There’s this website called The Irish Catholic, where you can read a guy called John Waters explaining how horrible women are. He starts with a little thought experiment by someone else.

‘What is the difference, in human rights terms, between a situation in which a distraught male goes in to his doctor and says that his partner is making him suicidal and that he fears that unless he/she (the doctor) arranges to have the partner killed he will kill himself, and a situation in which a distraught female goes to her doctor and says that her unborn child is making her suicidal and that she fears that unless he/she (the doctor) arranges to have the child killed she will kill herself?”

I received this single-sentence letter last week from a reader, who had sent it out to several newspapers in the previous week, in a fruitless bid to have it published.

The letter is interesting, and the refusal to publish it equally so. But even more interesting is the emotions I intuit it to generate in the average reader, who, if he or she is anything like me, will instantly comprehend why it was not published, and may even be inclined to feel that the intuited reasons for its non-publication are, at the very least, not entirely outrageous. In other words, something about the proposition contained in that sentence seems unreasonable, and this sense of its unreasonableness is probably very widely shared, if not universally held. Even people who consider themselves ‘pro-life’ will stop somewhat short of endorsing the comparison made in the letter, perhaps feeling it to withhold sympathy from the ‘distraught female’ referred to. And yet, if you think that an unborn child is a full human being from the moment of conception, there is no wiggle-room, and no absurdity in the question above, because there can be no moral distinction between the idea of killing an adult woman and killing an unborn child.

No, that’s not “interesting.” None of that is “interesting.” It’s disgusting, but it’s not interesting.

You don’t get to “think” that a fertilized egg is a full human being. You don’t get to “think” that a cat is a dandelion or that a corn muffin is a luxury yacht. You don’t get to think that one thing is a completely different thing. You don’t get to treat obvious nonsense as a reasonable claim. A fertilized egg, even a fertilized human egg, is simply not a full human being. It’s something that will over time develop into a full human being (unless there is a miscarriage or abortion), but that isn’t the same thing as actually being the thing it will develop into. A marigold seed is not a “full” marigold. A newly-laid eagle egg is not a “full” eagle. Catholics don’t get to make up their own ontology just because they’ve been pumped full of dogmatic “beliefs” by a guild of celibate men.

Waters says a lot more and ends up with his explanation of why women seek abortions.

Selfishness 

There is no reason to assume that a pregnancy ought to be anything other than a source of joy to the woman involved. In the vast majority of the very limited number of cases in which this is not so, the factors underlying the difficulty usually relate not to objective circumstances but to either intuited societal disapproval or selfishness on the part of the woman involved.

I wonder if John Waters has ever actually met any human beings.

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

It turns out there’s this movie star who is a feminist. Uh oh! Right? Men are people too you know. Human rights. Don’t talk to me about women’s rights; human rights.

Who is this twisted radical person who is a feminist? Ellen Page, of the irritating Juno in which our quirky brave intelligent heroine age 16 decides to have the baby and give it to some nice people instead of having a nasty filthy ol’ abortion, because girls of 16 have nothing better to do than bear children.

Apparently she didn’t realize it was an anti-abortion movie until this reporter pointed it out to her, which seems odd for a feminist.

There is, though, an unfortunate irony that one of the very few young actresses happy to describe themselves as a feminist remains most closely associated with a film that many saw as having an anti-abortion message. In Juno, Page, playing the eponymous 16-year-old, decides to have an abortion, only to bump into a classmate in front of the clinic who is protesting against abortions. “Your baby has fingernails!” her classmate tells her.

“Fingernails, really?” Juno replies. She then decides not to terminate her pregnancy.

Was she surprised by the furore the film sparked?

“No because I know what people are like in America about women’s ability to make choices for themselves in regards to their bodies. The only thing that was annoying was people taking it as a pro-life movie because she had the baby,” she says. After all, Page continues, “if she’d had the abortion it would be a short movie”, which is a fair point*. But her voice rises a little when she adds: “And at least we say the word abortion,” suggesting she knows that’s a pretty weak argument.

