Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Pro-appropriation

There's a nasty notion, popular now, so popular there is a NYTimes editorial about it, on "appropriation."

The author, Parul Sehgal doesn't come out strongly against appropriation, but it's pretty clear by how she frames the issue that she thinks that appropriation is only something white people do - white people stealing from people of color:
We sometimes describe this mingling as ‘‘cross-pollination’’ or ‘‘cross-fertilization’’ — benign, bucolic metaphors that obscure the force of these encounters. When we wish to speak more plainly, we talk of ‘‘appropriation’’ — a word now associated with the white Western world’s co-opting of minority cultures. And this year — these past several months alone — there has been plenty of talk. In film, there was the outcry over the casting of the blonde Emma Stone as the part-Chinese Hawaiian heroine of Cameron Crowe’s ‘‘Aloha.’’ In music, Miley Cyrus wore dreadlock extensions while hosting the V.M.A.s and drew accusations of essentially performing in blackface — and not for the first time. In literature, there was the discovery that Michael Derrick Hudson, a white poet, had been published in this year’s Best American Poetry anthology under a Chinese pseudonym. In fashion, there was the odd attempt to rebrand cornrows as a Caucasian style — a ‘‘favorite resort hair look,’’ according to Elle. And floating above it all has been Rachel Dolezal, the presiding spirit of the phenomenon, the white former N.A.A.C.P. chapter president who remains serenely and implacably convinced of her blackness.
Culture is fluid and ethnicity is fluid and anybody who is anti-appropriation must explain why it's a horror for some white girl to wear cornrows but jazz is OK. Jazz was created when African Americans "appropriated" European marching band instruments.

The anti-appropriation view is anti-art and anti-cosmopolitan for the sake of cultural and ethnic purity. 

Apparently some people have forgotten what happens when a nation becomes obsessed with ethnic purity.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

"The Fade" is a hideous haircut and there should be a law against it

The Fade must be stopped.
I've hated the fade for a while but didn't know what it was called. This is an amazing haircut with the power to make any man ugly, even Brad Pitt.

I guess it's supposed to be the opposite of the much-hated mullet, but it's actually even more ugly, and I didn't think that was possible.

This abomination must be stopped.


Monday, September 28, 2015

Rocky Horror 40th Anniversary show

Quinn, Campbell, Bostwick, plus some other actor who played Janet.


Barry Bostwick (Brad), "Little" Nell Campbell (Columbia) and Patricia Quinn (Magenta) were on hand.


As were me, my friend Valerie, and thousands of people in Rocky Horror themed costumes.





Sunday, September 27, 2015

Skyline from the west side

The view from the fundraiser I attended on the 50th floor Penthouse in midtown West

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Nutty psycho stalker Eron Gjoni is still obsessed with his ex-girlfriend

I've been thinking about Gamergate more than usual because Feminist Frequency on Facebook posted info about  Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian, two women targeted for a campaign of harassment and threats from nutty obsessive fans of Eron Gjoni, as well as garden variety misogynists, speaking at the UN.

Here are some of the threats and abuse Sarkeesian got in one single day.

The first thing Eron Gjoni said after sitting down across from me at Veggie Galaxy in December was that he would probably violate his gag order if he talked to me. Then he talked for the next three hours, and again and again over the next three months.
Gjoni can be relentless that way. And in others. He maintains incessant eye contact from behind a tangle of dark, wavy hair. He is intensely focused. Just ask Zoe Quinn, the object of his unwanted obsession.
 
