Another dispatch from Alison Criado-Perez of MSF, from a search and rescue boat in the Mediterranean run jointly by @MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid Station and @MSF. She joined a few days ago.

The call has come in from the MRCC, the organisation in Rome that coordinates the rescues: we’re being directed to help two wooden boats with about 700 people on board. So it’s happening. Our adrenalin starts pumping. What are we going to find? What kind of a state will the refugees be in?

The MOAS crew – Igor, Antoine, Mimmo – lower the rescue boat (RHIB) into the water and set off with Simon, our Canadian doctor, to assess the situation. The rest of us, the small MSF team, stay on board the Phoenix to help prepare for the embarkation. I check the clinic to make sure everything is in order: the drugs, the oxygen concentrator, the monitors – we have no idea what we’ll need.

“Ali, Ali!” I hear someone call. I rush to the embarkation gate at the side of the boat – and Mimmo hands a tiny child up to me from the RHIB, his big brown eyes wide open in stunned amazement. (I later learn that at about the time I am holding this little boy in my arms, the world is being shocked by the photo of little Aylan Kurdi, drowned on a beach in Turkey.) The small boy is quickly followed by a seemingly endless stream of exhausted, bedraggled women and children. We welcome them on board: life-jackets off, hands filled with a rescue package containing water, nutritional biscuits, a protective onesie, towel and a pair of thick socks.

The rescue boat goes back and forth, the lower deck fills up, they start placing people on the upper deck.

Soon we have 332 people on board, nearly all Eritrean, 28 of them young children. They trickle into the clinic for medical attention: dehydration, general exhaustion, headaches, insulin for a diabetic who hasn’t had any for too long. They are escaping from a country with political repression and arbitrary arrests, of enforced national service that lasts a lifetime. To get onto that leaky boat on the shores of Libya, they have already travelled thousands of miles, and many of them will have suffered in detention centres in Libya as they wait for their last chance saloon, an unseaworthy boat in which they will risk their lives in the hopes of a better future.

The next day the clinic is busy from 6 a.m. on.

One young girl stays in my mind. She is sixteen, and she is travelling alone. I will call her Miriam. She has a high fever due to pneumonia, but we can treat that with antibiotics. It’s not too severe. What is worse, what worries me more, is that she can hardly walk. She is limping, dragging her right leg. She speaks little English, but manages to convey to me where it hurts, and why: “I was beaten, here and here and here,” pointing to the back of her calf, her thigh, the bottom of her foot, “In Libya.” I am told that this happens in the detention centres, where the smugglers are attempting to extort more money from these already poverty-stricken and oppressed people.

Yes, maybe if you hit them enough, they will start bleeding money.

The next day they approach Italy.

Will, our emergency coordinator, is giving a talk to the crowded group: information on what happens on arrival, and some indications of what the process for them will be. The decks begin to buzz with excitement.

And then something happens that takes my breath away. A young woman, her head swathed in a bright pink scarf, stands up in the centre of a group and starts a rhythmic chanting as she sways and moves in time to the tune. She is joined by another woman, and another; soon the whole deck seems to be clapping and singing this repetitive tune. Their faces are wreathed with smiles; they are singing of hope, of relief, of joyful expectation. I can control the lump in my throat no longer, and tears pour down my cheeks.

Later, when everyone has safely disembarked, I go to the upper deck and stand in the stern, looking out to sea. And suddenly spot a small padlock, locked onto the protective netting. This is the deck where the refugees have been. One of them has put it there. Like the padlocks lovers lock onto bridges in Paris, in Stockholm, it glistens there in the evening light as a symbol of hope, of hope that a new and better life is beginning.

Good luck to them.

The Auckland University Students’ Association’s Womenfest started today.

They have this note on their Facebook page for the event:

★ ★ ★ NOTE ★ ★ ★

Following the recent comments on the Womensfest schedule, and consultation with members of the trans community at the University of Auckland, we have made the decision to cancel the ‘Vagina Cupcakes’ and will not be continuing with ‘Pussytails’ at our ‘Reclaim Shadows’ Closing Party. We have also decided to disable posts on this event, after the invasion of the previous event by people seeking to make it unsafe for the trans and queer community. Anyone who wishes to engage with AUSA constructively on Womensfest are welcome to contact us at wro@ausa.org.nz.

So there you go. Feminist women aren’t allowed to talk frankly about their bodies at the Womensfest event.

Salman Rushdie on the Je Reste Charlie project.

It is important that we take a stand. That we stand firm. That we say: This is the world in which we want to live. And in order to live in this world, it must be all right for these cartoons to exist. We must not try to apologize for them. We must also not try to excuse the attack on Charlie Hebdo, by showing understanding for the attackers. Stand firm! If we want to live in an open society, then the acceptance of such cartoons is part of this. What would a respectful cartoon look like? The form as such doesn’t exist. The form of a cartoon demands disrespect. Satire requires us to make fun of people, to laugh at them. Whoever they may be. The more powerful they are, the better. Stand firm! This is what it’s all about. It is important that we say today: This is the boundary line. It may not be erased.