But the problem wasn’t that Juno had the baby, I say. It was that she decides not to have the abortion because of something a pro-life protestor said.

“Ohhhh, I see, that’s a good point,” she says, sitting back in her chair.

No, it was also that she had the baby.

But apart from that she’s pretty good. (I saw her talking to George Stromboulopooulos recently and she was pretty good then too.)

Ask an American female celebrity today whether she is even a feminist and you are likely to get ignorant verbal diarrhoea (Lady Gaga: “I am not a feminist – I hail men, I love men. I celebrate American male and beer and bars and muscle cars”) and fearful denials (Björk: “[To say I'm a feminist] would isolate me.”) The best Beyoncé could muster when recently asked if she considered herself a feminist was: “That word can be very extreme … I do believe in equality … But I’m happily married. I love my husband.” She was, she conceded, “a modern-day feminist”, and that is probably true, seeing as, if you are a female celebrity, being a “modern day feminist” seems to involve distancing yourself from the word. “At this point,” New York magazine writer Maureen O’Connor blogged in response to Beyoncé’s comments, “women who have a vested [interest] in being popular – ie celebrities – are still afraid of the word feminism.”

It’s a good thing I don’t have a vested interest in being popular, isn’t it.

Like nearly all of Page’s films, The East aims to unsettle the audience as opposed to seeking mass popularity, and Page agrees that she finds it “satisfying” to be in something “that provokes people, even if it’s not positive”. More importantly, perhaps, Izzy – like all of Page’s roles – is a tough, independent woman who isn’t there just to bolster the leading man. Does Page feel a responsibility to seek such roles out?

“Yeah absolutely,” she replies before I finish the question. “Also if I played those other kinds of roles I would just die a slow death. But yes, I think it’s really important, but it can be hard. Only 23% of speaking roles in films today are for women. It feels we’ve gone backwards.” Partly in response to this, she has started writing her own script “which is definitely feminist – definitely. But of course, if you just write a script in which the woman has control over her destiny and love isn’t the main thing in the film, that’s seen as super feminist.” She is also slated to direct a movie, starring Ana Faris, but filming is still some way off: “It’s hard to get stuff made, especially if it’s about women. Everything’s about in-ter-nat-ion-al bank-a-bility,” she sing-songs to words, mockingly.

So has she ever encountered sexism in Hollywood?

“Oh my God, yeah! It’s constant! It’s how you’re treated, it’s how you’re looked at, how you’re expected to look in a photoshoot, it’s how you’re expected to shut up and not have an opinion, it’s how you –” she pauses. “If you’re a girl and you don’t fit the very specific vision of what a girl should be, which is always from a man’s perspective, then you’re a little bit at a loss.”

A dangerous radical. Yay.

*No it isn’t. You could have stuff happen after the abortion. It’s not very feminist to think Juno’s story would stop once she was no longer pregnant.

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

Greetings to the new Council of Ex-Muslims in France.

On Saturday, members of the Council of Ex-Muslims in France met to launch their group publicly and discuss their mission: to promote liberty and equality for all people, regardless of their faith. Their Facebook page explains:

“We are a group of atheists and non-believers who have, because of this fact, been threatened or faced restrictions in our personal life. Many of us have been arrested for blasphemy.”

Maryam was there today for the launch, with Waleed Al-Husseini and Caroline Fourest among others.

Palestinian blogger Waleed Al-Husseini first organised the council, after being accused of making blasphemous comments towards the Prophet Mohammed, and seeking refuge in France.

The Council is composed of some thirty members, representing nearly a dozen nationalities.

It follows on the heels of the UK’s Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, headed up by Maryam Namazie. A similar council also exists in Germany.

And there will be more, until some day they are no longer needed because everyone will be free to join or leave any religion at any time.

