Sunday Facepalm: No Pink Knuckles!

Or any other colour, for that matter.  Keychain self defense devices are quite popular, even though the old standby of placing your keys between your fingers still works fine, if you have the opportunity to get them in place, of course.  Texas is a state which allows a rather stunning range of weapons, all perfectly legal. But a hard plastic pussy cat? Oh no, can’t have that. Those things are dangerous, y’know!

…Just last year, a law went into effect making it legal for Texans to carry machetes, Bowie knives, swords, spears and daggers — any knife with a blade longer than 5 1/2 inches — in most places across the state.

…Lawmakers also passed a law that made it legal for licensed Texans to openly carry handguns as of Jan. 1, 2016. Before then, it already was legal to carry concealed handguns and shotguns or AR-15s in public.

Now Gun Owners of America has pinpointed Texas as their next battleground for constitutional carry, which would let gun owners carry their weapons openly or concealed without first getting a permit.

[…]

But plastic self-defense key chains — particularly those shaped like cats or dogs with pointy ears — are off-limits and illegal.

“It’s a prohibited weapon,” said Shannon Edmonds, a staff attorney with the Texas District and County Attorneys Association. “Unlike a firearm … these are always and everywhere prohibited.”

These key chains, which have been in the news recently in Texas, can cost less than $10 — unless you’re caught with them in Texas.

If that happens, you could end up paying as much as $4,000 in fines and spending up to a year in county jail, under state law.

“It is odd to have a situation where a person carrying a plastic pink kitty cat key chain could be arrested and sentenced to a year in jail while the person carrying a 9mm handgun next to them is free to do so,” said Mark P. Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. “But, at the same time, the person carrying the 9mm has a (license) … whereas the person with the key chain may not.

“This is a case where a well-intentioned law to prevent the use of brass knuckles and similar weapons was written before the existence of” self-defense key chains, he said.

Oh Texas, where you can seldom expect any sort of common sense. You can read all about this at Star-Telegram.

Ice Cream Saloons: A Place For Unchaperoned Women.

Ice cream parlor of L. C. Fish, Merced, Calif.

Ice cream parlor of L. C. Fish, Merced, Calif. Source.

…Throughout the 19th century, restaurants catered to a predominately male clientele. Much like taverns and gentlemen’s clubs, they were places where men went to socialize, discuss business, and otherwise escape the responsibilities of work and home. It was considered inappropriate for women to dine alone, and those who did were assumed to be prostitutes. Given this association, unescorted women were banned from most high-end restaurants and generally did not patronize taverns, chophouses, and other masculine haunts.

As American cities continued to expand, it became increasingly inconvenient for women to return home for midday meals. The growing demand for ladies’ lunch spots inspired the creation of an entirely new restaurant: the ice-cream saloon. At a time when respectable women were excluded from much of public life, these decadent eateries allowed women to dine alone without putting their bodies or reputations at risk.

[…]

The first ice cream saloons were humble cafes that served little more than ice cream, pastries, and oysters. As women became more comfortable eating out, they expanded into opulent, full-service restaurants with sophisticated menus that rivaled those at most other elite establishments. In 1850, a journalist described one ice cream saloon as offering “an extensive bill of fare … ice cream — oysters, stewed, fried and broiled; —broiled chickens, omelettes, sandwiches; boiled and poached eggs; broiled ham; beef-steak, coffee, chocolate, toast and butter.” According to the historian Paul Freeman, the 1862 menu of an ice cream saloon in New York ran a whopping 57 pages and featured mother of pearl detailing.

[…]

Although ice cream parlors had an air of dainty domesticity, they also developed more sultry reputations. At the time, they were one of the few places where both men and women could go unchaperoned. As a result, they became popular destinations for dates and other illicit rendezvous. “Did a young lady wish to enjoy the society of the lover whom ‘Papa’ had forbidden the house?” the New York Times wrote in 1866. “A meeting at Taylor’s was arranged, where soft words and loving looks served to atone for parental harshness, and aided the digestion of pickled oysters.”

Innocent young couples weren’t the only pairs tucked together in the velvet booths. During a trip to Taylor’s, one writer observed “a middle-aged man and woman in deep and earnest conversation. They are evidently man and wife—though not each others!” Moralists were also outraged by the presence of pimps, prostitutes, and women “who were not over particular with the company they kept.” These scandalous scenes prompted rumors of ice cream “drugged with passion-exciting Vanilla” that seduced virtuous women into taking “the first step…which leads to infamy.”

These charges did little to dissuade respectable women from patronizing ice cream saloons. In fact, their reputation as “a trysting ground for all sorts of lovers” may have made the saloons all the more enticing. According to the Times, Taylor’s “always maintained its popularity, in spite of (or perhaps because of) rumors that it afforded most elegant opportunities for meetings not entirely correct.”

Oh my, passion-exciting Vanilla! I have vanilla ice cream in my freezer, and I had no idea of the evil I was hosting. I’ll enjoy it all the more for that. You can read much more about the history of Ice Cream Saloons at Atlas Obscura.

