Hebden Bridge was hammered by a flood last Friday. Pictures here.

After heavy rain all day Friday,  flood sirens went just before 8pm. Just hours later, the whole of the centre of Hebden Bridge was flooded. Market Street,  Bridge Gate, Old Gate, Albert Street and Crown Street were all under water and impassable.

The dramatic events of Friday evening have led to dozens of local shops and businesses suffering damage and serious loss of stock. We encourage all HebWeb readers to support the fund set up by the Community Foundation.

Life is difficult, and then it floods.

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

Jason has details.

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

A few people think I’ve been unfair to DJ Grothe. I don’t. I think it’s the other way around.

I’ll explain why, as succinctly as I explained it to DJ (and Carrie) the day after threat-day.

I think he stuck a metaphorical target on me. He didn’t do anything to take it off. He didn’t do anything to assure me that he still welcomed me to TAM. He triggered a shit-storm, and then let it get worse and worse and worse.

That’s it.

He stuck a metaphorical target on me (in my view) when he blamed the fall in women’s attendance at TAM on

irresponsible messaging coming from a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe.

Since I was scheduled to do a talk at TAM, the target was very awkward. I blogged about this. DJ never responded. (I could have emailed him directly – but his target-attaching was public as opposed to email, so I replied to it in public rather than email. Besides, I didn’t feel as if I should have to email him to say, “Uh er am I still supposed to do this talk or wut?” I thought it was his job to deal with it, not mine. I still think that.)

As time went on, the fallout from DJ’s remark got bigger and nastier. I felt steadily more unwelcome. DJ still did nothing. Again – I think this is not how someone in charge of an event should treat an invited speaker.

Then came the emails. When I told DJ about them and my decision not to go to TAM as a result, he finally did say they would welcome me as a speaker and value my safety “like we do of everyone who attends our events.” It wasn’t entirely convincing…and it was also very late (and forced). It wasn’t entirely convincing for instance because he went on to predict that some attendees might have different opinions and then cited “these recent couple dozen blog posts on Freethought Blogs about TAM” – in other words he blamed posts at Freethought Blogs for people at TAM disliking me. I, on the other hand, think the dislike originates in his remarks about the clumsy women. He then pointed out that controversial speakers possibly disliked by attendees were still treated respectfully, and named three examples: Dawkins, Krauss, and Jillette.

As I pointed out to him in my reply, there are some salient differences between me on the one hand and Dawkins, Krauss, and Jillette on the other. I think they kind of jump off the page, especially in this context. They’re all men. They’re all Names. They don’t piss off angry misogynists.

So that’s why I don’t think I’ve been unfair to DJ Grothe. That’s why I think it’s the other way around.

As I said, I replied to DJ’s reply, but I got no reply in turn. Carrie told me I could phone them, but that’s all the answer I got. I don’t think that’s very good management.

So that’s that. I expect now we can at last drop the whole smelly subject!

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

There are some memes that need correcting – and when I say “correcting” I mean “multiple repetitions of correction for however long it takes” because that’s how it is with memes: they’re god damn hard to correct and often trying to correct them just entrenches them instead. (So don’t correct them? No, because what else can one do, and because at least they’ll be easier to find.)

One that I see everywhere is that the mysterious “small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics who, in trying to help correct real problems of sexism in skepticism, actually and rather clumsily themselves help create a climate where women — who otherwise wouldn’t — end up feeling unwelcome and unsafe” had been saying that TAM was bad for women before DJ Grothe called them out with that accusation.

We hadn’t. Or they hadn’t. I don’t know for sure if DJ meant to include me in that group or not, but either way – we or they hadn’t.

In his now notorious reply to Rebecca, he quoted only one item that specified TAM, and that one he cited via the generic address rather than the specific post. The generic address was that of The Skeptical Abyss – which is one of those anonymous sites set up for the sole purpose of talking shit about uppity women. The post DJ quoted from was a set-up for the next post, which was an order to name names. Another description for that would be an invitation to get yourself sued. The one item that named TAM comes from a site that is emphatically supportive of DJ and hostile to feminism and feminists.

The others are Rebecca, Stephanie (several times), and Jen. None of the passages he quoted mentions TAM.

So: DJ said a small number of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics were scaring women away from TAM; Rebecca asked for specifics, and he provided generics. He did not provide any examples of prominent and well-meaning women skeptics talking about TAM.

