Right. As promised, some further evidence. I’m just going to shove some things in here in a not particularly organized way, for now. I’ll do a more organized version later, for In Focus. This will be part of the rough draft.

There is this from the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society for example:

I am talking here as a veteran women’s right activist, as a political activist that has defended freedom and equality, and has fought against a religious dictatorship i.e. the Islamic Republic of Iran. I am talking here as the first hand victim of religious suppression and tyranny. I am talking here as the first hand victim of political Islam…How many cases of honour killings are

The waiters are at it again – they seem to be obsessed. I want to say just a couple of things, as briefly as possible, by way of setting the record straight. There are other people out there criticising B&W and also me, that I’m ignoring. But the waiters fight dirty, and I want to make that clear. 1. They accuse me of prevarication – of, in fact, lying, though they avoid that actual word, perhaps because it’s actionable. But prevarication and concealment is the charge.

Among these other commenters is Ophelia Benson of Butterflies and Wheels. Two days ago she came clean at last on her own blog…Pot and kettle indeed – assuming, as we must, that Ophelia herself

Right. Let’s see if I can discuss the hijab debate without dragging in my King Charles’ head, the anonymously abusive waiting socialists. Oh look, no I can’t, there it is now. Yes I can – I did that on purpose.

It has been decreed by omniscient (albeit nameless) people who can see into the minds of other (not nameless) people that I have been pretending all this time to be somewhat divided, to have qualms, to see the point of arguments on both sides. It’s not in fact true that I’ve been pretending, but I’ve stopped havering now. Some of the arguments I’ve read over the past few days have pushed me off that fence. There is what seems to … Read the rest

It can be quite interesting, in an unnerving sort of way, seeing people blogging about Oneself. I’ve been seeing quite a lot of that lately, partly because of the religion and hijab discussions, both of which get people agitated. I’m certainly not going to comment on all of them – I’m not that much of an egomaniac (oh yes you are, oh no I’m not, are, amn’t) – but once in awhile one will suggest an interesting thought or line of inquiry. There is this one for example.

“Some people come into the world as idiot savants, having no choice but to concentrate all their energies on the study of their one small corner of the universe. The results can

Excellent. There were several people reminding us that many French Muslim and Muslim-background women do in fact support the ban on the hijab at Twisty Sticks yesterday, as I mentioned. And today there are several more. Very good indeed. The prevailing assumption that there is Only One Right Way to think about this issue has been shown up, frankly. I have a lot to say about this, but only time to say a little of it now.

A tangential matter: the Waiting Socialists point out that they weren’t ‘scolding’ me, as I said. No, true, they weren’t. I did think of that as I typed the word – then typed on. Too lazy (or in a rush) to think of … Read the rest

Happy Darwin Day. It’s appropriate, in a way, to have all these arguments about religion all over the place. It’s as if I’d planned it, but I didn’t. Nope – it was the result of a mutation, I think.

The one at Squiggly Wood I mean Crooked Timber goes on. And there’s another at Matthew Yglesias’ blog. Mostly, I must say, the arguments seem surprisingly feeble as well as repetitive. Why is that surprising – surely part of my point is how obviously shaky it all is. Yes but they’ve had all this time to come up with good arguments! Hundreds of years. But so much of it is just along the lines of ‘How dare you?’ or ‘Who … Read the rest

Here’s the one I wanted to comment on no matter what. In a discussion of that perennially popular subject, why are there so few conservative academics. I simply wanted to point out (actually I want to frame in gold leaf, and embroider, and carve in stone, and issue in a limited edition with illuminated initials and gold binding) this comment, which pretty much sums up a lot of what B&W is about and what prompted it in the first place:

The labels ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ take on new and peculiar meanings in Academia. For instance, I believe in affirmative action, increasing taxes on the rich, socialized medicine, I am pro-legalized abortion, hold Christianity to be institutionalized ignorance, and donate to