Open Post And Link Farm: The Greatest Of All Imaginable Home Alone Posters Edition

  1. The zombie infant mortality explanation | The Incidental Economist It’s just not true that the US has lousy infant mortality statistics because We Care More, or because those horrible people in Europe don’t love babies and just let them die, etc.. We genuinely have a higher infant mortality rate. But conservatives would rather deny than admit the problem.
  2. Jim Crow 2.0? Why States Consider and Adopt Restrictive Voter Access Policies What predicts if a state enacts anti-voting bills isn’t the preponderance of voting fraud, but rather elements like how much Black voting participation has been increasing in that state. What a coincidence!
  3. ‘More Than Accidents, Cancer, Malaria, And War Combined’ | Feminist Critics A bad feminist statistic that’s been circulating and should be avoided.
  4. Video Recording Captures Rampant Stop-And-Frisk Abuse In Miami Gardens | ThinkProgress Cops repeatedly harassing black employees for “loitering” while they were at their jobs, among other abuses.
  5. Being a Feminist means more than just agreeing that women are human.
  6. Kip discusses the Disney movie Frozen. The post, about the rules of fairy-tales and what the Disney thought they had to do to make their best song, “Let It Go,” fit into the story is very interesting. I hadn’t known about “Life’s Too Short,” an argument song between the two sisters that was cut from the story, but now I’m convinced the movie would have been much better had they left it in. (You can listen to both songs at Kip’s post.)
  7. Something Fierce | Marian Call
  8. 100 Years of Breed “Improvement” | Science of Dogs
  9. Colorado Judge: Bakery That Refused Wedding Cake To Same-Sex Couple Broke The Law | ThinkProgress
  10. American men’s hidden crisis: They need more friends! – Salon.com
  11. Ted Rall’s Cartoons Censored At Daily Kos. I think “censored” is an exaggeration – Kos has every right to set its own standards and decide not to carry Ted’s work until Ted changes how he draws Obama. But I also think that Ted’s cartoons don’t actually have the hallmarks of racist caricature, and his version of Obama doesn’t look like a monkey or ape. But on the other hand, I haven’t loved how Ted’s been defending himself – most of his comments make the issue about Ted’s good intentions, which shouldn’t be the issue.
  12. Saving Mr. Banks Is a Corporate, Borderline-Sexist Spoonful of Lies
  13. How the Decline of Unions Has Increased Racial Inequality
  14. Earth’s Quietest Place Will Drive You Crazy in 45 Minutes | Smart News I was in a soundproof recording studio last month, and just chatting in the room for five minutes made me feel squirrly.
  15. Fox News: Did 17 illegal voters in Ohio steal the 2012 election? Short answer: No.
  16. Utah Is on Track to End Homelessness by 2015 With This One Simple Idea | NationSwell And for a more in-depth discussion of the same basic idea, see Malcolm Gladwell’s article Million-Dollar Murray, and this New York Times article on Drunk Houses.
  17. is there such a thing as static teacher quality? | Fredrik deBoer Really, the question is “is there such a thing as static teacher quality which we can meaningfully measure in a quantitative fashion? And so far, the answer appears to be “no.”
  18. Justine Sacco’s aftermath: The cost of Twitter outrage. This article by Roxane Gay is by a large margin the best reaction to the Sacco kerfuffle that I read.
  19. Corporate media’s rape problem: Supporting the stars, ignoring the charges – Salon.com
  20. The N-Word, White People, and The Garden of Eden “And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every word that is pleasant and unpleasant to the ear, but there was one word in the middle of the garden, and that word was the n-word.”
  21. One Weird Old Trick to Undermine the Patriarchy Or, Bilbo was a girl.
  22. On Not Holding Our Models Sacred: Some Feminist Theories And Their Flaws » Brute Reason This is quite a long article, but worth it, imo.
  23. Same-Sex Marriage, The Legal Deluge : The New Yorker Nutshelled summaries of some of the major cases currently in the system.
  24. Windsor expanded in Ohio ruling : SCOTUSblog The Ohio ruling – that Ohio has to recognize an out-of-state same-sex marriage for cases involving the death of one of the spouses – could have a lot of long-term significance. Especially if we go through a long period of some-states-recognizing-while-other-states-don’t.
  25. Gaming Gay marriage and the Supreme Court: Which cases will make it?
  26. JUF News : The real story behind the orange on the seder plate. Yeah, it’s not exactly the season for posting this, but Grace just showed me this yesterday and I thought some of the interpretation of an orange’s growing signficance was neat.
  27. Obama’s unpardonable record on issuing pardons. To issue eight pardons and then say you’re concerned about overcrowding is an obscene joke.
  28. A New Low: Vaginal Probes At The Border We are living in a police state, and most Americans seem quite willing to acquiesce to that, as long as the odds of us in particular being the ones involuntarily probed and then charged $5000 for it remain low.
  29. Obama, Democrats push for extension of unemployment benefits. This is one of those stories that just make me despair; not just for the Republicans, who are inexcusable and have lost touch with basic compassion, but for the Democrats, who have not pushed one-tenth as hard on this as they should have. Edited to add: The Democrats are finally pushing hard on this – after unemployment has lapsed – so yay for that.
  30. Final Rule on Workplace Wellness Programs: A Look at the Implications for Consumers – CCF – Center For Children and Families I think this is an area of Obamacare that is very likely to become a tool for enforcing lots of anti-fat discrimination. Sigh.
  31. How Some Men Harass Women Online and What Other Men Can Do to Stop It
  32. Outing a Rapist
  33. A Comedy Favorite: How The ‘Act Blacker’ Sketch Has Evolved : Code Switch : NPR
  34. The Extraordinary Story Of Why A ‘Cakewalk’ Wasn’t Always Easy : Code Switch : NPR
  35. Josephine County, Oregon: A paradise for libertarians, and for criminals.
  36. The Spirit Of The First Amendment | Slate Star Codex
  37. Center for Range Voting – front page. The idea of range voting is interesting, as are their arguments. Shame about the horribly ugly site design.
  38. A Notable Year of the Wrong Kind “By my reckoning, 2013 saw more new mass killings than any year since the early 1990s.”
  39. Rightbloggers Prove They’re No Sissies By Supporting Duck Dynasty, Beating Up Pajama Boy
  40. Don’t Blame Social Media if Your Teen Is Unsocial. It’s Your Fault | Wired Opinion | Wired.com
  41. Chart of the Day: Republicans Rule Sunday Morning | Mother Jones
  42. Boy Scouts Hope For Smooth Transition As They Accept Gay Youth
  43. This chart really shows how stunningly fast marriage equality is expanding | Family Inequality
  44. Back to Work – a conservative solution to unemployment. I’d welcome this approach. Alas, the majority of conservatives in Congress don’t seem willing to admit that unemployment is a problem caused by anything but worker laziness. Also, lowering the minimum wage for long-term unemployed workers but making up the lower wage by the government paying the employees enough to make up the difference, seems needlessly more complex than just giving companies that hire long-term unemployed a tax break.
  45. I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot. I’m sure all the conservatives who stood up for Phil Robertson are going to be just as angry and outspoken about this case, right?
  46. Searching the Internet for evidence of time travelers
  47. Jenny McCarthy: My Bad, Turns Out My Kid Doesn’t Have Autism | The Sports Pig’s Blog
  48. New ACLU Report Finds Overwhelming Racial Bias in Marijuana Arrests | American Civil Liberties Union
  49. Blockbuster Films Featuring Actual Female Characters Made Serious Money in 2013 | Bitch Media
  50. This “Home Alone” poster by Adam Simpson is so brilliantly executed, it retroactively justifies the film being made. (Actually, I quite enjoyed the first one.)

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149 Responses to Open Post And Link Farm: The Greatest Of All Imaginable Home Alone Posters Edition

  1. 1
    Adrian says:

    The article about the soundless room seems to have a bad title. I used to go to considerable trouble so I could spend a couple of hours in a recording booth, just because I needed the quiet so badly. (It was an ordinary recording booth, so there was a little ambient sound.) It’s not the silence that “drives people crazy.” It’s the combination of silence, darkness, and lack of touch-cues.

  2. 2
    RonF says:

    The U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois shoots down Chicago’s ban on gun sales and transfers

    From the Court’s decision:

    The ban covers federally licensed firearms dealers; even validly licensed dealers cannot sell firearms in Chicago. The ban covers gifts amongst family members; only through inheritance can someone transfer a firearm to a family member. Chicago does all this in the name of reducing gun violence. That is one of the fundamental duties of government: to protect its citizens. The stark reality facing the City each year is thousands of shooting victims and hundreds of murders committed with a gun.

    But on the other side of this case is another feature of government: certain fundamental rights are protected by the Constitution, put outside government’s reach, including the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense under the Second Amendment. This right must also include the right to acquire a firearm, although that acquisition right is far from absolute: there are many long-standing restrictions on who may acquire firearms (for examples, felons and the mentally ill have long been banned) and there are many restrictions on the sales of arms (for example, licensing requirements for commercial sales). But Chicago’s ordinance goes too far in outright banning legal buyers and legal dealers from engaging in lawful acquisitions and lawful sales of firearms, and at the same time the evidence does not support that the complete ban sufficiently furthers the purposes that the ordinance tries to serve. For the specific reasons explained later in this opinion, the ordinances are declared unconstitutional.

    The City argued that residents had the ability to go outside the City to legally purchase guns, and that forcing gang members to do the same would achieve the aim of making it more difficult for them to acquire guns. But the Court found that it also made it more difficult for residents to legally acquire guns as well, and that the City could not meet the burden of proving that the increased impediment to the gang members justified and outweighed the increased inpediment to legal gun purchasers in exercising their 2nd Amendment rights.

    What’s more, it is doubtful that keeping criminal users away from legitimate retail stores will choke the supply of guns to those users. According to a survey of convicted felons proffered by the City itself, “[l]egitimate firearms retailers play a minor and unimportant role as direct sources of the criminal handgun supply.”

    Thus, it is likely that residents who seek to legally buy a gun bear more of the share of the added transaction costs in time, effort, and danger than gang members or would-be criminals, who rarely buy guns from legitimate dealers directly. Given the close fit between justification and means that the City must demonstrate, it cannot justify its ban on legitimate gun sales and transfers with overinclusive means that impact more law-abiding citizens than criminals.

  3. 3
    RonF says:

    @28: It seems perfectly logical to me when presented with a request to spend unbudgeted money to say “What are we going to cut to pay for this?” – which is my understanding of what the GOP’s position is on this.

    #43: I hope – indeed, I pray – that this will be a non-issue as well. However, 1/1/14 is not the date to look at. I’d say that this is something that will need to be closely examined somewhere around 10/1/14. At that point the bulk of the camping season is over and all of the week-long summer camps will be closed and all reports of abuse should be in at National. My objection to this was not moral but practical – I worry that you’ll see numerous gay kids abused. Hopefully I’m wrong.

  4. 4
    RonF says:

    Fargh. For “43” read “41” in the previous post.

  5. 5
    Yvain says:

    The link to “no static teacher quality” seems to go to a few very axe-grinding amateur blog posts presenting original data that has never been peer reviewed, and which only analyzes one system of “teacher quality” used in New York.

    As far as I know the research in this area generally agrees that there is definitely a large static teacher quality effect. For example, Rockoff 2004 observes teachers over a ten year period and finds that “”Estimates of teacher fixed effects from linear regressions of test scores consistently indicate that there are large differences in quality among teachers within schools. A one standard deviation increase in teacher quality raises test scores by approximately .1 standard deviations in reading and math on nationally standardized distributions of achievement…reading tests differ by approximately .17 standard deviations on average between beginning teachers and teachers with ten or more years of experience. Policymakers have demonstrated their faith in the importance of teachers by greatly increasing funding for programs that aim to improve teacher quality in low performing schools. However, the vast majority of these initiatives focus on rewarding teachers who possess credentials that have not been concretely linked to student performance (eg certification, schooling, teacher exam scores). My results support the idea that raising teacher quality is an important way to improve achievement.”

    It also finds very high correlations between the things you would expect to correlate – for example, teachers’ performance in one subject area correlates with their performance in another subject area at .46 to .67.

