German culture was suppressed for a number of reasons, Bredemus explained. Many people did not trust Germans as a result of World War I. Germans also organized unions, which were controversial. And drinking is a part of German culture, a practice that was demonized by puritanical groups during Prohibition.

During the war, statues were torn down, streets and buildings were renamed, and a new Minnesota Commission of Public Safety harassed the state’s German population while trying to root out unpatriotic sentiments, Bredemus said.

Meanwhile, next door in Wisconsin, Bratwurst und Bier are staples. It’s probably why the University of Wisconsin has a magnificent beer hall in the student union, while the University of Minnesota is dry. I really wouldn’t mind more beer and labor unions here.

But then, I’m descended from Scandinavians who first settled in Minnesota, and then flocked to Washington state around WWII, discovering then that that was the place more like Norway, only a bit warmer, so I knew all that. Paradise!

What kind of sicko goes to a Bill Maher show?

(I apologize in advance. The previous post was all about cat vomit, and now this one is all about Bill Maher. It’s all getting worse and worse, isn’t it?)

Imagine you are a liberal, of the waffling center right type. You’ve got a good middle class job, maybe you’re in management or you own a tire store. You don’t like Trump at all, because he’s rocking the boat and you really, really want the boat to stay on its current course. You also really dislike AOC and those far left extremists for the same reason. You like to watch Bill Maher because he dresses like a well-off banker, looks like a Republican, talks like a Republican, but reassures you frequently that he’s really liberal, just like you. He invites guests on his show from a wide spectrum of political perspectives–well, the fun ones are always right-wing buffoons– which is how you think “balance” works. The status quo is in good hands with Maher. He also isn’t very bright, just like you, so you can trust him to normalize all your vague notions about how the world works.

You score tickets to his show. You know what’s expected of you — you’re going to whoop and holler at his jokes, which is easy to do: when he pauses and looks smugly at the audience, that’s when you laugh, even if what he just said isn’t particularly clever or insightful. You’re in luck tonight, because he delivers a monologue catering to your vague unease about sexuality. You get to watch the old fart mock the queers, in the name of his version of science.

He gets off with a great start, playing on the audience’s ignorance. There are more openly gay people now than there were in previous generations, an increasing number of Americans are willing to identify as LGBTQ now. Invoke the slippery slope fallacy: therefore, we’ll all be gay in 2053.

Long pause. Smile smarmily. Audience goes wild.

I’m just saying, when things change this much, this fast, people are allowed to ask what’s up with that?

Yeah, Bill, but we know you won’t ask the right questions. The way things used to be are assumed to be right and proper; don’t question the evidence of generations of oppression, just suggest that there’s something wrong with people nowadays being comfortable with who they are, and imply that the numbers suggest that there’s a mass conversion going on.

His next ‘joke’: the ACLU said that abortion bans disproportionately harm certain people. He then borrows the outrage of Fox News and Helen Lewis by claiming that the list left off women. It didn’t. Here’s the tweet:

Uh, Bill: every single one of those bullet points is about the effect on people. Women are people. So are trans men. The list is about groups of people who are most affected by the bans, and the point is that wealthy Republican white women aren’t going to feel the pain, but all these groups that are already marginalized by society will. The clue is that this is an “urgent matter of racial and economic justice.” Abortion rights are human rights, you know.

He’s reciting TERFy biases when he claims that the ACLU won’t use the word “woman”. They do. They also point out that the abortion bans have broad effects that will harm plenty of other people. Bill looks at that list and somehow, annoyingly uses it as an excuse to chide gay people and say, not everything is about you. Yeah, Bill, we can read, unlike you.

Can he get even more TERFy? Of course he can. “The children!” he cries. They’re experimenting on children! His source: Abigail Shrier, in Irreversible Damage. We all knew he was a quack from his bizarre opinions about vaccines, but I guess he’s even more deeply into quackery now.

