Religious privilege? What do you mean? I don’t see any religious privilege.

Oh, you mean this?

A Harvard club’s plans to stage a satanic “black Mass” were abruptly cancelled Monday after drawing fire from the Archdiocese of Boston and condemnation from the president of the Ivy League school.

Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the New York-based Satanic Temple, told the Boston Globe late Monday that the event was called off because no venue was available.

“Everyone involved, outside of the Satanic Temple, got really scared,” Greaves told the newspaper. “And I don’t necessarily blame them, because I understand that they were getting a lot of vitriolic hate mail, and I don’t think they expected it.”

Greaves was not immediately available for further comment.

A petition to stop the black Mass had garnered 60,000 signatures, according to Aurora Griffin, president of the Harvard Student Catholic Association.

Well but you have to understand – Boston is an officially Catholic city. That’s been decided. The archdiocese gets to say what can happen in and around Boston because Boston is Catholic. They’re not going to say what can happen in your city…unless it too is a Catholic city of course.

The history of black Masses is murky, but Catholics say the intent of such ceremonies is obvious: to mock their rituals and beliefs. The Masses often parody Catholic sacraments, such as Communion, and liturgical vestments.

And obviously that simply cannot be allowed. No one can mock Catholic rituals and beliefs – that’s a national rule, not just a Boston one.

Harvard University President Drew Faust called the plans to reenact a black Mass “abhorrent.”

“It is deeply regrettable that the organizers of this event, well aware of the offense they are causing so many others, have chosen to proceed with a form of expression that is so flagrantly disrespectful and inflammatory,” Faust continued.

The Harvard president said she would allow the black Mass to continue, citing the value of free expression on campus, but planned attend a prayer ceremony Monday night at St. Paul’s Church in Cambridge. The Boston archdiocese scheduled the event as a protest to the black Mass.

Ok I’m going to drop the sarcasm now because I’m too disgusted. That’s just pathetic. We are allowed to be disrespectful of the Catholic church.

The Satanic Temple, which announced the Harvard club’s plans last week, is also behind an effort to place a satanic statue next to a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of Oklahoma’s state Capitol.

The temple does not believe in a real devil but advocates for religious tolerance and pluralism.

Greaves said black Masses began as a protest by people who felt oppressed by their local religious cultures.

But some Catholics say the “black Mass” is more sacrilegious than satirical.

Faust, a noted historian, said:  “The ‘black Mass’ had its historical origins as a means of denigrating the Catholic Church; it mocks a deeply sacred event in Catholicism, and is highly offensive to many in the Church and beyond.”

So what? Catholicism is not some harmless pastime, it’s a massively powerful, harsh, coercive, patriarchal, sex-phobic, harmful religion and institution. However often you use the word “deeply” it remains what it is. We are allowed to mock it. “Sacrilege” is not a thing.

Robert Neugeboren, dean of students and alumni affairs at the Harvard Extension School, said Harvard did not endorse the student group’s decision to stage the black Mass.   The school provides evening and online continuing education courses.

“While we support the ability of all our students to explore difficult issues, we also encourage them to do so in ways that are sensitive to others,” he [s]aid.

Except atheists, apparently, because fuck them, apparently.

Neugeboren said the Harvard Extension School worked with students to defuse some of the controversy surrounding the ceremony.

For instance, he said, a consecrated host – known by Catholics as the Eucharist and believed to be the actual body and blood of Christ – would not be used, he said.

Some Catholic bloggers had expressed outrage at the initial plans to use a consecrated host, calling it “sacrilegious to the highest extent.”

We’re allowed to be “sacrilegious.” We don’t buy any of the belief that make that word appear meaningful, and we’re allowed to say so.

Clooney had said the university’s reaction is insufficient, adding that Harvard’s “spiritual sensitivity” is at stake.

“Since there is no empirical way to show that one host is consecrated while another is not—consecrated hosts do not glow in the dark—there is also no way for anyone but the organizers to know whether a host used in a black mass has been consecrated or not,” Clooney said.

“Catholics at Harvard should not have to be worrying about where Monday’s host comes from.”