    Whether whatever politicized system someone dreamt up to measure teacher effectiveness for their own purposes accurately captures teacher effectiveness is a different question.

  6. 6
    Daran says:

    Thanks for the link.

    Just one thing, the next item you link to doesn’t have a number of its own, giving the impression that the two links are connected in some way. Probably it should have.

  7. 7
    closetpuritan says:

    #7: 100 years of breed ‘improvement’–Sometimes you can avoid these problems by picking a dog from the right lines. A German shepherd bred for police work would not be as strongly bred for the sloping back. Actually, if you wanted a smaller, non-sloped-back, German shepherd-like dog, you could get a Belgian shepherd. The Malinois coat type dogs are hard to tell apart from German shepherds to most people. They’re quite high-energy, though. That’s true for a lot of dogs from working lines–more functional conformation, more energy. Of course, there is no working line for pugs.

    I have a purebred dog, a smooth collie. One thing I like about collies is that they’re fairly unlikely to have health problems. Their head shape is kind of distinctive/weird looking, but no more so than the sighthounds, and it doesn’t cause problems like the extremely shortened snouts do. (In fact, they had borzoi blood introduced in order to get the head shape the breeders wanted.)

  8. 8
    Ampersand says:

    Daran – Thanks, correction made.

  9. 9
    Doug S. says:

    Because this is an Open Thread:

    There are currently six states that have laws allowing citizens to impanel grand juries through the process of collecting signatures on petitions: Kansas, New Mexico, North Dakota, Nebraska, Nevada and Oklahoma.

    Sometimes people or corporations aren’t prosecuted for things that they’re clearly guilty of. A recent example is the settlement made with HSBC bank over money laundering charges, which led to cries that banks had become too big to indict, but I’m sure we can think of a few others, too. Could this method be used to hold certain former federal officials accountable for crimes the current administration has demonstrated no interest in prosecuting? Assuming that someone could actually get the signatures, though, there still seem to be obstacles. For example, I would guess that a state grand jury could only charge people with violating state laws, not federal laws, and there might be issues of jurisdiction, as well: can a Kansas court hold someone accountable for a crime that didn’t take place in Kansas?

  10. 10
    Grace Annam says:

    The second cartoon on this page is brilliant.

    Grace

  11. 11
    Jacob says:

    Correction, Daily Kos never “carried” Rall’s cartoons; Rall published his cartoons there like any other diarist, and like every other diarist, he has to follow community guidelines. He did, however, seem to carry a grudge that Kos wouldn’t pay him like they do the cartoonists they actually employ.

  12. 12
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    An interesting minimum wage article from the Economist:
    http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/02/minimum-wage

  13. 13
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Re “static teacher quality”

    This seems to be continuing the general concept of education claims for exceptionalism. Teachers–unlike almost every other profession out there–seem to continually assert that they are different. Apparently they don’t follow the same rules as the rest of us, not even on a large and broad scale that you would expect given the size of the educational system. You might be able to measure quality for a lawyer, doctor, massage therapist, phone tech, mechanic, farmer, or fisherman… but not for teachers! Oh no, they’re different. It’s magic!**

    Bullshit.

    It’s one thing to suggest that “measuring teacher quality” is hard. Of course it is: teacher quality is certainly a tricky thing to determine.
    But the fact that it’s hard to determine doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to measure. And it CERTAINLY doesn’t mean that there “is no such thing” as quality at all.

    Also, using the NY system as an example is dumb. After all, the unions fought tooth and nail to cripple and generally undermine the system; and the state didn’t help either.

    If you imagine that the gold standard is “hire a team of statisticians to come to a conclusion about the best methods for evaluating teacher quality; and them implement those methods without regard to unions, politics, or budget” then the actual standard which was implemented was way WAY beneath that. It’s the equivalent of the TSA security screens: it exists more to satisfy folks and expand the window of “acceptable” than it does to effectuate it’s claimed goal.

    The fact that the resulting system isn’t so hot is.. unsurprising.

    **They’re also, magically, all competent. Which is to say that almost none of them are ever fired for cause, and that any attempts to actually lay someone off are sternly opposed. You know, because of things like this though that may be changing. In that respect they are surprisingly similar to municipal employees.

  14. 14
    RonF says:

    However, the vast majority of these initiatives focus on rewarding teachers who possess credentials that have not been concretely linked to student performance (e.g. certification, schooling, teacher exam scores).

    Something I’d like to see looked at. Teachers generally get automatic pay raises if they get a masters or doctoral degrees. What I’d like to see is an analysis of whether or not the attainment of such degrees actually makes a teacher a better teacher – with especial attention to which such degrees, if any, have this effect and which do not.

  15. 15
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    RonF says:
    January 8, 2014 at 8:15 am
    Something I’d like to see looked at. Teachers generally get automatic pay raises if they get a masters or doctoral degrees. What I’d like to see is an analysis of whether or not the attainment of such degrees actually makes a teacher a better teacher – with especial attention to which such degrees, if any, have this effect and which do not.

    I’m relatively sure that subject-matter-specific education is usually a boon, so long as you teach that subject. I can’t recall it but I’ve read that scientists make better science teachers than those who just dabble in science; math folks make better math teachers than those who just dabble in math; and so on. I believe (though have no evidence beyond the anecdotal) that this increased payback is also related to student ability, whether you are talking about “smarter students in lower grades” or “higher grade students.”

    I’m much less confident that there is a beneficial effect of generic “education education,” i.e. going for a Master’s in Education rather than a Master’s in a specific subject matter that you teach. (That’s because I have a poor opinion of most education programs, not because I think of general education as useless.)

    As an interesting side note: I wonder if there’s an effect on degree quality as a result of “automatic bonuses for a degree” policies? I’d hypothesis that there is:

    If someone “wants to be a ______,” then she would have a strong incentive to choose the best _____ program available and to work hard to do well. That is largely because the return on her investment is not guaranteed and would be correlated with the strength and quality of the program as well as her individual grades, recommendations, and output.

    OTOG, if someone “wants to get a MA and thereby raise my salary by $3500/year” then I hypothesis that he would be more likely to to select for the simplest and cheapest program available and that he would not work as hard. That would be expected because the return on investment is guaranteed and is unrelated to the details: if there isn’t a pay distinction between “M.S. in Earth Science from Online University, requiring 8 hours/week of easy work” and “M.S. in AstroPhysics from Caltech, requiring 20 hours/week of grueling study” then you would expect more people to choose the former.

    I have certainly seen that effect in the corporate setting where I used to work.

  16. 16
    RonF says:

    I wasn’t even thinking about an M.S./M.A. in their subject matter. I can’t speak for the humanities, but I have an M.S. in Biochemistry. Attaining a masters degree in mathematics or the sciences (which, BTW, are formally liberal arts) requires doing some actual original research and takes 2 or 3 years full-time. It also requires a B.S.-level degree in a related field. I seriously doubt that a teacher is going to do that.

    Now, if you’re talking a master’s in education that concentrates on “here’s how to teach algebra, trignometry, analytical geometry and calculus to high school kids”, that’s be great! Do such programs exist? I would hope that any teacher who became a math teacher would already have studied at least the first two in high school and would have had a refresher course in their B.A. program. Specific degrees such as M.A. in special education, etc. would seem to make sense as well. But how many such programs are teachers taking? As opposed to M.A.’s in administration, for those teachers looking to become assistant principals or principals or deans but which I should think do little to make one better at teaching kids history or other subjects.

    My daughter has just become a high school teacher. Mathematics, in an alternative high school (for kids who for one reason or another are not making it in a standard HS setting). They’re not stupid (well, most of them anyway), and she’s teaching the regular math curriculum. She does not have a education degree. What she has is a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and a solid command in any math taught at the HS level. Apparently it’s a lot harder to find teachers who can understand the subject matter than it is to find subject matter experts who can understand teaching. So she got a certificate that has to be renewed in 5 years and is in a classroom. There’s a teacher mentor, and there’s my wife, who DOES have a B.A. in Education and taught for a few years.

  17. 17
    RonF says:

    Re: 45:

    There’s a critical difference between the kicker here and the Phil Robertson story. In the former, the people accused of bigotry and prejudice deny that they had such convictions and that it was the basis for why they fired him. In the Phil Robertson case they announced their bigotry and prejudice and explicitly promoted the fact that it was the basis upon which they fired him.

  18. 18
    delurking says:

    “..in the Phil Robertson case they announced their bigotry and prejudice and explicitly promoted the fact that it was the basis upon which they fired him.”

    Hmm. I was reading it the other way around. That is, I saw it as Phil Robertson announcing his bigotry and prejudice, for which he got a one-week faux penalty — he was not, in fact, fired — and for which everyone who shared that bigotry and prejudice rallied around him.

    And I believe Ampersand is right: we’re not going to see a similar rallying around, or any huge outcry about Kuwe’s free speech rights, because the group that made all that ruckus could care less about free speech. They were, in fact, not supporting free speech. They were supporting Phil Robertson’s right to be a bigot.

  19. 19
    Jake Squid says:

    They were supporting Phil Robertson’s right to be a bigot.

    I think they were supporting Phil Robertson’s brand of bigotry. No significant number of people really questions his right to be a bigot.

  20. 20
    Ampersand says:

    In some cases, people honestly spoke out for Robertson to support a culture of free expression.

    In some cases, though,I think it was a form of team loyalty. Robertson is on their team, those criticizing him on the other team; therefore they supported Robertson.

    For that matter, I’m sure much of the criticism of Robertson came from team loyalty, as well.

    I’m not denying that bigotry was a factor here, too, with some people. But I think team loyalty may have actually been a larger factor in how things played out.

  21. 21
    nobody.really says:

    Topical superhero cartoon of the day. If “the day” is 1952. And the topic is welfare.

  22. 23
    RonF says:

    delurking:

    And I believe Ampersand is right: we’re not going to see a similar rallying around, or any huge outcry about Kuwe’s free speech rights, because the group that made all that ruckus could care less about free speech.

    You seem to have missed a point that I thought I had made that I think is important. In the one case – Robertson – the relationship between his speech and the consequences were admitted to and even trumpeted by the very people who assessed the consequences. The relationship is agreed upon by all sides as fact. Whereas in the case of the punter the relationship between his speech and what he says are the consequences denied. by the people he claims assessed them. They are not facts at this point, they are allegations.

    Also, it’s interesting to see that when Robertson was briefly “suspended” by A&E everyone here (quite rightly) held that his free speech rights were NOT violated, but you consider that Kuwe’s free speech rights were.

  23. 24
    RonF says:

    There’s also the issue that there were entirely plausible reasons for Kuwe to have lost his job due to performance issue unrelated to anything he had to say outside of football. Phil Robertson’s show has higher ratings than ever and are among the top of all cable TV – THE top for “reality” cable TV shows. I suspect that the demographics of the show are such that the comments he made regarding sinfulness and homosexual sexual behavior would not threaten those ratings, something that A&E should know. There would be no plausible performance related reasons for suspending Phil Robertson.

  24. 25
    nobody.really says:

    There would be no plausible performance related reasons for suspending Phil Robertson.

    Sez you. In the clutch, his kicks tend to slice left of the uprights.

    Perhaps the only thing he leans left on.

  25. 26
    closetpuritan says:

    I think this is pretty good:

    “How much I’ve weighed in the past, how much I weigh now, and how much I’m eating—that’s all you clowns should be writing about,” [Christie] yelled. “Anything else is just a distraction.”

  26. 27
    Hector_St_Clare says:

    Re: Also, it’s interesting to see that when Robertson was briefly “suspended” by A&E everyone here (quite rightly) held that his free speech rights were NOT violated, but you consider that Kuwe’s free speech rights were.

    RonF, it’s not quite the same. Gay marriage and one’s opinions on it have literally nothing to do with football.

    The more interesting question is whether Ampersand and company think it’s okay for, say, a Christian college or a Christian radio station to fire someone for advocating gay marriage, having gay sex, using contraception, etc.. That’s a better analogy to the Phil Robertson case.

  27. 28
    KellyK says:

    The more interesting question is whether Ampersand and company think it’s okay for, say, a Christian college or a Christian radio station to fire someone for advocating gay marriage, having gay sex, using contraception, etc.. That’s a better analogy to the Phil Robertson case.

