The Guardian posted this video by Julie Bindel yesterday. It’s had 2.5 million views already.

It’s a specialty gallery.

Oenotrian’s Virginia:

David Richards’s Merlyn:

If you have any tilted cats you would like to add to the gallery, send them.

New: Peter Nothnagle’s Gus sharpening his claws:

latsot’s Fortran:

Rich Roberts’s Sugar:

iknklast’s Sir Winston and Mr Murphy:

Minnie The Finn’s Shiftie:

Josh Spokes’s Shredder:

One of those items that could be true or could just be something someone claimed. David Bernstein has an “o tempora o mores” piece at The Volokh Conspiracy at the Washington Post (too many levels already and I’m not even finished yet) which refers back to an earlier piece at the same place, both describing a thing that seems to be just a “she said” thing.

From the first one, the January 26 one:

Consider the following incidents described below that have reached my inbox or social media accounts over the past two weeks or so:

…

2. Anti-Israel sentiment at that most progressive of colleges, Oberlin, is bleeding into anti-Semitism (or maybe anti-Israel sentiment is simply providing a cover for latent anti-Semitism). Professor William Jacobson has the details here, but even if you don’t read the whole post, read the end of it, where he quotes a lengthy Facebook post from a recent alumna about anti-Semitic incidents she experienced or witnessed as a left-wing, but pro-Israel Jewish student there. I won’t endorse the claim that every one of these incidents was anti-Semitic, as such, but, assuming they are all true, they paint a very disturbing picture. I was particularly struck by her claim that multiple times she heard Oberlin students dismiss the Holocaust as “white on white violence.”

That is indeed a very striking thing to say, but did anyone say it? I hit the Google to try to confirm it and all I’ve found is people repeating Bernstein’s claim (which as I mentioned he repeated himself a few days later). What good is that? Especially now? When everything shows up on social media, surely if that were a commonplace thing to say it would turn up on social media?

I think if you’re going to talk about it – and more than once at that – in the Washington Post you need a better source than “someone on Facebook said.”

I wrote a whole post about the word “pussy” back in 2009 – a couple of years before it became routine for people to call me a cunt along with every other misogynist epithet in the arsenal. It generated a lot of interesting comments.

Here’s the post again:

I’m curious about something. To the best of my knowledge, a sexist epithet is a sexist epithet. There’s not generally a lot of ambiguity about it, although there’s always room for ironic uses in private conversation and so on. In public discourse, a sexist epithet is what it is. Yet – I keep encountering people who dispute that, in places where I wouldn’t expect to, such as comments on Jesus and Mo. So I’m curious about what other people think.

A commenter said ‘the god of Islam is such a pussy. He is unable to do a thing to protect himself or his reputation and must rely on his minions to do his dirty work.’ I took exception, and someone replied by quoting one of Julian’s Bad Moves from here, on the fact that many words have multiple meanings. True enough, but is there more than one way to understand ‘pussy’ in that comment? Not that I know of.

What’s interesting is that I think that’s pretty widely understood, even by people who pretend or believe otherwise. One reason I think that is that I don’t know anyone who uses the word that way in conversation or correspondence with me. I don’t think that’s an accident; I think it’s because no one who knows me thinks it would be welcome – and for all I know this includes people who do use the word in conversation with other people. The point is that if people avoid the word with (at least) certain audiences, then the meaning is probably pretty clear. Am I wrong?

Certain epithets just are not really ambiguous; they can’t be. ‘Nigger’ is the best known in the US and maybe elsewhere; kike, raghead, kaffir are a few more. Queer and dyke have been reclaimed, and there is a school of thought that ‘bitch’ has but I think on the contrary, ‘bitch’ is more viciously misogynist than ever. And so are, as far as I know, pussy, twat and cunt. It is my considered opinion that no one who comments on Jesus and Mo would have the gall to call the barmaid any of those things, and that if I’m right about that, they should stop using them at all.

Originally a comment by iknklast on He’s just another dude on the planet.

Oh, yes, it’s all just offense. But who is the one actually taking “offense”, if we look at it from the big picture? Dawkins took offense that Rebecca Watson didn’t want guys hitting on her in the elevator. He took offense that people thought a young boy should not have been arrested for bringing a clock to school, because “he didn’t really make a clock”. Language purity. He took offense because feminists protested an inappropriate shirt. Dawkins seems to be just one big ball of quivering offense right now, and we’re being told by everyone to lay off being offended because it’s so not freethinking, etc.

I used to try to figure out whether Dawkins was oblivious or malevolent. Now I figure it doesn’t matter. The effect is the same. Over a million fans that think he can do no wrong, and so they rush in a horde to protect him from that feminist blogger who just called him a bad name. Rape threats, death threats – it’s all just being a contrarian, a provocateur. Don’t over react. Just because they posted your address with the subtle statement that someone ought to rape you? Hypersensitive! Thought police!

