Society's ChildS


Light Sabers

Feminism, gender pronouns and the fight to change reality through language

Daphne Patai
Minding the Campus
Thu, 29 Mar 2018 17:36 UTC
gender pronouns
Last year, Jordan Peterson, a professor at the University of Toronto, made news when he refused to use the invented pronouns of the transgender movement as prescribed by Canadian law (see chart).

Pronouns these days are a new battleground, as recommendations admonish us all that the standard English pronouns, which traditionally distinguish she from he, him from her, are discriminatory and must now be reassigned or reinvented upon request.

Still, it's worth asking: By changing nouns and pronouns, is one changing one's sex? If I force you to refer to me as he when all anatomical and biological signs indicate I'm a she, have I thereby consolidated a new identity? Does saying it make it so? But then, if physical reality has no traction, why should a "woman" get outraged at the uninvited display of a "penis" in one setting (such as a late-night meeting in a hotel room), but not at precisely the same intrusion in another setting (say, a bathroom or shower room now accessible to all those who "identify as female")?
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Eye 1

Facebook forced to admit that most of its 2bn users have had their data misused


RT
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 17:32 UTC
facebook campus
© Noah Berger / ReutersFacebook's campus on the edge of the San Francisco Bay
The personal information of 87mn users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, the social media giant has said, while also admitting that they "believe most people on Facebook" have had their data misused at some point.

Facebook's powerful search engine allowed any users to search for accounts by typing an individual's phone number or email to locate the required person. While convenient and efficient, the 'Search and Account Recovery' function likely also helped "malicious actors" gain access to the personal data of "most" of Facebook's two billion users, the company has admitted. Unless the user changed their setting to block the built-in search function, they were vulnerable to potential misuse of their data.

"Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we've seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way," Mike Schroepfer, Chief Technology Officer at the company, revealed in a blog on Wednesday.

"We've seen some scraping," CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged on a call with reporters, following Schroepfer's revelations.
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Handcuffs

Brazil's Supreme Court rules fmr president Lula da Silva can be jailed on corruption charges


RT
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 17:24 UTC
Supporters of former Brazil president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
© Ueslei Marcelino / ReutersSupporters of former Brazil president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva can be jailed on corruption charges, the Supreme Court has ruled. The move would apparently block Lula's reelection bid, despite strong public support.

The Supreme Federal Court (STF) has voted 6-5 to deny Lula's plea and ruled he must start serving a 12-year prison sentence for graft. According to the ruling, Lula may now be arrested at any time and will likely not be allowed to run for president in October. The decision is the latest step in a series of actions in Brazil, which critics of the current government describe as a creeping right-wing takeover of the nation's democratic institutions.

The popular 72-year-old politician, who is leading in all polls ahead of the October presidential election, was convicted of money laundering and passive corruption last July. The court's decision apparently blocks da Silva's expected return to politics. He says his legal troubles are a result of the machinations of his political opponents.

Commonly known as Lula, the Brazilian Workers' Party icon recently spoke on an RT Spanish show hosted by former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, where he argued that corruption charges are just a tool used by his political opponents to target people in the leftist camp, including himself.
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Che Guevara

50 years on from MLK assassination and the day the dream died


RT
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 16:06 UTC
martin luther king
Wednesday marks 50 years since Dr Martin Luther King Jr was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

A passionate orator, King's distinctive voice captivated audiences in the United States and around the world. As one of the most visible leaders of the civil rights movement, he strove to end racial segregation and used the tactics of non-violence and civil disobedience to further the cause of workers' rights.

He was in Memphis supporting striking sanitation workers the day he was murdered, April 4, 1968. The previous night he'd given a rousing speech to the workers in which he proclaimed, somewhat prophetically: "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now.... I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know the night that we as a people will get to the promised land."
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Jet2

F-16 jet crashes at base outside Las Vegas during routine training


RT
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 18:47 UTC
F-16 fighter jet
© ReutersA US Air Force F-16 fighter jet lands at the Osan U.S. Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, March 20, 2018
A US Air Force F-16 jet has crashed at the Nellis Air Force Base outside of Las Vegas, during routine training on the Nevada Test and Training Range, officials said Wednesday. The pilot's condition is unknown.

