BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent Podcast, Ear cleaners and road sweepers
"In Delhi at dawn, an army of workers found out to do the jobs you're unlikely to find in such numbers anywhere else. Men and women with reed brooms sweep pavements. Full time chauffeurs meticulously wash their employers’ cars. Nannies, maids, cooks and cleaners perform every tedious chore. Men on bicycles pedal out to collect recyclables. Others sell balloons, fruit, or even cheese and booze door to door.
For a tiny sum, you can get your shoes mended, trousers and dresses made to measure, your head massaged, even jewelry repaired all by hand.
India wouldn't be India without this glut of cheap labor, making life easy. If there's a job to be done, no matter how menial or niche, here you'll find people to do it for pennies.
This is down to the fact that half of India's population of 1.3 billion people is under the age of 25. Each month, a whopping 1 million come of age. Each year, 8 million of those new workers seek jobs. In a country with little Social Security, corporate jobs with good pay, and government jobs with lifetime security are the most fiercely sought after. Thousands of applicants vie for a single position...
I enter one of six lifts with the crowd of well dressed office workers. Inside, under a noisy fan whirring to keep the 40 degree heat at bay, Ahmed presses the buttons to deliver people to their destinations... He doesn't wear white gloves or a special uniform. He's paid below the minimum wage, though he does have a stool to sit on. It's not physically taxing work, he says and I stay cool in the heat. This job supports me and my family of five.
Ahmed’s job and the jobs of other button pushers, for example, in Delhi's new underground car parks exist only because labor is so cheap and ubiquitous. More than 80% of India's workforce is informal, meaning they earn less than minimum wage and don't enjoy the rights of even a basic contract. In this cutthroat economic environment, any job is better than no job.
So I'm not surprised when I see one man on a pavement doing nothing but selling ordinary rubber bands from large stainless steel bowls. A job I have never seen anyone doing before anywhere in my 22 years as a journalist.
I've come across some extraordinary jobs in India, from professional ear cleaners to people who dive into sewers to unblock them to professional hangmen to a woman employed solely to neatly refold the clothes in her clients cupboards.
Why is a country with an economy growing at more than 6% a year not creating more quality jobs? Like much of the planet India's growth is capital intensive. Burgeoning sectors like oil and gas need machinery not people to power them. An economic slowdown isn't helping.
And some argue that Prime Minister Modi’s own policies are to blame. In 2016, when he suddenly withdrew most of India's bank notes from circulation to tackle corruption, replacements were not ready for weeks. This crippled many small businesses reliant on cash. They went bust or had to downsize, laying off scores of workers.
Why then did so many people vote for Narendra Modi even as they're struggling to secure jobs? Door to door salesman Ahmed Kumar who has holes in his socks and fraying trousers told me that despite his bitter disappointment with his own job prospects, he voted for the BJP. It's not that I agree with their Hindu nationalist ideology, he said. But in my village when electricity first came, we were so surprised we’d shout wow. Now it's on for up to 18 hours a day and everyone's used to it. We need to give the BJP at least another five years to develop the country"
L'origine de Bert
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Links - 12th June 2019 (1) (Trans Mania)
JAMES KIRKUP: Is Britain FINALLY coming to its senses over transgender madness?"The transgender equality agenda has advanced through Britain’s institutions with extraordinary speed. In a few years, promoting ‘trans rights’ has become central to healthcare, policing, education and the law, raising many troubling questions.The only thing more extraordinary than the rapid spread of this new orthodoxy is how little scrutiny it has faced and the aggressive intolerance directed towards those who question it.During a Westminster career which began as a junior Commons researcher 25 years ago, I have never encountered a movement that has spread so swiftly and successfully, and has so fiercely rejected any challenge to its orthodoxy.The lack of scrutiny has led to a new disturbing reality in which women have been sexually assaulted in prison by trans inmates, trans athletes increasingly compete as females, children transition rapidly, and women suffer vitriolic abuse for standing up for their rights. Possibly the most troubling aspect of this story is how so many politicians have failed to challenge a movement whose agenda they know can infringe on the rights and freedoms of others.By looking the other way and keeping quiet, MPs have allowed a small group of activists to set the agenda and even write policies, without anyone ever consulting or even informing the public.Last week, however, there were encouraging signs that common sense is entering the debate. That is long overdue and much needed. Perhaps the most significant sign that there has been a shift in the debate is the division around LGBT group Stonewall... the trans lobby’s hold on Stonewall might just be weakening. Some donors are deserting, the CEO has quit and leading gay equality campaigners are going public with their doubts about its adoption of the trans agenda.Even Simon Fanshawe, a co-founder of the group, has condemned its ‘extreme’ position following its campaign to amend the Gender Recognition Act. Meanwhile, in the political sphere, the word in Whitehall is that Penny Mordaunt, the Equalities Minister, is starting to have doubts about changing the law to allow people to self-identify their sex.Responses to a Government consultation on those reforms showed opposition from women in every part of Britain, other than a few very small clusters in London and a few university towns. Tories who once saw the trans agenda as a way to modernise and reach out to young voters now realise things are more complicated than that... One of the defining features of the trans lobbyists are the vituperative attacks they orchestrate on anyone who dares disagree or question them. Many do not dare to ask probing questions publicly. Some fear being branded transphobic – a charge that can kill a career in the public sector, even when it is baseless.Indeed, many ‘gender critical’ women fear ‘doxing’ attacks, where personal information is hacked from emails and social media accounts and spread across the internet. There are also threats of violence and actual violence. The online hatred directed at anyone who questions the trans orthodoxy is relentless. A recent report by MPs on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Hate Crime found ‘clear examples of threats and calls to violence against women’ who question the trans lobby.Those women cannot rely on the police to help – quite the contrary. Many forces have embraced the trans agenda and enforce it with remarkable zeal. Several women, and some men, have had calls and visits from officers over legal comments on social media because they might hurt transgender feelings. This is an absurd situation."
This doesn't help people who claim the 'gay agenda' is a myth or who claim this isn't the future of more conservative societies (e.g. in Taiwan it looks like gay marriage is going to be forced through)
A manifesto for heresy - "To deny that men can become women is the modern equivalent of denying that a wafer of bread and a cup of wine became the flesh and blood of Christ during Mass. If you deny the magic of transgenderism, you will be subjected to a similar wild-eyed fury that was once visited upon those who denied the magic of transubstantiation.There is a religious-style zeal to the protection of transgenderism from criticism or denial or blasphemy. The word ‘transphobia’ is used to demonise the belief that men cannot become women. Fighting transphobia isn’t about ending discrimination against trans people – it is about silencing moral views that are now considered unacceptable; it is about turning certain beliefs into heresies... A TERF is a witch. That is really what TERF means: troublesome woman, uppity woman, defiant woman, heretic... recently we had the spectacle of 300 female members of the Labour Party resigning in protest at the party’s decision to include people who were born male on all-women shortlists. And other party members, including male ones, cheered as the women left. ‘Get the TERFs out’, they tweeted. That is, cast the witches out. Expel them. Heretics not welcome. That many left-wing men laugh at these women’s concerns, or approve of the censorship of their ideas, or conspire in the demonisation of them as TERFs, suggests the ideology of transgenderism has a strong streak of misogyny. Indeed, trans activism looks increasingly like misogyny in drag. Witness, also, how criticism of the trans ideology is written off not only as wrong, but as dangerous, as morally corrupted and morally corrupting... As one historical account puts it, people and sometimes entire communities were viewed as being ‘infected with heresy’. Today, that profoundly censorious idea finds expression in the war on the blasphemy of transphobia... it’s worth noting that heresy actually means choice. The word heresy comes from the Greek for ‘choice’, for ‘the chosen thing’. To be a heretic is to make a choice – the wrong choice, in the view of the guardians of orthodoxy... The two most common brands imposed on those judged to hold heretical beliefs are ‘phobic‘ and ‘denier’. They are fascinating terms. The first, ‘phobic’, speaks to the treatment of certain views as irrational fears, as forms of mental illness, essentially. And the second, ‘denier’, echoes precisely the terminology used against those who were dragged before the Inquisition. They, too, were deniers: deniers of the light of Christ... when the Runnymede Trust first popularised the term ‘Islamophobia’, in the 1990s, it included in its definition any expression that treats Islam as ‘inferior to Western values’. So to make a particular moral judgement, in this case that Western ideals are better than Islamic ones, is to be unstable, diseased. This is a clear example of the language of demonology being used to make a heresy out of a perfectly legitimate moral view... In the words of Isaac Asimov, ‘Some of the greatest names in science have been… heretics. Startling scientific advances usually begin as heresies.’ That science and its adherents now contribute to the policing and punishment of heresy represents an abandonment of the openness to rebuke and falsification that makes science such an important endeavour in the first place."
I can't keep up with trans-activism, the community is impossible to please and I'm tired of it. : TrueOffMyChest - "I don't like the term cis. To me, it's a useless and ugly term, I don't want to be called cis. That's pretty simple, isn't it? Transgender people don't want to be called derogatory terms or anything besides what they identify as, cool. Transwomen want to be considered women, cool. But when I want to be called a woman? Suddenly they're all too happy to dismiss my discomfort... People always tried to assure me that this shit was rare, "trans people in real life aren't like that" "those are FAKE trans people, REAL trans people wouldn't say that" "you only find people like that on Tumblr" etc etc.Well guess what? They aren't rare, they're FUCKING EVERYWHERE. They're in my school, on every fucking social media platform, and above all, they're fucking inescapable on any sort of art website I have ever tried to join. I mean, my god, I just want to DRAW and LOOK AT PRETTY PICTURES and HAVE A GOOD TIME WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT PEOPLE HARASSING ME FOR POSTING A FEMALE CHARACTER WITHOUT MAKING IT SUPER CLEAR WHETHER OR NOT SHE'S CIS. I want to make any characters I want without people shitting on me with comments like "you only make cis girls!!!!" or "what do you mean your lesbian character doesn't date people with penises???????"... they've never given me an actual explanation of what it means to feel like a woman. All it ever boils down to is traditional femininity, which I don't think should define women at all. In fact, I think it's super offensive and SEXIST to act like the only thing that determines whether or not someone is a woman is how pretty she is, how much she likes traditionally feminine things, and how well she conforms to traditionally feminine roles and behavior. I'm a bit of a tomboy and I'm a bisexual, so these people have been trying to shove the idea that I might be non-binary or transgender down my throat since day 1. No! I'm a girl! I don't want to be anything BUT a girl! Why does the fact that I have traditionally masculine interests make me less of a girl?! UGH. Sorry, but I'm officially a "terf". None of this shit makes sense anymore and the more I "learn" the less I understand. I don't get why biological sex wasn't good enough. If you're so in love with pink, dresses, and doing your nails, why can't you do that as a man? A lot of you insist on keeping your penis anyway! What's the harm in identifying by your genitals that you WANT to keep?... Your rhetoric makes no sense, it's hypocritical, unscientific, illogical, and you harass people for being incapable of reading minds so... I'm a terf now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Of course I support people who have sex dysphoria, but I'm no longer going to entertain this gender nonsense. Frankly, it's the opposite of progressive. I should have realized how insane it was the moment they started giving hormones to children, demanding that lesbians accept women with penises, and forcing their way into women's rape and abuse rehab centers - while insisting they don't have bottom dysphoria and therefor must keep their penis."
If you just want attention and to bully others...
Trans Athletes: The Death Of Women's Sports - "Most experts say that the average testosterone production for biological females ranges between 0.52 to 2.8 nmol/L. The Mayo Clinic put that range even lower (2). And while experts may vary in what they consider average among females, the consensus is almost always below 3 nanomoles/L.But remember, federations like the IOC require a male-born person to suppress and maintain testosterone production at 10 nanomoles/L.So even if a woman was genetically blessed with testosterone levels that reached 3 nmol/L, that would still be less than half of what a trans woman would be allowed to have during the competition... And yes, there are occurrences of female outliers who have elevated testosterone production from things that affect hormonal output, like polycystic ovarian syndrome, but those are rare occurrences in which their hormones may still remain below 10 nmol/L. And these outliers won't have the advantage of going through puberty with the peak testosterone production of a young man... let's just pretend that trans women were required to sufficiently lower their levels to that of an average biological women. The next thing we'd have to acknowledge is that the amount of testosterone they previously produced will have had a huge impact on their anatomy and physiology... The male-born will likely never experience the iron deficiencies related to the combination of hard training and heavy menstrual flow. Nor will they ever have to worry about the female athletic triad, a condition that occurs when a woman's activity level drives her hormones down to a point at which she stops having a period and, as a result, her bone mineral density decreases (common in endurance athletes) (6).None of these differences between biological males and females are mentioned in the articles praising trans competitors as "groundbreaking," "brave," or "heroic."... I'd hate to be in charge of any sports federation right now. To be "fair" to a very small group (0.6% of the population), a much larger group (50.8% of the population) must have their chances of winning greatly diminished. Trans activism has put federations in this position. Because if they do the right thing, their federation will be smeared, protested, labeled discriminatory, or get sued... Sharron Davies, who won a silver medal in swimming in the 1980 Olympics, also tweeted:"I have nothing against anyone who wishes to be transgender. However, I believe there is a fundamental difference between the binary sex you are born with and the gender you may identify as. To protect women's sport, those with a male sex advantage should not be able to compete in women's sport."She later said in an interview that all the international athletes she's spoken with agree with her position, but they're afraid to speak out. As expected, Davies has been labeled as transphobic."
Effects of perceived discrimination on mental health and mental health services utilization among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons - "Although perceived discrimination was associated with almost all of the indicators of mental health and utilization of mental health care that we examined, adjusting for discrimination did not significantly reduce mental health disparities between heterosexual and LGBT persons"
This suggests that discrimination is not why LGBTs have worse (mental) health
Gender and Period Care Products – Lunette Menstrual Cup - "the use of female-centric words needs to cease in the menstruation industry. This begs the question of what to say instead.Depending on the context, you can try to avoid naming groups of people. For example, instead of saying “Some people who menstruate prefer Lunette” you could say “Lunette is a preferred menstrual care product”. I mean, we all get that, if you’re using a period product then you probably have a period.I’ve been guilty of quipping “people with uteruses” from time to time - until I realized that, hey, this person who has a uterus may really, really wish they didn’t have one. And so to lump them into a group that reminds them that they do have a uterus, possibly contributing to body dysmorphia, well, I don’t want any part of that. .. It is time for us to use this knowledge and understanding to change another label. We’ve changed racist labels. We’ve changed sexist labels. Now, let’s change cisexist ones. Periods are not inherently feminine. Periods are a biological phenomenon that impacts the lives of people who are born with a uterus. We have the power to grow toward inclusion of all people who menstruate, and now is the time for that shift. All people deserve to feel comfortable taking care of themselves during their time of the month. Period."
How deep does the rabbit hole go?
The Detransitioners: They Were Transgender, Until They Weren't - "Jackie came out to friends and family first and then posted a note on Facebook. She was adopting new pronouns, the note said, and she would like her community to respect that. It looked, at first, like a typical coming out circa 2017, one of many posted online every day as more and more people come out as transgender, nonbinary, or genderqueer. But Jackie's post was different. She wasn't coming out as trans, she was coming out as de-trans.... This has ignited a contentious debate both in and outside the trans community, with various sides accusing each other of bigotry, harassment, censorship, and damaging the fight for trans rights... "clinicians are a little afraid of being labeled 'gatekeepers.'"Until recently, the "gatekeeper" model of trans care was standard, and it meant that who could or could not change their bodies was ultimately up to therapists... in the 1980s, patients had to live as their target gender for two years before medical intervention."They were required to supply documentation that showed they were actually living out in the community as the opposite sex and not just ordering pizza delivery and putting on a dress," Blanchard said. "By today's standard, that would be incredibly oppressive."... "I didn't really feel like I could talk to my counselors about detransitioning in the way that I wanted," she said, "because they have specific political views, and I felt like if I said I had these criticisms of the whole concept of transitioning, they would have thought I was being brainwashed by transphobic bigots or whatever."... There have... been almost a dozen studies of looking at the rate of "desistance," among trans-identified kids—which, in this context, refers to cases in which trans kids eventually identify as their sex at birth. Canadian sex researcher James Cantor summarized those studies' findings in a blog post: "Despite the differences in country, culture, decade, and follow-up length and method, all the studies have come to a remarkably similar conclusion: Only very few trans-kids still want to transition by the time they are adults. Instead, they generally turn out to be regular gay or lesbian folks."... about 80 percent trans kids eventually identified as their sex at birth. Some trans activists and academics, however, argue that these studies are flawed, the patients surveyed weren't really transgender, and that mass desistance doesn't exist."The desistance myth was promoted by reparative therapists, concern trolls, and charlatans," trans advocate Brynn Tannehill wrote on the Huffington Post. "It's time for the 80 percent desistance figure to be relegated to the same junk science bin as the utterly discredited link between vaccines and autism."... In some ways, she faults them for enabling her transition, even though it's exactly what she wanted at the time. She writes about her experience online, and in one post, she says that a favored therapist "helped me hurt myself""
Using non trans logic, reducing gatekeeping means more patients will regret transitioning
This doesn't help people who claim the 'gay agenda' is a myth or who claim this isn't the future of more conservative societies (e.g. in Taiwan it looks like gay marriage is going to be forced through)
A manifesto for heresy - "To deny that men can become women is the modern equivalent of denying that a wafer of bread and a cup of wine became the flesh and blood of Christ during Mass. If you deny the magic of transgenderism, you will be subjected to a similar wild-eyed fury that was once visited upon those who denied the magic of transubstantiation.There is a religious-style zeal to the protection of transgenderism from criticism or denial or blasphemy. The word ‘transphobia’ is used to demonise the belief that men cannot become women. Fighting transphobia isn’t about ending discrimination against trans people – it is about silencing moral views that are now considered unacceptable; it is about turning certain beliefs into heresies... A TERF is a witch. That is really what TERF means: troublesome woman, uppity woman, defiant woman, heretic... recently we had the spectacle of 300 female members of the Labour Party resigning in protest at the party’s decision to include people who were born male on all-women shortlists. And other party members, including male ones, cheered as the women left. ‘Get the TERFs out’, they tweeted. That is, cast the witches out. Expel them. Heretics not welcome. That many left-wing men laugh at these women’s concerns, or approve of the censorship of their ideas, or conspire in the demonisation of them as TERFs, suggests the ideology of transgenderism has a strong streak of misogyny. Indeed, trans activism looks increasingly like misogyny in drag. Witness, also, how criticism of the trans ideology is written off not only as wrong, but as dangerous, as morally corrupted and morally corrupting... As one historical account puts it, people and sometimes entire communities were viewed as being ‘infected with heresy’. Today, that profoundly censorious idea finds expression in the war on the blasphemy of transphobia... it’s worth noting that heresy actually means choice. The word heresy comes from the Greek for ‘choice’, for ‘the chosen thing’. To be a heretic is to make a choice – the wrong choice, in the view of the guardians of orthodoxy... The two most common brands imposed on those judged to hold heretical beliefs are ‘phobic‘ and ‘denier’. They are fascinating terms. The first, ‘phobic’, speaks to the treatment of certain views as irrational fears, as forms of mental illness, essentially. And the second, ‘denier’, echoes precisely the terminology used against those who were dragged before the Inquisition. They, too, were deniers: deniers of the light of Christ... when the Runnymede Trust first popularised the term ‘Islamophobia’, in the 1990s, it included in its definition any expression that treats Islam as ‘inferior to Western values’. So to make a particular moral judgement, in this case that Western ideals are better than Islamic ones, is to be unstable, diseased. This is a clear example of the language of demonology being used to make a heresy out of a perfectly legitimate moral view... In the words of Isaac Asimov, ‘Some of the greatest names in science have been… heretics. Startling scientific advances usually begin as heresies.’ That science and its adherents now contribute to the policing and punishment of heresy represents an abandonment of the openness to rebuke and falsification that makes science such an important endeavour in the first place."