Are we done yet? Nope. His next joke is to chastise the NYC pride march, because they’ve selected 4 trans people and a lesbian as their parade marshals; where are the gay men, he querulously asks. Has he considered the fact that you can be trans and gay at the same time? No, of course not. The NYC Pride March has explained their criteria:

“At a time when LGBTQIA+ people are under increased attack, the NYC Pride March is a beacon of hope and community,” Manek said in an emailed statement. “Our grand marshals for this year truly embody the spirit of the theme for NYC Pride 2022, ‘Unapologetically Us.’ They have embraced their identities and used their platforms to help members of our community truly love and live their truth without fear or shame.”

“Gets the approval of a TERF named Bill Maher” isn’t one of them.

Then he gets to echo Shrier and claim that we’re seeing more trans people because it’s trendy. They’re just doing it to shock and challenge their parents. They’re doing it for the “likes”. If we don’t admit that some places have more LGBT people because it’s trendy, then it’s not a serious science-based discussion — hearing Maher claim the mantle of being “science-based” is rather revolting.

The rest is all one-liners based on assumptions that no one takes gender reassignment surgery seriously, with accompanying guffaws from the idiots in the audience.

I do have to address one more point though. This one:

If this spike in trans children is all biological, why is it regional? Either Ohio is shaming them or California is creating them.

I see that “science-based” Bill Maher takes genetic determinism for granted. What do you mean, “all biological”? Culture also shapes biology (and vice versa). The reason it is regional is that there are cultural differences as well as biological biases. The most likely explanation is that the Midwest is more conservative and is shaming kids. Surprise, Bill: more open societies aren’t pressuring kids to become trans — I think you’d be hard pressed to find a single instance of parents forcing their kids to be gay or trans, but you’ll find plenty of conservatives threatening to disown or even kill children who don’t conform to their cis and heterosexual pattern. But Maher isn’t calling them out — that’s his audience of yahoos.

The science-based position is that your sexual preferences and identity is the result of an interplay between genetics and environment. No one claims it is all biological, but that you can’t separate biology from culture and experience.

I’ve long accepted that Maher is a bigoted ignoramus, but what bothers me most is that laugh track of an audience howling at “jokes” that are nothing more than prejudice with a smirk, and those frequent cuts to his panel guests who are smiling and laughing at his horrid punch lines. That’s what I’d expect from an Adam Corolla, but jeezus, Donna Brazile, why did you accept the invitation to appear on this disgrace of a show?

Neurotically evil cat gets revenge

My wife is away for a while, being a grandma to Iliana. That would be fine with me, for a little bit at any rate, but our cat is not taking it well. The evil cat does not like change. On Saturday night, she leapt into our bed while I was sleeping, snuggled down in Mary’s spot, and then at 3am started horking up vomit all over the sheets.

So last night I banished her from the bedroom altogether. The whole rest of the house was hers to possess.

I get up this morning to find…

She had puked in the hallway.

She had barfed in the bathroom.

She had ralphed in the dining room.

She had upchucked in the kitchen. The kitchen was her masterpiece — she had tossed her cookies and then gone back to her full food bowl, chowed down on it, and then heaved up the barely digested contents of her guts all over the place.

I know it’s not pleasant to read about, but pity me, who has to clean it all up.

I guess I know which human in our household she misses the most.

Behold, the new Republican defense against accusations of racism

You see, if you don’t count their attitudes towards black and brown people, they aren’t racist at all!

“About a third of our population is African American; African Americans have a higher incidence of maternal mortality. So, if you correct our population for race, we’re not as much of an outlier as it’d otherwise appear. Now, I say that not to minimize the issue but to focus the issue as to where it would be. For whatever reason, people of color have a higher incidence of maternal mortality.”

We could flip that argument around. The aggregate maternal mortality rate for white and black people is so bad that Louisiana is one of the worst states to be pregnant in…and if you don’t count the privileged white people, the rate is even worse, and tells us that Louisiana is a hell hole for black women.