The incident occurred at 10:30am local time (17:30 GMT) on Wednesday.

Nellis Air Force Base is home to the US Air Force Warfare Center, which claims to be the largest air combat training center in the world.

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Better Earth

We're doomed: One third of millennials believe the earth is flat


The Daily Sheeple
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 15:19 UTC
flat earth
It seems like the "flat earthers" are just a fringe movement of people who want to distrust NASA just for the sake of doing so. But about one-third of all millennials actually believe the earth is not a globe, but a flat disc.

According to Unilad, for some reason, more and more people (and more specifically millennials) seem to be buying into the theory that the earth is a disc rather than a globe, and the group who subscribes to it seems to be growing. There is even a Flat Earth Society whose membership continues to grow.
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Heart - Black

50 years on from Martin Luther King's murder, hypocrisy continues to reign in America

John Wight
RT
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 16:28 UTC
martin luther king mlk
© Barry Sweet /Global Look PressMartin Luther King
On the 50th anniversary of his assassination, it is hard to think of anyone whose legacy has been so misrepresented as that of Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King (MLK) dedicated his life to the pursuit of truth regardless of the consequences, personal or political. Thus, at the time of his murder at the hands of a white supremacist on April 4, 1968 in the city of Memphis, where he had arrived to lead a march of the city's sanitation workers over pay and conditions, King found himself an isolated figure.

Indeed, in an uncanny example of a death foretold, on the eve of his assassination, at the end of both the last and one of the most famous speeches he ever gave, the black civil rights leader proclaimed, "I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord."
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Question

Is there a connection between the feminization of Christianity and its decline?

Rod Dreher
American Conservative
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 14:58 UTC
male and female bishops
© Mary Constance/Flickr
Nicholas Kristof is happy this Easter and Passover:
Over the centuries, it was fine for women to be martyred (or, at times, to be burned as witches), but they were denied the right to become priests, rabbis or ministers. Yet a revolution is unfolding across America and the world, and countless women will be presiding this weekend over Easter and Passover celebrations.

In just a few decades, women have come to dominate many seminaries and rabbinical schools and are increasingly taking over the pulpit at congregations across the country. "What we're seeing before our very eyes is a dramatic shift; in my mind it's as big as the Protestant Reformation," says the Rev. Serene Jones, the first woman president of New York City's Union Theological Seminary - where almost 60 percent of the students are now female.
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Propaganda

Sloppy? UK Times' lead article questioning govt's 'alliance against Russia' scrubbed, but URL link remains with different story


RT
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 15:48 UTC
london times newspapers
© Lisa-Blue / Getty Images
The Times' lead article from Wednesday, suggesting Theresa May is struggling to hold together an alliance against Russia, has disappeared from its website, with a completely new story under the same URL replacing it.

So, what could have motivated the paper to shelve the story?

The original article, headlined 'May battles to preserve alliance against Russia', looked at Prime Minister May's handling of the Skripal case after chief executive of the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down, Gary Aitkenhead, gave an explosive interview that revealed that the lab had not concluded where the chemical weapon had come from - despite May's government insisting it was engineered in Russia.

Comment: Who would have approved (or demanded) the change?

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MIB

Best of the Web: Knobs, knockers and Russian 'secret spycraft manuals'

Craig Murray
craigmurray.org.uk
Thu, 05 Apr 2018 15:30 UTC
Gary Aitkenhead Porton down skripal
© Daily MailGary Aitkenhead, Porton Down's chief executive
What is left of the government's definitive identification of Russia as the culprit in the Salisbury attack? It is a simple truth that Russia is not the only state that could have made the nerve agent: dozens of them could. It could also have been made by many non-state actors.

Motorola sales agent Gary Aitkenhead - inexplicably since January, Chief Executive of Porton Down chemical weapons establishment - said in his Sky interview that "probably" only a state actor could create the nerve agent. That is to admit the possibility that a non state actor could. David Collum, Professor of Organo-Chemistry at Cornell University, infinitely more qualified than a Motorola salesman, has stated that his senior students could do it. Professor Collum tweeted me this morning.

The key point in his tweet is, of course "if asked". The state and corporate media has not asked Prof. Collum nor any of the Professors of Organic Chemistry in the UK. There simply is no basic investigative journalism happening around this case.
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