Fairy Tale Art.

A wonderful site, full of enough fairy tale art to keep a person quite busy, sent along by rq: Art Passions. Fairy Tale art and artists encompass so very many styles, and the illustrations are crucial to the stories, they inflame the imagination, and illuminate the stories from within. In this particular case, serendipity strikes, as I brought home a book of short tales by Leigh Bardugo yesterday:

The first story, Ayama and the Thorn Wood, is a grand story which I enjoyed very much. I do have one noisy complaint however, and it has to do with the fairy tale art. In the story, Ayama is described thusly:

“Ayama was clumsy and apt to drop things. Her body was solid and flat-footed, short and round as a beer jug.”

Given this description, why in the fuckety fuck is Ayama drawn like this?:

This never should have gotten a pass from anyone, let alone the author. It is not a crime to depict characters correctly, and all girls do not need to be tall and thin with a teeny waist. FFS, seeing this sort of thing is infuriating, and it went a long way to souring a very good story. In the story, Ayama is strong, courageous, imaginative, and thoughtful. In the drawing, she’s just another generic pretty, skinny girl. That’s not doing anyone any favours. We all come in different shapes and sizes, and that’s a message all kids need. What they don’t need is yet another cookie cutter shape to try and stuff themselves into, regardless of fit.

The Healing Arts: A Man Mid-Wife.

An interesting piece, addressing what was a great controversy, with people hotly on one side or another, as male physicians encroached on the world of childbirth. Additional information and sources under the image. Click for full size.

A Man Mid-Wife, Isaac Cruikshank, Etching coloured, 1793. Subject: John Blunt (pseud. S.W. Fores), Midwives, Surgical Instruments, Forceps.

A Man Mid-Wife, Isaac Cruikshank, Etching coloured, 1793. Subject: John Blunt (pseud. S.W. Fores), Midwives, Surgical Instruments, Forceps.

The text reads:

“A Man-Mid-Wife, or a newly discover’d animal, not Known in Buffon’s time; for a more full description or this monster, see, an ingenious book, lately published, price 3/6 entitled Man-Midwifery dissected, containing a variety of well-authenticated cases elucidating this animals Propensities to cruelty & indecency sold by the publisher of this Print who has presented the author with the above [illustration] for the Frontispiece to his Book.”

From the same source:

Summary

This etching illustrated a book criticizing (male) physician birth attendants–“man midwives”–today’s obstetricians. The etching shows a figure that is male on one side, female on the other. The male half stands on a plain wood floor next to a large mortar and pestle, holding an instrument labeled a “lever” in his hand, which is pressed against his thigh. The background seems to be a shop, with shelves lined with vials, bottles, and frightening looking instruments labeled “forceps,” “boring scissors,” and “blunt book.”

In contrast, the female half of the figure stands in a homey room on a decoratively carpeted floor; in her outstretched hand she holds a small cup. Behind her, a fire burns in a grate.

Commentary

This etching was made in 1793, at a time when middle-and upper-middle class English women were being attended by physicians rather than midwives at the births of their children. Midwives were left to attend the beds of birthing women too poor to afford the services of physicians.

At the time, however, criticism was leveled at physicians who chose to demean themselves by doing “women’s work,” with some suggestion that their only motivations must be prurient ones. (This latter accusation is hinted at by one of the bottles on the shelves of the man half of the man-midwife; it is labeled “love water.”).

Today, while few would accuse male ob-gyns of perversion (although male medical students who choose this specialty probably still raise eyebrows in some corners), questions about the proper place, methods, and attendants at childbirth still are debated. Only in the past three decades, for example, has the presence of fathers at childbirth been considered proper, and we still argue about home vs. hospital births, the use of midwives, training for midwives, and the place of technology and medication in normal births.

You can read a fair amount of what was written in the 18th century by people on both the pro- and anti- sides here.

Historian Ruby has an excellent rundown of the great controversy, where once again we encounter the scandal of Mary Toft in this excerpt:

Hugh Chamberlen, as well as being a physician, was also a speculative businessman, and when his proposed business dealings failed, his creditors forced him to flee abroad.  With his credibility damaged, he was lampooned in verse in 1699 in Hue and Cry After a Man-Midwife, Who has Lately Deliver’d the Land-Bank of their Money.  It was noted that ‘great belly’d ladies have mighty respect for’ the man-midwife, demonstrating that the fashion for men-midwives commenced in the seventeenth century and was not just an eighteenth century phenomenon.  The verse also alluded to the outrage that was displayed in some quarters by opponents of men-midwives, ‘Among his profession he’s fam’d as a topper, By some call’d a midwife, by others a groper,’ hinting at sexual improprieties that the man-midwife could commit once alone with vulnerable females.

