All entries by this author

Now then now then

Jul 6th, 2019 11:12 am | By

This happened yesterday:

https://twitter.com/sargesalute/status/1147176523092439040

The Green Room is part of the National Theatre.

The Guardian does a Both Sides:

The National Theatre has become embroiled in a bitter war of words after a group of lesbian friends was refused service in the venue’s Green Room bar in the run-up to the Pride in London celebrations.

The women and their supporters claim their treatment at the hands of staff, who called the police, was a response to their campaigning stance on gender identity. Other witnesses in the bar have described their behaviour as disruptive.

The small group, who arrived with placards, included Anne Ruzylo, a political activist and former member of the Bexhill and Battle Labour party, and on Friday

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This variety of tut-tutting

Jul 6th, 2019 10:06 am | By

Which is worse – holding people captive in appalling conditions, or pointing out that people are being held captive in appalling conditions?

Adam Serwer discusses the issue:

The journalist Jonathan Katz argued in May that given the intent behind these facilities, and the conditions that migrants are being held in, they are best described as a concentration-camp system in the United States. That assessment was echoed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was promptly accused of trivializing the Holocaust. “Allegations that somehow the United States is operating in a way that is in any way a parallel to the Holocaust is just completely ludicrous,” Representative Liz Cheney wrote. Although Ocasio-Cortez did not mention the Holocaust, the association between the Shoah

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This kind of flagrant disregard for our community

Jul 5th, 2019 5:34 pm | By

Here we go again.

Brian Leiter points out an item:

Wollongong Undergraduate Students’ Association… (UPDATED)

is a disgrace.  How can the Australasian Association of Philosophy permit such an event?  (And if the AAP isn’t hosting this event, why are they permitting the use of the AAP logo?)

What’s it done?

Scheduled an event for a conference on Monday with the thoughtful title “F**k off Holly Lawford-Smith”.

Under “Details” we get:

A well known TERF has been invited to speak at the Australasian Association of Philosophers conference at UoW. She has been overtly transphobic and is a huge supporter of the fake academic theories created by so called “gender critical” academics who use outdated terminology and ideas such

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Two for one

Jul 5th, 2019 3:36 pm | By

From Josephine Raap on Facebook:

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Continually having to explain yourself

Jul 5th, 2019 3:12 pm | By

You’ve always wondered what it’s like to be transgender and non-binary in paleontology, right? Right? Well now you get to find out.

Riley Black, who came out as transgender and non-binary this year, describes the challenges of cultivating diversity in a discipline with an ‘Indiana Jones’ image.

I’m all agog. Here I thought paleontology had to do with studying fossils, but that must have been completely wrong.

I’ve found a ubiquitous part of the trans experience is continually having to explain yourself to the world at large. Why change? Why now? What’s going to happen? At times it feels like the best solution would be to write a frequently-asked-questions pamphlet, kept readily at hand for the next Society of

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The teleprompter did it

Jul 5th, 2019 11:16 am | By

Trump says the teleprompter fell over right at that place and that’s why he said the sojers took over the airports in 1775. Totally the teleprompter’s fault.

President Donald Trump — who used to mock predecessor Barack Obama for using the devices during speeches — said Friday that technical problems with the teleprompter during his “Salute to America” led to his head-scratching remarks about the Continental Army securing not-yet existent “airports” during the Revolutionary War.

How does that work exactly?

Trump, speaking to reporters on the White House lawn en route to his property in Bedminster, New Jersey, acknowledged Friday he had some technical problems because of the soggy conditions during his speech.

“We had a lot of rain. I

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Damage control

Jul 5th, 2019 10:26 am | By

The mother of a “Drag Kid” is shocked, shocked, that anyone would sexualize her son.

What could possibly cause anyone to sexualize a Drag Kid? How is sex even relevant?

https://twitter.com/JonKUhlerLPC/status/1144302466323951616

https://twitter.com/JonKUhlerLPC/status/1144305459026898945

CBC? Any thoughts?… Read the rest



Japes and jests aplenty

Jul 5th, 2019 10:04 am | By

Naturally there are jokes.

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1147151495508451328

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After our army took over the airports, it shelled CNN and MSNBC

Jul 5th, 2019 9:25 am | By

Amee Vanderpool breaks down all of Trump’s failures yesterday:

What was also interesting was the arrangement of the bleachers at the very front and the placement of the tanks Trump had been going on and on about. In a grand stroke of irony, fences were placed around the Lincoln Memorial and across the Reflecting Pool to kept non-ticket-holders away from the memorial and given the potential for lightning in the forecast, the excessive use of more metal in the pool was a questionable move.

In other words millions in public money were spent to enable Trump to throw a private party at the Lincoln Memorial. People outside the fence couldn’t see anything, including the much-vaunted tanks.

It started to pour

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The pilots wore powdered wigs

Jul 5th, 2019 8:38 am | By

He said it. He said it. He actually said it.

