Open Thread And Link Farm: The Dress Is Bigger On The Inside Edition

tardis-dress
I think that’s the best Tardis dress I’ve ever seen. (I don’t know the name of the cosplayer, but her Facebook page is here.) (UPDATE: Her name is Sasha Trabane, and thanks to Daran for finding that.)

  1. Safe Space For Possibly Unpopular Thoughts on Feminism, Leftism — Crooked Timber
  2. Trading the Megaphone for the Gavel in Title IX Enforcement (Thanks, G&W!)
  3. Also the thought that men being hurt is okay or deserved so long as they’re being hurt at the hands of other men is pretty awful. Like, firstly, women police masculinity and enforce gender roles. But even if that weren’t true, are we really saying that we don’t care about people who are suffering because they happen to be the same gender as the people who set up the system that causes the suffering?
  4. A Jew in Paris | The American Conservative
  5. Did Falling Testosterone Affect Falling Crime? | Slate Star Codex The short answer is “no,” but (as the post points out) that just raises the question – why didn’t it?
  6. For Those of Us Who The World Is Not Ready, Qualified, Able, or Willing to Love: Happy Valentine’s Day –
  7. GOP’s Scott Walker so anti-science he can’t affirm Evolution | Informed Comment
  8. Amp’s comment: I’m not saying there aren’t Democrats who are also fools. I am saying that no Democrat who was this blatantly anti-science would be a highly plausible contender for winning the primary and being the party’s candidate for President. See also Climate Change, of course.

  9. Drug Testing Welfare Users Is A Sham, But Not For The Reasons You Think | Slate Star Codex
  10. Obama’s “Limited” Perpetual War | The American Conservative
  11. The Revolution Will Not Be Plus-Sized | Tastefully Ratchet Amp’s comment: Although I thought about it for days, I don’t think I agree with this. The availability of clothing that fits well and is affordable is a basic necessity in our society, not the frivolous concern as this blog post paints it. And because the ability to look in a mirror and think there’s any positive value at all in what you see is one that has been systematically denied to fat people. The left should be advocating for both better clothing for fat people and better treatment of clothing workers; being in favor of the latter doesn’t require not advocating for the former.
  12. ‘I Just Had an Abortion’ – Wellness & Empowerment – EBONY
  13. Millennials living with parents: It’s harder to explain why young adults return home than you think.
  14. Anti-Feminist stereotypes about feminists haven’t changed much in 200 years, as these old political cartoons show.
  15. Who Should See Recordings From Police Bodycams? – The Atlantic
  16. “The acceptance of reason as an idol, on whose altar you sacrifice the earth, while you called it a slip loop, which I dropped over her face.” A Twitter account which mashes up John Norman’s Gor novels and Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. (Via).
  17. The White House is taking a big step to let addicts get the medicine they need – Vox
  18. Obamacare is costing way less than expected – Vox
  19. CA: AG Harris Drops Appeal in Wake of Judge’s Suggestion Prosecutor be Tried for Perjury | The Open File
  20. Black teens who commit a few crimes go to jail as often as white teens who commit dozens – The Washington Post
  21. In ‘Mark of the Beast’ case, EEOC defends the religious liberty to belief it thereby proves to be factually untrue
  22. Could the Fast Food Industry Pay $15 an Hour? – Lawyers, Guns & Money
  23. Mike Huckabee: ISIL Beheadings Threaten U.S. More Than ‘Sunburn’ Of Climate Change | ThinkProgress
  24. My Fair Lady: A Series of Text Messages — Crooked Timber
  25. Why Have Jews in the U.K. Never Won a Reported Discrimination Case Against Non-Jewish Defendants? – Tablet Magazine (Note: This article is by David Schraub, who blogs at “The Debate Link” and has sometimes posted here at “Alas.”)
  26. Horrible Vanderbilt rape case shows how much we do have a “rape culture”
  27. Black Workers With Advanced Degrees, White Workers With B.A.’s Make Roughly the Same – COLORLINES
  28. “This was essentially a political trial designed to scare the bezeejuz out of anyone who goes anywhere near Anonymous”: Hullabaloo

dog_12

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342 Responses to Open Thread And Link Farm: The Dress Is Bigger On The Inside Edition

  1. 301
    Ampersand says:

    …and Amp is not alone in arguing that only government action can be censorship.