Public suspicion of the medical profession ran deep in the eighteenth century, in part due to the non-secular society believing that decaying bodies tainted the men who practiced medicine, but also, medicine was considered the least prestigious of the professions and the physicians’ failure to cure illness and stave off death impacted the public’s perception of them.  The man-midwifery profession was further disparaged after several eminent London men-midwives supported Mary Tofts, who in the 1720s claimed to have given birth to a litter of rabbits.  The absurdity of their support of Tofts in her fraudulent claim led to professional ridicule.  Not only were the men of the medical profession considered asinine for agreeing with Tofts’ wild claims, there was a growing suspicion of the practitioner as a ‘corrupter of morals, a threat to female modesty and even as a libertine.’

Blunt’s book, Man-midwifery dissected ; or, the obstetric family-instructor : In fourteen letters, is available to read at the Internet Archive. You can also see the above image properly coloured as the frontispiece of the book.

Behind the Iron Curtain part 5 – Feminism

These are my recollections of a life behind the iron curtain. I do not aim to give perfect and objective evaluation of anything, but to share my personal experiences and memories. It will explain why I just cannot get misty eyed over some ideas on the political left and why I loathe many ideas on the right.

I grew up in a household where a lot of the work was shared between both parents. There was division of labor between them, but it was never presented to me as the “right” thing to do. So while my mother has done indeed most of the washing, cleaning and cooking and my father has done the repairs around the house and the gardening and husbandry, I was never discouraged from doing anything on the basis that it is “unmanly”. And it was not uncommon for my father to do the dishes or cooking. Especially since my mother had higher ranking and better paid job than my father, so mostly when I was sick it was my father who took care of me (which was a lot).

Neither do I remember any such thing from school.

That is not to say that patriarchal ideas were not present or prevalent. They were both. Most party officials were old men, with all the baggage that carries with it. Thousand years of history cannot be denied or ignored, so the ideas about things proper and improper for a woman were still propagated and confirmed to the old stereotypes. It was expected that a woman takes care of the household while the man takes care of most of the income. It was expected tha men will do most of the leading and women will be mostly lead. There were jobs that were considered to be for men and jobs that were generally considered to be for women.

But, even in retrospect, I think a progress was made, and the regime did not approach the issue altogether falsely.

Firstly women were not officially discouraged from any job, with perhaps the exception of the army. Unfortunately the gender pay gap was there (and got further exacerbated after the fall of the iron curtain), but it was not uncommon to see women in leadership positions. Women were officially recognized as a big potential working force. The official stance was to encourage women to take on any job they wish and the regime boasted this officially and a great pride was taken in having the first woman astronaut for example etc. This of course had to work against the aforementioned cultural drag.

Secondly in media there was an effort made at making movies and TV series that either were centered around women, or at least contained some gender parity in both heroes and villains. One of the most popular TV series from my childhood that I remember had the main protagonist and one of the main villains both women. But of course here too was hindered by the enormous cultural inertia.

But the things the regime I think got definitively right (that I knew of at the time) were these two: maternity leave and divorce.

At the time of my life maternity leave was nearly three years and the regime took great pride in that. The reasoning was that taking care of the children is an important work for the society as a whole and should be recognized as such. Low or unpaid maternity leave in some western countries was always presented as one of the most backwards things.
Divorce was also legal and available pretty much on demand, even if it was not swift and there were legal loops to go through. The reasoning here was that to keep a woman in a marriage she does not wish to be in is a form of slavery and as such does not belong in modern society.

In retrospect I think the Iron curtain stopping more progress being made on this front was more in people’s heads than in the regime’s ideology.

“If you join a gym, don’t join one with gay men in it.”

Over at Barbwire, Robert Oscar Lopez has an article up on how to be a Manly, testosterone laden STRAIGHT DUDE, complete with ten ‘tips’ for getting over that awful gay. There’s so much material (two dense pages), I’m just going to pull bits here and there, you can check the whole mess for yourself, and calling it a mess is a serious understatement. As well as all the lies of the “ex-gay” bullshit, there’s a serious misconception of just what a “straight man” is, too. There’s a full embrace of toxic masculinity, along with some incredible mistakes in that regard. Altogether, it’s terribly pathetic, a complete caricature of being a man, a cartoon construct filled with desperation.

I don’t have much more time before the law makes it illegal for me to share the ten tips I will share in this blog. So I better type quickly and give you ten tips on: how to go from gay to straight. I am speaking from some expertise, but mostly from my own experience. These tips will be helpful if you find yourself wanting to get out of the gay world but your goal is not celibacy.

Oh, I see the drama has not been forsaken. It will be illegal to talk about my desire to be a straight dude, oh no!!1!!

There are certain perks about being gay that you are going to miss. For instance, if you identify as gay, people pity you and give you less responsibility for being a jerk. You get to be a complete whore and have that called liberation. Sex is easy to get and commitments easy to flake out on.

It’s a bad start, painting the queer communities all over the world this way, like a bad ’80s movie. Cruuuuise, baybee! Anyone can be a jerk. Anyone can sleep around. Sex is not always easy to get. Anyone can be afraid of commitment. Unfortunately, Mr. Lopez is all about the stereotypes.

In the gay world, you may have competed from time to time for the attention of men with nice physiques; now, you will be fighting against men with even more well-developed physiques, trying to achieve victory over them in order to win for yourself a coveted prize: a virtuous and desirable wife.