He seriously can only just barely read. He reads like a 5-year-old who is still learning how. He barfs out each word like a hammer blow, wagging his head back and forth to keep time. He tries to make himself sound smooth and natural by having his voice go Up and Down word by word, which succeeds only in making him sound like a lunatic. And he sees airports where there are none.… Read the rest



The reframing of child sexual abuse is a dominant idea within queer theory

Jul 4th, 2019 5:47 pm | By

Dr EM on Queer Theory as destroyer of boundaries:

Unnervingly, the reframing of child sexual abuse and liberating of paedophilia from the margins of society is a dominant idea within queer theory. Although it has attempted to cloak itself under the rainbow and harness the energy, good will and gains gay, lesbian and bisexual people have fought for over decades Queer theory is anything but progressive. Indeed, it is totally opposed to same sex attraction. As Professor Alassandra Tanesini outlines, a ‘characteristic trait of queer theory is its opposition to any view that treats sexual orientation as anything other than socially constructed’.[4]

It goes back to Foucault.

Foucault’s re-conceptualisation of the triad of discourse, power and knowledge entailed

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Let them eat chain link fencing

Jul 4th, 2019 4:14 pm | By

The Lincoln Memorial in DC – normally a wide-open public space – has been fenced off for a very large distance.

The people are paying for it, but they’re not allowed to get close enough to see it.

Seems fair.… Read the rest



Exploring new territory

Jul 4th, 2019 3:17 pm | By

I beg your pardon?

https://twitter.com/cbckidsnews/status/1146820535931822090

What’s it like to be a kid drag queen? I don’t know, what’s it like to be a kid prostitute? What’s it like to be a kid wife? What’s it like to be a kid factory worker? What’s it like to be a kid in prison?

All pretty bad, I should think. Children are children, and there are a lot of activities that just aren’t right for children – because they’re of no interest, or because they’re too difficult, or because they’re abusive, or all those. I would put being a drag queen firmly on that list, myself.

But the CBC doesn’t look at it that way.

As an art form, drag has always

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Blam

Jul 4th, 2019 2:25 pm | By

Funny kind of “birthday”…

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Living the dream

Jul 4th, 2019 11:43 am | By

How it’s seen over there.

(Spoiler: not admiringly.)

The US president will deliver an Independence Day speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which honours the president who won the civil war and helped end slavery and was the site of civil rights leader Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech a century later.

Yes, and the result is that that is how we see it and think of it now. It’s a place where we gather to petition the government for redress of grievances. It has a certain resonance. It’s not a place for triumphalist displays of military power. Right after WW II it might have been, but now, no. It stands for everything Trump hates, and … Read the rest



A very real abandonment of the ideals of liberal democracy

Jul 4th, 2019 10:34 am | By

Greg Sargent on Trump’s putsch:

The authoritarian nationalist leader typically rewrites the story of the nation in his own image. Our own homegrown authoritarian nationalist has proved particularly devoted to this fusion of national mythmaking and self-hagiography, often delivered in his own unique language of crass, gaudy spectacle.

The historians tell us that this is what authoritarian nationalists do. As Harvard’s Jill Lepore puts it, they replace history with tried-and-true fictions – false tales of national decline at the hands of invented threats, melded to fictitious stories of renewed national greatness, engineered by the leader himself, who is both author of the fiction and its mythic hero.

The authoritarian nationalists of the past didn’t have Twitter though. How Hitler … Read the rest



The border patrol are not hospital workers

Jul 3rd, 2019 5:36 pm | By

Another eruption of filth from the White House.

I hope … Read the rest



The claim was untrue

Jul 3rd, 2019 12:15 pm | By

Pink News issues a correction and apology:

Last week we published and tweeted a story claiming Joanna Cherry QC the MP For Edinburgh South West and the SNP Justice and Home Affairs Spokesperson was being investigated for homophobia. The claim was untrue and we would like to apologise unreservedly to Ms Cherry.

It is well known that Ms Cherry is a human rights lawyer. She came out as a lesbian over 30 years ago and campaigned against section 28. She has spent a lifetime marching and campaigning for the rights of the LGBT+ community and as a politician regularly speaks up for their rights in parliament and beyond.

It was not our intention nor is it in our interest

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What’s ours is his

Jul 3rd, 2019 11:43 am | By

It gets worse. (It always does, doesn’t it.)

$2.5 million stolen from the National Parks so that Trump can say LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME. And reward donors on our dime instead of his.

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Tanks on the streets

Jul 3rd, 2019 11:14 am | By

The Washington Post editorial board is not a fan of Trump’s plans for July 4.

It was bad enough that Mr. Trump sought to make the holiday about himself with plans to deliver a nationally televised address from the Lincoln Memorial, thus eliminating what many consider the hands-down best spot in Washington for fellowship and fireworks on the Fourth of July. But Mr. Trump now plans to cordon off an area in front of the memorial reserved just for dignitaries, family and friends. Nothing about reserved seating says “We the people.”

Equally, if not more troubling, is his insistence on a display of military might that will include a flyover of warplanes and the stationing of tanks or other

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