Links - 20th August 2018 (2)

This Campaign Against Sexual Violence Strongly Favors Female Victims, Strips Men Of Due Process - "the first page proposes the proper attitude of law enforcement. It reads, “I am a criminal investigator … When someone tells me they were raped or sexually assaulted, I Start by Believing.” The necessary corollary is belief in the accused’s guilt. The Start by Believing approach is spreading to law enforcement professionals throughout America through publications such as “Start by Believing to Improve Responses to Sexual Assault and Prevent Gender Bias,” which is funded by a DOJ grant. By contrast, the Center for Prosecutor Integrity (CPI) insists that law enforcement should be evidence-driven and unbiased. Equal respect should be extended to accusers and to the accused. Start by Believing’s championing of bias led the non-profit CPI to file a complaint, dated February 1, with the DOJ Office of Inspector General (OIG). The DOJ’s funding of Start by Believing, CPI states, is an “abusive use of federal grant monies.”"

The Proud Whopper? This is not the gay liberation we fought for | Julie Bindel - "Almost every aspect of gay life has been commercialised – we can buy sperm, gay-themed wedding services, and holidays – and whenever there is a gay festival or event, the banks, airlines, restaurant chains and other large companies are usually there to profit, all in the name of supporting our quest for equality... Lesbians and gay men have accepted a fake, highly limited liberation which involves spending and sponsorship, and embraces the notion of inviting church and state back into our relationships (preferably monogamous, with mortgages and babies). In the radical days of the Gay Liberation Front, both lesbians and gay men wanted to abolish marriage, not be invited to join this oppressive, patriarchal regime. As Jill Tweedie wrote in this newspaper in 1971, Gay Lib does not plead for the right of homosexuals to marry, "Gay Lib questions marriage"."

“Avocado hand” injuries on the rise - "the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons is seeing a growing number of patients in the emergency room as a result of "avocado hand" – injuries from failed attempts to cut an avocado."

Netflix film crews 'banned from looking at each other for longer than five seconds' in #metoo crackdown - "New rules imposed on set reportedly include no looking at anyone for longer than five seconds, no lingering hugs, no flirting and no asking for a colleague's phone number... “It has sparked jokes," they added, "with people looking at each other, counting to five, then diverting their eyes.”"
#nottheonion

McGill music student awarded $350,000 after girlfriend stalls career - "Abramovitz never got the email. Jennifer Lee, a fellow McGill music student and Abramovitz’s girlfriend at the time, did. They had started dating in September 2013, and within a month he was staying at her apartment almost full time. He trusted her. He let her use his laptop. He gave her his passwords. Scared he would move away and perhaps no longer be in a relationship with her, Lee deleted the email. She sent the Colburn Conservatory of Music an email, pretending to be Abramovitz, refusing the offer because he would “be elsewhere.”"

Cancer Research UK drops the word 'women' from smear test campaign to include transgender men

Does Marvel Not Own the Rights to Make an Incredible Hulk Film? - "Disney tried to get the distribution rights from Universal, but Universal is uninterested in selling. They plan on using their rights to distribute any future Hulk movie. Disney is not interested in another studio distributing their property, so we remain at an impasse. The Hulk can continue to appear in other Marvel films, but Disney, for now, at least, seem like they are not willing to put out a new “Hulk” movie under this current arrangement"

Canada detains hundreds of children for immigration violations, report finds - "Canada regularly detains hundreds of children who have run afoul of the country’s immigration laws – including some who are held in correctional facilities and even in solitary confinement, according to a new report calling for sweeping reforms to the practice."
But when Trump does it...