Soon you will see how much harder life is for straight guys.

:Snortsputter: Sorry, almost choked on my tea there. Oh yes, let’s hear it for the poor, pathetic straight dudes. Their lives are so gosh darn hard, livin’ the status quo! Now maybe it’s just me, but I haven’t really noticed a tonne of straight dudes with even MORE well-developed physiques wandering about. Maybe it’s where I live, but there seems to be a preponderance of pot bellies.

Once you go straight, you may go years without sex; nobody wants to hear you cry about it. Once you find your woman, you can’t just blow off things she complains about. You have to sit and listen to her whine about stupid stuff for hours without laughing or rolling your eyes or getting snarky.

I’m not sure the sacrifice is worth this, and while Mr. Lopez goes on and on about the big prize of a wife, owning that there woman, he paints a picture of complete subjection to said woman, and you just have to take it, because that’s the price you pay. There’s not one bloody word about finding a partner, a friend, someone to share your life with love and care. And I have to say, no one is getting my damn snark. It’s all mine, and I’m not sacrificing for anyone.

Most importantly, once you go straight, nobody wants to hear you complain or talk about your problems. The minute you leave gay identity behind, you go from being a pitiable and pathetic victim to a grown man with the ability to solve his own problems. This means you cannot break down or become defeatist, and you cannot expect sympathy just for being you. When straight men threaten to kill themselves if people do not give them what they want, this is called abusive rather than the grounds for a hashtag campaign.

So…you’re saying straight men suck at being friends? All the gay people I know are not considered to be pitiable or pathetic by anyone, least of all themselves, and I’m afraid they get stuck with solving their own problems, just like everyone else, you stupid dipshit. Of course straight men can break down, they can become defeatist, and depressed, just as anyone can, and that calls for support and help, not that you’d offer any, Mr. Lopez. And more to the point, Mr. Lopez, it’s perfectly normal and alright for straight men to break down, feel defeatist, or become depressed. No man should feel like he cannot reach out for help or that men don’t deserve help. Keeping crap all bottled up is the reason why a lot of angry, straight, mostly white men end up going on mass killings. It’s horrible, evil, toxic bullshit that men are supposed to be silent sufferers, that “real” men don’t do this and don’t do that. It’s a shit attitude, and it’s harmful. People are people, and all people should be able to reach out when they are in need, with no stigma attached.

Perhaps the biggest transformation signifies the most important change: your sexual identity will no longer be based on what you want, but rather, what you give to a woman. You must abandon the practice of dwelling on whether you like this or are excited by that–the issue now is: what body do you have, and how can it give pleasure to others? You have a penis, which is the basic piece of equipment to bring happiness to a woman (though you must make sure that match is right). But from now on, the quest is not to gratify your penis, but rather to give pleasure to her with it. You will measure your sex life by how happy she is, how pleasured she feels, how much satisfaction she expresses.

Did you get that, women? All it takes to make you happy is a penis. I wonder if Mr. Lopez knows you can avail yourself of a wide variety of detachable penises, in varying degrees of softness/hardness, colour, and size? Some of those bad boys even have convenient lotion or lube inside. Others have happy time batteries. Oh my! Personally, I don’t want a partner who is obsessed with only one side of the sexual aspect of the relationship.

You need to get healthy, with a decent body mass and strength. You need to be financially stable. If you join a gym, don’t join one with gay men in it. Be around masculine men and pick up their mannerisms and humor. Do not listen to women who say they want sensitive men or an equal share of power in the household; women want leadership, strength, and guidance from men. You have to become a rock of fortitude, a source of security–for men, that is the love we give. And you have to be in good enough shape to make her body feel unbelievable pleasures she might have never imagined.

Just how does one avoid a gym with even one gay person in it? How would you know? I’m pretty sure going around and asking people if they’re some flavour of queer would get you promptly kicked out. Oh, and security is nice, but I prefer my partner to actually like and love me.

The manosphere may shock you (I mean sites like Roosh’s Return of Kings) with its misogyny and vulgarity. But you need to hear the thoughts of straight guys.

Those are not the thoughts of straight dudes, Mr. Lopez. Those are the thoughts of toxic assholes, who are not the least bit interested in finding a wife; they’re into the dark side of that whoredom business, using, abusing, and tossing. It’s all about notches. As for the thoughts of straight guys, well here’s the thing: you’re talking about a fucktonne of individuals, Mr. Lopez, and most of them are not represented by the toxic manosphere. You seem to buying into this notion that a manly man has to be a toxic, misogynistic asshole.  Straight dudes are not a  hive mind, or any other type of collective.

It will also educate you on how straight men deal with setbacks and frustration. You need to increase your masculinity and self-confidence before you start dating girls. In addition to spending your time online in these kinds of environments, you want to do activities that place you in contact with straight men, and do not confide in other guys everything you are dealing with. Part of being a man is not having to talk about everything in your head, and just listening to what other people do. If you want to be in a relationship with a woman, you need to become a man — the kind of person who can be stalwart, unflappable, strong, and reliable, someone with no problems or drama. Being around straight men will gradually help you get there.

