Monthly Archives: December 2014

Comic Book Movies

I have read comic books in the past, though I was never a very dedicated collector.  My favorite superhero is still Batman.  I’ve read ones I thought had great art but lousy stories, and ones with great stories and meh art.  And like most fans, casual and dedicated, I looked forward to live action versions of the books.

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I Was Not Part of the 90s Culture Wars

As my last post probably showed, I was wrapped in my privilege for most of my life.  I had no idea where or how the feminists were fighting.  White hetero male was oblivious.

Some folks have decided Christina Hoff Sommers is deserving of her self-labeling as a Feminist.  Yet, she works for the mighty right-wing American Enterprise Institute.  The right-wing is far from giving a crap about how women are treated.  Women are barely people to the current conservatives.

Which brings me to this summary of her dishonesty.

I mean this: Christina Hoff Sommers, in her many recent public statements about rape and sexual assault in America, understates the prevalence of rape in this country in ways that are unsupported by the evidence. She analogizes America’s rape crisis to entirely invented “crises” of the past while wildly overstating the evidence for the existence of an epidemic of false rape claims. To read her writing, watch her videos, and follow her on Twitter is to be given a wholly unrealistic impression of the scale and seriousness of rape in America. And that’s the case — and this is crucial — even if you agree with her contention that rape reporting data is seriously flawed.

Let me say that again, because this was a core claim that her supporters made on Saturday afternoon: I am not calling Christina Hoff Sommers a rape denialist because we rely on different statistical estimates of the prevalence of rape. I am calling her a rape denialist because the way she deploys even her own preferred statistics is fundamentally bogus.

 

That article goes on to show how Sommers is either being dishonest, disingenuous, or completely out of touch with reality.

My Societal History

I never remember being taught that men did certain things and women did certain other things and never the twain shall meet.

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Ferguson Grand Jury

The purpose of a Grand Jury in the United States is to decide whether a crime May have taken place.  It seems a shitty bigot of an ADA decided to present the results in a highly irregular manor to this Grand Jury in the Michael Brown case.  And they decided not to indict.

So… let’s bring this to its lowest level.  An unarmed teenager was shot dead in the street.  And this Grand Jury decided that there was no possible way a crime was committed.

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