I can't keep up with trans-activism, the community is impossible to please and I'm tired of it. : TrueOffMyChest - "I don't like the term cis. To me, it's a useless and ugly term, I don't want to be called cis. That's pretty simple, isn't it? Transgender people don't want to be called derogatory terms or anything besides what they identify as, cool. Transwomen want to be considered women, cool. But when I want to be called a woman? Suddenly they're all too happy to dismiss my discomfort... People always tried to assure me that this shit was rare, "trans people in real life aren't like that" "those are FAKE trans people, REAL trans people wouldn't say that" "you only find people like that on Tumblr" etc etc.Well guess what? They aren't rare, they're FUCKING EVERYWHERE. They're in my school, on every fucking social media platform, and above all, they're fucking inescapable on any sort of art website I have ever tried to join. I mean, my god, I just want to DRAW and LOOK AT PRETTY PICTURES and HAVE A GOOD TIME WITHOUT WORRYING ABOUT PEOPLE HARASSING ME FOR POSTING A FEMALE CHARACTER WITHOUT MAKING IT SUPER CLEAR WHETHER OR NOT SHE'S CIS. I want to make any characters I want without people shitting on me with comments like "you only make cis girls!!!!" or "what do you mean your lesbian character doesn't date people with penises???????"... they've never given me an actual explanation of what it means to feel like a woman. All it ever boils down to is traditional femininity, which I don't think should define women at all. In fact, I think it's super offensive and SEXIST to act like the only thing that determines whether or not someone is a woman is how pretty she is, how much she likes traditionally feminine things, and how well she conforms to traditionally feminine roles and behavior. I'm a bit of a tomboy and I'm a bisexual, so these people have been trying to shove the idea that I might be non-binary or transgender down my throat since day 1. No! I'm a girl! I don't want to be anything BUT a girl! Why does the fact that I have traditionally masculine interests make me less of a girl?! UGH. Sorry, but I'm officially a "terf". None of this shit makes sense anymore and the more I "learn" the less I understand. I don't get why biological sex wasn't good enough. If you're so in love with pink, dresses, and doing your nails, why can't you do that as a man? A lot of you insist on keeping your penis anyway! What's the harm in identifying by your genitals that you WANT to keep?... Your rhetoric makes no sense, it's hypocritical, unscientific, illogical, and you harass people for being incapable of reading minds so... I'm a terf now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Of course I support people who have sex dysphoria, but I'm no longer going to entertain this gender nonsense. Frankly, it's the opposite of progressive. I should have realized how insane it was the moment they started giving hormones to children, demanding that lesbians accept women with penises, and forcing their way into women's rape and abuse rehab centers - while insisting they don't have bottom dysphoria and therefor must keep their penis."
If you just want attention and to bully others...
Trans Athletes: The Death Of Women's Sports - "Most experts say that the average testosterone production for biological females ranges between 0.52 to 2.8 nmol/L. The Mayo Clinic put that range even lower (2). And while experts may vary in what they consider average among females, the consensus is almost always below 3 nanomoles/L.But remember, federations like the IOC require a male-born person to suppress and maintain testosterone production at 10 nanomoles/L.So even if a woman was genetically blessed with testosterone levels that reached 3 nmol/L, that would still be less than half of what a trans woman would be allowed to have during the competition... And yes, there are occurrences of female outliers who have elevated testosterone production from things that affect hormonal output, like polycystic ovarian syndrome, but those are rare occurrences in which their hormones may still remain below 10 nmol/L. And these outliers won't have the advantage of going through puberty with the peak testosterone production of a young man... let's just pretend that trans women were required to sufficiently lower their levels to that of an average biological women. The next thing we'd have to acknowledge is that the amount of testosterone they previously produced will have had a huge impact on their anatomy and physiology... The male-born will likely never experience the iron deficiencies related to the combination of hard training and heavy menstrual flow. Nor will they ever have to worry about the female athletic triad, a condition that occurs when a woman's activity level drives her hormones down to a point at which she stops having a period and, as a result, her bone mineral density decreases (common in endurance athletes) (6).None of these differences between biological males and females are mentioned in the articles praising trans competitors as "groundbreaking," "brave," or "heroic."... I'd hate to be in charge of any sports federation right now. To be "fair" to a very small group (0.6% of the population), a much larger group (50.8% of the population) must have their chances of winning greatly diminished. Trans activism has put federations in this position. Because if they do the right thing, their federation will be smeared, protested, labeled discriminatory, or get sued... Sharron Davies, who won a silver medal in swimming in the 1980 Olympics, also tweeted:"I have nothing against anyone who wishes to be transgender. However, I believe there is a fundamental difference between the binary sex you are born with and the gender you may identify as. To protect women's sport, those with a male sex advantage should not be able to compete in women's sport."She later said in an interview that all the international athletes she's spoken with agree with her position, but they're afraid to speak out. As expected, Davies has been labeled as transphobic."
Effects of perceived discrimination on mental health and mental health services utilization among gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons - "Although perceived discrimination was associated with almost all of the indicators of mental health and utilization of mental health care that we examined, adjusting for discrimination did not significantly reduce mental health disparities between heterosexual and LGBT persons"
This suggests that discrimination is not why LGBTs have worse (mental) health
Gender and Period Care Products – Lunette Menstrual Cup - "the use of female-centric words needs to cease in the menstruation industry. This begs the question of what to say instead.Depending on the context, you can try to avoid naming groups of people. For example, instead of saying “Some people who menstruate prefer Lunette” you could say “Lunette is a preferred menstrual care product”. I mean, we all get that, if you’re using a period product then you probably have a period.I’ve been guilty of quipping “people with uteruses” from time to time - until I realized that, hey, this person who has a uterus may really, really wish they didn’t have one. And so to lump them into a group that reminds them that they do have a uterus, possibly contributing to body dysmorphia, well, I don’t want any part of that. .. It is time for us to use this knowledge and understanding to change another label. We’ve changed racist labels. We’ve changed sexist labels. Now, let’s change cisexist ones. Periods are not inherently feminine. Periods are a biological phenomenon that impacts the lives of people who are born with a uterus. We have the power to grow toward inclusion of all people who menstruate, and now is the time for that shift. All people deserve to feel comfortable taking care of themselves during their time of the month. Period."
How deep does the rabbit hole go?
The Detransitioners: They Were Transgender, Until They Weren't - "Jackie came out to friends and family first and then posted a note on Facebook. She was adopting new pronouns, the note said, and she would like her community to respect that. It looked, at first, like a typical coming out circa 2017, one of many posted online every day as more and more people come out as transgender, nonbinary, or genderqueer. But Jackie's post was different. She wasn't coming out as trans, she was coming out as de-trans.... This has ignited a contentious debate both in and outside the trans community, with various sides accusing each other of bigotry, harassment, censorship, and damaging the fight for trans rights... "clinicians are a little afraid of being labeled 'gatekeepers.'"Until recently, the "gatekeeper" model of trans care was standard, and it meant that who could or could not change their bodies was ultimately up to therapists... in the 1980s, patients had to live as their target gender for two years before medical intervention."They were required to supply documentation that showed they were actually living out in the community as the opposite sex and not just ordering pizza delivery and putting on a dress," Blanchard said. "By today's standard, that would be incredibly oppressive."... "I didn't really feel like I could talk to my counselors about detransitioning in the way that I wanted," she said, "because they have specific political views, and I felt like if I said I had these criticisms of the whole concept of transitioning, they would have thought I was being brainwashed by transphobic bigots or whatever."... There have... been almost a dozen studies of looking at the rate of "desistance," among trans-identified kids—which, in this context, refers to cases in which trans kids eventually identify as their sex at birth. Canadian sex researcher James Cantor summarized those studies' findings in a blog post: "Despite the differences in country, culture, decade, and follow-up length and method, all the studies have come to a remarkably similar conclusion: Only very few trans-kids still want to transition by the time they are adults. Instead, they generally turn out to be regular gay or lesbian folks."... about 80 percent trans kids eventually identified as their sex at birth. Some trans activists and academics, however, argue that these studies are flawed, the patients surveyed weren't really transgender, and that mass desistance doesn't exist."The desistance myth was promoted by reparative therapists, concern trolls, and charlatans," trans advocate Brynn Tannehill wrote on the Huffington Post. "It's time for the 80 percent desistance figure to be relegated to the same junk science bin as the utterly discredited link between vaccines and autism."... In some ways, she faults them for enabling her transition, even though it's exactly what she wanted at the time. She writes about her experience online, and in one post, she says that a favored therapist "helped me hurt myself""
Using non trans logic, reducing gatekeeping means more patients will regret transitioning
Post ID: 2078949347878751006
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Links - 11th June 2019 (2) (Blackface)
New Orleans Group Faces Calls To End Its Use Of Blackface At Mardi Gras - "This Tuesday's Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans has thrust into the spotlight a controversial local tradition dating back more than 100 years.Every year, members of the city's Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club don grass skirts, feather headdresses and bone jewelry for the Mardi Gras parade.The Zulus' African-American members — and even some of their white members — also paint their faces black.The practice has been an oddity existing in plain sight since the Zulu club adopted it in 1909 to pay homage to Zulu warriors in South Africa... "The Zulu club was founded in response to the racism that was present in Mardi Gras where black people were not allowed to participate" in the parade-day celebrations of historically-white social clubs, said Shantrelle P. Lewis, an historian who studies blackface traditions, in an interview with NPR's Michele Martin. For the Zulus, she said, "it was a way to combat some of the racism and segregation taking place in Mardi Gras."But now, some in New Orleans are accusing the Zulu club of racism... At last month's protest at the clubhouse by Take 'Em Down NOLA, several Zulu members put on black face makeup to taunt the demonstrators... "If you're looking at the Zulu club within a tradition of masquerading and masking... then painting one's face is a part of Carnival," said Lewis. And as a proud New Orleans native, she said she finds the Zulu costume to be appropriate, given the context. "While it's connected to minstrelsy, historically it was more rooted in this idea of a masquerade." Furthermore, Lewis said, it's a New Orleans tradition that many outsiders simply wouldn't understand. "New Orleans understands New Orleans' traditions, and the city has been very insular," Lewis said, echoing local writers who blame "clueless outsiders" for misunderstanding local culture."A lot of our traditions have existed without the participation and the scrutiny of people outside of New Orleans. And for the average black person in New Orleans, including members of my own family, they simply do not connect the blackface in Zulu with minstrelsy ...and they most certainly are not looking at it as an offense.""
Offence culture only knows how to destroy, not create
Gucci withdraws jumper after 'blackface' backlash - "Luxury fashion brand Gucci has withdrawn a woollen jumper from sale after the item was criticised for "resembling blackface.""
All black clothes should be banned
Katy Perry: shoes evoking blackface face criticism
People Are Complaining That Charcoal Face Masks Are Blackface And Racist
'New York Times' Takes On 'Blackface' In 'Mary Poppins' - "The 1964 adaptation of "Mary Poppins" starring iconic actors Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke includes a scene wherein the magical nanny gets soot on her pristine face. Andrews, playing Poppins, powders her face with more soot and leads the Banks children and Van Dyke, playing a charming chimney sweep named Bert, on a march across London rooftops.Pollack-Pelzner reluctantly admits that the scene is innocuous enough, though he ties it to roots of blackface and accuses "Mary Poppins Returns" of evoking minstrelsy and keeping with supposed Disney tradition."
Blackface in this Phoenix restaurant's photo? That's what I see - "Friends said, “It’s coal miners at a pub after work.” It was a photograph of coal miners with blackened faces. I asked a Latinx and white woman for their opinion. They said it looked like coal miners at a pub after work. Then they stepped back, frowned and said it’s men in blackface... At the downtown Phoenix restaurant, my concern that the photograph of men in blackface was a threat to me and my face and voice were ignored.A business’ photograph of men with blackened faces culturally says to me, “Whites Only.” It says people like me are not welcome."
Class privilege means mocking coal miners who risked their lives and didn't have time to clean up
Mark Herring and the Grey Zones of Blackface - "Perhaps there is a difference between blacking up to mock black people, as the person pictured on Northam’s yearbook page seems to have done, and blacking up in affectionate imitation of a black person, as part of seeking to resemble said person, as Herring did. One indication that the latter is reasonable is that it was common among highly enlightened people in times hardly as removed from ours as Al Jolson and The Birth of a Nation... two female friends, one white and one black, “switched” races for the night. The black one wore whiteface and the white one wore blackface. Not with an Afro wig or big red lips, but thoroughly blacked up. I believe she wore a head scarf, which could be seen as a “black” garment under the circumstances. Their idea was to ridicule the very idea of racial categories. They went about with an ironic air, the black one chirping “I’m white!” and the white one chirping “I’m black!” Yet the black woman was what we would today term a highly woke individual. And no one chided the white one for, say, failing to attend to the fact that blackness is not just a matter of skin tone but of grappling with the coded hostilities baked into a fundamentally racist society. She was read as making a little joke, a wise one, even—and remember, this was a dorm full of people voting for Mondale, renowned (and often ridiculed) for being gay-friendly in a way alien to most of the campus beyond at the time, very comfortably interracial, replete with international students and all manner of the “different,” and professionally intolerant of the repressive, bigoted world of Reagan’s America beyond our dorm doors... The idea, apparently, is that whenever any white person puts on brown makeup, it can be read as a salute to, or at least not attendant to, the brutally dismissive blackface practices of minstrel performers from the 19th century well into the 20th. To wear blackface is to condone white men prancing around onstage talking in cartoonish syntax and promulgating an idea that the essence of blackness is resounding ignorance, sexual rapacity, and buffoonery.But minstrelsy was a very long time ago now. Ever fewer people now living experienced it live. While we must never return to minstrel-style hijinks, does it really make sense, does it really serve a purpose, to ban anyone ever putting on brown makeup as part of mimicking a person of color regardless of his or her intent? Must we really have it that a white person dressing as a black person must do it with his or her own pale skin on view? The likely outcome will be a tacit societal rule that black Americans are the only people in the country who are never to be imitated, even in praise, except by other black people. And what purpose would that glum, peculiar stricture serve?... Much of this special kind of vigilance, which leaves many people who thought of themselves as on the barricades a few years ago scratching their head, can be seen as a quest for power. To get someone fired from his job and publicly shamed for, say, having blacked up to dress as a black pop artist 40 years ago is to wield force, to have an effect; it is a kind of whip held at one’s side. If we not only ban brown makeup even as part of an affectionate costume, but also declare that past use of brown makeup is sufficient for banishment from polite society, then we lay claim to a wisdom that people just a few years ago lacked, and accuse the recent past of deep ignorance"
The Independent - Posts - "'What is blackfishing? The influencers accused of using makeup to 'pretend' to be black'
'Blackfishing' is a new, worrying trend online"
These are the same people who bash those who are concerned about trans people because trans people are not hurting anyone
Comments: "Is it worrying? I mean, who is worried? Syria, worrying. Climate change, worrying. Plastic in oceans, worrying. US new alignment with dictatorships, worrying. Refugee crisis, worrying. Ongoing poverty & starvation etc, worrying. White women taking selfies with the wrong shade of makeup, distinctly not worrying."
