Wow. The Guardian:

A camera operator for a Hungarian nationalist television channel closely linked to the country’s far-right Jobbik party has been filmed kicking two refugee children and tripping up a man at the border hotspot of Rőszke on Tuesday.

Petra László of N1TV was filming a group of refugees running away from police officers, when a man carrying a child in his arms ran in front of her. László stuck her leg out in front of the man, causing him to fall on the child he was carrying. He turned back and remonstrated with László, who continued filming.

Sure enough:

https://youtu.be/e2kdd-B_RQg

Watch closely – at 4 seconds you can see her kick a girl, but it’s over in a flash. The tripping of the guy carrying a child is slower and more in the open.

Hungary’s leading news website Index had also caught László kicking a young girl and boy.

N1TV said László had been dismissed due to “unacceptable behaviour”. The channel’s editor in chief Szabolcs Kisberk said in a statement posted on the station’s website: “The camerawoman’s employment has today been terminated with immediate effect, the case is now closed for us.”

Hate campaigns are not harmless; they do their work.

Careful thinking.

Sabine ‏@ThatSabineGirl 21 hours ago
The sheer privilege of an oppressor class whining that they don’t like the word those they oppress use to describe them. It’s incredible.

And no, cis/trans is not a binary, no more than skin colour, sexuality, or gender is.

So…it’s not a binary, but we have no right to say it doesn’t describe us. Ok…

There’s more of that careful thinking.

Cis people are SO FUCKING WHINY.

Cis. Cis cis cis cis cis CIS CIS CIS. YOU ARE CIS. And more importantly, you treat trans people like dirt and you need to stop.

Really? We all treat trans people like dirt? I don’t think that has been shown.

You’re cis. Deal with it. Like we have to deal with being trans, only you have a position of normality & a load of privilege to soften blow.

Hint: Oppressor’s feelings on what word those they oppress use to describe their oppressor class: NOT IMPORTANT

But “their oppressor class” is what’s in dispute.

Having privilege along a certain axis is not the same thing as oppressing people along that axis. It’s not the same thing at all. The difference is pretty important.

Being cis merely means you aren’t trans. It’s not a slur, it’s not an identity forced on you, it’s just a word which means ‘not trans’.

If it’s just a word which means ‘not trans’ then what sense does it make to say cis people “treat trans people like dirt”? How can it not be a slur if it means “an oppressor class” that “treats trans people like dirt”?

It can’t. Sabine is energetically using the word “cis” as a slur while energetically denying that it’s a slur. That’s incoherent.

These things matter.

Kim Davis is (or soon will be) out of jail, and her deputies are issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis freed on Tuesday, five days after he held Davis in contempt and sent her to a Kentucky jail amid an escalating standoff over marriage licenses.

Davis was jailed at the Carter County Detention Center on Thursday after she refused to issue licenses to same-sex couples. The following day, her deputies began issuing licenses in her absence.

Five of the six clerks who work under Davis swore under oath that they could comply with the court’s order to issue marriage licenses. In a status report filed to Bunning’s court Tuesday, the couples who had filed suit against Davis after she first denied them marriage licenses said they were able to obtain them.

So there you go. All Davis has to do is stand back and let the deputies do the job. If she doesn’t, the court will consider appropriate sanctions.

I hope she won’t worry too much about Jesus crying heartbrokenly about the same-sex couples in Rowan County, Kentucky getting married.

What would be even better than that, though, would be if she did start worrying more about Jesus’s terrible priorities, and by extension, hers. It would be a good thing if she started to wonder why she objects so much to same-sex couples getting married when she could be worrying about things that actually are bad instead. If you’re going to worry, why not worry about refugees drowning in the Mediterranean? Why not worry about the women enslaved by Boko Haram and IS? Why not worry about climate change? Why not worry about human and/or animal suffering instead of something that causes no suffering or harm to anyone?

Originally a comment by Rob on Currently being pulled from libraries, schools and bookshops.

