I have a little stack of New Yorkers from a Little Free Library (to which they’ll return once I’ve perused them), and the other day I settled down to read what looked like an interesting article by Jill Lepore about a UK writer fella. But…the longer I read the more irritated I got.

You know how there’s a popular magazine style that involves adding a lot of “color” to reporting via details about decor, clothes, food, yadda yadda, so that it’s not just a parade of facts but more like a short story? And for that matter a popular fiction style that does the same thing? And you know how unskilled people can overdo it to the point where you … Read the rest

Adjectives, how do they work?

Let’s try it with “dog.”

This is a brown dog.

This is a small dog.

This is a friendly dog.

This is a rescue dog.

This is a pretend dog.

This is a fake dog.

This is a fantasy dog.

Thus ends today’s lesson on how adjectives work.… Read the rest

The Hamline University student newspaper reports on the showing of images in an art history class a few weeks ago:

Hamline undergraduate students received an email from the Dean of Students on Nov. 7, condemning an unnamed classroom incident as “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful and Islamophobic.”

That must have been weird. “Hi students. There was a bad bad bad incident. Love, the Dean.”

The Oracle has since learned that the event in question occurred on Oct. 6, when a professor shared two depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in class, while discussing Islamic art. One was a 14th century depiction of the Prophet and the other was a 16th century depiction of the Prophet with veil and halo. 

In other words a … Read the rest

Anyway…how do they even know it is an image of Mohammed? Are they thinking all images of Mo are literally actually likenesses of him? Even though they don’t all look alike, to put it mildly?

What makes them think the image in the medieval Persian painting is of Mohammed as opposed to being the artist’s idea of Mohammed?

If I type

:)

and label it Mohammed, does that make it an image of Mohammed? What if I say it’s not that Mohammed but the lovely neighborhood UPS guy who recognizes me from a block away and waves hello?

In short what is the thinking here? If it can be called thinking? … Read the rest

Another academic pushed roughly out the door, this time for purported Islamophobia, because he included an image of Mo in a lecture on Islamic art. Professor of Islamic Art at the University of Michigan Christiane Gruber has the details:

The “Islamophobic incident” catalyzed plenty of administrative commentary and media coverage at the university. Among others, it formed the subject of a second Oracle article, which noted that a faculty member had included in their global survey of art history a session on Islamic art, which offered an optional visual analysis and discussion of a famous medieval Islamic painting of the Prophet Muhammad. A student complained about the image’s inclusion in the course and led efforts to press administrators for

Meanwhile in another part of the forest…

She will work day and night and does not need rest, boasts Noura, a housewife in Riyadh. Gesturing to the cowering Ugandan maid next to her, who is 23 according to Noura, she adds: “If she does something wrong, you just send her to her room and do not let her out.”

Noura, who clutches gold Gucci sunglasses as she bargains for a price of £3,500 for the maid, is eager for a quick deal when she talks to an undercover Times reporter. “I can take her to your home tonight,” she says. “If you are still unsure, no problem, you can rent her instead . . . But tell me now,

More from the Reuters report: Kaiser Permanente did a study that reported a very low transition rate, but the study missed some people.

Reuters found two other patients in the region covered by the study who don’t match those characteristics and whom the Kaiser researchers apparently missed. Both have been outspoken about their detransitions.

…

The other patient was Chloe Cole. According to a letter of intent to sue that her lawyers sent to Kaiser in November, Cole was 13 when a Kaiser doctor in 2018 put her on a puberty blocker, followed a few weeks later by testosterone, for her gender-affirming treatment.

At 15, Cole told Reuters, she also wanted top surgery. In an interview, she and her

Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on Their stories have upended his assumptions.

…and any attention they got reinforced to the public the false impression that transgender people were incapable of making sound decisions about their treatment.

Guess what? The impression is not a false one. Deciding to pursue a course of medical treatment that promises something it’s not possible to do is the definition of a decision that is unsound. The falseness is in the claims of those offering such “treatments,” not in the correct perception that a course leading to sterilization and lifelong medical experimentation on your own flesh is not a good or healthy one.

It’s like getting on board a burning plane that … Read the rest

It’s like being tangled in a net that just pulls tighter the more you struggle.

Reuters has a special report on detransitioners.

For years, Dr Kinnon MacKinnon, like many people in the transgender community, considered the word “regret” to be taboo.

MacKinnon, a 37-year-old transgender man and assistant professor of social work at York University here, thought it was offensive to talk about people who transitioned, later regretted their decision, and detransitioned. They were too few in number, he figured, and any attention they got reinforced to the public the false impression that transgender people were incapable of making sound decisions about their treatment.

But what if it’s not a false impression? What if it’s not high quality thinking … Read the rest

I’m reading a piece about Jazz Jennings’s “affirmation” surgery. Had to take a break for a minute to cope with the revulsion. They didn’t know what they were doing but they did it anyway – how progressive.

Jazz Jennings has had a tougher transition than her doctors expected. In the last two years, the teen reality star and LGBTQ+ activist has undergone multiple gender confirmation surgeries, and her doctors are now revealing more details about what went wrong in the new season of TLC’s I Am Jazz, People reported.

Why did the doctors expect a not so tough transition? Why would that be easy? It turns out there was no reason for them to think that other than the … Read the rest

Oh honestly. Easy for some. King Choss says words about The Poor:

King Charles has highlighted the cost of living crisis and the “great anxiety and hardship” of many struggling to “pay their bills and keep their families fed and warm” in his first Christmas broadcast.

Isn’t that just so kind and loving of him?