"Can we drop the word influencer to describe women who take selfies and get paid to promote skinny tea ?"
"Well i guess we should get offended by Geisha make up and clowns and any black person lightening their skin, or straightening their hair..?? Seriously .. as stupid as this comment sounds, is how stupid this post is,let people be who they want"
"Does Michael Jackson fall into the category for white fishing ?"
"This does smack of a bit of a double standard here. First there is criticism that western beauty standards are too white. Then when people recognise the beauty of black women and wish to emulate that beauty, it’s not appropriate and comes from a place of white privilege. Perhaps I’m ignorant but acknowledging the beauty of women from different backgrounds to ourselves is surely a good thing?"
"You should come to Italy from may to september and see how many italians do their best to look like ebony on the beach "
"What about those who get a tan? Are they ‘brownfishing’? 🤦"
"idiotfishing is a more worrying trend people online pretending to have a valid point."
"Stop.Seriously.No one cares. For people who are supposedly about letting people be what they identify as--- they seem to be awfully intolerant of people who do exactly that."
"So using white makeup is white privilege, using darker make-up is blackfishing, getting tan is insulting to the aborigen people, get you hair straight is coping asian culture, if I draw a black point on my chin Marie Antoniette will come from the ground telling me I'm fking coping the french beauty, if i do rasta i'll be insulting rastafarian and doing afro hair i'm coping africa hair, if I place a pair of cat ears my cat will come to smash my face accusing me of cat fishing. And I can go on and on."
'Saturday Night Live's' Blatant Hypocrisy on Blackface - "for years SNL has apparently considered blackface funny enough that they’ve had white actors don blackface for a sketch... there’s the infamous Jimmy Fallon impersonation of Chris Rock, which aired on SNL back in 2000... You’ll note that Hammond is wearing blackface while sitting next to Kenan Thompson, who, just last night, said on SNL that wearing blackface “was never funny or cool.” Thompson didn’t have a problem actually sitting next to Hammond donning blackface for the sketch. It must have been funny and cool at the time... I suppose Kenan Thompson should have said blackface "is never funny or cool — unless Saturday Night Live does it.""
Jimmy Kimmel Once Dressed Up in Blackface and Mocked Black Athletes - "Amid Megyn Kelly’s controversial remarks about blackface on Halloween, a video has resurfaced of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel wearing blackface and seemingly mocking black athletes"
Oscars Host Jimmy Kimmel Calls for 'Night of Positivity' — Then Lets Loose With Political Jabs
Critics: Will Smith Too Light-Skinned to Play Serena Williams' Father - "The new film King Richard is facing allegations of “colorism,” as critics say that actor Will Smith’s lighter skin tone does not match the actual skin tone of the character he is cast to play."
Obama wasn't black enough either
The white-black theatre director - "Lennon has described himself as a ‘mixed heritage individual’, arguing that ‘racial identity is not always black and white’ and that ‘everybody on the planet is African. It’s your choice as to whether you accept it.’ Dolezal has claimed ‘the idea of race is a lie’. ‘What I believe about race is that race is not real’, she said, ‘it’s not a biological reality. It’s a hierarchical system that was created to leverage power and privilege between different groups of people.’... Swap the words white and black for man and woman and Dolezal and Lennon would be celebrated for bravery and for challenging convention... Today’s identity politics means that the biologically arbitrary differences of race are seen as rigid and entrenched. The old slogan ‘one race, the human race’ is considered by many radicals to be a racist denial of difference and privilege. Now, hairstyles, music and clothes are all firmly demarcated as belonging to one racial group or another and no transgressions are permitted. At the same time, the scientific reality of sex differences is seen as a random act of violence that should count for nothing. How people identify, how they dress and look, is all that counts in defining what makes a man and a woman. The upshot of all this is not a looser, more liberal view of what men and women can be, but the opposite: a more conservative division between people. Denying the rigidity of racial divisions and the flexibility of gender divisions are both crimes in the eyes of today’s identitarians. Dolezal was accused of being a ‘race faker’."
Since race is, we are told, a biological myth and it's socially constructed, why the outrage when people identify as a different race?
Offence culture only knows how to destroy, not create
Gucci withdraws jumper after 'blackface' backlash - "Luxury fashion brand Gucci has withdrawn a woollen jumper from sale after the item was criticised for "resembling blackface.""
All black clothes should be banned
Katy Perry: shoes evoking blackface face criticism
People Are Complaining That Charcoal Face Masks Are Blackface And Racist
'New York Times' Takes On 'Blackface' In 'Mary Poppins' - "The 1964 adaptation of "Mary Poppins" starring iconic actors Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke includes a scene wherein the magical nanny gets soot on her pristine face. Andrews, playing Poppins, powders her face with more soot and leads the Banks children and Van Dyke, playing a charming chimney sweep named Bert, on a march across London rooftops.Pollack-Pelzner reluctantly admits that the scene is innocuous enough, though he ties it to roots of blackface and accuses "Mary Poppins Returns" of evoking minstrelsy and keeping with supposed Disney tradition."
Blackface in this Phoenix restaurant's photo? That's what I see - "Friends said, “It’s coal miners at a pub after work.” It was a photograph of coal miners with blackened faces. I asked a Latinx and white woman for their opinion. They said it looked like coal miners at a pub after work. Then they stepped back, frowned and said it’s men in blackface... At the downtown Phoenix restaurant, my concern that the photograph of men in blackface was a threat to me and my face and voice were ignored.A business’ photograph of men with blackened faces culturally says to me, “Whites Only.” It says people like me are not welcome."
Class privilege means mocking coal miners who risked their lives and didn't have time to clean up
Mark Herring and the Grey Zones of Blackface - "Perhaps there is a difference between blacking up to mock black people, as the person pictured on Northam’s yearbook page seems to have done, and blacking up in affectionate imitation of a black person, as part of seeking to resemble said person, as Herring did. One indication that the latter is reasonable is that it was common among highly enlightened people in times hardly as removed from ours as Al Jolson and The Birth of a Nation... two female friends, one white and one black, “switched” races for the night. The black one wore whiteface and the white one wore blackface. Not with an Afro wig or big red lips, but thoroughly blacked up. I believe she wore a head scarf, which could be seen as a “black” garment under the circumstances. Their idea was to ridicule the very idea of racial categories. They went about with an ironic air, the black one chirping “I’m white!” and the white one chirping “I’m black!” Yet the black woman was what we would today term a highly woke individual. And no one chided the white one for, say, failing to attend to the fact that blackness is not just a matter of skin tone but of grappling with the coded hostilities baked into a fundamentally racist society. She was read as making a little joke, a wise one, even—and remember, this was a dorm full of people voting for Mondale, renowned (and often ridiculed) for being gay-friendly in a way alien to most of the campus beyond at the time, very comfortably interracial, replete with international students and all manner of the “different,” and professionally intolerant of the repressive, bigoted world of Reagan’s America beyond our dorm doors... The idea, apparently, is that whenever any white person puts on brown makeup, it can be read as a salute to, or at least not attendant to, the brutally dismissive blackface practices of minstrel performers from the 19th century well into the 20th. To wear blackface is to condone white men prancing around onstage talking in cartoonish syntax and promulgating an idea that the essence of blackness is resounding ignorance, sexual rapacity, and buffoonery.But minstrelsy was a very long time ago now. Ever fewer people now living experienced it live. While we must never return to minstrel-style hijinks, does it really make sense, does it really serve a purpose, to ban anyone ever putting on brown makeup as part of mimicking a person of color regardless of his or her intent? Must we really have it that a white person dressing as a black person must do it with his or her own pale skin on view? The likely outcome will be a tacit societal rule that black Americans are the only people in the country who are never to be imitated, even in praise, except by other black people. And what purpose would that glum, peculiar stricture serve?... Much of this special kind of vigilance, which leaves many people who thought of themselves as on the barricades a few years ago scratching their head, can be seen as a quest for power. To get someone fired from his job and publicly shamed for, say, having blacked up to dress as a black pop artist 40 years ago is to wield force, to have an effect; it is a kind of whip held at one’s side. If we not only ban brown makeup even as part of an affectionate costume, but also declare that past use of brown makeup is sufficient for banishment from polite society, then we lay claim to a wisdom that people just a few years ago lacked, and accuse the recent past of deep ignorance"
The Independent - Posts - "'What is blackfishing? The influencers accused of using makeup to 'pretend' to be black'
'Blackfishing' is a new, worrying trend online"
These are the same people who bash those who are concerned about trans people because trans people are not hurting anyone
Comments: "Is it worrying? I mean, who is worried? Syria, worrying. Climate change, worrying. Plastic in oceans, worrying. US new alignment with dictatorships, worrying. Refugee crisis, worrying. Ongoing poverty & starvation etc, worrying. White women taking selfies with the wrong shade of makeup, distinctly not worrying."
"Can we drop the word influencer to describe women who take selfies and get paid to promote skinny tea ?"
"Well i guess we should get offended by Geisha make up and clowns and any black person lightening their skin, or straightening their hair..?? Seriously .. as stupid as this comment sounds, is how stupid this post is,let people be who they want"
"Does Michael Jackson fall into the category for white fishing ?"
"This does smack of a bit of a double standard here. First there is criticism that western beauty standards are too white. Then when people recognise the beauty of black women and wish to emulate that beauty, it’s not appropriate and comes from a place of white privilege. Perhaps I’m ignorant but acknowledging the beauty of women from different backgrounds to ourselves is surely a good thing?"
"You should come to Italy from may to september and see how many italians do their best to look like ebony on the beach "
"What about those who get a tan? Are they ‘brownfishing’? 🤦"
"idiotfishing is a more worrying trend people online pretending to have a valid point."
"Stop.Seriously.No one cares. For people who are supposedly about letting people be what they identify as--- they seem to be awfully intolerant of people who do exactly that."
"So using white makeup is white privilege, using darker make-up is blackfishing, getting tan is insulting to the aborigen people, get you hair straight is coping asian culture, if I draw a black point on my chin Marie Antoniette will come from the ground telling me I'm fking coping the french beauty, if i do rasta i'll be insulting rastafarian and doing afro hair i'm coping africa hair, if I place a pair of cat ears my cat will come to smash my face accusing me of cat fishing. And I can go on and on."
'Saturday Night Live's' Blatant Hypocrisy on Blackface - "for years SNL has apparently considered blackface funny enough that they’ve had white actors don blackface for a sketch... there’s the infamous Jimmy Fallon impersonation of Chris Rock, which aired on SNL back in 2000... You’ll note that Hammond is wearing blackface while sitting next to Kenan Thompson, who, just last night, said on SNL that wearing blackface “was never funny or cool.” Thompson didn’t have a problem actually sitting next to Hammond donning blackface for the sketch. It must have been funny and cool at the time... I suppose Kenan Thompson should have said blackface "is never funny or cool — unless Saturday Night Live does it.""
Jimmy Kimmel Once Dressed Up in Blackface and Mocked Black Athletes - "Amid Megyn Kelly’s controversial remarks about blackface on Halloween, a video has resurfaced of talk show host Jimmy Kimmel wearing blackface and seemingly mocking black athletes"
Oscars Host Jimmy Kimmel Calls for 'Night of Positivity' — Then Lets Loose With Political Jabs
Critics: Will Smith Too Light-Skinned to Play Serena Williams' Father - "The new film King Richard is facing allegations of “colorism,” as critics say that actor Will Smith’s lighter skin tone does not match the actual skin tone of the character he is cast to play."
Obama wasn't black enough either
The white-black theatre director - "Lennon has described himself as a ‘mixed heritage individual’, arguing that ‘racial identity is not always black and white’ and that ‘everybody on the planet is African. It’s your choice as to whether you accept it.’ Dolezal has claimed ‘the idea of race is a lie’. ‘What I believe about race is that race is not real’, she said, ‘it’s not a biological reality. It’s a hierarchical system that was created to leverage power and privilege between different groups of people.’... Swap the words white and black for man and woman and Dolezal and Lennon would be celebrated for bravery and for challenging convention... Today’s identity politics means that the biologically arbitrary differences of race are seen as rigid and entrenched. The old slogan ‘one race, the human race’ is considered by many radicals to be a racist denial of difference and privilege. Now, hairstyles, music and clothes are all firmly demarcated as belonging to one racial group or another and no transgressions are permitted. At the same time, the scientific reality of sex differences is seen as a random act of violence that should count for nothing. How people identify, how they dress and look, is all that counts in defining what makes a man and a woman. The upshot of all this is not a looser, more liberal view of what men and women can be, but the opposite: a more conservative division between people. Denying the rigidity of racial divisions and the flexibility of gender divisions are both crimes in the eyes of today’s identitarians. Dolezal was accused of being a ‘race faker’."
Since race is, we are told, a biological myth and it's socially constructed, why the outrage when people identify as a different race?
Post ID: 2530121281327822302
Race, ethnic origin or sex as proxies for underlying characteristics and discrimination
"An important question is whether discrimination based on the use of race, ethnic origin or sex as a proxy for underlying characteristics in order to economize on information costs is justifiable under the legal standard for justified discrimination of article ll.—2:103. An efficiency case for justifying statistical discrimination can be made when the costs of forbearing it are higher than the burdens imposed under it. If the costs to forego a particular form of discrimination (in order to comply with non-discrimination laws) are high compared to the burden that that particular discriminatory practice brings, it might be a reason to justify the discriminatory practice on efficiency grounds.
What are the costs of prohibiting the use of sex, race or ethnical origin as a proxy for underlying characteristics? When the costs of making individual assessments are prohibitive, as they often are, prohibiting the use of the sex or race proxy will lead to the substitution of other proxies. And if the new proxies are less efficient than gender or racial or ethnical origin, — as they probably will be, because otherwise they would in all likelihood have been adopted without govemment prodding — prices for all customers will increase because the seller’s costs will be higher. In addition, legal suppression of efficient proxies could lead to an increase in error costs, leading to market inefficiency. To the extent that the prohibited proxy distorts the allocation of resources to those individuals of the discriminated group who have ‘desirable' characteristics. the replacement of that proxy by a new proxy will distort the allocation of resources to those individuals who are disadvantaged by the new proxy. The problem is shifted, not solved. It could only be solved by requiring sellers to ignore statistical correlations between particular traits and unwanted behavior. But if statistical correlations are to be ignored and the costs of making individual assessment are too high, seller may stop trying to distinguish between high-cost and low-cost customers and use a uniform pricing system instead. Under a uniform pricing system, high cost customers benefit at the expense of low cost customers. Some of the buyers who would have bought the product or service when prices or contract terms were differentiated according to their cost characteristics, will stop buying the product, resulting in market inefficiency. These costs need to be balanced against the burdens placed upon the victims of the discriminatory proxy that is the subject of the legal conflict. The primary victims of a firm's policy to use a proxy based on sex, race or ethnical origin are the members of these protected groups whose costs characteristics are not accurately predicted by the discriminatory proxy."
--- Economic Analysis of the DCFR: The work of the Economic Impact Group within CoPECL / Filomena Chirico, Pierre Larouche, Walter de Gruyter
What are the costs of prohibiting the use of sex, race or ethnical origin as a proxy for underlying characteristics? When the costs of making individual assessments are prohibitive, as they often are, prohibiting the use of the sex or race proxy will lead to the substitution of other proxies. And if the new proxies are less efficient than gender or racial or ethnical origin, — as they probably will be, because otherwise they would in all likelihood have been adopted without govemment prodding — prices for all customers will increase because the seller’s costs will be higher. In addition, legal suppression of efficient proxies could lead to an increase in error costs, leading to market inefficiency. To the extent that the prohibited proxy distorts the allocation of resources to those individuals of the discriminated group who have ‘desirable' characteristics. the replacement of that proxy by a new proxy will distort the allocation of resources to those individuals who are disadvantaged by the new proxy. The problem is shifted, not solved. It could only be solved by requiring sellers to ignore statistical correlations between particular traits and unwanted behavior. But if statistical correlations are to be ignored and the costs of making individual assessment are too high, seller may stop trying to distinguish between high-cost and low-cost customers and use a uniform pricing system instead. Under a uniform pricing system, high cost customers benefit at the expense of low cost customers. Some of the buyers who would have bought the product or service when prices or contract terms were differentiated according to their cost characteristics, will stop buying the product, resulting in market inefficiency. These costs need to be balanced against the burdens placed upon the victims of the discriminatory proxy that is the subject of the legal conflict. The primary victims of a firm's policy to use a proxy based on sex, race or ethnical origin are the members of these protected groups whose costs characteristics are not accurately predicted by the discriminatory proxy."
--- Economic Analysis of the DCFR: The work of the Economic Impact Group within CoPECL / Filomena Chirico, Pierre Larouche, Walter de Gruyter
Post ID: 8879418204716128169
Links - 11th June 2019 (1)
Chinese man fails breathalyser on eating durian fruit - "He failed his breathalyser test, but was filmed by police protesting: "I've just eaten durian fruit!" A follow-up blood test proved that there was no alcohol in his system, putting the man in the clear... Pear Video showed a police officer being breathalysed after eating some of the stinky fruit, and confirmed that his alcohol level directly after eating durian was 36mg per 100ml. Three minutes after taking the test, police officer Yu Pengxiang was retested and the breathalyser showed a negative result.Pear Video subsequently warned users against eating the fruit while driving, along with other products that might show a positive result, including certain brands of mouthwash and lychee... This is not the first time that breathalysers have come under scrutiny for showing positive results for non-alcoholic products.In January, an Australian lorry driver went viral with a video showing that eating a hot cross bun could generate a positive reading."