Ah, the school of stiff upper lip and penis! You don’t need anymore than that, straight men!

In crass terms, when you become a woman’s sexual partner (husband), the sex life of the marriage will largely depend on your sexual performance. You will need strong abdominal muscles, gluteal muscles, arms, and legs. You want your woman to feel like a powerful animal has her in his power, who instead of crushing her is using his strength to lift her out of the doldrums of this world into a dreamworld of ecstasy and limitless wonder. For her, sex is a vacation like riding the jet skis in Jamaica. You are the stallion she will ride into glory. But to be that stallion, you need to be muscular, have high testosterone, and be fit.

I, uh, I oh gods…falls over laughing. I think Mr. Lopez may have been reading a tonne of bad bodice rippers. A good sex life is one in which all the performances count. If this is just about you, might as well toss the wife a nice detachable penis, and go back to masturbating.

Okay, that’s it for me. I can’t take anymore. I’m going to go clean instead. Yikes. You can read all two pages of compleat shit here.

Women’s Suffrage Mapped.

Click for full size.

Click for full size. Map created by Cuba Holidays.

The map above shows when women got the right to vote in each country around the world.

2018 marks the centenary of Women’s suffrage in the UK and even then only with several restrictions (had to be over the age of 30 and meet property qualifications).

You can read much more (with links) at Brilliant Maps: Women’s Suffrage Mapped: The Year Women Got The Vote By Country.

Tennessee Republicans: War on Women.

Rep. Bill Dunn (AP/Getty/Photo Montage by Salon).

Rep. Bill Dunn (AP/Getty/Photo Montage by Salon).

Tennessee rethugs have come up with a new way to shame and oppress women, forcibly reminding all women that their only function in life is to be a silent vessel for babies.

Last week, the Republican-controlled Tennessee state Senate passed a bill to erect the “Tennessee Monument to Unborn Children, In Memory of the Victims of Abortion: Babies, Women, and Men” on the capitol grounds, near memorials to victims of slavery and the Holocaust. A similar bill has passed the state house, and it’s likely that the state’s Republican governor, Bill Haslam, will sign this legislation into law.

[…]

“Both of these monuments that are already here recognize that atrocities occurred because human beings were treated as less than human,” state Rep. Bill Dunn (R) said in March. “In both cases, the vulnerable and defenseless were subjected to the will of the powerful.”

“The taking of the life of a baby in the womb is related to this brand of inhumanity,” Dunn added.

[…]

It’s critical to understand that the intended “memorial” does not memorialize any actual people. Babies are not harmed by abortion, because babies only exist after a pregnancy is completed. Men are not victimized by abortion, because men do not have any rights over women’s bodies that can be violated. And women are not victims of abortion either, since it’s a process they choose for themselves and one that research suggests is generally the right decision for those who make it.

Tennessee Republicans are doing more than insulting women. They’re minimizing the seriousness of slavery and the Holocaust by suggesting that the millions of real victims of these atrocities are no more important than the imaginary victims of abortion.

The timing of this memorial to fake victims is noteworthy. This is all happening during an ongoing war over memorials to the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan, which Tennessee progressives have been trying to take down and Tennessee Republicans are trying to preserve.

There isn’t the least bit of subtlety in this latest move to stomp women back into their “proper place”. It’s disgusting and beyond wrong, and this is what conservatives, especially christian conservatives have come to, a complete caricature of lunatics running the asylum. In the year 2018, women are still viewed and treated as property, public and private, as well as mental simpletons who couldn’t possibly make decisions for themselves. This is the viewpoint of the regressive lunkheads in Tennessee, who will use any means to make sure women know they are property, and that it’s best left to men to decide what’s best for any given woman.

Amanda Marcotte at Salon has the full story.

Abstinence Only. Again.

Attribution: PittNews/CC.

Attribution: PittNews/CC.

Several years ago, David Wiley, a professor of health education at Texas State University, was discussing human papillomavirus in one of his classes. The virus, known as HPV, is the most common sexually-transmitted disease. Often it is harmless and infected individuals aren’t even aware they have it. But it can also cause cancer, including of the cervix.

Wiley was discussing all of this with his students — the different types of HPV, the connection between HPV and cervical cancer, and its prevalence; “you know, just an intro, lower-level course,” he recently recalled — when a male student raised his hand with an earnest question: What was his risk of contracting cervical cancer?

“And I don’t know what’s sadder,” Wiley told The Intercept, “that he asked that question or that really nobody in the classroom even laughed because they didn’t know either.”

[…]

The federal government began funding so-called Abstinence-Only Until Marriage programs in 1981 as a way to encourage “chastity” and “self-discipline.” Since then, the feds have poured more than $2 billion into this strategy — commonly known as “ab-only” — without any proven positive effects, like delaying sexual activity or avoiding unintended pregnancy. In recent years, that funding had been in decline, in part because research — and practical experiences like Wiley’s — shows that the programs do not work. But in an ironic twist, they’re now making a comeback. Trump, an alleged serial adulterer who has bragged about sexually assaulting women and has been accused of such behavior close to two dozen times, has asked that abstinence funding be increased. And in the budget deal he signed last month, he got his wish, enough to bring total spending on abstinence up to $100 million for 2018.

