I watched a rerun of a Law and Order last night, and got very exasperated at the way it portrays memory. It got it all wrong, of course. I know this about cop shows, so it may be silly to get exasperated, but I did all the same.

A crucial character was an Iraq war vet working security in a rowdy club, who had undiagnosed PTSD which was triggered by a band setting off fireworks. Throughout the episode he was pushed to think again about the incident and see what else he could remember about it – so, as you would expect with a visual medium, we would get a visual replay of what was supposed to be his memory, and then a zoom and freezeframe on a particular face, which he would then describe and pick out of a lineup or point to in court.

Memory isn’t like that. It’s not a tape. You can’t “go back in” and “replay the tape” and “spot the forgotten person.” Memory is not a tape. But movies and tv have trained us all to think it is, and they renew the training every day.

Eyewitness testimony is horrendously unreliable, and made even more unreliable than it needs to be because people think it is like a tape and you can go back in and dig up forgotten faces with total accuracy, so witnesses have way more confidence than they should have.

It would be nice to see cop shows start to do a better job of informing us about that.

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

RAWA comments on the release of Sahar Gul’s torturers.

Sahar Gul, who was 15 at the time her ordeal, was burned, beaten  and had her fingernails pulled out by her husband and in-laws after she refused  to become a prostitute in a case that shocked the world.

She was found in the basement of her husband’s house in northeastern Baghlan province in late 2011, having been locked in a toilet for six months prior to her rescue by police.

Her father-in-law, mother-in-law and sister-in-law were  sentenced to prison for 10 years each for torture and attempted murder, though her husband remains at large.

“But after the court reviewed their case, it found out that they were only involved in family violence,” Supreme Court spokesman Abdullah Attaee  told AFP.

Excuse me? “Only” family violence? What the fucking fuck can that possibly mean? Because she was sold to them in “marriage” therefore she is “family” and therefore they get to burn her, beat her, pull her fingernails out, and chain her in a toilet for months? That’s “only” family violence?

Afghan rights groups expressed indignation over the early  releases, calling it a step back in time for Afghanistan’s women.

“This case, once heralded as a legal triumph underscoring the  advances for women’s rights in the past decade in Afghanistan is now a harbinger  of a grim future,” Women for Afghan Women, a Kabul and New York based women’s  rights organisation who helped Gul during the trial wrote on their website.

Violence and abuse against women continues to be a major problem in Afghanistan a decade after US-led troops brought down the notorious Taliban  regime.

In May the Afghan parliament cut short a debate on a bill to protect women from violence after complaints from some traditionalist MPs that  it was against Islamic teaching.

If it is against “Islamic teaching” then “Islamic teaching” is evil and monstrous. Period.

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

Everyday sexism, Boris Johnson division.

Boris Johnson has risked accusations of sexism after he told a City Hall audience that rising numbers of women are attending university in order to find a husband.

Well that’s a stupid way of putting it. It’s not much of a “risk,” is it. It’s the other way around – it’s uppity women who make “accusations of sexism” against important men who take a risk, not important men who say sexist shit. I know this. I still get solemn, “thoughtful” guys telling me I owe Michael Shermer an apology for pointing out that he said something sexist when he did in fact say something sexist.

Boris Johnson risked nothing by making a stupid degrading sexist joke. Nothing.

Johnson’s remark was made at last week’s launch of the World Islamic Economic Forum, where he appeared alongside the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Asked about the role of women in Islamic societies,  Razak told the Evening Standard’s Pippa Crerar:

“Before coming here my officials have told me that the latest university intake in Malaysia, a Muslim country, 68% will be women entering our universities.”

After which Boris interrupted with the suggestion that:

“They’ve got to find men to marry”

The comment was greeted with widespread laughter as well as a few groans.

See what I mean? Widespread laughter and a few groans. Contempt for women is perfectly mainstream and risk-free.

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

Do I have anything useful to say about the Zimmerman verdict? No, not really, except that I don’t get it. Martin didn’t stalk Zimmerman; Zimmerman stalked Martin; so I don’t get it.

Or maybe I do, but wish I didn’t.

Update: someone named Julia Wong put it very well in a tweet.

The actions our society condones as “self-defense” are indicative of who is deemed to have a self (be human). This is white supremacy.

I’m afraid I think that’s about right.

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

Sahar Gul was sold into “marriage” at age 12. Her in-laws tortured her in an attempt to force her into prostitution.