Rain saves Prague witch-burning festival - "Burning witches is a popular tradition, especially among children, and it is of course always sad when they are disappointed... The Prague witch-burning festival is a symbol of getting rid of the cold weather, as the earth welcomes spring.The root of the ceremonial bonfire goes back to pagan times, and it is marked in many central and northern European countries.It is known as Walpurgisnacht in German-speaking countries after Saint Walpurga, who was celebrated by German Christians for fighting pests, rabies and witchcraft... The Czech capital provides the perfect setting for the witch-burning festival, given its history as a centre for black magic going back to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who invited Europe's leading practitioners of the occult to Renaissance Prague"
Women and Men in Sport Performance: The Gender Gap has not Evolved since 1983 - "A stabilization of the gender gap in world records is observed after 1983, at a mean difference of 10.0% ± 2.94 between men and women for all events. The gender gap ranges from 5.5% (800-m freestyle, swimming) to 18.8% (long jump). The mean gap is 10.7% for running performances, 17.5% for jumps, 8.9% for swimming races, 7.0% for speed skating and 8.7% in cycling. The top ten performers’ analysis reveals a similar gender gap trend with a stabilization in 1982 at 11.7%, despite the large growth in participation of women from eastern and western countries, that coincided with later- published evidence of state-institutionalized or individual doping. These results suggest that women will not run, jump, swim or ride as fast as men."
EXCLUSIVE: Website targeting black Americans appears to be elaborate Russian propaganda effort - "shortly after Facebook and Twitter had removed hundreds of accounts attributed to Russian operatives, a statement appeared on the White House’s petition site. Created by “F.B.,” the petition called to “[p]rotect the rights of minorities in Social Media,” complaining that “Facebook, Twitter and Instagram suppress the rights of African American minority by systematically censoring the black free speech [sic].” As evidence, the petition pointed to a handful of “African American pages” recently taken down, including the “Blacktivist” and “WilliamsandKalvin” accounts outed by CNN and The Daily Beast, respectively, for their ties to Russia.The petition, however, listed one other Facebook page taken down: “blackmattersus.mvmnt,” which the petition described as one “of the most popular public pages among the young African Americans.” An Internet archive search reveals that the page, which hasn’t been covered elsewhere, was known as “Black Matters US.”"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Can Labour and the Tories work together? - "‘Venezuela... has it not given you serious doubts about socialism ever working?’
‘No, not socialism. Because I think the mistakes that been made in Venezuela by the Maduro government in particular, have not been socialist at all. I think the mismanagement of their currency and at the same time not really following some of the lines that Chavez was introducing, which about diversifying the economy. I think has been caused a lot of the suffering. I have to say also, the application of sanctions by the US has been particularly, cause of particular hardship too, and you have to learn lessons from that.’"
Maybe it's not just Communism - true socialism has never been tried either
Venezuela Economic Collapse Has Lessons for America's Socialists - "Chavez’s so-called Bolivarian revolution took a peaceful, middle-income country and transformed it into a nightmare that puts the ruinous Soviet Union of the 1980s to shame... The Bolivarian revolution’s defenders often make excuses for the Chavez-Maduro regime by claiming that the country’s penury is the result of outside forces. For example, some argue that it was the fall in oil prices in late 2014 and 2015 that sunk the country. Venezuela is a petrostate — petroleum products constituted about 95 percent of the country’s exports in 2014, so the price decline was naturally a blow.But although lower oil prices undoubtedly made things harder for Venezuela, they can’t be the primary culprit in the collapse. Venezuela stopped releasing many of its economic numbers in 2014. But other petrostates — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Nigeria, Angola and Kuwait — saw their incomes stagnate or even fall after 2014, but they didn’t experience anything remotely like the devastation that has hit Venezuela. Nor did the country come under attack by capitalist powers. Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. did impose sanctions against a few of the country’s officials in 2015, and President George W. Bush refused to sell arms to Venezuela, but these weren’t broad sanctions that had the power to seriously affect the country’s economy. No reactionary armies or bombers devastated Venezuela’s cities; the country’s impoverishment is all of its own making. Venezuela’s critics can also be too sloppy. It’s easy to wave one’s hands and declare that socialism always fails. But Bolivia, another resource-dependent Latin American country, elected a socialist president, Evo Morales, in 2006. And Bolivia has been doing great. The country’s living standards, which had stagnated for 30 years, have grown rapidly and steadily since Morales took power. And at the same time, Bolivia has managed to reduce inequality dramatically... It’s hard to identify the exact policy mistakes that Chavez and Maduro made, but three failures loom large — macroeconomic mismanagement, nationalization of industry and interference in the state-owned oil company"
Venezuelan troops blockade bridge to stop aid from Colombia - "Venezuelan troops have barricaded a bridge on the country’s western border with Colombia in an apparent attempt to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid... Maduro has repeatedly denied his economically devastated country is facing a humanitarian crisis"
It's all the fault of the USA!
U.S. Navy Sends Hospital Ship To Colombia To Treat Venezuelan Migrants - "All told, medical personnel provided free treatment for nearly 5,000 patients (most of them on shore) and performed 116 surgeries for everything from cataracts to hernias to foot defects... "There were power outages in the operating room and no air conditioning," he said. "The clinic kept deteriorating. You can't live in Venezuela anymore.""
Proof of US interference in Venezuela's affairs. No wonder the country is in such a mess
Hugo Chavez in 2008: Venezuelan socialism won't become tyrannical like Russia - "Chavez vows that his path to socialism will avoid the mistakes made in Russia in the early 20th century, which he himself admits was socialism turned tyranny... Ten years after Chavez vowed not to make the same mistakes, Venezuela is a country where people are starving, millions are fleeing, opposition leaders wind up in military prisons, and roving death squads are sent to terrorize people to keep them from protesting the socialist party."
Rub and Tug May Get Canceled Following Scarlett Johansson's Exit - "The future of the Rub & Tug movie is in doubt. Scarlett Johansson had initially been cast to play Dante "Tex" Gill, a massage parlor owner who was a major part of the Pittsburgh crime scene in the 1970s and 80s. Gill's story is complex and seems like something that could have a lot of cinematic value. However, Gill was trans and identified as a man, whereas Johansson is a cisgender woman, which made her casting subject to a lot of criticism from those in the trans and larger LGBTQ community. The actress dropped out of playing Gill as a result of the backlash, but now the movie may not be happening at all."
Diversity and representation mean films don't get made in the end
The fight against clothes line bans - "There is a new protest movement sweeping the US and at its heart are two sticks and a piece of string.Upon the humble clothes line, a battle line has been drawn that embodies a uniquely American clash of ideas about class, liberty and the environment.Rules imposed by community associations and landlords forbid tens of millions of home owners to dry their washing outside because, they say, it's unsightly and even lowers property prices.But a number of clothes line rebels have risked legal action by disobeying these rules, saying it is the duty of Americans to reduce their carbon footprint and leave their energy-hungry tumble dryers idle... "If a buyer goes down a neighbourhood and they see clothes hanging on a line, they would question the lifestyle that they would be buying into, because it might suggest that person can't afford a dryer... A few associations in the UK also restrict line drying, and many British people would endorse the view that clothes flapping in the wind can look unsightly. But it doesn't have the same stigma in the UK, where only 45% of households own a tumble dryer, compared with 79% in the US.For many Americans, clothes lines are an unwanted reminder of a more frugal age... Many people are attracted by the these communities because of the rules governing how they look, he says, and in the same way that many residents don't want to open their curtains - front or back - to see rubbish or an abandoned car, they might not want to see a bunch of laundry hanging on a clothesline either. The same rules prohibit statues, fountains and motor boats."
Why Conservatives Hate Warren's Loan-Debt Relief Plan - "When the Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren put forth a sweeping plan to cancel student debt last week, she also exposed the deep divide between how liberals and conservatives think—and, inadvertently, why liberals often have so much trouble getting their ideas enacted into law.Under the plan that Warren announced, about 42 million Americans would have up to $50,000 in outstanding debts canceled... There is more than one way to decide who is deserving of what.One is by need: Some people have more than they need, and others need more than they have... Still, there are other ways of judging what’s fair. Conservatives tend to value equity, or proportionality, and they see unfairness when people are asked to contribute more than they should expect to receive in return, or when people receive more than they contribute. Consider a hypothetical comparison of two people who graduated from college five years ago with equal amounts of debt. Jessie successfully implemented a plan to pay off the debt in five years, while Sam still has much to repay. Warren’s plan forgives Sam’s debt, but offers nothing to Jessie, despite her industriousness and self-discipline. To add insult to injury, Jessie must contribute tax dollars to the $640 billion fund necessary to forgive outstanding loans, including Sam’s. Pundits on the left often argue, using survey data as evidence, that a majority of Americans hold liberal values. For example, a majority of Americans support specific programs, like Social Security and Medicare, that have been created and defended by Democratic politicians. However, although Social Security and Medicare are motivated by the need principle (they do much to prevent poverty among the elderly), they are also motivated by the equity principle (what people receive in retirement is related to what they contributed while working). In other words, widespread support for such programs does not demonstrate a majority preference for need-minded values.Liberal commentators’ failure to understand these dynamics was evident in the many condescending responses to the Tea Party cry “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” To many liberals, this cry was a simultaneously hilarious and horrifying reminder of the Republicans’ ignorance: OMG, they don’t even realize Medicare is a government program! To me, it was a reminder that Medicare, funded by a payroll tax, is an equitable program, treated rightfully by working people—as in Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper—as the wintertime fruit of their summertime labor. This conservative version of fairness is wired deeply in the human brain, and liberals ignore it at their peril... American liberals looking fondly over their northern border often misunderstand why policies considered left-wing in the United States are so popular in Canada. Middle-class Canadians support their health-care system not because it’s good for the needy, but because it’s good for themselves. When they get angry about threats to their health-care system, it is because they take the threat personally—they are defending their own interests rather than those of some underprivileged stranger."
Stories that prove Marvel actors don’t shy away from challenges while making their films - "MCU actors are also prohibited from engaging in any stunts that are too dangerous... Some actors take pride in the fact that they do their own stunts, and don’t like the idea of sitting on the sidelines while someone else performs a stunt they feel they can do. Marvel doesn’t like to take chances though, because they might need the actor for future movies."
Who’s Your Daddy? - "Many efforts to trace male ancestry using DNA terminate at what geneticists delicately call a “non-paternity event.” According to Bennett Greenspan, whose company, Family Tree DNA, sponsors projects that attempt to link different families to common ancestors, “Any project that has more than 20 or 30 people in it is likely to have an oops in it.”... The problem would not loom so large if non-paternity were rare. But it isn’t. When geneticists do large-scale studies of populations, they sometimes can’t help but learn about the paternity of the research subjects. They rarely publish their findings, but the numbers are common knowledge within the genetics community. In graduate school, genetics students typically are taught that 5 to 15 percent of the men on birth certificates are not the biological fathers of their children. In other words, as many as one of every seven men who proudly carry their newborn children out of a hospital could be a cuckold. Non-paternity rates appear to be substantially lower in some populations. The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, which is based in Salt Lake City, now has a genetic and genealogical database covering almost 100,000 volunteers, with an overrepresentation of people interested in genealogy. The non-paternity rate for a representative sample of its father-son pairs is less than 2 percent. But other reputed non-paternity rates are higher than the canonical numbers. One unpublished study of blood groups in a town in southeastern England indicated that 30 percent of the town’s husbands could not have been the biological fathers of their children... Genetic counselors have been struggling with the issue of non-paternity for years. When a child is born with a genetic disorder, the parents may go to a counselor to learn whether they should try to have more children. If tests reveal that the presumed father of the child is not the biological father, most counselors will tell only the mother. But a vocal minority insists that paternity should be known to all"
Once a Forbidden Tradition, Mummering in Newfoundland Is Alive and Well - "Mummering has its roots in European rituals, but over centuries, isolated Newfoundland developed its own unique variation. Mummers would conceal their faces, bodies, and voices before making the rounds of neighbors’ houses, where hosts tried to identify the increasingly drunken masked figures. On those same nights, a hobby horse, sometimes made from the bones of a real horse, would haunt the streets."
Rain saves Prague witch-burning festival - "Burning witches is a popular tradition, especially among children, and it is of course always sad when they are disappointed... The Prague witch-burning festival is a symbol of getting rid of the cold weather, as the earth welcomes spring.The root of the ceremonial bonfire goes back to pagan times, and it is marked in many central and northern European countries.It is known as Walpurgisnacht in German-speaking countries after Saint Walpurga, who was celebrated by German Christians for fighting pests, rabies and witchcraft... The Czech capital provides the perfect setting for the witch-burning festival, given its history as a centre for black magic going back to Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who invited Europe's leading practitioners of the occult to Renaissance Prague"
Women and Men in Sport Performance: The Gender Gap has not Evolved since 1983 - "A stabilization of the gender gap in world records is observed after 1983, at a mean difference of 10.0% ± 2.94 between men and women for all events. The gender gap ranges from 5.5% (800-m freestyle, swimming) to 18.8% (long jump). The mean gap is 10.7% for running performances, 17.5% for jumps, 8.9% for swimming races, 7.0% for speed skating and 8.7% in cycling. The top ten performers’ analysis reveals a similar gender gap trend with a stabilization in 1982 at 11.7%, despite the large growth in participation of women from eastern and western countries, that coincided with later- published evidence of state-institutionalized or individual doping. These results suggest that women will not run, jump, swim or ride as fast as men."
EXCLUSIVE: Website targeting black Americans appears to be elaborate Russian propaganda effort - "shortly after Facebook and Twitter had removed hundreds of accounts attributed to Russian operatives, a statement appeared on the White House’s petition site. Created by “F.B.,” the petition called to “[p]rotect the rights of minorities in Social Media,” complaining that “Facebook, Twitter and Instagram suppress the rights of African American minority by systematically censoring the black free speech [sic].” As evidence, the petition pointed to a handful of “African American pages” recently taken down, including the “Blacktivist” and “WilliamsandKalvin” accounts outed by CNN and The Daily Beast, respectively, for their ties to Russia.The petition, however, listed one other Facebook page taken down: “blackmattersus.mvmnt,” which the petition described as one “of the most popular public pages among the young African Americans.” An Internet archive search reveals that the page, which hasn’t been covered elsewhere, was known as “Black Matters US.”"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Can Labour and the Tories work together? - "‘Venezuela... has it not given you serious doubts about socialism ever working?’
‘No, not socialism. Because I think the mistakes that been made in Venezuela by the Maduro government in particular, have not been socialist at all. I think the mismanagement of their currency and at the same time not really following some of the lines that Chavez was introducing, which about diversifying the economy. I think has been caused a lot of the suffering. I have to say also, the application of sanctions by the US has been particularly, cause of particular hardship too, and you have to learn lessons from that.’"
Maybe it's not just Communism - true socialism has never been tried either
Venezuela Economic Collapse Has Lessons for America's Socialists - "Chavez’s so-called Bolivarian revolution took a peaceful, middle-income country and transformed it into a nightmare that puts the ruinous Soviet Union of the 1980s to shame... The Bolivarian revolution’s defenders often make excuses for the Chavez-Maduro regime by claiming that the country’s penury is the result of outside forces. For example, some argue that it was the fall in oil prices in late 2014 and 2015 that sunk the country. Venezuela is a petrostate — petroleum products constituted about 95 percent of the country’s exports in 2014, so the price decline was naturally a blow.But although lower oil prices undoubtedly made things harder for Venezuela, they can’t be the primary culprit in the collapse. Venezuela stopped releasing many of its economic numbers in 2014. But other petrostates — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Nigeria, Angola and Kuwait — saw their incomes stagnate or even fall after 2014, but they didn’t experience anything remotely like the devastation that has hit Venezuela. Nor did the country come under attack by capitalist powers. Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. did impose sanctions against a few of the country’s officials in 2015, and President George W. Bush refused to sell arms to Venezuela, but these weren’t broad sanctions that had the power to seriously affect the country’s economy. No reactionary armies or bombers devastated Venezuela’s cities; the country’s impoverishment is all of its own making. Venezuela’s critics can also be too sloppy. It’s easy to wave one’s hands and declare that socialism always fails. But Bolivia, another resource-dependent Latin American country, elected a socialist president, Evo Morales, in 2006. And Bolivia has been doing great. The country’s living standards, which had stagnated for 30 years, have grown rapidly and steadily since Morales took power. And at the same time, Bolivia has managed to reduce inequality dramatically... It’s hard to identify the exact policy mistakes that Chavez and Maduro made, but three failures loom large — macroeconomic mismanagement, nationalization of industry and interference in the state-owned oil company"
Venezuelan troops blockade bridge to stop aid from Colombia - "Venezuelan troops have barricaded a bridge on the country’s western border with Colombia in an apparent attempt to prevent the entry of humanitarian aid... Maduro has repeatedly denied his economically devastated country is facing a humanitarian crisis"
It's all the fault of the USA!
U.S. Navy Sends Hospital Ship To Colombia To Treat Venezuelan Migrants - "All told, medical personnel provided free treatment for nearly 5,000 patients (most of them on shore) and performed 116 surgeries for everything from cataracts to hernias to foot defects... "There were power outages in the operating room and no air conditioning," he said. "The clinic kept deteriorating. You can't live in Venezuela anymore.""