Part of the problem here is that giving a book designed to be read by teens an R18 classification is a de facto ban. Having spent far too much time on the comments section of one of our main newspaper publishers yesterday I can conform that the overwhelming reaction to the ban has been that it is a bad thing, driven by conservative Christians out of step with modern NZ society. The commonality from the few commentators supporting the ban seemed to be “think of the 10 year olds” and “the author is old, writing about teen sex and therefore a pervert” and “these comments all confirm Christians are persecuted”.

Frankly I was shocked when I saw the headline yesterday. I couldn’t have told you when the last time a book was banned in NZ was. The last time I remember any significant debate about it I was in my teens, which makes it well over 30 mumble years. The last time I remember any real debate about the purpose of even having censors in this day and age there was actually quite a good bit of journalism where they interviewed the then chief censor. He explained how the work was carried out, the standards of assessment and how the censors work. They also showed a brief clip from a hard core porno while the censor explained the rationale for banning the dvd. In that case there was no overarching narrative, no examination of motives or consequences, absolutely nothing that might be regarded as art or social commentary. It was a fuck movie in which a girl of indeterminate age (but almost certainly too young) was coerced into doing something she did not want to do. The atmosphere was threatening, unsafe and the girl was either the best actress I have ever seen or she was clearly scared out of her wits. In short it was abusive and degrading. Quite different from the run of the mill ‘reluctance’ of much commercial porn. To the NZ censors sexual violence in the absence of some kind of meaningful social commentary or narrative that justifies its use is a no no.

In the author’s words, the book is really about bullying. The sex and drugs is simply window dressing to try and get the teen (boy) audience to read the book to expose them to the bigger message. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t comment on how well integrated the theme is, but given that it has won a reasonable award it is probably fairly well done.

My real problem in all this is the role of the classification board. These people are not professionals like the censors. they are private citizens. Some are nominated by interest groups. Some nominate themselves. They are appointed by a Government Minister. In this case the professional censor(s) and the lay board are clearly at odds and the head of the board has used his power to enact the temporary ban. In my view it is an abuse of power, but one that was always likely given the structure of the system. This is certainly a view shared by others, see more here. Don Mathieson QC is apparently known to have conservative social values.

I watched Dr Strangelove again last night, for the first time in way too long – I don’t know why I haven’t stirred my stumps to watch it before.

It holds up amazingly (except it doesn’t amaze me at all).

The performances Kubrick elicited from Peter Sellers and Sterling Hayden and above all George C Scott make my hair stand on end – as does the writing, as does the cinematography. General Jack D Ripper filmed from below, shadowy and mad.

This is perhaps my favorite scene.

https://youtu.be/vuP6KbIsNK4

A viral cartoon by a friend who wants to be anonymous (but wants the cartoon to be shared) via South Jersey Humanists –

Happy Labor Day tomorrow for those of you in the US.

H/t Jeffrey

Remember the blog Gay Girl in Damascus? By a Syrian lesbian blogger? Who turned out to be a straight married guy in Edinburgh? That was 2011.

The mysterious identity of a young Arab lesbian blogger who was apparently kidnapped last week in Syria has been revealed conclusively to be a hoax. The blogs were written not by a gay girl in Damascus, but a middle-aged American man based in Scotland.

Tom MacMaster, a 40-year-old Middle East activist studying for a masters at Edinburgh University, posted an update declaring that, rather than a 35-year-old feminist and lesbian called Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari, he was “the sole author of all posts on this blog”.

…

The admission – confirmed in an email to the Guardian from MacMaster’s wife – apparently ends a mystery that has convulsed parts of the internet for almost a week. But it provoked a furious response from those who had supported the blogger’s campaign, with some in the Syrian gay community saying he had risked their safety and seriously harmed their cause.

The blog A Gay Girl in Damascus was launched in February, purportedly to explain “what it’s like to be a lesbian here”, and gathered a growing following as Syria’s popular uprising gained momentum in recent months. Amina described participating in street protests, carrying out furtive lesbian romances and eventually being forced into hiding after security forces came to her home to arrest her.

