- My friend Ben is holding a kickstarter for his upcoming “casual social game about politics, gender, and statesmanship,” to be called “Matriarchy.” Please check it out!
- Original Essay: The Not Rape Epidemic | Racialicious
- Don’t EVEN Get Me Started, Mythical Bootstraps College Student | Persephone Magazine
- Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing
- Is Obama Toast? Handicapping the 2012 Election – NYTimes.com
- Congressman Joe Walsh, who owes over $100,000 in unpaid child support, given a Family Research Council award for his “family values.” No, really.
- To Try a New Sword on a Chance Wayfarer: My greatest moment in sports A dodgeball highlight for the ages.
- Michele Bachmann, Enemy of Religious Freedom « wakingupnow.com
- Amber Cole and the Misandry of Low Expectations
- Gallup Poll is First to Find Plurality Support for Marijuana Legalization
- If a ninja is that eager to fight, maybe it’s wiser not to fight him. On second thought, Naaahhh.
- Donald Glover’s Odd Future As A Rapper And The Incoherence Of Misogyny. Mainly, I’m just sad to find out that an actor whose character I’m fond of appears to be a misogynistic jackass as a songwriter.
- Borking: An Unequivocally Good Thing
- Cup O’ Joel: Shut up and be happy, you ungrateful Occupy Wall Street protesters!
- Some embarrassing things Grant Morrison said in public a while back, which are even worse in context
- The Supreme Court seems poised to say that unreliable eyewitness testimony is okay, because if we admit that eyewitness testimony is incredibly unreliable we might have to admit that some other types of testimony are unreliable too.
- “This labor unrest among monkeys illuminates our innate sense of fairness. It’s not that the primates demanded equality — some capuchins collected many more pebbles than others, and that never created a problem — it’s that they couldn’t stand when the inequality was a result of injustice.”
- Noah at No Seriously What About Teh Menz created this funny flow chart showing how MRAs and anti-feminists decide what to contribute to discussion threads.
- The push for female characters worth reading about in superhero comics – Let’s Tip it
- Nothing can prepare you for the awful sight of Zombie Muppets. Seriously, they’re disturbing.
- Never Before Seen Tolkien Illustrations Left Out of The Hobbit
- Check out this amazing, huge Batman drawing by Les McClaine. I don’t even know how many characters and rooms are shown here (it’s a cross-section of Wayne Mansion and the Batcave, with dozens of tiny heroes and villains running amok), but it’s whatever number means awesome.
- The American Dream, Inequality, and Immobility « wakingupnow.com
- How to save Social Security: One Point and 150 Grand
- “I would really like someone to convince me that this demonstrates anything other than widespread and deeply-felt contempt, by the NYPD, for the law and for the everyday citizens of this city.”
- It’s Official: Obama Has Deported More Than A Million Unauthorized Immigrants | Mother Jones
- The Volokh Conspiracy » “Harassment” of SSM Opponents in Washington State: When put under oath, suddenly SSM opponents can’t come up with any evidence of terrible mistreatment at the hands of teh gays.
- Taxpayer-Funded ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers’ Tell Jewish Woman To Convert To Christianity Or Go To Hell
- Modest Medusa: Origin of bears
- I find it remarkable that this video hasn’t become a widely-circulated internet meme. The audio isn’t safe for work, though.
Major Trump donors who complained of immigrant ‘invasion’ used Mexican workers illegally https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/uline-mexican-workers-trump
I don’t care who put the bob in the bob she bob she bob; I want to know who put the tree in the library.
Then again, maybe I don’t.
Not a self-link, but Holly’s post about men as Slavering Beasts is one of the awesomest things I’ve read recently.
I saw Donald Glover live about a year ago, and parts of the show were very funny, but he lost me for the evening when he made a joke that ended in something like (paraphrased) “That’s like finding a woman who will do anal who wasn’t molested as a child. They don’t exist!”
Ugh, the zombie Muppets! Why did I click on that link? *shudder* But I had a chaser of Tim Minchin, so that was okay.
I think everyone should take a listen to this bit of feminist spoken word:
The Vertical Pole:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6d9cp9ErdU
Reminder, if you want REAL change in this country, don’t vote for Obama or any of the GOP hacks. Vote for Gary Johnson. He’s pro-gay rights, pro-choice, anti-war, will end the Patriot Act and other policies that violate our civil liberties, decriminalize marijuana, and enact sensible economic reform.