Ooh, ooh – he’s onto something here! There is no empirical way to show that one host is consecrated while another is not because “consecration” is a meaningless word, just like “sacrilegious.” Consecrating something doesn’t do anything, and that’s why there is no empirical way to show that one host is consecrated while another is not – see how that works? Extend that thought to all the rest of it and then calm the fuck down and let other people say what they like about Catholicism.

As the archdiocese notes, Pope Francis warned Catholics about the devil recently.

“Maybe some of you might say, ‘But, Father, how old-fashioned you are to speak about the devil in the 21^st century!’ ” the Pope said during a Mass in April.

“But look out, because the devil is present! The devil is here … even in the 21^st century! And we mustn’t be naive, right? We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan.”

No, we should not, you benighted ignoramus. That kind of thinking gets you inquisitions and witch-burnings and genocides.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ezra Resnick writes a Letter to a successful white male.

Congratulations! You’re a successful white male. Or, as you might prefer to put it, you’re a successful person who just happens to be a white male — why would anyone think your gender and race have anything to do with your success? That’s textbook sexism and racism. You worked hard to get where you are. You never asked for special treatment, nor do you recall ever receiving any.

There was discrimination in the past, sure, but that’s all over now. It ended one afternoon in…let’s see…1977 was it? That sounds right.

Now there is perfect total universal equality of opportunity, and all you have to do to know that is look around. Or sit in your armchair and think about looking around – it’s the same thing. People have the jobs they want. There are no signs on doors saying “Go away black people.” Everything’s worked itself out, like rocks rolling down a hillside.

You naturally assume, then, that if women or minorities are underrepresented in certain fields, they must generally be less suited for them, or less interested in them, or less inclined to do the work necessary to succeed in them.

Well obviously. There are women doctors and lawyers on tv; there are black doctors and lawyers on tv. Everything is fixed now. If you didn’t get that job it’s because you didn’t really try.

Nevertheless, you keep hearing talk about “privilege” and “unconscious bias” from people who seem unimpressed by your logical reasoning. In order to silence the agitators, perhaps there is some scientific way to demonstrate the absence of discrimination in our society?

We could perform a controlled experiment. For example, we could send emails to university professors from fictional prospective students seeking to discuss research opportunities prior to applying to a doctoral program, varying only the name of the fictional student to signal gender and race — and discover that faculty ignored requests from women and minorities at a higher rate than requests from white males (particularly in higher-paying disciplines and private institutions). Or, we could send fictitious resumes in reply to help-wanted ads, varying only the name on the resume to sound either white or African American — and discover that white names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. Or, we could ask university science faculty to rate a fictional student application for a laboratory manager position, varying only the student’s name to be male or female — and discover that the male applicant was rated as significantly more competent and hireable, and was offered a higher starting salary and more career mentoring, than the (identical) female applicant. And so on.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS RUN MAD.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Amanda Marcotte has bad news for the fans of the pope: he’s not as cuddly as some have been claiming.

I get the enthusiasm for “cool” Pope Francis, I really do. The idea that there could be a pope who is not clinging to a harshly medieval point of view but ready to move into the modern world is so appealing that of course we’re going to grasp onto any evidence, no matter how tenuous, that suggests that Pope Francis might be the one.

Meh. One – it’s just not possible, so attempting to grasp at evidence is pointless. The Catholic church is the Catholic church, not something else; it’s not possible to rise to the top positions by not clinging to a harshly medieval point of view. The harshly medieval point of view is what the church is for. Two, even if the pope were the nicest guy ever, the church would still be the church, and the church is a terrible institution.

No, it’s all bad. Forget the reformist nonsense.

This weekend, Anthony Faiola reported in the Washington Post about Francis throwing his support behind exorcists, saying they are “helping people who suffer and are in need of liberation.” According to Faiola, some in the church are concerned that Francis “has not only dwelled far more on Satan in sermons and speeches than his recent predecessors have, but also sought to rekindle the Devil’s image as a supernatural entity with the forces­ of evil at his beck and call.”

And what does that get you? That gets you thinking that some people are in league with the devil. It’s dangerous stuff.