However, there is a combination between a mood of appeasement and political correctness in the air currently, especially on the left. This was demonstrated recently, when the writers’ association PEN wanted to honor the Charlie Hebdo magazine for its courage in fighting for freedom of expression – and a number of writers protested. Many of them found the assassination in Paris terrible, but honoring the survivors they found to be self-righteous, moreover it would hurt the feelings of Muslims. There it was again – this but. I found it strange that this attitude had now been articulated by left-wing writers. I knew many of them, I was friends with some of them – Peter Carey or Michael Ondaatje for example. Following the publication of my novel “The Satanic Verses” and everything that followed, I had to listen to similar accusations to those which are today being expressed towards Charlie Hebdo. “Rushdie knew exactly what he was doing”, it was often suggested, “he was provoking deliberately.” Or: “He only did it to become rich and famous.” The bulk of these accusations at that time came from people who were politically on the right. Today, it is the left-wingers who are making almost the same allegations about the satirists at Charlie Hebdo. I think that this is a strange development.

The people at Charlie Hebdo didn’t and don’t like every single cartoon. They dislike some of them. Imagine that!  Jean-Baptiste Thoret told Salman that at the PEN gala.

Jean-Baptiste Thoret told me something very significant that evening: “If people don’t like our cartoons, this is something we can discuss. Perhaps I don’t even like them myself. In our editorial office we were and are constantly arguing about what we should publish and what we shouldn’t. We never all agreed. Every one of us always disliked the half of what we published. It is not a question of whether or not you like the cartoons. If you don’t like them, then come here and tell us. On that one specific detail that you don’t like, perhaps I’m on your side. Or perhaps not.”

Every one of us always disliked the half of what we published. But they didn’t shun each other for liking or disliking half of what they published.

Deeyah Khan has a human rights award from the University of Oslo.

Deeyah Khan has shed an important light on women’s rights and freedom of speech. Her own story serves as a powerful example. As a young Norwegian-Pakistani musician in Norway she experienced being threatened to silence by conservative forces in the Pakistani environment and had to leave Norway at the age of 17.

– Giving Deeyah Khan this award will shed light on the situation of women and women’s rights, but also on a highly acute situation concerning young Muslims’ affiliation with radical Islam and extremism, says Inga Bostad, head of the award committee.

In 2012, Khan received the prestigious Emmy award for best documentary for her film Banaz – a love story about the British-Kurdish woman Banaz who was killed by her own family in a honor killing. Khan has recently released the documentary, Jihad: a story about the others, about young British Muslim men who join violent and extreme jihadism. In this film, Khan sets out to find out why the jihadi message has such an alluring hold on these young Westerners.

In January this year, she organized the World Woman conference, which focused on women, art and freedom of expression. Among the participants were Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. In 2007, Khan contributed in founding the Sisterhood institution, which assists young Muslim women in finding their own creative and artistic language.

– There is a distinct feminist trace in Khans work on freedom of expression. She has taken the initiative to found a number of organizations and institutions that aim to create awareness about women’s situation and their rights, says Bostad.

Khan is currently living and working in London.

The award ceremony is on Tuesday, 17 November 2015, at 1800 in the Old Festive Hall in Karl Johans gate, with subsequent reception for the Laureate.

Congratulations Deeyah!

Speaking of pope Fluffy – Richard Kreitner asks why the hell he’s canonizing Junípero Serra.

Born in Spain, Serra arrived in Spanish-held Mexico in 1749 and quickly set about working for the Inquisition, citing by name several natives who refused to convert to Christianity; they were guilty, he wrote, of “the most detestable and horrible crimes of sorcery, witchcraft and devil worship.” Serra soon gained control of the missions of Baja California, but he found that the native population had already been nearly extinguished by contact with the Spanish. Looking for fresh converts, he led expeditions up the coast into the present-day state of California, where he settled at Monterey and set up ten new missions to spread the gospel through the new land.

To “spread the gospel,” meaning, to coerce the colonized population into adopting the colonizers’ religion.

From their establishment in the late 1760s until Mexico declared independence and secularized them in the 1820s, the California missions formed a network of forced-labor camps and, in effect, slaughterhouses, where the once-vibrant native peoples of California were systematically reduced to mere shadows of their former selves: Under the mission system, the overall indigenous population of Southern California declined by nearly 1,000 every single year.

If they were lucky enough not to be killed by European diseases spread largely through sexual violence on the part of the Spanish, many natives at the missions sought to run away, not terribly unlike African slaves on the East Coast in the United States.

