Fortunate Son

I'm not going to comment about this, not really. I'm just going to point you towards this post at Stonekettle Station. Read it. Read it!

Note that the post isn't necessarily going where you might think it's going. I'd like to quote the last two lines, because I feel exactly the same way. But read the whole thing. You won't get the ending without that.

Also, note that much of Jim Wright's background is similar to my own - up until he joined the military, at least (at which point our stories definitely diverge). I'm a little older than him. I'm also a straight white man, but I grew up watching those old TV shows myself.

And I lived in a small town that was 100% white and 100% Christian (as far as I knew, at least). Even when we went to a larger town for high school, all of my classmates were 100% white all through high school. I'd never even met a black person until college.

I've got a good life. I retired at 55, and I do whatever I want. Do you think I don't know how privileged my life has been? I've seen it all my life. Even as a child, I saw how differently I was treated because I was a boy. Later, I realized how privileged I'd been in other ways, too.

We weren't rich, but I'd always assumed that I'd go to college. I worked my way through college, but there was never any doubt in my mind that I would go there.

There was never any doubt in my mind that I could be whatever I wanted to be. (I didn't know what I wanted to be. That was the problem.)

OK, I am commenting, aren't I? Heh, heh. I don't mean to, but this just really struck home with me. Read the post. Jim Wright says it far better than I could. Optimism shouldn't be just the privilege of some of us!

Catholic hospital horror stories

Samantha Bee is a comedian, and Full Frontal is a comedy show, but there's nothing funny about this interview, not even slightly.

And there's nothing funny about the following three interviews, either (here, here, and here). They're important, and I urge you to watch them, but they're not funny. Not even slightly.

There is some humor in the following segment, which Samantha Bee aired on her show, but not very damned much. This is a serious issue - a dangerous issue for many women.



The Catholic Church is busy buying up hospitals all across America, so that they can force their own religious beliefs on everyone else - and especially on women. But hey, as Sam says, who knows more about women's vaginas that celibate old men who don't have one and have never even touched one, right?

It's even worse than that, though. The church points to those hospitals as proof of their own charitable work. Yeah, they have the gall to claim that forcing their own religion on other people is evidence that they're doing good in our country. Disgusting, isn't it?

But they actually do good, sometimes. I've been to the Catholic hospital here. If you're a man, and you don't want a vasectomy, they do good work. But if you're a woman in pain, or even dying, you'd better hope it has nothing to do with sex or childbirth!

Of course, even if you want routine contraceptive care, you'd better hope the church doesn't have a monopoly on health care in your area (yet). Catholics themselves ignore their own church when it comes to contraception, and the church knows it. So they'll force compliance - even on non-Catholics - whenever they can.

I find the whole thing infuriating, and I'm not even at risk from it. But if you don't stand up for other people, they'll have no reason to stand up for you. We're one people, and we're all in this together.

Michelle Obama on Trump's sexual assault bragging

The sound quality isn't great in this video clip, but it's a powerful statement from Michelle Obama about how Trump's bragging affects her. She's clearly speaking from the heart.

PS. Here's a longer excerpt from her speech (just under ten minutes long). The sound quality still isn't perfect, but it's a great speech.

Will this do it?

Will this do it? After months of racism, sexism, and xenophobia, will this be what finally sinks Donald Trump? I guess we'll see...

Certainly, many Republican politicians seem to be deserting the sinking ship. Of course, it seemed to be sinking even before this. (But it would be stupid to become complacent. He could still win, especially if liberals throw away their votes on idiotic third-party candidates.)

But Republican politicians wouldn't be deserting him if they thought he could win. After all, he's been saying these things all along. And if you're willing to use racism for political advantage, where will you draw the line?