    For what value of “okay”? As in, is it moral? Should it be legal?

    And, actually, only the first would be a better analogy. Sex and contraception are private matters, while an interview with GQ is the exact opposite of private.

  28. 29
    Hector_St_Clare says:

    Re: Sex and contraception are private matters, while an interview with GQ is the exact opposite of private.

    They’re not public matters if you’re spotted buying condoms at Walgreens. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on legality *or* morality.

  29. 30
    Ruchama says:

    As for legality, I’m pretty sure it would be legal. Christian colleges are allowed a whole lot of leeway in terms of the faith of their employees. I’ve been applying for academic jobs, and there have been a bunch of job ads at Christian colleges that required that you sign a statement of Christian faith, or abide by a code of conduct (one of which, IIRC, forbade dancing.)

  30. 31
    KellyK says:

    I assume you mean “not private matters.” So, someone snooping on your shopping cart should have the same level of scrutiny as an interview you give as a part of your job? No, I’m sorry, that’s still personal and no one’s business but yours.

    Legally, it’s legal to fire anybody for anything, so, sure, whatever. Even if you’re in a protected class, religious organizations frequently get a pass on that. Now, if it wasn’t apparent to the person when they took the job that this was a condition of their employment, they shouldn’t be denied unemployment because of it.

    Morally, I think it gets slippery. If you apply for a job at a Christian radio station, and they have you sign a code of conduct or otherwise clearly state that they consider everything you ever do their business, and actually have as their official position that contraception is immoral (because “Christian” does not necessarily mean “against contraception”–that’s primarily a Catholic and, to a lesser extent, Evangelical position), then I don’t think it’s wrong for them to fire you for something you knew was a fireable offense. (Whether those things should be fireable offenses is a separate question.)

    On the other hand, if you’re a secular employee of a Christian organization who hasn’t been asked about their religious beliefs or expected to sign a code of conduct, I would say it’s very definitely immoral to fire you for your personal sexual behavior, unless that behavior becomes public in a way that makes the employer look bad. If “Catholic school employee in orgy” is a headline in your local paper, that’s very different from some busybody behind you in the checkout line telling your boss about your condom purchases.

    If you’re a secular employee who hasn’t been given such a code of conduct, then expecting you to adhere to all of the organization’s beliefs is a bait and switch–it’s dishonest.

    As far as your speech, I think that’s an even grayer area. I would say that if you haven’t made any claim to speak for the organization, or to be publicly associated with the organization when advocating for something they don’t support, it would be wrong to fire you over it. Again, this is assuming that you weren’t informed that toeing the party line was a condition of your job, and it’s immoral primarily because of the dishonesty and the disrespect for employees as people with lives outside of work. But, if that speech happens in a context where you’re associated with the employer, even if it’s just a Facebook post where you have them listed as your employer, then I start to see the employer’s side. I think summarily firing you for something you were never told was a condition of your job is overly harsh.

    But, since this was originally about Phil Robertson, let me point out that if you *are* a public representative of your organization, it’s reasonable for them to fire you for being disrespectful toward customers or potential customers, or bringing them bad publicity, or just plain being a jerk. Phil Robertson is very unlike a Catholic school employee buying condoms. He’s not even terribly similar to a Catholic school employee advocating for same-sex marriage.

    If I were an employee of a Catholic organization, who knew I wasn’t Catholic and had never indicated that the areas where I disagree with their doctrine were a problem for my employment, it would be wrong for them to fire me for attending a rally in support of same-sex marriage, or for speaking in favor of it, as long as I wasn’t associating myself with them when I did so. However, if I take the mic at that rally and I say a bunch of nasty things about the Catholic church and tick a bunch of people off, then yes, they would be justified in firing me.

  31. 32
    nobody.really says:

    it’s legal to fire anybody for anything, so, sure, whatever. Even if you’re in a protected class, religious organizations frequently get a pass on that. Now, if it wasn’t apparent to the person when they took the job that this was a condition of their employment, they shouldn’t be denied unemployment because of it….

    See Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 132 S. Ct. 694 (2012).

    The Americans with Disabilities Act and Michigan law prohibit an employer from discriminating against a qualified individual on the basis of disability. They also prohibit an employer from retaliating against people because they opposed any act or practice made unlawful by these laws, or because they made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under these laws.

    The First Amendment grants people freedom of religion, and free exercise thereof.

    Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church operates a school. It employs teachers “called” from its membership, employing them for an indefinite period. When it cannot find enough people to serve as called teachers, the school hires people from the public, employing them on a year-to-year basis.

    The school hired Cheyl Perich from the public, but she later she joined the church and became a “called” teacher employed for an indefinite term.

    Perich contracted narcolepsy – the propensity to abruptly fall asleep – and thus started the school year on disability leave. In January she provided the school with a doctor’s note saying that she would be able to resume work starting Feb. 22. The school informed her that it no longer had a position for her and asked her to resign. She declined, showed up for work on Feb. 22, and refused to leave until the school provided her with letter acknowledging that she had reported for work that day. When the principal later informed her that she would likely be fired, Perich responded that she intended to assert her legal rights.

    The school voted to rescind her call and terminate her employment due to her “insubordination and disruptive behavior” on Feb. 22, as well as the damage she had done to her “working relationship” with the school by “threatening to take legal action.”

    The federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission sued, and Perich joined the suit. The school moved to dismiss the case, arguing that it had a First Amendment right to control its relationship with “ministers,” and that the church has a belief that Christians should solve their disputes internally rather than in the courts.

    The US Supreme Ct. granted the motion and dismissed the suit. The Court ruled that Perich was a “minister” of the church, and the First Amend. interest in letting religions select their own ministers without fear of sanction trumped the interests promoted by mere civil rights legislation.

  32. 33
    KellyK says:

    nobody.really, I think that’s the exact case I had in mind with my comment about protected classes. (Incidentally, I think it’s pretty disgraceful for a church to hide behind religious freedom to fire someone for being sick.)

  33. 34
    nobody.really says:

    Unrelated topic: SURVEY SEZ — a href=”http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/12/13/0956797613507286.abstract”>Residents of Poor Nations Have a Greater Sense of Meaning in Life Than Residents of Wealthy Nations.

    According to the study’s abstract,

    ”Although life satisfaction was substantially higher in wealthy nations than in poor nations, meaning in life was higher in poor nations than in wealthy nations. In part, meaning in life was higher in poor nations because people in those nations were more religious. The mediating role of religiosity remained significant after we controlled for potential third variables, such as education, fertility rate, and individualism. As [deathcamp survivor Victor] Frankl (1963) stated in Man’s Search for Meaning, it appears that meaning can be attained even under objectively dire living conditions, and religiosity plays an important role in this search.”

    Reporters analyzed religiosity, fertility rates, GDP, suicide rates, and self-reported meaning in life.

    Maybe meaning (or certitude?) is an inferior good – that is, something demanded by poor people because they can’t afford the substitutes that rich people demand.

  34. 35
    Phil says:

    Since this is an open thread, I figured I’d post this here. Did anyone read about the new argument Utah is putting forth in its marriage brief,

    But, drawing on Supreme Court decisions endorsing the value of diversity in deciding who may attend public universities, the state now said it was pursuing “gender diversity” in marriages. “Society has long recognized that diversity in education brings a host of benefits to students,” the brief said. “If that is true in education, why not in parenting?”

    (The source for this is the New York Times.)

    It really feels like they’re grabbing at straws.

    (Personally, I think it should be relevant and admissible to argue that, since this issue was not raised in the previous court battles, it cannot possibly have been the real reason that the state had for their laws. But I have very specific feelings about arguments, honesty, and intentionally making arguments that you don’t personally believe.)

  35. 36
    nobody.really says:

    Here’s a longer excerpt from the Utah brief:

    Although they attempt to address the first proposition — i.e., that children generally do better in various ways when raised by a mother and father, at least one of whom (or preferably both) is a biological parent — Respondents attack a straw man: They mischaracterize this point as an argument that “same-sex parents are inferior to opposite-sex parents.” That is not the point: The State does not contend that the individual parents in same-sex couples are somehow “inferior” as parents to the individual parents who are involved in married, mother-father parenting. The point, rather, is that thecombination of male and female parents is likely to draw from the strengths of both genders in ways that cannot occur with any combination of two men or two women, and that this gendered, mother-father parenting model provides important benefits to children.

    That this would be so is hardly surprising. Society has long recognized that diversity in education brings a host of benefits to students. If that is true in education, why not in parenting? At a minimum, the State and its people could rationally conclude that gender diversity — i.e., complementarity — in parenting is likely to be beneficial to children. And the State and its people could therefore rationally decide to encourage such diversity by limiting the coveted status of “marriage” to man-woman unions.

    Eh — same old, same old.

    1. Does the rationale supporting diversity in education justify withholding state recognition of same-sex marriage? No. The issue in education pertains to identifying criteria for bestowing a scarce benefit (admission to a specific school). There is no scarcity in marriage licenses, except that the state artificially creates one. In short, access to marriage is a fundamental right, access to admission to a given school is not, so the legal standards are completely different.

    2. Does a child benefit from being raised in a household with diverse parents? I imaging there are trade-offs. Greater uniformity may well promote stability; it’s my understanding that mixed-race and mixed-class marriages tend to be less stable than marriages of people of the same race and same social class. But alternatively, a child raised with greater diversity probably comes to have a broader awareness of different people.

    So here’s the real news flash: Utah advances an argument for polygamy!

    3. Is gender a unique form of diversity? Apparently not in Utah; they’re taking an argument about racial diversity and applying it to gender diversity.

    That said, how powerful is the argument for “gender essentialism”? Does every man (for example, Liberace) exhibit some male trait, and every woman (for example, an East German shotputter) exhibit some female trait, that is both crucial to a marriage and cannot be provided by someone of another gender? This is far from clear to me. For any given trait, the bell curve of men may differ from the bell curve of women (e.g., men tend to be taller than women), but the curves overlap substantially (e.g., lots of women are taller than lots of men). Thus, for almost any trait you might name, it seems likely that you could find a man who has more of it than a woman, and vice versa.

    4. Does it make sense to prohibit people from enjoying the benefits, and undertaking the duties, of state-recognized marriage if they will not provide the optimal environment to raise kids?

    For me, this is the most fundamental question. Even if I concede the most heinous accusations about same-sex marriage and child-rearing, the fact remains that kids are being raised by same-sex couples. The worse you think same-sex parenting is for a child, the greater the rationale for providing the child with the compensating benefits of a stable household. Marriage promotes this kind of stability.

    As I say: If you want to think bad things about homosexuals, that’s your business. But why take out your hatred of homosexuals on innocent children?

    5. If the state could demonstrate that the optimal environment in which to raise kids is one provided by the kid’s biological parents, could the state provide benefits to people who provide such an environment, and only to such people?

    Perhaps so. But to avoid accusations that this policy is simply a pretext for discrimination, the state would presumably review the literature on optimal circumstances for human development and exclude all kinds of people from marriage. Such as people with genetic defects. People who smoke or have other risky habits. People who are too young or too old. People who seem prone to divorce – such as people who had previously divorced, or came from different ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds, for example. People who are poor. People who lack education. Etc,. etc. In short, nobody who studies human development would come to the conclusion that the most important variables for the welfare of a child are the sexual orientation or gender diversity of the people raising the child.

    Marriage is a mutual aid pact that creates a desirable environment for procreation and child-rearing. I can make the argument that the state has an interest in regulating mutual aid pacts, procreation, and child-rearing. But for Utah to prevail, it needs to argue that the state has a powerful interest in regulating all of these phenomena in single package – except for the myriad circumstances when the state chooses to regulate each item separately.

    In short, the law is arbitrary on its face. It can’t pass rational basis scrutiny, let alone the heightened scrutiny provided for fundamental rights and suspect categories. So Mazel Tov, Utah. Congratulations – or should I say Best Wishes?

  36. 37
    Elusis says:

    It’s even simpler than that, G&W. Utah is using the much-discredited Regenerus study, thoroughly debunked here and at Family Inequalities and elsewhere, for their claim that kids do better with heterogamous parents. It’s a load of bunk.

  37. 38
    closetpuritan says:

    I found this interesting: Nobody ever says “You only got into MIT because you’re an Asian man”
    It talks about microaggressions, which I think is something that came in one of the sprawling George Zimmerman threads.

