Society's ChildS


Pistol

Actor Ving Rhames held at gunpoint after neighbor reports him 'breaking into' his own house

Ving Rhames
© Christopher Polk/WireImageVing Rhames said: ‘My problem is, and I said this to them, what if it was my son and he had a video game remote or something and you thought it was a gun?’
Ving Rhames was held at gunpoint by police officers in his home after a neighbor reported that a "large black man" had broken in, the actor said on Friday.

"I open the door and there is a red dot pointed at my face from a 9mm [handgun]," the star of Mission: Impossible, Pulp Fiction and other films said on the Clay Cane show on Sirius XM. "They say, 'Put up your hands'."

Rhames said the confrontation happened earlier this year and was defused quickly when the police chief recognized him.

"He said it was a mistake and apologized," the actor said, adding that he was still shaken. "My problem is, and I said this to them, what if it was my son and he had a video game remote or something and you thought it was a gun?"

Rhames said police told him a neighbor had called 911 and said a large black man was breaking into the house.

"Myself, the sergeant and one other officer, we went over to that house, which was across the street from my place, and the person denied it," Rhames said.

Cult

Nuns denounce sexual abuse by priests as #MeToo hits the Vatican

metoo nun
As the #MeToo movement exploded last year after Hollywood elites were outed as pedophiles and rapists, the Catholic church remained entirely silent. Despite rampant abuse allegations, top church officials being investigated, and countless alleged victims coming forward, the Vatican remained out of the spotlight of the #MeToo movement - until now.

What sets this apart from previous allegations against the church is the fact that the first time the #MeToo movement has hit the Vatican, it was brought by nuns.

As the AP reports:
An examination by the AP shows that cases of abused nuns have emerged in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, demonstrating that the problem is global and pervasive, thanks to the sisters' second-class status in the church and their ingrained subservience to the men who run it.

Yet some nuns are now finding their voices, buoyed by the #MeToo movement and the growing recognition that even adults can be victims of sexual abuse when there is an imbalance of power in a relationship. The sisters are going public in part to denounce years of inaction by church leaders, even after major studies on the problem in Africa were reported to the Vatican in the 1990s.
"It opened a great wound inside of me," one nun told the AP. "I pretended it didn't happen."

2 + 2 = 4

Trigger warnings hinder more than they help

New study confirms the fears of Lukianoff and Haidt
caution letters
In the era of college student sensitivities to a seemingly ever-increasing list of possible offending material, the use of so-called "trigger warnings" has become commonplace on university campuses. These warnings are usually given at the beginning of a class (or at the beginning of specific sections of a class) to prepare students for material that may be upsetting or controversial.

I use trigger warnings (sparingly)

Comment:


Bizarro Earth

"Queer Ecologies" college course disputes idea that heterosexual sex is 'natural'

queerecology
Eugene Lang College, part of The New School in Lower Manhattan, will offer a course next semester for students who wish to fight "heterosexist" explanations of animals and nature.

Taught by Heather Davis, "Queer Ecologies" is a four-credit course offered by the school's Culture and Media department for students who wish to "disrupt prevailing heterosexist discursive and institutional articulations of sexuality and nature."

Brick Wall

CNN reporter Collins was barred from White House for breaking Oval Office protocol

Kaitlan Collins
© CNN/YoutubeKaitlan Collins, White House correspondent for CNN
To hear the liberal media tell it, the horrible Trump administration, bent on destroying the First Amendment, has barred a legitimate journalist from covering the White House.

Or as The New York Times put it:
"The White House barred a CNN journalist from attending a public appearance by President Trump in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, an apparent act of retaliation that drew immediate rebuke from news organizations and signaled the latest escalation of Mr. Trump's hostilities toward the news media."
But once again, that's not the full story (and just for the record, a lie of omission is still a lie).

Comment: Trump is not the only leader to suffer from the American press corps lack of manners.


Mr. Potato

This week's Russophobia round-up

trump soccer ball helsinki
© Kevin Lamarque / ReutersTrump-Putin summit in Helsinki, 16 Jul. 2018
Hackers, spy balls and whitewashing space travel: It's certainly been a varied week in the world of Russophobia. RT takes its regular look at the scare stories peppering the mainstream media over the last 7 days.