Here's how Josh Marshall at TPM puts it:

We can't say the emergence of this tape was predictable. But the behavior is not at all surprising based on what we already knew. Indeed, I would almost say this whole line of reasoning is offensive, in this sense: Sexual assault is terrible. But it's hardly the only terrible thing that has been dredged up by this election. What about the campaigns of hate and occasional violence spurred by this campaign? Just yesterday I wrote about how Trump has done more to normalize anti-Semitism in American public life than anyone in decades. I wrote about this because it is something I know from personal experience. But Trump's entire campaign has been explicitly about demonizing Hispanics and American Muslims - subjecting them to escalating campaigns of hate, harassment and in some cases actual violence. Meanwhile African-Americans have served as his stage props, sometimes being targeted with racist attacks and other times as powerless non-people who only Trump can save. Is all this stuff just a cost of doing business? Sexual assault and sexual violence of all sorts is one of the most pressing issues in our society today. But it is hard not to conclude that the revelation of this tape is considered a step too far because women are a critical demographic that is in play in the election and secondarily because the politicians have wives and daughters. Most of those wives and daughters aren't black or Jews or Hispanic or Muslim or people from any of the other groups Trump has stepped on on his way to the nomination.

You might not care about blacks, Jews, Hispanics, or Muslims. Heck, you might not care about women. But we all know women. We all have family members who are women. At the very least, we all had mothers.

I'm not sure how much difference that makes to Republican politicians, but women vote, and that does matter to them. Republicans may have already written off blacks, Jews, Hispanics, and Muslims, but they can't win if they write off women.

That video clip of Trump is easily found on YouTube (here, for example, though copyright complaints might change that). But note that the problem isn't the 'locker-room banter,' as the Trump campaign tries to spin it. Sure, most men admire beautiful women, and when they're alone - trust me - that can be expressed very lewdly. (That's not admirable. But it's not uncommon.)

But Donald Trump was bragging about sexual assault. He was bragging that he could force himself on women and get away with it, because he's a celebrity. That's the problem here. Sexual assault isn't just rude. It's a crime.

Of course, he'd just gotten married for the third time and he was also talking about trying to commit adultery (with a married woman, no less). But he'd bragged about committing adultery previously. He's on tape bragging about his successes when married to his previous wives, and that hadn't hurt him.

Of course, his first wife, Ivana Trump, had accused him of rape, and that didn't seem to bother his supporters. (Note that he's currently in court over allegations that he raped a 13-year-old. But anyone can claim anything, so I'm not going to assume anything about that, one way or another.)

So if this is what finally causes Donald Trump's candidacy to crash and burn, all I can say is... why did it take so long? Given his entire campaign so far, why was this the straw that broke the camel's back? (If, indeed, it has.) Why were so many people OK with all the rest of it?

Donald Trump should have been disqualified as a presidential candidate pretty much the first time he opened his mouth. And ever since, he has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn't have the personality, the intelligence, or the qualifications to be President of the United States (not to mention his racism, sexism, and religious bigotry).

Six minutes of sexist attacks on Hillary Clinton

You know, they didn't even include most of the attacks on Hillary Clinton's appearance - hair, clothing, makeup, etc.

The media can't seem to get enough of criticizing her pantsuits. And recently, Elizabeth Warren appeared on stage with her, and all the media could talk about was how they were both wearing blue outfits.

Of course, we all know that, when it comes to female politicians, what really matters is their appearance, right?  LOL

What a beautiful baby...

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And Trump's argument is that other people are worse. Funny, isn't it? In some ways, he's such a typical Republican. That's the argument I hear from Republicans all the time, about nearly everything. They don't even attempt to defend themselves, but simply claim that other people are just as bad, if not worse.

Of course, Donald Trump takes it so far that no one is worse. But that's how he's taken the lead in the Republican primary contest. He says the same things other Republicans say, but just doesn't try to be subtle about it.

That's why Republican Party leaders are aghast at his candidacy. Of course you can be racist, sexist, religiously bigoted, and xenophobic. Indeed, that is the Republican Party these days (plus tax cuts for the rich, of course). But you're supposed to be subtle about it, so that non-bigots can pretend.

Still, even for Trump, this clip is astonishing, isn't it? Donald Trump is a clown. It's embarrassing to our entire nation that he's a serious candidate for any political office in the land, let alone leading in one of our two main political parties for President of the United States.

Blaming the victims

I'm sure glad we've got Republican men addressing the problem of sexual harassment, aren't you?

The Missouri legislature would like to continue its internship program despite the program being marred by the recent sexual harassment of interns.

The idea the lawmakers have come up with? Imposing a dress code for the interns to "help everyone keep their focus on legislative matters."

