Shopping centre bans nativity scene to avoid upsetting non-religious shoppers - "A shopping centre is refusing to stage a nativity scene this Christmas because it might offend customers who are not religious.Bosses at Thistles in Stirling, Scotland, flatly declined a request for the traditional display saying customers did not want to be "subjected to individual organisation's beliefs"."
Lawsuits Say Harvard Is Sexist For Trying To Shut Down Single-Sex Clubs - "Several fraternities and sororities sued Harvard University on Monday over its restrictions on students joining off-campus single-sex social groups, saying the rule aimed at combating sexism is itself sexist.Harvard created a rule in spring 2016 that punishes students if they are members of fraternities, sororities, and final clubs — a type of social group unique to Harvard — unless the organizations go coed. The lawsuits filed Monday — one in federal court and one in state court — say the rule disproportionately hurts women by targeting all-female clubs created to counter Harvard’s male-dominated history. They also say the rule is rooted in sexism against men, whose fraternities and private clubs have been the subject of criticism by university officials over alleged sexist behavior. “Unrecognized single-sex social organizations are the only kind of organizations that Harvard punishes students for joining,” one of the lawsuits said. “A Harvard undergraduate could join the American Nazi party, or create an off-campus undergraduate chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, without running afoul” of school rules... The rule was first imposed by the dean of Harvard College, Rakesh Khurana, in spring 2016. The announcement followed a university report that cited a disproportionate percentage of sexual assaults were linked to final clubs and frats, partly because they host a lot of booze-filled parties. A group of students had filed a Title IX complaint against Harvard College in 2014 arguing that assaults at final clubs were not being addressed. Khurana privately told students that the Title IX complaint was one reason Harvard needed to do away with all-male clubs, according to the federal suit. In addition to final clubs, it has been expanded to include single-sex fraternities and sororities and all-male and all-female singing groups... The university believes that men’s final clubs and frats cause sexual assault because they are all-male, the suit alleged, and that women only join single-sex groups as a “coping” mechanism"
Wut. I'm confused trying to sort out all the differing layers of 'oppression' here
Waitrose pulls chocolate ducklings from sale after complaints of racism - "Waitrose has apologised over "racist" Easter ducks after customers complained that the dark brown one was labelled as "ugly"."
Chocolate is brown. This is racist
Yenni Kwok on Twitter - "As Indonesian elections are approaching, here is a Twitter thread on Southeast Asian names. I have been thinking to do it for a while since many foreign media apply their own default standard of using "family names" (or what they wrongly think is family name) on second mention.
Family names don't carry as much importance in many Southeast Asian societies, unlike in Western countries, or East Asia. Some people have family names, some don't. Javanese, for example, may have 3-part names, all of which are given names...
Indonesian names are more tricky because there are so many ethnic groups. Some have family names, some don't. But the general rule of thumb is use the first name, like Malay and Thai names... even people from ethnic groups who have family names, like the Bataks, they are still called with their given name. For example, Luhut Pandjaitan, it's Luhut; Hotman Paris Hutapea, it's Hotman. There are some exceptions in the first-name rule for Indonesian names. For example, names like Ahmad or Mohamad are never used on second mention... There are other exceptions -- the Indonesian section of the Asian names style guide I made for @TIME and @nytimes editors & journalists was the longest (largely thanks to the country's multitude of ethnicities!)."
Gerry Uswak's answer to Why do people in Canada like to ask 'where did you come from?' to non-White immigrants even they have already been a naturalized Canadian citizen? I don't identify with my former country and I choose Canada to be my new country and identity. - Quora - "I'm white.When I lived in North Carolina I was asked where I was from because I did not have a North Carolina accent.When I lived and worked in Bolivia I was asked where I was from because I was clearly not Bolivian.When I was in other Spanish-speaking countries I was asked where I was from because I spoke Spanish with a Bolivian accent and used words unique to the region where I learned my Spanish.Airport drivers in cities ask me where I am from because I'm in their cab.It is an ice-breaker. A conversation starter. People are generally interested in where you are from... Even as a white Canadian I am asked where I am from because people in one place can often detect you are not from there."
New polling proves President Trump is right — 'Americans are #Dreamers, too' - "According to a Harvard University-Harris Poll, a majority of Americans actually agree with not only one but all of Trump’s immigration proposals.A stunning 65 percent of Americans support a DACA deal that ends chain migration, eliminates the random visa lottery and secures the border with a wall. Only 35 percent of Americans did not agree.Nearly 70 percent of Americans oppose the visa lottery which allows immigrants to be picked at random for entry into the country.In fact, nearly 80 percent of Americans believe that immigration should be based on merit and skills, not just family ties. Even more interesting, the poll shows that 60 percent of Americans believe that even if dreamers are allowed to stay, they should not be given preference to bring relatives to the United States.When faced with a choice, nearly 80 percent want secure borders rather than open borders.Specifically, 61 percent think that current border security is inadequate, and more than half of Americans — 54 percent — support a physical barrier along the southern U.S. border"
Joe Wong Wants Asian America to Speak Up - "Yeah, your experience as an immigrant is more representative of Asian Americans in general, but the narrative is written by the next generation, who often stereotype their immigrant parents and blame them for all their problems...
