Hearts and minds

[Jim Henson]

'Where do you even buy giant fake breasts?' The imagined thoughts of the Oakville principal

And the media storm begins. I must admit I expected something a little more “mainstream”; I could handle elbowing my way to work through a throng of news vans from the BBC, CTV and CNN. But instead all we seem to be getting are a trickle of independent, right-wing media with names like “The Truth Bullet” and “Freedom Offensive.” Some podcaster sipping a Monster energy drink cornered me in the parking lot and asked what I thought about Japanese kyonyuu fetishists. A 20-something in a Breton cap held up his phone camera to my face and asked me if bakunyū hentai was going to be added to the school curriculum.

My house has a lot of glass so I'm not normally a grammar nazi, but please:



OK, elle est française. Still.

This would be quite a plot twist:

Someone alleged that he was disciplined for "toxic masculinity" last year (no idea what he did), and that he's now trolling the school board in the knowledge that by claiming to be a member of the sacred caste, he is untouchable.

If this is true - and if it turns it was all a wind-up on his part - then those defending him and the school are going to look rather silly.

[sam]

Where we're headed:

https://twitter.com/SusanMee9/status/1573682979464937473
https://www.tiktok.com/@millyrosebannister/video/7145758195380751662

A brave new world without boundaries. Thanks guys.

the video of that poor young girl is a perfect encapsulation of how bad the problem is. She blames herself for her feelings & absolves primark of responsibility because she’s had beeee kiiiind force fed at her for years. She doesn’t understand that her feelings at having 2 men walk in on her while she’s undressing are entirely right! Of course she feels scared, of course she feels violated and mostly she feels confused. She’s been taught there’s no problem with men in women spaces and even been told that men presenting as women are even more vulnerable than actual women. And yet look at how she feels….The cognitive dissonance must be off the scale for her

[Andrea Dworkin]

I never planned to rest in peace.

[Hannah Arendt]

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.

[Walter Cronkite]

How Stochastic Terrorism Uses Disgust to Incite Violence

The once-reputable [Scientific American] has adopted Alex "Esqueer" Caraballo's go-to (and misused) terminology of "stochastic terrorism" to forge a dubious connection between Chris Rufo ranting on Tucker Carlson about kids getting butchered by gender quacks, and Paul Pelosi getting beat to within an inch of his life. It essentially blames the public for feeling "disgust" when these, well, disgusting activities are exposed in their raw and honest form without sugarcoating. Also known as journalism.

Funny that, wasn't it "disgust" among the public seeing the bodies of kids come home in body bags that led to a widespread revulsion over the Vietnam War? Wasn't it "disgust" among the public seeing the bodies of black people getting brutalized by the likes of Bull Connor that led to a widespread revulsion over racial oppression? Wasn't it "disgust" among the public seeing birth defects from Thalidomide that led to a widespread outcry causing it to be pulled from the shelves? Wasn't it "disgust" over sexual abuse that led to the #MeToo movement that brought down predators like Spacey and Weinstein, or the "Spotlight" scandal within the Catholic Church, or Penn State and Jerry Sandusky, etc. etc. etc.? Perhaps "disgust" is exactly what's needed to force systemic change, and lo and behold, the ones who don't want change are disgusted!

Long-serving Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman leaves for Sunday Times - Bron Maher
Freeman told Viner: “It is astonishing to me that the progressive media has handed such an own goal to the right, closing its eyes to concerns about the safeguarding out of fear that to do otherwise would lead to accusations of bigotry. You have said that both sides in the gender debate are equally passionate – but only one side demands censorship. It seems to me that at the Guardian that side has won.”

It's kind of awful seeing all of this though, which source, which news do you actually trust? For me it's basically none, I don't know what is true anymore.

I found it most striking when the likes of Radio 4's Today or PM programme's anchor talked about a subject on which I was knowledgeable and you realised that they hadn't a clue. You start to think, "if they got that wrong, what else are they getting wrong?”

Fascinating thread

[Marianne Moore]

They Paused Puberty, but Is There a Cost?
Is the Old Gray Lady slowly waking up and stepping out of the approved narrative? Better not forget her makeup.

The doctrine of Trans inspires few decent wordsmiths. Clare Flourish is one.

P.E. Moskowitz is another:
I’m So Trans When I Turn On My Lamp
You see, simply everything I do is transgender, because I am transgender. My lamp may look normal to any cis demons reading this essay, but it is in fact a trans lamp, not because it is one of those bendy architecture lamps (she’s queering being upright), but because I, a trans person, turn it on and off daily.

[Arthur Conan Doyle]

Just came across this from a few years ago. In case anyone thought the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre prioritising men's feelings was an isolated incident...

Why I’m suing Survivors’ Network

“I didn’t know that, as a woman, I could say no, which sounds really stupid, but I didn’t know I had options. I thought sex was something that was done to you and that part of life as a woman was to make males feel included, because they’re the priority,” she says.

That day in her rape support group — her last day, it turned out — she realised none of this was true: she could say no. “This isn’t about money for me — I don’t care about the money. I just want a change of policy and for there to be female-only services, without taking away the mixed-sex services. Since I launched my case I’ve heard from so many women who say they stopped going to their groups for the same reason, but they didn’t want to say anything, and I thought about doing that — just going away and staying quiet. But I couldn’t do that anymore. It’s enough.”