Missouri state Rep. Kevin Engler (R) sent a memo to his colleagues Monday night with suggestions, including minimum number of credit hours for participation and mandatory sexual harassment training for both interns and lawmakers, according to the Kansas City Star on Tuesday.

The move came after two legislators, including former Missouri House Speaker John Diehl (R), resigned amid allegations of sexual harassment of interns.

State Rep. Bill Kidd (R) responded to Engler with a suggestion of his own: "Intern dress code," he wrote, according to the newspaper.

Rep. Nick King (R) agreed, the newspaper reported. ...

U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said establishing an intern dress code would put responsibility for the harassment on the interns when it should be on the harasser.

In letters to the Missouri lawmakers, McCaskill (who once worked as an intern at the state legislature) wrote that the proposed solution "bitterly disappointed" her.

I refuse to stand by idly while any suggestion is made that victims of sexual harassment in the Missouri State Legislature is the responsibility of anyone other than the legislators themselves. It is the responsibility of you and your colleagues to uphold the law, protect the young people working in our state’s capital, and confront and change a culture that excuses sexual violence. This problem has nothing to do with how interns are dressed.

You see? If you women didn't look so hot, we men wouldn't harass you. Well, not as much, at least. Clearly, it's all your fault. LOL

Ah, Republicans!

John Oliver: online harassment

Believe it or not, this video clip has received thousands of down-votes.

Yeah, I thank my white penis every day! (Or I will now, at least.)

The Unbreakable Imperator Furiosa

Now this is a movie trailer! Well, it isn't, I guess, but it should be.

Five more stupid things about the Men's Rights Movement

Steve Shives does a series of these, and I previously posted his "Five Stupid Things about the Men's Rights Movement" video.

This is a followup to that - as he says, it was voted on by his Patreon supporters. But he actually produced an earlier followup (which I posted here) called "Seriously, the Hell with the Men's Rights Movement."

I like his style, especially since anyone on YouTube takes a lot of crap from MRA supporters if they speak out.

Football Town Nights

Don't like rape jokes? Me, neither. But as TPM points out, this is the right way to joke about rape.

Of course, the joke isn't about rape, but about attitudes towards rape, about the lame excuses for rape, and about the football culture in small towns.

It's from Inside Amy Schumer, which I haven't seen, and it parodies a movie I haven't seen. So some of the humor went right past me, I'm sure.

Here's what Amanda Marcotte, one of my favorite columnists at TPM, says:

The sketch, “Football Town Nights,” is a loving parody of Friday Night Lights that also works as a pitch-perfect satire of the various ways rape culture perpetuates itself.

Josh Charles plays “Coach Thompson,” a direct homage to Kyle Chandler’s Coach Eric Taylor on the beloved football drama. (Amy Schumer plays his wife, gently sending up Connie Britton’s wine-loving, free spirited performance on the show.) Coach Thompson wants his team to be inspired, to work hard, to win games and oh yeah, to not rape.

The team’s locker room reaction to his instructions not to rape is immediately familiar to anyone who has dared to peek at the comments under any article denouncing rape: a bunch of dudes making increasingly convoluted arguments about why there should be exceptions or caveats to this broad no-raping philosophy. “What if it’s Halloween and she’s dressed as a sexy cat?” “What if she thinks it’s rape but I don’t?” “What if she’s drunk and has a slight reputation….” It’s only a mild exaggeration of the kinds of arguments feminists get with this relentless prodding strategy.

Or in some cases, not exaggerated at all. “What if the girl said yes but then she changes her mind out of nowhere, like a crazy person?” adds one, which is one we’ve heard a lot.

But while the persistent whining of trolls is the funniest part of this sketch, the satire of rape culture goes much deeper. The community frames Coach Thompson as an unreasonable fun-killer, and his wife even tries to argue that maybe he should let this one go—all reactions that feminists are intimately familiar with when they speak out against rape. Tellingly, the sketch doesn’t include any girls at all, making it clear that rape is a product of male entitlement and isn’t about the girls or what they do and wear.