The torture began shortly after her brother sold her to the family for an underage wedding, when she baulked at the family’s effort to force her into prostitution. Her new husband did not participate in the abuse, but nor did he try to stop his father, mother and sister.

By the end of her ordeal she was so weak she had to be rescued from her makeshift prison in a wheelbarrow.

The in-laws were prosecuted and convicted but now they’ve been released.

Human rights activists have warned of an new assault on women’s rights in Afghanistan after judges and prosecutors allowed the early release of three people convicted for the brutal torture of a child bride, and conservative lawmakers made an aggressive bid to prevent relatives testifying against each other.

If successful, the small change – introduced covertly into the criminal prosecution code – would stop the vast majority of cases of violence against women from ever reaching court.

Together with the quashing of three convictions for the attempted murder of the teenager Sahar Gul, it marks an alarming two-pronged assault on women’s rights by both those who make the laws and those tasked with upholding them.

“Conservative” seems an odd and inadequate word to describe “lawmakers” who want to see young girls sold into bogus “marriage” and their in-laws free to torture them into prostitution. How exactly is that “conservative”? Does Afghanistan have a proud tradition of torturing girls, forcing girls into prostitution, doing nothing when the in-laws of girls sold into marriage torture them nearly to death? Is that what the lawmakers are conserving?

The 10-year sentences handed down to Gul’s tormentors last year was hailed as an important step forward, after her case horrified Afghanistan and prompted a bout of national soul-searching.

She was sold as a wife when she was an illiterate 12-year-old and her in-laws wasted little time embarking on a campaign of almost unimaginable torture. They starved her, chained her in a basement bathroom, beat her, burned her with red-hot metal pipes and pulled her fingernails out.

By the end of her ordeal she could no longer walk, and was rescued from her makeshift prison in a wheelbarrow. But last week, according to her lawyer and women’s activists, a court ordered the release of Gul’s mother-in-law, father-in-law, and sister-in-law saying there was no proof of abuse.

“This was based on the idea that there was no evidence, but the people who would have given evidence didn’t know that the hearing was taking place,” said Kimberley Motley, a Kabul-based US lawyer who took on Gul’s case last week after learning of the release.

Judges ignored the fact that the courtroom was almost empty, with apparently no representation from government prosecutors or the victim, even though both should have been informed under Afghan law.

That, too, does not seem very “conservative.” It seems more like heads we win, tails you lose.

However terrifying women’s advocates find the quashing of sentences for Sahar Gul’s tormentors, the legal changes that some MPs are hoping to bring to the country’s criminal prosecution code, now travelling through parliament, would have stopped the case even reaching court.

They have added a provision to clause 1 of article  26, which lists people who cannot be questioned as witnesses. “Relatives of the accused” are now grouped with small children, the accused’s defence lawyer and others, according to one source who has seen a draft of the law.

Qazi Nazir Ahmad Hanafi, a conservative MP who has been a driving force in efforts to quash a landmark law on violence against women, confirmed to the Guardian that the provision had been added to a draft of the code that recently went through the lower house of parliament. It would still need to be passed by the upper house and signed by the president to become law.

Women’s rights activists and female MPs who are outspoken about women’s rights said they were not aware of the change, which still has to be approved by the upper house, but the head of the UN’s human rights unit warned it could make prosecution of violence against women “almost impossible”.

It’s always depressing to realize how passionately women are hated.

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

We’ve seen the Fox News hack’s “joke” about coat hanger abortions.

Jen Gunter explains what happens with a coat hanger abortion.

A coat hanger is technically narrow enough to get through a pregnant cervical os, but the end is sharp not tapered so it can lacerate and perforate. Getting any instrument through the cervix safely also requires visualization and knowledge of the correct amount of force.

If she’s lucky enough to get the coat hanger through her cervix it could easily sail right through the back or side walls of the uterus. The uterine wall is soft and easily perforated with the wrong instrument or unskilled hands. If the uterus is perforated on one of the sides there is a high risk of lacerating a uterine artery, as that is where they are located. If this happens a woman who is by herself could easily bleed to death before she gets appropriate medical care. These arteries pump a lot of blood.

The other danger with uterine perforation is the bowel. Puncturing bowel will hurt, but depending on her level of fear it might only be enough to cry out but not to ask for help. However, within the next 3 days the bowel perforation will most certainly kill her unless she gets appropriate medical care. That care will likely involve major surgery to drain abscesses, remove necrotic bowel, and possibly even a colostomy. The uterus will also be infected and may be damaged beyond repair.