[…]

Under Obama, funding for ab-only programs decreased as new emphasis was placed on using science to develop evidence-based sexuality and reproductive education strategies. But the Trump administration is trying to reverse course. Along with the return to Bush-era funding levels to push the ab-only message, Trump has appointed anti-abortion, anti-birth control, and pro-ab-only advocates to positions within the Department of Health and Human Services and has yanked funding for a successful evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention strategy.

[…]

Among the biggest proponents of ab-only programs — and their rebranding — is Valerie Huber, a Trump appointee to HHS. Huber started her career promoting ab-only programs in her son’s school before moving on to manage the ab-only program at the Ohio Department of Health. She became the president of the National Abstinence Education Association in 2007. (The advocacy organization has also rebranded itself. It’s now known as Ascend.) Huber acknowledges that the term “sexual-risk avoidance” was taken from public health, but insists it was appropriately chosen. “I bristle at the terminology ‘abstinence only,’ because our programs are so holistic,” she told Focus on the Family’s magazine “Citizen,” and address “a whole battery of different topics that surround a young person’s decision whether to have sex or not.”

This is, of course, exceedingly bad news. If you’re a parent who prefers their child to be prepared and safe, best to tackle comprehensive sex-ed at home, or an outside of school class. This will affect some states much more than others, so it’s important to find out just what the sex-ed in your child’s school is like. Ab-only also cuts out all queer students, and teaches girls that being assaulted or raped is their fault, emphasising dress and behaviour.

The Intercept has an in-depth article about this mess, recommended reading.  As the Tiny Tyrant has a vested interest in giving the lunatic evangelicals whatever they want, and they want a whole lot, you might want to have a click over to Religious Dispatches to read about Project Blitz. That’s enough to scare anyone silly.

Girls! Icky, Evil Girls!

Goodness me, the whole world is unraveling, everything is going to go to hell because girls. Not terribly surprising when it comes to christian thinking, females of any type are always the evil problem to blame.

The American Family Association released a video in which Tim Wildmon and Ed Vitaglino, the AFA’s president and executive vice president, respectively, railed against the news that thousands of girls have joined the Boy Scouts after the organization began admitting them earlier this year.

I went and read the small article about this, and yes, 3,000 girls have joined up. There was a mention of a brother and sister who excitedly joined up, they want to be the first siblings to achieve eagle scout. I don’t think much of boy scouts, but that’s kind of nice, for siblings to be able to be together in such a venture. I’m certainly not seeing the horrible evil which Tim & Ed have conjured up. Perhaps they’ll explain…

“This is, I think, a part of the ongoing war against the Judeo-Christian worldview, the way God has established mankind, male and female,” Vitaglino said, asserting that “the secular progressive … materialistic worldview based in evolution” is waging a “war against God and His divine order.”

Uh, nope. That’s not helping to clarify at all. All girls aren’t going to stop being girls because they joined a scouting organization. All boys aren’t going to stop being boys because they’re now in a co-ed scouting organization. I don’t get at all how this could possibly go against old Jehovah. I have no idea what evolution has to do with anything. It’s not like the scouts were a creationist thing. Let’s see, shall we?

It is a common belief that the BSA does prohibit members who are atheist and agnostic based on its “duty to God” principle and that members (adult and youth) agree with the Declaration of Religious Principle in the bylaws. However, the BSA has had Buddhist troops since 1920 and many Buddhists are atheists or agnostics. The BSA also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Unitarian Universalist Association in 2016 which specifically gives ultimate authority over a participant’s spiritual welfare to the individual Unitarian Universalist congregation. The MOU also specifically includes within Unitarian Universalist chartered troops Humanism as an acceptable form of spirituality as well as Earth-centered religions. [Wikipedia.]

Doesn’t look to me like it’s any sort of made-up war against your pathetic god, gentlemen. Of course, if there’s willful ignorance to be had, you’ll always find it in christians.

“So, you think this is basically satanic?” Wildmon asked.

“This is Romans 1,” Vitaglino responded. “When any individual or community or nation, any culture, ignores God or refuses to honor Him and give Him the glory He deserves, then the Bible makes clear in Romans 1 that they are then given over to a deepening darkness and depravity and, unfortunately, that’s what we’re seeing happen in America.”

Oh FFS, give the satanic panic a fucking rest already. How in the fuckety fuck is an organization going co-ed ignoring a god or refusing honour and glory? I imagine all the christian kids in the boy scouts do all that idiotic shit, and it’s really beyond the pale to consider this as depraved in any way. If anything, this might really help boys and young men to truly understand that girls and young women are people, not objects, and people with ideas and abilities of their own. If this helps in even the smallest of ways to reduce sexism, it will be a very good thing indeed. And christians really need to stop being so bloody hysterical over every little thing.