The best part may be the end, when Coach Thompson, frustrated that his players are losing focus because they’re so obsessively angry about this extremely reasonable “no raping” rule, screams at them in a classic rallying-the-team locker room scene. “How do I get through to you boys that football isn’t about rape?” he yells. “It’s about violently dominating anyone that stands between you and what you want!”

Rape isn't funny. I understand that. But humor can work wonders. Racism isn't funny, either, but All in the Family made racists laugh at themselves - and, perhaps, think.

America's 150-year-old war on activist women

From TPM, here's another interesting column, this time by Ben Railton, on America's 150-year-old war on activist women.

Before I quote from that, let me note that this continues - to a surprising extent - even today. Women who speak out on the internet are hounded mercilessly, threatened at home and online (rape threats are particularly common), intimidated in all sorts of ways, with the intent of making their lives so miserable that they don't even want to go online anymore.

Blogs and YouTube channels of people like Rebecca Watson, for example, who become the targets of hysterical lunatics for the slightest of things, are filled with trolls who seemingly spend all their time waiting for another post or another video, so they can be the first to spew their venom and vitriol.

It's not criticism; it's trolling. If you've spent much time online at all, the difference is clear. The topic of their post or their video doesn't matter in the slightest.

Admittedly, most of these trolls - inevitably men, I'm sorry to say - don't post rape threats. But what they do is almost worse. They laugh at rape. They make jokes about rape. They minimize the threat from lunatics, and make fun of women who worry that some of these lunatics - including those who actually track them down at home - might really mean it.

Meanwhile, of course, they comment on the woman's appearance in the most degrading, sex-obsessed, slimy sorts of ways. Well, as I say, this isn't criticism. It's intimidation. Their goal is to make the woman so weary of experiencing the worst of humanity that they just give up - stop posting, stop reading emails, stop using the internet at all.

Activist women are targets, pure and simple. There are men who get absolutely incensed that a woman might speak out about,... well, anything. This isn't a matter of legitimate disagreement, but about hysterical anger, sexual frustration, and primate breast-beating, all in complete anonymity. (With obsessive determination, they'll 'out' any woman who attempts to remain anonymous, herself - even posting her address and other personal details online - but they usually stay safely anonymous themselves.)

As a man, I find it incredibly disgusting and extremely embarrassing. But I see here that it's not new. How dare women think that they should be allowed to vote, or that they should be otherwise considered equal to men!

Take the Grimké sisters, for example. Born to a prominent South Carolina family, Angelina and Sarah Grimké became two of the 19th century’s most committed activists: for women’s rights, as in Sarah’s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women (1838); for the abolition of slavery, as in Angelina’s Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836); and for other social causes and reforms. They were consistently condemned and vilified for those efforts, most especially for speaking in public and to “promiscuous” (i.e. mixed-gender) audiences. At one such event, at an 1838 anti-slavery convention in Philadelphia, Angelina spoke for more than an hour while stones and other objects were hurled against the windows and walls by a hostile mob—a mob that returned the next day and set fire to the convention hall.

Hostility toward abolitionists was, of course, interconnected with attacks on public women in that particular case, although the broader critiques of their public speaking efforts focused entirely on the Grimkés’ gender. But there were no such mitigating factors in the late 19th and early 20th century attacks on women’s suffrage activists. When thousands of suffrage activists marched to the White House to protest Woodrow Wilson’s March 1913 inauguration (scheduled for the next day), they were cursed, spit upon and even physically attacked by hostile crowds. Even when they weren’t being physically assaulted, suffrage activists were consistently belittled and demonized in media and cultural texts, such as the 1910 children’s book Ten Little Suffergets, which depicted the activists as silly little girls fortunately dissuaded from their cause by everything from cake and a “DEAD dolly” to drowning and a whipping.

Such longstanding historical attacks, physical as well as cultural, provide an important context for the late 20th century “backlash” against feminism identified by Susan Faludi and other scholars, as well as for our contemporary debates over birth control, wage equality and other issues. But along with the overt attacks, it’s important to consider another ongoing side of these American histories: the effects they had and continue to have on talented and innovative women in all walks of life. Illustrating those effects is the frustrating story of Sophia Hayden Bennett, the first woman to graduate from MIT with a degree in architecture and the architect chosen (only three years later, at the age of 23) to design the Women’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Despite this honor, Hayden Bennett’s design was criticized for “revealing the limitations” of its creator’s gender; the American Architect and Building News went further in its review, arguing that “as a woman’s work it ‘goes’ of course … it is simply weak and commonplace … The roof garden is a hen-coop for petticoated hens, old and young.”