I know I hadn’t been talking about TAM before that. For one thing, I didn’t know much about it. I had nothing to say. I hadn’t been talking about TAM, and I don’t know that any of the named women had either. But there is now a robust myth that we had all been talking a lot of smack about TAM before DJ ever said anything.

Not true. False. A dud meme.

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

Bad journalism department. The Warrington Guardian reports on a guy who thinks his son’s autism was caused by the MMR vaccination.

A STOCKTON Heath father, who believes his son became autistic after being given the MMR vaccination, has welcomed a landmark Italian court ruling.

Judges in Rimini awarded the Bocca family £140,000 after the Italian health ministry conceded the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine caused autism in their nine-year-old son.

The result has given fresh hope for many parents with similar cases who feel the British legal process has failed them…

Oy. How to inspire new flocks of people to refuse to let their children be vaccinated.

Oliver’s family said he ‘markedly regressed’ within weeks of the jab from a bright boy who could point to every letter on a bedroom alphabet freeze to someone who lost all his skills and language  and was in a ‘world of his own’.

Therefore…

sigh

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

Everyone says the CFI student leadership weekend was fantastic. Ed Brayton said so, and all the people tweeting about it at the time said so, and the pictures that Paul Fidalgo tweeted said so. (There was one of “James Croft with his invisible yo-yo” that cracked me up.)

CFI goes from strength to strength. Noticed that?

Maryam reports that the Council of Ex-Muslims 5th anniversary bash was also fantastic.

Good things!

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

So anyway.

Way back last month I did a brief post on Martha Nussbaum’s new book on religious intolerance. There’s more to say. I’ll say a little of it now.

The overall point is just that she leaves out a lot. She puts a thumb on the scales by leaving out a lot.

I had the same problem with the Opinionator articles the book expands on. I wrote about them on July 20, 2010 and July 22, 2010. Maybe I said it all in there, but I’ll say some things before I look to find out.

An example. On page 2 she says the US has not been free of what she calls “religious prejudice and fear” and gives as an example -

We need only remember, for example, that not until the 1970s did “white-shoe” law firms begin to hire Jews in any significant numbers, and only in very recent times could a majority of the Supreme Court be composed of Roman Catholics without public outrage…

One, the two items don’t go together very well, because it was never purely “religious” prejudice that kept Jews out of waspy law firms and country clubs. It was a weird, unpleasant mix, and usually didn’t have much to do with religion at all.

Two, more substantively – she completely ignores the possibility that there could be good reasons for not wanting the Supreme Court to be mostly Catholic. And that’s typical. She treats all concerns about religions as fundamentally irrational and like racism as opposed to like political disagreement. (She does sometimes address reasonable concerns, but not nearly often enough.)

It’s as if “Catholic” is a race, when in fact orthodox (so to speak) or Vatican-obedient Catholicism is a serious threat to many rights and freedoms, as we know all too well. The USCCB would get rid of contraception if it could! Let alone abortion and same-sex marriage.

Part of her argument (also discussed in her conscience book) is that

the faculty with which people search for life’s ultimate meaning – frequently called “conscience” – is a very important part of people, closely related to their dignity, or an aspect of it. [p 65]

And that’s religion, among other things.

But that’s a very flattering version of religion, and far from always true. Most people are born into and raised in their religion; they don’t search for it, they have it delivered to them or imposed on them, and they accept or obey. Obedient religion isn’t really about a search for meaning – it isn’t about a search. It’s about having already found.

I don’t like the book much, I’m afraid.

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

Meta. God this is boring. As briskly as possible -

Verbose S

to call the situations “threatening” runs a massive risk of saying that they were intentional threats, not that the person was reasonable to feel, at least, that there might be a threat.

What “massive risk”? There was nothing at stake. No one was named. What possible “massive risk” could there be? Harm to the reputation of [????????] That’s not a risk.

Verbose S again

 Thus, the “risk” I am talking about is another type of risk, the risk of using the word “threatening” to refer to the intentions of people as opposed to what people like Watson and Ophelia might feel based, which is wrong.  Thus, it opens up the risk of being wrong.

Oh that massive risk. So it’s massively risky for me to use the word “threats” to refer to threats but it’s fine for you to warn of the “massive risk” of…being wrong.

Verbose S again

If someone says that “X was threatening you”, then the implication is always that that was intentional, and not just that the person found it threatening.

But that isn’t what I said. I said I got email threats. The whole rest of your reply is subject to the same objection. Careless; points deducted.

S Beesley

your original post stated, unambiguously, that you had “got email threats about TAM”. No ifs, no buts, no nuance.