RWW has the story and the video.

Dear Jim Bakker, Go Fuck Yourself.

Jim Bakker, a fan of the fanatical Jan Porter and her ‘heartbeat’ bill, has somehow come to the conclusion that there were two scientists who would have cured cancer, but they were aborted by evil wenches who had the unthinkable, autonomy. Naturally, Jehovah was the one who decided to “send” these two scientists, rather than doing something straightforward, like simply eliminating all cancers, which would be rather amazing, as it would require our cells to behave differently across our various lifetimes. Or Jehovah could have simply dropped a bit of super-duper brilliance on any of the current scientists researching cancer. Lots of choice there, to say the least.

Jim Bakker claimed that God has sent two scientists to earth who would have found the cure for cancer, but they were both aborted before that ever happened.

Bakker was interviewing extremist Religious Right activist Janet Porter and former Rep. Tom DeLay about their efforts to get Congress to pass Porter’s “Heartbeat Bill,” a radical piece of legislation that Porter brags will outlaw abortion “before the mother even knows she’s pregnant” and will be “the foot in the door” to eventually completely outlawing abortion. Bakker declared that Porter’s bill is “the most important thing going on in the world right now.”

Janet Porter is a dangerous fanatic, whose life desire is to stomp on women, ensure they will never have bodily autonomy, and she has no problem with women dying, she considers that suitable punishment for any women who dares to think her life is her own, and that she has the right to make her own medical decisions in privacy. If we actually had a government, rather than a regime, she might not be so worrying, but considering the regime currently in power, there’s a great deal to dread.

“This program could be an important cog to stop abortion in this country,” he added. “The thing we have done in America, we have killed our babies. We have killed the future of America. I told you the other day about a story, someone said they asked God, ‘Why haven’t we had a cure for cancer?’ And He said back, ‘I gave you two scientists that had the cure and both of them were aborted.’”

Oh FFS, the effing helicopter story. This is the stupid christian’s answer to anything and everything. I have seen and read so many fucking versions of that idiocy over the years, I’d like to cheerfully strangle the idiot who started it. Most christians think that’s just brilliant, which tells you a lot about most christians. As for a “cure for cancer”, there’s no such thing, and it’s not likely there ever will be. That’s because cancer is not one disease, it’s hundreds of diseases. Even within a category of a specific cancer, there are different types of that specific cancer. Cancers are born of cell mutations, and there have to be a number of different mutations before anything turns into cancer. Cell mutations often happen which don’t turn into cancer. Some cancers are easier to treat than others, and have a high remission rate. Research into cancer is constant, and it’s a never-ending race against time. A great deal of progress has been made, and a great many people are able to live their lives out, rather than die an untimely death.

For there to be ‘a cure’ for all cancers, that would qualify as a miracle, because no one treatment is effective against all cancers, that’s why current cancer treatments are targeted. So, Jehovah’s “two scientists” wouldn’t have been able to do shit where cancer is concerned. Once again, the sheer weakness and ineffectiveness of the christian god is what stands out. What’s the fucking point of being a god, if you go to the trouble to imbue a couple of blastocysts with miracle performance, but you couldn’t choose people who not only truly wanted a child, but had the necessary circumstances to have that child, and see that it gets a good education to boot? Or you know, wiggle a godly pinky finger and take care of the cancer business yourself?

To a christian, it doesn’t matter what the fuck happens in any given situation, their nasty, pointless god always gets the credit, especially when credit belongs to the people who make a life and death difference to someone.

As someone struggling with cancer treatment, this fucking attitude is infuriating, to say the least. A great many people over the years have helped to make brilliant leaps in treatment, and if I make it through treatment and come out clean on the other end, any gratitude I may have will belong to them, not the ugly ass god of christians. It is very christian to decide to use something like cancer to try to force the regressive oppression of women though, because cancer is still the big fucking scary, and too many christians are stupid and gullible enough to buy such awful dreck as some sort of skillful reasoning.

RWW has the story.

The Inquisition Tentacles Are Spreading.

I’ve written about Ralph Drollinger before. He’s one scary lunatic christian, and he wields way too much influence in the current regime. He’s crowing again, over all the “progress” he’s making. It’s as well to remember that Drollinger’s idea of progress is to bring back the inquisition or something like.

Ralph Drollinger, who runs fundamentalist Bible studies for dozens of members of Congress and President Trump’s Cabinet every week, said in a fundraising letter this month that his group “has been blessed by God with extraordinary growth beyond our wildest imaginings in foreign nations across the globe and most notably in former Soviet Bloc countries.”

[…]

We noted last fall that Drollinger is aggressively expanding his operations both at the local government level in the U.S. and in national capitals around the world. His April 4 letter includes some details about the latter:

In the last few months discipleship Bible studies have been established to Parliamentarians in Romania; Ukraine; Fiji; Papua New Guinea; and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. A ministry is about to begin in Guatemala, and before fall, we expect work to be completed for ministries in the Central and South American nations of Peru; Ecuador; Brazil; Mexico; Uruguay; and Paraguay, as well as in the European city Riga, Latvia.