Fed up with such responses, and likely extremely limited in her opportunities, Hayden Bennett never designed another building, and retired from architecture less than two years after the Exposition. When we see men follow Hillary Clinton around during her 2008 presidential campaign with signs ordering her to “iron their shirts,” witness the bullying and threats directed at female video game designers and scholars in the ongoing Gamergate controversy, it’s important to ask whether these longstanding histories have changed—and how many other talented American women might be forced out of their chosen professions and public activisms.

In the 19th Century, hostility towards women commonly had a Biblical basis. As Elizabeth Cady Stanton said in 1897, "In the early days of woman-suffrage agitation, I saw that the greatest obstacle we had to overcome was the bible. It was hurled at us on every side."

That's still the case to some extent (as with every issue, Christians are on both sides, since their god is completely inept at communication, apparently). However, there's also an embarrassing strain of misogyny in the atheist community these days.

Sure, atheism is just the disbelief in gods, nothing more. It's a very narrow label, and tells you nothing about what an atheist does believe. But it's still embarrassing. I came by my atheism from skepticism, but not all atheists are skeptics. Not all atheists are even decent human beings.

How online harrassment became art

Another talk from Skepticon 7 - but this one is depressing and even embarrassing (embarrassing to me as a man and as an atheist).

This is "Surly Amy" - Amy Davis Roth. I'm glad she hasn't let the harassment stop her, but it can't be easy. The haters are a minority, but they're loud and just incredibly obsessive.

#Gamergate

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I've been meaning to blog about "Gamergate," but of course, it's just one of the many things I never got around to. So I'll just post these two video clips, instead.

I'm a gamer, though I don't own a joystick, and I don't actually play any of the games mentioned by Stephen Colbert. Still, as a man and as a gamer, I'm hugely embarrassed by the threats and other harassment Anita Sarkeesian and other women get.

Similarly, as a man and as an atheist, I'm hugely embarrassed by the misogynists in the atheist community, too. In both cases, they're a minority, but a very loud, angry, and bullying minority. They make the rest of us look bad.

Whether you agree with Sarkeesian or not is hardly even the point. The anger, the harassment, the threats of physical - and often sexual - harm, well, that just shows that we've got a real problem here, whatever you think of the details.

After all, reasonable people can disagree about specific features of specific video games, but these misogynists aren't even close to being reasonable people. Even if I disagreed with her - and I've played enough computer games to understand her point, just as I've seen way too much misogyny online - she should have the right to say what she thinks.

As a man, I'm hugely embarrassed by other men - boys, at least - who seem so threatened by intelligent, outspoken women. But men - white men, specifically - have always had a privileged position in America. When that is threatened by equal rights for women or racial minorities, many of them seem to be terrified that they won't be able to compete.

What losers!

Parenting advice

OK, I'm not going to blog about marriage, but maybe I should give some parenting advice? Here it is: don't listen to Catholic archbishops:

Meanwhile, Archbishop Gadecki warned that encouraging boys to clean up after themselves so as to subvert gender stereotypes could have dangerous consequences.

“Some parents like to teach boys that they should clean up after themselves, and not wait until girls do it for them.”

The archbishop suggested that such leanings should be treated with caution, because “parents often do not realise” that same-sex partnerships are also championed under the banner of “overcoming stereotypes.”

Right. Don't teach your boys to clean up after themselves; make your girls do it for them.

Man, why didn't I think of that? I guess it's because I don't have a god to teach me such things, huh?

John Oliver on the Miss America Pageant

"The largest scholarship pageant in the world for women." Well, maybe. But as John Oliver demonstrates, most of that is nothing but hype.

The Chick Dick

Probably NSFW, but this is still pretty funny.

