Demonstrate calmly for pro-science

Brianne writes fairly frequently about her experiences as a clinic escort, dealing with shrieking fanatics who stand on sidewalks harassing people going into family planning clinics. They’re hideous and awful and have lost all sense of perspective and humanity, and they’re also remarkably ineffective…unless, of course, their goals are to make other people miserable and to expose their own obsessive inhumanity.

They have a lot in common with another group, animal rights protesters. Sanctimonious assholes, all of them. They’re all over UCLA, and they’re busy protesting researchers’ homes, at least when they’re not too busy planting bombs around the neighborhood or setting cars on fire or vandalizing people’s property.

Look at that person comparing animal experimentation to the Holocaust; it makes me wonder, do they intend to elevated monkeys to the status of Jews, or are they simply equating Jews and monkeys? Can we please not trivialize the murder of humans by pretending it has the same moral equivalency as biomedical research?

I think they, like clinic protesters, have forgotten the difference between expressing an idea/protesting against another idea, and harassment. They also lose all right to put themselves on the side of right in the Holocaust comparison when they say things like this, about UCLA researcher David Jentsch:

And later, the leader of the group whispers to the reporter:

“Wasn’t Jentsch’s car burned or something?” Then, above the din of chants, she adds, “I don’t know how to put this—I only wish he were in it.”

How can they compare researchers to Mengele when this is what they advocate?

I’ll be watching that asshole; I don’t want that piece of garbage and his family living in this neighborhood. He ought to be experimented on.

This weekend, there will be a counter-protest on the UCLA campus. If you value scientific research, you should go. If you believe in ethical research conduct and think these bloody-minded lunatics are actively undermining the responsible monitoring of research, you should go. If you’re just a decent human being who has had enough of idiot fanaticism, you should go.

They’re meeting at 10:15am on 15 February at the Franz Hall lobby on the UCLA campus. Go there, be civil and intelligent, and show people how ideas should be argued — don’t set any cars on fire, don’t harass your opponents’ children, don’t destroy their homes. Not that I’d expect anything less than rational behavior from the science side.

Everything you need to know about Bob Jones University

They intentionally turn a blind eye to their sins.

For decades, students at Bob Jones University who sought counseling for sexual abuse were told not to report it because turning in an abuser from a fundamentalist Christian community would damage Jesus Christ. Administrators called victims liars and sinners.

But wait! Then they hired a Christian consulting group to independently help them grapple with the problem. That’s a step in the right direction.

But wait again! Now they’ve fired their consultants, because they were going beyond the originally outlined intentions, that is, they were coming up with criticisms and answers they didn’t like.

This is how BJU handles assault complaints.

Erin Burchwell said that when she accused a university employee of sexually assaulting her in the late 1990s, “their idea of an investigation and counseling was to ask me what I was wearing and whether it was tight, and to tell me not to talk to anyone about it because it wouldn’t look good for me.” She said university officials alternated between “saying it never even happened and saying I was a willing participant.”

I doubt that I have many readers among the student body at BJU, but in case there are any, here’s my advice: get out while you can. Transfer to a real college.

Woody Allen: cradle-robbing android, or psychopathic liar?

I read Woody Allen’s defense yesterday, and was disgusted — seriously, it was nothing but ‘Mia Farrow was out to get me, me, me, me’. I was wondering whether he’d bothered to get an objective source to review it first, because all it did was convince me that he hasn’t got a speck of humanity left in him.

Now Ashley Miller has dissected Allen’s letter in detail, and not only was my impression correct, but Allen is lying throughout. Bleh. Gotta go take a shower now.

The CU-Boulder philosophy department gets failing marks

This is the school where my daughter has just started graduate work, and now a scathing review of the philosophy departments’ practices has been released. Turns out it was a nest of snakes. (Fortunately, my daughter is in the computer science department, and believe me, she’d be speaking out if things were this bad there).

…it is our strong conclusion that the Department maintains an environment with unacceptable sexual harassment, inappropriate sexualized unprofessional behavior, and divisive uncivil behavior. Members of most groups we talked to report directly observing inappropriate behavior. This behavior has harmed men and women members of every stakeholder group in the Department.

Some assistant and full professors (both male and female) report responding to this situation by working from home, dropping out of departmental life, and avoiding socializing with colleagues. Several faculty members’ reputations for bad behavior place a higher service work burden on colleagues. Women are leaving or trying to leave in disproportionate numbers. [note: the report does not name names or describe specific incidents. –pzm]

The female graduate students report being anxious, demoralized, and depressed. Some female students report that they avoid working with some faculty members because of things that they have heard about those faculty members. Some female students report avoiding working with faculty members because they directly witnessed or were subjected to this harassment and inappropriate sexualized unprofessional behavior. There was and is a lack of support for students who lost their advisors or instructors due to sanctions. The female graduate students would like more women in the department but they cannot recommend this department as a good place to come.

In addition, male graduate students report being extremely worried about the climate of harassment. They are worried that they will be tainted by the national reputation of the department as being hostile to women. They are worried about getting a job letter from someone who has a bad reputation when the student does not know exactly who has a bad reputation. They are concerned that the lack of administrative support for the Department resulting from the climate of harassment [i.e. “provost saying, ‘no more departmental support until the department shapes up’”] will negatively affect their abilities to succeed. They avoid some faculty because they do not want to have a reputation that might come with being advised by a harasser (a problem exacerbated by lack of certainty about who the harassers are). And some are angry in discovering the severe problems in the department that they didn’t know about before they arrived.

It’s good to see that they point out that an epidemic of sexism is bad for the men as well as the women.