Feminist Scholars Defend Female Professor Accused of Sexual Misconduct - "Avital Ronell, a professor of German and comparative literature at New York University, is currently facing a Title IX investigation over alleged sexual misconduct. Astonishingly, feminist professors around the country are arguing that the investigation is unfair... The group of academics who signed the letter doesn’t claim to have any reason to dispute the facts behind the allegation against Ronell. However, they claim that terminating Ronell would be an “injustice.”... It’s important to note that these scholars are the architects behind most of the major women’s movements in America today. These are the same movements that advocate for “always believing victims” of sexual assault. It seems, however, that they can not consistently apply the principles they espouse when the person on the receiving end is a colleague that they feel has been wrongfully accused of misconduct."
Listen and believe - when the 'victim' is female and the 'perpetrator' is male. Par for the course for feminism/feminists
Interestingly, the Title IX complaint by a male student of sexual assault by his female professor concluded since he did not have “corroborating witnesses,” there was “insufficient evidence to find, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Professor Ronell engaged in prohibited non-consensual sexual contact.” So hopefully male students accused of sexual misconduct at NYU now have the same protections as women (or female feminists, anyway)

What Happens to #MeToo When a Feminist Is the Accused? - The New York Times - "Mr. Reitman, who is now 34 and is a visiting fellow at Harvard, says that Professor Ronell kissed and touched him repeatedly, slept in his bed with him, required him to lie in her bed, held his hand, texted, emailed and called him constantly, and refused to work with him if he did not reciprocate. Mr. Reitman is gay and is now married to a man; Professor Ronell is a lesbian. Professor Ronell, 66, denied any harassment. “Our communications — which Reitman now claims constituted sexual harassment — were between two adults, a gay man and a queer woman"... Professor Ronell and some who are backing her have tried to discredit her accuser in familiar ways, asking why he took so long to report, and why he seemed so intimate with Professor Ronell if he was, in fact, miserable. Maybe, Professor Ronell suggested, he was frustrated because he just wasn’t smart enough... she and her colleagues were particularly disturbed that, as they saw it, Mr. Reitman was using Title IX, a feminist tool, to take down a feminist."
Apparently women can't hold any power over men, only vice versa, victim blaming is okay if it's from feminists against men and feminists should be immune from feminist scrutiny and feminist logic

Judith Butler and Slavoj Žižek wrote a letter saying Avital Ronell's Title IX investigation is unfair - "The sentiments in the letter go directly against the basic principles that most agree on when it comes to how to respond to sexual-assault allegations: Its writers malign the accuser, suggest the accused’s prominence should influence how they’re treated, and claim—without conducting an investigation of their own or providing evidence—that the accused cannot be found guilty. It also portrays the act of investigating as actively harmful to the accused."

How a Letter Defending Avital Ronell Sparked Confusion and Condemnation - "Brian Leiter, a professor at the Law School at the University of Chicago who writes a widely read blog about philosophy, posted a link to the letter. Leiter made clear his view on the professors’ appeal for Ronell. He published the message under the heading: "Blaming the victim is apparently OK when the accused in a Title IX proceeding is a feminist literary theorist."... Judith Butler, a professor of critical theory and comparative literature at the University of California at Berkeley, was the first name on the list of signatories. (Butler, whose work on gender and sexuality is broadly influential, is also president-elect of the Modern Language Association.) She said in an email to The Chronicle that the letter pulled from Leiter’s blog was an "incorrect version" and that it contained errors in the list of names. Butler declined to provide a correct version of the letter or explain how this version was incorrect... Leiter wrote in his blog that "the signatory list reads like a ‘who’s who’ of ‘theory’ (as they call bad philosophy in literature departments).""

Not In The Name Of Feminism: Nothing About the Defence of Professor Ronell is Feminist - "A person of grace and wit and intellectual mastery is entitled to the same respect and dignity accorded to anyone accused of an offence–no more, no less. That is the very essence of the rule of law. In what seems to be a veiled warning to the University, the letter continues that, “if she were to be terminated or relieved of her duties, the injustice would be widely recognized and opposed. The ensuing loss for the humanities, for New York University, and for intellectual life during these times would be no less than enormous and would rightly invite widespread and intense public scrutiny.” The sheer sense of entitlement that oozes is palpable, in that they seem to care less whether the truth is discovered and appropriately handled, but emphasise that certain outcomes would invite backlash and ‘rightly’ so... Irrespective of the evidence or the substance of allegations therefore, they have decided that they will oppose the judgment"
This is what a feminist looks like/this is what feminists look like

Twitter Removes Louis Farrakhan's Blue Checkmark, Leaves Hate-Sermon - "Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan lost his verified status with Twitter over the weekend after he tweeted out a video about “unmasking the Satanic Jew and the Synagogue of Satan.” The hate-sermon has not been removed by Twitter."