Then, on 6 June, a post appeared in the name of Amina’s cousin “Rania O Ismail”, who said the blogger had been snatched by armed men on a Damascus street.

Then there was a campaign to get her out…and then people started asking questions. Lots of questions. IP addresses were traced, photos were traced, everything led to MacMaster.

So he confessed, and said something about the pervasiveness of “liberal Orientalism.”

Despite MacMaster’s assertion “I do not believe that I have harmed anyone”, activists were furious. Sami Hamwi, the pseudonym for the Damascus editor of GayMiddleEast.com, wrote: “To Mr MacMaster, I say shame on you!!! There are bloggers in Syria who are trying as hard as they can to report news and stories from the country. We have to deal with too many difficulties than you can imagine. What you have done has harmed many, put us all in danger, and made us worry about our LGBT activism. Add to that, that it might have caused doubts about the authenticity of our blogs, stories, and us.”

What if, instead of confessing, he had simply said he identified as a Syrian lesbian blogger?

H/t Alona.

An excellent piece of news from CFI –

The Center for Inquiry extends its heartfelt congratulations to Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, who will be given the National Humanities Award by President Obama for her lifetime of inspiring and enlightening work in philosophy, literature, and the history of science. Dr. Goldstein is an honorary member of the Board of Directors of CFI, an organization that promotes science, reason, and humanist values, and this summer delivered the keynote address at CFI’s international Reason for Change conference.

The White House announced today that the ten winners of the 2014 National Humanities Award, including Dr. Goldstein, will be given their medals by President Obama on September 10 in the East Room. The award is intended to honor those who have demonstrated the power and impact of the humanities on American life.

“We are delighted that Rebecca Goldstein has received this well-deserved recognition,” said Ronald A. Lindsay, president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry. “This award is a fitting one, indeed, as her work exemplifies the importance of the humanities. Few writers are as gifted as Rebecca Goldstein is in fiction, or as insightful as she is in nonfiction. Her wide-ranging body of work is philosophically compelling, richly rewarding, and deeply humane, engaging both our intellect and our emotions, and in the process making us laugh, cry, sigh … and think. Whether writing about Plato, Spinoza, or the joys and travails of love, Dr. Goldstein unfailingly manages to illuminate the human condition.”

The White House praised Dr. Goldstein for “bringing philosophy into conversation with culture” in its official citation, stating, “In scholarship, Dr. Goldstein has elucidated the ideas of Spinoza and Gödel, while in fiction, she deploys wit and drama to help us understand the great human conflict between thought and feeling.”

Goldstein first earned national prominence in 1983 as a writer of fiction for her first novel, the critically acclaimed bestseller The Mind-Body Problem. She has since published six other novels, including 36 Arguments for The Existence of God: A Work of Fiction, in 2010. Having earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton and a “genius grant” as a MacArthur Fellow, she is also the author of several influential nonfiction books including Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel, which was named one of the top science books of 2005 by Discover Magazine, and of Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity, which received the Koret International Prize for Jewish Scholarship. She has been awarded several honorary doctorates, Guggenheim and Radcliffe fellowships, and is a Humanist Laureate. Her newest book is Plato at the Googleplex: Why Philosophy Won’t Go Away, for which she won the 2014 Morris D. Forkosch Award from the Council for Secular Humanism, a program of CFI.

She is currently an honorary member of the Center for Inquiry Board of Directors, along with physicist Lawrence Krauss and journalist and author Susan Jacoby. She has spoken at two of CFI’s Women in Secularism conferences, and keynoted the 2015 Reason for Change conference. Rebecca Goldstein identifies as a humanist, and apparently this is the first time that the National Humanities Medal has been awarded to someone who has openly identified as such.

See Rebecca Goldstein deliver a presentation at CFI’s Women in Secularism 2 conference on “The Mattering Map.”

See the National Endowment for the Humanities’ official announcement.

I have two interviews with Rebecca right here on B&W – one from 2005 when her book Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel was published, and one from March 2014 when Plato at the Googleplex had come out and was getting rave reviews.

The archbishop of Canterbury has written a typically (typically for the office rather than the person – I have no idea what’s typical of Justin Welby the person, nor do I care) dishonest and bullying piece about an assisted dying bill that Parliament will be debating.

With other faith leaders, I have joined in writing to members of parliament, urging them to oppose Rob Marris’s assisted dying bill.

We have written, not in an attempt to push “the religious” viewpoint on others but because we are concerned that a change in the current law on assisted suicide would have detrimental effects both on individuals and on our society.

There’s the first dishonest bit right there – of course it’s an attempt to push “the religious” viewpoint on others. What the fuck else would it be? Notice that four words into his piece he tells us he and his fellow clerics are “leaders” – that’s very loaded, manipulative, dishonest language.

While some individual religious voices, including that of my distinguished predecessor, Lord Carey, have called for a change in the law, the faith leaders’ letter represents the considered opinion of our communities that have analysed, discussed and debated the issue over many years. Their response springs from philosophical and theological reflections as well as from a vast range of pastoral experience and a profound sense of compassion.

Bully bully bully, it’s all bullying. It’s all loaded language meant to shame and pressure everyone into agreeing with the nice pious compassionate man and his nice pious compassionate friends. “Religious voices”; “distinguished”; “faith leaders”; “our communities”; “theological reflections”; “vast range of pastoral experience”; “profound sense of compassion.” It’s eyewash, it’s flapdoodle; it’s bullshit.

What there is of the substance:

While it is not a crime in the UK for someone to take his or her own life, we recognise that it is a tragedy and we, rightly, do all that we can to prevent suicide.

Not always. If there are ways to help the person planning suicide such that suicide would no longer be desirable, we do all we can to do that. If there are no ways to help – that’s a different story. Clearly some people will still do all they can to interfere, but the claim the archbish is resisting is that they shouldn’t.

At present, we can show love, care and compassion to those who at all ages and stages of life are contemplating suicide. We can try to intervene, to support them to embrace life once more. We can do all in our power to surround those who are terminally ill with the best possible palliative care, including physical, emotional and spiritual support. We can redouble our efforts to alleviate suffering.

We can still do that, with assisted dying in place. Assisted dying would not prevent that. It’s not up to other people to decide what level of suffering anyone has to bear. If X says thank you for all your efforts but you can’t alleviate the suffering and I want to check out now, it’s not the job of “faith leaders” to bar the door.

Pink News introduces us to a gender-fluid father who identifies as a straight lesbian.

Perhaps Pink News has merged with The Onion? No, they say the father wants to raise awareness.

A young father has opened up about his gender fluidity, in a bid to raise more awareness regarding the subject.

Jas Sutherland always knew he felt like both a male and a female, but said that until recently, he never though he could be open about it.

However, now, he says he can transition between his two personas regularly and is determined to generate a better public understanding about what it is to be gender fluid.

It must be so exciting to reinvent the wheel.

Why do we have to conceptualize it that way? Instead let’s conceptualize it the opposite way: “feeling like” a female or a male is just a formula we paste onto our sense of self (which is another such formula, it’s formulas all the way down), and we could use a different formula. It’s possible that nobody really “feels like” a female or a male at all; it’s possible that we all just feel like ourselves – our selves – and the categories are external and imposed.

Maybe we all just feel like people…or maybe not even that, maybe we all just feel like a set of senses and thoughts and actions.

I, at least, don’t feel like either a female or a male, nor do I feel “gender fluid” in the sense of alternating between the two. I feel like someone who is seen as a female by the rest of the world. In here? I couldn’t really tell you. A secret agent, a dissenter, a taker of notes.

He made the decision to come out four months ago after consulting a life coach who he says helped him come to terms with his identity, as did seeing more gender fluid stars – such as Ruby Rose – in the spotlight.

“I have had theses feelings for many years but just suppressed it,” he says.

“Knowing I didn’t want to change sex or be a cross dresser it was hard to find myself with that.

“It was not until the term came out that I felt comfortable coming out myself. Stars like Ruby Rose have certainly made life easier for the rest of us.”

So he’s a straight lesbian. Whatevs.