Man, I hear this kind of thing all the time about philosophy departments — philosophy and engineering seem to be the major repositories of sexist behavior in academe. You’d think philosophy would enable a rational perspective, and it’s a mystery to me why so many suddenly go so stupid on sexual harassment.

Although this paragraph suggests a possible reason.

The Department uses pseudo-philosophical analyses to avoid directly addressing the situation. Their faculty discussions revolve around the letter rather than the spirit of proposed regulations and standards. They spend too much time articulating (or trying to articulate) the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior instead of instilling higher expectations for professional behavior. They spend significant time debating footnotes and “what if” scenarios instead of discussing what they want their department to look and feel like. In other words, they spend time figuring out how to get around regulations rather than focusing on how to make the department supportive of women and family-friendly.

Ah, that’s how the power of philosophy can be corrupted to do great evil: it’s a whole mob of people trained in the virtues of reflexive devil’s advocacy.

Now this is an effective campaign

It’s hard to imagine a more crystal clear example of institutionalized racism than a racist football team owner giving his team a racist name, and then a generation later refuses to make a trivial change. Nothing big; just change the name to something a little more respectful…and apparently the right to use this slur is more important than respecting human beings.

Change the name. It’s obviously the right thing to do. Every day that the Washington football team delays is a day that their stubbornness and stupidity and bigotry becomes a more notable part of their history.

LMR?

What is it with MRAs and PUAs and MGTOWs and their endless acronyms? Here’s a new one on me: LMR. “Last minute resistance”. It’s how the acronym-ridden ones refer to women’s efforts to prevent them from sticking their penis into their vagina. It’s all about rape, in other words.

One of the odious PUAs at RoK tried to publish an e-book titled LMR Exposed: How To Overcome Her Last Minute Resistance To Sex, Turn ‘No’ Into ‘Yes’ And Get The Lay! It’s been yanked off the virtual shelves once the ‘bot slaves at Amazon realized what it was about. It wasn’t hard. Quotes like this…

I’ve had situations where a girl is lying naked with me on my bed, still loudly proclaiming that we’re not having sex… Other times, I just forcefully removed the hand, stuck my dick inside, and she welcomed it eagerly once I was in.

…make it clear that we’re talking about a rape manual.

Tauriq Moosa and Jezebel. have more, including the author’s reaction to “cuckoo social justice warriors”.

I thought he’d live forever

Pete Seeger has died. No, I said that wrong — read that amazing obituary, and you realize that Pete Seeger has lived.

Just for the contrast, the NY Times also has an interview with the odious Tom Perkins, who is now equating the 1% with the people who are creative…while flaunting a $300,000+ watch.

I look at Seeger. I look at Perkins. I look at Seeger again.

And I wonder, who is going to kill fascism now?

Some people don’t know how to handle bad weather

It’s cold out there. So cold that last night, I got this weather alert:

The Stevens County Sheriff is advising NO TRAVEL in Stevens County. It is unsafe to travel and roadways are blown closed with hard packed snow. The County plows will not go out until the wind goes down. Again, NO TRAVEL ADVISED IN STEVENS COUNTY until conditions improve.

That’s right, it was so cold and blizzardy that the snow plows weren’t running. So we waited to hear what the university was going to do. And we waited. And waited. UMM’s official policy is to send out notices about any class cancellations due to weather by 5am on the day of the affected classes, so of course we get notice at…5am this morning. The university is opening 2 hours late, so morning classes are cancelled (which doesn’t affect me or my students at all).

I can understand the dilemma. University schedules are tight; unlike the public schools, which can simply add extra days to the end of the school year to make up snow days, any lost classes are just that, lost. Students are paying good money for those classes, and our curricula are often fairly tight, so losing a day without a makeup can mean some critical subject isn’t as well covered in lecture.

On the other hand, dying or getting injured on hazardous roads blows an even bigger hole in the learning experience.

I think university administrators are quite aware of the conundrum. You’d think students would be aware, too — they’re paying $12,000/year for these classes, you’d think they’d express some resistance or at least hesitation about wanting classes shut down.

Not at the University of Illinois. Some students really, really wanted a snow day. What do they think this is, sixth grade? They got so irate about the fact that the chancellor did not cancel classes today, that they took to Twitter to complain bitterly about having to go to school…and very quickly the complaints descended into sexist and racist remarks about the chancellor, who is a woman of Asian descent.

Don’t do that, children.

College students are adults. You weigh the consequences. UMM is largely a residential school, so it’s not a big deal when we have to stay open during bad weather…but some students do commute, and are going to have a more difficult time. I say, think about your personal circumstances and do what you have to do; you can’t make it to class without putting yourself in peril, then don’t. I have students who’ve written to say that they can’t make it, and that’s all right, I understand and won’t penalize them. I’ll help them go over the material if they stop by my office later.

That’s how adults handle these little setbacks.

But if you’re pissed off because the university tells you that you don’t get a day off from school, a day you’ve already paid for, so pissed off that you start ranting like this:

@goombatoomba
Asians and women aren’t responsible for their actions #FuckPhyllis

@AndreiAndreev33
It’s going to be -27 without wind chill tomorrow morning and I have class at 8 #FuckPhyllis #Cunt #Bitch #Whore

@kimiskis
phyllis can go shove tomorrow’s weather up her wideset vagina. #fuckphyllis

@kelsbear9
In a room with Phyllis Wise, Adolf Hitler, and a gun with one bullet. Who do I shoot? #fuckphyllis

You know, I don’t think the university would be out of line to add an additional requirement that you take a course in Remedial Humanity before they allow you to graduate.