But getting threats doesn’t mean one thing and one thing only. I did get threats: threats about what was likely to happen, and how likely it was. Somebody telling me that it was very likely that I would be shot at TAM felt like a threat to me. That’s a perfectly normal use of the word. People talk about a threat of rain, for godsake.

My personal opinion is that you made a error of judgement in your original post.

By saying I got email threats when I did get email threats. That’s ridiculous.

I fear that you’re defending the indefensible

See above.

S Beesley again

The clear meaning here was that the emailer threatened her.

No. One possible meaning; not the clear meaning.

S Beesley again

My observation is that Ophelia is now complaining that reasonable people are not taking a nuanced approach which would not be possible from the original post.

Yes it would; see above.

It’s very kind of both of you to spend this much time and effort trying to show that I was wrong to say I got threats when I got threats, but really, it’s not necessary. I got this.

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

Amanda Marcotte is familiar with the problem. She doesn’t stare in bewilderment if you mention it. She doesn’t tell you to lighten up or to ignore it or to grow a pair or to stfu.

I’ve got a toe in some geek stuff, but mostly I watch the culture from the outside, and I have to say, from an outside perspective, it actually looks like geek culture has allowed a form of entrenched and vicious misogyny to flourish. It’s not the majority or anything like that, but there’s a loud minority of geek men who have a hate-on for women that’s so grotesque that it often gets to fundamentalist Christianity levels.

That’s the problem. Amanda is familiar with it.

She lists six examples of battles within geek culture over misogyny and feminism. Number 5 will ring a bell.

5) Let’s not forget the ongoing battles over sexual harassment at geek-intensive skeptics events. It appears that women who speak out against sexual harassment with an eye towards making the conferences better and more fun for everyone can expect to be dismissed, minimized, and even directly lied about at Psychology Today. Apparently, a whole lot of people would far rather preserve their right to be hostile to the few women who show up at their events rather than create an atmosphere where more women show up and actual fun is had.

That first link is to the video we here at FTB did a week ago. The second is to that horrible article by Doctor Marty Klein telling a prettied-up version of how the swingin’ couple approached Elyse Anders.

There do seem to be a whole lot of people who are desperate to preserve their right to be hostile to the few women who show up at their events.

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

A very apposite tweet just now…

Dan Savage‏@fakedansavage Thank you for supporting marriage equality, @gopmommy, but respectfully: If you think I’ve bullied people, you don’t know what bullying is.

Been there! Been there, been there, been there.

So has Jason.

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

A piece of good news, for once – thanks to Maureen Brian for alerting us.

Saudi Arabia is allowing women to compete in the Olympics.

A statement issued by the Saudi Embassy in London says the country’s Olympic Committee will “oversee participation of women athletes who can qualify”.

The decision will end recent speculation as to whether the entire Saudi team could have been disqualified on grounds of gender discrimination.

And it will also…you know…allow women to compete.

Mind you, because of the stifling rules women have to obey in Saudi Arabia, and the lack of provision for athletic activities for women, there are few women who can actually take advantage of this permission…In fact there’s one. But, baby steps.

There is almost no public tradition of women participating in sport in the country.

Saudi officials say that with the Games now just a few weeks away, the only female competitor at Olympic standard is showjumper Dalma Rushdi Malhas.

But they added that there may be scope for others to compete and that if successful they would be dressed “to preserve their dignity”.

In practice this is likely to mean modest, loose-fitting garments and “a sports hijab”, a scarf covering the hair but not the face.

“Modest loose-fitting garments” could of course hinder their performance in most activities…But, baby steps.

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

I hate irony. Or at least I hate “irony.” I hate the kind of “irony” that was those teenage boys tormenting Karen Klein on that schoolbus.

Justin thinks what Abbie Smith and the gang at ERV do is irony. I don’t.

How could it be? How would that work? Is the idea that they don’t loathe the people they call cunts and baboons and all the rest of it? That’s just silly; of course they do.

So where’s the irony?

It’s something about 4chan. Fuck 4chan. There’s not some special extra dimension where loathing becomes irony and where Karen Klein and those boys could kick back and lol at all those insults.

Fortunately, the sun is out from behind the clouds here and it’s not raining for the first time in three days, and I get to go out on a boat for awhile. A totally unironic boat.

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

I was looking through The Random Things this morning and found this 1994 (yes! the clock goes back that far!) interview with Katha Pollitt. It reminds me that none of this crap is at all new or even surprising. I’ve been thinking and saying “But I thought everyone knew…” [that you don't call women cunts, that you don't assume women are lying if they even say some stranger made a pass at them, that you don't blame them for discussing sexual harassment], but that’s stupid.