If she was lucky and got that rough end of the coat hanger in and out of her cervix without puncturing something it is unlikely she will induce an abortion immediately. In this scenario the coat hanger is really just a vector for introducing infection. In 2-3 days or so she will cramp, and if fortunate her uterus will contract and she will pass the tissue at home. However, the bacteria from septic abortions often disseminates and each hour the condition remains untreated death takes a step closer.

There’s more.

It’s not a very funny joke.

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

Manboobz addresses the Edmonton MRA campaign.

I don’t think that MRAs are really concerned about false accusations. If they were, they would be working with groups like the Innocence Project that actually help men (and women) who have been wrongly convicted for crimes they didn’t commit.

No, it seems to me that what they’re really worried about is true accusations.

MRAs, with these posters, and with their endless whinging about the alleged complexities of sexual consent, are trying to push back against the date rape awareness campaigns of the last several decades. MRAs and PUAs like to pretend that consent is a complicated and weirdly arbitrary thing — something that women decide to bestow or not to bestow on a whim, and that women sometimes like to retract after the fact.

It’s important to know what “the movement” really says about consent and rape.

AVFM founder and publisher Paul Elam blames date rape on its victims, writing in one notorious post — which regular readers here will no doubt remember — that women who are raped after drinking and going home with a man are “begging” to be raped:

I have ideas about women who spend evenings in bars hustling men for drinks …  paying their bar tab with the pussy pass. And the women who drink and make out, doing everything short of sex with men all evening, and then go to his apartment at 2:00 a.m..  Sometimes both of these women end up being the “victims” of rape.

But are these women asking to get raped?

In the most severe and emphatic terms possible the answer is NO, THEY ARE NOT ASKING TO GET RAPED.

They are freaking begging for it.

Damn near demanding it.

And all the outraged PC demands to get huffy and point out how nothing justifies or excuses rape won’t change the fact that there are a lot of women who get pummeled and pumped because they are stupid (and often arrogant) enough to walk though life with the equivalent of a I’M A STUPID, CONNIVING BITCH – PLEASE RAPE ME neon sign glowing above their empty little narcissistic heads.

Elam has also said that if he is ever on a jury in a rape case he will vote to acquit even if there is clear evidence that the accused is guilty, and he has urged other men to similarly “nullify.” Here is his exact quote:

Should I be called to sit on a jury for a rape trial, I vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true.

That’s worth knowing.

Meanwhile, AVFM Editor in Chief John Hembling takes a certain pride in his callousness towards rape victims, and has gone so far as to make several videos in which he’s announced that he doesn’t care about rape, and that if he ever sees anyone being raped, he will simply walk on by. (You can find excerpts of both vidoes here.)

There are many other examples of the site’s utter contempt for rape victims, but perhaps the most telling is the site’s use of the term “rapetard” to describe people who take the issue of rape seriously.

The people behind the Don’t Be That Girl posters claim that they’re merely trying to protect innocent men from false accusers. Their real agenda is much more insidious than that.

The pro-rape party. Interesting.

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

You know what “horseplay” is – it’s when an adult man pulls an adult woman onto his lap when both of them are at work.

THE general secretary of Fine Gael has criticised party TD Tom Barry for his “unacceptable” and “inappropriate” actions in pulling a female party colleague onto his lap during the Dail abortion debate.

In a rare public statement, Tom Curran revealed that he had watched the footage of the incident, which has gone viral.

He insisted that the characterisation of the incident as “horseplay” by Fine Gael figures did not reflect how the party viewed it.

This morning, party officials described the incident as being “silly” and “clearly horseplay”.

However this afternoon, Mr Curran said the party did not view it this way and and branded it as “unacceptable”.

“One deputy’s actions were unwelcome to another deputy. If it happened in any other workplace, it would be unacceptable.

“That it happened on the floor of Leinster House makes it more so,” he said.

It’s strange that this seems to be so challenging for some people.

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

My friend Udo Schuklenk has an opinion piece on why “John Paul II day” is a very bad idea.

Looking back at this pope’s legacy, John Paul II was a highly conservative head of the Roman Catholic Church. Under his leadership, pedophilia in the church was not addressed seriously, and repeat offenders were busily shuffled through the worldwide church empire. He invariably made the noises about this behaviour being bad, but he did little to follow through as the man in charge.