Another particularly surprising bit of dialogue from a thread on the AUSA Womensfest page. I’m calling the characters A, B and C even though all this is public, in case they don’t want their names bandied about on some blog.

A: like straight up if you’re worried enough about two cis women in a position of power being called cunts very implicitly for, you know, actively enacting transmisogyny that you’re bothered with that immensely more than with the transmisogyny (which, you know, at its absolute tamest involves being called much, much worse), as someone who kind of has a cunt depending how you define that: you’re a cunt.

…

it’s often cis women who are the most violent to trans women because it’s one of the few ways in which cis women benefit from the policing of womanhood, that they’re “more authentic” than trans women.

…

B: Okay. I don’t want to make this nitpicky, but I am genuinely surprised – you’re saying MOST of the violence committed against transwomen comes from ciswomen?

Yes, I’m aware of the policing of gender, and the way oppressed groups benefit from oppressing others. But literally, literal physical violence? Transwomen are most often murdered, not by cismen, but by ciswomen???

C: As a trans woman I can absolutely confirm that cis women – feminists in particular – have been the most violently and insidiously transmisogynist towards me + ppl I know.

B: what [C] said. also: the group of people most fervently dedicated to getting poor trans women fired (and — it is near impossible to get hired as a trans woman, a lot of the time, so this is a death sentence), evicted, and otherwise deprived of the basic essentials of life are a large group of cis women.

like, virtually none of them are cis men.

hundreds. of cis women.

A: Oh, yes, of course – even as a ciswoman (maybe? we could go with queer but I want to avoid labels here), I can confirm the kinds of insidious, horrifying, nonphysical (and occasionally physical) violence I have experienced at the hands of women of all kinds.

That is horrendous, and in no way to be dismissed. But I was talking about the kinds of physical violence that goes with – and that I have experienced with – being called a cunt.

B: lmao ok so basically what you’re saying is “i don’t believe these frail female-bodied cis women could beat up a trans woman”, is that right? if not, please clarify why you’re so disbelieving of this

it has happened to my friends. it happens most often when groups of cis women jump one trans girl. i’m not going into this further out of respect for the trans women on this thread who don’t deserve to be traumatized for the sake of proving something to you.

So there it is: the claim is that women are the source of violence against trans women. Not men, but women. Especially feminists.

Brandon Griggs at CNN tells us about the photographer who took those photos of Aylan Kurdi.

Nilufer Demir was crossing a beach in Bodrum, Turkey, on Wednesday when she saw him: a small boy in a red T-shirt, blue pants and black shoes, lying face-down in the sand.

Waves lapped at his lifeless face.

She froze.

“There was nothing left to do for him. There was nothing left to bring him back to life,” she told CNN Turk, a CNN sister network based in Turkey.

So Demir, a correspondent and photographer with Turkey’s Dogan News Agency, did the only thing she could: She raised her camera and began shooting.

She thought it was the only way to express the silent scream of his body.

Demir, 29, has worked for Dogan News Agency, also known as DHA, since she was a teenager. Based in Bodrum, she responded to reports of activity at the beach and discovered that several bodies had washed up on shore.

She and her colleagues found Aylan’s brother Galip nearby, and then another boy. None of them had life jackets.

The boys’ father was the only Kurdi family member to survive the ill-fated boat trip.

“I don’t want anything else from this world,” Abdullah Kurdi told CNN on Thursday. “Everything I was dreaming of is gone. I want to bury my children and sit beside them until I die.”

Demir has been covering the refugee crisis for months and has photographed many dead migrants. But none has had the impact of her images of Aylan.

“I didn’t think it would bring this much attention when I was taking the photograph,” she told CNN Turk. “However, with the pain I felt when I saw Aylan, the only thing on my mind was to pass along this to the public. I didn’t think anything else. I just wanted to show their tragedy.”

That happens – one photo strikes a nerve. The little girl running down the road with napalm burns; the little boy in the huge cap in the Warsaw ghetto; the woman with the faraway stare in the dust bowl.

Nick Ut