That’s not all. Despite the fact that Pope Francis received many accoladesfor taking a position against traditional authoritarianism and for criticizing the church for obsessing over birth control and homosexuality at the expense of more important issues, such as economic justice, Francis is now pushing back on the nuns who do just that. I’m talking about the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, a group that represents 80 percent of American nuns and is focused on social justice. In the past, the Vatican has gone after LCWR for focusing on economic inequality rather than bashing contraception and homosexuality. Despite what appears to be common ground between the nuns and the pope, it seems that Francis is not changing that tune.

Of course he’s not. He’s the pope.

Barbie Latza Nadeau of the Daily Beast reports that under Pope Francis, the Vatican shows no sign of laying off the crackdown on American nuns who Pope Benedict claimed were “pushing radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

Such as?

[T]he LCWR is not advocating for gay marriage or birth control. They simply don’t discuss issues of contraception and homosexuality, preferring instead to focus on issues like climate change, immigration, and assisting refugees in need of aid. Despite doing what Pope Francis supposedly wants his flock to do, however, the nuns continue to be punished and castigated by the Vatican, suggesting that the new pope is the same as the old.

So not discussing contraception and homosexuality equals radical feminism. Huh.

This is the Catholic church, people. It is what it is and not something different and better.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

From a comment by latsot on Gervais “will continue to use offensive words like cunt, atheism & Derek”

@m0fa

I’m British too and like many other Brits I’m sick to death of your droning argument that we don’t consider “cunt” to be a gendered insult. I can speculate about a possible reason you think – or at least say – this: the insult “cunt” seems almost interchangeable with other insults, some also gendered (such as “dick”), and others not.

Unfortunately, there’s only one tiny flaw with that argument: it is bullshit. It’s bullshit partly because “cunt” is always known to be a worse insult than any of those others. It might be argued that this distinction is arbitrary; that “cunt” is considered worse solely due to historical accident independent of the more literal meaning of the word. I’d be as impressed as I would be surprised if anyone managed to come up with a plausible argument along those lines, but I think that’s what you’d have to do to realistically claim that “cunt” is not considered a gendered insult in the UK. Or perhaps you could argue that usage of “cunt” to describe female genitalia is obscure in the UK. Of course, we all know that this is anything but the case. Nobody calls someone a cunt in isolation of its anatomical meaning. You know and they know what the word means and you both know you know they know it.

Your sadly popular argument seems almost to be saying that the insult “cunt” is not gendered unless someone is being explicitly and literally compared to an actual cunt. That relying on the implicit baggage the word carries somehow renders the insult not gendered, even though everyone involved understands that baggage perfectly well.

If “cunt” used as an insult were not pretty much universally considered a greater insult than words like “dick” or “prick” and those words used with roughly the same frequency in the same sort of circumstances, then the fact that “cunt” is gendered wouldn’t be so much of a problem. But you know perfectly well that “dick” means someone casually or relatively mildly unpleasant and “cunt” means someone exceedingly, deliberately, habitually, maximally unpleasant and you know what else those words mean.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Hey look – live streaming from the International Space Station.

Pale blue dot close up; your house from very far away.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

One of those “please share” items so I’m sharing it because wo.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said it best: “Turn that frown upside down oil-soaked neighbourhood, you can get a job cleaning it up if you just have the right attitude. We’ll make it worth your while. That is seriously what Kinder Morgan is arguing to the freaking Canadian government about why they should be allowed to triple the capacity of their pipeline.”

More in the Vancouver Sun.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

An excellent piece at The Stone on “open carry” and the exciting time it is when a bunch of gun-toting fanatics can force law enforcement to back down because law enforcement doesn’t want yet another Waco or Ruby Ridge. Patrick Blanchfield

Earlier this month, in Bunkerville, Nev., representatives of the Bureau of Land Management withdrew from a tense standoff with supporters of Cliven Bundy, a rancher who owes the federal government over $1 million in unpaid fees for allowing his cattle to graze on public land. The hundreds of self-appointed militia and “states’ rights” activists who flocked to support Bundy, many in full tactical gear and openly carrying assault rifles, blockaded a federal interstate and trained their weapons on B.L.M. employees who sought to negotiate with the rancher and his family. Fearful of a pitched gun battle, the B.L.M. departed, leaving Bundy and his supporters to celebrate, emboldened, with a barbecue.

Seriously, now – what does that sound like? It sounds like fucking Boko Haram, that’s what. It sounds like fascism. It sounds like what it is: hundreds of men with guns thwarting a branch of civilian government. This is not something we want.

…as a transaction between the state and citizens decided not by rule of law, nor by vote or debate, but rather by the simple presence of arms, Bunkerville is deeply troubling. Guns publicly brandished by private individuals decided the outcome. For all Bundy’s appeals to constitutional justification, what mattered at the end of the day was who was willing to take the threat of gunplay the furthest.

We don’t want that. It’s the opposite of civilization, and we prefer civilization.

Bunkerville is simply the next step in a trend that has been ramping up for some time. Since the election of Barack Obama, guns have appeared in the public square in a way unprecedented since the turbulent 1960s and ’70s — carried alongside signs and on their own since before the Tea Party elections, in a growing phenomenon of “open carry” rallies organized by groups like the Modern American Revolution and OpenCarry.org, and in the efforts by gun rights activists to carry assault weapons into the Capitol buildings in New Mexico and Texas (links to video). According to open carry advocates, their presence in public space represents more than just an expression of their Second Amendment rights, it’s a statement, an “educational,” communicative act  — in short, an exercise of their First Amendment freedom of speech. (See this, from the group Ohio Carry, and this Michigan lawsuit.)

No. Guns are not educational and they’re not speech. Go away.

what does it mean, in a democracy that enshrines freedom of speech, to publicly carry a gun as an expression of political dissent? Toting a weapon in a demonstration changes the stakes, transforming a protest from just another heated transaction in the marketplace of ideas into something else entirely. It’s bringing a gun to an idea-fight, gesturing as close as possible to outright violence while still technically remaining within the domain of speech. Like a military “show of force,” this gesture stays on the near side of an actual declaration of war while remaining indisputably hostile. The commitment to civil disagreement is merely provisional: I feel so strongly about this issue, the gun says, that if I don’t get my way, I am willing to kill for it. 

Quite. And I don’t want that.

We should also note that not all symbolic speech is created equal. On the contemporary stage, those bearing guns in protest are most likely to be white, right-leaning, and rural. As the historian Adam Winkler has documented, this represents a more or less direct reversal of the upheavals of the late ’60s and ’70s, when Republican politicians pursued new gun control legislation in response to armed protests by urban African-American leftists. Today, it is those most sheltered from actual state violence — from the day-to-day reality of police brutality — who also feel most threatened by the state, most free to threaten violence against hypothetical violations, and most entitled to opt out of civil discourse by reaching for their weapons. Our racial double standards for who can safely gesture at political violence are enormous. At least before his racism became public, Bundy and his supporters could point assault weapons at federal agents and be lionized as “patriots” by a United States senator and celebrated on Fox, whereas a single New Black Panther standing near a polling station while holding a billy club prompted calls on that same network for former Navy SEALs to show up in force and “fight back.”

In many ways this country is just not sane.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

BBC 2 had a show about misogyny a couple of days ago, and the New Statesman has a review by Rachel Cooke.

She starts by saying misogyny is nothing new and she’s not sure it’s worse now than in the past.

I see, though, that in one sense all of this is irrelevant. What matters is that women feel misogyny is on the rise, there being so many exciting new outlets for the expression of woman hatred.

Well no, that’s not right, because it’s two different things. If women feel misogyny is on the rise when it isn’t, then it’s worth explaining that it isn’t. But the fact that there are so many exciting new outlets for the expression of woman hatred is not just a feeling; it’s reality. So there’s no need to make concessions to subjectivity and fee-fees, because the fact that there are lots of new outlets for misogyny means that there is more misogyny around now. Because of the outlets, you see.

