altar
December 6th, 2017
And there have been a lot of cover versions.
This month’s raffle winner is Larry from Mountain View. Congrats, Larry!
Join the Patreon raffle fun here, and help Jesus & Mo have a merry Christmas:
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Random oldie…
March 6, 2008-
- NICE T-SHIRT (Thank you for not provoking my uncontrollable lust). Currently unavailable.
let’s not forget the deeply-held beliefs of wedding-cakes artists.
This one hasn’t been heard much in the West for quite some time, but it’s still quite popular in certain other parts of the world.
jb, it’s surprising that you ignore it: the West does it constantly too. Even the “feminists” from the West tend to “sacrifice the rights of women to the altar of their deeply held beliefs”. Some people write about that problem too:
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/people/why-is-feminism-so-quiet-about-muslim-women-who-refuse-to-wear-the-hijab-1.3189620
I’m sure most Muslims peaceful people who just want to be left to oppress their women in peace.
Interesting article on the subject especially re: Judaism and Islam.
http://bigthink.com/daylight-atheism/religion-imprisons-women
That will have to be an opera in three acts
There are 37 genders, by modern facts
Which fall under popular beliefs oppression
Are too many to mention
There are lots of genders for oppressors to track
Latests studies show
There are 37 genders you know
Oppression must be modernized
Gender has been classified
In some creatures, gender’s a flow.
Well, mates, I knew there had to be more to the story. Here’s a long, rather tedious, article on that controversy at Laurier University which has been characterized as SJW getting out of control. We talked about it on a previous thread. The media has made the university administration look ridiculous for disciplining a TA over her debate topics. “Shielding students from reality” and “snowflakes” were terms being tossed around.
https://medium.com/@thylacinereport/the-wlu-lindsay-shepherd-controversy-was-never-about-free-speech-9fe3442da3c3
I smelled another Alt Right/MRA style PR campaign, and it looks like I was right.
It’s a lot more fun to mock those seeking social justice and lament the loss of “freedom of speech” than it is to look seriously at the actual issues being discussed, eh. Not pointing any fingers here.
Sorry, Author, Patreon’s greedy new fee structure is forcing me to reconsider my measly contribution. With their cut plus VAT plus foreign exchange fee, I estimate my $1 pledge will now cost me $1.70 – of which you’ll see only 95c. Is there some other way?
Hi Oozoid. It’s hard to believe that Patreon are doing something so stupid. I’m really sorry about that. I’ve written to them to complain, as have many others. I just hope they listen, as I don’t know of any alternative.
Wow! So Patreon retains nearly half of your contributions (or at least, it costs that much, including VAT, etc.)?
Author, why not publish a bitcoin wallet address which will enable your readers to fund you directly?
You could also offer a ko-fi button which would allow people to make small donations without any feeds involved to you or them.
Abhijeet: And burden Author with a bubble that could burst and become worthless at any time?
Patreon’s new fees look suspiciously similar to those of PayPal.
I’m not into Bitcoin, but an annual option would reduce Patreon’s usury. If they do not offer an annual option, I could pledge, say, $12, and then cancel my pledge, and pledge again next year.
DH, the problem here is that it was the discussion of the issue of pronoun use (in a class on grammar use where it is relevant) that was considered off-limits. A debate on pronoun use cannot be considered a debate if only one side of the issue is allowed to be heard, and it was the fact that the ‘wrong’ side was allowed to be heard that is being condemned.
The problem as I see it is that the trans-activists want discussion shut down; they say what’s what and any alternative view is labelled ‘transphobic’. There’s an almost-religious dogma around the topic in general in which the attitude seems to be ‘this is the way it’s going to be and you cannot question it. Why not? Because you can’t, that’s why’.
Transgender is a complicated subject, and one that not even many who identify as trans- claim to understand. In order to fully accept something I believe that one has to understand it as far as possible. In order to understand it is vital to be able to ask questions and to look at the topic at hand from many positions, but this cannot happen when questions are shut down, when we are told that we must accept what we are told by one side only, and that to ask questions for clarity amounts to violence.
We don’t accept appeals to authority on any other subject, so why should this one topic get such a pass? ‘Lived experience’ is not evidence that they are right, just that they feel a certain way. If transgender people want the acceptance that they claim to want (and I have no problem accepting that they deserve the same rights as anybody else) then they have to be willing to open up the subject for discussion rather than shut it down, otherwise how is society in general going to be able to learn, understand, and ultimately accept transgender people as they claim to want to be accepted?
Just to add; I fail to see how the actions of the TA are a matter of white supremacy as claimed by the author of your linked article, just because the professor who reprimanded the TA happened to be a person of colour. Further, the notion introduced in that article that because there are transgender people of colour then questioning pronoun use is racist is utter nonsense. It smacks of exaggerating the problem and offense caused in order to minimise opposition and to demonise the TA far beyond what her original ‘offense’ might warrant. That’s just a dishonest and despicable tactic intended to damage a person’s reputation as thoroughly as possible and to serve as a warning to any potential future ‘dissenters’.
Oozoid:Your idea of how to make a one-off, or annual, payment to support Author’s sterling efforts (no pun intended!) is a good one. I have actually done something similar as a one-off payment. (No doubt Author is hoping I’ll make another one-off payment sometime soon! Keep your fingers crossed, Author!)
Author, regarding Patreon, is there any reason why you don’t accept the PayPal tips directly? I’ve tipped via PayPal various open source projects, and I personally like using PayPal — I already have an account and I don’t have a Patreon one. I also prefer “not so often but at least 10 EUR from time to time” tips.