    Respectfully, I never made the argument you’re attributing to me.

    I don’t think that someone criticizing a film, or asking that the student film society (or whoever else is in charge of film-showing decisions) reconsider their decision, is “censorship” by any reasonable definition of the word.

    It doesn’t follow from that, that I don’t think anything other than direct government action can be censorship.

  2. 302
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Ampersand says:
    I don’t think that someone criticizing a film, or asking that the student film society (or whoever else is in charge of film-showing decisions) reconsider their decision, is “censorship” by any reasonable definition of the word.

    You therefore seem to be suggesting that a heck of a lot of people (including me,) are “unreasonable,” since you’re rejecting a not-uncommon use of “censorship.”

    I don’t begrudge you your semantics, I suppose, (though I don’t agree with them and think they run in the face of some pretty substantial pluralities.) Still, I do note that you took time to write a response… but NOT to the question “what other term would you prefer, if you don’t think censorship is correct?”

    Would you mind answering that question?

    And while you’re at it, I would also like to hear your “coherent notion of “censorship.”

    Speaking for myself, I’ve always found free speech stuff pretty difficult to define, because there are so many competing interests. But I figure that if you’re attacking others for lacking coherence and also going for the “not reasonable in any sense” semantic stuff, that you must have a pretty great definition to rely on. What is it?

  3. 303
    Pete Patriot says:

    I have a FREE SPEECH RIGHT to ask you (or a university) not to screen a movie, and to explain why. You – and a university – have a FREE SPEECH RIGHT to listen to me, if you want to, and to change your mind about screening the movie, if you want to. (Or to show the movie, too.)

    The letterwriter disagrees with you.

    http://www.themaneater.com/stories/2015/3/3/american-sniper-has-no-place-mu/

    Freedom of speech should not come at the expense of anyone’s humanity and right to be viewed, talked about and treated with basic respect and dignity.

  4. 304
    fibi says:

    Amp – My apologies, I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth.

  5. 305
    Patrick says:

    There’s no possible way to say that the letter is censorship or attempted censorship. It has no power.

    But it sure doesn’t respect free speech as a value. Not even a little bit. It uses all the current buzzwords that denote “this justifies bypassing free speech and censoring something” to characterize the situation. I think it’s reasonable to bristle a bit. The letter clearly reads as, “This person doesn’t have the power to censor you. But oh, if they did…”

    To pick just one example: it is not coincidental that the letter uses the phrase “hostile environment,” and earlier everyone was discussing students being expelled because their racist speech created a “hostile environment.”

  6. 306
    mythago says:

    trying to suppress speech, rather than trying to provide opposing speech

    And here we go down the rabbit hole. Some speech is freer than others, and opinions are only permitted if they result in equal or more quantities of speech, rather than less.

    This idea isn’t really free-speech absolutism. It’s a wish that only certain kinds of free speech be permitted; the fictional great bazaar of ideas, where all voices have equal chance to be heard and to persuade through their sheer quality and reason.

  7. 307
    Ampersand says:

    You therefore seem to be suggesting that a heck of a lot of people (including me,) are “unreasonable,” since you’re rejecting a not-uncommon use of “censorship.”

    No more than the Supreme Court is saying that the government’s lawyers are personally irrational when they say a particular law fails the rational basis review. I attacked the argument, not you personally, and rephrasing it to turn it into a personal attack when it wasn’t is unfair.

    Still, I do note that you took time to write a response… but NOT to the question “what other term would you prefer, if you don’t think censorship is correct?”

    You could say she’s “mistaken.” You could address her arguments and say that they’re “wrong on the merits.” There are lots of words in English that express disagreement without watering down the word “censorship” to mean, essentially, any time someone you disagree with criticizes the choice to present A instead of B.

    But I figure that if you’re attacking others for lacking coherence and also going for the “not reasonable in any sense” semantic stuff, that you must have a pretty great definition to rely on.

    That’s a bad assumption. If someone points to this and says it’s a “lake” I can legitimately disagree with them, even if I don’t have a perfect unassailable definition of “lake” handy.

    As Patrick says, the letter has no power, and cannot correctly be termed censorship.