His views on artificial insemination, abortion, euthanasia and homosexuality are considered offensive by the overwhelming majority of Canadians. This did not stop him from proactively lobbying Jean Chretien at the time against marriage equality, because the thought of providing equal rights to gay and lesbian Canadians was something this Catholic pontiff was not prepared to tolerate, not even in a country that was not his own. Well, that is if you accept that all-male Vatican as a country, of sorts.

John Paul II has rightly been criticized by public health and reproductive health experts for his absolute prohibition on condoms. He did not care that it could reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, and he certainly did not like the idea of preventing the birth of unwanted children. Under his leadership his clergy campaigned in many developing countries relentlessly against sex-education campaigns involving the use of condoms. Deliberate misinformation, in the name of God, was not beneath many of these campaigners.

So even if you wanted to have a “Cleric day” this particular cleric would be a terrible choice.

But you wouldn’t want to have a “Cleric day” anyway.

The inevitable question this “honouring” business gives rise to is this: Where should we draw the line? What other religious figurehead is next? How about the founder of the Church of Scientology, the deceased science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard? Or perhaps we should next honour a Muslim cleric for good balance?

The bottom line is this: Religion is a private and typically highly divisive issue. The truth of religious beliefs cannot be established. It is bad public policy in modern, multicultural societies to honour religious figureheads.

That sentence about the impossibility of establishing the truth of religious beliefs is one that almost always gets left out when people defend secularism. I’m glad Udo put it in. It makes a difference, after all; it’s basic; it shouldn’t be left out.

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

Well Vincent Browne is blunt.

Tonight the (almost) all-male parliament will vote to imprison a woman, for up to 14 years, who refuses to give her body to the sustenance of another human being, irrespective of almost all circumstances.

It is irrespective of whether the pregnancy would do serious and irreversible harm to her health for the rest of her life.

It is irrespective of the circumstances whereby she became pregnant, for example, if she had been gang-raped and was distraught at the prospect of bringing to full term the child of one of her rapists.

It is irrespective of whether the woman would be able to cope physically, emotionally and psychologically with having, say, a 10th child. It’s irrespective of the woman’s will.

That was Wednesday, before the vote happened.

This intrusion on the autonomy of women is founded on the virulent misogyny that pervades our culture. The culture that demeaned women by disbarring them from employment for centuries; that excluded them from the institutions and positions of power; that made them the property of their husbands; that still often portrays them as the mere sex toys of men; that has so infiltrated the consciousness of millions of women that even they believe their role is the mere “helper” of men (see Genesis chapter 2, verse 18). The culture that has absorbed the poisonous misogyny of the Catholic Church. Aside from an acknowledgement of a women’s right to life, there has been hardly a mention of any other entitlement on the part of the mother by any of the anti-abortion advocates, including the Catholic bishops (whose effrontery in engaging in any debate to do with morals is itself astonishing). It is as though they regard women as mere incubators.

Yes, it is.

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

Canada what the hell are you thinking?!

The text of the bill:

An Act to establish Pope John Paul II Day

Whereas Pope John Paul II served as the pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church from October 16, 1978, until his death on April 2, 2005;

Whereas Pope John Paul II is widely recognized as a leading figure in the history of the Roman Catholic Church and the world and played an influential and vital role in promoting international understanding and peace;

Whereas Pope John Paul II loved young persons and was instrumental in establishing World Youth Day in 1985 as a way to inspire youth and encourage them in living out the teachings of Christ;

Whereas Pope John Paul II visited Canada in his capacity as Pope for the first time in 1984 and later in 1987 and 2002;

And whereas Pope John Paul II visited many countries around the world and helped to end communism in Eastern Europe;

…therefore let’s pick a day in the calendar and call it pope John Paul day.

No, let’s not.

Sign the petition that says let’s not.

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

In Ireland, chapter 20 of the Murphy Report has just been published.

Three former Archbishops of Dublin have been criticised in trenchant terms in a previously unpublished section of a report on the handling of child abuse cases in Dublin.

Archbishops Dermot Ryan, Kevin McNamara and Cardinal Desmond Connell are named in Chapter 20 of the Murphy report, published this afternoon.

Chapter 20, which dealt with former priest Patrick McCabe (77), was released for publication by the High Court yesterday and placed in its entirety on the Department of Justice website this afternoon. McCabe walked free from court last March after an 18-month jail term was backdated by the judge.

…

At 62 pages Chapter 20 is the longest chapter in the Murphy report, which was published in November 2009.

The Chapter’s findings are among the most critical of church and Garda authorities made by the Murphy Commission, which investigated the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations by church and state authorities in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese between 1975 and 2004.

