Edie Wyatt at Spectator Australia makes a valuable point:
The right frequently refers to the “cultural Marxism” that dominates gender ideology, while the gender-critical left sees it more as cultural capitalism. Genuine socialists are materialists after all, and don’t believe in the ethereal concept of a gender soul. They object to the unrestrained capitalist greed of the medical-industrial complex and the commodification of the human body.
Yes. Both of those. Well said.
Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? at Miscellany Room 6.
Retweeted by Dr. Jane Clare Jones:
Apparently, her Thoughtcrime was to write this paper for the journal from whose editorial board she was removed: Scrutinizing the U.S. Equality Act 2019: A Feminist Examination of Definitional Changes and Sociolegal Ramifications.
Abstract:
The U.S. Equality Act, which amends civil rights statutes to explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, passed the House in May 2019 with unanimous Democratic support. Adopting a feminist perspective, I scrutinize the act from a largely neglected position, one that supports both LGBTQ and sex-based rights. Although laudable in its aims, the Equality Act is objectionable in form. The Act extends non-discrimination protections to LGBTQ individuals not by creating new protected classes but by redefining sex to include gender identity and sexual orientation, which is not only terminologically imprecise but also creates a clash between sex-based and gender identity-based rights. By defining gender identity as something that exists to be protected “regardless of sex,” the act undermines sex-based provisions, replacing them with provisions based on gender self-identification. Recognizing confusion over terminology, I describe key terms (sex, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation) and consider various usages. I conclude by discussing ways the bill might be modified so as to protect LGBTQ people without undermining women’s (sex-based) rights.
From farther into the paper:
Like many political issues at present, public debates around the Equality Act usually fall on left–right party lines with little debate on substance, including the gender identity theory implicitly endorsed by the bill. The Congressional discussion of the bill consisted of Democratic lawmakers lauding the bill (e.g., as “literally a life-saving bill”) with Republican representatives panning “the deep flaws” in the legislation (H.R. 5 Text, 2019). Much of the public seem largely content to adopt party-line positions without discussion or critical scrutiny. This lack of public discussion is objectionable in a democratic society, in general, but it is even more problematic in this case given the pronounced shift in American jurisprudence the Equality Act will institute from sex-based to gender identity-based protections. Many on the left supporting the bill appear unaware of the sweeping nature of this legislation and uninformed about the practical details.
Although laudable in its nondiscriminatory aims, the form of H.R.5 is problematic. The Equality Act extends federal nondiscrimination protections to LGBT people not by creating new protected classes or by protecting sexuality or gender expression under existing sex-stereotype protections but rather by expanding the definition of sex to “include sexual orientation and gender identity.” Departing from our creditable legal tradition of definitional precision, the Equality Act is terminologically imprecise, as it conflates distinct terms (i.e., sex, gender, and sexual orientation), defines gender identity vaguely and circularly, and fails to define gender at all. More concerning, however, is the bill’s prioritization of gender identity over biological sex. The Equality Act defines gender identity as something that exists to be protected “regardless of sex” without exception, thereby giving primacy to gender identity over sex when they clash (i.e., in determining eligibility for [otherwise or previously] sex-based provisions). The result is the erosion of females’ sex-based provisions, which include sex-separated spaces (e.g., prisons, locker rooms, shelters), opportunities and competitions (e.g., awards, scholarships, sports), and events (e.g., meetings, groups, festivals) (see Lawford-Smith, 2019c, for a discussion and justification). As I will discuss, female sex-based provisions remain important given both women’s historical disadvantages and different reproductive biology.4
For these reasons, while I support the Equality Act’s nondiscrimination aims, I submit that the bill, in current form, fails to strike a balance between the rights, needs, and interests of two marginalized (and overlapping) groups—trans people and females—and instead prioritizes the demands of trans people over the hard-won rights of female people. This imbalance led Rep. Lesko (2019) to argue that the bill should be called “The Forfeiting Women’s Rights Act.” In current form, the Equality Act’s elision of the distinction between biological sex and gender self-identification, with the prioritization of the latter over the former, amounts to an impracticable attempt to provide sex-based protections with sex-blind policies. Because, as I will discuss, gender identity is vaguely and circularly defined without the requirement for any verification or formal status change, any person can access opposite-sex provisions merely on the basis of first-person testimony through gender self-ID (e.g., “I identify as a woman”), no medical or legal gatekeeping or even presentation style (e.g., as feminine) required.5 Therefore, and unbeknownst to many, the Equality Act eliminates the right to sex-based provisions.
