Oh my god Raif is out of prison.

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi – jailed and sentenced to 1,000 lashes for “insulting Islam online” – has been freed, his wife says.

“Raif called me. He is free,” Ensaf Haidar told AFP news agency from Canada, where she fled with the couple’s three children.

The blogger’s first 50 lashes caused a global outcry and he became an emblem of rights abuses in the country.

There has been no official Saudi comment on his release.

Mr Badawi’s son Terad also tweeted: “My father is free.”

But he’s still under a travel ban.

The NGO Reporters Without Borders said it would work to ensure he can join his family in Canada despite the

W. H. Auden wrote a poem titled August 1968 in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to suppress the Prague Spring.

The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,
But one prize is beyond his reach:
The Ogre cannot master Speech.
About a subjugated plain,
Among the desperate and slain,
The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,
While drivel gushes from his lips.

Cody Walker wrote at Kenyon Review in September 2016:

We depend on poets for this kind of expression, of course. A totalitarian regime communicates through jargon and claptrap; a poet (or a poet like Auden, anyway) fires back with rhyme and tetrameter. At the time, the fight doesn’t feel fair—but history

Anna asked in a comment:

Have you seen the pro-Nazi Azov battalion?

I hope this doesn’t turn out like when we helped the Afghanistans against the Russians in the 1980s and then some of them turned out to be terrorists.

Snopes on the Azov Battalion:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing military violence and instability have mobilized far-right extremists, playing into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda about “neo-Nazis” running the country as justification for invading Ukraine.

In a speech given just before Russia launched its ongoing attack on Ukraine, Putin justified what he described as a “special military operation.” He stated:

Its goal is to protect people who have been abused by the genocide of the Kyiv

I saw this –

In the category "trending", meaning one of their more popular items. It is fashionable these days to threaten to kill women who assert our boundaries and demand our rights.

I have contacted their customer support.
You can reach them here: teamsptee at gmail dot com pic.twitter.com/FamjKV6z8E

— Genevieve Gluck (@WomenReadWomen) March 9, 2022

– so I stared a bit, trying to recall ever seeing any ads for “kill the racist” or “kill the homophobe” shirts, and then I Googled “official kill the terf shirt” and found, depressingly, that it’s not just the one company.

Then I Googled “official kill the racist shirt” and found…no match.… Read the rest

Masha Gessen tells us that Russians don’t know what’s happening, because they don’t have access to truthful reporting.

A majority of Russians get their news from broadcast television, which is fully controlled by the state. “This is largely a country of older people and poor people,” Lev Gudkov told me. Gudkov is the director of the Levada Center, which was once Russia’s leading public-opinion-research organization and which the state has now branded a “foreign agent.” There are more Russians over the age of forty-five than there are between the ages of fifteen and forty-four. Even those who get their news online are still unlikely to encounter a narrative that differs from what broadcast television offers. The state continues to ratchet

Another ACLU ad on Facebook.

An anonymous donor has pledged to match all donations up to $200,000. Every dollar you donate right now will be doubled and immediately put towards our legal, advocacy, and organizing work that supports trans kids and their families.

“Supports” how though? What do they mean by support?

They’re “supporting” what they call “trans kids” by working to make sure they can get drastic, irreversible surgery or drugs or both. It’s not as clear-cut as they think that that equals “support.” It could be that the reality is that some or all such “kids” are caught up in a trend, and will regret this medical tampering with their path to physical adulthood. In addition to everything … Read the rest

Culture war:

Culture has long been a proxy in the assertion of power by one people over another. Recent egregious examples include the Chinese government’s attempt to suppress Uyghur religion, literature, music, even food, and Islamic State’s destruction of ancient monuments. In war, culture is a second front. At their most extreme, wars are about eradicating a people’s cultural memory altogether, wiping them from the slate as if they had never been.

…

In some ways, intentions are less important than effects, amid war’s messy reality. A missile strike in Kyiv that reportedly killed five people was seemingly directed at the television tower, but it lies close to Babyn Yar, the site of the massacre of 150,000 people

One good thing:

A virtual gallery to showcase Mali’s cultural history has been launched, featuring tens of thousands of Timbuktu’s ancient manuscripts.

The manuscripts were smuggled to safety from Timbuktu after Islamist militant groups took control of the city in northern Mali in 2012.

They contain centuries of African knowledge and scholarship on topics ranging from maths to astrological charts.

“Central to the heritage of Mali, they represent the long legacy of written knowledge and academic excellence in Africa,” said Dr Abdel Kader Haidara, a librarian known for smuggling the manuscripts out of Timbuktu, who was also involved in the project.

The site is called Mali Magic and from a quick look it is pretty damn magic. It’s music … Read the rest

Chip chip chip chip away.

Hey you! Got a minute? That’s all it takes to contact your elected officials and urge them to #EndPeriodPoverty in the US! ➡️ https://t.co/yWSv2XHBUz pic.twitter.com/DHqO4vmAyr

— Always (@Always) February 16, 2022

It’s not young people. Boys don’t miss school because of period poverty.

Do you think it's going to help that *you're* so ashamed to use the word "woman" that you'd rather create a completely nonsencial stat, @Always? pic.twitter.com/GjRqfrnp0I

— Eva Kurilova (@eva_kurilova) March 9, 2022

Say the word. The word is “girls.” It’s not blasphemy or porn; we can say it. Girls.

To be fair, they do know how to say it.

Without encouragement and support to keep playing from her dad, Jennifer

Suzanne Moore on the strange mystery of what the word “woman” means:

I guess it would be funny if the consequences of this evasion were not so deadly serious. On Woman’s Hour – on International Women’s Day – the redoubtable Emma Barnett asked Anneliese Dodds a simple question.

You know the one – “wossa woman?”