For instance.

Q: Do you find yourself a feminist among civil libertarians and a civil libertarian among feminists?

Pollitt: Although there are certainly particular issues where you might find your wish to see women safe and cheerful conflict with your civil-libertarian outlook, basically I see these as having much more in common than opposed. The media have played a destructive role here in that when these two movements are discussed together, they are always discussed in opposition. So, for example, the major role played by the civil libertarians in reproductive-freedom issues is mentioned much less than the fact that some feminists would like to use the law to attack pornography, and all civil libertarians think that’s an infringement on the First Amendment. But mostly, I see these two movements as friends.

Q: You wrote a letter to the editor of The Nation right before you started your column – what was that an about?

Pollitt: Well, Carlin Romano wrote a review of Catharine MacKinnon’s book Only Words which was published in our magazine, in which Carlin pretends to fantasize about raping Catharine MacKinnon and someone else does rape Catharine MacKinnon. It was to say to Catharine MacKinnon, you think there’s no difference between words and deeds? I’ll show you the difference. And we got a tremendous amount of flak for this. It was one of a number of pieces that we published that, although you could defend each of them in some abstract and complicated way, the bottom line was that the magazine was not attuned to the frivolousness of making this sort of joke. So I wrote a letter saying, “What’s going on? I take a leave of absence and look what you do.” You know, The Nation is often criticized for having male-oriented politics and publishing mostly men, and I think the criticisms have some validity.

Everyone doesn’t know. Everyone should, but doesn’t.

Katha goes on:

I will say, though, that there is always a space on the “Left” to be against feminism – in a way that there’s not a space to be a racist. And although feminism came out of the Left and naturally belongs on the Left, sometimes you wouldn’t know it. You wouldn’t know it if you looked at what Andrea Dworkin likes to call the male Left. I think she draws much too harsh a portrait, but I don’t think you could find a person publishing in a progressive magazine who would, say, support capital punishment. But you can certainly find pro-lifers. You can certainly find people who think that mothers should be home with their children. You can certainly find people who have bought the media caricature, which is that a feminist is a banker in a power suit.

And you can find Carlin Romano writing about fantasy-rape of Catharine MacKinnon.

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

Some people just will not get the point. Take the Taliban, for instance – they are so confused.

Taliban leaders in Pakistan are blocking a polio vaccination campaign that was to target 161,000 children in North Waziristan.

The Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur is demanding that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) halt drone strikes, which have heavily targeted the mountainous region, according to a story in the New York Times. The move could prove a setback for the global initiative to eradicate polio…

Oh, no no no no, that’s all wrong. You’re supposed to impose suffering on yourself, not on 161,000 children! It’s so basic. You go on hunger strike, you don’t block polio vaccinations.

Hopelessly confused.

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

Russell Blackford, surprisingly, has announced that

We now know that Ophelia Benson did not receive threatening emails (she received a couple of earnest, concerned emails from people who were on her side … unless the emails were actually intended as parodies).

The way that’s worded, and in the context where it’s worded that way, it’s clear that that is an accusation of having, at least, exaggerated – and at most, lied. That of course is the view of the troll who keeps dropping in here under various names, but I expect reasonable people to take a slightly more nuanced approach.

I expect reasonable people at least to see that the messages I got are very peculiar, and that it is not obvious that they are not threats disguised as “earnest, concerned” advice. That’s because it is not obvious that they are not threats disguised as “earnest, concerned” advice. It’s really not. The “earnest, concerned” advice is itself exaggerated, wildly exaggerated; so exaggerated that it made me frown in puzzlement and try to figure out exactly what was going on – was this really advice? Was it mockery? Was it a warning?

In fact, it was so exaggerated that it triggered skepticism – which is exactly what Blackford is urging. That’s what led up to his announcement of what we now know:

Note, however, how Chris Mooney fell for the Tom Johnson/Wally Smith story because it confirmed his biases. This should be a lesson to us all. Be sceptical about every such story, even if it tends to confirm your biases. In fact, especially if it tends to confirm your biases.

I was skeptical. I couldn’t figure out what the hell the first message was. I didn’t just read it and think oh, great advice, I’ll do that – I’ll book myself into a different hotel while keeping the one I’m supposed to be in, and make JREF pay for both; I’ll demand a “Green Room”; I’ll agree with the writer of the message that I’m a big star and of course JREF won’t mind obeying my every command because I’m such a big star.

