Punishment

Okay, I hold no brief whatsoever for Donald Trump. I think he's a despicable human being who would make a disastrous president. Not as bad a president as Ted Cruz, but then that almost goes without saying. (Or maybe not, given the number of people who seem to feel that Cruz is preferable!)

But let's give him some credit where it's due. Yes, of course Trump is pandering, and his position has changed more than once. But still. His short-lived "there has to be some kind of punishment" has the virtue of consistency.

Yes, of course, if abortion is murder and illegal, then the woman who gets one should be punished. No, she's not some helpless victim of evil abortion doctors, she's a conscious agent who made a choice. The position Trump's been chased back to is the same inconsistent one that says abortion is murder but it's okay if the father was a rapist. Trump's original (well, original to this kerfuffle) takes the premise and reasons to the conclusion - one which most people realize undermines the premise. Or should. Instead they usually just run away from the conclusion.

Now, the fact that most conservatives and/or pro-forced-birthers do in run away indicates to me that they don't really believe their own rhetoric. This isn't terribly surprising since in my lifetime (and probably in yours) American evangelicals had no problem with abortion. That position changed in the mid 1980s; there's a lot lurking behind that, and it has nothing to do with babies.

And it should go without saying that I don't agree with premise. Either of them. The standard "it's murder" or the one he said that begins with if it's illegal.

But just as I can say that, "yes, of course, if rock are sentient, then we shouldn't smelt ore or make statues" without believing that rocks actually are sentient, just so can I acknowledge that "if abortion is a crime, then women who get one should be punished" is the logical conclusion. (The thing about logic is that it doesn't care about truth.)

As a matter of policy, pretending that women don't have the brains or power to make their own decisions and so of course they shouldn't be punished works out to a better practical position ... right up till some dominionist like Cruz uses that to argue that women are chattel and can't make any decisions.

So I'm glad Trump got chased back, but we need to realize that - once again - what he says is in fact what others "are afraid to say". And in this case, what he said actually made sense.

Which is why it's the premise(s) that need to be examined, not the conclusion(s).

What Happened in North Carolina

This is a must read summary of the twelve-hour rollback of civil rights in North Carolina.

One of the worst parts of the bill is that it absolutely takes the teeth out of whatever protections it didn't gut. If, for instance, you suffer from racial discrimination in housing, you are expressly barred from going to court over it.

It's a grab-bag of anti-LGBT and anti-workers laws, with provisions that mean no locality can do anything about anything, from minimum wage to LBGT protections. And it took them just 12 hours from first calling the special session to signing the bill.

Breathtakingly brazen.

Vote Blue in November, from the top of the ticket to the bottom.

Well...

This is of course the point where she says "Daryl, what part of 'not necessarily' and 'quite often' do you not understand?"

Vote for the Hugos

Have an opinion about the current Hugo kerfuffle? (A few things to read if you don't but think you might want to: John Oneil, Deirdre Saoirse Moen, George R.R. Martin, Annie Bellet, and John Scalzi.) You can still join and vote for only $40.

I'm not really a big con goer (been to three in my life), and I've never voted for the Hugos. Till this year.

"Far From Finished" ... apparently.

In today's Washington Post there's a story on Bill Cosby's tour. After listing the venues where there have been protests or cancellations, the writer gives us the most unsurprising sentence:

In Florida, West Virginia and Georgia, performances go off without a hitch.

I know, that's stereotyping. But really: given this list - Westchester, New York; Denver, Col.; Worcester, Mass; Pittsburgh, PA; Des Moines, Iowa; Las Vegas, Nevada; Melbourne, Fla; Wheeling, WV; and an unnamed city in Georgia - and told to pick the three places the show went on with no disruption,wouldn't you have picked those three?

The man is performing in Baltimore Friday. I never was planning to go. But it will be interesting to look at the paper Saturday. Tickets are still available (that fact at this late date is telling), if you want to observe first hand...

Somebody's missing the point

Smooth move, guy

So, the Philae lander actually landed on a comet! Yay! Way to go, ESA! Way to go, team ...

Wait. WTF?

Yeah, Matt Taylor, Rosetta Project Scientist chose to wear a shirt covered in half-naked pouty girls with guns. And apparently no one at ESA thought this might be a bad idea for the guy on the television during the live landing.

Way to encourage girls to go into science. Way to demonstrate your contempt for half the human race.

Oh, sorry, my mistake. Apparently this shirt is "rad" and "bright" and "colorful" and "charming" and covered in "glamorous women". Or at least that's how the lads in the tech and business and British tabs and (in fact) solid papers like the Guardian see it. So, okay then.

Way to land on a comet, dude!

The normative majority...

At Fred's, something re sexual ethics worth reading. After the main piece, a footnote, worth passing along:

as the normative majority, people like me enjoy the privilege of not being defined/bounded by our sexuality the way we insist everyone else must be. We’re free to go about our lives as though we don’t have a sexuality, just like we white people don’t have a race/color/ethnicity. It may be impossible to overstate how much time and energy this frees up, or how much psychic/emotional toil this spares us.

Choosing

A commenter at Whatever says, in answer to Scalzi's post telling #Gamergate followers how to really boycott him:

I don’t assume that every non-theist I meet endorses everything Richard Dawkins says. I don’t assume every Muslim I meet supports ISIS. I don’t assume every American I meet endorses drone strikes. And I don’t assume that everyone using the “gamergate” hash tag endorses threats of violence.

But there's a flaw here.

Not every atheist labels their speech with #IHeartDawkins (or whatever). Not every Muslim labels theirs #ISISRulz. Not every American labels theirs #Drones4Ever.

But every person "using the "gamergate" hash tag" chooses to label themselves that way.

So it's not at all unreasonable to assume - especially this deep into it - that they do in fact endorse the #Gamergate ethos.

If they don't, they're free to choose another hashtag.

That sweet, sweet village life

So, this post was in my news feed. I'm not linking to it because it's muddled thinking that actually ends by saying oh no, don't throw away your tech it's just a metaphor! I just wanted to share what a commenter pointed out:

the men are sitting around, all chatting and connecting and everything, while a woman is working away to feed them. What would happen if she sat down, hmmmmm?

(A little more seriously - only a little: you know, for many people, those 150 in their village were their worst nightmare. For many people, the friends they have on the Internet save their lives.)

Misses?

Gail Collins writes today:

Male invitees to an event for Florida Congressman Steve Southerland were told to “tell the misses not to wait up” because “the after-dinner whiskey and cigars will be smooth & the issues to discuss are many...”

Misses? Really? (And since it goes on to say "Whatever you do, don't tell her the night's menu includes ...", they don't mean "misses".)

If you're going to indulge in that faux-folksy style, you really ought to learn to spell it.

(It's very funny that Southerland's campaign's response to being called on this is to point out it was six months ago, already, geeze.)

Gender (and Race) in Lock In

So, I just had it pointed out to me in a discussion thread at Making Light (not to me personally, but I realized I had been doing it): the narrator of Scalzi's Lock In is not identified by gender. Since it's first-person, there's never any reference to "he said/she said", it's just "I said", and no one ever actually uses a noun that would nail it down. Chris is "a rich kid" and exercises "my rich-person privilege". When people remember Chris's childhood, it's "a child-sized threep offering an Easter Lily to the Bishop of Rome" and "a child's first steps". There's also no hint of Chris's sexuality to help (or hinder). Like the attorney Hilary Tamar in Sarah Caudwell's excellent novels, Chris could be either gender.

Wow.

I have to admit I didn't even notice. I read the book with a preconceived idea of Chris's gender, and now I'm realizing that I brought that, and others brought something else. Now I'm looking at it with the notion that one of the many fascinating things going on here was the idea that it doesn't even matter.

I'll note here that the gender of other hadens is perfectly clear. Pronouns, etc., are deployed as usual, and when we see the digital self-images of Tony and Cassandra, they're idealized versions of themselves, male and female.

Also, race wasn't hidden - but we don't find out about Chris's parents' races until 72% of the way through the book, in Chapter 19 (spoiler: highlight to read: Chris's father is black, his mother white). And again, I noticed that - when it happened.

So. Well done, John Scalzi. You've not only told me a wonderful, ingenious story, but you've shown me something about myself, and brought me questions to think about - even more questions than I actually realized the day I finished the book the first time.

Another Iron Lady?

You know what will not be good? Hillary Clinton getting elected and everybody saying we're "post-feminist" like we're all post-racist since we elected a black president. (#Ferguson, anyone?) HRC taking us to war with Iran, or somebody, partly because she really is aggressive (it's why I didn't vote for her last time around) and partly to appear non-weak, and that being the face of the first female president. HRC being president being used to tell us to shut up about pay inequality, job inequality, or health care inequality because "the glass ceiling has been broken".

Not to say we shouldn't elect her if she is the best, but anybody who votes for her because she's a woman should give careful thought to what kind of a woman she is.

Margaret Thatcher was a woman, too.

O RLY?

The WaPo writes: The San Antonio Spurs made history Tuesday by hiring six-time WNBA all-star Becky Hammon as an assistant coach, making her the first full-time female assistant coach in any of the four major professional sports.

I believe you mean "first full-time female assistant coach in any of the four major mens professional sports."

Casa Susanna

This article is a fascinating glimpse into the world behind Casa Valentina.

Backwards and in high heels

Ginger Rogers was a wonderful dancer, but I'm tired of the automatic response to any invocation of Fred Astaire that implies she was better than he was or that he's just famous because he's a man, or whatever that "backwards and in high heels" is supposed to mean. Let's never forget that she never did anything like this:



Or this

Poison, and we're drinking it

Depressing but valuable read. For everyone.

That’s all I know. That’s all anyone knows.

Except this: The difference between the movie theater jackass and the murderer is a difference of degree. Oh, there are also discrepancies in circumstances and specifics—including, quite likely, psychological profile. But both incidents crawled from the same stinking pit: a man’s instinct to unleash fury on a woman who doesn’t give him what he wants. And when we excuse or condone or even applaud the everyday offgassings of that gaping hole in our cultural decency, it’s no surprise that it sometimes erupts.

Depressing but valuable read. For everyone.

Yes. STOP IT.

As a friend of mine said on Facebook:

Dear [Media]: Please stop saying these girls have been "sold as brides"  when what you mean is "sold as sex slaves to their rapists".

She named a specific paper - the local one - but they're all doing it.

For the love of anything you hold holy: STOP IT.

Holiness or Love?

From Fred at Slacktivist:

There’s a word for that which is opposed to love, against love and instead of love. That word is not “holiness.” Not even close.

As always, worth your time.

On closer inspection

So, I saw this on Facebook - on a friend's page, sourced from one of those big pages that basically just post pictures with remarks like 'what do YOU think?' or 'So True!' I didn't feel like getting into it there, but ...

Think what you like about Bikini Babe here and why she's dressed like that, but if she were to put on a one-piece, beach-jacket, or even (gasp!) kimono, no one would throw acid at her or beat her to death. So... not really comparable.