Twitter Is Banning Conservatives for Posting Facts

Harvard Rated Asian-American Applicants Lower on Personality Traits, Suit Says - The New York Times - "Harvard consistently rated Asian-American applicants lower than others on traits like “positive personality,” likability, courage, kindness and being “widely respected,” according to an analysis of more than 160,000 student records filed Friday by a group representing Asian-American students in a lawsuit against the university. Asian-Americans scored higher than applicants of any other racial or ethnic group on admissions measures like test scores, grades and extracurricular activities, according to the analysis commissioned by a group that opposes all race-based admissions criteria. But the students’ personal ratings significantly dragged down their chances of being admitted, the analysis found."

Where to Find Bangkok’s Best Street Food While You Can - The New York Times - "Even Pritipal Singh Sirikumar, whose stand selling crisp, yummy samosas was founded by his father some 50 years ago, dreamed of moving from his open-air nook — about the size of a couch — at the corner of a Chinatown soi. He said it would be to have his own shophouse. “Then we can put in tables and chairs. We can serve more customers. I will serve lassi.” Mr. Sirikumar’s sentiments were echoed by people like Pongsuang Kunprasop, known as Note, a friend I hadn’t seen in a decade but who refused to eat street food with me. “Been sharing sidewalks with rats and cockroach at night for all my life,” he wrote in an email. Over the course of a week, I did not see much vermin, nor did I fall ill. (I did carry charcoal pills, a gift from Ms. Songvisava and Mr. Jones, said to counteract food poisoning.) But I also came to appreciate the appeal of air-conditioning, and to understand that the romance attached to the cart, by Thais as well as Westerners, does not always mesh with reality... Addresses for many of the vendors are nonexistent or nonsensical, but this Google Map shows just about every place I visited"

What made the friendship between Scalia and Ginsburg work - The Washington Post - "One former clerk told us Scalia was Ginsburg’s favored souvenir shopping buddy when they traveled together. On a trip to India, they famously rode an elephant, with Scalia sitting up front. What about feminism? “It had to do with the distribution of weight,” Ginsburg deadpanned slyly. They shared New Year’s Eves with their families and friends: “Scalia kills it and Marty [Ginsburg, Ruth’s husband] cooks it,” recalled one guest, former Bush solicitor general Theodore Olson. “I never heard them talk about anything political or ideological, because there would be no point”... “If you can’t disagree ardently with your colleagues about some issues of law and yet personally still be friends, get another job, for Pete’s sake,” is how Scalia once described their lifetime appointments. “As annoyed as you might be about his zinging dissent, he’s so utterly charming, so amusing, so sometimes outrageous, you can’t help but say, ‘I’m glad that he’s my friend or he’s my colleague,’ ” Ginsburg said. Sometimes, she said, she had to pinch herself to not laugh in the courtroom when Scalia said something audacious. Even in that VMI case, Ginsburg was grateful for how Scalia disagreed: giving her a copy of his dissent as soon as possible, so she could properly respond. “He absolutely ruined my weekend, but my opinion is ever so much better because of his stinging dissent,” she said. Whether or not it was how Scalia saw it, for Ginsburg their public friendship also made a statement about the court as an institution: that it was strengthened by respectful debate, that it could work no matter how polarized its members were."