Maryam has some pictures on Twitter.

Maryam and Waleed.

Drinks after the launch.

 Cheers, apostates everywhere!

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

Via Maryam – an Egyptian boy age 12 talks more political sense in two minutes than most people manage in a lifetime.

How come there are only seven women in the constituent assembly, and six of them are Islamists?

…

For example, they say that women are equal to men in all matters, except in matters that contradict sharia. But then, sharia allows men to “discipline” their wives. This can’t work in society.

[Reporter] Why not, what’s the problem?

The problem is it’s outrageous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeDm2PrNV1I

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

Horrifying news from Nigeria – Mamudo, in Yobe state, in the north. At least 29 students and a teacher killed in an attack on a school; some of the victims were burned alive.

A reporter from the Associated Press found chaotic scenes at the hospital in nearby Potiskum, where traumatised parents struggled to identify their children among the charred bodies and gunshot victims.

Survivors said suspected militants arrived with containers full of fuel and set fire to the school.

Some pupils were burned alive, others were shot as they tried to flee.

Another message from a god of hatred, no doubt.

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

Jesus and Mo gloat about the absence of evidence for evolution.

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

There’s an anti-abortion rally going on in Dublin, a rally the organizers have the nerve to call “pro-life.” Pro whose life, you disgusting creeps? Not pro Savita Halappanavar’s life. Not pro the life of the children she wanted and planned to live to have in the future.

Thousands of people are taking part in a ‘Rally for Life’ in Dublin city centre this afternoon.

Earlier, Archbishops Diarmuid Martin and Éamon Martin concelebrated mass in St Saviour’s Church in Dominick Street in advance of the rally.

Dr Martin told the congregation that every human life was sacred from the “moment of conception” until natural death.

The rally will pass through the city centre from Parnell Square to Leinster House.

Among the speakers will be Declan Ganly who is expected to call on Taoiseach Enda Kenny to put the Protection of lIfe During Pregnancy Bill 2013 to a vote of the people.

In hopes that the people will vote no, don’t protect [the woman's] life during pregnancy, let her die the way Savita died.

The church is shameless.

Pro-life groups from all over the country were represented at the march with an initial gathering stretching across two sides of Parnell Square but that number was expected to grow at the rally in Kildare Street – outside the Dail

There was a large garda presence. A small pro-choice  counter demonstration was taking place at  the spire on O’Connell Street.

Earlier Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said  in a homily  at Mass in Church of St. Dominick, Dublin that the Christian message is a message which respects life and respects every human life, from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death and at every moment in-between.

“It respects the life of the unborn; it cherishes and wishes to protect the lives of mothers and mothers to be,’ the Archbishop said.

No it doesn’t. The archbishop told a lie there.

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

Le 1er juillet 1766, le jeune Chevalier de la Barre (1745 –1766) fut torturé et mis à mort, son corps ensuite brulé sur un bucher en compagnie du  Dictionnaire Philosophique de Voltaire: son seul crime fut d’avoir refusé de soulever son chapeau au passage d’une procession religieuse.

Aujourd’hui, d’innombrables Jean-François Lefevre de la Barre sont menacés, torturés, emprisonnés, mis à mort pour apostasie, blaspheme, hérésie et pour refus de se plier aux dictats islamistes.

En commémoration de l’assassinat de La Barre et en solidarité avec les nombreux hommes et femmes qui, comme lui, refusent et résistent aujourd’hui, nous annonçons le lancement d’une nouvelle organisation: le Conseil des ex-Musulmans de France, qui aura lieu le samedi 6 juillet 2013, de 14 à 17h à la Maison des Ensembles, 3-5 rue d’Aligre, Paris 75012. ( Salle au premier étage, à côté des locaux de Femmes Solidaires et de Clara Magazine).