    One trite retort is “Well, your friend should’ve been tougher and not given up so easily. If she wanted it badly enough, she should’ve tried again, even knowing that she might face resistance.” These sorts of remarks aggravate me. Writing code for a living isn’t like being a Navy SEAL sharpshooter. Programming is seriously not that demanding, so you shouldn’t need to be a tough-as-nails superhero to enter this profession.

    Even though I was hacking on a hardware simulator in C++, which sounds mildly hard-core, I was actually pretty squishy, chillin’ in my cubicle and often taking extended lunch breaks. All of the guys around me (yes, the programmers were all men, with the exception of one older woman who didn’t hang out with us) were also fairly squishy. These guys made a fine living and were good at what they did; but they weren’t superheroes. The most hardship that one of the guys faced all summer was staying up late playing Doom 3 and then rolling into the office dead-tired the next morning. Anyone with enough practice and motivation could have done our jobs, and most other programming and CS-related jobs as well. Seriously, companies aren’t looking to hire the next Steve Wozniak—they just want to ship code that works.

    It reminds me of the quote by Bella Abzug, “Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.”

    This article seems like a pretty good summary of what is known about Woody Allen’s alleged abuse of his 7-year-old daughter. A FaceBook friend linked this, and then I got into an argument with a friend of that friend, who I think was a self-styled artist-intellectual, talking about how these allegations were “gossip” that “ignorant Americans”/”the voyeuristic and easily titillated masses” loved because they love hearing about the sex lives of celebrities and so they can think of themselves as morally superior. Which might be a good point if we were talking about his marriage to Soon-Yi Previn or Ronan Farrow’s paternity, but I think molestation of 7-year-olds is beyond what most people find “titillating”. It seems to me that in this case, as in most others where a famous or respected person is accused of rape or molestation (Roman Polanski, R. Kelly, Jerry Sandusky, Catholic priests), people would prefer to believe the accusation is false or at least prefer not to think about it.

    This article talks some more about how much people would prefer not to think about it:

    Being too nervous to speak the words, to ask the questions, made sense. I had to be intoxicated in order to bring up the subject in a party environment, and even then I was shut down nine out of ten times with a “him molesting her was never proven” or “I don’t know, I don’t really think about it.” Before leaving the theater, I approached a nondescript white guy in his late 20s holding a coffee. I asked him how he was still able to reconcile Allen’s films in light of his misdeeds. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t really think about it.” No shit.

  38. 39
    Ampersand says:

    I have to admit, I don’t see the Woody Allen conflict – that is, the conflict between acknowledging that it’s quite possible he’s a child molester, and still enjoying his movies. He’s a genuinely terrible human being. He makes good movies. Where’s the conflict?

  39. 40
    Ampersand says:

    It reminds me of the quote by Bella Abzug, “Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor. It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.”

    I love that quote. Thanks for the links, they were good reading.

  40. 41
    closetpuritan says:

    He’s a genuinely terrible human being. He makes good movies. Where’s the conflict?

    My reaction to Ronan’s tweet–“Missed the Woody Allen tribute—did they put the part where a woman publicly confirmed he molested her at age 7 before or after Annie Hall?”–was, “No, seriously, that’s what they should do”. Maybe in the form of a quote by Dylan followed by a quote by Woody that gives the gist of each of their sides of the story.

    Glad you liked the links!

  41. 42
    Marcus the Confused says:

    Just some lazy Sunday afternoon thinking:

    I have a love/hate relationship with Winter, by which I do not mean a period of time on the calendar in one hemisphere or the other but rather that season of cold, ice and snow that some of us in certain climes must contend with.

    Winter is a harsh season. At its best it is annoying, a supplier of copious amounts of inconvenience. At its worst it is deadly, a supplier of tragedy and grief. We puny humans have no choice but to respect its power.

    But we must also admit that Winter is not without its charms. We must admit that Winter possesses its own unique beauties. Today the wind is howling. The trees dance to its tune and the snow cavorts in eddies and streamers.

    It is beautiful.

    Of course, it helps that I am appreciating this beauty from behind a window, inside a heated home and content in the knowledge that I’ve no need to go anywhere today if I do not wish it (I don’t). I am enjoying a lazy afternoon of couch napping and football games (I hope the electricity doesn’t go out, always a possibility on a day like today).

    My best wishes, thoughts and hopes to those who cannot appreciate Winter’s beauty this day because they are too busy trying to survive it. But best wishes also – and a plea – to those who, this day, are comfortable enough to enjoy the privilege of looking out the window with awe. Let us truly enjoy the beauty that is winter but let us also remember that there are many out in the cold this very moment (let us especially remember that the next time we complain about the heating bill).

    So what is your relationship with Winter?

  42. 43
    Ruchama says:

    I just fell off a ladder while trying to put up insulation on one of the windows in my charming Victorian apartment with charming original single-pane windows. So my relationship with winter is not terribly good at the moment. (The ladder wasn’t on level ground, and I was standing above the “don’t stand above this step” step, so this was really just my own stupidity.)

  43. 44
    Marcus the Confused says:

    I just fell off a ladder . . .

    Ouch. I hope you’re okay. Remember, it is not stupidity – it is a temporary cessation of cognition resulting in a learning experience. I’ve had more than a few myself.

  44. 45
    Ruchama says:

    I think I might have sprained my ankle, but I’ll see how it’s doing tomorrow and go to a doctor then if I need to.

  45. 46
    eilish says:

    “Where’s the conflict?” Seriously? Allegations of child abuse don’t give you pause? Is Richard going to say the same? This is disgraceful.

    I was surprised to see the link to “Feminist Critics” and disturbed to see Amp acknowledging Daran’s thanks for the link: what is going on here?
    FC are anti-feminist. They don’t welcome debate. They put me into moderation “until they figure out what to do with me” because I didn’t oblige with anger and illogic when they piled on and attempted to misrepresent my statements.

    If this blog isn’t feminist, Ok: please advertise your non-feminist status accurately.

  46. 47
    Ampersand says:

    Eilish:

    It’s not enough to say “Seriously,” as if the correctness of your views requires no explanation. Why should the quality of art be judged by whether or not the artist is a scumbag?

    If the question is “should Woody Allen do prison time,” then the answer is yes, assuming he is guilty. If the question is “would I allow Woody Allen to babysit one of my nieces,” the answer is Hell no! But if the question is “Was Bullets Over Broadway a good movie?,” then I don’t see what Allen being accused of child molestation has to do with the answer. Can you explain?

    Regarding the link to Daran’s post, as far as I could tell the point of the post – that that stat going around (and I’ve seen it going around) is erroneous – is true. I consider that useful information, and thus linked to it. That I disagree with Daran on 99% of what he says about feminism, to me, doesn’t change the utility of linking to that post. Nor do I believe my severe disagreements with Daran means that I shouldn’t address him politely.

    In both cases, you seem to be saying “X is a bad person, therefore anything X produces should be condemned without regard to its merits.” I don’t think that’s the most useful way to approach politics.

  47. 48
    eilish says:

    I used “seriously” because I was unsure if you were being flippant.
    Mia Farrow’s daughter has said she was abused by Allen. Supporting his art supports the man. Huge conflict.

    I went to Daran’s site because of a link that didn’t make clear FC is anti-feminist. I read the disclaimer on his site and believed it. I engaged in good faith discussion, observed all of the rules for discourse and was put into moderation. A warning that FC is not actually a feminist site would be helpful to anyone following the link.

  48. 49
    Ampersand says:

    Eilish: I can see your point about putting a “head’s up, this is an anti-feminist site” warning on future links to FC, and will consider it. (I foresee an objection from Daran and/or Ballgame to the characterization of their site as “anti-feminist”; although I acknowledge that they disagree, I myself think that’s an accurate description of their blog.)

    Although most of the sites I link to are left-wing and feminist, I routinely read a lot of right-wing and non-feminist sites, and some of those sites do get linked to when I think they say something worthwhile or interesting. That’s just part of how “Alas” works. I hope you keep reading Alas anyway.

    Mia Farrow’s daughter has said she was abused by Allen. Supporting his art supports the man. Huge conflict.

    I can see how calling (some of) Allen’s films great is “supporting” him, both in the sense that Allen likes it when people call his films great, which supports his ego, and because calling his films great encourages people to buy his films, supporting him financially.

    But I’d argue that these are very marginal and inconsequential forms of support. If I cease to call (some of) Allen’s films great films, the loss to Allen (both egowise and financial) will be immeasurably tiny.

    And against that, there’s the matter of intellectual honestly. “Crimes and Misdemeanors” is, imo, a great film. I’d be dishonest if I said it wasn’t a great film. That Woody Allen is a scumbag doesn’t make it not a great film, it makes Woody Allen a scumbag.

    What about if someone who I consider highly, highly moral – bell hooks, for example – makes a film, and the film is awful. Am I obligated to pretend that it’s good because she’s such a good person? I assume you’d say not. But what’s the difference, if we’re supposed to judge art, not by how good the art is, but by how good a person the artist is?

    A surgeon is good at her job or not based on how likely her operations are to save the lives of her patients. A skillfully performed heart transplant still “works” if, the week after the operation, the surgeon is arrested for child molestation. The low moral character of the surgeon is a separate question from whether or not the surgery was performed well. In a similar way, I think Woody Allen’s scumbaggery is a separate question from whether or not his films are good films.

  49. 50
    Daran says:

    Ampersand:

    I foresee an objection from Daran and/or Ballgame to the characterization of their site as “anti-feminist”…

    That, and..

    1. Point of information: the post at issue was ballgame’s, not mine.
    2. I find it pretty damned offensive that you should analogise the creation of a blog critical of feminism with rape.

  50. 51
    Daran says:

    Hello eilish, it’s been a while.

    FC are anti-feminist. They don’t welcome debate. They put me into moderation “until they figure out what to do with me” because I didn’t oblige with anger and illogic when they piled on and attempted to misrepresent my statements.

    and then

    I engaged in good faith discussion, observed all of the rules for discourse and was put into moderation.

    It’s true that you were put into moderation, and I also recall using the words you quote. Beyond that, I entirely disagree with your characterisation of events that took place several years ago, and I see little point in burdening the Alas folk with a rehash of them.

    That said, I doubt you’ll be successful in persuading Ampersand that we “don’t welcome debate”, first because the events you describe precede his “internal statute of limitations”, and second because he has recently participated in a debate on our blog, during which he wasn’t moderated or even threatened with moderation. While neither side was perfect (nor is perfection expected on either side) we have no great complaint about his conduct, nor has he, to my knowledge about ours. He can correct me if I’m wrong about that last point.

  51. 52
    Tristan says:

    “FC are anti-feminist. They don’t welcome debate. They put me into moderation “until they figure out what to do with me” because I didn’t oblige with anger and illogic when they piled on and attempted to misrepresent my statements.”

    ————–

    As a side note, I don’t think they are anti-feminist. I think it’s more of a fairly narrow band of beliefs and people who think their way, with a lot of bending over backwards to people “more feminist” than them, and much less bending over to people “more antifeminist” than them.

  52. 53
    Daran says:

    Moving on…

    Here’s my latest post about a report documenting a massive gendercide against men, and how despite widespread news reportage of the report, the gender element of it has largely been ignored.

    I would be particularly interested in seeing a serious attempt by feminists to address the four questions I pose at the end of the post.

  53. 54
    Ampersand says:

    Daran:

    1. Point of information: the post at issue was ballgame’s, not mine.
    2. I find it pretty damned offensive that you should analogise the creation of a blog critical of feminism with rape.

    1. Sorry for getting the author of the post wrong.

    2. I have no idea what the heck you’re referring to.

  54. 55
    Daran says:

    Me:

    find it pretty damned offensive that you should analogise the creation of a blog critical of feminism with rape.

    Ampersand:

    I have no idea what the heck you’re referring to.

    My apologies, when you were talking about Woody Allen, for some reason I was thinking Roman Polanski. Please substitute “alleged child-molestation” for “rape” in the above.

    In your defence of your decision to link to our blog, you analogised us, first to Woody Allen, an alleged child-molester, and second to a hypothetical surgeon who also molested children. The behaviour on our part which you analogised to child-molestation was the creation of a feminist-critical blog. Do you seriously not see why I should find the comparison offensive?