It’s in our faces (or perhaps I mean on our screens) like never before. In her excellent and often shocking documentary Blurred Lines (8 May, 9.30pm), Kirsty Wark thankfully didn’t get too bogged down in trying to ascertain whether misogyny really is growing. Instead, she focused on the impact of the internet (and, to a lesser degree, the media) on both women and men, whose more sexist impulses it may validate.

Ya think?

It was disappointing that she allowed the Spectator columnist Rod Liddle to talk so flabbily about how men get trolled as horribly as women – apparently, we should just “man up” and deal with it – without ever asking him why he thought it was acceptable to write of the deputy leader of the Labour Party: “So, Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober.”

Rod Liddle is a shameless, indeed boastful misogynist. I did a post about that once, years ago.

Wark’s material was cold-shower sobering. The unstoppable vileness – from Frankie Boyle telling “jokes” about vaginas to a Stirling University men’s hockey team singing songs about inducing miscarriages on a public bus service – seemed even more than usually shameful, piled end to end in this way. We all know what followed when Mary Beard appeared on Question Time but Wark had thought to look at social media responses to all women guests on the show over the course of the first three months of this year. Dear God, it was ugly. Does this stuff keep some women from public life? Yes. For my part, there are pieces I avoid writing for fear of what will follow on Twitter and “below the line”.

Well then it’s the women’s own fault, right?! They should just toughen up – or else they should get off the internet. Oh wait…

Germaine Greer reflected on the prescience of her statement that (I paraphrase) most women have very little idea how much men hate them. Say what you like about the internet; at least it has given us a bracing slap round the face on this score.

Yes, but I’d rather it wasn’t true. I’m naive enough to wish fewer men did hate women.

Our friend Maureen Brian watched the show (the programme for you UKnians – never let it be said that I try to force everyone to speak and understand American!) this evening and gives this report (in the present tense because she was reporting while watching):

KW is a pretty competent journalist and is asking the right questions but she’s meeting a hell of a lot of people who are either deeply brain dead, totally confused or refusing to engage with the question. Heading that last list is the execrable Rod Liddle. There have been stars – a psychologist whose experiments show that e.g. tolerating sexist behaviour does indeed encourage those who are really sexist to go out and do it some more! Surprise!

Also a linguist countering the “but the internet isn’t real” meme by tracing the feedback loops between trolls and mainstream media and public life. Also Laurie Penny is on the ball.

Finally we get to the shift in the balance of power – Germaine Greer not sure about this – and the immaturity of the adolescent male. How this is being addressed in the very best sex & relationship education which not everyone gets.

Now we have Steubenville and more confusion. Balanced by the thought of using the changes in technology to power the fight-back.

It’s mystifying that they had Rod Liddle on that show (programme) at all.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Some comments left on one of the three or four irritable Facebook posts I fired off about Ricky Gervais yesterday:

All hail the great Atheist Community!

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Maki Naro @sciencecomic on Twitter:

Whenever anybody points out that “cunt” is a misogynistic slur pic.twitter.com/5zqxXwYSJp

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

The menace of Boko Haram is not just a military issue – it is an ideological one. The west should help Nigeria defeat Boko Haram and win the battle of ideas.

The kidnapping of more than 200 school girls by Nigeria’s terrorist group, Boko Haram, has attracted outrage and condemnation from different parts of the globe.(1)

People across the world have joined the online campaign to ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ and pressure the government of Nigeria to do more in combating the menace of this Islamist group.(2,3).

The US, the UK and France have offered to help Nigeria rescue the girls and bring their abductors to justice.

But some people are speculating that an intervention by western countries could turn Nigeria into another Afghanistan. They are suggesting that Nigeria be left alone, that no assistance be given to the country as it battles this Al-Qaeda linked organisation.(4)

Personally I think those making this submission are mistaken. I have been writing about Boko Haram and the activities of other muslim fanatics and theocrats in Nigeria for many years.

It is obvious that Nigeria needs military and intelligence assistance to rescue the abducted girls and defeat Boko Haram. Unfortunately, efforts by the Nigerian government to contain the insurgency and attacks have proved largely ineffective. So Nigeria needs help, urgent international help to boost its counter terrorism initiatives.