We can see here how the UK has become “TERF Island,” something that seems to puzzle non-UK TAs to no end. Because in UK law “sex” is a protected characteristic, women have a solid legal foundation from which to defend their rights. In the UK, gender critical feminists have a position to defend, meaning that trans activism can be portrayed, accurately, as trying to undermine and destroy women’s legal, sex-based rights. Women in the US and Canada , because of the way protection for “gender identity” has come to be incorporated into the law, have already lost that legal position, making regaining it that much harder.
Here’s how the journal describes itself, and we can see in a single word the genesis of Burt’s removal:
About this journal
Feminist Criminology (FC), published five times a year, is an innovative journal dedicated to research related to women, girls, and crime within the context of a feminist critique of criminology. The official journal of the Division on Women and Crime of the American Society of Criminology, this international publication focuses on research and theory that highlights the gendered (emphasis mine) nature of crime. This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Here’s a link to a response to Burt’s piece above, by Nishant Upadhyay.
It’s not open access, but the abstract is heavily loaded with orthodox, anti-colonialist, “white-feminism” jargon:
Coloniality of White Feminism and Its Transphobia: A Comment on Burt Abstract
In this comment, I challenge Burt’s colonial epistemological framework in her theorizations of sex, gender, and transness. Drawing upon anti-racist, decolonial, and trans of color feminisms, I argue that transphobia is inherent to white feminisms due to its roots in colonialism. Heteropatriarchy and cisnormativity are products of colonialism, and feminists who espouse transphobic discourses invariably reproduce colonial and white supremacist frameworks of patriarchy and gender violence.
Sounds like well-poisoning bullshit to me. With all that name-calling in the abstract, I’d bet he addresses none of Burt’s actual arguments. If he could, he’d emphasize that in the abstract. Instead, he denounces her as a heretic.
Cynical or stupid?
Lindsey Graham isn’t that stupid, so…cynical.
CW: Senator, is there systemic racism in this country, in policing and in other institutions?
LG: Uh, no, not in my opinion. We just elected a two-term African-American president, the vice-president is of African-American Indian descent, so our systems are not racist. America is not a racist country. Within every society you have bad actors; the Chauvin trial was a just result.
Talk about a non-sequitur. Obama was elected therefore our systems are not racist. You what? Can you show us your reasoning for that?
As for American not being a racist country…it’s a country that had a ferocious system of chattel slavery from 1619 to 1865, and a thinly veiled system of slavery from the defeat of Reconstruction to the mid-60s, and a pattern of imprisoning black people that’s barely distinguishable from slavery right on up to this very second – so how likely is it, given all that, that the country in question is not a racist country? How possible is it?
I’m sure it’s very comforting for Republicans to tell themselves that slavery didn’t shape the way all Americans see African-Americans, but the reality is, that is not possible. Human thinking isn’t that clever or advanced. If it were, we would see the enslaver race as the “spoiled” race, but it isn’t, so we don’t. Human thinking is all too good at unreasonable back-formations like “these people are enslaved therefore they must be inferior” instead of “these people are enslaved therefore the people who enslaved them must be immoral.”
The 2008 election didn’t magically erase all that. Sorry.
The thing about language is that often the need for precision and accuracy outweighs the need for “inclusivity.”
This Gabe is a trans man, so, a woman, and here she is busily trying to remove the word “women” from the language in the name of a bogus “inclusivity.”
Nothing new, but still irritating.
John McWhorter has views on Critical Race Theory and how it’s being deployed in education.
The organization 1776Unites, founded by my mentor and model Bob Woodson, has tweeted out a video where various black people decry a now fashionable idea that “whiteness” includes being smart. As in, precise, objective, fond of the written word, oriented towards dispassion, on time.
Those things are all manifestations of intelligence, vigilance, discipline. But according to our Elect folk, we black people are best off channeling our Crazy Badass Mothafucka. Because that’s more “authentic.” And, I get the feeling, fun to watch.
Well, that last is debatable. Personally I find McWhorter very fun to watch when he’s doing the tv talking head thing.
Because so many think that the battle that I and others are waging against Critical Race Theory’s transmogrification into education for children is an obsession with something that isn’t a real problem, I want to explore a bit.
…
I knew something was really wrong when in 2019 at a conference in New York City for the city’s principals and superintendents, participants were presented with an idea that to teach with sensitivity to race issues meant keeping certain issues in mind.
These included ways of looking at things that are “white” rather than correct: namely, objectivity, individualism, and valuing the written word.
Yes. I did a post last August about Robin DiAngelo and that whole idea. One paragraph from that post:
What’s the problem? The problem is ascribing things like “emphasis on scientific method” to whiteness ffs! Bam, with one blow of their fist they declare black people uninterested in science. That will work out well! I guess Katherine Johnson was just mistakenly trying to be “white” with all that math skill she had? Neil Tyson should have played basketball instead?
So, yes, I’m on Team McWhorter on this one.
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza was fine with this, happily telling the media that it’s white people’s job to do the “work” of identifying the racist assumptions in how they go about their business.
So: to stand outside of matters and analyze them with one’s own private mind, and perhaps couch one’s conclusions with the considered artifice of writing rather than the spontaneity of speaking, is inauthentic for black and Latino people. It is racist to impose such things on black and Latino (and Native American?) kids. Or at best, brown kids should be taught this uptight “white” business only as a gloomy alternative to the realness of just hanging out sharing passing personal impressions via chatting.
There’s nothing progressive about telling people that science and learning are for the dominant people and that the subordinate people are “authentic” instead of learned and that’s a better [read: holier] thing to be.
The Voice and Speech Trainers Association has posted a “White Supremacy Culture Daily Self-Check-in” ushering members through exactly this kind of mantra, including “The belief that progress is bigger and more” and “Fear of open conflict” as “white” things to cleanse yourself of. In other words, one is supposed to distrust wanting to expand or increase, and one is to cherish people yelling at each other, which, I’m sorry, is a cute way of saying that America needs some ghetto authenticity in the way people talk to each other when they disagree. … This view of precision and detachment as white is a view about, more economically, reason. The idea is that to master close reasoning is suspect. It is exactly the roots of the “Math is Racist” notion, and if you want a whiff of how religiously people can glom on to such ideas, take a look at my Twitter feed in the week after I posted about that here.
Yet, seeing this educational philosophy laid out in the sunlight, The Elect cannot dismiss it as fringe “kookiness” — unless they want to insult the curators of a national museum devoted to celebrating the very black people The Elect live to liberate. At the African-American History Museum in Washington, D.C., for a hot minute or two in 2020 you could see a variation on the Jones-Okun business, an expanded presentation of what we must reject as “white” evil. An educational poster was displayed that slammed not only objectivity, individualism, and writing, but linear thinking, quantitative reasoning, the Protestant work ethic, planning for the future, and being on time.
That’s the one that prompted the post last August.
Yes, this was real – from people who surely bemoan the stereotype of black people as dumb and lazy! Again, only a mental override could explain why the people responsible for this display would allow that emblazonment of precisely the stereotypes lobbed at black people for centuries. Tarring whites as imposers of alien values felt more important than considering that the poster depicted black people as gorillas – and was created by a white woman!
Exactly. You couldn’t make it up.
An author of Islamic books in Algeria has been sentenced to three years in prison for offending the religion.
You can’t offend a religion – it doesn’t have a mind.
Said Djabelkhir said he was surprised by the severity of the sentence he had been given and would appeal.
He was tried after seven lawyers and a fellow academic lodged complaints against him for disrespecting Islam.
Mr Djabelkhir had said the animal sacrifice during the Muslim festival of Eid was based on a pre-Islamic pagan ritual.
He also suggested that parts of the Quran, such as the story of Noah’s Ark, might not be literally true and criticised practices including the marriage of young girls in some Muslim societies.
The kind of thing people ought to be free to say and write.
Islam is Algeria’s religion of state. The law imposes a fine or prison sentence on “anyone who offends the Prophet or denigrates the dogmatic precepts of Islam, whether it be by writings, drawings, a statement or another means”.
Doesn’t make you want to rush there to see the sights, does it.
Rights group Amnesty International’s deputy regional director Amna Guellali described the three-year sentence as “outrageous” and a “chilling setback for freedom of expression” in Algeria.
“Punishing someone for their analysis of religious doctrines is a flagrant violation of the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of belief – even if the comments are deemed offensive by others,” Ms Guellali added.
Amnesty still gets some things right.
Oh ffs people. Epidemiology is not like the Holocaust! Not even within a billion miles of like the Holocaust.
Epidemiology:
not
like
the
Holocaust.
A Michigan Republican who spoke out against former President Donald Trump and was hospitalized with COVID-19 after a GOP committee meeting has lost his position as the group’s treasurer.
The 6th Congressional District’s executive committee voted 26-0 on Saturday to remove Jason Watts, 44, of Allegan, as its treasurer. The vote occurred less than a month after Watts attended a district committee meeting at a Portage restaurant where he believes he contracted the coronavirus.
Maybe because the people at the meeting weren’t wearing masks.
Republican officials have linked at least four COVID-19 cases to the March 25 gathering. Watts, one of the four, was hospitalized for five days. He told his story publicly, drawing criticism from fellow committee members ahead of Saturday’s vote.
Yes you’re supposed to keep it secret when your fellow party-members infect you with the covid.
Watts has been a member of the Republican Party for more than two decades.
He drew criticism from fellow executive committee members after he told The New York Times in February that he had never voted for Trump. In 2016, he cast his ballot for independent candidate Evan McMullin and in 2020, he voted for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen, according to the article.
He’s lucky they didn’t torture him to death.
Some of the Republicans in the 6th District wanted Watts removed after those comments. His revelations about the March 25 district committee meeting at Traveler’s Cafe in Portage added further fuel to the fire. Watts told The News earlier this month that about three of the 70 people in attendance for the gathering were wearing masks at one point.
67 maskless people at a meeting. Oh well, what are ya gonna do.
“Most of them in that room are not believers in the vaccine,” McGraw said. “That’s something we’ve got to contend with.”
Michigan has been leading the nation in new COVID-19 cases per population since the beginning of April.
It’s Freedom Covid, wear it with pride.
Originally a comment by Sastra on Just a bomb party, officer.
why on earth is the “gender reveal” such a big deal?
I had my two kids in the early 80’s, which was just before learning your child’s sex before birth became easier and more popular. Moms my age “wanted to be surprised.” When it started to change, the most common reason we gave to each other was “I want to know what color to paint the nursery” or a similar variation. In other words, decorating.
Many years ago I read a book on the sudden uptake in “labor-saving devices” for housewives back in the early 1900s. The people (men) who created and promoted them saw their major selling point as adding leisure time for ordinary women. A vacuum or washing machine meant the wife could visit, read, go to concerts, join clubs, or volunteer for noble causes. It was like having a maid.
Instead, the ability to do chores more quickly resulted in higher standards of cleanliness. If doing the laundry didn’t take all day, then doing it every day instead of once a week meant you weren’t lazy. The space to be filled simply raised the level of measuring what was already there, and was filled with more of the same. The labor-saving devices ended up making more housework, not less. Human nature.
And it occurs to me that this may have happened when we suddenly began learning sex before birth. Names, then decorating, then more decorating, and clothes, and toys, and books — all more and more divided along the lines of sex. The opportunity to create a sex-based environment lead to increasing elaborations on that theme. Not just a pink wall, but a pink nursery; not just a pink nursery, but a pink sparkle princess castle playhouse nursery. And the little tiger got the same treatment, but with sports and planes. And slowly, over time, the “gender reveal” became more and more important.
And now we’re dealing with young people who insist that their “true” gender is what defines them as human, the very core of who and what they are.
Tell you what, we can say that was genocide and you can say that was and is systemic racism.
Joe Biden has become the first US president to issue a statement formally describing the 1915 massacre of Armenians as a genocide.
The killings took place in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, the forerunner of modern-day Turkey.
But the issue is highly sensitive, with Turkey acknowledging atrocities but rejecting the term “genocide”.
Just as many people in the US reject the term “systemic racism.” But the racism wasn’t and isn’t random or accidental, and the Turkish atrocities happened to a particular set of people, a geno.
Armenia says 1.5 million people were killed in 1915-16 in an effort to wipe out the ethnic group. They regard it as genocide, and many historians and governments agree the killings were orchestrated.
Turkey accepts that atrocities were committed, estimating that 300,000 died. But it argues there was no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian people and says many innocent Muslim Turks also died in the turmoil of war.
Armenians, however, are not convinced.
There’s just no fixing stupid.
Trump has defended his close personal relationship with the leaders of Russia and North Korea, telling Fox News that his ties with them as president were “a good thing and not a bad thing.”
Last week the Biden administration released intelligence suggesting that Russia obtained Trump campaign data in 2016, raising further questions about ties between Trump, his associates, and Moscow.
The White House this week also threatened sanctions against Russia if opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned with Novichok last year, dies in prison.
However, the former president used an hour-long interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News to dismiss all criticisms of his closeness to Russia and its leader.
Because that’s how stupid he is. Unfixable.
“I liked him, he liked meeee” – yep that stupid is permanently unfixable.
A retired teacher said it was “ridiculous” that a smoothie company had unfollowed her on Twitter amid accusations of transphobia. Innocent Drinks unfollowed Margaret Nelson, 76, from Hadleigh, Suffolk, after another Twitter user suggested it should not be “endorsing her”.
The firm acknowledged the move had made “some people on Twitter quite cross”. But it said Ms Nelson’s Twitter content was not in line with its “values of inclusivity and respect”.
It’s not the unfollowing that’s ridiculous, it’s the making a public display of it. I suspect that’s what Maggie said or meant, and the BBC muddled it in a pretty typical way – the same way it always ascribes “offense” to people whether they’ve actually used that word for themselves or not.
Ms Nelson, who has also been a humanist celebrant, said she did not accept she was transphobic, adding it was “a meaningless term used to describe anyone critical of the claims made by some transgender people”.
She attracted publicity two years ago when a police officer asked her to tone down some of her tweets, which he said were causing offence.
There it is again! Attributing blame to people targeted by a Twitter mob. She didn’t “attract” publicity, publicity happened to her. The Beeb just refuses to report this stuff honestly.
The officer said complaints had been received about some of her posts, such as “Gender’s fashionable nonsense. Sex is real.” He highlighted a blog in which she said “trans women are not women, no matter how many times you say it’s so”.
The officer bullied her for saying two true things.
The Suffolk cops later said sorry, it was a mistake.
Ms Nelson said she was one of a number of people who were “stalked by trans activists”, who did not like her “defending the rights of women”. She said she had not been aware Innocent was following her @Flashmaggie account and found the situation “amusing more than anything”.
See this is why I think the Beeb muddled the first sentence – I really don’t think she told them she thought it ridiculous that anyone unfollowed her, because that would be so silly and she’s the opposite of silly. I think she answered a catch-all question like “What do you think of the fuss about your tweets?” and they back-translated what she said as being about The Unfollow.
Maybe they simply asked her about the inane tweet itself.
That’s ridiculous all right!
Won’t someone please think of the man who wants to get a job around abused women?
Wight is Isle of Wight and DASH is domestic abuse support hub. Women are more vulnerable to domestic abuse than men are, so abused women are not invariably going to want to be around stranger men who identify as women when they (the abused women) are seeking help.
Ordinary people with ordinary understanding and empathy understand that. Narcissistic men and their deluded female allies either don’t understand that or think it’s trivial compared to a narcissistic man’s desire to act out his fantasies in the presence of women.
The latter group needs to grow the fuck up.
Why do people insist on being so stupid? (And destructive and reckless and neighbor-teasing?)
A New Hampshire family’s gender reveal party was such a blast that it set off reports of an earthquake, and could be heard from across the state line, police said.
Police in Kingston, a town not far from the Massachusetts border, received reports of a loud explosion Tuesday evening. They responded to Torromeo quarry where they found people who acknowledged holding a gender reveal party with explosives.
Stop with the farking “gender reveal” parties. Or have friends over for dinner if you like, but leave it at that.
One “gender reveal party” set off a wildfire during wildfire season near LA last summer. Smart move.
The source of the blast was 80 pounds (36 kilograms) of Tannerite, police said. The family thought the quarry would be the safest spot to light the explosive, which is typically sold over the counter as a target for firearms practice, police said.
The safest spot would be nowhere. Put the explosives down, turn around, and go home. Stay there.
Some people’s houses had cracks in their foundations after the blast.
In March, two pilots were killed when their plane crashed into the waters off Cancun while it was streaming a pink substance as part of a gender reveal, Fox News reported.
Good reason to die. Sensible.
In 2020, smoke-generating pyrotechnic device used as part of a California gender reveal party caused a fire that damaged more than 7,000 acres (2,800 hectares) of land. In April 2017, an off-duty US border patrol agent, Dennis Dickey, caused $8m of damage to 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres) of Arizona forest when he shot at a target full of blue-coloured explosive as a means of announcing the gender of his unborn child.
People don’t half think they’re important, do they.
While an average of nearly 1.9 million people a day came in to get their first dose of the vaccine during the week of April 11, the average for the week of April 16 was around 1.47 million. The total doses the U.S. has administered nationwide since vaccines were first authorized has also flattened out over the past few days, CDC data show, interrupting the exponential growth of the last few months.
And on Wednesday, a daily update from the Department of Health and Human Services showed numbers were down this week to an average of just over 3 million shots administered a day, when on Friday, the country was averaging about 3.35 million a day.
The decline started one day before the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was suspended, suggesting the nationwide “pause” might not be the primary factor, even if it may have contributed.
It may also have to do with logistics, and who has more ability to overcome obstacles.
“Not everyone can get to a mass vaccination site; not everyone can use the existing web tools,” Brownstein said. “Even though we may see a map that has a lot of sites, it’s not necessarily the most convenient, especially for those that are essential workers who can’t take the time off work.”
I’m lucky that way; I live in a big city with a pretty good public transportation system. All I had to do was walk down the hill and hop on the number 8 bus. Towns, villages, suburbs are more difficult.
Biden listed some policy solutions, like increased vaccine supply to local pharmacies and federally run clinics so that 90% of Americans are within 5 miles of a vaccination site. He also called on all businesses to give employees paid time off when they get their shots or need to recover from any side effects. Biden announced a new tax policy that would allow all small and medium-sized businesses to apply to be reimbursed for the time off they give their employees.
Let’s get this thing done.
Caitlyn Jenner says he is running for governor of California.
Why? Based on what? What relevant experience or education does he have? He appears to be woefully ignorant, plus he’s part of that whole nightmare Kardashian famous-for-nothing circus, plus he killed a woman with his car. What on earth makes him think he would be even a minimally competent governor of a state that’s bigger than many countries?
Olympic hero, reality TV personality and transgender rights activist Caitlyn Jenner announced Friday that she has filed paperwork to enter the race to become California’s next governor.
He’s not a hero. He’s a good swimmer athlete. That doesn’t make you a hero. Being a reality tv “personality” is a reason not to hold public office. He’s not a woman.
“California has been my home for nearly 50 years,” Jenner said. “I came here because I knew that anyone, regardless of their background or station in life, could turn their dreams into reality. But for the past decade, we have seen the glimmer of the Golden State reduced by one-party rule that places politics over progress and special interests over people. Sacramento needs an honest leader with a clear vision.”
Honest? He doesn’t even tell the truth about what sex he is.
India’s healthcare system is buckling as a record surge in Covid-19 cases puts pressure on hospital beds and drains oxygen supplies.
Families are left pleading for their relatives who are desperately ill, with some patients left untreated for hours.
Crematoriums are organising mass funeral pyres.
On Friday India reported 332,730 new cases of coronavirus, setting a world record for a second day running. Deaths were numbered at 2,263 in 24 hours.
Not a per capita record though, I think.
This wave is worse than the first one.
On 10 February, at the start of the second wave, India confirmed 11,000 cases – and in the next 50 days, the daily average was around 22,000 cases. But in the following 10 days, cases rose sharply with the daily average reaching 89,800.
Experts say this rapid increase shows that the second wave is spreading much faster across the country. Dr A Fathahudeen, who is part of Kerala state’s Covid taskforce, said the rise was not entirely unexpected given that India let its guard down when daily infections in January fell to fewer than 20,000 from a peak of over 90,000 in September.
Big religious gatherings, the reopening of most public places and crowded election rallies are being blamed for the uptick. Dr Fathahudeen said there were warning signs in February but “we did not get our act together”.
“I said in February that Covid had not gone anywhere and a tsunami would hit us if urgent actions were not taken. Sadly, a tsunami has indeed hit us now,” he added.
Hospital beds are filling up.
The shock, the outrage, the scandal – a gymnast actually wore clothing at a competition.
She did not break any rules, but Sarah Voss’s full-body suit at the European Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Switzerland defied convention.
What convention is that exactly? Is there a convention that gymnasts compete naked?
Until now women and girls have only covered their legs in international competition for religious reasons.
Ohhhhh that convention – the one where men wear clothes and women wear bathing suits. Let’s not just rush ahead, let’s talk about that. Why is that a convention? Why does the same convention apply in figure skating competitions? Why do men wear clothes while women wear bathing suits? What the hell is that? The women aren’t there to get sexual attention or leers or gropes, they’re there to compete in their sport, so why is that the convention? I’ve never understood it, and I’ve never understood why people don’t object to it and make it stop.
Voss – from Germany – was supported by her country’s gymnastics federation and said she was proud of her decision.
“We hope gymnasts uncomfortable in the usual outfits will feel emboldened to follow our example,” she said.
Better yet the convention should just change. The existence of the convention makes it look as if the women – and the women only – are competing partly on hotness as well as on sport. It’s irrelevant, and it introduces an element of unfairness.
The convention could be changed by going the other way, by the way – having the men wear bathing suits. There’s something to be said for being able to see the muscles on the legs that do those vaults and flips, but then show us all the muscles.
The German federation (DTB) said its gymnasts were taking a stand against “sexualisation in gymnastics”, adding that the issue had become all the more important to prevent sexual abuse.
Yes but even without sexual abuse – why should it be sexualised at all? Why can’t it just be gymnastics?
Mark Joseph Stern at Slate on the horrible ruling in Jones v Mississippi:
In an appalling 6–3 decision on Thursday, the Supreme Court effectively reinstated juvenile life without parole by shredding precedents that had sharply limited the sentence in every state. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s majority opinion in Jones v. Mississippi is one of the most dishonest and cynical decisions in recent memory: While pretending to follow precedent, Kavanaugh tore down judicial restrictions on JLWOP, ensuring that fully rehabilitated individuals who committed their crimes as children will die behind bars. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan, pulls no punches in its biting rebuke of Kavanaugh’s duplicity and inhumanity. It doubles as an ominous warning that the conservative majority is more than willing to destroy major precedents while falsely claiming to uphold them.
And “conservative” is putting it politely. Brutal, racist, and reactionary is closer to the truth.
The Supreme Court strictly curtailed the imposition of juvenile life without parole in two landmark decisions: 2012’s Miller v. Alabamaand 2016’s Montgomery v. Louisiana. In Miller, the court ruled that mandatory sentences of JLWOP—that is, sentences imposed automatically upon conviction—violate the 8th Amendment’s bar on “cruel and unusual punishments.” It explained that children’s crimes often reflect “transient immaturity”; because their brains are not fully developed, young offenders are “less culpable” than adults and have greater potential for rehabilitation. In Montgomery, the court clarified that discretionary sentences of JLWOP—that is, sentences imposed at the discretion of a judge—are generally unconstitutional, as well. It then applied these rules retroactively, allowing all incarcerated people who were condemned to life without parole as children to contest their sentences. Taken together, Miller and Montgomery held that JLWOP is unconstitutional for “all but the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility.” And they forbade judges [to impose] JLWOP unless they found that the defendant’s crime reflected “irreparable corruption.”
On Thursday, Kavanaugh overturned these decisions without admitting it. His majority opinion in Jones v. Mississippi claims fidelity to Miller and Montgomery while stripping them of all meaning. Kavanaugh wrote that these precedents do not require a judge to “make a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility” before imposing JLWOP. Nor, Kavanaugh wrote, do they compel a judge to “at least provide an on-the-record sentencing explanation with an implicit finding of permanent incorrigibility.” Instead, a judge need only be granted “discretion” to sentence a child to less than life without parole. So long as that discretion exists, Kavanaugh held, the 8th Amendment is satisfied—even if the judge provides no indication that they actually considered the defendant’s youth, gauged their potential for rehabilitation, and nonetheless decided their crime reflected “permanent incorrigibility.”
In other words “discretion” is magic. Judge can do whatever judge wants!
As Sotomayor noted in her extraordinary dissent, “this conclusion would come as a shock to the Courts in Miller and Montgomery.” Those decisions explicitly required the judge to “actually make the judgment” that the child is incorrigible. They also “expressly rejected the notion that sentencing discretion, alone, suffices.” Kavanaugh claimed that he followed these precedents, Sotomayor wrote, but he “is fooling no one.”
All this because a stupid sadistic crook was on a popular tv show.
“The Court simply rewrites Miller and Montgomery to say what the Court now wishes they had said, and then denies that it has done any such thing,” Sotomayor declared. “The Court knows what it is doing.” Then she used Kavanaugh’s own words against him, quoting his past statements claiming to support stare decisis, or respect for precedent, to illustrate how he has abandoned his own purported principles. “How low this Court’s respect for stare decisis has sunk,” Sotomayor wrote. “The Court is willing to overrule precedent without even acknowledging it is doing so, much less providing any special justification. It is hard to see how that approach”—and here, she quoted Kavanaugh himself—“is ‘founded in the law rather than in the proclivities of individuals.’ ”
Speaking of Kavanaugh…
And not only without the shame and stigma, but also with the confidence and sense of entitlement. Men are not raised (by the culture as well as parents) to be apologetic or assume their rights are secondary. Women are.
But, of course that couldn’t be allowed.
No, men have not had miscarriages. You need a uterus to miscarry. You need a uterus with a fetus in it to miscarry. Men don’t have those. Women do. Men don’t.
If Evan has had miscarriages then Evan is not a man.