Work is current an ongoing with partners to establish discipleship Bible studies in Berlin and Bonne [sic]. We are enthusiastically pursuing an opportunity to plant a ministry in the European Union Parliament, a body of 600 Parliamentarians from 26 Western and Eastern European nations who meet two weeks every month in Brussels, Belgium and one week every month in Strasbourg, France.

We thought the Lord did not want us in the Middle East, but to our great surprise discussions are currently underway to establish a ministry in a Muslim majority nation in the Middle East.

[…]

Although Drollinger is quick to complain about news coverage he believes is unfair, his letter says a story published in a German newspaper helped attract new friends. And Capitol Ministries has been gushing about a recent BBC story that the group says “reached more than 1 million readers world-wide.”

I have no idea why people might find Drollinger favourable in any light, but even if you are one of the lucky people who lives in a happily secular nation, this should be worrying. Drollinger is naturally courting regressive governments, but there are always regressive asses in any government, and they are likely to listen to Drollinger. I fail to see the charm, and it’s beyond disturbing that Drollinger is not simply being dismissed. Just to give you an idea of what Drollinger wants to institute, as far as government is concerned:

Drollinger’s April 13 Bible study says it is a “disservice to the country” for public servants to “craft policy that is not somehow rooted in Scripture.” Here are some of the other theological and political positions Drollinger teaches public officials:

Drollinger likes to tell reporters that he doesn’t instruct public officials how to vote, but he makes it clear in his written Bible studies that, for example, Christian public servants are required to support the death penalty and oppose marriage equality.

Drollinger also has very specific views on the role of women: “there is a prohibition of female leadership in marriage, and female leadership in the church.” One of his Bible studies explains what he calls the “unambiguous” difference in responsibilities the Bible gives men and women, saying women’s “primary functions” include homemaking, home management, mothering, teaching younger women, displaying hospitality and dressing modestly.

There’s much more, RWW has the full story.

Fiends of Darkness With Dastardly Phrases!

Stanislas de Guaita. Le Serpent de la Genèse: Le Temple de Satan. Paris : Librairie du Merveilleux, 1891.

Stanislas de Guaita. Le Serpent de la Genèse: Le Temple de Satan. Paris : Librairie du Merveilleux, 1891.

C-Fam is all busy “fighting the fiends of darkness with their dastardly phrases”, at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, of course, because where else?

Last year, the Trump administrated invited a representative from Austin Ruse’s C-Fam—which works with some of the world’s most repressive regimes to resist reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality at the UN—to join the official U.S. delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. This year, C-Fam isn’t in the official delegation, but Ruse is fundraising off his group’s advocacy against the inclusion of “dastardly phrases” such as “sexual orientation” and “reproductive health” in commission documents.

Ruse wrote in a fundraising email yesterday (emphases his):

The bad news is that “sexual orientation”, “gender identity”, “reproductive health”, and “comprehensive sexuality education” are all in the CSW documents we have been negotiating at the UN since last Monday.

The good news is that each of these dastardly phrases have been bracketed and are on the verge of being deleted altogether.

We have been working on this literally for months and we are on the verge of a great victory against the fiends of darkness.

As you know,

Sexual orientation and gender identity is code for odious sexual behavior and gender lunacy,

Reproductive health is code for abortion,

Comprehensive sexuality education is a blue-print for kids to lose their lives and their souls.

These wicked ideas are being pushed by hard-leftists at the UN and by diplomats from Europe.

But, they did not count on the pro-life and pro-family coalition!

We have five more days of negotiations before we know whether we have routed the enemy. …

Odious sexual behaviour? Okay, how about we talk about the massive cheating and porn addiction problem in conservative christians? Gender lunacy? Okay, how about we have a little chat about the damaging, rigid stereotypes imposed on children of conservative christians?

Reproductive health is code for reproductive health, you mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging doucheweasel. The ability to terminate a pregnancy successfully is a part of that, whether or not birth is the termination point. Let’s not forget about something else you absolutely loathe: contraception. Contraception goes a long way to keeping a whole lot of people safe and sane, and yes, that includes men. It’s worth mentioning a fact you do your best to ignore: certain contraceptives are often prescribed for specific reproductive health problems, and that is very important indeed to those who suffer such health problems. Pain is not fun.

A blue-print for kids to lose their lives? No, that’s not what comprehensive sex ed does at all. Comprehensive sex ed saves lives by making sure kids engage in sexual activity when they are ready, not before, and that they do it safely. Sex ed also teaches consent, which is vital for all kids to know and understand, which can and does prevent rape, something you asshole christians don’t have much of a problem with. Sex ed also provides answers and security to those kids who are thinking they are all alone in their orientation, and sex ed teaches kids to be accepting to others, yet another thing you asshole christians don’t like, you’re much more at home with intolerance and hate.

Unfortunately, there’s more of this hateful fucking garbage, and you can read it all at RWW.