There’s harassment going on in the X community. I’m an Xer. Now what?

The topic of sexual harassment in video games has received attention in Forbes, the New York Times, and NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” recently– if you’ve been actively following the topic at all you probably won’t hear anything new, but it’s good to see it being discussed in publications and programs like these. If you listen to the … Read more

I don’t exist for you

Ian Cromwell, aka Crommunist, tweeted a link today to this: Why Men Love Michelle Jenneke. You know, the 19-year-old Australian hurdler who was recorded doing a little warm-up dance before her event? Who isn’t even an Olympian, but somehow everybody in the world has seen this video of her? Well, apparently the fact that this … Read more

Looking back

I maintained a Livejournal account from March 2002 through November 2009 and am now trying to decide what to do with it. Looking back through, I really wish I’d kept an actual blog instead, or at least in addition– it’s a mix of personal things that wouldn’t be blog-appropriate and comments on current events and … Read more

What’s a “bad atheist”?

Ian Murphy has a piece on AlterNet called The 5 Most Awful Atheists, the title of which can be read a few different ways. He could be talking about people who happen to be atheists, who are awful. Or, he could be talking about people who are awful at being atheists. His subheading– Many notable … Read more

But what was it actually like?

Now that I’ve made my strident post for the day, here’s one that will be much less so. I personally didn’t see any, but apparently there was some real misbehavior going on yesterday at Chick-fil-A restaurants, by both supporters and opponents, in various places on Mike Huckabee’s Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. A CFO/Treasurer at Vante called … Read more

Bigotry Appreciation Day

Some photos from the event near me yesterday: Some 200 people were standing outside in line, and I have no idea how many cars…they were winding around the block. Police officers were directing traffic. I parked across the street and walked over to have a look around, and noticed several people with the same idea– … Read more

Priorities

A couple of months ago I wrote about different categories I fit in, ideologically and politically. I was tempted to expand on it earlier this month when PZ Myers wrote a post asking people what kind of atheist they are– scientific, philosophical, political, or humanist. I understood what he was getting at, but my first … Read more

Reddit’s rape thread

I had a whole blog post written about the Reddit thread discussing what it’s like to be a rapist, and now I don’t like it. It was supposed to be about the psychology of assigning moral responsibility to rapists and rape victims, but ended up being preachy and not scientifically supported to my satisfaction. So, … Read more

Chick-fil-A stuff that happened today, in increasing order of difficulty of predictability:

1. Rick Santorum jumps on Mike Huckabee’s bandwagon (if that sounds dirty to you, it’s not my fault) and declares that he too is going to eat at Chick-fil-A on August 1st– as well as today with his entire family, which took three tweets to explain– in support of that beleaguered Christian business which is … Read more

Persecution complex tastes like chicken

Wishing I’d stop blogging about Chick-fil-A? Yeah, so am I. But you see, the ridiculousness just keeps on coming, and I can’t help but remark on it. Two items today, neither of which is remotely surprising, but each is actually rather fascinating in its predictability. Let me show you what I mean: Item #1: Conservative … Read more