  55. 56
    Ampersand says:

    Daran, if you want me to address them, could you quote the exact sentences I wrote that you’re taking offense at?

    Regarding a different question you’ve brought up, you’re quite right that I have no desire to see your moderating adjudicated here on “Alas.”

    Also, regarding the “statute of limitations,” I hadn’t realized Eilish was referring to an older exchange; I misread Eilish’s story, and assumed that she was describing something that had just happened. I certainly advocate a “move on” attitude towards old moderating slights. It would seem from your comment about it in this thread that you agree with me about that (since otherwise you wouldn’t raise it in your own defense). Good, I’m glad you’ve come around.

  56. 57
    Ampersand says:

    Just to be clear:

    In your defence of your decision to link to our blog, you analogised us, first to Woody Allen, an alleged child-molester, and second to a hypothetical surgeon who also molested children.

    I do know which passage you’re talking about with the hypothetical surgeon. The analogy in that case was to Woody Allen, not to FC, as I think is clear reading the comment. I’m not sure where you think I offensively analogized your blog to Woody Allen, however, so if you could quote the exact passage you meant that could be helpful.

    Although I may be misreading you, your quote (“In your defence of your decision to link to our blog, you analogised us, first to Woody Allen…”) cold be read to imply that you think I brought up Woody Allen in this threat thread to make an analogy to FC. In fact, the Woody Allen was brought up in this thread before FC was ever mentioned.

    The two topics have been separate-but-parallel discussions in this thread. The only time I’m aware of that the two topics were linked was when I wrote:

    In both cases, you seem to be saying “X is a bad person, therefore anything X produces should be condemned without regard to its merits.” I don’t think that’s the most useful way to approach politics.

    I don’t think that can reasonably be read as me saying, or even implying, that child molestation and writing an anti-feminist blog are morally equal acts.

  57. 58
    Daran says:

    Ampersand:

    Daran, if you want me to address them, could you quote the exact sentences I wrote that you’re taking offense at?

    “If the question is “should Woody Allen do prison time,” then the answer is yes, assuming he is guilty. If the question is “would I allow Woody Allen to babysit one of my nieces,” the answer is Hell no! But if the question is “Was Bullets Over Broadway a good movie?,” then I don’t see what Allen being accused of child molestation has to do with the answer.”

    I do know which passage you’re talking about with the hypothetical surgeon.

    I won’t quote it then.

    The analogy in that case was to Woody Allen, not to FC, as I think is clear reading the comment.

    And the Woody Allen remark was an analogy to FC.

    To make the point that (paraphrasing)

    “Just because Daran has created a blog critical of feminism (which I 99% disagree with) doesn’t mean that the post at issue wasn’t valid and useful”

    You proposed the analogy

    “Just because Woody Allen is allegedly a child-molester doesn’t mean that his films aren’t great.”

    And then

    “Just because a hypothetical surgeon molests a child, doesn’t mean that her surgery is defective”

    The analogous points are

    Daran == Woody Allen == Surgeon
    Feminist Critics Blog == alleged child molestation == child molestation
    The post == his films == her surgery.

    I find that offensive.

    Although I may be misreading you, your quote (“In your defence of your decision to link to our blog, you analogised us, first to Woody Allen…”) cold be read to imply that you think I brought up Woody Allen in this threat thread to make an analogy to FC. In fact, the Woody Allen was brought up in this thread before FC was ever mentioned.

    I’ve no doubt that the earlier discussion about Allen is what made this particular analogy salient in your mind. But you were not continuing that earlier discussion in your reply to eilish. Your reply to eilish was a defense of your decision to link to our blog, and you adduced Allen as an analogy to support your point.

    I don’t think that can reasonably be read as me saying, or even implying, that child molestation and writing an anti-feminist blog are morally equal acts.

    I never read it that way. All I said is that you analogised the creation of a blog critical of feminism with child molestation and that I found this offensive. That you did make this analogy is so clear from the context that I’m perplexed that you appear to be disputing it. That I find it offensive cannot be gainsaid by anyone who isn’t me.

  58. 59
    Daran says:

    It would seem from your comment about it in this thread that you agree with me about [the “statute of limitations”] (since otherwise you wouldn’t raise it in your own defense). Good, I’m glad you’ve come around.

    I raised your “statute of limitations” to support the proposition that eilish would be unlikely to “be successful in persuading Ampersand”. What I think of it has no bearing upon the matter. Consequently you cannot validly make inferences about what I think about it from the fact that I raised it.

    In any case, you are mistaken in your belief that it was out of a sense of continuing butthurt that I raised on my own blog the matter of my past treatment here at the hands of your moderators and guests. In fact it was to document a pervasive problem with the culture here, and one which I see no evidence has changed. The reason all my “exhibits” are historic is that I haven’t participated in a substantive discussion here since before your statute of limitation. The reason I don’t participate is because I expect the same treatment. When I post here, I’m not just subject to the ban hammer. I’m under the ban sword of Damacles, which hangs alongside the moderator-will-hurl-abuse-at-me sword of Damacles and the commenters-will-pile-on sword of Damacles. Any one of these swords might fall at any time, for any reason, or for no reason, and when one does, the others frequently follow.

    I enjoy our substantive debates, Ampersand. I also enjoy watching you debate other intelligent people. I let this matter lapse on my blog precisely because I wanted the discussion which you introduced about internet abuse to develop. But such discussions can only take place on my blog. If I had tried to have that discussion here, conducting myself in the same generally-good-but-imperfect way that you did, then chances are I would have been run out of town by now.

    It’s your blog. You run it as you see fit. But please don’t pretend that when you say “Debates are conducted in a manner that shows respect even for folks we disagree with.” it is anything other than something you say to make yourself feel good.

  59. 60
    Ampersand says:

    Daran:

    I’ve no doubt that the earlier discussion about Allen is what made this particular analogy salient in your mind. But you were not continuing that earlier discussion in your reply to eilish. Your reply to eilish was a defense of your decision to link to our blog, and you adduced Allen as an analogy to support your point.

    Nonsense, Daran. You’ve completely misread my comment, and (by implication) Eilish’s.

    In the relevant comment by Eilish, she wrote:

    “Where’s the conflict?” Seriously? Allegations of child abuse don’t give you pause? Is Richard going to say the same? This is disgraceful.

    I was surprised to see the link to “Feminist Critics” and disturbed to see Amp acknowledging Daran’s thanks for the link: what is going on here?

    When Eilish quotes “where’s the conflict,” she is directly quoting my earlier comment about Woody Allen. There is no way to interpret this as anything but continuing the discussion about Woody Allen.

    And when I replied to her about Woody Allen, I quoted her comment about Woody Allen. (“It’s not enough to say ‘Seriously,’…”) Again, there is no fair reading of this as being anything but continuing the ongoing discussion about Woody Allen.

    When I switched to answering her question about Feminist Critics, I began with “Regarding the link to Daran’s post,” to indicate that I was changing subject.

    That you have taken offense, I don’t deny. I just think your offense is based on a mistaken, uncharitable, and unfair reading of the thread.

    So what do you think – do you see a conflict between suspecting that Woody Allen is a child molester, and admiring his films? (I ask you that without intending any analogy whatsoever.)

  60. 61
    Daran says:

    I’m guessing you missed this comment. Your blog is still broken.

  61. 62
    Ampersand says:

    Daran, I realized that you don’t really agree with me that we should just let bygones be bygones regarding my moderation of you in 2006 or whatever. I was attempting to tweak you in a cutesy/friendly fashion, pretending we agree when it’s obvious we don’t, like I might do with Robert. Sorry it didn’t come across correctly.

    But such discussions can only take place on my blog. If I had tried to have that discussion here, conducting myself in the same generally-good-but-imperfect way that you did, then chances are I would have been run out of town by now.

    Daran, regarding my recent visit to your blog… My intention was to not say anything, but since you bring it up in the context of talking about how dreadful “Alas” is, I’ve changed my mind.

    Point one: PLEASE stop patting yourself on the back for how good your blog is, because it’s not one-tenth as nice as you imagine. Many of your readers are hateful, and although I appreciate that you kept on deleting the many personal attacks your readers made about me, so I didn’t have to reply to them, I still saw them. For me, having a discussion on your blog is to subject myself to persistent mindless abuse. Don’t fool yourself about the kind of environment you’ve created; your comments are, to a significant but not total degree, a toxic feminist-hate site.

    That you delete so many attacks, rather than crossing them out, is dishonest in effect (not intent). You’re creating an illusion that “Feminist Critics” is an environment that welcomes debate from folks like me, when it’s actually an environment in which the readers you’ve attracted attack me, including snark about my weight. Lots of readers, me included, read the attacks. But then you delete the attacks, creating a faux-civil-thread that is very different from the thread I experienced.

    IIRC, I haven’t had to delete or moderate a single comment on this thread. Unlike on FC, the thread you read here is an honest representation of the discussion we’ve actually had.

    I’m sure you genuinely believe you’ve been abused in this thread – your utterly bizzaro claims about being analogized to Woody Allen shows what a low threshold for taking offense you have – but you haven’t been. And that your threshold is so low makes me feel that there is nothing I can do to prevent you taking offense.

    The “culture” here – meaning my moderation – is not going to change because of your complaints, because I find your complaints completely unfair and unreasonable (again, see the Woody Allen example in this thread). If you don’t want to comment here, fine. If you do want to comment here, that’s fine too. But don’t expect things to change, because I don’t accept you as a legitimate or fair judge of my moderation, and nothing you say about my moderation carries any credibility with me whatsoever.

    (Also, in the end, I felt trying to talk about misogyny on your blog was pointless, since everyone there is such a complete misogynist that they can’t even see misogyny. It’s like talking to fish about water.)

    * * *

    Oh, and I did see your comment in the other thread. Thanks for your report (genuinely). We’re still working on fixing the bugs that plague “Alas”; hopefully when we get the new server up, that will fix the problem. I’ll post an announcement when the new server is running, and if the redirect loop is still happening at that point, I’d be grateful if you let me know.

  62. 63
    Tristan says:

    I’m not a big fan of Daran’s board myself, to say the least, but Ampersand’s statement about its readers being hateful is kind of bizarre to me.

    I suspect that Ampersand got flak from some people because of the very reason that they thought they might get through. I’ve seen insulting posts here against Ampersand that are quickly deleted. They’ve pretty much given up trying to get through here, but if Ampersand only struck them through and didn’t delete the posts against him, word would get out and he would quickly be deluged with such posts.

    Ampersand may underestimate the amount of hatred out there for him. It’s less than the hatred against Hugo Schwyzer, but still very tangible.

  63. 64
    Daran says:

    Briefly, because I don’t have time just now to compose a full response…

    I concede that I did misread eilish’s and Ampersand’s exchange, and that he did not make the analogy I attributed to him. I’m truly sorry for that.

    As best I can tell the attacks upon Ampersand that took place on my blog were the work of a single individual using multiple sockpuppets.

  64. 65
    Ampersand says:

    Tristan, fair point. Sometimes it IS better to delete rather than strike through, and I think Daran made the right decision. More to the point, there is no perfectly ‘right’ decision; all decisions that can be made can carry unintended consequences. The way i handle that is to try and take my moderation duties as lightly as I can, since otherwise they’d stress me out completely.

    And I am aware that some folks hate me (although surely nowhere near as many as hate Hugo!). I honestly find that bewildering. It’s one reason I enjoy comics; even when people think my comics suck, they don’t hate me for it. (Although that would be different if I worked in superhero comics, come to think of it.)

    Although I do sometimes delete insulting comments here, I’m not sure I’ve ever had an experience as bizarre as the one on Feminist Critics, where I felt the character of the discussion I experienced ended up being significantly different from the character of the discussion that remained visible on the thread.

    * * *

    Daran, apology accepted, and no big deal. Please don’t give it another thought.

    Also, I hope it didn’t sound like I was saying it’s your fault that someone or someones attacked me in FC comments. Obviously, that’s not your fault; the people who make the comments are the people responsible for the comments. It’s pretty much a thing that can happen to me anytime I go to a board that either anti-feminists or radical feminists frequent (ironic combo, that), and I’m pretty used to it by now.