Proof of US interference in Venezuela's affairs. No wonder the country is in such a mess
Hugo Chavez in 2008: Venezuelan socialism won't become tyrannical like Russia - "Chavez vows that his path to socialism will avoid the mistakes made in Russia in the early 20th century, which he himself admits was socialism turned tyranny... Ten years after Chavez vowed not to make the same mistakes, Venezuela is a country where people are starving, millions are fleeing, opposition leaders wind up in military prisons, and roving death squads are sent to terrorize people to keep them from protesting the socialist party."
Rub and Tug May Get Canceled Following Scarlett Johansson's Exit - "The future of the Rub & Tug movie is in doubt. Scarlett Johansson had initially been cast to play Dante "Tex" Gill, a massage parlor owner who was a major part of the Pittsburgh crime scene in the 1970s and 80s. Gill's story is complex and seems like something that could have a lot of cinematic value. However, Gill was trans and identified as a man, whereas Johansson is a cisgender woman, which made her casting subject to a lot of criticism from those in the trans and larger LGBTQ community. The actress dropped out of playing Gill as a result of the backlash, but now the movie may not be happening at all."
Diversity and representation mean films don't get made in the end
The fight against clothes line bans - "There is a new protest movement sweeping the US and at its heart are two sticks and a piece of string.Upon the humble clothes line, a battle line has been drawn that embodies a uniquely American clash of ideas about class, liberty and the environment.Rules imposed by community associations and landlords forbid tens of millions of home owners to dry their washing outside because, they say, it's unsightly and even lowers property prices.But a number of clothes line rebels have risked legal action by disobeying these rules, saying it is the duty of Americans to reduce their carbon footprint and leave their energy-hungry tumble dryers idle... "If a buyer goes down a neighbourhood and they see clothes hanging on a line, they would question the lifestyle that they would be buying into, because it might suggest that person can't afford a dryer... A few associations in the UK also restrict line drying, and many British people would endorse the view that clothes flapping in the wind can look unsightly. But it doesn't have the same stigma in the UK, where only 45% of households own a tumble dryer, compared with 79% in the US.For many Americans, clothes lines are an unwanted reminder of a more frugal age... Many people are attracted by the these communities because of the rules governing how they look, he says, and in the same way that many residents don't want to open their curtains - front or back - to see rubbish or an abandoned car, they might not want to see a bunch of laundry hanging on a clothesline either. The same rules prohibit statues, fountains and motor boats."
Why Conservatives Hate Warren's Loan-Debt Relief Plan - "When the Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren put forth a sweeping plan to cancel student debt last week, she also exposed the deep divide between how liberals and conservatives think—and, inadvertently, why liberals often have so much trouble getting their ideas enacted into law.Under the plan that Warren announced, about 42 million Americans would have up to $50,000 in outstanding debts canceled... There is more than one way to decide who is deserving of what.One is by need: Some people have more than they need, and others need more than they have... Still, there are other ways of judging what’s fair. Conservatives tend to value equity, or proportionality, and they see unfairness when people are asked to contribute more than they should expect to receive in return, or when people receive more than they contribute. Consider a hypothetical comparison of two people who graduated from college five years ago with equal amounts of debt. Jessie successfully implemented a plan to pay off the debt in five years, while Sam still has much to repay. Warren’s plan forgives Sam’s debt, but offers nothing to Jessie, despite her industriousness and self-discipline. To add insult to injury, Jessie must contribute tax dollars to the $640 billion fund necessary to forgive outstanding loans, including Sam’s. Pundits on the left often argue, using survey data as evidence, that a majority of Americans hold liberal values. For example, a majority of Americans support specific programs, like Social Security and Medicare, that have been created and defended by Democratic politicians. However, although Social Security and Medicare are motivated by the need principle (they do much to prevent poverty among the elderly), they are also motivated by the equity principle (what people receive in retirement is related to what they contributed while working). In other words, widespread support for such programs does not demonstrate a majority preference for need-minded values.Liberal commentators’ failure to understand these dynamics was evident in the many condescending responses to the Tea Party cry “Keep your government hands off my Medicare!” To many liberals, this cry was a simultaneously hilarious and horrifying reminder of the Republicans’ ignorance: OMG, they don’t even realize Medicare is a government program! To me, it was a reminder that Medicare, funded by a payroll tax, is an equitable program, treated rightfully by working people—as in Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper—as the wintertime fruit of their summertime labor. This conservative version of fairness is wired deeply in the human brain, and liberals ignore it at their peril... American liberals looking fondly over their northern border often misunderstand why policies considered left-wing in the United States are so popular in Canada. Middle-class Canadians support their health-care system not because it’s good for the needy, but because it’s good for themselves. When they get angry about threats to their health-care system, it is because they take the threat personally—they are defending their own interests rather than those of some underprivileged stranger."
Stories that prove Marvel actors don’t shy away from challenges while making their films - "MCU actors are also prohibited from engaging in any stunts that are too dangerous... Some actors take pride in the fact that they do their own stunts, and don’t like the idea of sitting on the sidelines while someone else performs a stunt they feel they can do. Marvel doesn’t like to take chances though, because they might need the actor for future movies."
Who’s Your Daddy? - "Many efforts to trace male ancestry using DNA terminate at what geneticists delicately call a “non-paternity event.” According to Bennett Greenspan, whose company, Family Tree DNA, sponsors projects that attempt to link different families to common ancestors, “Any project that has more than 20 or 30 people in it is likely to have an oops in it.”... The problem would not loom so large if non-paternity were rare. But it isn’t. When geneticists do large-scale studies of populations, they sometimes can’t help but learn about the paternity of the research subjects. They rarely publish their findings, but the numbers are common knowledge within the genetics community. In graduate school, genetics students typically are taught that 5 to 15 percent of the men on birth certificates are not the biological fathers of their children. In other words, as many as one of every seven men who proudly carry their newborn children out of a hospital could be a cuckold. Non-paternity rates appear to be substantially lower in some populations. The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, which is based in Salt Lake City, now has a genetic and genealogical database covering almost 100,000 volunteers, with an overrepresentation of people interested in genealogy. The non-paternity rate for a representative sample of its father-son pairs is less than 2 percent. But other reputed non-paternity rates are higher than the canonical numbers. One unpublished study of blood groups in a town in southeastern England indicated that 30 percent of the town’s husbands could not have been the biological fathers of their children... Genetic counselors have been struggling with the issue of non-paternity for years. When a child is born with a genetic disorder, the parents may go to a counselor to learn whether they should try to have more children. If tests reveal that the presumed father of the child is not the biological father, most counselors will tell only the mother. But a vocal minority insists that paternity should be known to all"
Once a Forbidden Tradition, Mummering in Newfoundland Is Alive and Well - "Mummering has its roots in European rituals, but over centuries, isolated Newfoundland developed its own unique variation. Mummers would conceal their faces, bodies, and voices before making the rounds of neighbors’ houses, where hosts tried to identify the increasingly drunken masked figures. On those same nights, a hobby horse, sometimes made from the bones of a real horse, would haunt the streets."
Post ID: 8005973148107331689
Monday, June 10, 2019
Links - 10th June 2019 (2)
Stop bias against Brexit or face fine, BBC warned - "The BBC will face sanctions and fines from its new regulator unless it ends its Brexit bias, a former Culture Secretary and architect of the Royal Charter has warned.John Whittingdale, a Conservative MP, said that he is concerned that the corporation is "constantly looking for negatives and highlighting the challenges" of Brexit.He warned that if the corporation's negative coverage persists MPs could "escalate" their complaints to Ofcom... more than 70 MPs wrote to the corporation warning that its "perverse and skewed" coverage risks undermining Brexit... The MPs, who included 60 from the Conservative Party, accused the corporation of portraying the UK as a "xenophobic" nation that regrets the vote to leave the EU.They say that the corporation has failed to "break out of pre-referendum pessimism" and accept the "economic good news" the UK has enjoyed since the referendum."
From 2017
New definition of Islamophobia ‘risks helping terrorists’ | News | The Times - "A report by a former head of antiterrorism at Scotland Yard says that terrorist plots are more likely to succeed if Theresa May adopts a new definition of Islamophobia.Richard Walton says that the police, security services, prosecutors, judges and prisons would be labelled “institutionally Islamophobic” if the government bowed to pressure from MPs to broaden the meaning of racism to include anyone targeting “Muslimness”.The power to prosecute hate preachers such as Anjem Choudary for encouraging support for Islamic State would be adversely affected... Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, have adopted the definition... Lord Carlile of Berriew, the former reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: “Successful and accepted counterterrorism measures would run the risk of being declared unlawful.”"
Government rejects controversial definition of Islamophobia after warning from terror police
Islam can’t be the only faith above criticism | Comment | The Times - "In 1977, however, the related and long-dormant offence of “blasphemous libel” was successfully revived after the publication in Gay News of an erotic poem about Christ. Hilarity and indignation greeted the verdict. Blasphemous libel was never revived again... MPs were right to abolish the crime of blasphemy against Christianity in 2008. They should be on guard against the return of this thinking, clad in the robes of another faith"
Instead Of Islamophobia, We Should Focus On Defining Anti-Muslim Hatred - "The individuals most at risk of potential policing of ‘Muslimness’, criticisms of Islam, or countering Islamism are Muslims themselves. These include Muslims who are labelled not devoutly Muslim enough, Muslims who belong to minority Islamic groups, Muslims who openly criticize aspects of the Islamic practice or work on countering Islamism, and ex-Muslims who have publicly chosen to leave the Islamic faith. There are plenty of examples of these cases, and a 2008 report by Douglas Murray profiled the death threats and intimidation that Muslim politicians, journalists, activists, writers, and artists within European communities faced when openly expressing their opinions on Islam or leaving the Islamic faith. In the majority of these cases, while individuals wanted to continue to be vocal about their opinions, they were forced to go into hiding or accept 24-hour police protection. Some of them did not receive any assistance from the State, due to a lack of understanding of blasphemy laws, or an attitude that this was a ‘cultural problem’ best addressed by the Muslim community itself. Some more recent attacks include those on Sara Khan – the Counter Extremism Commissioner – who has received death threats and was accused of being a ‘traitor’ to her religion for her work on highlighting Islamist extremism. Similarly, my old colleague Maajid Nawaz received death threats after tweeting a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. Baroness Warsi – who has been leading the work on defining Islamophobia – was pelted with eggs by protesters linked to Al Muhajiroun during a visit to Luton, due to claims that she “purports to be a Muslim”. The phenomenon of hatred, intimidation, and violence directed against Muslims by other Muslims is a serious challenge, and the current definition of Islamophobia fails to address the hatred that some British Muslims face from other Muslims. This includes those Muslims belonging to minority strands of the faith who are subjected to discrimination, particularly Ahmaddiya Muslims who have faced ongoing persecution, and Shia Muslims in Britain who have similarly suffered incitement from other Muslims. Individuals of a Muslim background who determine that they no longer believe in the Islamic faith are routinely branded as ‘apostates’ by extremists, and face being shunned by members of their communities. In particularly serious cases, British Muslims who leave Islam have had their lives threatened"
15 Years Later, No One’s Matched 'LOTR’s Battle at Helm’s Deep - "The battle at Helm’s Deep is the 40-minute war scene that serves as the climax for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It was cut from 20 hours of footage, which, in total, took 120 days to film (by comparison, the entirety of Star Wars: The Last Jedi took 110 days to film). In other words, it took about a month of work to make 10 minutes of Helm’s Deep. Ten years later, you can still feel every ounce of that effort. It’s a spectacular, and still unmatched, cinematic sequence.Helm’s Deep is heralded as one of the greatest battles ever put into a movie. Its scale is off the charts, its emotion is legitimate, and the dual mechanics of its showmanship and storytelling never clash. Really, the greatness of Helm’s Deep reflects the greatness of the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a whole. The battle’s technical mastery, sweeping spectacle and tonal balance double as the legacy for the series itself... The linchpin of the battle, though, and what makes it such a benchmark in movie history, is how it serves Two Towers beyond just being something cool to look at. As the major players clash on the battlefield, they change. Theoden, King of Rohan (the good guys at Helm’s Deep), begins the battle cowering behind the walls of his stronghold, but as the Uruk-hai (the bad guys) breach the gates, he rediscovers his leadership prowess and rides out, sword aloft, to enter the battle himself. It’s the culmination of an arc that began nearly three hours of movie ago, and the aftermath of this courageous stand would color Theoden’s character for the rest of the series... Hollywood operates on a “more is better” thesis now—more explosions, cameos and costumed heroes—but that forgets the more essential half of the Helm’s Deep experience."
Harvard Student Submits Rap Album As A Thesis And Receives Honors - "Harvard student Obasi Shaw channeled the consciousness of Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper into a thesis that is pretty legendary.Shaw, an English major, has become the first Harvard student to create a rap album as a senior thesis. His album is dedicated to the plight of black Americans and takes inspiration from both classic literature like Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and sociopolitical commentary from Chance and Kendrick... “Some people don’t consider rap a high art form,” Shaw said. “But poetry and rap are very similar. Rhyming poems were very common in old English poetry.”"
Down goes the value of a Harvard degree
Somehow I doubt a submission in the form of a poem would've been accepted
SJW Paradox anti-sjw - Posts - ""*Wearing Che Guevara shirt* How dare people idolize this horrible racist! *Trump*"
""The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations." - Che Guevara, 1952""
Teen suicide rates spiked after debut of Netflix show '13 Reasons Why,' study says - "The rate of suicide among US boys ages 10 to 17 surged in the month after the Netflix show "13 Reasons Why" premiered in March 2017... "Youth may be particularly susceptible to suicide contagion"... Another recent study found that students who watched the full second season of the show were less likely to report self-harm and thoughts of ending their lives than students who didn't watch "13 Reasons Why" at all, potentially because the characters come together and discuss suicide. Students who didn't watch the entire second season had a higher risk of future suicide, according to the results"
The Children of Flint Were Not ‘Poisoned’ (NYT) - "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now considers a blood lead level in children of 5 micrograms per deciliter and higher to be a “reference level.” This measure is intended to identify children at higher risk and set off communitywide prevention activities. It does not suggest that a child needs medical treatment. In fact, the C.D.C. recommends medical treatment only for blood lead levels at or above 45 micrograms per deciliter. Not a single child in Flint tested this high... Nonetheless, the reference level has been misinterpreted by laypeople — and even public health officials — as a poisoning threshold... just 20 years ago, nearly 45 percent of young children in Michigan had blood lead levels above the current reference level. If we are to be consistent in the labeling of Flint children as “poisoned,” what are we to make of the average American who was a child in the 1970s or earlier? Answer: He has been poisoned and is brain-damaged. And poisoned with lead levels far above, and for a greater period, than those observed in Flint. People were understandably dismayed by the government’s apparent failure to act quickly to switch back the water once concerns were raised in Flint. But based on this more comprehensive view of the data, we are forced to admit that the furor over this issue seems way out of proportion to the actual dangers to the children from lead exposure... lead exposure is not one city’s problem, but the entire nation’s."
BBC World Service - The World This Week, The miracle of Notre Dame - "When I was a student there in 2002, you didn't see many women wearing the headscarf [in Indonesia], for example. People didn't talk so much about joining prayer events at campus. But now if you return to those same campuses in Jogjakarta, the students today and Java, Islam is a very big part of young Indonesian people's lives. There’s prayer meetings, there’s events, most young Indonesian women are wearing the headscarf. So it has definitely moved Indonesians as they tap on to social media looking at the other Muslim countries. And because of course, we've seen also an incredible amount of money coming in from Saudi Arabia into Indonesia's education system. And they've been told that their kind of Islam, the Islam in Indonesia that's a real mix between Buddhism, Hinduism, animism, that existed for so long, isn't really the true Islam. And we are seeing kind of rising conservatism in terms of moral issues, in terms of cracking down on the LGBT community that was accepted, or questions about alcohol now not being able to be sold in many markets when before you could go and get a beer after work at a mini market...
Indonesia, I think is one of the countries that has the most public holidays, because every religion in the country gets to have their holy days celebrated. And the founding fathers of Indonesia were very clear on this. And even in town planning across the country, they used to make sure that there was a mosque and a church next to each other so that the communities would mix and that is a great pride of Indonesia pancasila, and that is not being challenged fully at the moment."
BBC World Service - The World This Week, People power topples Sudan president - "Here in South Asia, politics has traditionally been a family business. The region seems to love its dynasties. Pakistan has the Bhuttos and the Sharifs. Bangladesh’s politics are still dominated by the families of its founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the man who replaced him, General Ziaur Rahman... When I asked supporters of the Congress party here, if they can imagine their party being run by a non Gandhi, they look at me like I'm mad… How can you even ask a question like that? Before I can reply he adds: they’ve given everything to this country. Indira and Rajiv Gandhi both laid down their lives for India. The two who were former prime ministers were both assassinated"
Controversial research fellow Noah Carl dismissed by St Edmund’s - "St Edmund’s has terminated the research fellowship of Dr Noah Carl following an investigation into his research work... Commenting on the College's decision, an Eddie's student involved in the protests said, “students have persistently protested, in imaginative ways, at Friday formals, outside council meetings, in the lawns, in the Kings Parade. The credit should go to the resilient spirit of the student body at St Edmunds, and to various student groups across Cambridge who stood with them in solidarity.”In the Master’s email this evening, Bullock wrote: “I apologise unreservedly for the hurt and offence felt by all members of the Combination Room. Diversity and inclusivity are fundamental values of the College and we abhor racism and religious hatred. There are lessons we must learn about how we demonstrate the importance of these values and we will take action to repair the damage that has been caused to our College community."