No, I didn’t do that. Instead I thought wtf? This is ridiculous. Green Room?? Escape taxi??!

So I replied, to express my skepticism and try gently to calm the guy down. I’ve already reproduced my reply to him, but I’ll just remind you of what I said -

I really don’t think things will be as bad as that. I’ll have some friends there. I think it could be extremely awkward at times, and I’m dreading that, but I don’t think I’ll be torn limb from limb or anything. PZ went to the GAC and we know there were people there who hate him, but nothing happened.

See? I was skeptical. All I was expecting was extreme awkwardness. That’s all.

But the guy replied, and what he said at the end shaded into what looked more like a veiled threat than ever.

I’m happy that PZ was not shot (gun or uppants camera) at GAC, but that gives me scant reassurance that you will *not* be shot either way in Las Vegas.

Please do not respond to this message. If you adopt safety measures, whether I’ve suggested them or not. DO NOT TELL ANYONE, including me.

As I said in Closing the file, I went back and forth, and I asked friends what they thought. I didn’t say omg it’s certainly absolutely a threat! I just felt creeped out and wary and doubtful. I asked people, they replied, I swayed back and forth – and then I got fucking sick of the whole damn thing – of DJ’s putting a metaphorical target on me in the first place, and failing to take it off once it was on, and (however inadvertently) creating a situation where I was dreading that extreme awkwardness, and now this – I just got totally sick of it.

I don’t think I was terribly unskeptical in calling those two paragraphs threats. They certainly felt threaty to me, thank you very much. It’s easy for Blackford to sneer; they weren’t addressed to him. I wasn’t certain that they were threats, but they certainly did feel threaty. There’s a difference.

So less of the triumphalist “We now know that Ophelia Benson did not receive threatening emails,” please. “We” now know that only because I reported what came next, which was Tim Farley’s generous help, including a tense phone conversation with the guy who sent the messages. I wasn’t trying to con anybody when I said I’d had threatening messages, and I wasn’t being credulous, either.

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

If you want to feel inspired and hopeful (and who doesn’t?!), read the messages of support for the Council of Ex-Muslims at Maryam’s place.

Congratulations on 5 years, Maryam and Anne Marie and all the exes.

xxxxxxxx

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

Oh look, it’s Jessica Ahlquist and Twitter all over again. A primary school principal in Brooklyn says no to a rebarbative-sounding song titled “God Bless the USA” for the kindergarten graduation.  Well I should think so! If you want god, go to church.

But of course she’s getting the foul name-calling and threatening on Twitter.

Hawkins scrapping of the patriotic song has resulted in nasty hate mail aimed at the principal that’s being investigated by the schools and N.Y.P.D.

One letter says, “You are a filthy, dirty, ugly subhuman gorilla,” another says, “Lets hope that AIDS will do what sickle cell anemia failed to do, exterminate your whole simian race.”

And there’s this one “Niggers and their Jew commie bosses are the scum of the earth.”

Nice. They’d be right at home at ERV. (They’re going nuts here these days, by the way. Hundreds of hits every day. Hi Justicar! Hi franc, hi gang. Sure you don’t want to call Greta Hawkins names on Twitter by way of a holiday?)

It’s good that religion makes people nicer.

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

Heh. PZ takes a look at a post by Benjamin Radford saying how awful blogs are.

So he makes up a statistic and doesn’t bother to cite anything, so blogging is all noise and doesn’t include references (hint, Mr Radford: it’s called a “link”, some of us use them heavily.) And nobody reads them, except a few of the bloggers’ friends. He could make a case for that, I suppose; I sure don’t read Radford’s attempts at blogging, and only ran across this one because DJ Grothe praised it on twitter. (Oh, I so want to see Radford’s critique of twitter — I’m sure it will be as perspicacious as his complaints about blogs.)

DJ praised it on Twitter, huh? Gee, I wonder why. Actually I saw that myself, and I didn’t really wonder why. It was kind of obvious. (What was and is much less obvious is why, in that case, he invited me to speak in the first place. If blogs suck, why invite me? Not for my tweets, I assume.)

PZ’s last line made me laugh.

(Also, I have to add: DJ, your proxies aren’t helping.)

Snort!

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

A tweet by Mary Beth Williams:

I’m going to start a feminist magazine called Holy Fuck We’re Really Still Arguing Over These Things Are You Shitting Me? Monthly

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

Alex Gabriel alerted me to a gem: an EU promotional video to get girls interested in science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZtMmt5rC6g

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