Until you remember how much money he gets for his important job of being a tourist attraction. He’s ordered a slap-up coronation, no expense spared:

King Charles III is reportedly in favour of a “glorious” coronation with pomp and pageantry to promote the best image of the UK amid the cost-of-living crisis.

It was speculated that Buckingham Palace might opt for a cut-price

It’s the human imperative to fight over something. We can’t get out of bed in the morning unless there’s a fight to inspire us. India chooses communalism.

Tensions are rising in India over prime minister Narendra Modi’s push to make Hindi the country’s dominant language.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janaya party (BJP) government has been accused of an agenda of “Hindi imposition” and “Hindi imperialism” and non-Hindi speaking states in south and east India have been fighting back.

Of course with Modi and the BJP it’s not just Hindi, it’s also Hindu – it’s not just the language, it’s also the religion and all the baggage that goes with it.

Modi’s speeches are given exclusively in Hindi and over 70% of

We are Inclusive, so we are excluding you. Have a nice day!

I applied for a studio space in @denmarkfarm. They refused to rent BC of my lack of belief in gender identity
Do they also discriminate against people who don't believe in God, or in Santa.
Is reputational damage more important than the law?@SexMattersOrg @peter_daly @anyabike pic.twitter.com/IT0tQ30Cmh

— Wild Womyn Workshop (@Wild_Womyn) December 25, 2022

You couldn’t make it up. “We have recently written and adopted an Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Policy for our charity…This policy clearly states that we must be inclusive as an organisation.” Therefore we are excluding you.

Also the bit about yeah yeah we support feminism and women’s rights BUT we support … Read the rest

Golly gee who knew Louisa May Alcott was butch? Besides everyone?

Louisa May Alcott balked when her editor asked her to write a book for girls. “Never liked girls or knew many,” she journaled, “except my sisters.”

…

To family and friends, she was Lou, Lu, or Louy. She wrote of herself as the “papa” or “father” of her young nephews. Her father, Bronson, once called Alcott his “only son.” In letters to close friend Alfie Whitman, Alcott called herself “a man of all work” and “a gentleman at large.”

Gasp – could this mean………………………..?

All this leads me to wonder: Is Alcott best understood as a trans man?

No. Why? Well, for one thing, because she’s not particularly hard … Read the rest

Stella Creasy now:

clarksons words contribute to an environment where if women don’t do what you like, being violent or abusive is an acceptable way to show it and their freedom to be who they are is shaped accordingly. Let’s change that and give women equal protection from hate under our laws. pic.twitter.com/eIsqp2Mdno

— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) December 20, 2022

Stella Creasy last May:

Stella Creasy is clarifying her position on the word ‘woman’. “Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes”, she declares. “But they are now women and I respect that.”

…

Surely, as a fellow feminist, she and JK Rowling aren’t too far apart on the issue? “No, I don’t agree with her and I’m

Originally a comment by Nullius in Verba on Despite warnings.

It really is (morbidly, frustratingly, infuriatingly) fascinating how this movement reveals just how insignificant the concerns and welfare of women and girls are to those in power. And not just political power. It’s as though power itself, even if only that of an artist or book club chairman, makes it difficult to remember that female people exist and are as valuable as males.

The movement’s success also shows how fragile actual progress is and that liberty really does have an eternal price. After all, Genderism quite obviously depends on the exploitation of existing sexism, whether conscious and overt or nascent and hidden. The very idea of gender identity requires … Read the rest

Thanks, Keir.

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to change the law to allow trans people to self-declare their gender, The Telegraph can reveal in the wake of anger over similar moves in Scotland.

The Labour leader has said he will “update” the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) if elected, despite warnings that doing so would impact women’s rights and could enable predatory men to access single-sex spaces.

It’s so heart-warming to know that Labour doesn’t give a shit about women.

In a message to Pink News for Pride last year, he said his priority was “forming the next government so we can introduce legislation and change society so that, whoever you are, you can lead a happy and fulfilled

The return of The Soul:

my profound thought for Monday morning: it's really weird how some people need to tell other people that they are not allowed to be who they are and then try to force them to conform to what they themselves believe should be permitted as expressions of the human spirit.

— Prue Bray (@PrueBray) December 12, 2022

“Who people are” is no longer who they literally are, but who they mystically are.

Who people are isn’t the dull material facts of date of birth, parentage, history, sex, education, skills – that’s all so yesterday. Now who people are is who they think they are inside their heads. The fun about that is that it can be … Read the rest

The Seattle Times on what it’s like here now:

A quarter-inch of frozen water ground the region to a halt.

…

Transportation — moving by any means — was all but impossible.

It was – you couldn’t walk, let alone drive.

King County Metro shut down all its buses. So did Pierce and Snohomish counties. Seattle-Tacoma International Airport briefly closed all three runways, an “unprecedented” situation. Paine Field closed. So did Highway 2 over Stevens Pass. Garbage pickup was canceled. Museums, theaters, libraries, the zoo, the aquarium: all closed. Doctor appointments moved online.

“Stay home if you can,” King County Executive Dow Constantine tweeted. “Please don’t go viral on TikTok trying to drive on the ice.”

Again with the sloppy “trans rights!!!!” without defining trans rights.

But what ARE trans rights? Of course trans people should have human rights. Do you mean new rights, specific to trans people? If so you really need to tell us what they are before you order us to endorse them with no ifs or buts.

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 24, 2022

It's not a coincidence that you can only talk in meaningless general platitudes. That's because once we are clear on what these claimed "rights" actually are, we say hell no get out of here. https://t.co/YxwtmqOyXw

— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) December 24, 2022

Define "trans rights." Of course trans people have human rights, but what are specifically trans rights?