So much for academic freedom
Noah Carl: An Update on the Young Scholar Fired by a Cambridge College for Thoughtcrime - "We published supportive comments by Jonathan Haidt, Jeffrey Flier, Cass Sunstein, Tyler Cowan, Jeff McMahan and Peter Singer... Since then, Noah has received widespread support from a variety of sources. The Spectator has taken up his cause, as has Spiked Online, the Daily Telegraph and the Times of London, which ran an editorial in defense of academic freedom... The reason Carl’s research has provoked such controversy is because it has touched on the link between genes and intelligence, but as he points out in the FAQ everything he has written on the subject is supported by mainstream science... 'the contribution of genes to variation in human intelligence has been widely accepted by psychologists since at least 1996, when the report ‘Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns’ was published by the American Psychological Association (APA). This report, co-authored by Ulric Neisser and his colleagues in the aftermath of The Bell Curve debate, concluded that “a sizable part of the variation in intelligence test scores is associated with genetic differences among individuals.” Evidence for a genetic contribution to variation in human intelligence has only strengthened since the publication of the APA report.'"
From 2017
New definition of Islamophobia ‘risks helping terrorists’ | News | The Times - "A report by a former head of antiterrorism at Scotland Yard says that terrorist plots are more likely to succeed if Theresa May adopts a new definition of Islamophobia.Richard Walton says that the police, security services, prosecutors, judges and prisons would be labelled “institutionally Islamophobic” if the government bowed to pressure from MPs to broaden the meaning of racism to include anyone targeting “Muslimness”.The power to prosecute hate preachers such as Anjem Choudary for encouraging support for Islamic State would be adversely affected... Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, have adopted the definition... Lord Carlile of Berriew, the former reviewer of terrorism legislation, said: “Successful and accepted counterterrorism measures would run the risk of being declared unlawful.”"
Government rejects controversial definition of Islamophobia after warning from terror police
Islam can’t be the only faith above criticism | Comment | The Times - "In 1977, however, the related and long-dormant offence of “blasphemous libel” was successfully revived after the publication in Gay News of an erotic poem about Christ. Hilarity and indignation greeted the verdict. Blasphemous libel was never revived again... MPs were right to abolish the crime of blasphemy against Christianity in 2008. They should be on guard against the return of this thinking, clad in the robes of another faith"
Instead Of Islamophobia, We Should Focus On Defining Anti-Muslim Hatred - "The individuals most at risk of potential policing of ‘Muslimness’, criticisms of Islam, or countering Islamism are Muslims themselves. These include Muslims who are labelled not devoutly Muslim enough, Muslims who belong to minority Islamic groups, Muslims who openly criticize aspects of the Islamic practice or work on countering Islamism, and ex-Muslims who have publicly chosen to leave the Islamic faith. There are plenty of examples of these cases, and a 2008 report by Douglas Murray profiled the death threats and intimidation that Muslim politicians, journalists, activists, writers, and artists within European communities faced when openly expressing their opinions on Islam or leaving the Islamic faith. In the majority of these cases, while individuals wanted to continue to be vocal about their opinions, they were forced to go into hiding or accept 24-hour police protection. Some of them did not receive any assistance from the State, due to a lack of understanding of blasphemy laws, or an attitude that this was a ‘cultural problem’ best addressed by the Muslim community itself. Some more recent attacks include those on Sara Khan – the Counter Extremism Commissioner – who has received death threats and was accused of being a ‘traitor’ to her religion for her work on highlighting Islamist extremism. Similarly, my old colleague Maajid Nawaz received death threats after tweeting a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed. Baroness Warsi – who has been leading the work on defining Islamophobia – was pelted with eggs by protesters linked to Al Muhajiroun during a visit to Luton, due to claims that she “purports to be a Muslim”. The phenomenon of hatred, intimidation, and violence directed against Muslims by other Muslims is a serious challenge, and the current definition of Islamophobia fails to address the hatred that some British Muslims face from other Muslims. This includes those Muslims belonging to minority strands of the faith who are subjected to discrimination, particularly Ahmaddiya Muslims who have faced ongoing persecution, and Shia Muslims in Britain who have similarly suffered incitement from other Muslims. Individuals of a Muslim background who determine that they no longer believe in the Islamic faith are routinely branded as ‘apostates’ by extremists, and face being shunned by members of their communities. In particularly serious cases, British Muslims who leave Islam have had their lives threatened"
15 Years Later, No One’s Matched 'LOTR’s Battle at Helm’s Deep - "The battle at Helm’s Deep is the 40-minute war scene that serves as the climax for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. It was cut from 20 hours of footage, which, in total, took 120 days to film (by comparison, the entirety of Star Wars: The Last Jedi took 110 days to film). In other words, it took about a month of work to make 10 minutes of Helm’s Deep. Ten years later, you can still feel every ounce of that effort. It’s a spectacular, and still unmatched, cinematic sequence.Helm’s Deep is heralded as one of the greatest battles ever put into a movie. Its scale is off the charts, its emotion is legitimate, and the dual mechanics of its showmanship and storytelling never clash. Really, the greatness of Helm’s Deep reflects the greatness of the Lord of the Rings trilogy as a whole. The battle’s technical mastery, sweeping spectacle and tonal balance double as the legacy for the series itself... The linchpin of the battle, though, and what makes it such a benchmark in movie history, is how it serves Two Towers beyond just being something cool to look at. As the major players clash on the battlefield, they change. Theoden, King of Rohan (the good guys at Helm’s Deep), begins the battle cowering behind the walls of his stronghold, but as the Uruk-hai (the bad guys) breach the gates, he rediscovers his leadership prowess and rides out, sword aloft, to enter the battle himself. It’s the culmination of an arc that began nearly three hours of movie ago, and the aftermath of this courageous stand would color Theoden’s character for the rest of the series... Hollywood operates on a “more is better” thesis now—more explosions, cameos and costumed heroes—but that forgets the more essential half of the Helm’s Deep experience."
Harvard Student Submits Rap Album As A Thesis And Receives Honors - "Harvard student Obasi Shaw channeled the consciousness of Kendrick Lamar and Chance the Rapper into a thesis that is pretty legendary.Shaw, an English major, has become the first Harvard student to create a rap album as a senior thesis. His album is dedicated to the plight of black Americans and takes inspiration from both classic literature like Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and sociopolitical commentary from Chance and Kendrick... “Some people don’t consider rap a high art form,” Shaw said. “But poetry and rap are very similar. Rhyming poems were very common in old English poetry.”"
Down goes the value of a Harvard degree
Somehow I doubt a submission in the form of a poem would've been accepted
SJW Paradox anti-sjw - Posts - ""*Wearing Che Guevara shirt* How dare people idolize this horrible racist! *Trump*"
""The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations." - Che Guevara, 1952""
Teen suicide rates spiked after debut of Netflix show '13 Reasons Why,' study says - "The rate of suicide among US boys ages 10 to 17 surged in the month after the Netflix show "13 Reasons Why" premiered in March 2017... "Youth may be particularly susceptible to suicide contagion"... Another recent study found that students who watched the full second season of the show were less likely to report self-harm and thoughts of ending their lives than students who didn't watch "13 Reasons Why" at all, potentially because the characters come together and discuss suicide. Students who didn't watch the entire second season had a higher risk of future suicide, according to the results"
The Children of Flint Were Not ‘Poisoned’ (NYT) - "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now considers a blood lead level in children of 5 micrograms per deciliter and higher to be a “reference level.” This measure is intended to identify children at higher risk and set off communitywide prevention activities. It does not suggest that a child needs medical treatment. In fact, the C.D.C. recommends medical treatment only for blood lead levels at or above 45 micrograms per deciliter. Not a single child in Flint tested this high... Nonetheless, the reference level has been misinterpreted by laypeople — and even public health officials — as a poisoning threshold... just 20 years ago, nearly 45 percent of young children in Michigan had blood lead levels above the current reference level. If we are to be consistent in the labeling of Flint children as “poisoned,” what are we to make of the average American who was a child in the 1970s or earlier? Answer: He has been poisoned and is brain-damaged. And poisoned with lead levels far above, and for a greater period, than those observed in Flint. People were understandably dismayed by the government’s apparent failure to act quickly to switch back the water once concerns were raised in Flint. But based on this more comprehensive view of the data, we are forced to admit that the furor over this issue seems way out of proportion to the actual dangers to the children from lead exposure... lead exposure is not one city’s problem, but the entire nation’s."
BBC World Service - The World This Week, The miracle of Notre Dame - "When I was a student there in 2002, you didn't see many women wearing the headscarf [in Indonesia], for example. People didn't talk so much about joining prayer events at campus. But now if you return to those same campuses in Jogjakarta, the students today and Java, Islam is a very big part of young Indonesian people's lives. There’s prayer meetings, there’s events, most young Indonesian women are wearing the headscarf. So it has definitely moved Indonesians as they tap on to social media looking at the other Muslim countries. And because of course, we've seen also an incredible amount of money coming in from Saudi Arabia into Indonesia's education system. And they've been told that their kind of Islam, the Islam in Indonesia that's a real mix between Buddhism, Hinduism, animism, that existed for so long, isn't really the true Islam. And we are seeing kind of rising conservatism in terms of moral issues, in terms of cracking down on the LGBT community that was accepted, or questions about alcohol now not being able to be sold in many markets when before you could go and get a beer after work at a mini market...
Indonesia, I think is one of the countries that has the most public holidays, because every religion in the country gets to have their holy days celebrated. And the founding fathers of Indonesia were very clear on this. And even in town planning across the country, they used to make sure that there was a mosque and a church next to each other so that the communities would mix and that is a great pride of Indonesia pancasila, and that is not being challenged fully at the moment."
BBC World Service - The World This Week, People power topples Sudan president - "Here in South Asia, politics has traditionally been a family business. The region seems to love its dynasties. Pakistan has the Bhuttos and the Sharifs. Bangladesh’s politics are still dominated by the families of its founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the man who replaced him, General Ziaur Rahman... When I asked supporters of the Congress party here, if they can imagine their party being run by a non Gandhi, they look at me like I'm mad… How can you even ask a question like that? Before I can reply he adds: they’ve given everything to this country. Indira and Rajiv Gandhi both laid down their lives for India. The two who were former prime ministers were both assassinated"
Controversial research fellow Noah Carl dismissed by St Edmund’s - "St Edmund’s has terminated the research fellowship of Dr Noah Carl following an investigation into his research work... Commenting on the College's decision, an Eddie's student involved in the protests said, “students have persistently protested, in imaginative ways, at Friday formals, outside council meetings, in the lawns, in the Kings Parade. The credit should go to the resilient spirit of the student body at St Edmunds, and to various student groups across Cambridge who stood with them in solidarity.”In the Master’s email this evening, Bullock wrote: “I apologise unreservedly for the hurt and offence felt by all members of the Combination Room. Diversity and inclusivity are fundamental values of the College and we abhor racism and religious hatred. There are lessons we must learn about how we demonstrate the importance of these values and we will take action to repair the damage that has been caused to our College community."
So much for academic freedom
Noah Carl: An Update on the Young Scholar Fired by a Cambridge College for Thoughtcrime - "We published supportive comments by Jonathan Haidt, Jeffrey Flier, Cass Sunstein, Tyler Cowan, Jeff McMahan and Peter Singer... Since then, Noah has received widespread support from a variety of sources. The Spectator has taken up his cause, as has Spiked Online, the Daily Telegraph and the Times of London, which ran an editorial in defense of academic freedom... The reason Carl’s research has provoked such controversy is because it has touched on the link between genes and intelligence, but as he points out in the FAQ everything he has written on the subject is supported by mainstream science... 'the contribution of genes to variation in human intelligence has been widely accepted by psychologists since at least 1996, when the report ‘Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns’ was published by the American Psychological Association (APA). This report, co-authored by Ulric Neisser and his colleagues in the aftermath of The Bell Curve debate, concluded that “a sizable part of the variation in intelligence test scores is associated with genetic differences among individuals.” Evidence for a genetic contribution to variation in human intelligence has only strengthened since the publication of the APA report.'"
Post ID: 312443809248137111
The Tunku's Anti-Malay Racism and Racial Politics in 1960s Malaya
"Lee would later reflect that Tunku ‘was a nice man’, but nevertheless cautioned that
Syed Jaafar Albar, born in Indonesia of Arab descent, was happy to take on the task of hatchet man...
Attacks on Lee Kuan Yew finally came to a head. In a rabid denunciation of Lee in the federal parliament, the extremist Malay politician Dr Mahathir denounced the PAP as ‘pro-Chinese, communist-oriented and positively anti-Malay’ and compared it unfavourably to the MCA by saying that the PAP Chinese were of ‘the insular, selfish and arrogant type of which Mr. Lee is a good example . . . . They are in fact Chinese first, seeing China as the centre of the world and Malaysia as a very poor second’.
In the Federal Malay Parliament, Lee returned Mahathir’s invective with a brilliantly argued riposte in fluent Malay. Lee’s Malay Cabinet colleague Othman Wok, who was present, recorded the event as one of paramount significance:
Even Tunku, in his autobiography Looking Back (1977), acknowledged that this speech was a turning point, the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’.
The divide was both ideological and personal. Tunku and the UMNO leadership were committed to a form of political ‘apartheid’ in which political parties could only represent their racial communities. UMNO was in the process of constructing a political and economic system which was to be skewed in perpetuity in favour of the ‘bumi’ Malays, against the significant Chinese and Indian minorities. For the Chinese community, the trade-off would be political stability and the liberty to engage in entrepreneurial activity albeit at a cost in terms of Malay ‘special rights’.
This was not a political structure that Lee could tolerate...
An augury of what was to come was the ultra- nationalist election campaigning of the emerging Dr Mahathir in 1965 who, in addition to bizarrely attacking Lee Kuan Yew’s ‘socialist doctrines’, also hypocritically accused him of ‘Chinese chauvinism’
Also on a personal level, Lee found himself at odds with the leadership of UMNO. Abdul Razak bin Hussein had been in the same year as Lee at Raffles College, but they had not been friends. Lee explained that ‘He was a member of the Malay aristocracy of Penang.’ Though Lee was a Malay speaker, as a Chinese man of relatively humble origins, he was more comfortable in the company of commoners. The discomfort was probably felt on both sides. A Malay friend from Kedah confided to Lee that ‘You Chinese are too energetic and clever for us . . . we cannot stand the pressure.’ In a bizarre piece of self—deprecation and logic, Tunku would argue in the 1960s that ‘. . . because they, the Malays, are not very clever and not good at business, they must be in charge of government departments, the police and the army’.
Intellectually, Lee was in a different league to his Malay political adversaries. By his own admission, Tunku, who was also at Cambridge reading law, spent his time in England on ‘slow’ horses and ‘fast’ women. He got on well with the high Tories such as the aristocratic Douglas Home and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who described him as ‘like a Spanish grandee. That’s his world’. Lee noted with some amusement that Tunku was practically given a degree at Cambridge because he was so lazy and intellectually ill- adept; Tunku also spent six years trying to pass his bar exams. Lee was simply too smart for his Malay political opponents; this alone might not have mattered had Lee not also possessed a public charisma and above all an iron will."
--- Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II / Francis Pike
If Lee Kuan Yew was racist, does this mean the Tunku was too?
There is an interesting parallel with modern identity politics, where racial equality is somehow equated to racism.
he was a Prince who understood power and knew how to use it. He did not carry a big stick, but he had many hatchet—bearers who would do the job for him while he looked the other way and appeared as benign as ever.
Syed Jaafar Albar, born in Indonesia of Arab descent, was happy to take on the task of hatchet man...
Attacks on Lee Kuan Yew finally came to a head. In a rabid denunciation of Lee in the federal parliament, the extremist Malay politician Dr Mahathir denounced the PAP as ‘pro-Chinese, communist-oriented and positively anti-Malay’ and compared it unfavourably to the MCA by saying that the PAP Chinese were of ‘the insular, selfish and arrogant type of which Mr. Lee is a good example . . . . They are in fact Chinese first, seeing China as the centre of the world and Malaysia as a very poor second’.
In the Federal Malay Parliament, Lee returned Mahathir’s invective with a brilliantly argued riposte in fluent Malay. Lee’s Malay Cabinet colleague Othman Wok, who was present, recorded the event as one of paramount significance:
The chamber was very quiet and nobody stirred. The Ministers of Central Government sunk down so low in their seats that only their foreheads could be seen over the desks in front of them. The backbenchers were spellbound. They could understand every word. That was the tuming point. They perceived Lee as a dangerous man who could one day be the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
Even Tunku, in his autobiography Looking Back (1977), acknowledged that this speech was a turning point, the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’.
The divide was both ideological and personal. Tunku and the UMNO leadership were committed to a form of political ‘apartheid’ in which political parties could only represent their racial communities. UMNO was in the process of constructing a political and economic system which was to be skewed in perpetuity in favour of the ‘bumi’ Malays, against the significant Chinese and Indian minorities. For the Chinese community, the trade-off would be political stability and the liberty to engage in entrepreneurial activity albeit at a cost in terms of Malay ‘special rights’.
This was not a political structure that Lee could tolerate...
