I was trying to look up something about Reynolds High School, b/c reasons, and came across this old prediction by PZ over at Pharyngula:
In light of recent developments, I don’t know whether to praise him or bury him.
So believe it or not, there are people for whom the detailed analyses of articulate, accomplished cultural critics are insufficient. For these folks, even when a well-reasoned argument is presented in an engaging, accessible manner, such as on youtube, questions can occasionally remain if the conclusion of the critic is that sexism may very well be present in video games. Moreover, some will maintain, even if some eensy, weensy bit of sexism did – entirely by accident – creep into one of their favorite video games, such artistic sexism has no impact on the real world. It’s just a game! Just make believe! Just art! Why can’t you let it go?
Well, for those people who absolutely must have the peer reviewed research, one man at Iowa State University did not let it go, and his findings will amaze you all – number 6 even surprised Pervert Justice!
So, reading Science Daily*1, as I do from time to time, I picked up on an article about a very early jawed vertebrate. The newly identified critter is a late Silurian (Upper Silurian) fish that appears to date to Lau event and/or the period of recovery immediately after the Lau event (423 Mya).
None of that particularly escapes me. However, the article, which you can see here, included a graphic of the holotype fossil, and the graphic’s caption puzzled me. Perhaps you, dear reader, can help me out of my befuddlement.
While I know that this topic has been covered elsewhere on FtB, I couldn’t help noticing something that others had not yet mentioned. Steve King’s racism about “our babies” caused him just enough political discomfort that someone in the media decided to take his racism halfway seriously. The Hill decided to ask some follow up questions, but missed out on the single most obvious follow up presented by King’s self-defense.
Clearly bad actors are found in all fields of business or employment. I am even forced to concede that, on rare occasions, someone involved in my own prestigious field of blogging might misbehave. This fact is one of the underpinning justifications for the creation of boards of regulation for certain businesses and professions. In many cases, however, the regulators either don’t focus on the proper priorities or they are even created for entirely spurious reasons.
In the UK we’re seeing regulation of the field of journalism that displays gob-smacking amounts of each of these flaws. The UK has already been roundly criticized for inviting “libel tourism”,*1 but new legislation amending the Crime & Courts Act would create a strong presumption that media outlets will pay the court costs of both parties in any libel action. Because of the language that it amends, it’s fairly clear that this is supposed to undercut the presumption that when someone wrongly accuses you of libel and then loses in court, it’s unfair for the courts to order the innocent media outlet, author, or artist to pay the costs of the party that made the wrong accusation.
Reader NelC has given Pervert Justice it’s first header. Don’t think this is recent, either. NelC gave this to us a month and a half ago, but after a flurry of activity the first week I had this blog, I’ve been adding nothing to it. I’m back, and though I will likely always blog inconsistently, it’s time to update the look, praise the generosity of someone with an artistic vision and photoshop skills that I lack, and get on with adding a bit of new content.
Thanks again, NelC. The header is lovely and I appreciate your work…even if I didn’t appreciate it very promptly!