After further contemplation of the original post, I think I misapprehended the (albeit unarticulated) argument that lesbians should not ab initio exclude transwomen as romantic partners.Continue Reading
Amber Guyger
I’m going to predict that Amber Guyger will be (or should be) convicted of the lesser manslaughter. It is so bizarre. No explanation makes sense. I can believe that she was so tired as to go to the wrong apartment. I could also believe that she was doing blow or meth to stay awake and work those extended hours (which, btw, in and of itself is full of shit; plenty of departments work standard 12-hour shifts). Whether she was exhausted or not, the first response of any person is not to shoot. If I were in my home and someone walked in, yeah, it would be lights out. But if I walked into my home and immediately saw an intruder, I’d duck out as fast as I could and re-assess the situation from cover. If I came home and found my door ajar, I’m not sure what I would do. And maybe that’s what happened for her, but her always-right, never-wrong, bad-ass cop programming took over and she acted as if she had just responded to a burglary in process. But even then, she would have been justified in shooting if she saw a weapon or something that appeared to be a weapon. I am unaware of any such testimony. Whether she was mistaken or not, she was negligent. Her negligence caused the death of a person. That is manslaughter.
On STFU/GFY
Self-governance on the basis of imagined external opinion is self-bondage.Vox
Bastardization
Way back in 1998 I adopted what I thought was a colloquial neologism of a fellow undergraduate. It turns out, though, that “bastardize” as meaning “to reduce from a higher to a lower state or condition” is recognized by Merriam-Webster. I wonder when its original 1585 meaning was bastardized to its present form?
On Mistreatment
The biggest difference between Christ and most Christians is that Christ didn’t mistreat people. George Carneal
In a Man’s World
Bravo has a cutting new series titled In a Man’s World. Women from various walks of life receive full-body muscle suits, and craniofacial prosthetics to create a physique that is out of this world. The women also receive vocal and movement coaching and then simulate their regular selves….as a man. The circumstances and settings are a bit artificial (after all, some explanation has to be offered for the presence of video cameras) but some balance is achieved with additional hidden cameras. What I find most interesting about the series, though, is the coaches’ observations of the subtle differences between men and women. Esco Jouléy’s keen insight into body movement is fascinating and empowering for skirted men wishing to amplify their masculine aura.
On Securing Liberty
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.Thomas Paine (1795)
ACLU Blocks Abortion Restrictions
ME: I abstain from expressing opinions on abortion, but I live in [state] and [state] has no respect for the rule of law. That leaves it to orgs like ACLU to keep the asshats in check.
Continue Reading
On Prejudice and Perception
SAME ≠ SAFE
WEIRD ≠ WRONG
DIFFERENT ≠ DEVIANT
Pharmaceutical Commercials
Isn’t it an absurdity of absurdities when pharmaceutical commercials say, “Do not take [this drug] if you are allergic to it or to any of its ingredients.” Isn’t that a no-brainer? If it were a commercial for steak, would it say, “do not eat this meat if you are a vegetarian”?
Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber: Forgive Assholes
Libertarians, Liberals, and Conservatives
Skirts, Pants, and Deuteronomy 22:5
Cognitively-challenged Christians are eager to invoke Deuteronomy 22:5—in judgment of women as well as of men—that “woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD.” Some denominations read this as requiring women to wear dresses (or, in the contrapositive, as prohibiting women from wearing pants). Likewise, Deuteronomy 22:5 has been invoked to condemn and deny skirts as menswear. This was certainly my experience when I “saw the light” and “converted” to skirts in 2016, but it has taken me three years to get around to publishing this formal rebuttal.Continue Reading
Android, Apple, and iTunes 12
When it comes to cell phones, Android and iPhone are like capitalism and communism or democracy and dictatorship. The iPhone is a great product that delivers a reliable user experience. On the other hand, iPhone innovation is unbearably handicapped and stifled by Apple’s authoritarian control over developers. Yes, this does ensure a reliable user experience, but it also prevents good (but imperfect) ideas from reaching users where consumption will give rise to free-market improvement. But for all of Apple’s focus on user experience, it really fucked up on iTunes 12.10.x.Continue Reading
More Double Standards
Some time back I came across this image and I later scolded myself for not saving it. Then as serendipity would have it, I found it again. Continue Reading
Nymphomania and Satyriasis
I was cogitating on the percrptive societal dissimilarities of sexuality while turning the use of “nymphomania” over in my head. The “nymphomania” label (to say nothing of “nympho”) carries an implicit connotation of abnormality and even a subtext of whoredom that is not commensurately accorded to males (the implication being that males are whorish dogs whose sexuality is valueless while the sexuality of women is valuable). There is so, so much to unpack here, but for now I want to mention a particularly interesting preliminary finding. It turns out that there is a male analogue called “satyriasis.” That said, the fact that no one ever hears this word is itself a statement on society’s dissimilar treatment of female and male sexuality.
A Brief History of Unisex Fashion
According to The Atlantic, “gender-neutral clothing is back in vogue, but the craze in many ways has mirrored broader social changes throughout the 20th century.”
On Righteous Causes
Adam and Eve
According to the Genesis (chapter 2) account in which Eve was “extracted” from Adam, that means Adam was the biological sum of man and woman. So Adam became man simultaneously with Eve becoming woman. Man and woman were thus created simultaneously, not sequentially. Man is not preeminent over woman.
First Amendment Right to Be “Weird”
It occurs to me today that Americans do have a Constitutional right to be “weird” by virtue of the First Amendment’s freedom of expression.Continue Reading
Such Things Are Bound to Happen
Well, it looks like my database maintenance resulted in the loss of some content last Sunday. Fortunately I am an inveterate archivist and I had exported a database backup just before starting. That said, I’ve now lost one post from Sunday evening and two updates to existing posts. But all said and done….I’d rather be certain of recovering lost content that I might never identify than losing edits that I would probably overwrite in a few months anyway. C’est la vie.
On Justice, Fairness, & Finances
“There can be no equal justice where the kind of trial a man gets depends on the amount of money he has.” Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, 19 (1956) (plurality opinion).
Transgressive Provocateur?
Am I a transgressive provocateur?
How The Mighty Have Fallen
I was just watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, S3E13 “Déjà Q” when Guinan says, “how the mighty have fallen!” That reminded me of a spoken word prelude in a 1990s Cindy Morgan song and got me to wondering about the origin of that phrase so I Googled it thinking it might have been Shakespeare. To my surprise it turned out to be from the Bible! “How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of war have perished!” 2 Samuel 1:27 (NIV)
Joseph and Esther
For about two years now I’ve been incubating a post on Joseph’s words in Genesis 50:20 (“you meant evil against me but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.”) There are a plenty of other stoic agents of change, but tonight I was struck by the similarity of Mordecai’s words to Esther: “Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14 NKJV).