An augury of what was to come was the ultra- nationalist election campaigning of the emerging Dr Mahathir in 1965 who, in addition to bizarrely attacking Lee Kuan Yew’s ‘socialist doctrines’, also hypocritically accused him of ‘Chinese chauvinism’
Also on a personal level, Lee found himself at odds with the leadership of UMNO. Abdul Razak bin Hussein had been in the same year as Lee at Raffles College, but they had not been friends. Lee explained that ‘He was a member of the Malay aristocracy of Penang.’ Though Lee was a Malay speaker, as a Chinese man of relatively humble origins, he was more comfortable in the company of commoners. The discomfort was probably felt on both sides. A Malay friend from Kedah confided to Lee that ‘You Chinese are too energetic and clever for us . . . we cannot stand the pressure.’ In a bizarre piece of self—deprecation and logic, Tunku would argue in the 1960s that ‘. . . because they, the Malays, are not very clever and not good at business, they must be in charge of government departments, the police and the army’.
Intellectually, Lee was in a different league to his Malay political adversaries. By his own admission, Tunku, who was also at Cambridge reading law, spent his time in England on ‘slow’ horses and ‘fast’ women. He got on well with the high Tories such as the aristocratic Douglas Home and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who described him as ‘like a Spanish grandee. That’s his world’. Lee noted with some amusement that Tunku was practically given a degree at Cambridge because he was so lazy and intellectually ill- adept; Tunku also spent six years trying to pass his bar exams. Lee was simply too smart for his Malay political opponents; this alone might not have mattered had Lee not also possessed a public charisma and above all an iron will."
--- Empires at War: A Short History of Modern Asia Since World War II / Francis Pike
If Lee Kuan Yew was racist, does this mean the Tunku was too?
There is an interesting parallel with modern identity politics, where racial equality is somehow equated to racism.
Post ID: 1387306785553521133
Links - 10th June 2019 (Anti-Semitism/Israel)
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Israel vows to annex West Bank - "‘I really hope that Israel will apply the Israeli laws in the areas of Judea and Samarias.’
‘The West Bank?’
‘Yes, the West Bank. Absolutely.’
‘You want him to press ahead with that promise?’
‘Absolutely. I think this is the only way to bring more stability and actual coexistence between us and the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership failed, it's failed its people as well, you know, stealing their money, abusing their power. Obviously, they weren't able. And you know what the best example is, is probably Gaza. When they were given an autonomy, and instead of building a country and infrastructure and education, they've invested all this money in weapons, in hatred, in war, continuing the war against Israel instead of building something for themselves… this is finally an understanding that the Palestinian leadership refuse to come to agreement or refuse to live side by side with Israelis. And this solution is the only way for us to live side by side’"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Accessing medicine in Gaza - "Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is a terror organization. And there's been plenty of cases in the past where unfortunately, Hamas has abused, cynically abused, patients. Many times without their knowledge. Planting on them explosives, money, other information or devices in order to instigate terror attacks... There's been several cases like this, imagine when you go into hospital carrying a medical tube, and this medical tube actually has an explosive in it. Can you imagine what would happen if it will explode in a hospital?… in 2017, there was a case of two sisters, one of them was a cancer patient, her sister accompanied her. And without their knowledge, there were given medical tubes in which there were explosives. And it was revealed and a great disaster was prevented. There are also interviews with Hamas militants that were arrested in which they are exposing the method then in which they are testifying to this method. Hence security measures need to be taken and we have to be extra vigilant. It's important also to mention the role of the Palestinian Authority in delaying or preventing some of the permits."
If explosives go off in a Palestinian hospital, Israel will surely be blamed
Why Israel Doesn’t Want A War With Gaza - "Simply put, Hamas wants war. It is my experience that when an enemy is so determined to get into an armed conflict, one must be very careful not to give the enemy what they want. Additionally, we have to realize this: those pushing the Hamas buttons are heavily financed by Iran, through the mother group, the Muslim Brotherhood, who is also deeply in bed with Iran... The world has to recognize that if Iran got the war it wanted, it would have been the best thing that could happen for them. To make matters worse, their puppets in Hamas really don’t care how many of my people are killed in the process. That is because their terrorist leaders are millionaires hiding in bunkers. In other words, Hamas didn't have much to lose, while Iran had a lot to gain – and Netanyahu understands this... Egypt conveyed a stern message to Hamas. He told me that the message said the following: “Unless you stop, President Trump will allow Israel to annihilate you”.This scared Hamas to the core, and forced them to agree to the ceasefire. As for Netanyahu, he has risked his public approval ratings and political career for the sake of his nation’s interest. This is true diplomacy and should be supported around the world. As an Arab, Palestinian, Jordanian and a Muslim, I could not help but think how Arab leaders regularly sacrifice their people for political gain while an Israeli leader is risking his entire political career to save his people. Thisbelieve that their leadership has failed to take decisive military action against the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza. is the difference between a politician, and a statesman."
Pallywood: A History - "The term “Pallywood” refers to the staging of scenes by Palestinian journalists in order to present the Palestinians as hapless victims of Israeli aggression. They are able to succeed in this endeavor in large part due to the credulity and eagerness of the Western press to present these images, which reinforce the image of the Palestinian David struggling valiantly against the overpowering Israeli Goliath. Pallywood has led to astonishing lapses in Western journalistic standards in which badly staged scenes regularly appear on the news as “real events.""
Weekly humor: more distortions from Pallywood « Why Evolution Is True - "As we all know, the Palestinian media constantly lies and stages fake incidents for the benefit of the Western press, which buys the fakery uncritically since it fits their narrative (see here and here for lots of examples; these are must-read articles). Palestinian propaganda includes using fake photos (dead infants from Syria rather than Palestine), displaying pictures of Israeli children murdered by terrorists but labeling them as Palestinian children killed by the IDF [they really should have removed the mezuzah from the wall before posting that one!], photos of a dead child depicted as having been killed by Israelis but really killed by a misfired Palestinian rocket, staged photo ops, the conflating of Palestinian civilians with Hamas or other terrorist-group militants, and so on. Because the press is generally Leftist, and one Leftist narrative is that the Israelis are “apartheid staters” and “occupiers”, the press haven’t looked too hard at this stuff, and it’s been up to Israel—and sometimes American right-wing media—to debunk it (see the first two links in this post)... the post (yes, it’s for real) was put up by the Palestinian Information Center (PIC; “the voice of the Palestinian people”) on their Facebook page. As Wikipedia notes, “It’s one of the most viewed website in Palestine.”This is a screen capture (the post has been removed).
"A French doctor arrives in the Gaza Strip to offer medical help to the wounded Palestinian protesters."
Do you recognize the “French doctor?” If you watched “Grey’s Anatomy”, you would. It’s Katherine Heigl!"
Here’s how to talk about Israel without sliding into antisemitism - "1) Be precise in your language.
Avoid saying “Zionist” or “Zionism” when discussing contemporary Israel/Palestine
2) Do not slide from anger at the actions of the Israeli state into asserting that Israel is controlling everything or paying money to MPs, celebrities or the media to act as they do
3) Don’t conflate Israel and Jews
4) Avoid the terms “Israel lobby” and especially “Jewish lobby” unless you also say “Saudi lobby”, “Russian lobby”, “Hindu lobby” and so on. “Supporters of Israel” is safer language.As for “Jewish lobby”, they say “two Jews, three opinions”. The idea of us agreeing enough to form a single lobby is as likely as Theresa May fighting the next election as Tory leader.
5) Don’t accuse Jews of dual loyalty to Israel and the UK (or whichever country), and certainly not of just being loyal to Israel.
6) Don’t compare Israeli actions to the Nazis unless it’s incredibly specific and historically justified (such as a settler calling for Arabs to be gassed). And even then, use extreme caution.
7) Don’t ask every Jew to condemn Israel in every tweet or comment they make. Would you ask every Muslim to condemn Saudi Arabia? I hope, and presume, not."
Little Enthusiasm for Many Muslim Leaders. MIXED VIEWS OF HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH IN LARGELY MUSLIM NATIONS - "In the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed, viewsof Jews are largely unfavorable.Nearly all in Jordan (97%),the Palestinian territories (97%) and Egypt (95%) hold an unfavorable view. Similarly, 98%of Lebanese express an unfavorable opinion of Jews, including 98% among both Sunni and Shia Muslims, as well as 97% of Lebanese Christians. By contrast, only 35%of Israeli Arabs express a negative opinion of Jews, while 56% voice a favorable opinion"
Clearly this is just anti-Zionism
Strange how one of the main 'victim' groups of Jews, Israeli Arabs, is so much more positive to them than other Muslims. Presumably the liberal answer is Stockholm Syndrome
Jeremy Corbyn endorsed book about Jews controlling banks and the press | News | The Times - "In 2011 he agreed to endorse a new edition of JA Hobson’s 1902 book Imperialism: A Study, four years before he was catapulted from backbench obscurity to the Labour leadership."
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Labour's disciplinary process - "Which is more heinous? Denying the Holocaust or voting Liberal Democrat? The Labour Party has got itself in quite a mess with the expulsion of Alastair Campbell for voting Lib Dem, its own MPs pointing out, at least some of them, that people who’ve denied the Holocaust have only been suspended...
[Senior Labour figure under Blair] If it was a offense under the rules, then I suspect thousands, maybe tens of thousands of members of the Labour Party at the European elections broke the rules... how you operate your disciplinary process sends a message as a political party, about the things that you are really concerned about. So if, for example, you took the view that anti semitism was one of the worst things that a political party could do, then you would have streamlined procedures, yes. giving people the opportunity to say for example, it wasn't me that gave that tweet or I was forced into it in some way or I made a mistake. But that doesn't take long. It does not take two years. It takes a matter of weeks"
Pro-Palestine group supported by Corbyn forces Jewish shops to close - "British Jews have spoken of their fear after a pro-Palestine group supported by Jeremy Corbyn forced Jewish-owned shops to close by staging aggressive rallies outside them.The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), of which Mr Corbyn is patron, targeted shops selling Israeli products in Brighton, London and Manchester, forcing two businesses to fold.Earlier this month, it organised a rally in London which saw ‘open anti-Semitism from attendees’, according to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism... It comes as Labour became the only party after the BNP to be formally investigated for racism by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)... The revelations about the PSC will increase the pressure on the Labour leader – who was officially saluted by Hamas last week – as he struggles to contain his party’s anti-Semitism crisis... 'It was a tough period. Other shops closed down and I was weeks away from closing,' he told MailOnline. 'My staff resigned and I was afraid. Activists phoned me every day telling me they would bomb me and kill me. They also told me this to my face.'I had police protection for a long time. I would have to drive round the block three times every day before going home.'The father-of-one added: 'It is so sad that Corbyn is patron of this group. I live in a Jewish community and people are beaten in the streets and pelted with eggs. With Corbyn's support, people feel free to do these things.'...
''Businesses selling Israeli products are given scant attention if they are owned by non-Jews, but if they are owned by Jews they are relentlessly harassed day after day.'...
‘I had 50 people surrounding my stall every Saturday, shouting abuse at my staff and throwing things at us,’ the salesman said.‘There were protests every week. The shopping centres begged the police for help but police said they were protesting lawfully.’Other shops, including Boots and M&S, offered the same products as Mr Ayalon but were not targeted by the protesters.The entrepreneur wrote to the activists to make clear that his products were not from disputed territory, but this made no difference.‘Eventually, I lost faith in being able to make a life once again in Britain,' he said. 'I just couldn’t keep moving to a new city every two years. I had a family to look after.’"
It's all the fault of Zionists!
Rashida Tlaib Misled 'Skullduggery' Listeners on Israel - "Husseini, having fled Palestine during the revolt, helped pro-Nazi generals launch an anti-British rebellion in Iraq in 1941 (which itself engendered a large-scale pogrom against Baghdad’s Jews, the Farhoud). When that rebellion failed, he fled to Berlin, where he was given a villa and a generous monthly salary, and lived in comfort until the end of the world war. During the war, he helped recruit Muslims from the Balkans for the German army and the SS, and in radio broadcasts exhorted Middle Eastern and North African Arabs to launch jihad against the British and “kill the Jews.” (The texts of Husseini’s broadcasts appear in the historian Jeffrey Herf’s book Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World.) Subsequently, Husseini fled Germany and, with the Allies reluctant to trigger Arab anger by trying him for collaboration, settled down in Cairo. In 1947, he rejected the UN partition plan to settle the Palestine conflict and helped launch the first Palestinian and pan-Arab war against the Zionist enterprise. He spent his last years in Lebanon, embittered by the loss of Palestine and the pan-Arab failure to effectively support the Palestinians, and published a series of anti-Semitic articles before his death in 1974... if the Palestinian Arabs ultimately triumph, there is no reason to believe that the equality and justice they would mete out to the minorities they would govern would be any different from that meted out to minorities governed by the neighboring Arab Muslim states... The Zionist side over the decades has repeatedly agreed to a compromise based on partitioning Palestine into two states, one for the Jews, the other for the Arabs—and, just as repeatedly, the Arab side has always rejected the two-state compromise formulas that have been proposed. So it was when the British Peel Commission proposed partition in 1937; so it was when the UN General Assembly proposed partition in November 1947; so it was when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Bill Clinton proposed partition (a two-state solution) in 2000; and so it was when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed partition to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, in 2007–08... a one-state solution, meaning a jointly ruled binational Arab-Jewish state. A handful of Palestinian-Jewish intellectuals advocated such a solution from the 1920s to the 1940s, including Martin Buber and Judah Leib Magnes. But it failed to gain much traction among the Jews (they wanted a “Jewish state,” if only in part of Palestine) and gained no traction at all among Palestine’s Arabs (who demanded all of Palestine, not an inch for the Jews)."
California Dems propose resolution linking Israeli government to massacre at Pittsburgh synagogue - "A draft resolution set to be debated this weekend at the California Democratic Party State Convention, obtained by Fox News, accuses the Israeli government of willfully "aligning with the virulent Islamophobia" of white supremacist groups in the U.S. -- and links Israel indirectly to the Oct. 2018 massacre of 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The resolution could prompt a dramatic floor debate at the convention if the party's Resolutions Committee decides to table it, Fox News is told, as prominent national Democrats have wrestled with high-profile allegations of anti-Semitism in their ranks in recent months... Tentatively titled "Commending the House for resolving to fight all racism and bigotry and for resisting the false conflation of support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism," the resolution blasting Israel's purported role in furthering white supremacy was co-authored by David Mandel, an elected state Assembly delegate and progressive attorney who says he holds dual U.S.-Israel citizenship and lived in Israel for 10 years... "We need to pay more attention to this phenomoneon," Mandel said, referring to the rise of white supremacy and its supporters domestically and abroad. "It's bigger than we thought."Other resolutions set to be debated at the convention, which will conclude on Sunday, include some condemning U.S. policy in Venezuela"
No violence or arrests at Klan rally in Dayton, counterprotesters destroy Israeli flag - "With a ratio of more than one law enforcement officer to one counterprotester, the May 25 rally of nine members of the KKK-affiliated Honorable Sacred Knights of Indiana came and went at Dayton’s Courthouse Square without arrests, violent incidents, citations issued, or use of force by police.Between 500 and 600 counterprotesters — with 720 police officers in their midst — overshouted members of the Madison, Ind.-based Klan at HSK’s 1 to 3 p.m. rally on Saturday... someone posted a series of photos on her Facebook site showing people in the counterprotest area first attempting to burn an Israeli flag, then tearing it and stomping on it... According to Stephanie Hausner, deputy director of the Israel Action Network of Jewish Federations of North America, Students for Justice in Palestine equates Zionists and the KKK as fascists. Native American rights activist Corine Fairbanks of Dayton took the series of photos, which have been widely circulated on social media. Fairbanks posted them at her Facebook page just before the end of the rally and counterrally, with the heading: “More Allies, and Palestinian Relatives, wanting to burn flag – FREE PALESTINE!! Deport the KKK.”"
Certainly a rally of 9 people will be used as evidence that the KKK is active and a major threat today
It's almost as if protesting 'Nazis' is just an excuse to hate on everyone they don't like
Armed neo-Nazis get a police escort to disrupt Detroit Pride. - "A day of fun and celebration took a dark turn when armed Neo-Nazis crashed pride celebrations in Detroit and shouted insults while tearing up a rainbow flag. One man even appears to have urinated on an Israeli flag. And, in a move that angered many, that was all made possible by police who escorted the small group of Neo-Nazis while they disrupted the celebrations and insulted those in attendance... While police say their goal was to keep the Neo-Nazis and those attending Motor City Pride away from each other, many expressed anger that law enforcement officers were making it possible for white supremacists to disrupt pride with hateful messages. “Where was Detroit Police when armed Nazis were marching with their NAZI FLAG shouting Homophobic slurs, anti-black racism, and white nationalism you ask? Serving and Protecting THE NAZIS,” one activist wrote on Twitter. “It’s 2019 and cops are escorting Nazis through a pride celebration. Disgusting”"
I like how suddenly liberals are outraged when "Nazis" do it and use this as proof that the "far right" are dangerous, contemptible and anti-Semtic
Freedom of speech makes liberals angry
The Dyke March Banned Jewish Symbols. Again. - "The Dyke March is perhaps most famous for a 2017 fiasco, when the organizers forcefully removed Jewish women from marching for the crime of holding Jewish pride flags.It’s back, this time for a march in Washington D.C. this Friday. And though the march bills itself as radically inclusive for lesbians of all stripes, it has already made clear that it means all lesbians but the Jewish ones... organizers of the DC Dyke March said they are explicitly forbidding any flags with “national symbols,” including “flags that resemble Israeli flags, such as a pride flag with a Star of David in the middle.” The Palestinian flag, however, will be allowed, in case there was any confusion on that front... The organizers have insisted that their ban is on Zionist symbols, not Jewish ones. But the star of David is one of Judaism’s oldest symbols. It dates back many centuries before the founding of Israel.And what kind of a march bans rainbow Jewish flags while allowing Palestinian flags? LGBTQ people have no rights under the Palestinian Authority and are even killed in Gaza for being open with their identity... think about what it would mean if you asked a Chinese American to condemn China’s internment of Muslims or its occupation of Tibet; it would be obvious that you are racially profiling. If you asked every Muslim what they think of ISIS, it would be clear that you were engaging in Islamophobic behavior. And if you think every public display of Jewish life is connected to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, you’re an anti-Semite... If a rainbow flag with a crescent were banned we would all rightfully condemn that as Islamophobic"
‘The West Bank?’