Le bloggeur palestinien Waleed Al-Husseini, la cinéaste tunisienne Nadia El-Fani, la journaliste laïque Caroline Fourest, la sociologue algérienne Marieme Helie Lucas, la fondatrice du Conseil des ex-Musulmans de Grande Bretagne Maryam Namazie et beaucoup d’autres seront parmi les intervenants…

Le Conseil des ex-Musulmans de France se donne les objectifs suivants:

Nous réclamons les droits universels, l’égalité totale, et nous nous opposons à toute tolérance envers des croyances inhumaines, envers toute discrimination et tout mauvais traitement, infligés au nom du respect de la religion et de la culture.

2. La liberté de critiquer les religions. L’interdiction de toute restriction à la liberté inconditionnelle de critique et d’expression, sous couleur du caractère sacré  de la religion.

3. La liberté de religion et d’athéisme

4. La séparation de la religion d’avec l’Etat, le système éducatif, et le système légal.

5. L’interdiction des coutumes, règles, cérémonies ou activités religieuses qui sont incompatibles avec ou violents les droits et libertés des peuples

6. La prohibition de toute coutume culturelle ou  religieuse qui freine ou s’oppose à l’autonomie des femmes, à leur volonté et à l’égalité. La prohibition de la ségrégation des sexes.

7. La prohibition de toute interférence par quelque autorité, familiale ou parentale, ou par les autorités officielles dans la vie privée  des femmes et des hommes et dans leur relations personnelles émotionnelles et sexuelles, et leur sexualité.

8. La protection des enfants contre toute manipulation et abus  par la religion et les institutions religieuses

9. L’interdiction de toute forme de soutien financier, matériel ou moral accordé par l’Etat ou les institutions de l’Etat aux religions, aux activités religieuses et à leurs institutions.

10. L’interdiction de toute forme de menaces et d’intimidations religieuses.

Nous comptons sur votre présence et votre soutien,

Waleed Al-Husseini, bloggeur palestinien

Maryam Namazie, Conseil des ex-Musulmans de Grande Bretagne

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

One of my favorite talks at Empowering Women Through Secularism: Elida Radig.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPhbs_q4Kk8

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

Human Rights Watch has more on Wajeha al-Huwaider.

A Saudi court convicted two Saudi women’s rights activists on June 15, 2013, for inciting a woman against her husband. Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Oyouni were each sentenced to 10 months in prison and two-year travel bans.

Al-Huwaider, a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East advisory committee, told Human Rights Watch that she believes authorities pursued this case to punish her for unrelated women’s rights activism over the last 10 years. Al-Huwaider and al-Oyouni said they intend to appeal their convictions.

“Saudi authorities are using the courts to send a message that they won’t tolerate any attempt to alleviate the dismal status of women’s rights in the kingdom,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi authorities should immediately drop this case and stop harassing Saudi women who call for reform.”

Al-Huwaider told Human Rights Watch that her and al-Oyouni’s involvement with the Canadian woman began in 2009, when she received messages from Johanne Durocher, the woman’s mother, who is in Canada, pleading for activists to help her daughter, Natalie Morin. Morin is married to a Saudi citizen, Sa’eed al-Shahrani, and lives with him and their three children in the Eastern Province city of Dammam.

Durocher told them that al-Shahrani, a former police officer, was abusing Morin by locking her in their house and denying her adequate food and water. Durocher had helped draw international media attention to the case in 2009 by lobbying Canadian government officials to intervene and organizing protests over the case in Canada.

Al-Huwaider said that she and al-Oyouni organized several trips by other activists to deliver food and supplies to the woman, but that they did not attempt to visit Morin until the afternoon of June 6, 2011, when they received distressed messages from Morin herself. The messages said that Morin’s husband had left for a week-long visit to see relatives in another town and that her supplies of food and water were running out. When al-Huwaider and al-Oyouni approached the house to offer assistance they were confronted by police who were apparently waiting for them to arrive. The officers immediately arrested them and took them to a Damman police station for questioning.

Saudi makes it easy for the judges by letting them make up the laws as they go.

In Saudi Arabia, which has no written penal code, judges and prosecutors have wide latitude to arbitrarily define certain acts as criminal behavior and then argue that defendants committed these “crimes.” The charge against al-Huwaider and al-Oyouni is “inciting a woman against her husband.”

Heads they win, tails she loses.

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

As expected, there’s fighting in Cairo. The Islamists were never going to shrug and say ok, were they.

Tensions in Cairo escalated after Egyptian troops opened fire on crowds that had gathered outside the Republican Guard headquarters, where Mr Morsi is believed to be held.

Three people were killed and dozens more wounded, including the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen whose head was grazed by shotgun pellets.

Tens of thousands of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood – to whom Mr Morsi belongs – had massed outside Rabaa al-Adawiya Mosque throughout the day.

By evening, the crowd had filled nearby streets and the Brotherhood’s supreme leader, Mohammed Badie, told the crowd: “We shall stay in the squares until we bring President Morsi back to power.”

It was never going to work – a democratic election that elected people who reject democracy and elections. It’s the terrible flaw that democracy has: it works only as long as everyone plays by the rules. When everyone doesn’t, it becomes a choice between the military and some other kind of brute force.

Jeremy Bowen explains the obvious for us.

This country’s citizens tend to respect, even venerate, the armed forces. But its intervention in politics, and its removal of President Morsi, has alienated a big section of the community.

Two Egypts exist side-by-side.

One is made of men and women, supporters of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who are as angry as Mohammed Ramadan. They are furious that what they see as the democratic will of the people has been flouted, and they are in no mood to accept meekly what has been done to them.

Men “and women”…I doubt that part. I doubt that many women are included in that angry group. It’s just a form of words.

For all the talk of rebooting Egypt’s political system, the fact is that its experiment with democracy has failed dismally.

The leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood and its political party, together the biggest political and social movement in the country, have been rounded up and locked away in a way that happened often in the years before 2011.

The army’s intervention does not of itself do anything to tackle Egypt’s huge economic problems. The country is deeply divided.

It is not a good beginning for a new era.

No, it’s not, but neither was the election of the MB (and the Salafis). That was already a massive failure of Egypt’s experiment with democracy.

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

Marie-Thérèse took this photo of Maureen and PZ in conversation last Saturday in Dublin.

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

Athlete has bad headaches, goes to “therapist” who decides that sticking a needle in her chest will fix her headaches. Lung collapses, athlete’s life is trashed. This is called “traditional Chinese medicine.”

The therapist accidentally pierced Ms. Ribble-Orr’s left lung during acupuncture treatment that was later deemed unnecessary and ill-advised, causing the organ to collapse and leaving it permanently damaged. An Ontario court has just upheld the one-year disciplinary suspension imposed on therapist Scott Spurrell, rejecting his appeal in a case that highlights a rare but well-documented side effect of acupuncture.

Mr. Spurrell, who learned the ancient Chinese art on weekends at a local university, had no reason to stick the needle in his patient’s chest, and had wrongly advised Ms. Ribble-Orr that the chest pain and other symptoms she reported later were likely just from a muscle spasm, a discipline tribunal ruled.

It’s time for people to stop calling acupuncture things like “the ancient Chinese art” and other such honorifics. It’s just sticking needles in people for no medical reason. It’s bad and stupid and calling it an ancient art doesn’t make it any less so.

Acupuncture involves inserting solid needles into the body at specific points to encourage natural healing, improve mood and relieve pain, among other benefits, according to the Acupuncture Foundation of Canada Institute. Proponents tout it as a safe, drug-free alternative to traditional medicine, one that is used by close to one in 10 Canadians, a 2007 Alberta study suggested.

A Danish analysis of randomized clinical trials in 2009, however, concluded that acupuncture offered only a slight, clinically irrelevant benefit over placebo acupuncture for pain.