So what is the point of canonizing that?

The summer that is ending saw the beginning of what many of us only a few months ago thought impossible: a serious and fairly intelligent national debate about the legacy of slavery and the Civil War. The proposed canonization of Serra has gained some attention on the West Coast, but almost none in the East. That is because in their grade-school history classes the students of California learn something the rest of us do not: There was not one form of slavery in the territory that is now the United States. There were at least two.

But of course from the point of view of the church, forcing Catholicism on a colonized population is a good and saintly thing to do.

Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, wishes people would not talk about vaccines at presidential “debates.”

Questions about vaccines and autism were asked not only of Donald Trump, but also of the two physicians taking part: Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon, and Rand Paul, an ophthalmologist. The doctors, at least, should know better.

Here are the facts:

Vaccines aren’t linked to autism.

The number of vaccines children receive is not more concerning than it used to be.

Delaying their administration provides no benefit, while leaving children at risk.

All the childhood vaccines are important.

Then he provides evidence for all four claims. On the second claim –

It’s also not correct to call autism an “epidemic,” as Mr. Trump often seems to do. Autism is more prevalent as a diagnosis than it used to be. But much of that in recent years is because we’ve changed the definition of what it means to have “autism spectrum disorder.” For instance, 10 years ago, two-thirds of children diagnosed with autism had below-average intelligence. But today only about a third of those diagnosed with A.S.D. do. The fastest-growing group of children with autism have average or above average intelligence. We’re being more inclusive in the diagnosis.

It’s not that it’s happening more, it’s that it’s being diagnosed more. Donald Trump please note…but he won’t, of course.

And no, none of them are “optional.”

All of the shots recommended by the Centers for Disease Control have been judged to be important. I know of some people who think that the varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine is one of the “less important” ones. Tell that to my father, who contracted the illness as an adult when my siblings and I did, and almost needed to be hospitalized. Or tell that to the many babies who might catch the disease before they can get the shot and become severely ill.

In one of my favorite studies on this topic, researchers looked at how many children died of varicella before and after the introduction of the vaccine in 1995. Between 1990 and 1994, more than 45 children died with varicella as the underlying cause. From 2003 to 2007, only 10 did. Even more significantly, in that latter period only one child younger than 1 died with varicella as the underlying cause, and none after 2004. Remember that not one of those infants was vaccinated. That result came about only from herd immunity: when enough people are vaccinated to protect those who can’t be.

This shouldn’t be politicized in the first place.

Here is Ahmed Mohamed talking to Chris Hayes yesterday.

He’s still suspended from school though, and his parents are looking for a new and less ridiculous educational facility for him.

Ahmed was still suspended by school officials. He said Wednesday that his family is looking for a new school for him after he was placed in handcuffs.

“I built the clock to impress my teacher, but when I showed it to her, she thought it was a threat to her. So it was really sad she took the wrong impression of it,” Ahmed said at the press conference.

School district spokeswoman Lesley Weaver declined to confirm the suspension, citing privacy laws. Weaver insisted school officials were concerned with student safety and not the boy’s faith.

Oh, so the photo of the all-male group of Famous Late Night TV Hosts was in Vanity Fair. Christina Cauterucci at Slate talks about the reaction and the reaction to the reaction.

The reaction to Monday’s Vanity Fair comedy dudefest was swift and unified. Moments after the magazine published a photo of 10 men to illustrate its article on why late-night TV is “better than ever,” Twitter erupted the way only Twitter knows how.

Good. That photo is a slap in the face.

Whether or not Vanity Fair intended the photo as a jarring critique of the endemic sexism in contemporary comedy and television—let’s go with “not”—it is an effective visual signifier of a bleak reality that can’t be explained away as coincidental or merit-based. For anyone who thinks about issues of diversity and gender equity, looking at the overwhelming maleness of this bourbon-nursing pack is like looking into the sun.

Cauterucci quotes Trevor Noah – one of the guys in the infamous photo – talking to Newsweek about women-in-comedy.

I guess what we need to look at is how is that evolving? The first step in that is you go, OK, there’s two men of color. That’s a big jump. Pretty soon there will be a woman that’ll be added to that. And there will probably be more women, which is gonna be fantastic. And over time, that’ll happen; it’s a conversation that we need to continue having.

Pretty soon? What does he mean pretty soon? Starting from when? Pretty soon might sound ok if you thought history started a couple of years ago, but why would you think that? It’s not as if nobody had noticed that women are scarce in jobs like hosting late night tv shows until yesterday. We noticed that a long time ago. Decades ago. We noticed the way even in a world where women have equal rights on paper, that does not mean women do not routinely get passed over for desirable jobs. We noticed that such a long time ago. So what can “pretty soon” possibly mean in that context? It hasn’t happened yet, so why would it happen “pretty soon”? And why would that be good enough anyway?