    Censorship, to be censorship, has to involve an element of coercion. Censorship involves the use of power, or at least the threat of power, being coercively used to punish someone for speech or deter them from speaking in the future. There is an important moral difference between Charlie Brown shutting up Linus by saying “shut up or I’ll punch you!” versus Schroeder shutting up Linus by saying “I want you to stop saying that because I think what you’re saying is morally wrong. I’ve written a letter which I hope will persuade you of this.” Your definition papers over this essential difference, and unfairly tars the perfectly moral and reasonable act called “attempted persuasion” with the label of immoral “censorship.”

    (By the way, the idea that censorship hardly ever happens is mistaken. It happens frequently. It’s just that most censorship in the US happens in ways many “free speech advocates” rarely object to, such as through intellectual property law, or through official punishment of whistleblowers, or firing union organizers.)

  8. 308
    Mookie says:

    (By the way, the idea that censorship hardly ever happens is mistaken. It happens frequently. It’s just that most censorship in the US happens in ways many “free speech advocates” rarely object to, such as through intellectual property law, or through official punishment of whistleblowers, or firing union organizers.)

    Or, say, eliminating AP History because reality and primary sources give flag-humpers a sad in their rah-rah bits.

  9. 309
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Ampersand says:

    You therefore seem to be suggesting that a heck of a lot of people (including me,) are “unreasonable,” since you’re rejecting a not-uncommon use of “censorship.”

    No more than the Supreme Court is saying that the government’s lawyers are personally irrational when they say a particular law fails the rational basis review. I attacked the argument, not you personally, and rephrasing it to turn it into a personal attack when it wasn’t is highly unfair of you.

    It does get a bit frustrating to be in a thread saying “this is a problem” and have people saying “nobody can reasonably say this is a problem,” ya? But I concede that this was unfair on my part.

    Censorship, to be censorship, has to involve an element of coercion. Censorship involves the use of power, or at least the threat of power, being coercively used to punish someone for speech or deter them from speaking in the future.

    OK, now we’re getting somewhere.

    First of all, I don’t think that is accurate, at least not as the word is commonly used. Certainly your definition IS censorship, but it doesn’t define the boundaries in common parlance.

    If every major publisher decided that they would not publish any feminist thought, the common term would be that they were “censoring” those views–even though they have the right to make that call; even though there is no coercion; and even though the writers would still retain the ability to publish elsewhere.

    That’s because you’re restricting the use of “censorship” to something which is always bad and inappropriate. Those are moral judgments. They also rely on a more complex judgment of what “coercion” is, which lends a bit of undue flexibility. Once something has been classified as “censorship” you think it’s always bad, which is why you often fight so strongly against the classification for things you support.

    I (and many other people) use “censorship” a bit more like I use “discrimination.” Some of it is more problematic than others, and some of it may not be bad at all–it really describes an approach or processwhich focuses on preventing “bad” speech rather than making good speech. You want to discriminate against Nazi job applicants? Be my guest, but don’t pretend it’s not discrimination. You want to argue for a censorship “offensive information should not be disseminated” approach? Be my guest, but don’t pretend it’s not a censoship approach. And so on.

    For example, I’d classify that publisher action as “censorship,” even though I know full well that they are entitled to make that call, and even though I support that entitlement. I would similarly classify a letter TO the publishers, asking them to “stop publishing feminists,” as a letter which supports censorship–while strongly defending the ability to write it.

    This letter is in that category. The goal of the letter writer is to use authority to prevent/deter the flow of information to third parties. She wants to stop that information because she sees it as harmful. She is appealing to the people who control it because she has chosen the “suppress” route over the alternative (counter-information) route.

    There is an important moral difference between Charlie Brown shutting up Linus by saying “shut up or I’ll punch you!” versus Schroeder shutting up Linus by saying “I want you to stop saying that because I think what you’re saying is morally wrong. I’ve written a letter which I hope will persuade you of this.” Your definition papers over this essential difference

    That is an unusual example, because you’re talking to the speaker. Your example focuses on trying to convince Linus that he is wrong. My example focuses on trying to prevent Linus from, say, “distributing a textbook.”

    and unfairly tars the perfectly moral and reasonable act called “attempted persuasion” with the label of immoral “censorship.”

    And there we have it, I think. If you think all censorship is immoral then that would explain things.