How “safe” can it really be when it involves sticking needles into people? “Safe” is things like murmuring incantations, it’s not sticking needles into people.

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

Katha Pollitt reports on a horror story from Saudi Arabia.

After proceedings that stretched out over nearly a year and violated many legal  norms, Wajeha Al-Huwaider, the prominent Saudi Human rights activist and  co-organizer of protests against the ban on women drivers, has been sentenced to  ten months in prison, along with her colleague Fawzia Al-Oyouni. (I interviewed  Al-Huwaider here.) After they serve their terms, both will be banned from travel for two years.

What did they do? They tried to help a Canadian woman whose Saudi husband is holding her hostage.

They were accused of kidnapping and trying to help Nathalie Morin, a  Canadian woman married to a Saudi, flee the country in June 2011. Morin, who has  said her husband locks her in the house and is abusive, has been trying for  eight years to leave Saudi Arabia with her three children. (There’s a  so-far-unsuccessful campaign, spearheaded by her mother, to get the Canadian  government to intervene.) Al-Huwaider says they were responding to a frantic  text message from Morin, who said her husband had gone away for a week and left  her locked in the house without enough food or drinkable water. When they  arrived at the house with groceries, they were arrested.

The two activists were found not guilty of kidnapping, but the judge convicted them of “Takhbib”—inciting a woman against her husband.

So in Saudi Arabia husbands are allowed to imprison their wives and children without enough water and food? And women who try to rescue such wives and children get ten months in jail? Interesting.

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

Yesterday the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a couple for homicide – or, as NBC News put it, the conviction of a ”deeply religious Wisconsin couple who prayed over their dying daughter rather than seek medical help.” Not fanatically religious or irrationally religious or stupidly and dangerously religious but “deeply” religious. Let’s give them extra deference and admiration for the profundity of their unreasonable magical thinking even as we report that their “deep” religion caused them to let their daughter die of an easily treatable condition.

Kara Neumann, 11, of Weston, Wis., died March 23, 2008 — Easter Sunday — of complications of untreated juvenile onset diabetes.

According to the case records, Kara had been showing symptoms of exhaustion and dehydration for more than a week, but her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, refused to take her to a pediatrician, and decided to respond to her illness with prayer, not medicine.

How deep. Or rather, how inexcusably stupid and self-indulgent and whimsical. They might as well cut their children’s arms and legs off to make a nice dinner, in the expectation that praying will make the bleeding stop and the arms and legs reappear.

The Neumanns don’t belong to any particular church, but they identify as Pentecostals, according to factual findings in the court record, none of which the Neumanns disputed. Some Pentecostals — but by no means all — believe that prayer and strong religious belief can cure all illnesses, a tradition that helped give rise to famous “faith healers” like Oral Roberts and Benny Hinn.

They have no right to believe that. They might as well believe a power saw is the best implement for combing their children’s hair. If your beliefs are lethal to other people you have to stop coddling them. You don’t get to believe that you can push your child out of a tenth floor window because God will catch her.

As Kara weakened, the Neumanns asked family and friends to pray for her, too. The day before his daughter died, Dale Neumann posted a message on a Christian listserv with the subject line “Help our daughter needs emergency prayer!!!”

“We need agreement in prayer over our youngest daughter, who is very weak and pale at the moment with hardly any strength,” the message said.

He posted a message on a Christian listserv, did he. So technology is ok for him. Technology is ok when it gives him an extra tool with which to mess around with idiotic “beliefs” – but when it comes to his daughter’s health and life, why, no, only magical incantations will do.

Dale Neumann testified that he knew Kara was sick but never thought she might die. In fact, he testified that he thought that Jesus would bring her back from the dead, as he did with Lazarus in the Gospel of John.

Wisconsin is among 17 states that allow religious defenses against felony charges of crimes against children, according to records compiled by Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, a nonprofit activist group that opposes religious exceptions to child health and safety laws.

