Trolled

Gosh, apparently talking about rape is controversial, particularly when one doesn't argue that only inhuman monsters rape. I haven't been trolled this hard since talking about...huh, equal pay. Let me count the ways.

• Apparently, I was both bragging and claiming victimhood.
• Talking about a personal experience made the whole thread all about me, narcissist that I am.
• I got diminutivized.
• I was told what my point was.
  
• I set out on a slippery slope.
• Saying nasty things.
  
• And ended up a anti-male bigot.
• With no point.
• And then the name-calling started.

Interestingly enough, our troll declined to interact with Greg in any way, except to say, "Oh, I'll be busy for the next few days. By the way, we have something in common. Nice to meet you," when Greg put up citations. Charming little transparent creep.

Calls for Action

Unless you're living in a pink bubble (and probably even then), you know that Dr. George Tiller was murdered yesterday for providing legal and medically indicated abortions. Feministe is suggesting that donations to a pro-choice group would be a fitting memorial. They have some excellent suggestions.

While you've got your wallet out and your indignation up, I'd appreciate it if you'd head over to Quiche Moraine, where I'm participating in a blogging event to draw attention to the fact that mass rapes do not end when wars do. Actually, even if you can't afford to donate anything to the organizations that are helping the victims, you can still take action to support the organizations. I tell you how over there.

Cover Meme

Ambivalent Academic tagged me with the cover meme running around: best and worst cover ever.

I was torn, oh, so torn. I mean, everybody knows that the best cover ever is a twofer: "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go." Okay, a lot of people don't actually know that those were both covers. (Trivia: because Soft Cell released "Tainted Love" as a single with "Where Did Our Love Go" on the B-side, they didn't make any money off of all those sales. Money flows to the writer, not the recording artist for that.)

And of course, there are Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, who do mostly thrashed up covers of beloved classics. And the fact that there are very few Beatles songs I don't prefer performed by someone else.

In the end, it came down to the bad cover. As much as I love Satchmo, I firmly believe he did the world a great disservice when he jazzed up "Mack the Knife." Some things aren't meant to be pretty. Some people (and characters) aren't meant to be antiheroes. MacHeath is one of those. Kurt Weill knew that singing about something wasn't the same thing as endorsing it, but you'd never know that from the long parade of jazz covers.

Bobby Darin


That isn't the worst cover of the song, though. To create that, someone had to go back to the original intent behind the song and screw it up. That takes ego big enough to not understand your musical limits. That takes singing a pop version of a cabaret song. That takes:

Sting


So how do you not make this song glorify a sociopath? You take it even closer to its roots. Weill did not make pretty music, although he made some that was beautiful. And how do you not make it pablum? You give it to someone who will strip it down to its essentials and who isn't afraid of a little menace. Unfortunately, this video cuts the song short, but it's still lovely.

Nick Cave


The full version is well worth a listen. It's one of those songs that always lives on my Nano, no matter what else rotates on and off.

Now, who to tag. I'll have to go with Mike and Lou, Crystal and Muse, I think. And thanks, AA. This one was too much fun.

Atheists Talk--The Books of Bart Ehrman

Bart Ehrman: God's Problem
Atheists Talk #0072, Sunday, May 31, 2009

Bart Ehrman is a scholar of the bible and has published popular works at a rapid clip on the subjects of theodicy and the literary history of the books some refer to as "scripture." He was an evangelical who believed that the Episcopalian church in which he was raised was too tame on the teachings of Jesus' word of salvation. Dedicating himself to the study of the original Greek versions of the Gospels and New Testaments in order to better understand the word of God, he made the discovery that (whoops!) the Bible couldn't be an inerrant instruction manual. There were too many inconsistencies, too many obvious copying errors in the translations and too many differences in the theologies contained within the books we call the New Testament for it to be a coherent work of God. He has since become agnostic, strongly convinced that even if there be a creator, it is certainly not the one painted by our Christian religions.

Scott Lohman and Grant Steves bring their intellectual prowess to bear in discussing the books of Bart Ehrman for this program. Grant and Scott are both impressed by Ehrman's writing, and they are entertaining thinkers and speakers on the subjects of literature and theology. This is sure to be a fun show as they discuss Ehrman's books.

"Atheists Talk" is produced by The Minnesota Atheists. Mike Haubrich, Director. Stephanie Zvan, Host.

• Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millenium by Bart Ehrman (Google Books Preview)
• Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman (Amazon Books)
• Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing The Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don't Know About Them) by Bart Ehrman (Amazon Books)
• Bart Ehrman: Questioning Religion on Why We Suffer (NPR Interview, 2008)
• The Book of Bart (Washington Post, 2005)
• Bart D. Ehrman site
• Bart D. Ehrman Wikipedia page

Podcast Coming Soon!
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Listen to AM 950 KTNF on Sunday at 9 a.m. Central to hear Atheists Talk, produced by Minnesota Atheists. Stream live online. Call the studio at 952-946-6205 or email us at radio@mnatheists.org.