    (But, do you really? Are you sure I couldn’t come up with a single censorship example in which you would agree that morality comes down on the side of censorship, rather than not? Or that I couldn’t come up with an example

    I suspect you’d admit that there may be some wiggle room. Life is full of wiggles. And that is the reason why nobody can come up with hardline speech definitions: no matter how you end up parsing it, all of them eventually rely on a base “I just don’t think so” judgment of morality, or content, somewhere. Yours may be hidden in “coercion,” or in the way you’d distinguish between “convincing” and “shutting up,” but it’s there. And all of them contain some contradictions, including the obvious ends/means question “should people who promote increased speech and information also promote those people who focus their speech on opposing the principle of increased speech and information?”

    That’s why I prefer to use the term “censorship” to refer to a process, and reserve the moral issues for a separate conversation.

  10. 310
    RonF says:

    This young woman certainly does have the right to ask the group to reverse it’s decision to show American Sniper. I never said anything different. But the fact that I support her right to ask them to do that doesn’t mean that what she did isn’t if not censorship, a request to censor. She wants to block an exercise of free speech on that campus. She has a right to ask that. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a bad thing to ask.

  11. 311
    mythago says:

    Your definition papers over this essential difference

    Amp, where I think you guys are talking at cross-purposes is that you see it as a difference, whereas gin-and-whiskey sees it as a matter of degree.

  12. 312
    Charles S says:

    I don’t think it makes sense to argue for using the common meaning of the word and then insist that the term is a simple neutral description. In common usage, censorship is overwhelmingly used to signify disapproval. The letter writer claims that she isn’t advocating censorship because she knows it is a negative term. A commenter says it is certainly censorship and that she should be favoring more speech. No one says yes it is censorship and that is good. No one calls copyright laws censorship unless they don’t like copyright laws (and yet courts enforcing copyright is far more clearly like a censors office forbidding a book from being published than a student union deciding not to screen a movie would be). Etc.

    Censorship used in a narrow, technical sense (the activity of a government office responsible for deciding whether material may be published) is a neutral term. Censorship in common usage is a negative term.

    RonF and g&w, what activities that you are actively in favor of do you routinely describe as censorship? There are certainly things you are in favor of that are censorship in the broad sense, but do you routinely describe them as such, particularly when advocating for them?

  13. 313
    Patrick says:

    G&W- even under the standard you’re describing, this letter is censorship the same way “I should blow up South Dakota with my moon laser” is an act of war. I haven’t got a moon laser. And wanting to blow up SD isn’t doing it.

  14. 314
    Pete Patriot says:

    I don’t think that someone criticizing a film, or asking that the student film society (or whoever else is in charge of film-showing decisions) reconsider their decision, is “censorship” by any reasonable definition of the word.

    I don’t think that either. Unfortunately, she’s not arguing for a Fellini season instead or criticising the PS2 style CGI and rubber baby. She saying a panel should apraise a work based on its moral and political content and decide whether to show it to the plebs or not based on whether it’ll corrupt them. That literally censorship.

  15. 316
    mythago says:

    Some kind soul recently introduced me to Postmodern Jukebox:

  16. 317
    Harlequin says:

    Oh hey, it’s those American Idol kids! (Wow, that is literally the first time my short-lived American Idol obsession has come in handy in conversation.)

  17. 318
    desipis says:

    This seems relevant to the topic of censorship on campus: College Professor Bans Student From Class For His Views On Rape

  18. 319
    Ampersand says:

    It’s a little unclear, because there are two somewhat contrary versions of the story told in that article. But it seems likely to me that what happened was no more censorship, than it is when some website I post comments on decides to ban my comments.

  19. 320
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Charles S says:
    March 19, 2015 at 2:29 pm
    RonF and g&w, what activities that you are actively in favor of do you routinely describe as censorship? There are certainly things you are in favor of that are censorship in the broad sense, but do you routinely describe them as such, particularly when advocating for them?

    To give two simple examples:

    As per the other thread, I think that under certain circumstances, employers should be able to censor their employee’s speech and place controls on their conduct. I wouldn’t hesitate to call that censorship or to use the term “censor” when describing it, provided that I was talking with people who I knew to share my usage.*

    I also would broadly advocate for someone’s right to promote the benefits of censorship, even while advocating against it.

    *I don’t often use the term in unknown company: I worry that people who share Amp’s approach would incorrectly interpret me as having ceded some larger moralistic issue.