Note that some people on YouTube are apparently offended by this video - not all for the same reasons - so if you're easily offended, you may want to give it a pass. Of course, if you're that easily offended, what are you doing here? :)

God made squirrels

Well, I announced that I was back, after my computer had been in the shop, and then I didn't post anything else for several days? I guess maybe my post was premature, huh? :)

No, my computer is working just fine. I've simply been lazy. I am, however, working on a post. Till then, maybe this will tide you over.

Any country music fans out there? :)

Boys will be boys

(AP Photo)

This is really sick, but it needs publicity.

Two teenage sisters in rural India were raped and killed by attackers who hung their bodies from a mango tree, which became the scene of a silent protest by villagers angry about alleged police inaction in the case. Two of the four men arrested so far are police officers.

Villagers found the girls' bodies hanging from the tree early Wednesday, hours after they disappeared from fields near their home in Katra village in Uttar Pradesh state, police Superintendent Atul Saxena said. The girls, who were 14 and 15, had gone into the fields because there was no toilet in their home.

Hundreds of angry villagers stayed next to the tree throughout Wednesday, silently protesting the police response. Indian TV footage showed the villagers sitting under the girls' bodies as they swung in the wind, and preventing authorities from taking them down until the suspects were arrested.

Police arrested two police officers and two men from the village later Wednesday and were searching for three more suspects. ...

The family belongs to the Dalit community, also called "untouchables" and considered the lowest rung in India's age-old caste system.

There's a lot to this, no doubt - caste and misogyny and a patriarchal mindset, certainly. The article goes on to talk about "an entrenched culture of tolerance for sexual violence" in India. These girls were only 14 and 15, and they weren't even safe from the police officers who were supposed to protect them!

Do you wonder why I post about rape, about misogyny, about angry self-pitying douchebags? But the people who piss me off the most are those who shrug off these issues. Yeah, you may not be raping and murdering any teenagers yourself, but you can't stand those feminists who keep making a big deal about nothing, right?

India tightened its anti-rape laws last year, making gang rape punishable by the death penalty, even when the victim survives. The new laws came after the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi that triggered nationwide protests. ...

Last month, the head of Uttar Pradesh state's governing party, the regionally prominent Samajwadi Party, told an election rally that the party was opposed to the law calling for gang rapists to be executed.

"Boys will be boys," Mulayam Singh Yadav said. "They make mistakes."

Really, is this such a problem? Why are you always blaming men? After all, boys will be boys.

___
Edit: This gets more infuriating all the time:

Uttar Pradesh officials initially appeared caught off guard by the reaction to the attack on the two girls, and [Chief Minister Akhilesh] Yadav on Friday mocked journalists for asking about it.

"You're not facing any danger, are you?" he said in Lucknow, the state capital. "Then why are you worried? What's it to you?"

The monster that we've created

I don't normally blog about these incidents of mass murder. They're just too depressing, and they tend to get all the wrong kinds of attention, anyway - ghoulish fascination, but with no will to actually change anything.

But I still thought that these two videos were worth posting - for completely different reasons. Laci Green focuses on misogyny and the violence that all too often results from that.

I'm not going to comment on her video, because... well, what else could I say? I certainly don't have any solutions. Just... watch it and think about what she says.

The father of one of the victims - as devastated as you might imagine - spoke out briefly, too. He blamed the NRA and the cowards in Congress who refuse to do anything to help prevent these recurring tragedies.

Fox 'News' cut out that part of his comments:



Note how I mentioned ghoulish fascination, with no will to actually do anything? The perfect example of that is this Fox 'News' clip showing security footage from within the store where the boy was murdered, but cutting everything specific from his father's heart-rending response.

Others in the right-wing bubble are actually attacking Martinez himself. How dare he mention guns! (Warning: Don't read the rest of this unless you have a strong stomach.)

So here's brave Todd Kincannon, chairman of the Election Commission of Simpsonville, South Carolina [and, formerly, executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party], stepping up in 140 characters, to defend his freedom against the onslaught of grieving parents. ...

No idea how my son will die, but I know it won't be cowering like a bitch at UC Santa Barbara. Any son of mine would have been shooting back.

Sick, isn't it? But we've created this monster - and monsters like Todd Kincannon, too. (Naturally, Kincannon is another Republican chickenhawk. He never served in the military when he actually had a chance to "shoot back." He's nothing but mouth.)