In September 2014, Quinn, 27, appeared in Boston Municipal Court to ask Judge Jonathan Tynes for a restraining order against Gjoni, her ex-boyfriend. In a handwritten affidavit to the court, Quinn tried to explain what had happened over the past month. After their brief romance ended, she noted, Gjoni “wrote and published a long post about my sex life and private dealings to several websites that he knew had a history of harassing me.” Quinn is a video-game designer and, like many women in the business, routinely receives misogynistic threats from strangers. Gjoni, Quinn contended, was aware that his blog post would result in her being harassed and stalked, and she claimed he had published it in order “to damage my professional reputation as an independent artist.” What’s more, she told the judge, the results had been particularly severe: Since Gjoni’s initial blog post, “I have received numerous death and rape threats from an anonymous mob that [Gjoni] had given details to,” she wrote. “My personal info like my home address, phone number, emails, passwords, and those of my family has been widely distributed, alongside nude photos of me, and several of my professional accounts and those of my colleagues have been hacked.” 
Quinn understated the facts. The thousands of threats, which she continues to receive daily, terrified her. Tweets such as “Im not only a pedophile, ive raped countless teens, this zoe bitch is my next victim, im coming slut” spoke for themselves. Messages such as “could kill yourself. We don’t need cunts like you in this world” preyed on the common knowledge that Quinn struggled with depression; she’d won acclaim for creating an impressionistic video game called Depression Quest. Forced to flee her Dorchester apartment, she spent more than six months hiding in friends’ homes. In her affidavit, Quinn struggled to explain to the judge who was behind these threats: They were anonymous, faceless, and they could be anywhere. “Eron has coached this mob multiple times, made multiple social media accounts to smear my name publicly, and has stoked the fire of this on many occasions and doesn’t seem to be stopping,” Quinn told the court. “I am in fear of him.”
There is something seriously wrong with this guy and the fact that he has pretty much gotten away with his jihad against this woman is clearly only encouraging him.

 He posted this four days ago:
Hey Guys, Eron here with a legal update. (self.KotakuInAction)submitted   by qriosEron Gjoni | Attractive like Khan or SpockAlright, so first things first -- as of a few weeks ago, I am no longer under a gag. Apologies for not notifying everyone the instant it happened, but, it seemed best to get advice and think through the best course of action before opening a potential can of worms. I think I've decided on what that course should be, but more on that later.
First (second?), I can now safely tell you about the secret stretch goal:
Back when I filed my appeal and served the plaintiff with my Statement of Issues on Appeal, she responded by trying to take out a back-up order in a new state. She plainly listed my appeal of the MA order as one of the reasons she was requesting a new order.
The just-fill-out-this-form-and-we'll-give-you-an-ex-parte order granted by that state was even more restrictive than the Massachusetts order, but only for about two days, until my attorney intervened and the judge agreed there were serious first amendment issues with the original wording, and modified the order to something more reasonable until the hearing.

You'll get a true sense of the hardcore misogyny if you read the comments. These people are evil freaks.

It's just a matter of time before obsessive psycho Eron Gjoni ends up in jail.

Oddly, Gjoni recently tweeted this:



But of course this episode of Last Week Tonight is much more relevant to Gjoni:

Friday, September 25, 2015

Tragically Fragile

I try not to think about Evan Marc Katz but I couldn't help but do so when I saw an article in Buzzfeed called 23 Gendered Products That Prove How Truly Fragile Masculinity Is. (When I posted it on Facebook it reads as "tragically fragile" which is more fun to say in your mind.)

I recently criticized Katz for the incredibly regressive advice he gives to women on bowing to traditional gender roles in order to catch a man. He advises women to be passive, and he lists some things that are unacceptably pro-active for a woman seeking a "masculine man." Two of the items just blow my mind - I thought I knew how bad American men who cling to traditional gender roles are, but if Katz is to be believed their concepts of unacceptable female aggressiveness wouldn't be out of place among the Taliban. The items are:
  • You haven’t heard from him all weekend, you text him to make sure he’s doing okay.
  • You want to see him next week, you tell him his favorite band is playing downtown and you can get tickets
That's right, even enquiring after his well-being or offering tickets to his favorite band are considered so horrifically domineering that they will, using Katz's own term, make the masculine man feel emasculated.