If international assistance is provided to countries when they are hit by natural disasters, or when countries experience aviation mishaps as in the case of the missing Malaysia airline flight MH370, why should countries – western or eastern – not extend help to Nigeria and ensure that these girls are brought back to their families? Nigeria is grappling with a humanitarian crisis with a international dimension. The government is fighting a transnational terrorist group that recruits members from neighbouring countries.(5) Boko Haram has already carried out trans-border raids and kidnapping(6). It has attacked the UN building in Abuja.(7) If it gets the opportunity, Boko Haram could attack embassies of western countries or business interests in Nigeria as al-Shabab did in Kenya.(8) The menace of Boko Haram is not just a Nigerian issue. This terrorist group poses a serious threat to peace and security in the region and beyond.

There is no doubt that western intervention could worsen the situation in Nigeria. This could happen if western countries think that the Boko Haram issue requires only a military solution. It does not. The menace of Boko Haram is both a military as well as an ideological issue. And defeating this terrorist group needs – and would need – both the force of arms but also the force of ideas – secular democratic ideas. It will require mental reorientation and ‘value change’. Boko Haram is an armed group of suicide bombers driven by virulent Islamic extremism and existential nihilism.

The name ‘Boko Haram’ means ‘western education is forbidden’ in the local hausa language. This speaks volumes about the ideological leaning. The group is opposed to ‘western education’ and secular government. It is an offshoot of the ‘anti-western’, jihadist, islamist, theocratic ideology that prevails in many parts of northern Nigeria, hence its agitation for the establishment of an Islamic state.

Boko Haram is a radical fall out of this quest for sharia law andIslamic theocracy by muslim majority states in the country. Like Al Shababa, islamism is its ideological power base for mobilization of support and for recruitment of members. The abduction of the school girls is a radical demonstration of its islamist perception of women and its opposition to secular ideals of gender equality, dignity and human rights.

Secularists, feminists and human rights campaigners should explore ways of counteracting the indoctrintation, ‘dogmatization’ and brainwashing of young muslims in mosques and Quranic schools across northern Nigeria. It is at these ‘praying’ and ‘learning’ centers that clerics radicalize young muslims and turned them into mechants of death and destruction. Human rights campaigners should liase with secular oriented groups and institutions to promote educational reform and inculcate the values of critical thinking, separation of mosque and state, tolerance of other religions and world views, free and open society and universal human rights.

Western intervention should be geared towards helping Nigeria defeat Boko Haram militarily and ideologically.

Leo Igwe is a humanist activist currrently doing research at Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies(religious studies), University of Bayreuth in Germany

1. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/nigeria-missing-girls/article18459078/
2. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2623764/Bring-Back-Our-Girls-Anne-Hathaway-takes-streets-LA-megaphone-raise-awareness-kidnapped-Nigerian-schoolgirls.html
3. http://ahjotnaija.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/students-and-professor-susan-arndt-hold-multi-cultural-campaign-in-bayreuth-germany-to-bring-back-our-girls/
4. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/06/western-intervention-nigeria-kidnapped-girls-corruption-boko-haram
5. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27107375
6. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-26899710
7. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-14677957
8. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-24191606

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Another thing about Ricky Gervais’s bit of Facebook wisdom is how childishly wrong it is as a claim (much less an argument).

If you grabbed Hitler and shouted “stop killing innocent people you cunt”, someone on Facebook would call you out on your sexist language.

Well first we have to accept that “you” can “grab” Hitler in the same world where people will comment on Facebook about what you shouted at him. It’s too much to ask us to accept that. If Ricky Gervais were in a position to “grab” Hitler and shout something at him, he wouldn’t be in a position to report his shouting on Facebook.

Then, an even more demanding task: we have to accept that grabbing and shouting at Hitler is some kind of important useful, even heroic work that shouldn’t be interrupted by people objecting to sexist language. But is it? No, I don’t think so. I don’t think Hitler would have been dissuaded from killing millions of people by Ricky Gervais, no matter how loudly Ricky Gervais called him a cunt.

Then we have to accept the hidden premise: that if someone is really really terrible, the way Hitler was, then it’s ok to call that person a cunt.