DH, just the pure grammar part of this issue is incomprehensible to me. Granted English is not my first language, so maybe I am missing something. In Swedish a new word “hen” has been established meaning basically “he or she or whoever else”. It is neutral. Whatever your views on social justice, that word is actually quite practical, since there are plenty of occasions where you don’t really know and it is more difficult to say “he or she” all the time.
Reading the growing list of specific pronouns that are required in Canada to not offend (or after the passing of that bill, even be judged legally), there is no way I would be able to keep track of these words that don’t appear in any way logical to me as a foreigner. I have enough trouble remembering people’s names. In some TV-debate someone suggested storing the pronouns in you mobile together with the person’s name. Really? We need electronic devices to be able to communicate with other people without offending them now?
There is a difference between avoiding words that may be hurtful and being compelled to use a growing list of words according to people’s personal wishes or be judged. It sets a precedent that may well be used to arbitrarily incriminate people and I can clearly see how that could become dangerous. I think maybe you need to acknowledge that not everyone who says something that can be interpreted as a threat to your views does it to “mock those seeking social justice”, but actually see worrying collectivist developments in the direction of a 1984 society. The road to hell is, as we know, paved with good intentions. Whether or not there is in fact an “Alt Right/MRA style PR campaign” doesn’t change the fact that there is a real issue that should be possible to discuss.
The subjugation of women is a self-defeating stance for a society. That’s because when women are denied opportunity, the society loses a significant share of labor, talent, and genius. Therefore, societies that repress women will always end up much poorer than those that don’t.
That’s true even if it were the case that women are inherently inferior to men. (Note: not my opinion.) That’s because the averages and standard deviations of the normal curves indicate that some women will be better at some things than most men…. even if they were, on average, inferior. (Again: not my opinion.)
In the end it’s a limitation that doesn’t need to be there. Take mathematics as an example. Women who aren’t good at it won’t be interested and will exclude themselves. Some of the women who are good at it will be interested, and some of those will be geniuses. Imagine if the world had been denied the talent of Emmy Noether, 80 years ago. (That almost happened.) Or the wildly brilliant ability of Miranda Cheng, today. Or at a lower level, the dozens of women engineers and IT specialists that work alongside me, where I’m employed.
I’m against waste, especially waste of human talent. The same logic applies to racism. Don’t exclude people a priori.
Acolyte and Laripu, that’s one way to look at things. But I don’t think that what was actually happening in this case. It looks to me like the TA had an ideological position she wanted to present to the class, when the class was about writing. The question was not about forcing us to use some strange pronoun, it was about whether or not we should allow somebody to request a pronoun of their choice. It wasn’t about which pronouns should be considered correct, it was about whether you or I have a right to ask other to use a particular pronoun when addressing us. I personally can’t see why this would be a problem for anybody.
To debate this is not debating a standard of writing, it’s debating whether a particularly denigrated minority have the right to request a specific treatment, and whether we should accept that request. By setting up this debate, the TA invited students to mock and belittle other students. And now she wants our sympathy because free speech, when in fact she was stepping outside the role of her position.
At the base of this issue is a Canadian professor who has refused to use a pronoun preferred by one or more of his students. I think he’s an asshole. And his whole position has ties to the alt right and MRA crowd who seem to think that fighting for social justice is a bad thing to do. It also has strong ties to individuals and groups who wish to dictate strict gender conformity when it’s none of their business.
These people give freedom of speech a bad reputation.
The idea that debate of this issue is not allowed is nonsense. It’s had lots of debate, with both side having been presented. But some ideological positions should be off limit, no matter how much a TA has invested in them. I can see a debate about whether “nigger” should be excised from “Tom Sawyer”, and I would hope that could never happen, though I think at least one publisher floated the idea. But I can’t see a debate about whether a journalist or a student should be allowed to use the word when describing a contemporary confrontation between blacks and police. Somethings are not open to debate.
Just so I’m clear here, I would have no problem with a novelist using accurate language when depicting a racist character, and in that case the word “nigger” is exactly the right word to use. Unless we want to go back to the idiotic use of dashes in words as in f–k or n—-r as if nobody knows what the word is. Heaven forfend.
@sonofGlenner There’s no reason for the Author to hold on to the BTC if he feels it might nosedive. Sell it within a day or two, and convert to USD while maintaining anonymity.
The advantage is that the cost of transaction is very low.
Abhijeet: As a Brit, Author would probably prefer GBP to USD!
Son of Glenner, about USD, there’s some money to be made if you follow trends. I’ve noticed, comparing CAD to USD, that the USD falls when the US has been in a long, expensive war for a time. (And everybody knows that happens with some regularity.) After the war it rebounds, regaining its strength.
So that’s it: wait for war and for the USD to drop against the CAD, buy lots of safe USD interest-bearing investments when they’re cheap, and wait until the war ends and the USD rebounds about a year after that. Sell high, walk away happy. (Then buy a round of beer for your best buds at J&M 😉 )
And remember: JESUS SAVES ( …. but Moses invests). 🙂
That was a long way to go for a joke. 🙂
The VAT and foreign exchange charges were already annoying me Author. Is there a month you would prefer funds to arrive? Reply by private email if you want to send bank account details.
Keep good ideas on payment coming please friends.
Good news on the Patreon front. Lots of us complained, and they listened. They are not going to implement the new fee structure. J&M still lost about 15 patrons, but I’m very relieved about the reversal.
jb.. this is quietly accepted in America.