Yeah, I can just hear the manly man after he receives a text from the woman:

"she has two tickets to the Springsteen show next week and she asked me to go with her? THAT CASTRATING BITCH!"

In spite of the fact that masculinity is supposed to represent toughness, in fact it is one of the most fragile things on this planet, under constant threat - as Katz's examples of pro-activity demonstrate.

As does the Buzzfeed article:


20. “This food is only truly good for men. Women wouldn’t appreciate it.”


More in painfully fragile masculinity: fun fact (they're tomatoes)




27 more examples!


Thursday, September 24, 2015

Robot: hysterically funny

My daughter-out-law introduced me to Flight of the Conchords, but I haven't watched them religiously or anything. But then I came across this - hysterical.

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Hurray it's Autumn!

The most wonderful time of the year.

Countdown to the Robin DiAngelo lawsuit

UPDATE: My latest post about Robin DiAngelo: No Jamelle Bouie, Robin DiAngelo is not helping

Robin DiAngelo has written another bigoted offensive article and naturally it ends up in my Facebook newsfeed thanks to a friend of a friend. I've written before about DiAngelo. I would prefer not to have to think about Robin DiAngelo at all but idiots keep pointing to her as if she's some kind of voice of reason on the subject of race.

When I say "the Robin DiAngelo lawsuit" I don't necessarily mean she will personally be the defendant although she might.  But more likely her employer will be the defendant, because Robin DiAngelo conducts workplace events that discriminate on the basis of ethnicity. And it will be an open and shut case because DiAngelo makes no secret of the discrimination - she is so proud of it she wrote an article for "The Good Men Project" admitting to it:
When another police shooting of an unarmed black man occurred, my workplace called for an informal lunch gathering of people who wanted to connect and find support. Just before the gathering, a woman of color pulled me aside and told me that she wanted to attend but she was “in no mood for white women’s tears today.” I assured her that I would handle it. As the meeting started, I told my fellow white participants that if they felt moved to tears, to please leave the room. I would go with them for support, but asked that they not cry in the mixed group. After the discussion, I spent the next hour explaining to a very outraged white woman why she was asked not to cry in the presence of the people of color. 
So just to recap:
  • An employer called for a gathering to be run by DiAngelo.
  • One individual in the workplace told DiAngelo she had a problem with a specific group of people on the basis of their gender and ethnicity.
  • DiAngelo then informed the members of that ethnicity only that if they cried during the discussion, they had to leave the room.
  • At least one individual was very upset by being singled out that way.
DiAngelo then spends the rest of the article justifying the discrimination, which, when you boil it down, is something like: "all white women share the guilt of the death of Emmet Till because white men killed him because he whistled at a white woman."

I sure hope she tries to use that as a defense in this clear-cut case of ethnicity-based discrimination. She'll be laughed out of court.

If Robin DiAngelo continues to commit blatant discrimination in the workplace it is only a matter of time before somebody sues.

And because the reflex response of all Social Justice Warriors/Identitarians like Robin DiAngelo is to smear their critics as racist, here is a statement:

My Anti-Racist Bona Fides
Although I was smeared on Tumblr by infamous bully Mikki Kendall and identitarian extremist K. Tempest Bradford (and thanks to the cozy relationship between Tumblr and Google, the smears show up in my search results), in fact I have a long history of opposing racism, and the evidence for the past 10 years is on this blog. Unhinged extremists like Kendall and Bradford don't care to know anything about the strangers they randomly smear. That's why they and the people who promote them like Verso books are horrible and don't help solve the problem of racism in the United States.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Richard Dawkins - an even bigger douchebag than ever before



Well I haven't mentioned Richard Dawkins since mid-June. I wonder what he's up to these - oh my godlessness!




Dawkins got lots of negative publicity over this, which should have given him pause, but instead he doubled-down the next day.


Tweet text


If Dawkins has any friends left, they really need to take away his Twitter keys.

PZ Meyers has a great response.