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/front
Yay, Modest Medusa! I’m a female superhero comics reader (since 1985) and inclusivity (or even just lack of actively driving women away) is something that wobbles back and forth terribly over the years. I think I just want more superhero comics to be like Modest Medusa – of the three main characters, two are female, everyone has their own goals and priorities and adventures, and the nudity is non-sexual (except for those mean mermaids)!
lilacsigil, thanks! Glad you like my comic! I’ve been reading superhero comics since the mid-80’s as well, so… so yeah!
On another thread, Clarence wrote:
You’re accusing me (or perhaps another “Alas” poster — but you used the present tense. Of the “Alas” posters who wrote a significant number of posts about the Duke case, I’m the only one still posting here, and I suspect the only one with the admin power to delete posts) of having written posts about the Duke case we later deleted to hide what we have said. Those deleted posts can still be accessed on WayBack, according to your insinuation.
Okay, since you’ve made the accusation, let’s see your evidence. Post the links, Clarence. Show me the “Alas” posts about the Duke case available on WayBack but not in the Alas archives.
(I admit, you might be right. It’s plausible that I deleted a post in 2006, and don’t remember it all now that it’s 2011 — I don’t have a great memory. But generally speaking, I don’t delete my past posts, even ones I now disagree with.)
* * *
Apart from a link round-up, my first post about Duke said I believed she had been raped, but noted that “It’s possible that further evidence could come along which would change the way things look entirely.”
Over time, I continued arguing for that position, but also said that the names of the accused players should be withheld by the media unless there’s a guilty verdict.
As more evidence accumulated, I said that if I were on the jury, I’d vote not guilty, and I was no longer convinced a rape had taken place.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to demand that people should never be mistaken; I do think it’s reasonable to expect people to be willing to change their mind based on evidence. Which is what I did. In short, I don’t see anything there that disgraces me.
Ampersand:
I accused you of “deleting” nothing. Nor was I intending to insinuate that. In fact, I will out and out state (just like I had to do when you accused me of calling you a racist and misogynist) that I don’t believe you’ve erased anything. Often, I’ve found searching for something on Wayback is sometimes faster than searching archives on blogs, which is why I tend to use it. What I did say was that many posters here did not cover themselves in glory and I stand by my statement. And if you want me to back THAT up, I will.
Amp:
I’ve read your posts from 2006 and 2007 that deal with the Duke case, and among feminists and feminist blogs you, as a blogger mostly did well and were fair with only your policy on not naming the false accuser (she has since made the news for attempted assault and murder) being something I disagreed with. It wasn’t you, it was your fellow bloggers and , even more so, many of the commenters on this blog who seemed to only play for Team Woman, ignoring all evidence to the contrary.
Actually, Clarence, if you bothered to read the threads in question instead of darkly hinting that everybody you disagreed with was a liar in the service of Team Woman, Amp was far from the only person expressing doubts about what was going on with Nifong, or for that matter, agreeing that there was not enough to convict the accused.
Though I do think it’s funny that you’re seeing this in terms of boys versus girls in a conversation that started about an adult man raping young boys.
Mythago:
If you want me to, I can count heads. I can do that every step of the way from the beginnings of the case back when it was first posted about on this blog, to the very end of the last post on this case somewhere around January or February of 2007 if I recall correctly. And we can see how many people changed their minds after participating in multiple threads over a period of time.
Of course if I go through with that, I’ll pull up your old posts as well. I wonder how you’ll make out?
Once again, if you want to call me a liar or call me deluded I am fully prepared to back up my statements. Otherwise, I suggest you let me have my impressions of this blog concerning that case since you’ve already tried to claim bringing it up to make a point was off -topic. So do you dare me to check how the Duke case played out again on this blog, or will you concede my relatively minor but well-researched point?
Mythago is an extremely level-headed poster. Although out of thousands of comments, I’m sure she’s said one or two things she might regret or rephrase (who hasn’t?), she’s certainly never “disgraced” herself that I’ve noticed.
When I did ever accuse you of calling me a misogynist? Please provide a link and a quote.
In case anyone’s wondering, Clarence is referring to a discussion on NSWATM, in which I wrote:
To which Clarence replied:
When Noah objected that Clarence had no basis for his assumptions about what I’d say, Clarence wrote:
Clarence, I didn’t want to have a big off-topic fight on that thread. But now that you’ve brought it up, and we’re here in an open thread: When the fuck have I ever said that racism against white people in Chinese movies was okay? What, specifically, have I written that justifies your claims about me?
(In fact, I thought the “China Doll” plot was funny/horrifying, and I’d find the reverse plot from the Chinese equivalent of Disney funny/horrifying as well.)
@Clarence: “let you” have your “impressions of this blog”? “Dare” you to go looking through the archives? Dude, it’s your copious free time and the archives are open to anyone who wants. Darkly hinting that whoever you disagree with better STFU OR ELSE is just not all that scary, I’m afraid.
But, but, mythago… You’d better tread carefully or Clarence will dig up comments of yours that you’ll either stand by or express your regrets about. It will be terrible and sad and really, really dull.
Who else was blogging about the Duke rape case on this site at that time? Rachel S. maybe? (Miss her!) I’m totally curious actually about what got said and how wrong it was or not-wrong or whatever. I don’t *think* I was blogging here then and my first post was about, like, Lost or something.
Anyway! I’m genuinely curious. If Clarence wants to read up on it and report back, I’m cool with that.
(Links would be awesome if you do, Clarence, just so I can go recheck the highlights.)
Mandolin, actually quite a bit of it is in the thread that Clarence reviewed and pronounced Amp not-Satan-after-all.
I’m sure that FEMINIST ANTICHRIST Marcotte blogged about it as well.
Well, I went ahead and read the posts (the ones under the “Duke rape case” tag) myself. Not the comments, though.
The post that seems most problematic given what we now know was Rachel S’s first post on the subject which is written clearly from the perspective that Mary Doe’s version of events was correct. She does include the proviso, “I understand that these men are innocent until proven guilty, but the evidence in this case seems very strong.” The goal of the post, which is to discuss the intersection of race, class and gender, seems decent enough; the execution is rife with incorrect assumptions. I think she could rewrite it now to make the same point without the factual incorrectness.
To me, it’s worth noting that she wrote the post before the national scandal blew up.
And she did include the proviso which is actually fairly important. The evidence, at least as she and Amp seem to have understood it at the time, did look fairly strong. One may have felt it was not strong, but I think it’s unreasonable to think that a reasonable person couldn’t have felt it was.
I found two other posts that contained one sentence each that probably should have been changed.
It’s possible I’m missing stuff; I skimmed, and one of the posts crashed and wouldn’t let me read it (but it was a link farm so it probably didn’t have much content; also, it was by Amp and so theoretically covered by Clarence’s previous research binge). I also didn’t read the comments because oy. Too much material.
I have no idea if I commented and said stupid shit at the time. It wouldn’t surprise me. I do indeed say stupid shit from time to time.
Anyway, on the issue of the actual case itself, I remain somewhat confused about why there’s an assertion that Mary Doe wasn’t raped. Wasn’t raped by the Duke players, sure, yes? But raped that night or soon before? What’s the explanation for her injuries…? I can understand assuming she wasn’t raped, but asserting? (Edited to add: I’m not all that familiar with the evidence, especially this long after everything happened, so maybe there’s an easy explanation, but I don’t remember ever seeing anything like that.)
Anyway, has she been found guilty of false accusation in a court of law? If not, shouldn’t the people who say we should wait for courts of law to decide things call her an alleged false accuser? I have to say I’m not particularly fussed about the distinction (in either direction), but for general not-being-a-hypocrite reasons, it would be good if people were consistent.
The problem is simple:
1) When something happens of note, if you save your outrage or happiness until all available facts are clear and all pending court cases done and all available evidence out, then you’ll have missed the relevancy bus. You may be accurate but nobody will give a shit. Read any Operation Cast Lead editorials lately? I thought not.
2) The earlier you start talking about it, the more relevant it is. And exciting! It’s fun to have firsties. And it’s often fun to try to predict something yourself. The more interesting and exciting you are (which, for those folks who aren’t brilliant writers, often equates to “controversial and inflammatory”) then the more folks will listen to you.
3) But sometimes you’re wrong. I don’t mean that you’re legally wrong, because legality and reality are very very different things. I just mean plain old ordinary “wrong.” And–depending on what you say early on (now incorrect, as you realize)–it can be very, very, difficult to fix things. Especially if it comes late, after all the boring facts have come out (see #1, “nobody will give a shit.”) And especially if it was inflammatory (the folks who riffed off your posts in the early stages when you were wrong may not spread the word if you retract.)
There isn’t a simple solution to the problem. And I think that folks who know/work with people who have suffered serious harm through people jumping to wrong conclusions (on either side) can reasonably be damn untrustful of the tendency to speak out early on.