I’m so tired. I thought I have finally found a home when I joined the freethought community, a place where I could finally have something in common. Now I find myself going through the same terrible experiences day in and day out that I had in the patriarchal religious community I was raised in. Patriarchy doesn’t look too good no matter which clothes it wears.

I think Dalton is right not to expect to agree with anyone 100%. I never expect that (not even you, Ophelia; not even Katha Pollitt). But he’s being a bit disingenuous here, because there are always some things that are more important than others. We are allowed to dismiss Neo-Nazis as role models, even though there may have been some decent things they did. We are allowed to dismiss the KKK as role models, even though many of them are model citizens in other aspects of life. We can just totally refuse to be friends with them, to associate with them, to read their books. We can criticize them online and off. But when the topic is sexism or misogyny, that is just trivial stuff, and merely disagreement. Sorry, don’t buy that.

Dawkins’s statement about inappropriate touching around the water cooler was sort of the last straw for me. This is recognition that sexual harassment happens, but basically he writes it off as not important. Sexual harassment is not important, it’s just “inappropriate touching”. Yes. And inappropriate leering is just inappropriate leering. And inappropriate shirts are just inappropriate shirts. But they all contribute to a pattern that affects one particular group of people disproportionately…a group of people that neither Richard Dawkins or Brian Dalton is part of, which makes their lecturing look just a bit self-serving. It’s very easy to dismiss someone else’s problems as inappropriate. What would happen if we dismissed it as unimportant when someone violated them? (And I hope no one here would ever do that…we can be bigger than that, and show them how it’s done).

From the Columbia Tower observation deck:

Karlo G

That’s a ferry departing at the bottom left. You can just barely see one approaching or leaving Winslow at the top – the tiny speck between two points of land.

Brian Dalton has a terrible short video raging at people who object to Richard Dawkins’s stream of anti-feminist tweets.

He starts out with outrage about the idea of “breaking up with” the great man. He’s not a god, Dalton tells us patronizingly, he didn’t run for president of United Atheists, and he’s not your freakin’ boyfriend.

He’s just another dude on the planet with opinions of his own, some of which you will agree with and some of which you will clearly not. But when he or Sam or Bill or whomever [sic] says something you disagree with, don’t take it as a personal betrayal. Richard never agreed to be your personal spokesman, let alone boyfriend.

And more of the same.

Here’s what he’s not getting. The issue is not mere opinions. It’s not a matter of disagreeing. It’s more than that. It has to do with bullying and harassment. It has to do with RD’s 1.35 million Twitter followers. It has to do with crude jeering as opposed to reasoned discussion.

Then he explains that we don’t need to “follow” anyone, and that we’re all individuals.

That again simply misses the point. It overlooks the fact that a great many people do follow Dawkins, and when he taunts one particular feminist or another, they follow suit. That’s the issue. It’s not pathetic disillusion with a hero we shouldn’t have been worshipping in the first place, it’s disgust that other people’s hero keeps sending harassment our way. It’s disgust that we’re being systematically driven out of the secular / freethought movement, and that Dawkins is helping with the driving out. Dalton either doesn’t recognize that or doesn’t give a fuck. I think it’s probably the latter, since the former is hard to believe.

Then he tells us we shouldn’t write off another human being “simply because they’ve said something we disagree with, however vehemently.” Again: it’s not just “disagreement.”

Then he tells us we’re never going to find someone, especially someone in the media, in the public eye, who agrees with us 100% of the time, and thank deity for that because how boring would that be. Again: not the issue.

Then he says hooray for diversity, because human beings are not simply the sum total of their last tweet.

And when a person has made major contributions in multiple fields of endeavor, it’s best to greet their current folly by recalling the totality of their life.

He just got through telling us not to hero worship Dawkins or anyone, but that claim is hero worship itself. Major contributions in multiple fields of endeavor? That’s a big exaggeration.

The rest of the claim might be true or at least reasonable were it not for the fact that the “current folly” is doing current harm, to actual people.

Then he says more about disagreement, which, again, is not the issue.

Then there’s a little aria about the freethought community and how we’re all not just individuals but individuals who “think different”; we’re freethinkers, provocateurs, contrarians, all around assholes, who love more than anything else to stir up the pot, make you think, and challenge convention.

Maybe so, although there’s a lot of self-flattery in that claim – but even if we are, it doesn’t follow that we have to bully our underlings.

Then he ends with a zinger about purity tests and that’s why he left religion in the first place. Roll credits.

He never once addresses the fact that outgroups may see this kind of thing differently from the way he does and the way Dawkins does.

Cliven Bundy may be planning to bring his epic sense of entitlement to Oregon, to pitch a fit because his sons were actually arrested for breaking multiple laws.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy may be coming to Oregon to demonstrate on behalf of his sons Ammon and Ryan Bundy, as well as the remaining four armed occupants of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Nevada State Assemblywoman Michele Fiore told OPB Monday that she, along with other state lawmakers from western states, will be traveling to meet Bundy in Burns and in Portland.

Fiore said the final details of the trip are still being planned, but she expects to be in Portland on Thursday night to protest the jailing of Ammon and Ryan Bundy.