Well that’s just fucking stupid. The two things aren’t even related to each other. Calling a really terrible person a name, any name, makes no difference to anything. It’s idiotic to defend it in the guise of heroic resistance work.

So that’s one thing. It’s totally beside the point. And the other thing is, it’s still bad to use sexist (or racist etc but Ricky Gervais didn’t talk about any of those, it’s only the sexist ones he’s defending) epithets. It doesn’t become ok to use them once you get VERY angry or VERY upset. There isn’t a gauge you can check to see if you’re angry or upset enough to start using sexist epithets. There isn’t some point at which it becomes ok. As sadly usual, this becomes easier to see if you swap a racist epithet for the sexist one. Suppose some white Republican legislator writes a law making it a crime for a woman to have a miscarriage (hello Tennessee!); does that make it ok to call that legislator a nigger or a wetback?

No.

This isn’t a hill anyone should want to die on. It’s pathetic. It’s pathetic to see grown men pitching baby fits over their precious right to call people cunts. It’s gervaisy and pathetic.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

According to the Nigerian Tribune, the US and UK have brought in the high tech equipment to locate the Boko Haram hiding place and the schoolgirls they’ve enslaved.

BOTH the United States and British anti-terror specialists who arrived Nigeria on Friday have started deploying high-grade surveillance technologies to track down the voice, location and the fire power of Boko Haram terrorists who kidnapped over 200 girls of a secondary school in Chibok, Borno State.

According to reports on Friday by Daily Mail of the United Kingdom and other news channels monitored by the Saturday Tribune, the deployment and further operation of the exercise is being overseen by the Special Forces, even as there are indications that the Special Forces may deploy, within days, the spy plane called The Sentinel Radar Plane to be operated by the British Royal Air Force Squadron 5 to locate the hideouts of the terrorists.

Both the British and US anti-terror specialists started using aerial surveillance and evesdropping technology on Friday to help pinpoint the position of the terrorists holding nearly 300 schoolgirls hostage.

Let’s hope it works – and that Nigerian soldiers capture all the Boko Haramists alive and send them to a prison where they get a whole lot of Boko.

[Gordon] Brown, who is the United Nations special envoy on global education, said that he had spoken to US Secretary of State, John Kerry, who agreed that air and satellite surveillance would be extended into neighbouring countries.

The former PM urged British people to sign the Bring Back Our Girls petition, which he said was putting pressure on the Nigerian government to take action and making clear that the international community shared the ‘revulsion’ of ordinary Nigerians for Boko Haram.

US First Lady, Michelle Obama, is among dozens of political figures and celebrities, including Jessie J., Angelina Jolie, Leona Lewis, Hillary Clinton, schoolgirl Malala Yusafzay and model Cara Delevingne to have backed the petition.

Speaking from Abuja, Mr Brown said: “The more people who can sign the petition, the more I think the Nigerian government officials and others will want to take action.”

We all signed it ages ago.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Ricky Gervais is so proud of his clever joke about how people will object to your use of sexist epithets EVEN WHEN IT’S HITLER YOU’RE CALLING THEM that he put in some time defending it on Twitter as well – entirely and obliviously missing the point while doing so. God he’s thick. I think I’ve mentioned this before (but then, he keeps illustrating it), but I thought David Brent was satire, when it turns out he was just Ricky Gervais.

Ricky Gervais @rickygervais 4h

Sorry I called Hitler a cunt. I wasn’t thinking. His behaviour just got to me. Soz.

I will continue to use offensive words like cunt, atheism & Derek and post pictures of myself in the bath. Unfollow now if you don’t like it

Here are some words more offensive than cunt: bumph, soz, yummy, serendipity, swag, baby mama, totes, & ass & douche if you’re not American

Notice what he does not say. Notice he does not say he will continue to use offensive words like nigger, kike, faggot, Mozzie, gook, slope, Polack, towelhead, goat-fucker. Notice that it’s ONLY THE WORD THAT DENIGRATES WOMEN that he makes a big point of bragging about saying and defending.

He is a piece of shit.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)