  20. 321
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Ampersand says:
    March 20, 2015 at 4:25 am
    It’s a little unclear, because there are two somewhat contrary versions of the story told in that article. But it seems likely to me that what happened was no more censorship, than it is when some website I post comments on decides to ban my comments.

    Wait, what?

    This is what happens when you adopt a black and white view of things: you miss some important shades of gray.

    Of course this was censorship. He’s suffering consequences from on high, because of the content of his speech. Isn’t that what you just called censorship in the other discussion? This is even more obviously so because it’s in a college classroom discussion setting, in which people are putatively supposed to be disagreeing. It’s not like “firing my employee for supporting Obama,” it’s more like “asking my employee what she thinks of the presidency, continuing to have a conversation with her about politics, encouraging her to state views, and THEN firing my employee for supporting Obama.”

    And of course, this was legal. The college isn’t bound by the First Amendment, though there may be contractual claim. A private college has the free speech right to do what it wants, just like an employer (funny how that works,) which is why–as usual–this is a BALANCE of interests rather than a one sided one.

  21. 322
    Myca says:

    It’s not like “firing my employee for supporting Obama,” it’s more like “asking my employee what she thinks of the presidency, continuing to have a conversation with her about politics, encouraging her to state views, and THEN firing my employee for supporting Obama.”

    Actually, since the student will receive class credit as long as he completes his assignments, the firing analogy is simply wrongheaded. It’s more like telling an employee to work from home for full pay because he consistently creeps out his co-workers and the employer has had a number of complaints.

    But, see, gin-and-whiskey, this is what happens when you adopt a black and white view of things: you miss some important shades of gray.

    —Myca

  22. 323
    RonF says:

    Amp @ 319

    But it seems likely to me that what happened was no more censorship, than it is when some website I post comments on decides to ban my comments.

    He was banned from a class because people in that class claimed that factual things he said disturbed them. A class he’s taking at a school that I presume he’s paying $10,000’s to attend. Based on disputing claims that are well known to be false and that are based on a misinterpretation of a single study, to boot. I’m not so sure that this is strictly censorship – he’s still free to speak his opinion, but he can’t go to that class (whether he was offered a chance to re-enter the class if he kept his mouth shut, I don’t know). I’d have to think about it. I will say that it’s bullshit, though. I guess you can get credentials at that school, but if that kind of thing is widespread at that school it would seem that an actual education there would be hard to come by.

    Charles S. @ 312:

    [RonF] There are certainly things you are in favor of that are censorship in the broad sense,

    Name them.

  23. 324
    Ruchama says:

    I think I’d need more information on what was going on in that classroom before I could really form an opinion on this one. From some of the accounts, it sounds like this was a guy who just would not shut up, and was making every discussion into “Here are my opinions, which I’m presenting because I know they’re controversial, and thus everyone will disagree and I’ll get all the attention!” If that was the case, then he was interfering with everyone else’s education, and just being a general pain in the ass. But there really aren’t enough specific descriptions of what was happening for me to be sure that that’s what was actually going on.

  24. 325
    RonF says:

    mythago @ 316:

    That made my day! And I do fully endorse the viewpoint expressed as well.

  25. 326
    Charles S says:

    RonF,

    Does your boyscout troop have a library? If so, does it have an pornography in it?

    If one of your scouts brings along pornography or pamphlets from the KKK and shares them with troop members on a scouting trip, would you merely talk about how you think that those things are against scout beliefs but continue to allow the scouts to read them or would you take away those materials?

    Long ago, you told a story about kicking your father in law out of your house for being blatantly racist, because you didn’t want your sons being exposed to that (I’m probably misremembering the details).

    On Alas, you are generally a reasonably polite person. Do you ever think insulting or abusive things about other commentors and then decide not to post them? That is self-censorship.

    Etc.

    Under the standard where a student association changing its mind on what movies to show is censorship, all of those are also censorship.

  26. 327
    Charles S says:

    As per the other thread, I think that under certain circumstances, employers should be able to censor their employee’s speech and place controls on their conduct. I wouldn’t hesitate to call that censorship or to use the term “censor” when describing it, provided that I was talking with people who I knew to share my usage.*

    *I don’t often use the term in unknown company: I worry that people who share Amp’s approach would incorrectly interpret me as having ceded some larger moralistic issue.

    In other words, you know the common usage of censorship is pejorative in its connotations. In fact, the word is so pejorative that even when talking about something that Amp agrees is censorship, you wouldn’t use the word to describe something you support in unknown company.