There isn’t a simple solution to the problem.
There is, which is to keep in mind at all times that one may be wrong, and that it’s best not risk being wrong in a way that causes irreparable harm. “I believe these accusations, but we should allow the justice system to do its work because this person is presumed innocent” is very different than “Throw the bastard in jail to rot like the scum he is”.
“There is, which is to keep in mind at all times that one may be wrong, and that it’s best not risk being wrong in a way that causes irreparable harm.”
Certainly the ideal, I’d think.
Why does “irreparable” have to be in there? Why not just try to minimize the overall harm of being wrong, whether or not that harm can, in theory, be repaired? Because it doesn’t really seem like those things CAN be repaired, most of the time. In the rape context, it doesn’t seem easy to shake the objectively-incorrect stigma of being pegged as a false accuser, nor to shake the stigma of being an accused rapist.
I’m trying to imagine how that would work. I suppose that there’s something to be said for generally attempting to withhold judgment in the early stages. But in this case, those who are arguing for a delay of judgment are being accused of a pro-rape, anti-child position.
It’s very brave of you to be a voice for the Martyrs to Reason.
If “withhold judgment” meant more than “STFU completely” I would mostly agree with you. But look what is going on with Paterno; “withhold judgment” ignores the facts we actually DO know and pretends that qualified opinions are no worse than being in a mob.
Oh, I don’t think that’s what it means–didn’t say it, either.
I think of withholding judgment as the process of examining facts, discussing the weighting of facts, and constantly readjusting the weighting based on new facts. And also, to a lesser degree, withholding judgment sort of limits the hypothetical roads one can walk down.
In any case, there’s plenty to talk about even if you do that.
Ignoring facts isn’t what I’m talking about at all. Why wouldn’t you discuss facts? Of course some facts (in general, not just these) take on their real nature only in the proper context. Others are prety much set in stone, context be damned.
As for the other part: well, yeah, things are influenced by a mob. You “almost agree” with me but still had to tag me with the Martyr to Reason label (which I have to guess is snarky, even if I don’t know what it means). That wasn’t an accident, right? Outside the current public discourse, perhaps you’d not have done that.
Look, THIS ISSUE isn’t a great example. Avoiding a conclusion that Sandusky is a rapist would be hellishly difficult. But of course no single issue is, usually, a good example all on its lonesome.
Penn State ain’t the only place that ignores child abuse, please take note:
Local media blackout about Bob Jones University board scandal continues
I am trying hard not to get a bullhorn and stand outside BJU and start screaming (they will bust me and throw away the key) — but when local media collectively ignores a scandal due to BJU political influence, what the hell ELSE can we do? Jim DeMint recently gave them a “chapel address” so that should tell you something.
I am beside myself. Please, somebody publicize this, before I go to jail.
Well, maybe I oughtta just take a number and wait. Jesus H Christ!
After Penn State, another college reveals abuse probe (Citadel)
Daisy, does BJU buy a lot of advertising with local media? I was just wondering what you think motivates the blackout.
Mandolin:
They didn’t charge “Jane Doe” (everyone on the freaking internet knows her name now but I bet Amp won’t let me say it) with a false accusation because the people who were in position to do so (including the District Attorney, Nifong) were corrupt, and it would have exposed them. Course in the end, when the case was taken over from the local police by the state they ended up getting exposed anyway, and according to the Attorney Generals report he felt that the accuser had mental issues and there would be nothing to be gained by charging her. Of course now she’s charged with murdering someone, and her past false accusation and attack on a police officer have come out, so, in hindsight it’s possible to question the AG’s decision.
As for whether she was raped? It’s possible, but it’s not possible for it to have been someone on the Duke Lacrosse team. They found tons of DNA in her from several men including her then boyfriend, some of this DNA in her was several days old but none of it was from a member of the Lacrosse team let alone the three she accused. If she was raped, it was almost certainly a day or two before and it wasn’t by the people she said it was, so she’s still a false accuser in my book.
I should also mention that I was mostly unemployed that year (took a few odd jobs) so I was helping my grandmother with a sick uncle. I followed the Duke case nearly daily at several places including LieStoppers and Durham in Wonderland and I did so for nearly a year and so I’m probably more familiar with the evidence than anyone on this blog. I’ve read all the reports and lots of the police documents at the time.