Asians haven’t done much in this country yet, politically and socially. We gotta work harder to get more done in this country. It’s just like Jeremy Lin said. He was called a chink a lot more in Ivy League schools than in the NBA. The attitude is always there. We have to fight that...
DL: I also love that you talk about Korean convenience stores getting looted.
JW: Yeah in every single riot, it’s always the Asian working class who suffer the most, and nobody ever talks about it."
On liberal racism
BBC World Service - The World This Week, Vatican's First Child Abuse Summit - "A priest forced a boy aged nine to perform oral sex and then rinsed out the child's mouth with holy water, in the words of the priest, to purify him...
Alain Finkielkraut is one of the first to say: look, the media, the press are barking up the wrong tree when they keep going on about the far right demons of France being the real anti Semites or at least the problem now. He has been saying for 10, 15 years look the problem is young Arab youth in the banlieues… that's the new anti semitism in France and he's still saying that now and the fact that he was, it turns out that the person who's attacking him verbally for that was an Islamist kind of bears him out"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Brexit day... delayed - Mervyn King: "I don't think it's obvious there'd be jobs lost at all. If you look at since the referendum, and we were told there'd be a recession if we voted to leave. What actually happened is the British economy has grown since the referendum by slightly more, just a little more, than Germany. Now the idea therefore that voting to leave has been an economic disaster doesn't match the facts, and if you look at the exchange rate of sterling, one of the extraordinary facts about it is that the average value of sterling against other currencies is exactly the same this week as the day I left the Bank of England in middle of 2013"
Narcissism and self-esteem among homosexual and heterosexual male students. - "According to orthodox psychoanalytical theory, narcissism and homosexuality are strongly associated. This association played a major role in pathologizing homosexuality. The present study compared self-esteem and two measures of narcissism among 90 homosexual and 109 heterosexual male students, who filled in a demographic questionnaire, Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory, which addresses both grandiose and vulnerable subtypes of narcissism. The homosexual students score higher in both measures of narcissism and lower on the self-esteem measure, compared to their heterosexual counterparts... , three interpretations could be suggested. One would
be intrapsychic, suggesting that homosexuals who are dominated by the
pursuit of pleasure have impaired frustration tolerance, and poor self-
esteem regulation would be considered narcissistic today (Socarides, 1978)."
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Brexit indicative vote x2 - "‘The only way the public will call time on this argument and stop these politicians going on and on and on in their rival factions, their rival groups and their rival options is by having, allowing a compromise to emerge from this process, which is then put to the test of public opinion. And when the public signs off, when the public gives their consent to this compromise. That will end the argument because they will say to everyone else, you have to live this, that's an end, this is closure’
‘I want you to listen to something now. Because these promises were made before weren’t they? That this was going to be a decision only taken once and this was you yourself speaking during the referendum.’
‘It's so important, this decision. It's not like a general election where you can put your vote on one color and then three or four, five years later, just boot that team out and change direction. It's not like that. This is a decision, a once and for all decision. It's not, we will not be taking a decision like this again in our lifetime. That's why it's got to be the right decision and the right choice for the country’...
‘You said in the interview with Manchester Metropolitan University, you said in that interview that it was going to be a once in a lifetime decision. And people may have believed that’"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Tuesday's business with Rob Young - "[On auditing and consulting for the same clients] The facts are the level of consulting work for audit clients has fallen away significantly because legislation has changed. For our firm, of our total revenue, only 7% of that revenue comes from audit clients paying us consulting advice. We've already recommended that the provision of this consulting services should be eliminated fully, to deal with that conflict. It was interesting, the CMA found no evidence that providing consulting services actually gave rise to a conflict despite the perception but we recognize the perception. So let's deal with it by banning non audit services."
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Brexit: PM seeks Corbyn's help - "‘I want to ask you finally about your, the what you did the other day in, in retweeting and drawing attention to something that the AFD had put out. I know you've been asked about this quite a few times. And you've said so far that you don't agree with everything that they stand for. But you want to draw attention to this. But you have nevertheless chosen to shine a spotlight on a party whose core principles are anti immigration, anti Islam, whose leader in the German parliament’s views include Germany being overrun by Arabs and Roma. Is there nothing in that that gives you pause for thought that at least you should clarify what you put out and say that you don't support their other beliefs?’
‘Well, I think this is typical of the BBC’s obsession, dare I say the Today’s program’s obsession about this. Mr Naughtie quite shamefully said the other week that the ERG was like the National Front in France.’
‘He was quoting, he was quoting someone else as I'm sure you know’
‘No he wasn't, he said it himself. It was his view. And he's a BBC person, he's paying a license fee… you must be patient and not interrupt so much because the answer needs to be given properly. The BBC does have this obsession. What Mr. Naughtie said was an outrageous slur. And he wasn't challenged by whoever who was interviewing him. That wasn't raised which seems to be a matter of competence’
‘Again, it wasn't, it wasn’t his view’
‘Well, it was a view he expressed… hold on, just a moment. When Mr. Naughtie quotes somebody and it's not his view, that's fine. But when I quote somebody and it's not my view, that's a great shock. And that seems to me typical of the Today program’s leftie approach, an obsession with this issue’"
