Also via Jesse Singal, this one yesterday.

She thought she was endorsing a message against internet shaming, but she didn’t realize there was someone (or several someones?) on the list of signers who required internet shaming.

She was ready and willing to endorse a message against internet shaming, until she discovered there was a signer she wanted to shame.

She opposes internet shaming unless she wants to internet shame someone.

Mind you, here I am internet shaming her.… Read the rest

You couldn’t make it up.

“…makes ME feel…”

Well that’s really all there is to say, isn’t it.… Read the rest

More on the Harper’s Letter. From PrawfsBlog:

The authors claim to “uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters,” but to fear that “it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought.” Ken White (Popehat to those on Twitter and KCRW) sees the letter as drawing an untenable (or at least elusive) distinction between “silencing” and “more/responsive/critical” counter-speech. White labels this the “problem of the preferred first speaker,” the “tendency to impose norms of civility, openness, productiveness, and dialogue-encouraging on a RESPONSE to expression that we do not impose on the expression itself.” In other words, the original speaker

Originally a comment by Freemage on On being instructed to center everyone else.

The admonition to shut up and listen to the members of the oppressed group is a valid one, but it only works when dealing with a non-oppressed group (to-wit, straight white men, preferably but not exclusively middle-class and up). When two oppressed groups are in conflict, however, there must be an exchange of ideas and debate (and preferably, dialogue), or else you end up with one group being further oppressed.

I do think that actual trans folks suffer oppression (as opposed to the special snowflakes who like to don their trans identity like a fashionable cape they can ditch when it becomes inconvenient, but then re-wrap … Read the rest

About that Harper’s Letter…

It’s titled “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate.”

Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.

Hmmm. Has it? And if it has, has it in a way that we want to to frown at? If we think wider calls for greater … Read the rest

Paul Waldman at the Post has been reading Mary Trump’s book.

Here are some of the highlights:

She claims Trump hired a smarter boy he knew to take the SAT for him; the high score helped get him into college.

She describes Trump’s father, Fred, as not just domineering but a “sociopath.” He was verbally abusive to his children, especially Fred Jr., insisting that they become “killers” unhindered by emotion. “Fred perverted his son’s perception of the world and damaged his ability to live in it,” she writes.

Her father, Fred Jr., came in for particular contempt from Fred Sr. for being soft. “The lesson [President Trump] learned, at its simplest, was that it was wrong to be like

Trump hired someone to take the SATs for him.

He’ll be screaming at us all day long.

Mary Trump wrote in her tell-all, set to be published next week, that Trump paid a proxy to take the SAT for him, according to The New York Times, which obtained a copy of the book and reported on the passage Tuesday.

“The high score the proxy earned for him, Ms. Trump adds, helped the young Mr. Trump to later gain admittance as an undergraduate to the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton business school,” The Times reported.

…

Though in 2011 he hounded President Barack Obama for not turning over his college transcripts, Trump has never revealed any similar information about

Peace in our time?

As a trans woman working in academia, one of the questions I regularly get asked is how I get along with feminist colleagues. When I invariably answer “incredibly well”, I’m often met with a quizzical look.

…

Trans and feminism have certainly had a wobbly relationship over the years, but trans writers have energetically drawn on and contributed to feminist theory, while trans politics has been positively embraced by many feminists. The story here is not one of political conflict, it’s of mutual recognition.

So what’s all this about Rowling then? Not a story of political conflict? Not a conflict between trans ideology and feminism?

It is little wonder that my own daughters, both young feminists

This one nails it.

I'm a world expert on being talked over, lied about and defined by misogynists, on being instructed to centre everyone but my own demographic in my activism and on being denied credit for my own achievements by envious men. In other words, I'm a woman. https://t.co/CN8VZH3z0S

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 7, 2020

… Read the rest

Oh oops Bolsonaro done got the virus.

Now for Trump. Give it to him, and let it be bad. I want him to suffer.

“It came back positive,” a mask-wearing Bolsonaro told a hand-picked group of reporters on Tuesday lunchtime outside his official residence.

“There’s no reason for fear. That’s life,” the president added. “Life goes on. I thank God for my life and the role I’ve been given to decide the future of this great nation that is called Brazil.”

Well, that’s life, and it’s also death. Life goes on until it doesn’t. There is actually plenty of reason for fear, if not for oneself then for millions of other people, especially when their fate is vulnerable … Read the rest

This is ridiculous.

CNN:

After facing backlash on social media, actress Halle Berry announced on Twitter Monday she is no longer considering portraying a transgender man in an upcoming film role.

Berry apologized after discussing the role over the weekend in an Instagram Live video.

She groveled, is what she did.

pic.twitter.com/qpE8Tw1Xmu

— Halle Berry (@halleberry) July 7, 2020

Great, let’s insist that only admirals can play admirals, only 200-year-old people can play Victorians, only psychopaths can play psychopaths, only murderers can play murderers, only murder victims can play murder victims…I can’t see any potential difficulties, can you?

LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD said they were pleased Berry listened to the concerns voiced after her discussion of the

So about these people staging anti-mask rebellions at Trader Joe’s and similar – we’re getting some contradictory instructions on the subject.

The mask FAQ for King County, Washington, where Seattle is, is one source of such contradictory instructions.

Question one:

When am I required to wear a face covering?

You must wear a cloth face covering over your nose and mouth in an indoor public setting and at outdoor public spaces where it is difficult to maintain six feet of physical distance at all times. This means you don’t need to wear a face covering when you’re outside walking, but you would be directed to wear one while at a farmers market or visiting a crowded park where social

I listened to Moral Maze on groupthink yesterday. It was moderately interesting though it didn’t really dig very deep. From the blurb:

The word was coined in the 1970s by social psychologist Irving Janis. It has come to refer to people who are passionate about a particular view of the world and who treat those who don’t share their values with contempt, or even hostility. Today, commentators talk also of ‘cancel culture’ – public denunciations of high-profile individuals whose beliefs are deemed to be incompatible with the prevailing moral orthodoxy. When ‘unacceptable’ private thoughts are made public, reputations can be trashed and jobs are sometimes lost.

People aren’t going to stand up and say “hooray for groupthink,” are they.

But … Read the rest

Orac on the anti-maskers:

Let’s start with one lie in particular that antimask advocates have been peddling (and are still peddling) to try to trick store and restaurant owners into thinking that the ADA says that they don’t have to wear a mask. For instance, take a look at this woman ranting in Trader Joes in the video in this Tweet that she has a “medical condition” that makes it impossible for her to wear a facemask:

This is a Trader Joe’s today. In Los Angeles. Cases are through the roof in California. Is there any way to reach these people?

https://t.co/q1hIQr6aCL

— Read Let This Radicalize You (@JoshuaPHilll) June 27, 2020

She has a breathing problem? Like hell … Read the rest

They are unabashedly telling us lie after lie after lie.

White House reporters continue to press Kayleigh McEnany on the meaning of Trump’s tweet this morning about Nascar driver Bubba Wallace and the decision to ban Confederate flags at races.

One reporter asked the press secretary why the president would not praise Nascar’s decision to ban Confederate flags.

McEnany replied that Trump was against demonizing American citizens. “He stands against the demonization of Americans, and he stands firmly on the side of preserving our history,” McEnany said.

What does the Confederate flag have to do with demonizing American citizens? I guess the idea is that removing it would imply criticism (or “demonization”) of the people who like it? But … Read the rest

Apparently Trump has nothing serious to worry about right now.

Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX? That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 6, 2020

Say WHAT? Who tf is Bubba Wallace and why tf is Trump babbling about NASCAR and ratings? As the pandemic infections and deaths keep shooting up up up while the rest of the world is pushing theirs down?

CNN explains:

President Donald Trump on Monday bemoaned NASCAR’s recent decision to ban

He says that thing he keeps saying, with that same note of surprised happy: “I think I look good in it.” As if we’re all anxiously leaning forward worrying about how he looks in it. As if we give the tiniest rat’s ass about how he looks in it. As if he doesn’t look like a festering pile of burger grease and evil no matter what he puts on his head. As if how he looks in it has any bearing whatever on the issue of stopping the lethal pandemic.… Read the rest

It turns out that cringey BBC “let’s you trash ‘Karens'” tweet didn’t go down all that well.

Really not well at all. I’ve scrolled and scrolled and haven’t seen a “good stuff” reply yet.

Helen Joyce: I can only shudder when I think just how ashamed these women are going to be of their ageist younger selves in, ooh, about 15 years. Talk about internalised misogyny

TheMoominmama

You would [think] after being dragged to court by its experienced female presenters for age & sex discrimination that the bbc would have learned it’s lesson. Sadly no. The broadcaster thinks broadcasting pejorative ageist & sexist language & popular abuse among the woke crowd i[s] ok.

ThePen: ‘Don’t be so … Read the rest

Republicans are shocked, shocked that Trump appears to be a racist.

President Trump’s unyielding push to preserve Confederate symbols and the legacy of white domination, crystallized by his harsh denunciation of the racial justice movement Friday night at Mount Rushmore, has unnerved Republicans who have long enabled him but now fear losing power and forever associating their party with his racial animus.

Now? What, he hasn’t been showing his “racial animus” all along? The guy who was saying Mexicans are rapists before he even stole the election?

Trump has left little doubt through his utterances the past few weeks that he sees himself not only as the Republican standard-bearer but as leader of a modern grievance movement animated by

If Trump can corrupt and silence even the technical experts what hope is there?

Not much.

On Saturday night, President Donald Trump made the dangerously inaccurate claim that 99% of coronavirus cases are “totally harmless.” On Sunday morning, one of his top health experts failed to correct the assertion, a stunning breakdown of the government’s core duty to keep Americans safe and protect the public health.

CNN’s Dana Bash pressed US Food and Drug Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn repeatedly Sunday morning to explain the President’s false statement in his Fourth of July speech from the South Lawn of the White House, one that minimized the devastating effects of the virus and seemed to encourage Americans to ignore the deadly risks