Mandolin, Amp, et.al:
I was talking more about the comments than the posts themselves; I’ve already said Amp’s posts were pretty fair. So I think I will look into the comments. Forgive me the delay, my life has been uber busy the past 2 days.
Daisy has done a good thing in exposing Bob Jones University at this blog and others.
It is very very difficult to actually prove the charge of false rape reporting in a criminal case. It’s also a very rare charge, even in the very few situations where it would be an appropriate charge at all.
think of it this way:
A subset of rape reports are objectively false.
A subset of those are maliciously false.
A subset of those can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have been maliciously false.
And a subset of those are charges which–for various reasons including prosecutor time–actually make sense to bring.
In the end, you’re talking about a very small subset. Conspiracy theory isn’t necessary here.
Gin and Whiskey:
I don’t know what you are saying. The DA, Nifong, was disbarred and convicted of contempt of court. If you were denying a conspiracy to fabricate and hold back evidence in this case it’s pretty much been proven. The fact is, whether the accuser was crazy or dishonest or both -whatever her reasons – Nifong decided to use this case to get himself re-elected and in order to do that he was willing to lie to the press, withhold exculpatory evidence, and suborn perjury in order to do so. So yes, there was a conspiracy involved here among Nifong , a SANE examiner trainee and a few corrupt cops. All this is currently being played out in a civil suit against the University and the city of Durham.
As for your subsets of subsets, I’m convinced from years of studying this stuff that between 8 and 20 percent of all rape cases are deliberately false. And of course there is a lot we don’t know such as the amount of cases not reported, yet I find some feminists love to try to push the “not reported ” numbers sky high while trying to say the false accusation numbers are vanishingly low. Sorry, I’ve been here and all over the internet on this issue for 13 years now, I’m not buying it.
I don’t really know about false accusation numbers, but as for the “not reported” numbers, just as a bit of anecdata, I personally know several people who were raped and didn’t report it. I personally know one person who was raped and it went to court. And the number of people I know who were raped is probably actually much higher than I counted, since I can only count the people who I know well enough that they’ve told me about it. (My data set skews heavily white, college-educated, and 30-ish.)
Clarence, I’m still waiting for you to answer comment #13.
I posted about this issue in 2009, and my opinion hasn’t changed since.
What specific feminists “love to try and push,” and how are they pushing? What sort of numbers qualify as “sky-high,” and what evidence shows they are too high? If you don’t provide specifics, evidence, and an argument, then I have no interest in anything you say. (“I’m not buying it” is not an argument.)
A good article discussing how the conventional right-wing orthodoxy on taxes (specifically, the 47% figure, and associated topics) is misguided:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/283265/freeloader-myth-ramesh-ponnuru?pg=1
Also: how about an open thread more often than every two weeks, you lazy slacker tax-dodging hippies.
@Robert from the Power Rankings thread: I’m sorry to hear about your personal troubles. I hope it’s over quickly so you can heal and move on.
XKCD has a very interesting infograph (infocomic?) on money today. I spent a good 30 minutes just looking at the details of it. I especially like the comparison of eating out vs. a home-cooked meal that takes time into account. Time seems like a hidden cost of being poor that doesn’t get taken into account as often as it should.
I don’t know what you are saying.
Don’t know, or find it convenient to pretend you don’t know? I’m not sure what is supposed to be so difficult to follow about g&w’s point. “But Nifong!” Yes, Mike Nifong was a prosecutor who violated his oath as an officer of the Court and committed pretty serious misconduct (for which, happily, he was disbarred); what does this have to do with what g&w said?
Here’s my online threat of the week
*sigh* Just before the holidays too.
Wonderful news from Oregon on the death penalty (Governor Kitzhaber imposed a moratorium on executions).
I hadn’t even been active on this issue, as I didn’t have any hope of anything happening, but this makes me very happy (and happy to have campaigned for Kitzhaber last year)!
Robert,
I went to read the power rankings thread more carefully after Simple Truth’s note–I’m sorry, too, and I hope things get better without stopping to get worse. :(
The sympathy is appreciated. You can forward it to my daughter who is having a hard time but other than the custody issue (which sucks on ice but which is, in fact, getting better) it is a dozenfold improvement in my life and I’m doing well.
“it is a dozenfold improvement in my life and I’m doing well.”
I’m really glad to hear that.
Robert,
I just read the Power Rankings thread. I’m glad to hear you’re doing better, that things are going better (at least that what it sounds like), but I’m really sorry you had to go through that. It really sucks.