All over the news in Australia today: the Girl Guides of Australia have removed references to God and the Queen from their pledge.
Somewhat in the news in the USA last week: a new activist network for Secular Women was announced.
ethics & philosophy
ideals, breaches, disappointments and inspirations
I missed this back in 1995: quick facts about that McDonalds Coffee lawsuit
It would be nice to think that there weren’t still ignorant twerps repeating the idea that the lawsuit was unfounded/frivolous/a grave miscarriage against a poor defenceless megacorporation/harrumph/wharrgarbl, but sadly there still are.
On not buying into the LULZer playbook at FtB (or anywhere) #WeLoveFTB
In a truly rational world, it might be possible to substantively and productively explore the pros and cons of competing positions in good faith and reach a nuanced understanding and a mutually satisfying path forward. Unfortunately the “don’t give disproportionate emphasis to sexism” side has basically been hijacked by a bunch of bad faith contrarians…
The social mosaic and how we change it
Another comment nugget of awesome found in YATOD, this one in the Penny Arcade forums, on a thread discussing sexism/misogyny in the wake of the hatefest directed against Anita Sarkeesian’s Kickstarter on Tropes vs Women in gaming.
Actually, EC President Barroso did NOT “slap down”/”slam” Gillard
Maybe, if we’re being scrupulously generous, it might be only one journalist who made up the anti-Gillard spin, and all the rest just copied it instead of viewing the primary source material. Still doesn’t speak much of their ethics, does it?
Rape Culture Observation: grooming victims *looks* like being “a good person”
Humans, even rapists, are complex entities. A rapist is capable of doing good things for some people, while doing grave harm to others. In Sandusky’s case, what appeared to be (and in some cases maybe actually was) good works was simultaneously the grooming of victims.
Understatement OTD: “One of the things we will be looking at urgently is the communications team”
Says the representative of the Argyll and Bute Council in Scotland, whose heavy-handed response streisand-effected a regional scandal into a worldwide media storm about attempts to censor a schoolgirl blogging their school lunches. Now the school lunch menu is being reformed, and the furore helped her raise more than £80,000 for development charity Mary’s Meals. Martha Payne is authentically awesome.
About Joan’s choice
(Lots of SPOILERS for season 5 of Mad Men in this post). It has been a fascinating season for the character of Joan, hasn’t it? This season Joan is a new mother and she’s very quickly also become a single… Read More ›
Some useful things you might teach your children in our rape culture
This particular nugget comes from Pharyngula, where a post from PZ addressing rape culture led to a predictable influx of the usual victim-blaming rape myths as if they were commensense truths, leading to a predictably forceful pushback from the Pharyngulites, who do not let that crap stand. If readers would like to add their own favourite links addressing rape myths/culture in comments, I’d really like to see them.
This week in Streisand Effecting: funnyjunk.com hires a lawyer who doesn’t understand SEO to sue theoatmeal.com
See that post title just above these words? And the link I’m adding to this name right here? => That‘s how SEO works, Charles Carreon Attorney At Law.
Hoyden About Town 