Dodds prevaricated for what seemed like hours. Stuff like: “Well, I have to say that there are different definitions legally around what a woman actually is. I mean, you look at the definition within the Equality Act, and I think it just says someone who is adult and female, I think, but then doesn’t see how you define either of those things.”

How about … Read the rest

Susan Smith of For Women Scotland testifying on the proposed Hate Crime and Public Order Bill:

I echo what Lucy Hunter Blackburn said powerfully and from the heart. The heart of the issue is that women in Scotland are furious and frightened by some of the implications of the bill not least because, the other week, a series of amendments were proposed, none of which seems to cross a line to being hateful, yet parliamentarians stood up and denounced them as shocking and “transphobic” for including phrases such as

“there are only two sexes”.

We have a real issue that, although there are reasonable person tests in the bill, there are also people who are determined to use the

Trump’s plane had an engine failure last weekend and had to make an emergency landing. Therefore, naturally, he is begging people to give him money to make a new one, which he absurdly calls “Trump Force One.” I can think of better words than “force” in that name.

“I have a very important update on my plane, but I need to trust that you won’t share it with anyone,” wrote Trump in the newly released email. “My team is building a BRAND NEW Trump Force One.”

He needs to trust that the people on his mailing list won’t share it with anyone, so that’s why he sends it out to his mailing list. Does he think they’re that stupid?… Read the rest

Updating to add the prompt for this post:

“There are issues that have to be addressed about what you do about safe spaces & so on & I think that can be done in a common sense way. I do think we mustn’t let that become a hurdle in trying to deal with something that happens to 52% of the population.”

— James Matthews (@jamesmatthewsky) March 8, 2022

The National (Scotland) reports:

A RADICAL new report has recommended world-leading misogyny laws should be introduced in Scotland to protect women and girls from male violence.

Baroness Helena Kennedy was tasked with investigating how the Scottish justice system deals with misogyny in January 2021, with the results revealed in the report 

War crime.

A maternity hospital in the southern port city of Mariupol has been hit by a Russian air strike, Ukraine says.

It doesn’t get much more blatant than that. Bonus: they did it during an agreed ceasefire.

Mariupol has been surrounded by Russian forces for several days, and repeated attempts at a ceasefire to allow civilians to leave have broken down.

“The whole city remains without electricity, water, food, whatever and people are dying because of dehydration,” Olena Stokoz of Ukraine’s Red Cross told the BBC, adding that her organisation would continue trying to organise an evacuation corridor.

I would like to see Putin in the Hague.

Updating to add: Other heads of state have done bad things, so … Read the rest

An endorsement.

I too believe in the basic principles of liberal democracy

I think that people trying to dismantle them need to come up with some very good reasons https://t.co/s5QyXgd5QG

— John Cleese (@JohnCleese) March 9, 2022

… Read the rest

Scottish Government to women (on International Women’s Day): sucks to be you.

THREAD: The Scottish Government has finalised the Explanatory Notes for the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 for the Freedom of Expression provision. https://t.co/CTAlLvl64x

— MurrayBlackburnMackenzie (@mbmpolicy) March 9, 2022

The then Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf stated to the Committee that he was “making an offer to those who would like to see more specific detail in the bill” & would engage with stakeholders to put more details into the Explanatory Notes to secure a “common-ground compromise”. pic.twitter.com/Y0Bv5MSKtT

— MurrayBlackburnMackenzie (@mbmpolicy) March 9, 2022

You can see how important this is. It’s about how easy it will be for the cops in Scotland to haul women … Read the rest

Apparently “queer” people have been denied access to the outdoors?

Meet the queer hikers proving the great outdoors isn't just for cis, straight, middle class folk https://t.co/gPYw3LZQR4

— PinkNews (@PinkNews) March 9, 2022

I’ll be darned. I could have sworn it was just for cis, straight, middle class “folk.” (What are “middle class folk” anyway? Is that similar to middle class peasants and middle class working stiffs?)

PN explains:

Ailish had personal reasons for setting up Queer Out Here. They grew up in the Yorkshire countryside where a love for the outdoors was practically mandatory. After university, and a period in which they stopped exploring the outdoors, Ailish “rediscovered it and found how beneficial it was for my mental

Originally a comment by Bjarte Foshaug on The problem was dogma.

The problem with this whole discussion as I see it is that beliefs are just taken as a given rather than the outcome of some cognitive process in their own right, even if it’s just accepting what you’ve always been told. My main problem with faith-based religion (and its secular equivalents) was always the part about leaving the most important questions in life – questions with real-world consequences and implications for the way we treat others – up to blind faith in the first place. I don’t think it’s any kind of excuse or mitigating circumstance to be doing the right thing as we see it if the … Read the rest

JKR is clearly all in, and for the long haul.

Someone please send the Shadow Minister for Equalities a dictionary and a backbone.#HappyInternationalWomensDay https://t.co/2dXZivMHyO

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 8, 2022

https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1501291633165357056 https://twitter.com/millihill/status/1501334649754329093

This morning you told the British public you literally can't define what a woman is. What's the plan, lift up random objects until you find one that rattles? https://t.co/QoBPt5HpKf

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) March 8, 2022

HAhahahahahahaha that’s a good one.

Yep, all in.… Read the rest

Originally a comment by Sastra on A kind of Turing test.

In atheist forums I often promoted an unpopular opinion: the religious were no less ethical than we were. On the whole, they share the same values and moral goals. Even the Nazis didn’t really differ in their sense of right & wrong, or commitment to fairness, from the people they persecuted.

Because change what you thought were the facts, and you change what’s right and wrong. If God was a God of Love and homosexuals subvert the Loving Natural Order, thus harming not only themselves but leading whole nations into damnation, then gay marriage is wrong. And fighting against it is right. It does no good to see … Read the rest