Shame on you Wisconsin, and the other sixteen states along with you.

“If we were to adopt the parents’ reasoning, no prayer-treating parent would know what point is beyond ‘a substantial risk of death’ until the child actually stopped breathing and died,” Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote.

Steven Miller, Dale Neumann’s attorney, criticized Wednesday’s decision as having “essentially gutted the faith healing privilege under the child abuse statute.”

The what??! There shouldn’t be such a thing as a faith healing privilege – it’s insane! You can’t abuse your children except you can if faith. Wrong! Bad idea. Bad, bad, bad idea.

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

Well great. Which is least worst, military rule or Islamist theocracy?

Couldn’t Egypt manage a third possibility?

Egypt’s military has moved against the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood a day after deposing President Mohammed Morsi.

Mr Morsi is in detention, as well as senior figures in the Islamist group of which he is a member. Hundreds more are being sought.

The top judge of Egypt’s constitutional court, Adly Mahmud Mansour, has been sworn in as interim leader.

Let’s hope they can figure it out soon.

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

So there’s this comedy writer Kurt Metzger, who’s on the staff at Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer. You know the next line already.

Lindy West and Sady Doyle, two outspoken critics of rape humor in comedy, are accusing Metzger of an online harassment campaign that started more than a month ago. Doyle is taking the evidence straight to Amy Schumer and Comedy Central.

Are they sure it’s harassment? Couldn’t it just be…you know…comedy?

Doyle and West both drew Metzger’s attention after they voiced their opinions on the ongoing debate about rape jokes within the comic community—a persistent issue since last year’s Daniel Tosh controversy.

The bloggers claim Metzger is targeting them and other feminists by making impersonator accounts on various social media platforms and filling them with obscene Photoshops of the women he’s mocking.

Well there you go – just as I thought, it’s not harassment, it’s pure comedy gold. What could be funnier than impersonator accounts and obscene Photoshops of women you don’t like? And obviously that kind of thing is totally harmless no matter what.

Even if the true creator of the sockpuppet account is never exposed, the level of Metzger’s vitriol may give a boost to feminism’s argument within the comedy community. While Metzger argued on Facebook, “Don’t worry about jokes. Rapists don’t hide behind rape jokes,” the domestic violence in his past—not to mention the threats in his current language—illustrate in a grim way the very real connection between “jokes” and actual assault. Ironically, Metzger is a textbook example of the academic study he mocked and dismissed—the one that explored how men who enjoy jokes about sexual violence are more likely to commit sexual violence. Metzger’s admissions, truthful or not, are horrifying enough: He stated that some women “deserve a beating,” then he copped to choking his girlfriend because she didn’t “fear” him enough.

Yes but that’s because his girlfriend deserved it. Jeez – people are so dense.

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

Oh by the way did I mention that I’m back? I am, I’m back. It was a looooooooong trip. Jane and Michael picked me up at 11:15 yesterday (Tuesday) morning and I got home at 7:30 the next morning Dublin time. That’s 20 hours. Lordy.

I had a bit of good luck though, that made it a little shorter than it might have been. I looked on the board at JFK to find my gate and saw that there was an earlier flight in half an hour. Ooh, could I get them to put me on that one? Could I get there in time? It was a long shot, especially when I found I had to take a shuttle bus that trundled around the airport pausing to wait while planes oozed by – but I got there in time, and there were apparently seats open. There’s a $50 charge, they told me. Oh, never mind then, I said. Ok so they put me on it anyway. I guess they just try the $50 thing in case they get someone easy, or too rich to care. I figured I would get the most miserable seat on the whole plane, so imagine my surprise to get an F seat, and my even greater surprise to find that row 35 has a partition behind it and massive leg room in front with a pull-out leg-rest. Best seat ever.