Russophobia in space

Russophobia went where no Russophobia has gone before this week. At an aerospace conference, moderator Todd Harrison pulled a question from the twilight zone and asked NASA's Jim Bridenstine "Are the Russians refusing to launch African American astronauts?"

Bridenstine said he's "never heard of that," and then former NASA Administrator, Charles Bolden, who happens to be an African-American himself called it "absurd". Harrison himself will remain earthbound for the foreseeable future because Russia definitely doesn't send idiots to space.

Cult

US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick resigns as sex abuse scandal spirals

US cardinal
© Morteza Nikoubazl / Reuters
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick as he faces an array of allegations of sexual abuse, and has ordered him to observe a "life of prayer and penance" until his canonical trial.

The former archbishop of Washington DC faces a litany of allegations, sparked after he was accused of sexually abusing an altar boy in 1971. The American Catholic Church said last month that, after an independent forensic investigation, it found the allegation was credible. The cardinal, who retired a decade ago, said he had "absolutely no recollection," of this.

A second victim has since come forward to say that he suffered serial abuse by McCarrick, starting when he was 11. A number of men have also come forward to say that, when they were studying to become priests, McCarrick forced them to have sex with him at a New Jersey beach house.

Cult

Political correctness: A weapon that can be wielded against liberals and conservatives alike

James Gunn
© Ferdaus Shamim / Global Look PressJames Gunn
America is spiraling downward into a politically correct madness and big Hollywood corporations like Disney are hastening the descent.

On July 20, Disney fired outspoken liberal writer/director James Gunn from the film Guardians of the Galaxy 3 for a series of tweets he had written from 2008 to 2011 which the company deemed "offensive".

The tweets in question, which were Gunn's attempts at humor, were jokes about rape and pedophilia that were dug up by right-wing firebrand Mike Cernovich looking to bring the arch-liberal Gunn down a peg. Cernovich and his merry band of right-wing tricksters couldn't have imagined in their wildest dreams that due to their twitter/media campaign against Gunn, the man who wrote and directed the first two highly successful Guardians of the Galaxy franchise films, he would end up being kicked to the curb by Disney.

Comment: The argument over the limits of free speech rages on. It does seem hypocritical that liberals are defending Gunn's right to say truly appalling thing, while celebrating the fall of conservatives like Amy Powell who made a comment well within the context of a production meeting.

Joe Rogan comments:




Airplane

Trump Jr. and Mueller happen to be at same high-volume airport gate: Twitter goes into hysterics

Trump Jr. Mueller
© ReutersDonald Trump Jr. and Robert Mueller
Special Counsel Robert Mueller and Donald Trump Jr. were photographed at the same airport gate, setting tongues in Washington wagging about the ongoing 'Russiagate' investigation, flying in coach class, and the notorious Gate 35X.

The photo, published by Politico on Friday, shows Mueller and Trump Jr. at Gate 35X of the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA). The special prosecutor is seated on the left of the photo, reading a newspaper. Behind him, to the right, the president's son is talking on his cell phone.

Comment: #Resistance-types will try to make hay out of any coincidence.


Windsock

Poll: Majority of Americans oppose military conflict with Iran, most think Trump would be tempted to start one

USAF RQ-4 Global Hawk
© Hamad I Mohammed / ReutersUS Air Force RQ-4 Global Hawk aircrafts at an Air Force Base in the Arabian Gulf
The majority of Americans would prefer to stay away from military conflict with Iran as tensions mount between Washington and Tehran, a poll has revealed. However, most think the US President would be tempted to start it.

Just 23 percent of the respondents of a HuffPost/YouGov survey, published on Friday, approved the idea of the US going to war with Iran. The number of opponents, on the other hand, is more than doubled - 53 percent do not support such a scenario, including 37 percent of "strongly opposed" respondents. The remaining quarter of the surveyed was undecided. Most of the more hawkish respondents were found to be Trump's campaign supporters.

Despite the fact that most Americans agree with Trump that Iran is no friend to the US, they are not supportive of his hawkish approach to their countries' relations, according to the survey. Some 43 percent were found in opposition to the US leader's handling of issues related to Iran, while 36 present supported him. Moreover, more than a third think Trump's actions only worsen the already strained situation.

Comment: Despite his bluster, Trump is likely only using his 'art of the deal' tactics to start the negotiating process; the real threats to Iran are being orchestrated elsewhere: