Katherine Rosman and Lisa Lerer in the Times:

The body of one woman had “nails and different objects in her female organs.” In another house, a person’s genitals were so mutilated that “we couldn’t identify if it was a man or a woman.”

Simcha Greinman, a volunteer who helped collect the remains of victims of the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on Israel, took long pauses as he spoke those words on Monday at an event at the United Nations.

One can imagine why.

Shari Mendes, a member of an Israeli military reserve unit tasked with preparing the bodies of fallen female soldiers for burial, said her team saw several who were killed on Oct. 7 “who were shot in the crotch, intimate parts, vagina, or were shot in the breast.” Others had mutilated faces, or multiple gunshots to their heads.

Since the Oct. 7 attack, during which more than 1,200 people were killed and some 240 people were kidnapped, Israeli officials have accused the terrorists of also committing widespread sexual violence — rape and sexual mutilation — particularly against women.

Yet those atrocities have received little scrutiny from human rights groups, or the news media, amid the larger war between Israel and Hamas — and until a few days ago, they had not been specifically mentioned or condemned by UN Women, the United Nations’ women’s rights agency, which has regularly spoken out about the plight of Palestinian women and girls.

Does the UN hate Jewish women?

Israelis and many Jews around the world say they feel abandoned by an international social justice community — women’s groups, human rights groups, liberal celebrities, among others — whose causes they have supported in crises around the world.

…

Hamas has denied that its fighters committed sex crimes, which it said would violate Islamic principles.

Oh really. The way it “violates Islamic principles” to stone women to death for being raped? The way it “violates Islamic principles” to force women to wear bags from head to foot with only a thick woven grill to peer through when outside? The way it “violates Islamic principles” to keep gils out of school? No brutality to women violates “Islamic principles”; those principles are all about treating women like rebellious seditious livestock.

But ample evidence has been collected, like the bodies of women found partially or fully naked, women with their pelvic bones broken, the accounts of medical examiners and first responders, videos taken by Hamas fighters themselves, and even a few firsthand witnesses like a woman, in a video made public last month by police officials, who said she had watched Hamas terrorists take turns raping a young woman they had captured at a music festival, mutilate her and then shoot her in the head.

And the UN has been studiously looking the other way.

The United Nations, and UN Women in particular, have become a primary focus — though hardly the only one — of mounting anger for their silence. Secretary General António Guterres immediately condemned the Hamas massacre, but not until late November did he issue a statement that the related sex crimes specifically must be “vigorously investigated and prosecuted.”

Dr. Cochav Elkayam Levy, an Israeli law professor and founder of a commission on Oct. 7 crimes against women and children, said that on Nov. 1, she sent a letter to UN Women, signed by dozens of scholars, calling for an “urgent and unequivocal condemnation of the massacre committed by Hamas,” including the use of rape as a tool of war. “They didn’t even respond,” she said.

Some women are more equal than others.

Decline from a not very great height.

“It’s kind of remarkable, I’ve been watching the clips from Trump’s visit to Iowa and I’m stunned having spent a lot of time with him in 2020 and years before—he is slowing down,” Griffin said. “There’s a lack of sharpness in what he’s saying and a lack [ ] of clarity,” she continued. Griffin was once in Donald’s inner circle–and was one of his most spineless sycophants. This gives her comments about his cognitive decline even more weight.

If only he would slow to a stop.

Originally a comment by Mike Haubrich on Confused stan.

So, that’s not the actual governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. It’s someone who “stans” him. That being said, Walz does go along with the gender woo stuff, as does the Lt Governor. He signed the bills making “affirmatiion only” treatment the law, allowing those who live in states that don’t provide transmogrifying medicine to children to travel here with a shield against prosecution to get transmogrifying medicine, and would likely sign a trans hate crime bill if it passed his desk.

But this business of “scientific consensus” is a statement that frustrates me on a forum such as X. (I don’t think we need to say “formerly known as” anymore.) A main reason that I am leaving it in a couple of days is that such posts are impossible to correct, and the more I try the more I realize that it takes a good bit of science education to go through and explain why it’s wrong. There is no “TL;dr” version that can be distilled into a single post, and it’s not long before we realize that the person with the anime avatar and pronouns in the bio is not really interested in understanding it.

As Sastra demonstrates, there is a whole lot of question-begging in this issue. I have read several science articles with the requisite peer review that rest on the presupposition of trans.

As a skeptic, I do not question the experiences that people have for not fitting into the gender expectations of their sex. Ellen Johnson, former President of the American Atheists, shared an image on Facebook of a description from someone who compares being trans to being left-handed and forced to write with their right hand. Okay, that’s an experience. Being left-handed was once punished, and we get the word “sinister” from the idea that left-handedness violated superstition. People seem to have bought into the idea that feeling like they have the wrong gender expression for their sex is prima facie evidence that their body is hosting the wrongly sexed mind. And they use the idea that sometimes the hormones that the mother transfers to the fetus overwrite the genetic hormones that the fetus produces in order to produce a feminine boy, or a masculine girl. (I have no clue what they think produces an NB.)

Feminine does not equal female. Masculine does not equal male. They are the gender expressions most commonly associated with a specific sex, but they are not evidence that anyone is really the “wrong sex for their gender identity.” If someone feels wrong for their assigned gender category, perhaps the idea of gender restrictions is wrong. It seems to me that this is the more likely explanation than somehow someone is “born into the wrong sex.”

And this is especially where the Professional Skeptics are frustrating. I know they know better. They write books that indicate that they know better. Harriet Hall knew better and her colleagues shot her down for it at SBM. So, really, the mystery is why are skeptics taking this path, and why do they denounce gender skeptics as bigots? It’s exposing those skepticism “stans” who just take what Steven Novella, PZ Myers, et al say on its face rather than follow on and do their own analysis of what they see and read and hear. Because Novella talks about scientific consensus, these disciples now don’t seem to have any idea what it is. It’s certainly not a definition published by the APA.

Hadley Freeman on Owen Jones:

Women and Jews have long shared a common experience: people telling them that what happened to them did not, in fact, happen. Denialism, in other words. People work extremely hard to see women and Jews as the privileged and never the oppressed, so they can justify their desires and prejudices to themselves.

Karenism in short. I don’t know of a karen-equivalent for Jews, although there used to be plenty of them. Karenism=working very hard to see women as privileged bitches.

It comes out in Holocaust denial, which is gaining in popularity around the world, and it came out during the Jeremy Corbyn era, when Jews who voiced their fears about antisemitism on the left were smeared by his supporters. And now we see it when Jews are accused of “weaponising the Holocaust” when they explain their terror of the genocidal maniacs, Hamas.

That stopped me for a second. Do people really say that? So I asked Google, and yes they do. Bloody hell. How does one go about “weaponizing” a genocide that genocided six million people??? It’s a weapon already, all by itself! What else would it be, a birthday card?

For a bright, brief moment people tended to care about [the prevalence of rape and failure to prosecute it] during the Me Too movement. But that changed like a fashion with the rise of the gender rights movement, which argues that a man who says he’s a woman magically becomes one. When women — including JK Rowling — explained that their experience of sexual assault made them anxious about the prospect of men having access to female-only spaces, they were accused of — yes — “weaponising their trauma.”

But men who claim to be women never weaponize what they claim is their trauma????

So when reports started to come out that Israeli women had been raped by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 pogroms, I knew the reaction would be bad. But I didn’t know it would be this bad.

…It’s striking how many social justice warriors who loudly supported every passing minority over the past years have expressed scepticism about accounts of the rape of Israeli women, insisting this is just a “Zionist” and “fetishistic” story.

Karens are Zionists. Karens are privileged. Karens lie. Karens make it rain when you want to go on a picnic.

These denials have become more frantic since Israel released some of the GoPro footage from the Hamas terrorists. The Guardian’s most high profile journalist, Owen Jones, once promised to wage “an all-out war on antisemitism”, so I watched his Youtube review of the pogrom film to see how this war is going for him. Just like all the armchair sceptics on social media, he insists he’s just trying to establish the facts, all the while omitting facts that are inconvenient to his narrative. He begins by naming which other journalists were at the London screenings of the film: “LBC presenters, Rachel Johnson and Nick Ferrari” and “media organisations like the Sun” implying that this was some rabble-rousing, right-wing event. Strangely, he doesn’t mention that journalists from The Times, Reuters and Vice were invited too, as well as his friend Michael Walker from Novara. “If there was rape and sexual violence was committed, we don’t see that on camera,” Jones reports, apparently unaware the IDF have said that they only included footage that “preserved the dignity” of those killed and their families. The body of a burned female corpse with no underwear on “is not what you would consider conclusive evidence of rape,” Jones insists…

When Jones was later asked why he is so sceptical about the multiple reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women – indeed, reports that they were specifically instructed to rape Jewish girls and women – he replied with a quote from a Washington Post article: “It’s unclear whether authorities have accounts directly from rape survivors.” That quote does indeed exist in that article, but it also makes clear that this is because Hamas almost certainly killed all the women they raped yet accidentally left many witnesses, including one who said a Hamas terrorist killed a woman while still raping her and a morgue worker who described female bodies so brutally assaulted they had shattered pelvises. But I guess he missed those details.

I guess he “missed” them because the shattered pelvises of Karens don’t matter.

Originally a comment by Sastra on Confused stan.

“If you identify as a woman, you ARE a woman” is a “scientific consensus?” I don’t think so.

The late great Skepdoc Harriet Hall noted a common practice in pseudoscience and came up with an apt analogy and descriptive term: Tooth Fairy Science.

It’s perfectly possible for scientists to do studies on how much money the ToothFairy leaves in different countries, and whether she values front teeth more than molars or pillows more than bedside tables. Elaborate surveys measuring the satisfaction level of the children who receive a visit vs those who don’t could be sent out and results put in tables and diagrams. A substantial body of Tooth Fairy Science could thus exist, and be proudly pointed to when Tooth Fairy skeptics raise objections. The scientific consensus is that there’s a Tooth Fairy.

Except there isn’t because the critical initial step was skipped. Does the Tooth Fairy exist? Without first establishing the primary claim, the scientific studies may be accurate on one level, but nevertheless fundamentally unscientific and misleading. Tooth Fairy Science is particularly common in Alternative medicine. It’s pointless to take careful notes on how a manipulated human energy field changes patient-reported pain levels if the laws of physics rule them out: it’s placebo.

I think the difference between the Tooth Fairy and the assertion that “If you identify as a woman, you are a woman” is that it’s easier to come up with what constitutes disproof of the former. That makes the Tooth Fairy a more scientific style of hypothesis. I would love to ask Walz Stan “ if identifying as a woman DOESN’T make someone a woman, what would therefore change your mind?” I imagine it would have to be good evidence that males who identify as transgender have now started to insist they’re not women. This is not testable science.

This guy said these two things almost in the same breath.

Facts don’t care about your feelings. Ok, got it.

Very next tweet:

If you identify as a woman you are a woman. So, facts don’t care about your feelings, and if you feel you are a woman, it’s a fact that you are a woman.

What?

You’d think the Times would know how to report on this subject accurately.

Tory rebels seek ban on conversion therapy

Rishi Sunak is facing a fresh Commons row after a group of Tory MPs threw their weight behind a bill to ban conversion therapy.

Former senior ministers and the first openly transgender MP are among those who have co-sponsored a private member’s bill to clamp down on the practice.

Sunak backed away from the long-promised ban on attempts to change someone’s sexuality and gender identity by not including it in his King’s Speech last month.

Sexual orientation is one thing and “gender identity” is very much another. That means reporting shouldn’t talk about “conversion therapy” as if it applied to both.

The bill will ban conversion practices where the “predetermined purpose is to change or suppress a person’s sexuality, or change or suppress a person to or from being transgender”.

Two different things. Mashing them together a disastrous mistake. Go back; redo.

Prof Francione sums it up:

When in doubt, put trans women first. No actually skip the “when in doubt” part – just put trans women first, no matter what.

Trans women who have hurt or threatened women or girls will not be held in female prisons unless there are “exceptional” circumstances, new guidance states.

Men shouldn’t be held in women’s prisons at all, ever. Women aren’t bits of armor for men to put on when things get violent.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) policy follows a public outcry after a rapist was sent to a women’s prison.

Really? A public outcry? Gosh, people are so touchy.

Under previous guidance drawn up in 2014, the prison service allowed all prisoners to be placed in facilities matching their gender identity, rather than their sex at birth, providing accommodation that “best suits the person in custody’s needs”.

And men who pretend to be women need to be in women’s prisons? That’s an actual need is it? While women’s need for physical safety is not a real need? Or if it is a real need it’s not as important as the pretending men’s need to terrorize women?

In short how did anyone ever manage to think this was a good idea?

Under the new SPS policy – which will come into force in February 2024 – a trans woman would not be allowed to move into the female estate if they had been convicted of, or were on remand awaiting trial for, a crime that harmed a female – unless there was “compelling evidence that they did not present an unacceptable risk of harm to those in the women’s prison”.

Oh fuck off. Quit carving out exceptions that put the man’s wants ahead of the women’s needs.

Scottish Trans, a project run by government-funded charity Equality Network, welcomed the new policy, saying it continued to recognise prisoners should not be considered to be a risk of harm to others “simply because they are trans”.

There’s that cheat again. The issue isn’t “they are trans”; the issue is they are male. Scottish Trans of course knows this perfectly well, and hides it deliberately with malice aforethought.

National Review tells us:

Germany announced it would be freezing funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a body specifically dedicated to Palestinian refugees, amid reports it has distributed antisemitic material, incited violence, and had alumni who participated in the October 7 atrocities in Israel.

So much for uniting nations.

Berlin has contributed nearly a billion dollars to UNRWA in the last five years, making it the single largest donor to the agency, which has come under renewed scrutiny since the Israel-Hamas war began for its record of failing to prevent foreign aid from falling into the terror group’s hands.

“UNRWA is not making a contribution to a peaceful solution,” Max Lucks of the Green Party said. “Not a single cent from Germany should reach teachers who glorify the terror of Hamas.”

“[T]here cannot be a status quo ante with UNRWA,” Falko Drossman of the left-leaning Social Democratic Party said, calling for “a new initiative” when it comes to providing aid to Palestinians.

Last Tuesday, the European Union similarly moved to withhold 39 million euros from dozens of Palestinian non-profits, including UNRWA, demanding the groups provide “procedures and tools used to enforce the contractual obligations stemming from the restrictive measures and anti-incitement clauses.” At least two of these NGOs have been accused by an official of engaging in “incitement of hatred,” the Irish Times reported last Thursday.

And the thing about incitement of hatred is that it doesn’t just stop at hatred. Same as what I was saying earlier today – it’s not just a matter of “offence” or “distress.”

Since Hamas invaded Israel in early October and massacred over a thousand people, reports have emerged which suggest that at least 100 terrorists who participated in the attacks were graduates of UNRWA-run institutions, and over a dozen educators within the system celebrated the attacks on social media.

“Allah is Great, Allah is Great, reality surpasses our wildest dreams,” wrote Osama Ahmed, a UNRWA teacher in Gaza, in a characteristic Facebook post publicized by UN Watch, a watchdog organization, in its report released in early November entitled, “UNRWA: Hate Starts Here.”

The report documents numerous senior-ranking members of the organization gloating about the October 7 atrocities, including Rawia Helles, the director of a training center in Khan Younis, a town in the southern Gaza Strip. Helles applauded the depraved acts of Palestinian terrorists, calling one operative a “hero” and “prince” for his actions.

Funny notion of “Relief” they must have.

Harvard and The New Diversity:

Showing more:

Dear President Gay, Since my letter to you of November 4th to which you did not reply or even acknowledge, I have received substantial feedback and input from senior members of the Harvard faculty about a number of the issues I raised in my letter concerning free speech, antisemitism, and the impact of the Office of Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging (OEDIB) at Harvard. I thought to share this feedback with you now as it may inform your testimony and potential questions you may receive from the Congress on Tuesday.

Who gave Harvard permission to add “Belonging” to EDI (aka DEI)? Or does Harvard not need permission? Perhaps it’s Harvard that gives the permission. So anyway we’re now talking about a new and improved DEI that also has “belonging” on the badge. You might think that would be already covered by “inclusion” but…uh…no, I got nothin’.

On with the letter.

In several of your communications since October 7th, you have emphasized Harvard’s commitment to free speech as the reason why the university has continued to permit eliminationist and threatening language on campus – i.e., calls for Intifada (suicide bombings, knifings, etc. of Israeli civilians) and the elimination of the state of Israel “From the River to the Sea.” You explained your tolerance for these protests on October 13th: “[O]ur university embraces a commitment to free expression. That commitment extends even to views that many of us find objectionable, even outrageous.”

Hold on.

That’s another one of these escape mechanisms the Enlightened use to avoid spelling out exactly what they’re ordering us to do and think and say. The issue is not limited to emotions about speech. The issue doesn’t stop at objection or outrage. The issue is about speech that can end up at genocide. Ironically Harvard and President Gay weakened their own explanation for limiting free speech. I wish all parties would be honest about this.

Back to why Harvard isn’t the free speech hero it claims to be.

In my letter to you, however, I noted that In The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) Free Speech Rankings, Harvard has consistently finished in the bottom quartile in each of the past four years. I note that Harvard’s ranking has deteriorated each year, receiving its lowest free speech ranking ever for the 2023 academic year, last out of 254 universities with a rating of 0.00, the only university with an “abysmal” speech climate.

After sending my letter, I reached out to the faculty to reconcile your free speech absolutist commitment with Harvard having the lowest free speech ranking of any university. The faculty had a lot to say on this issue, as well as on antisemitism and the OEDIB. Notably, they were willing to share their views so long as I committed to keep their identities confidential. I have quoted their remarks below:

On Free Speech

“Years ago, Harvard stopped being a place where all perspectives were welcome.”

“Harvard is a place where loud, hate-filled protests appear to be encouraged, but where faculty and students can’t share points of view that are inconsistent with the accepted narrative on campus.”

“Harvard became a place where if you toed the party line, there was applause. If you disagree, you are drowned out. The gatekeepers of speech continue to further narrow what they deem acceptable speech.”

“The primary problem with speech at Harvard is that if you say the wrong thing, you will be cancelled, which leads to self-censorship. The result is what you actually think is not what you say.”

So Harvard is Pharyngula writ large. How bizarre.

On Antisemitism, Support for Hamas, and the Protests Against Israel

When I asked members of the faculty about the causes behind the Israeli/Gaza protests and the tolerance for antisemitism on campus, they explained: “Whiteness at Harvard is deemed fundamentally oppressive. Indigenous peoples are presented as in need of justice and reparations. Jews are presented as white people. It is therefore ok to hate Israel and Jews as they are deemed to be oppressors.”

Hang on. If Jews are white people what was all that about??? All what? You know what, but apparently The Enlightened don’t. They must think Auschwitz was a summer camp.

There’s more; later.

Jeeeezus this guy. Notice anything a little off about this “campaign photo”?

Ffs!!

Takes my breath away.

Block that puberty! Take those cross-sex hormones! What could possibly go wrong?!

They’re not just saying we can help, they’re actively pushing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. They’re actively encouraging people to ruin their bodies and lives.

Women are getting their genitals carved up to be more porny.

The increasingly popular cosmetic surgical procedure of labiaplasty is a western form of female genital mutilation (FGM), says Caroline de Costa, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology.

…

In modern culture, “the desire for labiaplasty is predominantly based on dissatisfaction with genital appearance and not on functional complaints”, says de Costa, adjunct professor at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, who will be speaking at a Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) alumnae event in Dublin this week. Yet, relatively little is known about variations in the appearance of the labia, so what is perceived as “normal” is influenced by what somebody sees in idealised photographs in mainstream and social media…

Wait what? How many photographs of labia are there in mainstream media?

More exposure to porn and a wider use of Brazilian waxing to remove pubic hair are among the factors believed to be driving the demand for labiaplasty.

Waxing to strip away pubic hair is itself driven by porn. This revolting mutilation is all porn-driven.

Irish cosmetic surgeon Dr Cormac Joyce rejects the argument that labiaplasty is a form of genital “mutilation”. Work on the inner labia, which accounts for about 85 per cent of labiaplasty, is a “really quick, delicate procedure, a trim procedure”, he says, and he cannot imagine any trained plastic surgeon causing nerve damage in that area.

A “trim” ffs – what a porny thing to say! Trimming is for hair and nails, it’s not for bits of flesh, especially not bits of flesh in on around the genitals!

Joyce confirms a growing demand in Ireland for what he says is the fastest-growing cosmetic procedure worldwide. It is carried out under local anaesthetic. The cost varies around the country but women can expect to pay anything between €4,000 and €7,000, depending on what is wanted and which practitioner they choose.

Oh well that’s fine then. It’s a nice little earner.

“It is so popular now; I’m doing two today, four next week. It doesn’t get the press because it’s an intimate topic.” Before leaving the UK to return to Dublin in 2020, he was doing 30-35 labiaplasty procedures every week and has seen numbers climbing here since.

Cha-ching!

This is a different generation, Joyce says. “They are young women and they know what they want.”

And what they want is what the culture has trained them to want.

Pattern detection.

Yes but he’ll do it in lipstick.

Gosh, no, everyone thought you’d just put in a few token hours, bro.

Narcissist detected.

Man brags that he won’t let women keep him from cheating women.

As soon as I put in a 180 – the highest score possible with three darts – shortly followed by the 110-close that I practice daily, the match was called.

I had just become the first transgender person to win the New Zealand Women’s Open in July 2022 – and I was elated.

But much more to the point, he had just become the first man to win the New Zealand Women’s Open. It doesn’t sound quite so fabulous put that way, does it. He was elated at his success in cheating a woman out of winning the NZ Women’s Open; go him.

Unfortunately, immediately after my victory [cheat], the yelling, screaming and protesting from spectators intensified.

Well it would, wouldn’t it. Immediately after he cheated, people pointed out that he cheated.

People were angry that I was a trans woman competing in a women’s tournament.

That’s right, and you’re a selfish opportunistic piece of shit to do it.

Adversity like this is something I’ve faced my whole life.

Oh fuck off. Stop to think about the adversity the women you cheated faced their whole lives.

Originally a comment by Artymorty on The dream has curdled.

If we’re being charitable, we can look at the The American Dream as a symbol of the moral system that America embodied for two centuries: a dignity culture: “opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”

Sociologists have argued that societies tend to develop from honour cultures to dignity cultures to victimhood cultures as the role of government grows.

The US started out with little centralized, organized authority to keep the peace. Conflicts had to be resolved personally, so blood feuds and duels became commonplace, and honour was the moral currency of the time.

At the turn of the 19th Century following the establishment of the U.S. Constitution, the government started to become stable enough to maintain law and order, and people began to derive moral worth from demonstrating resilience and personal achievement.

That moral paradigm shift was best exemplified when Aaron Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in order to restore his moral standing following a personal insult. The outcry that ensued showed that the honour culture Burr adhered to had been replaced by the dignity culture espoused by Hamilton. In the new moral paradigm, Burr’s act was viewed as deplorable, not respectable.

It looks like we’re in the midst of the next moral paradigm shift, to a victimhood culture. They emerge as it becomes clear that, while a moral emphasis on personal achievement does keep the peace, it does not eliminate unequal outcomes for all citizens, so appeals to authority are increasingly made to correct perceived injustices. Both the left and the right in the US appear to have taken on that mindset.

They tend to spiral out of control and bring about powerful, totalitarian states. In victim cultures, high moral worth derives from allegiance to a powerful authority (a governing body, or a collective mob) which is held up as the sole means to correct the perceived injustice that permeates the world and prevents everyone sharing in equal amounts of dignity.

Many of the countless communist revolutions across the world in the 20th Century quickly descended into bloody and brutal totalitarian regimes. Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China, Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, etc, etc.

Here in North America, whether we go MAGA or woke: both sides are hell bent on tearing down the checks and balances that keep the system from breaking down.

The moral balance between personal responsibility and appeal to authority, which the US has kept running for 200 years, is rapidly collapsing.

A news items from a couple of weeks ago:

The University of Alberta has fired Samantha Pearson, the director of the Sexual Assault Centre, after she signed an open letter penned by ousted Ontario MPP Sarah Jama that calls into question whether Israeli women were subjected to rape and sexual violence during a Hamas attack on Oct. 7.

If you’re the director of a sexual assault center your job is not to be skeptical of particular rapes and acts of sexual violence based on your political views.

Jama, an Independent MPP from Hamilton, Ont., was the letter’s first signatory. She was booted from the NDP caucus last month after making controversial comments in support of Palestinians.

Pearson signed the letter on behalf of the University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre.

The CBC also a couple of weeks ago:

Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama says she has removed her name from an open letter that voiced support for the people of Gaza and questioned the validity of sexual assault claims against Hamas.

The Independent MPP added her name to the open letter last week after the reopening of her constituency office, where someone presented Jama with a physical copy of the letter. 

Be careful what you sign. (The two accounts of the letter differ – the first says Jama wrote it, the second says someone handed it to her and she signed it.)

The director of University of Alberta’s sexual assault centre was replaced after endorsing the letter.

On social media platform X, formerly called Twitter, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs thanked the University of Alberta for its “decisive action” and asked: “Shouldn’t a sexual assault centre believe all victims, including the Jewish ones?”

You’d think.

Originally a comment by Rob on He channels their diffuse anger.

For years, decades really, the American Dream has been dead. For people born in America anyway. But politicians, pundits, and commentators have banged on about it regardless – I suspect mostly because if they admit that the Dream is over they would have to construct some other meaningful framework to hold this vast and disparate society together. As the Dream dies, so does the concept of American exceptionalism. Sure, America is still exceptional, but it is no longer singularly so. It is no longer the top dog in every field of endeavour and is unlikely to be so again. Arguably it never was, and where it was, that was often because of its willingness to embrace the talents of immigrants. To accept them as Americans contributing to the exceptional whole of the polity.

When was the last American generation that really benefited from the Dream? The 50’s, with the boom of well paid manufacturing and professional jobs? The 60’s with the Civil Rights movement and Americas assent to being the dominant world power and all that ensured? It certainly hasn’t been any generation since. Sure, there’s still opportunities, but individual success doesn’t equate to a National Dream. One person winning an obscene lottery every couple of years cannot be a unifying American Dream. Can it?

Instead we’re left with a significant portion of the population suffering from intergenerational disappointment and being unable or unwilling to comprehend the reasons for their disappointment. How their own consumer, social, and political choices contributed to the death of the Dream. Those people have become afraid of the future, afraid of the new, afraid of the energy of immigrants. They phone for mythical golden eras, but lack the will and knowledge to rebuild them. The Dream has curdled, and this diffuse anger will not age well.

Sums it up perfectly.

I looked up the Salt Lake Tribune cartoonist: his name is Pat Bagley.