‘Yes, the West Bank. Absolutely.’
‘You want him to press ahead with that promise?’
‘Absolutely. I think this is the only way to bring more stability and actual coexistence between us and the Palestinians. The Palestinian leadership failed, it's failed its people as well, you know, stealing their money, abusing their power. Obviously, they weren't able. And you know what the best example is, is probably Gaza. When they were given an autonomy, and instead of building a country and infrastructure and education, they've invested all this money in weapons, in hatred, in war, continuing the war against Israel instead of building something for themselves… this is finally an understanding that the Palestinian leadership refuse to come to agreement or refuse to live side by side with Israelis. And this solution is the only way for us to live side by side’"
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Accessing medicine in Gaza - "Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is a terror organization. And there's been plenty of cases in the past where unfortunately, Hamas has abused, cynically abused, patients. Many times without their knowledge. Planting on them explosives, money, other information or devices in order to instigate terror attacks... There's been several cases like this, imagine when you go into hospital carrying a medical tube, and this medical tube actually has an explosive in it. Can you imagine what would happen if it will explode in a hospital?… in 2017, there was a case of two sisters, one of them was a cancer patient, her sister accompanied her. And without their knowledge, there were given medical tubes in which there were explosives. And it was revealed and a great disaster was prevented. There are also interviews with Hamas militants that were arrested in which they are exposing the method then in which they are testifying to this method. Hence security measures need to be taken and we have to be extra vigilant. It's important also to mention the role of the Palestinian Authority in delaying or preventing some of the permits."
If explosives go off in a Palestinian hospital, Israel will surely be blamed
Why Israel Doesn’t Want A War With Gaza - "Simply put, Hamas wants war. It is my experience that when an enemy is so determined to get into an armed conflict, one must be very careful not to give the enemy what they want. Additionally, we have to realize this: those pushing the Hamas buttons are heavily financed by Iran, through the mother group, the Muslim Brotherhood, who is also deeply in bed with Iran... The world has to recognize that if Iran got the war it wanted, it would have been the best thing that could happen for them. To make matters worse, their puppets in Hamas really don’t care how many of my people are killed in the process. That is because their terrorist leaders are millionaires hiding in bunkers. In other words, Hamas didn't have much to lose, while Iran had a lot to gain – and Netanyahu understands this... Egypt conveyed a stern message to Hamas. He told me that the message said the following: “Unless you stop, President Trump will allow Israel to annihilate you”.This scared Hamas to the core, and forced them to agree to the ceasefire. As for Netanyahu, he has risked his public approval ratings and political career for the sake of his nation’s interest. This is true diplomacy and should be supported around the world. As an Arab, Palestinian, Jordanian and a Muslim, I could not help but think how Arab leaders regularly sacrifice their people for political gain while an Israeli leader is risking his entire political career to save his people. Thisbelieve that their leadership has failed to take decisive military action against the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza. is the difference between a politician, and a statesman."
Pallywood: A History - "The term “Pallywood” refers to the staging of scenes by Palestinian journalists in order to present the Palestinians as hapless victims of Israeli aggression. They are able to succeed in this endeavor in large part due to the credulity and eagerness of the Western press to present these images, which reinforce the image of the Palestinian David struggling valiantly against the overpowering Israeli Goliath. Pallywood has led to astonishing lapses in Western journalistic standards in which badly staged scenes regularly appear on the news as “real events.""
Weekly humor: more distortions from Pallywood « Why Evolution Is True - "As we all know, the Palestinian media constantly lies and stages fake incidents for the benefit of the Western press, which buys the fakery uncritically since it fits their narrative (see here and here for lots of examples; these are must-read articles). Palestinian propaganda includes using fake photos (dead infants from Syria rather than Palestine), displaying pictures of Israeli children murdered by terrorists but labeling them as Palestinian children killed by the IDF [they really should have removed the mezuzah from the wall before posting that one!], photos of a dead child depicted as having been killed by Israelis but really killed by a misfired Palestinian rocket, staged photo ops, the conflating of Palestinian civilians with Hamas or other terrorist-group militants, and so on. Because the press is generally Leftist, and one Leftist narrative is that the Israelis are “apartheid staters” and “occupiers”, the press haven’t looked too hard at this stuff, and it’s been up to Israel—and sometimes American right-wing media—to debunk it (see the first two links in this post)... the post (yes, it’s for real) was put up by the Palestinian Information Center (PIC; “the voice of the Palestinian people”) on their Facebook page. As Wikipedia notes, “It’s one of the most viewed website in Palestine.”This is a screen capture (the post has been removed).
"A French doctor arrives in the Gaza Strip to offer medical help to the wounded Palestinian protesters."
Do you recognize the “French doctor?” If you watched “Grey’s Anatomy”, you would. It’s Katherine Heigl!"
Here’s how to talk about Israel without sliding into antisemitism - "1) Be precise in your language.
Avoid saying “Zionist” or “Zionism” when discussing contemporary Israel/Palestine
2) Do not slide from anger at the actions of the Israeli state into asserting that Israel is controlling everything or paying money to MPs, celebrities or the media to act as they do
3) Don’t conflate Israel and Jews
4) Avoid the terms “Israel lobby” and especially “Jewish lobby” unless you also say “Saudi lobby”, “Russian lobby”, “Hindu lobby” and so on. “Supporters of Israel” is safer language.As for “Jewish lobby”, they say “two Jews, three opinions”. The idea of us agreeing enough to form a single lobby is as likely as Theresa May fighting the next election as Tory leader.
5) Don’t accuse Jews of dual loyalty to Israel and the UK (or whichever country), and certainly not of just being loyal to Israel.
6) Don’t compare Israeli actions to the Nazis unless it’s incredibly specific and historically justified (such as a settler calling for Arabs to be gassed). And even then, use extreme caution.
7) Don’t ask every Jew to condemn Israel in every tweet or comment they make. Would you ask every Muslim to condemn Saudi Arabia? I hope, and presume, not."
Little Enthusiasm for Many Muslim Leaders. MIXED VIEWS OF HAMAS AND HEZBOLLAH IN LARGELY MUSLIM NATIONS - "In the predominantly Muslim nations surveyed, viewsof Jews are largely unfavorable.Nearly all in Jordan (97%),the Palestinian territories (97%) and Egypt (95%) hold an unfavorable view. Similarly, 98%of Lebanese express an unfavorable opinion of Jews, including 98% among both Sunni and Shia Muslims, as well as 97% of Lebanese Christians. By contrast, only 35%of Israeli Arabs express a negative opinion of Jews, while 56% voice a favorable opinion"
Clearly this is just anti-Zionism
Strange how one of the main 'victim' groups of Jews, Israeli Arabs, is so much more positive to them than other Muslims. Presumably the liberal answer is Stockholm Syndrome
Jeremy Corbyn endorsed book about Jews controlling banks and the press | News | The Times - "In 2011 he agreed to endorse a new edition of JA Hobson’s 1902 book Imperialism: A Study, four years before he was catapulted from backbench obscurity to the Labour leadership."
BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Labour's disciplinary process - "Which is more heinous? Denying the Holocaust or voting Liberal Democrat? The Labour Party has got itself in quite a mess with the expulsion of Alastair Campbell for voting Lib Dem, its own MPs pointing out, at least some of them, that people who’ve denied the Holocaust have only been suspended...
[Senior Labour figure under Blair] If it was a offense under the rules, then I suspect thousands, maybe tens of thousands of members of the Labour Party at the European elections broke the rules... how you operate your disciplinary process sends a message as a political party, about the things that you are really concerned about. So if, for example, you took the view that anti semitism was one of the worst things that a political party could do, then you would have streamlined procedures, yes. giving people the opportunity to say for example, it wasn't me that gave that tweet or I was forced into it in some way or I made a mistake. But that doesn't take long. It does not take two years. It takes a matter of weeks"
Pro-Palestine group supported by Corbyn forces Jewish shops to close - "British Jews have spoken of their fear after a pro-Palestine group supported by Jeremy Corbyn forced Jewish-owned shops to close by staging aggressive rallies outside them.The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), of which Mr Corbyn is patron, targeted shops selling Israeli products in Brighton, London and Manchester, forcing two businesses to fold.Earlier this month, it organised a rally in London which saw ‘open anti-Semitism from attendees’, according to the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism... It comes as Labour became the only party after the BNP to be formally investigated for racism by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC)... The revelations about the PSC will increase the pressure on the Labour leader – who was officially saluted by Hamas last week – as he struggles to contain his party’s anti-Semitism crisis... 'It was a tough period. Other shops closed down and I was weeks away from closing,' he told MailOnline. 'My staff resigned and I was afraid. Activists phoned me every day telling me they would bomb me and kill me. They also told me this to my face.'I had police protection for a long time. I would have to drive round the block three times every day before going home.'The father-of-one added: 'It is so sad that Corbyn is patron of this group. I live in a Jewish community and people are beaten in the streets and pelted with eggs. With Corbyn's support, people feel free to do these things.'...
''Businesses selling Israeli products are given scant attention if they are owned by non-Jews, but if they are owned by Jews they are relentlessly harassed day after day.'...
‘I had 50 people surrounding my stall every Saturday, shouting abuse at my staff and throwing things at us,’ the salesman said.‘There were protests every week. The shopping centres begged the police for help but police said they were protesting lawfully.’Other shops, including Boots and M&S, offered the same products as Mr Ayalon but were not targeted by the protesters.The entrepreneur wrote to the activists to make clear that his products were not from disputed territory, but this made no difference.‘Eventually, I lost faith in being able to make a life once again in Britain,' he said. 'I just couldn’t keep moving to a new city every two years. I had a family to look after.’"
It's all the fault of Zionists!
Rashida Tlaib Misled 'Skullduggery' Listeners on Israel - "Husseini, having fled Palestine during the revolt, helped pro-Nazi generals launch an anti-British rebellion in Iraq in 1941 (which itself engendered a large-scale pogrom against Baghdad’s Jews, the Farhoud). When that rebellion failed, he fled to Berlin, where he was given a villa and a generous monthly salary, and lived in comfort until the end of the world war. During the war, he helped recruit Muslims from the Balkans for the German army and the SS, and in radio broadcasts exhorted Middle Eastern and North African Arabs to launch jihad against the British and “kill the Jews.” (The texts of Husseini’s broadcasts appear in the historian Jeffrey Herf’s book Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World.) Subsequently, Husseini fled Germany and, with the Allies reluctant to trigger Arab anger by trying him for collaboration, settled down in Cairo. In 1947, he rejected the UN partition plan to settle the Palestine conflict and helped launch the first Palestinian and pan-Arab war against the Zionist enterprise. He spent his last years in Lebanon, embittered by the loss of Palestine and the pan-Arab failure to effectively support the Palestinians, and published a series of anti-Semitic articles before his death in 1974... if the Palestinian Arabs ultimately triumph, there is no reason to believe that the equality and justice they would mete out to the minorities they would govern would be any different from that meted out to minorities governed by the neighboring Arab Muslim states... The Zionist side over the decades has repeatedly agreed to a compromise based on partitioning Palestine into two states, one for the Jews, the other for the Arabs—and, just as repeatedly, the Arab side has always rejected the two-state compromise formulas that have been proposed. So it was when the British Peel Commission proposed partition in 1937; so it was when the UN General Assembly proposed partition in November 1947; so it was when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and President Bill Clinton proposed partition (a two-state solution) in 2000; and so it was when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed partition to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, in 2007–08... a one-state solution, meaning a jointly ruled binational Arab-Jewish state. A handful of Palestinian-Jewish intellectuals advocated such a solution from the 1920s to the 1940s, including Martin Buber and Judah Leib Magnes. But it failed to gain much traction among the Jews (they wanted a “Jewish state,” if only in part of Palestine) and gained no traction at all among Palestine’s Arabs (who demanded all of Palestine, not an inch for the Jews)."
California Dems propose resolution linking Israeli government to massacre at Pittsburgh synagogue - "A draft resolution set to be debated this weekend at the California Democratic Party State Convention, obtained by Fox News, accuses the Israeli government of willfully "aligning with the virulent Islamophobia" of white supremacist groups in the U.S. -- and links Israel indirectly to the Oct. 2018 massacre of 11 congregants at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The resolution could prompt a dramatic floor debate at the convention if the party's Resolutions Committee decides to table it, Fox News is told, as prominent national Democrats have wrestled with high-profile allegations of anti-Semitism in their ranks in recent months... Tentatively titled "Commending the House for resolving to fight all racism and bigotry and for resisting the false conflation of support for Palestinian rights with antisemitism," the resolution blasting Israel's purported role in furthering white supremacy was co-authored by David Mandel, an elected state Assembly delegate and progressive attorney who says he holds dual U.S.-Israel citizenship and lived in Israel for 10 years... "We need to pay more attention to this phenomoneon," Mandel said, referring to the rise of white supremacy and its supporters domestically and abroad. "It's bigger than we thought."Other resolutions set to be debated at the convention, which will conclude on Sunday, include some condemning U.S. policy in Venezuela"
No violence or arrests at Klan rally in Dayton, counterprotesters destroy Israeli flag - "With a ratio of more than one law enforcement officer to one counterprotester, the May 25 rally of nine members of the KKK-affiliated Honorable Sacred Knights of Indiana came and went at Dayton’s Courthouse Square without arrests, violent incidents, citations issued, or use of force by police.Between 500 and 600 counterprotesters — with 720 police officers in their midst — overshouted members of the Madison, Ind.-based Klan at HSK’s 1 to 3 p.m. rally on Saturday... someone posted a series of photos on her Facebook site showing people in the counterprotest area first attempting to burn an Israeli flag, then tearing it and stomping on it... According to Stephanie Hausner, deputy director of the Israel Action Network of Jewish Federations of North America, Students for Justice in Palestine equates Zionists and the KKK as fascists. Native American rights activist Corine Fairbanks of Dayton took the series of photos, which have been widely circulated on social media. Fairbanks posted them at her Facebook page just before the end of the rally and counterrally, with the heading: “More Allies, and Palestinian Relatives, wanting to burn flag – FREE PALESTINE!! Deport the KKK.”"
Certainly a rally of 9 people will be used as evidence that the KKK is active and a major threat today
It's almost as if protesting 'Nazis' is just an excuse to hate on everyone they don't like
Armed neo-Nazis get a police escort to disrupt Detroit Pride. - "A day of fun and celebration took a dark turn when armed Neo-Nazis crashed pride celebrations in Detroit and shouted insults while tearing up a rainbow flag. One man even appears to have urinated on an Israeli flag. And, in a move that angered many, that was all made possible by police who escorted the small group of Neo-Nazis while they disrupted the celebrations and insulted those in attendance... While police say their goal was to keep the Neo-Nazis and those attending Motor City Pride away from each other, many expressed anger that law enforcement officers were making it possible for white supremacists to disrupt pride with hateful messages. “Where was Detroit Police when armed Nazis were marching with their NAZI FLAG shouting Homophobic slurs, anti-black racism, and white nationalism you ask? Serving and Protecting THE NAZIS,” one activist wrote on Twitter. “It’s 2019 and cops are escorting Nazis through a pride celebration. Disgusting”"
I like how suddenly liberals are outraged when "Nazis" do it and use this as proof that the "far right" are dangerous, contemptible and anti-Semtic
Freedom of speech makes liberals angry
The Dyke March Banned Jewish Symbols. Again. - "The Dyke March is perhaps most famous for a 2017 fiasco, when the organizers forcefully removed Jewish women from marching for the crime of holding Jewish pride flags.It’s back, this time for a march in Washington D.C. this Friday. And though the march bills itself as radically inclusive for lesbians of all stripes, it has already made clear that it means all lesbians but the Jewish ones... organizers of the DC Dyke March said they are explicitly forbidding any flags with “national symbols,” including “flags that resemble Israeli flags, such as a pride flag with a Star of David in the middle.” The Palestinian flag, however, will be allowed, in case there was any confusion on that front... The organizers have insisted that their ban is on Zionist symbols, not Jewish ones. But the star of David is one of Judaism’s oldest symbols. It dates back many centuries before the founding of Israel.And what kind of a march bans rainbow Jewish flags while allowing Palestinian flags? LGBTQ people have no rights under the Palestinian Authority and are even killed in Gaza for being open with their identity... think about what it would mean if you asked a Chinese American to condemn China’s internment of Muslims or its occupation of Tibet; it would be obvious that you are racially profiling. If you asked every Muslim what they think of ISIS, it would be clear that you were engaging in Islamophobic behavior. And if you think every public display of Jewish life is connected to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, you’re an anti-Semite... If a rainbow flag with a crescent were banned we would all rightfully condemn that as Islamophobic"
Post ID: 3671544070525189611
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