Just as I stepped onto the plane I had a violent gasping can’t-breathe tears pouring sweaty coughing fit. That was a lot of fun. But then to make up for it I saw Captain Keith Colburn of the Wizard, from the absurd but oddly fascinating Discovery show Deadliest Catch, among the toffs in first class. Very amusing.

We crossed the mountains and turned south just at and after sunset (from the plane’s height), and the view of Puget Sound and the islands was spectacular. Best view ever.

So that’s not too bad. Best seat ever, best sighting of a crab captain from Deadliest Catch ever, best aerial view of sunset over Puget Sound ever.

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

Anne Ferris TD, Vice Chair of the Oireachtas Committee for Justice, Defence and Equality, has a scorching article on the Magdalene laundries. If you read it it will make you feel angry.

In 1955 Halliday Sutherland was doing research for a book on Ireland and managed to visit a Magdalene laundry in Galway.

The day before he visited the laundry in Galway, Dr Sutherland visited the Mother and Baby home in Tuam. He noted that the accepted practice was that unmarried mothers in the Tuam home ‘agreed’ to provide a year of unpaid domestic service to the nuns, and that in addition to this servitude, the home received State support, via Galway County Council, to the tune of £1 per child or mother per week.

A year of slavery.

Sutherland was told that any child not adopted by the age of seven was sent to work in one of Ireland’s notorious Industrial Schools, no doubt a factor in the decisions of the thousands of Irish women who ‘agreed’ to the export of their children for Catholic adoptions abroad. Women who were re-admitted to the Tuam Mother and Baby Home on a second occasion were automatically sent to work at the Magdalene Home Laundry in Galway.  By directing the women to the laundry and the children to the industrial schools the State saved money and the Church made money.

And women were treated like dirt.

Today, thanks to the Magdalene survivors groups we know what the women suffered and that the Mother and Baby homes were only one of many routes by which the Church and State incarcerated women in the Magdalene laundries and similarly operated religious institutions.  This is why in February of this year, after successive governments failed to engage meaningfully with the Magdalene survivors, the current Taoiseach made a formal apology to the women on behalf of the State.

This week the Government announced a redress fund for the survivors. It remains to be seen if the amount and means of payment will prove sufficient to compensate for the State’s role in this tragedy. No sum of money can take away the pain that these women have endured.  In my capacity of Vice Chair of the Oireachtas Committee for Justice, Defence and Equality I personally undertake to closely monitor the progress of any necessary legislation designed to effect the speedy and appropriate distribution of redress to the women concerned. But there can be absolutely no ambiguity regarding the financial contribution to be made by the Church. There is now no hiding from the enormity of what these women suffered in the so called ‘care’ of these religious institutions.

One of the times I walked through Stephen’s Green I studied the pictorial map in hopes of finding the rest rooms. (Apparently there aren’t any. Ok Dublin that’s weird. It’s a busy, popular place.) I spotted a memorial to the Magdalene women. Oh, gotta see that, I thought, so I went looking for it. It turned out to be a little plaque on a bench. Calling that a “memorial” just renews the insult. It’s kind of like the nun who, when the brother of one inmate rescued her after years, tried to give the inmate 2/6 as payment. Half a crown! As payment for years of backbreaking work!

On the day in 1955 that Dr Halliday Sutherland visited the Galway Magdalene he met some of its seventy-three unpaid manual workers who lifted and toiled in the heat and wet doing laundry work for businesses, institutions and homes in Galway.  One woman told him she had been there for 25 years. He asked another if she liked the laundry.  She answered “yes” but according to Sutherland she did not look him in the eye. Later, he said, a nun told him that she was a bold girl.

“On Sundays they’re allowed to use cosmetics”, the sister-in-charge told him.

But…“Are the girls free?” asked Sutherland.

“Yes” said the nun.

“Can a girl leave whenever she chooses?

“No, we are not as lenient as all that.” said the Mother Superior.

That’s for sure.

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