For vulnerable high school girls in Japan, a culture of ‘dates’ with older men - The Washington Post - "“It’s easy to talk to these girls,” said one man in his 30s who was sitting at a wooden school desk in AKB High School, a cafe in Akihabara, a part of Tokyo known for its subcultures. A 17-year-old girl in a school uniform brought the man and his colleague, both of whom declined to give their names, beers and chitchat. “We actually find regular bars uninteresting these days,” he said. “I got tired of regular bars with old women.” They admitted that the uniforms are a big part of the attraction. “They look so cute,” said his friend, in his 40s. “The uniforms make them look one and a half times cuter than they actually are.” This is Japan’s shady “JK” or “high school dating” business. (“Joshi kosei” means “high school girl” in Japanese, and the English initials JK are universally used here to describe the practice.)... There are various levels of high school dating, starting with cafes staffed by underage girls and peep shows where high school girls sit behind a one-way mirror in their school uniforms, posing according to customers’ requests. There is also “tour guiding,” when girls go for a walk with men, a walk that often ends with some kind of sexual service, and the straightforward “compensated dating” — being paid for sex. Kazue Muta, a professor of sociology and gender studies at Osaka University, said the element of taboo makes girls in school uniforms sexually attractive to men. “Japan is a patriarchal society, and it has this mentality that the young and seemingly innocent are valuable and more alluring,” she said... Although the age of consent in Japan is technically 13, in most places local ordinances increase it to 18... “Many Japanese men find something erotic in a school uniform,” Taka said. “They are disappointed if they find out she’s not still at school.” Girls involved in the JK business are insistent that they choose to do this work, and Taka says it’s not exploitation because the girls want to be in the business. “When we recruit for girls under 18, we’re flooded with applications.” Mio, a 17-year-old in her second year of high school in Tokyo, started in this business last year, having sex with a man in a karaoke room for $30. “When I’m at home at night, I get lonely and want to be needed by someone. That’s when I do it,”

WHO | Q&A on the carcinogenicity of the consumption of red meat and processed meat - "processed meat has been classified in the same category as causes of cancer such as tobacco smoking and asbestos (IARC Group 1, carcinogenic to humans), but this does NOT mean that they are all equally dangerous. The IARC classifications describe the strength of the scientific evidence about an agent being a cause of cancer, rather than assessing the level of risk...
According to the most recent estimates by the Global Burden of Disease Project, an independent academic research organization, about 34 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide are attributable to diets high in processed meat. Eating red meat has not yet been established as a cause of cancer. However, if the reported associations were proven to be causal, the Global Burden of Disease Project has estimated that diets high in red meat could be responsible for 50 000 cancer deaths per year worldwide. These numbers contrast with about 1 million cancer deaths per year globally due to tobacco smoking, 600 000 per year due to alcohol consumption, and more than 200 000 per year due to air pollution...
Eating meat has known health benefits"

The Supreme Court decides that faith is now banned from Canada’s public spaces - "Trinity Western University suffered a stinging loss in the Supreme Court of Canada on Friday, which found that law societies in B.C. and Ontario were justified in not accrediting the university’s prospective law school because of its policy on premarital sex. But no one should harbour any illusions that the pain will be limited to the small Christian school in B.C.’s Fraser Valley."

Iranian Feminist Says Western Feminists Make Things Worse for Her Cause at Home

DNA "Nanobots" Choke Off Cancer Blood Supply In Study - "This study was done in mice, so there’s still a long ways to go before the nanobots come anywhere close to being deployed in humans. The tech, however, is fascinating; it involves recruiting engineered DNA bots to home in on cancerous cells to inject them with a deadly payload... The programmed DNA bots avoided causing any clotting or harm to healthy cells."

I,Hypocrite - Posts - "@liltigerbabe: Can someone at @sony please explain why you chose NOT to hire a Japanese performer to wear traditional Japanese wardrobe, for a Japanese game? This is extremely offensive to your Asian-American consumers and blatant cultural appropriation. Please explain
Ghost of Tsushima Theme Music Flute Performance at E3 2018
@mombot Hello. I am Japanese. Let me explain: That man is one of the few living people officially recognized as a master of that instrument. If you don't believe me, you may Google "Cornelius Boots". He has dedicated his life to his art. As for the attitude you have, and the outcome you probably hope to achieve Please reconsider
"If someone says that you can't do or be something because yof your skin color, and you are racist if you do, the racist probably isn't you."
I don't work at @sony, but I hope my explanation was clear. Did you have any other technical or cultural questions today, @liltigerbabe?
Another satisfied customer. *You are blocked*
Sorry that page doesn't exist!""
Plus, apparently SJWs don't know that Sony is a Japanese company