  65. 66
    Daran says:

    So what do you think – do you see a conflict between suspecting that Woody Allen is a child molester, and admiring his films?

    Potentially yes. I’m not sufficiently familiar with his oeuvre say whether that should be an actual yes. (I do prefer his earlier funny movies.)

    I feel more qualified to comment on a different example: is there a conflict between admiring Wagner’s Ring Cycle, and recognising not only his documented antisemitic views, but also the antisemitic tropes he used in his depiction of the Nieblungen in those operas.

    Yes, I think there is a conflict. That doesn’t mean I think one can’t or shouldn’t admire his works. I personally very much do admire them. But the conflict exists.

  66. 67
    Daran says:

    Ampersand, it’s not clear to me how much, if any, of the following you intended to withdraw in your response to Tristan

    Point one: PLEASE stop patting yourself on the back for how good your blog is, because it’s not one-tenth as nice as you imagine. Many of your readers are hateful,…

    I don’t agree that many of our readers (presumably you mean commenters) are hateful. Here is a complete list of every person who commented in that thread, including “Huh”, but excluding those I know or suspect to be his sockpuppets

    Tamen, ballgame, Ampersand, Daran, Druk, Danny, Stamp, Huh + sockpuppets, elementary_watson, Patrick, John Markley, TokenGreyGuy, Average Man, SensitiveThug, Karmakin, desipis, EnterNameHere, Ginkgo, Clarence, Pellaeon, Adiabat, Jose, gwallan, Schala, stonerwithaboner.

    There are twenty-five names there. Who among them do you consider to be “hateful” and why?

    There are also eight identities (including some who have been moderated out of existence altogether) that I know or suspect to be sockpuppets of “Huh”, not counting “Huh” himself. I won’t name them, just in case some of them aren’t, but you can tell whom I suspect because they’re not on the list about.

    and although I appreciate that you kept on deleting the many personal attacks your readers made about me, so I didn’t have to reply to them, I still saw them. For me, having a discussion on your blog is to subject myself to persistent mindless abuse. Don’t fool yourself about the kind of environment you’ve created; your comments are, to a significant but not total degree, a toxic feminist-hate site.

    I don’t agree that this is anything we’ve “created”. It’s something we’ve tried very hard to suppress. Could we do more? Of course we could. We could activate the “new commenters get moderated until they have one comment approved” option. Perhaps we should; the burden upon genuine new guests is small, while it would force sockpuppeteers to make one good comment per sockpuppet before they can unleash their abuse. Or we could put the entire blog upon moderation.

    However I don’t think you can reasonably fault us for not taking measures that you don’t either.

    I don’t think what happened to you on my blog, unpleasant though I appreciate it was for you, is remotely comparable to the blog mugging I got for posting one single comment responding to an unprovoked attack upon a commenter who wasn’t even present in the thread, which mugging this hateful comment associating me with “blackface comments and porn comments”. Nor was it comparible to this hateful comment suggesting one unlovely epithet, and inviting other guests to think of other rude names to call me. And I have many other similar examples.

    The perpetrators of these attacks weren’t a moderation-evading sockpuppeteering troll. They were three core members of your commentariat in the first instance, and a moderator in the second. Unlike the attack you suffered on my blog, which you concede wasn’t our fault, this was your fault. Our core commentariat didn’t attack you because ballgame and I will not tolerate it. Your core commentariat attacked me because your moderators did tolerate it, and sometimes instigated it. Your moderators behaved the way they did because the blog owner permitted them to.

    And while you’re correct that all this happened in the distant past, beyond your “statute of limitations”, nothing has changed here to ensure that it won’t happen again. Nothing in the previous paragraph would be any less true if I changed the past tenses to present. Changing a culture is difficult. It’s much harder than it is to ensure that the right culture develops in the first place. Cultural change begins when those at the top take responsibility, the very thing I see you not doing when you dismiss my complaints as being beyond your “statute of limitations”.

    That you delete so many attacks, rather than crossing them out, is dishonest in effect (not intent). You’re creating an illusion that “Feminist Critics” is an environment that welcomes debate from folks like me, when it’s actually an environment in which the readers you’ve attracted attack me, including snark about my weight. Lots of readers, me included, read the attacks. But then you delete the attacks, creating a faux-civil-thread that is very different from the thread I experienced.

    I don’t agree that we have attracted this. It’s you who has attracted this. As you’ve acknowledged, you get attacked everywhere you go. You get attacked here, on your own blog. The common element isn’t us. It’s you.

    IIRC, I haven’t had to delete or moderate a single comment on this thread. Unlike on FC, the thread you read here is an honest representation of the discussion we’ve actually had.

    I don’t think it is fair for you to pick out a single thread on your own blog which hasn’t been abused and compare it with a single thread on ours which has. There are plenty of threads on FC with no deleted comments, and plenty here where you have deleted comments.

    I’m sure you genuinely believe you’ve been abused in this thread – your utterly bizzaro claims about being analogized to Woody Allen shows what a low threshold for taking offense you have – but you haven’t been. And that your threshold is so low makes me feel that there is nothing I can do to prevent you taking offense.

    I feel the same about you. The difference is, if you offend me, the worst that will happen to you is that I say “you offended me”. If I offend you, I face the ban-hammer.

    The “culture” here – meaning my moderation – is not going to change because of your complaints, because I find your complaints completely unfair and unreasonable (again, see the Woody Allen example in this thread). If you don’t want to comment here, fine. If you do want to comment here, that’s fine too. But don’t expect things to change, because I don’t accept you as a legitimate or fair judge of my moderation, and nothing you say about my moderation carries any credibility with me whatsoever.

    That’s entirely up to you. Contrary to your repeated assertions otherwise, I really do not feel entitled to the platform of your blog. I view my rights here to be exactly the same as your rights on my blog, that is to say, none whatsoever. I am within my rights to say on my own blog “your moderation sucks and here’s why…”. I am within my privileges to say the same on your blog, but only as long as those privileges are granted. Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop. Tell me to go, and I’ll go.

    (Also, in the end, I felt trying to talk about misogyny on your blog was pointless, since everyone there is such a complete misogynist that they can’t even see misogyny. It’s like talking to fish about water.)

    Substitute “misandry” for “misogyny” and that’s exactly how I feel about you and this place.

  67. 68
    Ampersand says:

    Daran, thanks for your offer to cease posting here about “Amp’s moderation sucks and here’s why.”

    Please consider your offer accepted.

  68. 69
    Daran says:

    I agree. We’re done.

    You still have a redirect loop. Blog looks nice.

  69. 70
    williamdouglas says:

    Under what circumstance(s) are you seeing a redirect loop?

    Thanks

  70. 71
    Ampersand says:

    Earlier, Daran had said that he was getting a redirect loop on the main page (www.amptoons.com/blog), but not on the pages for the individual posts.

  71. 72
    Ampersand says:

    Daran, a question: are you using https://www.amptoons.com/blog or just amptoons.com/blog, and do you get a redirect look both ways?

  72. 73
    Daran says:

    Actually it might have been just locally cached pages. I’m now seeing https://www.amptoons.com/blog/ redirect to amptoon.com/blog/ but the latter displays fine.

  73. 74
    Ampersand says:

    That’s good. Thanks, Daran.

  74. Regarding the whole Woody Allen discussion above, I found this article by Robert Weide instructive. I’m not saying it persuades of anything one way or another, just that I think his point of view is worth having out there.

  75. 76
    Ampersand says:

    Richard, there are so many tropes in that Robert Weide article that bugged me – not in the facts recounted, but in Weide’s attitude. (I realize that by linking to the article you’re not endorsing everything in it; in this comment I’m criticizing the article, not you). For instance:

    I also understand the simmering anger of Ronan Farrow (née Satchel), who has famously said of Allen, “He’s my father married to my sister. That makes me his son and his brother-in-law. That is such a moral transgression.” However, this particular dilemma might be resolved by Mia’s recent revelations that Ronan’s biological father may “possibly” be Frank Sinatra, whom Farrow married in 1966, when she was 21 and the crooner was 50.

    Ronan was raised as Allen’s acknowledged son. That he might be biologically someone else’s son doesn’t magically erase the father-son relationship or in any way resolve (or retroactively de-justify) Ronan’s anger at Allen, and to suggest it might is nonsense. So too is the snide suggestion, made by Weide later in the article, that Farrow might owe Allen years of back child support.

    And what’s with harping on Sinatra and Farrow’s age difference? The obvious point is to make a parallel to the age difference between Allen and Soon-Yi Previn. But since Sinatra was not (afaik) a part of Farrow’s family before marrying her, the parallel ignores rather than addresses the most problematic aspects of Allen and Soon-Yi’s beginning a relationship.

    Another example:

    As to why the team felt the charges didn’t hold water, Leventhal states: “We had two hypotheses: one, that these were statements made by an emotionally disturbed child and then became fixed in her mind. And the other hypothesis was that she was coached or influenced by her mother. We did not come to a firm conclusion. We think that it was probably a combination.”

    If Weide has framed that quote accurately – and I hope he did not – then the team didn’t feel the charges of child molestation held water because they only considered two hypothesis, both of which excluded the possibility that Dylan was telling the truth. That’s horrible, if true, but hardly a defense of Allen. What’s more likely is that they felt (fairly or unfairly) that evidence indicated that Dylan was lying – but contrary to Weide’s framing, the quote in no way at all explains “why the team felt the charges didn’t hold water.”

    I agree with Weide’s main thesis, which is that we just don’t know if the accusation of child molestation is true; it may or may not be. But the author’s attitude left a bad taste in my mouth.

  76. 77
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    I am finding Obama more and more disturbing. The recent State of the Union sounded… almost dictatorial in nature.

    It’s a particular brand of zealotry: you become SO SURE that you’re doing the “right” thing, that you rapidly start to dismiss normal process and protections, because the only thing that matters is the goal.

    No, I don’t agree with all of his goals. But that, I could forgive. What I can’t forgive is that he (blindly and with a shocking lack of respect) is setting up the stage for future abuse of the position, by people who I personally detest. And what I can’t understand is that the Dems (blindly and with a shocking lack of forethought) are going along with it.

    Grrr.

  77. 78
    ballgame says:

    OK, I’m just now seeing this discussion (well, actually, saw it yesterday, but felt it unwise to drop in with my initial reaction) and wanted to respond.

    I enjoyed our chat from some time back, Amp, and was pleasantly surprised at the link in the OP. I appreciated your stopping by at FC and participating in the discussions there for a bit. You hadn’t used the ‘anti-feminist’ slur in quite some time (leading me to think you had perhaps retired that particular insult), and it seemed like there was a measure of rapprochement developing between our somewhat estranged blogs. Without re-raising a … certain issue … I’ll just say that I respected your sidestepping that issue at FC when you were there and I did my best to steer the conversation away from ‘Amp-bashing’ and towards discussions of substance.

    But I have to say that I think your characterization of FC above as ‘misogynistic’ is, frankly, outrageous (I’m being diplomatic here). I’m saddened to see you trot out this tiresome gynocentric trope. While there are probably a couple of commenters at FC that could accurately be labeled as ‘anti-feminist’ (which is quite a different thing from ‘anti-female’ in the real world), our posts and discussions are overwhelmingly gender egalitarian in nature, and we work hard to make sure our blog is free of bigotry of any kind. On the whole, I think our commenters are smart, insightful, and fair-minded, and we’ve been privileged to host some really great discussions at times. (Of course, like any semi-popular blog, we get some trolls now and then, and we deal with them.)

    You’ll have to be a bit more specific about which post, exactly, you construe as ‘misogynistic’. Is it the one where I criticize the practice of circumcision? The one where Daran details how male gendercide is all but ignored by the media? The one where I critique the arrant nonsense of condemning the taking of pictures of people in museums? The one where I respond to a commenter complaining that we ‘bend over backwards’ for feminists? The one where I scathingly eviscerate another commenter’s transphobia? (I’m going back 10 months here; my posting pace is pretty glacial!) Or are you saying that we’re misogynists even if we don’t actually say anything misogynistic, because … reasons?

    Please, do enlighten me, Amp. Otherwise I’ll consider your silence a tacit admission that you were just engaging in a bit of reflexive, face-saving mudslinging, and I hope I can look forward to more constructive and substantive interactions in the future instead.

  78. 79
    Myca says:

    It’s a particular brand of zealotry: you become SO SURE that you’re doing the “right” thing, that you rapidly start to dismiss normal process and protections, because the only thing that matters is the goal.

    What, specifically, are you referring to?

    —Myca

  79. 80
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Obama is moving towards doing more things by executive order. That’s a dangerous change for ANY president–and by and large I support Democratic presidents. Because generally speaking executive fiat is a bad, dangerous, idea.

    So when he says things like

    So wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that’s what I’m going to do.

    that is a bad thing.

  80. 81
    Myca says:

    Because generally speaking executive fiat is a bad, dangerous, idea.

    Sure. I agree. But that’s why I asked specifically what you’re talking about, rather than generally.

    Generally, I’d agree with you. Specifically, despite the dramatic, “I’M GONNA DO IT WITHOUT CONGRESS JUST SEE IF I DON’T” talk, there just not much to see here.

    Kevin Drum has more.

    From the link:

    As illustration, here is Brad Plumer’s exhaustive list of seven things Obama said he’d do on his own:

    1. Boost the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $10.10 per hour
    2. Create a basic new type of retirement savings account.
    3. Urge chief executives to end the discrimination against the long-term unemployed.
    4. Ratchet up fuel efficiency standards for trucks.
    5. Review federal job-training programs.
    6. Create four new manufacturing hubs.
    7. Set limits on carbon pollution from existing power plants.

    This list is a huge stretch. Of these things, 3 and 5 aren’t even executive orders to begin with. That leaves five items. Of those, 4, 6, and 7 are just continuations of existing programs.

    So that leaves 1 and 2. Basically, in the entire speech, Obama announced that he would do two new things: raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers and create a new kind of savings bond. To call these small bore is to insult .22 caliber rifles. Micro bore is more like it, and every president has at least a few items like this in the SOTU every year.

    …and sure, hey, maybe you object to those two things. Sure.

    Whether you object or not, your dramatic freak-out rhetoric is hardly justified.

    —Myca

  81. 82
    Ampersand says:

    Hi, Ballgame.

    I enjoyed our chat from some time back, Amp, and was pleasantly surprised at the link in the OP. I appreciated your stopping by at FC and participating in the discussions there for a bit. You hadn’t used the ‘anti-feminist’ slur in quite some time (leading me to think you had perhaps retired that particular insult), and it seemed like there was a measure of rapprochement developing between our somewhat estranged blogs.

    Rapprochement: “an establishment or resumption of harmonious relations.” I have no problem with that. I continue to think well of you, and to think your blog is worthwhile. I also enjoyed our chat (and I’m sorry you stopped responding to my emails about it, but I’m sure you have your reasons), and assume I’ll continue to link to FC now and again. That I disagree with your political views on feminism doesn’t mean I’m unfriendly towards you. (ETA: Honestly, I like you. But that doesn’t mean I like or agree with all your political views.)

    But I also think (and here I’m quoting myself, from years ago, in a comment that you didn’t respond to) that you and Daran are anti-feminists. I don’t think Daran is an MRA, and I’m not sure if you are or not. (If you were an MRA, I think that would vastly improve MRAism, and I don’t consider you a misogynist). I don’t intend either of these terms as insults, nor do I think they make you “evil.”

    I appreciate that you and Daran prefer not to be called anti-feminists or MRAs, and have made a sincere and conscious effort to avoid calling you by those terms, except when it’s not reasonably avoidable. I’m sure I slip up now and then, but whatever. I’ve tried. I am now officially done trying.

    That said, I do think that anti-feminism refers to a real spectrum of views which should be named and criticized. As an anti-feminist, I can see why you’d prefer that your views not be named and criticized for what they are, but it’s not my obligation to assist you in that desire. The term is no more an insult than “Republican” or “conservative” is an insult. It just describes a particular constellation of political views; in your case, it describes someone who strongly dislikes mainstream feminism, devotes most of his (or her) energy regarding feminism to attacking and opposing mainstream feminism, and whose political position towards virtually all forms of feminism can be accurately summed up as “opposition.”

    You really remind me of anti-gay activists who insist that the word “homophobia” should never be used because it’s an “insult,” or conservatives who think it’s unfair to use the word “racist” in debate, because the word poisons the well. By trying to make the word unacceptable in conversation, they are attempting to foreclose reasonable consideration of whether or not their views are, in fact, homophobic or racist. Similarly, you’re trying to foreclose discussion of whether or not your views amount to anti-feminism. I don’t think that’s reasonable of you, and not discussing anti-feminism so that anti-feminists can feel more comfortable or avoid criticism of their views, isn’t what I want to do.

    You’ll have to be a bit more specific about which post, exactly, you construe as ‘misogynistic’.

    I’m only going to go into this because you ask; my preference would have been to let it drop.

    I was specifically characterizing the discussion of online harassment I had on this thread on your blog. It was an open thread, and the discussion began when I posted these three links:

    The Next Civil Rights Issue: Why Women Aren’t Welcome on the Internet

    Let’s Be Real: Online Harassment Isn’t ‘Virtual’ For Women

    When Misogynist Trolls Make Journalism Miserable for Women

    The kind of abuse being talked about in those posts are a torrent of mostly anonymous abusive communications, including explicit threats, that are received disproportionately by women online. A prototypical example of the kind of threat I was discussing – as I made clear in the discussion multiple times – is this one, received by a female journalist: “Happy to say we live in the same state. Im looking you up, and when I find you, im going to rape you and remove your head.”

    The response of commentators on your site was overwhelmingly a combination of minimization of the harm done, speculation that maybe men had it just as bad/worse, excuses for why such threats are understandable, skepticism that such threats actually happen, rationalizations for why nothing can or should be done to try and prevent or punish such threats against women, and suggestions that women/feminists should stop saying things that might make men angry.

    Most of those arguments, as single, stand-alone arguments, are indefensible. But over the course of days and days, the combination of all those arguments – and virtually no arguments from the other side (other than my own) – left me despairing. I felt that nothing premised on the idea that death and rape threats against women are a serious problem that should be addressed, would ever be taken genuinely seriously by anyone in that discussion. Instead, it would be all denial, excuses, victim-blaming, and the like. “Plausible deniability” was maintained; no one said “who cares if bitches get rape threats?” or anything so crass and obvious. But the discussion was shot through and through with the underlying assumption that rape and death threats against women aren’t a real problem meriting real concern. It gave me a (admittedly subjective) impression of a forum so overwhelmed by pervasive misogyny that no one within the forum would even be able to see it, any more than I can see the air that surrounds me.

    It’s a little like visiting a “comics” discussion forum and seeing post after post discussing the X-Men, Batman, Wonder Woman, Wolverine, Superman, etc etc. No single post by itself shows that the folks on the forum are unwilling to recognize that comics other than mainstream superhero comics exist and matter to the art form. But the discussion as a whole does give that impression, I think correctly.

    {Edited to change “indefensible” to “defensible.” Oy.]

  82. 83
    Tristan says:

    I think both sides are peeved because (supposedly) not enough attention is given to the objectives they think are worthy.

    Ampersand thinks that women are excessively targeted for on-line threats and attention should be given to this. Daran and Ballgame’s board, on the whole, is saying what about the Menz and maybe minimizing the targeting of women, so Ampersand thinks that is misogynistic taken as a whole.

    A side note is that something I have seen in life is that people opposing you will use any characteristic to attack you – the more immature the attacker, the less the argument is based on the issue. So if a person is black, immature attacks are going to focus on that. Same with gay or Asian or too fat or too thin or too short or whatever. Immature attacks against feminists are going to include rape. Attacks against men are going to call them cowards. That’s how the world works.

    This is a core issue that I would love to understand: Why does Ampersand only want to focus on women’s problems to the exclusion of men? Men obviously get plenty of on-line attacks, also death threats and other serious attacks, they just don’t seem to put it out front and center like some feminists do. And for the reasons described in the previous paragraph, I don’t really buy the argument that on-line attacks on women are way worse because they include the word “rape”. One guy I know quit blogging after he got a stream of e-mails saying – with his current address – that he was going to be abducted and chained to a radiator in a basement and tortured. Yeah anecdotal, but Ampersand has likely heard of the blogger (he’s not around anymore), and I would be happy to name him in a PM or e-mail, but not publicly.

    I guess my ultimate question is: If on-line threats are going to both sexes in far-too-high numbers (huh – any numbers are too high), why does Ampersand only want to focus on women and call attempts to point out the equality of threats “misogynistic”? I want to see what reality is – and am open to counter-arguments – but I just can’t understand why someone behaves like that. That is not meant to be an insult or offensive, I would really like to understand this.

    I also think that Ampersand is sincere in his beliefs and not a phony like Hugo Schwyzer (who I also couldn’t understand until his “breakdown” – then it all made sense).

  83. 84
    Ampersand says:

    This is a core issue that I would love to understand: Why does Ampersand only want to focus on women’s problems to the exclusion of men?

    I don’t.

    As I said in the thread at Feminist Critics, I don’t think the sex of the victims should change our response at all. If it turns out that, in fact, the majority of those being driven offline by threats are men, that wouldn’t change that it’s a serious problem and we should be figuring out how to address it.

    It’s certainly true men sometimes receive nasty emails and even threats – something I know firsthand (it’s weird how many of my critics act like I don’t know about being male). But anecdotally, it seems to be the case that in general, this happens more to women than men (see the post by Conor F. at the Atlantic I linked to, for example).

    I guess my ultimate question is: If on-line threats are going to both sexes in far-too-high numbers (huh – any numbers are too high), why does Ampersand only want to focus on women and call attempts to point out the equality of threats “misogynistic”?

    Your question is unfair and ridiculous. Please read my previous comment more carefully:

    Most of those arguments, as single, stand-alone arguments, are defensible. But over the course of days and days, the combination of all those arguments – and virtually no arguments from the other side (other than my own) – left me despairing.

    Obviously, I wasn’t saying “attempts to point out the equality of threats” are misogynistic. There is no honest reading of what I wrote that supports that interpretation. I was saying that the combination of many factors made me feel the environment was awash in misogyny, even though “as single stand-alone arguments” they are defensible.

    That is not meant to be an insult or offensive, I would really like to understand this.

    The way you read my comment was at best ridiculously careless, and at worst completely dishonest. If you actually have a good-faith desire to understand what I’m saying, try reading what I actually wrote.

  84. 85
    Tamen says:

    Would bringing up the fact that imprisoned women – although a minority of prisoners – also suffers sexual abuse in prison and they are at a higher risk of sexual abuse while incarcerated than men be an example of minimizing sexual abuse against imprisoned men?

    Would pointing out that a problem is in fact bigger than first stated make it smaller?

    I wouldn’t think so and I really have a hard time understanding why the opposite is considered true by so many.

    I once had a feminist tell me that although she personally believed a woman forcing a man to have intercourse with her without his consent is in fact rape she would be against CDC categorizing it as rape in their statistics because she didn’t think it would benefit male victims and that it would be a disadvantage for female rape victims.
    Getting told that society acknowledging my existence and that of others like me would somehow taint and diminish female victims is hurtful even though I know it not to be true.

    My hope is for a decrease in the number of feminists who view issues in such a zero-sum fashion.

  85. 86
    Ampersand says:

    Would bringing up the fact that imprisoned women – although a minority of prisoners – also suffers sexual abuse in prison and they are at a higher risk of sexual abuse while incarcerated than men be an example of minimizing sexual abuse against imprisoned men?

    Impossible to answer. In and of itself, it is not an example of that. But in the right (wrong) context, it could be. Context matters.

    I once had a feminist tell me that although she personally believed a woman forcing a man to have intercourse with her without his consent is in fact rape she would be against CDC categorizing it as rape in their statistics because she didn’t think it would benefit male victims and that it would be a disadvantage for female rape victims.

    I don’t see how naming what has happened to male victims of rape would fail to benefit them in the long run. Naming something is an important step in being able to organize against it, imo.

    Getting told that society acknowledging my existence and that of others like me would somehow taint and diminish female victims is hurtful even though I know it not to be true.

    That is hurtful. It sucks, frankly. I’m sorry it happened to you.