McCabe was protected; that’s what chapter 20 is about.

The Murphy report found that: “Archbishop (Dermot) Ryan not only about knew about the complaints against Fr McCabe, he had a considerable understanding of the effects of abuse on children. This is one of the few cases in which he took a close personal interest.”

Murphy found that Archbishop Ryan “protected Fr McCabe to an extraordinary extent; he ensured, as far as he could, that very few people knew about his activities; it seems that the welfare of children simply did not play any part in his decisions.”

They let him go off to a new job in Stockton, California without telling anyone there about his history. They protected him and themselves and the church and no one else.

In a statement this evening the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said: “For those abused by Patrick McCabe, the wait for truth has been a long one. They rightly also feel that their fight for justice has been a long one and as I know from my meetings with some of the survivors, justice delayed compounded their suffering. I hope that today, with the publication of the full Chapter 20 of the Murphy Report some of their suffering will ease.”

He said more, but none of it reported was anything like “we behaved abominably.” What was reported was the usual river of elegant words with no sign of actual horror and shame at what his colleagues and his church did.

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

CNN gives the most complete coverage of Malala’s speech at the UN that I’ve seen so far, with a selection of videos.

Speaking for children across the world, she told world leaders: “We are really tired of these wars.”

Yousafzai went on to address specific attacks in Pakistan on teachers and school children. Earlier this summer a female teacher was gunned down in front of her son as she drove into her all-girl school. A school principal was killed and his students severely injured when a bomb was tossed onto a school playground at an all-girl school in Karachi in March.

In January, five teachers were killed near the town of Swabi in the volatile northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the United Nations says.

And, in June, a suicide bomber blew up a bus carrying 40 schoolgirls as it made its way to an all-girl campus in Quetta. Fourteen female students were killed.

“Dear sisters and brothers,” she said, “we realize the importance of light when we see darkness. We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced. In the same way when we were in Swat, we realized the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns.

“The extremists were and they are afraid of books and pens,” she said.

“The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them.”

This fear is partly based on the Taliban’s own lack of education, Yousafzai said. And, she said, world leaders should “change their strategic policies” to press for peace and ensure that children’s and women’s rights are protected.

“We call upon all governments to ensure free, compulsory education — all around the world for every child.”

Free, compulsory, and safe – no bombers, no gunmen, no acid attacks, no arson. No theocrats trying frantically to shrink human beings into something tiny and afraid and submissive.

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

Malala Yousufzai spoke at the UN today. I’ve found two videos so far, which cover different sections of her speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrasFcGqM_s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIPggZPmceI

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

RTÉ follows the Dáil abortion legislation debate as it happened.

17:00

And we’re off again … with our second live blog as another round of discussions on the abortion legislation gets under way in the Dáil.

17:25

Clare Daly TD said where a woman believes that it is in her best interest to have a termination, that option should be available to her.

• 17:23

  Joan Collins TD said we should not allow women to be treated as second and third class citizens.

Clare Daly TD – I was on a panel with her less than two weeks ago – a panel on reproductive rights.

This one, in fact -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtlxP5mvo_8

I’m amazed at the things I get to do, sometimes.

19:46

Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald said that where there is a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother, she has the right to have her life saved.

She said that if you start saying that risk of death has to be set aside, then you are putting the life of the mother at risk and denying her, her rights.

Well quite.

• 00:25
  The Government has passed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill by 127 votes to 31.

  All of the 165 proposed amendments were defeated by the Government which led to criticism from Opposition TDs.

  The Bill now moves to the Seanad.

So that’s done.

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

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD thanks supporters and rejoices that Ireland has been brought into the 1950s tonight.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfPXGKJ_eRk

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

It’s done. Shortly after midnight the Dáil passed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.

The Government has passed legislation for the first time allowing for abortion in limited circumstances.

Shortly after midnight, TDs voted by 127 to 31 in favour of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.

The landmark legislation enshrines a woman’s right to a termination if her life is at risk, including from suicide.

It’s about stinking time, and it’s also obviously very inadequate, but it’s something.

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

Some tweets:

Gavin Reilly @gavreilly

Applause from the Labour benches, and from Alan Shatter, as the Dáil adjours at 12:25am.

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD @AodhanORiordain

Its done. #actiononx

Owen Corrigan @owencorrigan

FINALLY! And all it took was 21 years. #disgrace #XCase #abortionvote #Dail #Ireland pic.twitter.com/aeW2z6BCQq

             Retweeted by Jen Keane

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