Diversity and Conflict

We don't like conflict. We try to avoid it instead of learning how to engage in it appropriately and productively, and the end result of our incompetence is horrendous enough to fully reinforce our avoidance.

This is a problem.

It's particularly a problem for those of us who value cultural diversity and recognition of human equality. The easiest recipe for avoiding conflict is to allow one person or homogeneous group to define the "right side" of any disagreement. Obviously, that's not an option for us.

It's Friday, which means I'm blogging at Quiche Moraine. Today's post takes a look at some of the roots of poor conflict management in, oh, a number of the communities I'm part of.

Goliath's Rules

One of the fun parts of WisCon is always getting to meet people I should have met long ago. This year, I finally got to spend a little time talking to Lynne and Michael Thomas. Amusingly, I found a link to the following article on Lynne's blog while checking out how productive she'd been at WisCon.

David’s victory over Goliath, in the Biblical account, is held to be an anomaly. It was not. Davids win all the time. The political scientist Ivan Arreguín-Toft recently looked at every war fought in the past two hundred years between strong and weak combatants. The Goliaths, he found, won in 71.5 per cent of the cases. That is a remarkable fact. Arreguín-Toft was analyzing conflicts in which one side was at least ten times as powerful—in terms of armed might and population—as its opponent, and even in those lopsided contests the underdog won almost a third of the time.

In the Biblical story of David and Goliath, David initially put on a coat of mail and a brass helmet and girded himself with a sword: he prepared to wage a conventional battle of swords against Goliath. But then he stopped. “I cannot walk in these, for I am unused to it,” he said (in Robert Alter’s translation), and picked up those five smooth stones. What happened, Arreguín-Toft wondered, when the underdogs likewise acknowledged their weakness and chose an unconventional strategy? He went back and re-analyzed his data. In those cases, David’s winning percentage went from 28.5 to 63.6. When underdogs choose not to play by Goliath’s rules, they win, Arreguín-Toft concluded, “even when everything we think we know about power says they shouldn’t.”

It's a fascinating New Yorker article on how effective throwing away the rules--particularly the unacknowledged ones--can be and on the consequences of breaking them. Keep reading past the chunk in the middle that's padded with a business profile. Some of the best parts are at the end.

Happy Birthday, Betül

A little music for my favorite blogger who isn't currently blogging.

El Pescador


More Reptile Palace Orchestra here.

MythOS

I did something odd this weekend. I saw a friend's book for sale, and I didn't buy it. Not because I didn't want it. Not because I didn't want to port it home 250+ miles. Certainly not because I couldn't afford it.

I was being nice.

It wasn't officially out yet, and there were only a few copies. Besides, I can get a copy signed any time I want, more or less, and most of the people at WisCon only had access to Kelly for the weekend.

Today, however, MythOS by Kelly McCullough is officially out, and everyone can grab a copy of their own. I highly recommend it and not just because Kelly's one of my best friends or because I had some tiny little influence on the final product. I recommend it because Kelly is one of the few writers I've read who can write a romp with serious thematic elements. I have to point them out to him sometimes, but they're there, and neither they nor the wild ride of a story are compromised by fitting both in.

Don't let yourself be put off by the "Book 4 of 5" in the promotions. MythOS takes Ravirn and Melchior out of their normal Greek milleiu and drops them somewhere rather different. There's plenty of time to get your bearings as they get theirs. In fact, you may find Loki and Fenris more familiar than they do...sort of. The hand of Tyr, however, will surprise you, no matter how well you know your Norse myths.

You can check out the first chapter on Kelly's site, and there's an interview of sorts with him at SFNovelists, where you can find out what kind of character he is. Or you can just go pick up the book. It's worth it, I promise.

Blogging The Wealth of Nations

Steve Brust, science fiction and fantasy author and Trotskyist, is reading Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and blogging about it. A non-capitalist reading one of the fundamental books of capitalism. It's very cool and just the thing if all this long-weekend dissipation is getting to be too much for you.

Start here.

The Cover That Wasn't

When I put up my repost last week on covers, I realized that I'd posted a lot of covers I mentioned as being well done. I hadn't done this one.

Technically, it's only sort of a cover, since almost all the lyrics are changed. Still, the song is fun, and the video is more so. Enjoy.

Let's Go All the Way

Don't nobody hate you, playa hate you.

Fallen Warriors

It's tempting to pretend that "culture war" is just a colorful turn of phrase. It isn't. People have died every time our country has been persuaded to recognize the right of another group to be considered full human beings.

I'm doing something a little different for Memorial Day over at Quiche Moraine. That is to say, it's not a standard Memorial Day post. Those who have been reading me for a while (or even just very lately), may recognize a theme.

Non-Gender-Based Thoughts on Rules

Because, you know, I'm not writing enough about them myself. Actually, though, these are great to see, since they're getting that my topic wasn't just the discussion of gender roles.

Phil got something out of the post that I never intended to suggest. It's no less intriguing for that (and maybe more so).