    [edited to fix a tag error]

  27. 328
    Charles S says:

    g&w,

    Also, your example is an example of something you favor that you would call censorship that meets Amp’s definition, not one that meets your definition. Your definition is much more expansive. Please give an example that falls under your definition and not Amp’s that you are in favor of and that you would routinely call censorship.

  28. 329
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Charles S says:
    March 20, 2015 at 10:23 am
    In other words, you know the common usage of censorship is pejorative in its connotations. In fact, the word is so pejorative that even when talking about something that Amp agrees is censorship, you wouldn’t use the word to describe something you support in unknown company.

    Nope.

    I don’t use the word because I’m sick of idiots misinterpreting it–which doesn’t happen all that often, but is a pain in the ass when it does. The risk of dealing with them isn’t always worth the hassle in an unknown group. Honestly I don’t always use the term “free speech” for the same reason unless I’m talking with people who have a clue.

    Also, your example is an example of something you favor that you would call censorship that meets Amp’s definition, not one that meets your definition.

    Why are you saying it “doesn’t meet my definition of censorship” when I am saying “I would call that censorship?”

    Please give an example that falls under your definition and not Amp’s that you are in favor of and that you would routinely call censorship.

    In favor of as in “I think it should be legal; I think it’s perfectly moral in almost all cases; and I would fight to preserve its legality and take active steps to defend people’s rights to keep doing it?” Pretty much any censorship or calls for censorship by any private individual or entity, ever, for any reason. As far as I understand Amp, he would only use the term to refer to a very limited set of those events, like “employers for out of work conduct.”

    I would call the student thing censorship (unless I have the facts wrong…) and Amp would not.

    If you want a more personal example: I just had a conversation with my new employee, and as part of that I stated she would have to “censor what you say on Facebook.” So there you go: moral, censorship, approved, non-Amp.

  29. 330
    RonF says:

    Does your Boy Scout Troop have a library?

    No.

    If one of your scouts brings along pornography or pamphlets from the KKK and shares them with troop members on a scouting trip,

    My kids? Read? I once suggested that the kids read a book on long trips rather than demand to have DVD players set up in the vans so that they could watch a movie and the mothers looked at me like I’d just landed from Mars. I have NEVER seen a kid bring reading material – other than the BSA Handbook, and that only because they are required to – on an outing.

    you merely talk about how you think that those things are against scout beliefs but continue to allow the scouts to read them or would you take away those materials?

    I’d take them away and hand them over to their parents. Some of whom would probably have given them to the kids (the KKK stuff, not the porn – the porn they would have stolen from Dad) in the first place. I’ll let them decide whether the kids can read the stuff or not.

    Long ago, you told a story about kicking your father in law out of your house for being blatantly racist, because you didn’t want your sons being exposed to that (I’m probably misremembering the details).

    Close enough. He was using what we now must daintily refer to as “the ‘N’ word” in order to be politically correct. It’s not like the kids never hear the word – I live in the SW suburbs of Chicago, after all. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.

    On Alas, you are generally a reasonably polite person. Do you ever think insulting or abusive things about other commenters and then decide not to post them?

    Actually, no. I don’t. Not my style. My wife thinks I’m too nice (in general, that is – she’s never been on Alas).

  30. 331
    Nancy Lebovitz says:

    RonF, that reminds me of a question– would you lend a book (or other material) to a child whose parents had forbidden the child to have access to?

  31. 332
    Ampersand says:

    RonF:

    He was banned from a class because people in that class claimed that factual things he said disturbed them.

    We don’t yet know if that’s what happened or not.

    This post on Above The Law does a good job of explaining why we don’t know.

    (Although, oddly, the subtitle of the post implies a certainty that the post itself denies. I’m linking for the post, not the subtitle.)

  32. 333
    mythago says:

    RonF @325, it looks like the link takes you to the full catalog I particularly like the NOLA style cover of Guns n’ Roses:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ3BAF_15yQ

    ….as well as the klezmer version of “Talk Dirty” (which, sadly, does not actually feature 2 Chainz rapping in Yiddish):

  33. 334
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    In the “holy shit the system needs reformation” category,

    Black male high school dropouts have a 69% chance of going to prison by age 30-34.