“There is a Nevadan [Ryan Bundy] sitting in jail, and as an office holder, I will be there to demand his release,” Fiore said. “If that Nevadan can’t leave Oregon, we will bring Nevada to him. Peaceful, of course.”

So a state lawmaker thinks the laws don’t apply to people from her state. Or something.

Bundy sent a letter last week to Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and President Barack Obama, calling for all federal and state police to leave Harney County immediately, and for the refuge occupation to continue.

That would be funny if it weren’t for the fact that he himself has broken multiple laws, and helped himself to national resources at our expense, at gunpoint, and gotten away with it.

An event next week in Minneapolis.

The Minnesota Republic is pleased to host Milo Yiannopolous and Christina Hoff Sommers as they interview each other about the awful topic of contemporary Feminism.

Having failed to find a single member of the University of Minnesota’s Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies Department to debate Milo on the (supposed) virtues of modern, third wave, “quantum superstate” feminism, we are delighted to announce that Christina Hoff Sommers will be joining Milo on stage for this event!

This event will be held in Cowles Auditorium in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. REMINDER: This event is free, unticketed, and will be seated at a first come, first served basis.

This event will be free and open to all members of the public.

Milo Yiannopoulos is a journalist, broadcaster and internet personality. He is one of the best-known cultural commentators in Europe and his profile in America is rising rapidly thanks to fearless reporting about internet culture, video games, feminism, free speech and the effect of technology on society. He is a leading figure in the cultural libertarian movement and a senior editor at Breitbart.com.

You can find Milo’s work all over the internet, though the best place to start would be his own website.

Christina Hoff Sommers is an author and former philosophy professor who has written a number of books including “Who Stole Feminism” and “The War Against Boys” both of which are sharply critical of contemporary feminism. She is currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and the host of a weekly video blog, “The Factual Feminist.” She coined the term “equity feminist” to describe her own philosophy, and to distinguish it from “victim” or “gender feminism.”

You can find her published works on Amazon.

And The Factual Feminist videos.

No low too low.

Originally a comment by James Garnett on How much worse prospects for young people today are.

It’s very much true that things are worse now for younger people in the USA, too. Economically and career-wise, I mean. When I entered university at age 18 in 1984, a full semester of tuition at my state university cost about $1500, which is about $3500 in 2016 terms. That was just tuition. Back then, I recall that a salary of $40,000/year on graduation was relatively decent (in my field, Computer Science). Moreover, getting into the university was just a matter of having good grades and SAT scores.

Today students must pad their personal resumes with volunteering and extracurricular activities in addition to having good grades just to be accepted to the same university, and once accepted, they face single-semester tuitions of a little over $10,000. Upon graduation, they can look forward to a salary of around $70,000/year. So income hasn’t quite doubled, but expenses have almost tripled—and that’s just tuition. There are living expenses as well, and those have risen at the same rate.

So young people are working harder, paying more, and earning less. I know some younger colleagues who are facing decades of debt payments, as a result. How is someone supposed to save for retirement like that, when they are going to be scraping by, practically hand-to-mouth until at least their 40’s and sometimes even 50’s? The answer is obviously that they are not.

Is it any wonder that younger people are rejecting establishment candidates, and opting instead for those who promise them at least the same level of opportunity and life-success as we, their parents, had and have?

In case people would like to discuss the nitty gritty of the US presidential campaign without being interrupted by me saying I’m not interested in that.

That great feminist Bill Clinton is all in a lather about the sexism of Bernie Sanders supporters.

Bill Clinton uncorked an extended attack on Senator Bernie Sanders on Sunday, harshly criticizing Mr. Sanders and his supporters for what he described as inaccurate and “sexist” attacks on Hillary Clinton.

…

His heated remarks here reflected the frustration the Clintons felt two days before the primary in a state that has rewarded them in the past, but that appears ready to hand Mr. Sanders a decisive victory. Mr. Clinton seemed especially irritated that New Hampshire, after lifting his 1992 bid for the Democratic nomination and handing her a comeback win in 2008, would now abandon his wife.

Because after all, they liked him, and she’s his wife, so they ought to like her. Nothing sexist about that.

Also the sense of entitlement is not persuasive. The office is not their personal possession.

But Mr. Clinton’s most pointed remarks may have been when he took aim at Sanders supporters who, he said, use misogynistic language in attacking Mrs. Clinton. He told the story of a female “progressive” blogger who defended Mrs. Clinton online through a pseudonym because, he said, the vitriol from Mr. Sanders’s backers was so unrelenting.

“She and other people who have gone online to defend Hillary, to explain why they supported her, have been subject to vicious trolling and attacks that are literally too profane often, not to mention sexist, to repeat.” Mr. Clinton, growing more demonstrative, added that the liberal journalist Joan Walsh had faced what he called “unbelievable personal attacks” for writing positively about Mrs. Clinton.

People say sexist things about his wife. Other than that, he doesn’t care.