Guest post: Except that’s not their message

Originally a comment by M can help you with that on Cunningly disguised as their own.

Once there we will start distributing the totalitarian message that nerd and gamer culture is… perfectly wonderful just as it is and should be left alone to go it’s [sic] own way.

…except that’s not their message. Their message is that only the reactionary parts of nerd and gamer culture are “perfectly wonderful.” We know this from their positions: when one part of nerd or gamer culture (a more feminist, less racist, less cis-centric and/or heterocentric part) tries to influence what it means for the culture of which they are a part to “go its own way”…then that part, the honey badgers insist, absolutely cannot be “left alone,” but must be attacked, condemned, and harassed into silence. They’re not defending “nerd culture” or “gamer culture” — they’re insisting that certain reactionary elements in those subcultures should have absolute authority over the subculture as a whole. [Read more…]

Cunningly disguised as their own

The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo is happening this weekend. Jill Pantozzi at the MarySue fills us in on some doings there.

First, she tells us they have an excellent anti-harassment policy.

They also have a campaign going called #ExpoEquality, in cooperation with Calgary Communities Against Sexual Abuse.

Yay. For equality, against harassment and abuse.

So, naturally, we can’t have that.

A Gamergate affiliated group known as Honey Badger Radio procured a booth for Calgary Expo through a crowdfundng campaign specifically geared toward gaining attendance under false pretenses. The people representing them are Karen Straughan, Mike Stephenson, Alison Tieman, and Sage Gerard, and of their campaign they wrote:

In April of this year, the Honey Badgers plan to put on a booth at the Calgary Comics and Entertainment Expo! We plan to infiltrate nerd culture cunningly disguised as their own. [Read more…]

“It is our conclusion that CBC management condoned this behaviour”​​

The CBC tells us there’s a report saying the CBC did a bad job of dealing with Jian Ghomeshi.

CBC failed to provide its staff a workplace “free from disrespectful and abusive behaviour,” says the report of an independent investigator hired to examine the corporation’s handling of the behaviour of former radio and television host Jian Ghomeshi.

Janice Rubin, a Toronto employment lawyer with expertise in the field of workplace harassment, says in the report that Ghomeshi’s behaviour violated CBC standards, and that his behaviour was “considered to create an intimidating, humiliating, hostile or offensive work environment.”

The report says that as information was shared “upwards,” it had a tendency to become “diluted.” [Read more…]

Insufficient for joy

I spent too many minutes today arguing with a very “spiritual” person who is a vocal supporter of Raif Badawi on Facebook but who keeps putting her support in inappropriately “spiritual” terms. Since it’s one version of “spirituality” that is so determined to keep torturing him, I think that’s inappropriate at best.

I especially think it’s inappropriate to talk about “joy” in response to another Friday with no flogging, as she does every week. That’s not joyful. It’s a brief partial respite for Ensaf and their children, I hope, but it can’t very well be joyful when he could still be flogged next Friday and every Friday after that until all the remaining 950 lashes have been dealt out. It’s not an occasion for a party, not when things are this grim.

But I wish I hadn’t said anything to her, because her response was to ask Ensaf about it. Sigh. Because Ensaf has nothing better to worry about than this person on Facebook.

Joy is for when he gets out of prison and gets on the plane.

If they can, why can’t we??!

Get special rules, that is.

In Tennessee:

In an effort to get around recently passed zoning laws the owners of [a] Tennessee swingers club are rebranding their proposed establishment as a church, according to WSMV.

Previously the owners of the proposed club in Madison had submitted plans to convert a former medical building, situated next to a Christian school, into a sex club only to meet with stiff public resistance.

Following a packed and contentious meeting last month — with one audience member shouting “we don’t want this darkness to extinguish this beacon of light that has been here for years and years” –  the Metro Council amended the zoning laws to prevent the club from being developed.

Well you know…they would sort of have to amend the zoning laws for the whole entire town, wouldn’t they? I mean I hate to break it to them but I think there are probably people doing sex in many many places in Madison, Tennessee. I know it’s shocking and filthy, but there you go – people are like that. Sex!! In all the houses!!!

Relying upon federal laws that protect churches, the owners reapplied as a church. A room that was once labeled “the dungeon” is now the “choir room.” The former “game room” will now be known as a “fellowship hall.”

Ricky Perry, president of Goodpasture Christian School located next to the development, called changes and owners of the club “irreverent.”

“It just seems like there’s nothing you wouldn’t stoop to try to accomplish what you’re trying to do,” he said. “It’s obvious to me that all they’re trying to do is find another way to legally, or through some loophole, accomplish what they want to do.”

Or maybe it’s the Council that amended the zoning laws to stop them, hmmmm? Maybe they’re the ones trying to find another way to legally, or through some loophole, stop people from doing something because they think it’s ooky.

God bless.

Climate Change, Migration, and Conflict

We’ve been talking about this idea that climate change is going to cause a lot of mass migration, and the claim that it won’t be a problem if we just have open borders everywhere. I find that claim not at all credible, so I thought I would gesture toward a source or two.

The Center for American Progress has a report.

From the summary:

Recent intelligence reports and war games, including some conducted by the U.S. Department of Defense, conclude that over the next two or three decades, vulnerable regions (particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia) will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises, and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change. These developments could demand U.S., European, and international humanitarian relief or military responses, often the delivery vehicle for aid in crisis situations.

[Read more…]

Slavery has no place full stop

Amnesty International shares a letter from Samar Badawi to her husband Waleed Abu al-Khair. Samar Badawi is Raif Badawi’s sister.

He taught me that a person is born free and that it is up to him or her to live in freedom or die trying to achieve it. Slavery has no place in his life except when it comes to serving God, the one and only. Now, he lives in freedom even though he is behind bars with his colleagues Abdullah al-Hamid, Mohammad al-Qahtani and many other activists imprisoned purely for exercising their right to freedom of expression.

That’s a very odd exception, I have to say. Slavery is bad except when it’s slavery to god? I couldn’t disagree more. Slavery to god is the worst, because there is no avenue of appeal.

But, that apart…

Know then, dear husband, that it is tyranny and oppression that have put you behind bars. [Read more…]