  34. 335
    Harlequin says:

    I wish that post had some actual links to data; I agree that incarceration rates are way too high and way too racist, but I’ve seen such bad extrapolations involved in that kind of prediction that I’d like to check the methodology, y’know?

  35. 336
    closetpuritan says:

    Harlequin:
    I guess just to demonstrate how individual language can be… I had never heard it as “you’ve got another thing coming”, and had to look up “another think coming origin” to find out that that was an alternate version. (Though neither seems to be a common phrase in general, from what I can tell; I’m not sure if I’ve heard anyone other than my parents use it. Not ‘people my parents’ age’, my individual parents.) And my reaction was much like this guy’s:

    Another reason that ‘thing’ is incorrect, and perhaps this should have come first, is that ‘another thing coming’ makes no sense. How can one have another thing coming where there is no first thing? In order for ‘thing’ to make any sense we would have to say ‘if you thing that, you have another thing coming’, or ‘if you think that, you have a thing coming’. Nobody says either of these. Case proven, in my humble opinion.

    Semi-related: I find myself getting more and more annoyed at people who write “diffuse the tension”, “one in the same”, “deep-seeded”, and “reign in”.

  36. 338
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Remember that thing a while back, where some librarians started tweeting about some guy in the library field being a sexual predator?

    And then they got sued?

    And then they doubled down, defending and putting out calls for witnesses and claiming that it was a suit against free speech and all that?

    Here’s an update. Hopefully it will get as much press as the initial accusations.

  37. 339
    Pesho says:

    The website to which you liked is strange. It contains links to a defense fund, to claims that their statements were fair and accurate, and to apologies stating that their statements had absolutely no basis in fact.

    So, let me see. They are apologizing for lying, while using a ‘Truth’ defense in a defamation lawsuit, while asking people to donate to their defense fund because it is a free speech issue, while other people, supposedly unrelated, are collecting money to cover the potential damages which may be awarded to the person whose life their lies wrecked?

    These people need to decide what they are trying to achieve.

  38. 340
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    That website was very different a while back. It made perfect sense before, albeit in a pretty accusatory way.

    It makes sense now if you assume, as I do, that the agreement to post a retraction and apology were part of some otherwise-confidential settlement.

  39. 341
    gin-and-whiskey says:

    Continuing with “links you should read:”

    A recent USSC decision on pregnancy discrimination just came out and it is pretty darn important.

    The Scotusblog analysis is here.

    The “what this really means” explanation, from Scotusblog (edited by me for layperson clarity):

    This is the scenario for a female worker claiming she was the victim of pregnancy bias:

    STEP 1: EMPLOYEE BURDEN.
    a) she must offer proof that she is in the protected group — that is, those who can become pregnant; AND
    b) she must offer proof that she asked to be accommodated in the workplace when she could not fulfill her normal job; AND
    c) she must offer proof that the employer refused to accommodate her; AND
    d) she must offer proof that the employer did actually provide an accommodation for other people who are just as unable, or unable, to do their work temporarily.

    Thus far, the framework is designed to show that the refusal to accommodate was the likely result of intentional bias.

    STEP 2: EMPLOYER BURDEN
    Once the worker has proved those initial points, under the Court’s framework, the employer must then be given a chance to show that its workplace policy was not biased against pregnant workers, but had a neutral business rationale.

    STEP 3: EMPLOYEE BURDEN AGAIN
    Then, the worker gets a chance to respond, and can at that point claim
    a) that the neutral reason was not a real one, but only a pretext for bias; OR (very crucially “or” and not “and”)

    b) can attempt to show that the workplace policy puts a “significant burden” on female workers, and the policy is “not sufficiently strong” to justify that burden.

    Thus, in the end, the final steps in the inquiry allow for BOTH claims of intentional bias (a/k/a “pretext”) AND ALSO disparate effects (negative impact on female workers)

    Also: Where is everyone? Did you all go to Hawaii or something?

  40. 342
    Harlequin says:

    I’ve been on vacation (which is maybe a pretext to mention to the mods that I travel a lot, and if you’re ever banning an IP range and notice that I’ve commented from there for a brief period, don’t worry about it; I’m probably not going to post from there ever again) and then one of my hobby communities blew up, so, that was fun!

    And I guess, like, there are certain hot-button issues I like to post on, and nobody seems to be talking about them at the moment :). So I come by and read the comments, but don’t contribute myself.