Notwithstanding Noah’s history of problems with women, his complacent, tepid hope for incremental gains is a major part of the entertainment industry’s gender problem. There’s a prevailing attitude that gender and race equity are inevitable—that if we wait long enough and stop griping over quotas and diversity initiatives, they’ll happen on their own.

And how long is long enough anyway? And if they’re so damn inevitable why haven’t they happened yet?

But TV lineups aren’t chosen by an algorithm that spits out a steadily rising number of female hosts each fall. There are human decision-makers behind these TV networks: producers, investors, and executives who usually hold more power than the (sometimes female) stars themselves—and who sometimes have some bizarre ideas about when diversity is and isn’t appropriate, as was the case with Matt Damon on Project Greenlight. While the harsh reaction to Vanity Fair’s photo should be read as an indictment of barriers to women in comedy, Vanity Fair editors, too, make deliberate choices that affect the gendered landscape of TV. Noah won’t start at his post until Sept. 28, but he made it into the boys’ club; Samantha Bee and Chelsea Handler, both of whom have forthcoming late-night shows in the works, did not. The next time a magazine pulls a move like this, Noah would find better footing lampooning his own industry from The Daily Show pulpit than defending it.

Damn right.

Fabulous. A kid makes a techy creative science project clock and takes it to school and he gets arrested. Brilliant. God bless America.

At a press conference this morning, Irving Police Chief Larry Boyd said charges won’t be filed against Ahmed Mohamed, the MacArthur High School freshman arrested Monday after bringing what school officials and police described as a “hoax bomb” on campus.

Boyd said the device — confiscated by an English teacher despite the teen’s insistence that it was a clock — was “certainly suspicious in nature.”

Oooooh yeah, and so is the inside of this laptop I’m typing on, and so is the inside of every computer in MacArthur High School, along with all the phones and tablets and every other ELekTronIck device anyone in the building has.

School officers questioned Ahmed about the device and why he’d brought it to school. Boyd said Ahmed was then handcuffed “for his safety and for the safety of the officers” and taken to a juvenile detention center. He was later released to his parents, Boyd said.

“The follow-up investigation revealed the device apparently was a homemade experiment, and there’s no evidence to support the perception he intended to create alarm,” Boyd said.

So, no harm done. Except to Ahmed, but hey, he’s just some kid. A talented kid, yes, but still just a kid.

Soon after the press conference, Obama tweeted:

Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.

Yaboosucks, Irving police department.

Rebecca Solnit was giving a talk on Virginia Woolf a few years ago, and the audience for some reason wanted to talk about whether Woolf should have had children…as opposed to talking about the thing that makes Woolf of interest: what she wrote.

In the talk I had quoted with approval her description of murdering “the angel of the house,” the inner voice that tells many women to be self-sacrificing handmaidens to domesticity and male vanity. I was surprised that advocating for throttling the spirit of conventional femininity should lead to this conversation.

What I should have said to that crowd was that our interrogation of Woolf’s reproductive status was a soporific and pointless detour from the magnificent questions her work poses. (I think at some point I said, “Fuck this shit,” which carried the same general message and moved everyone on from the discussion.) After all, many people have children; only one made To the Lighthouse and The Waves, and we were discussing Woolf because of the books, not the babies.

But she was a woman, so let’s talk about the babies anyway.

The line of questioning was familiar enough to me. A decade ago, during a conversation that was supposed to be about a book I had written on politics, the British man interviewing me insisted that instead of talking about the products of my mind, we should talk about the fruit of my loins, or the lack thereof. Onstage, he hounded me about why I didn’t have children. No answer I gave could satisfy him. His position seemed to be that I must have children, that it was incomprehensible that I did not, and so we had to talk about why I didn’t, rather than about the books I did have.

I guess she should consider herself lucky he didn’t ask her about her penis envy.

The interviewer’s question was indecent, because it presumed that women should have children, and that a woman’s reproductive activities were naturally public business. More fundamentally, the question assumed that there was only one proper way for a woman to live.

But even to say that there’s one proper way may be putting the case too optimistically, given that mothers are consistently found wanting, too.

Women are the permanent children of the world, always subject to questioning and scolding by the adults.

We talk about open questions, but there are closed questions, too, questions to which there is only one right answer, at least as far as the interrogator is concerned. These are questions that push you into the herd or nip at you for diverging from it, questions that contain their own answers and whose aim is enforcement and punishment. One of my goals in life is to become truly rabbinical, to be able to answer closed questions with open questions, to have the internal authority to be a good gatekeeper when intruders approach, and to at least remember to ask, “Why are you asking that?” This, I’ve found, is always a good answer to an unfriendly question, and closed questions tend to be unfriendly.

Yes indeed they do.