  86. 87
    Tamen says:

    Ampersand:
    You wrote this earlier in comment #63 (my emphasis):

    (Also, in the end, I felt trying to talk about misogyny on your blog was pointless, since everyone there is such a complete misogynist that they can’t even see misogyny. It’s like talking to fish about water.)

    Can I interpret your later comments as an acknowledgement that this statement was using too wide a brush?

  87. 88
    Tamen says:

    That is hurtful. It sucks, frankly. I’m sorry it happened to you.

    Thank you.

  88. 89
    nobody.really says:

    Lest we’ve given insufficient attention to men’s problems, here’s a blast from the past (blog posts): Denmark and Sweden are exploring banning infant circumcisions.

  89. 90
    Ampersand says:

    Can I interpret your later comments as an acknowledgement that this statement was using too wide a brush?

    Yes, you may, and thanks.

  90. 91
    ballgame says:

    No, Tamen & Amp, I don’t think it was ‘too wide of a brush’ at all! I mean, in re-reading that thread, I’m just sickened by some of the things that were said there in response to Amp’s trial balloon idea of reducing harassment by imprisoning or doxxing of people who have made rape or murder threats on the Internet.

    I can’t believe I let this comment from Average Man through, where he talks about a study he found:

    A 2006 University of Maryland study on chat rooms found that female participants received 25 times as many sexually explicit and malicious messages as males. A 2005 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that the proportion of Internet users who took part in chats and discussion groups plunged from 28 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2005, entirely because of the exodus of women. The study attributed the trend to “sensitivity to worrisome behavior in chat rooms.”

    What a misogynist!

    Patrick chipped in with this:

    I’m not unsympathetic to victims of Internet harassment. It can cause severe emotional distress, it’s a silencing tool and it’s many times worse if have self-esteem issues to begin with. However, it doesn’t justify giving the government the power to identify, condemn and permanently register people for saying mean things on the Internet.

    Clearly Patrick hates women!

    Druk must hate women too, because he had a similar uneasiness about Amp’s proposed response:

    I don’t think jail sentences are inappropriate for specifically-targeted threats, but I don’t trust the enforcement to be reasonable enough for that to be a good solution.

    … as did SensitiveThug, who is also clearly a misogynist:

    Online abuse is obviously a serious problem and it’s important to help and protect people. On the other hand, I do think sometimes (not always) it can be exaggerated: it’d be useful to know how most people react after such messages, to see how best to respond. I don’t like that any measures we’d implement would most likely cover violent threats but not necessarily doxxing and other forms of equally hurtful abuse. Whereas it seems likely to me that all sorts of speech would be curtailed: eg consensual “abusive” banter between close friends; or a girl telling her boyfriend that she’ll “kill him” if he cheats, which could be seriously abusive or just a figure of speech.

    Tamen, you yourself should be ashamed of the comment you made where you point out that a Swedish study found women are more likely to be targeted for Internet harassment. Why do you hate women, Tamen?

    But, I can hardly condemn you here, Tamen, when there was “anti-feminist” me writing this sick comment about a prominent feminist leader:

    BTW, I’ve just finished reading the Jill Filipovic article that Amp linked to above. It’s a good article and worth reading. I may not entirely agree with the underlying implication of her post (that online harassment is only a problem for women, as opposed to it being a worse problem for women), but her description of the personal price she paid for her online activism is moving.

    Honestly, I don’t know how I live with myself after writing such vile anti-feminist drivel!

    Sarcasm aside, Amp, the problem with the original assertion that “everyone” at FC was somehow “such a complete misogynist that they can’t even see misogyny” is not that it was painting with “too wide a brush” … it’s that the claim is ludicrous. You can’t even cite specifics from your own evidence (the particular FC thread that you selected). Instead, the best you can come up with is the fact that people had reservations about your proposed solutions to Internet harassment/threats … solutions that even you weren’t embracing, as you repeatedly pointed out that you were just introducing a ‘thought balloon’ for people to discuss.

    The overwhelming gist of that discussion was:

    1. Online harassment is a real problem, though it wasn’t clear how big a problem it really was;
    2. It’s worse for women (by some unknown margin); and
    3. People were extremely uneasy about jail time and public doxxing as a solution.

    Now, why o why would commenters be uneasy about government involvement here? I mean, surely it can’t have anything to do with Ed Snowden revealing that the US (and British) governments have used the flimsiest of legal pretexts to construct a massive surveillance apparatus to spy on their own people via their telephones and computers. And it couldn’t be that the actual dividing line between invective (which is unpleasant but absolutely deserving of free speech protections) and actual threats is potentially so nebulous that even you refused to draw a universal line between what should and should not be prosecutable. No, no, that can’t be it … it must be because commenters at FC hate women!

    Yeah, that must be what’s going on!

    Honestly, Amp, if THAT’s what you think is a demonstration of the way that FC does misogyny, all I can say is, we’re really bad at it! I mean, we must be the fucking Keystone Kops of misogyny, and I can’t imagine any self-respecting woman-hater letting us stay in their club for very long!

    [This is a duplicate posting of a comment that apparently got Hoovered into the spam filter because of too many links. (I had a link to each comment I cited, which was probably unnecessary.) If somehow the original gets approved, please remove this one.]

  91. 92
    Tristan says:

    Ballgame,

    yes, your post was kind of sarcastic, but I agree. I didn’t even understand Ampersand’s accusations of misogyny, much less to the degree he was asserting.

    All I can think is that if you are constantly in a certain environment, the “real world” appears different to you when you get out of your closed environment. A woman who majors in women’s studies and is marinating in that stuff all day is going to see misogyny everywhere she looks when she takes a break and goes down to 7-11 for a coffee. A guy in a monastery is going to see sinners all around when he goes to town.

  92. 93
    Daran says:

    Probably one link would be appropriate – the link to the comment by Ampersand where he launched this particular discussion.

  93. 94
    Ampersand says:

    Daran – I agree that link is appropriate, which is why I included it in comment #82. :-)

  94. 95
    Tristan says:

    This is a bit of a side note, but maybe it could be made a main post one day:

    I have noticed a strong trend that MRA sites do not censor, and want to engage in real debate, but feminist sites strongly censor.

    I would absolutely not characterize Feminist Critics as an MRA site – they bend over backwards to accomodate feminists, and routinely ban MRAs.

    One MRA site, standyourground, is actively searching for feminists to debate. They never censor. Ampersand and Professor Dr. Hugo Schwyzer have both appeared there. Dr. Helen Smith used to put ad hominem type people in the “playpen”, but she doesn’t even do that anymore. Open debate.

    Feminist sites, including this one, actively ban people without the right “attitude”.

    I’m wondering what that means from a logic point of view. I’m not sure. But I know that most feminist sites censor any deviating viewpoints (including this site), and Ampersand is irritated that there were viewpoints against his on another website (he wasn’t even banned and mocked).

  95. 96
    Daran says:

    Daran – I agree that link is appropriate, which is why I included it in comment #82. :)

    Yes, but my link was objectively better than yours. :)

  96. 97
    Daran says:

    ballgame:

    2. It’s worse for women (by some unknown margin); and

    I’m not so sure that it is. I agree with Ampersand that “anecdotally, it seems to be the case that in general, this happens more to women than men”, but I think this appearance could be entirely accounted for by the tendency of the media, feminist and mainstream alike, to large up the victimisation of women while downplaying, to the point of erasure, the victimisation of men.

    Take that comment posted by Average Man, for example:

    A 2006 University of Maryland study on chat rooms found that female participants received 25 times as many sexually explicit and malicious messages as males.

    Here’s how Hess put it:

    In 2006, researchers from the University of Maryland set up a bunch of fake online accounts and then dispatched them into chat rooms. Accounts with feminine usernames incurred an average of 100 sexually explicit or threatening messages a day. Masculine names received 3.7.

    Neither Average Man nor Hess mentioned that the researchers did two experiments which differed functionally only in the choice of IRC channels investigated. The second found that women only received 2.5 times as many sexually explicit or threatening messages per day, the difference resulting entirely from a much larger number of abusive messaged directed at men. Of course, the only figures that get reported are the ones that make women look the most victimised while men look the least.

    (To those who would argue that 2.5 times as many abusive messages still means that women have it worse, I would reply that 1. The experiment fails a basic test of scientific reliability – it doesn’t give reproducible results, and 2, the fact that all the identities were silent, together with a host of other methodological problems, render its results meaningless.)

    3. People were extremely uneasy about jail time and public doxxing as a solution.

    “Uneasy” doesn’t mean outright opposed. Even Patrick, who was most vociferously opposed to Ampersand in the debate, was equivocal on this:

    If it’s a case of real life bullies using the web as yet another tool to torment their victims, I’d agree that would demand a harsh intervention. Whatever disciplinary action their school/college/employer would take against them, restraining orders, civil damages, yes, even locking them up (If a direct attack is a possibility and/or all else fails).

    […]

    Of course, not every hateful comment on YouTube is just the passing fury of a frustrated teenager. Some cases may escalate enough to constitute stalking, or bullying, or, rarely, a real threat to the victim’s personal safety (Cases where there is a real threat to the victim’s safety tend to be those where the web harassment is just a complement to “real world” bullying.). In those cases, I’m not so clear. I’m on principle against thinking of jail time as the first (and only) option, but keeping the offender under close watch could be an alternative. Again, it’s heavily dependent on the circumstances of the case in question.

    I share Patrick’s equivocation. On the one hand, I can’t really get upset that these trolls or even this one (who did not, as far as I can see, actually threaten anyone) ended up in jail. On the other, I do worry about where the line should be drawn, and where eventually it will be.

    That Patrick was prepared to countenance jail time, however reluctantly, for internet trolls in extreme cases refutes Ampersand’s statement:

    I felt that nothing premised on the idea that death and rape threats against women are a serious problem that should be addressed, would ever be taken genuinely seriously by anyone in that discussion.

    I don’t doubt him when he says that this was how he “felt”, but his feelings are completely at odds with what was actually said.

  97. 98
    Daran says:

    Ampersand (quoting Tamen):

    Would bringing up the fact that imprisoned women – although a minority of prisoners – also suffers sexual abuse in prison and they are at a higher risk of sexual abuse while incarcerated than men be an example of minimizing sexual abuse against imprisoned men?

    Impossible to answer. In and of itself, it is not an example of that. But in the right (wrong) context, it could be. Context matters.

    The context in which male victimisation is brought up in a discussion about female victimisation is often one in which male victimisation is being erased, i.e., the problem is being discussed as though only females were ever victimised. rape and domestic violence being referred to as “violence against women” is a good example.

    On the other hand, I can’t recall ever seeing prisoner victimisation treated as something that only happens to men. “Violence against men” doesn’t exist as a conceptual category the way “violence against women” is.

  98. 99
    Ampersand says:

    But I know that most feminist sites censor any deviating viewpoints (including this site)

    That’s completely fair of you to say. You cannot find “any deviating viewpoint” allowed anywhere on this site. Plus, it’s completely reasonable to conflate moderation on a privately-owned site with censorship.

    The reason MRAs and anti-feminists are eager to have feminists comment on their sites, but not vice-versa, is that anti-feminists’ and MRAs’ primary interest is feminists and feminism, while feminists are (with the exception of the “man boobz” dude) barely at all interested in anti-feminists.

    It’s a little bit like saying comic book fans are a lot more open-minded and willing to talk than professional cartoonists, since the fans are all happy to have professional cartoonists on their fan-forums, but pro cartoonists sometimes have forums where fans aren’t welcome.

  99. 100
    ballgame says:

    … feminists are (with the exception of the “man boobz” dude) barely at all interested in anti-feminists.

    Do you think that’s still true, Amp? My impression is that it’s a lot less true than it used to be (assuming you’re loosely equating “anti-feminists” with “MRAs”).

    When I first got into reading and participating on blogs eight years ago, it seemed like MRAs were just kind of an oddity that many bloggers weren’t even familiar with. Now MRAs seem to be excoriated on a semi-regular basis at a lot of feminist sites. Eight years ago I think it would have been pretty baffling for a college to specifically bar the formation of men’s issues student organization. (“Baffling” as in “Why ban something that no one is interested in anyway?”) Of course, that’s exactly what Ryerson did last year.