Having read it, I think I am beginning to see the torture debate in much sharper, and perhaps more sinister focus. If, as Stephanie suggests, this debate about the “legality” of the torture actions by that Administration is really a mask for a cultural debate, it makes more sense why the “Law & Order” Republicans are so hung up on excusing law breaking by their highest elective officials. It would also explain why so many former Bush Administration folks are so prominently attacking Mr. Obama these days.

And William posted a link to this TED talk about rules, punishment, ideology and conflict.



I have a few nits to pick with it, like the fact that liberals do not reject punishment and rules out of hand. Just ask any of us how we feel about the financial industry. Also, the Dalai Lama wields moral clout in the West largely because people don't know that a system of serfs was required to sustain all those Tibetan monasteries in their quest to disconnect from the world. That's kind of important to know. On the other hand, the nits don't mean there isn't plenty to think about in the talk.

Why I Care About Rules

Laden, the hilarious thing is that you think anyone other than you and Zvan gives a flying fuck about your "rules" gibberish. And it appears that it is your approach to "rules" has been soundly smacked in the face by the nature of objective fucking reality, no? You do know what it means when you look around you, and you perceive everyone as an idiot and an asshole and a participant in a conspiracy, right?

--Comrade PhysioProf

Leaving aside the factual errors and the ad hominem and the appeal to the bandwagon (I think that's everything), I'd like to thank CPP for this comment. It reminds me that there's something I left out of my original post on this topic--the why.

Why do I care about rules? That one's easy. I spent the first too many years of my life in a house with far too many rules.

We're talking rules like "Kids don't say, 'No,'" and we're talking about applying those rules to two-year-olds. If you haven't spent much time around small children, you may not know this, but "No" is more than just a word. It's a stage of development in toddlers. But that apparently doesn't matter much when it's against the rules.

When I say too many rules, well, my mother used to tell an illustrative story. She'd say that if someone told me to jump, I'd freeze. It didn't matter that not jumping was defiance and against the rules, because no matter how I jumped--how high, how far, which direction--it was going to be wrong. I'd still be breaking the rules. So I did nothing.

So, yes, I'm fairly sensitive to arbitrary rules and to rules that ignore the needs and capacities of human beings and to rules that hinder development and to systems of rules that make it impossible for someone to both act and be in compliance. Not to mention to rules with disproportionate consequences for breakage. They've been there all my life, and it's taken a hell of a lot of work to see them clearly enough to set them aside.

Even if Greg and I were the only people who cared about abusive rules and abuse of rules (and one of the things I love about him is that he got this without me ever having to explain it), I'd still be talking about this. CPP can call it an obsession or gibberish or whatever other words make him happy. It doesn't matter. He can't shut me up by telling me we don't talk about these things. He doesn't make my rules.

I do.

May I Just Say...Arrgh!

Thankfully, though, there's a company out there brave enough to tackle the differences between girls and boys—more specifically, the difference between the way boys play Ouija and the way girls play Ouija. Because when men are pretending to contact the dead, they're all like, "Is there a ghost here?" while women are all like, "Who in this room is jealous of me?" Am I right?

According to Hasbro, yes. Behold Ouija For Girls:

And it gets worse. Seriously.

Thanks (sort of) to Ben.

Gender Rule Follow-Ups

There are a couple of follow-ups to Sunday's post that should definitely be read. DuWayne read Comrade PhysioProf's post much the same way I did, and he has some pretty smart things to say about the role of men in demolishing harmful gender constructs. I'd excerpt it here, but it's one of those posts that really should be read from start to finish. Go. Read. Read the comments, too.

I will pull most of my own comment, because it's as close as I've managed to come to explain something that's fairly important to me.

I think it's absolutely critical for females who want to see gender equity (since CPP seems to have, ironically, co-opted "feminist" to mean something even more specific) to listen to men more--on the subject of men. If a guy is going to try to tell me what it means to be female, I'm going to laugh in his face at the very least. However, on those rare occasions a guy wants to open up about what it means to him to be male, damn straight I want to hear it. I can't get that from my own experience.

One of the most educational evenings of my life was spent hanging out with a couple of drunk sailors the night before one of them got married. It wasn't all introspection, by any means, but even funny stories can tell you a hell of a lot if you're listening (and not trying to match the sailors beer for beer). Ditto for talking to guy friends who are dealing with pressure to "succeed" when they're already doing something they love, or who are primary caretakers for disabled kids, or who have suddenly found themselves head of a family due to a matriarch's decline, or who are trying to play a role in their kids lives after having been too terrified to be there earlier.

No, these stories and perspectives aren't more important than those shared in the cathartic safe spaces, but they are important, to women as well as to men. I worry that safe spaces sometimes get too safe, and that we feminists (nope, sorry, CPP, still my word too) don't step out of them enough to challenge ourselves to listen more broadly. And when one of the major requirements of standard male gender roles is that one doesn't talk about these things, where are we going to find guys sharing this important stuff, if not with us?

Greg decided to put his reaction to my post on his blog. He makes some things explicit about the original post that maybe I should have, or maybe he needed to because he runs a much higher risk of being accused of misogyny than I do. He also speculates much more than I do about motivation in rule-making. Also worth a read.