indefinite hiatus

 When I started this blog being a feminist in the skeptic movement was seen as completely incompatible, and sexism went on unchecked. Skepchick and other sources of female skeptic thought barely scratched the surface of misogyny inside the movement and society in general, and elevatorgate had not yet happened. Now Atheism + and other websites (skepchick, free thought blogs) have large bodies of people who are committed to both social justice and atheism. Heaps of bloggers examine the intersection between social justice and atheism all the time, there is hardly a topic I could blog that someone else has not blogged first from a similar angle. In short, I wonder what utility a blog like mine has anymore, and recent life events make it difficult to update and screen comments regularly so the blog will be suspended for awhile. I am not sure how long.

For now I think I will leave the blog as is and close comments completely in a couple of weeks, but of course I am open to suggestions about what to do next (keep blogging, stop, start a new blog, delete everything, etc). I still enjoy writing and wish I had more time for it in my schedule. I would like to thank everyone who read and commented and linked to me in the past couple of years, it meant a lot to know that someone else out there thought I had something to say that was worth reading.

The media conspiracy theory

When you point out to someone that pit bulls are responsible for a disproportionate amount of carnage and death when compared to every other sort of dog, the most common reaction you get from a pit advocate is that there is a media conspiracy afoot. Its the Anti Pit Bull Media Conspiracy, and they are out to make the dogs look bad. I'm not a person who dismisses the idea of a media conspiracy out of hand, but if it exists surely there is evidence of it somewhere. Usually a conspiracy involves propaganda of some sort, an attempt to hide or obscure facts that don't fit with the dominant narrative.  According to pit advocates the media has an anti-pit bull narrative that is difficult to stray from. To which I say- oh, really? I've seen nothing but positive spin and uncritically examined pro-pit nonsense from the media for years now. Here is a list of tv shows/movies I know from off the top of my head that regularly espouse pro-pit messages:

Cesar Milan's The Dog Whisperer
Pit Bulls and Parolees
Pit Boss
Beyond The Myth
Rachel Ray
Dog Town

Some of these programs are incredibly popular. They all claim that pit bulls are simply misunderstood and pose no additional danger when compared to other types of dog. Here is a list of the supposedly anti-pit bull programs available in the media:

The News (when they report a pit bull attack)


What is funny is that while you would never see actual statistics on dog bite related fatalities discussed on the 6 pro-pit bull programs I named earlier, but you can still find pro-pit lobby stuff in news editorial pages all over the place. Book stores are also largely filled with pro-pit bull messages, and so are magazine articles and blog posts and so on. Even comments on news stories about maulings or deaths seem to have about the same 6 (or more) to 1 ration of pro pit bull messages vs anti. Curiously, historical books about dog fighting have been deemed anti-pit bull propaganda by advocates on amazon, though all they do is document the history of the development of pit bulls and other gripping dogs. The advocates have tried to get the books removed from listings at the website. Hmmm.

It seems that the increasing number and frequency of pro-pit bull messages in the media do not do anything to assuage the average advocate's urge to argue that the Anti Pit Bull Media Conspiracy exists. They also seem to believe that a bunch of mushy rhetoric about pit bulls (like from Cesar Milan and Rachel Ray) isn't propaganda, but chronicling events that have actually transpired (selective breeding for blood sports, actual attacks on actual people) is propaganda. Advocates aren't denying that people are killed by pit bulls regularly, they just believe that there are stacks of bodies of people who died by beagle (or poodle or retriever) that the media ignores for some reason. It seems much more likely to me that the facts available in the clifton report are difficult to reconcile with slogans like "blame the deed not the breed" and "they are like every other kind of dog", so advocates are stuck having to allege such an outrageous conspiracy exists. It would be easier to take them seriously if it weren't so hard to find critical analysis of pit bull advocate messages in the media in general. I wonder what it would take for them to accept that the media is not anti-pit bull?

October Awareness Month

I like October. My birthday is in it, and so is Halloween, clearly the best holiday of the year. Like every single month, it is something awareness month. The awareness I am supposed to be experiencing is more like a pukey feeling in my gut than an enlightening experience.

First up is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Sounds pretty good in theory, but it is really more like the Komen Foundation Awareness Month. All this pink shit everywhere really irks me, and it should irk you too. The book (and now documentary, available on netflix instant) Pink Ribbons, Inc. has shed some light on how little Komen actually does to help women with breast cancer. Turns out the vast majority of the research they sponsor is for developing treatment drugs rather than prevention or general understanding of a complex disease (so in other words its a big fat check to the pharmaceutical industry, which seems to have serious and ongoing problems with their research ethics). Turns out all this "for the cure" talk is pretty empty too, because breast cancer is extremely complicated and not well understood. Its hard to find a cure for something that is not yet well understood. Prevention research (which is vitally important in a disease that has increased dramatically in prevalence over the last 50 years) is threatening to all the companies that plaster pink all over their stuff to sell more of it, so Komen doesn't help with that. It may be that certain chemical compounds and consumer products are what caused the increase in breast cancer- in fact, a lot of cosmetics and other substances have been found to be carcinogenic but are totally legal to sell anyway. Companies selling toxic shit to women love Komen (avon and revlon come to mind). The most infamous example is the yoplait yogurt lid initiative, where the actual yogurt inside contained substances linked specifically to breast cancer. Komen didn't do jack shit to fix that, Think Before You Pink did, despite having much less publicity and money. Komen exists to service huge multinational corporations, both with partnership deals that move product and with positive PR associations with consumers. Breast cancer is seen as a 'safe' disease, one that attracts no controversy as a cause to support. Other diseases like AIDS and lung cancer aren't so lucky. The documentary film talked with actual women with breast cancer and most were pretty miffed at how their horrible, deadly disease was presented on commercials and promotional materials from Komen.

Next up is Pit Bull Awareness Month. God damn, am I ever aware of pit bulls. Its hard not to be after last month. A record nine americans were killed by dogs between September 1st and October 2nd, when the average has held at about one fatality every two to three weeks for the previous couple of years. Six of the deaths were caused by pit bulls (it may actually be seven, with DNA tests pending on one of the dogs involved). The other killer dogs for the month were rottweilers and cane corsos (a type of dog that has been bred for blood sports, just like pit bulls). You'll have to scroll through the rest of the years victims to get to september/october, but this list is the most comprehensive and concise reference available, with links to the original news stories for those who want to verify the facts for themselves.  One of the people who died was a dog rescuer with years of experience with pit bulls who was killed in her own home by her own pits. She joins two other rescuers killed by their fighting dogs in the past year or so. I'm sure while she was alive she was spreading the gospel of "its all in how you raise them" and "they are just like any other kind of dog!" (of course people who actually study canine behavior think this shit is nonsense). Pit bull advocates don't want people to actually be aware of the problems that pit bulls cause in communities, they want you to be aware of all their dumbass slogans about why pit bulls are great. They want you to be aware of their propaganda so that they don't have to deal with the hassle of having their fighting dogs legislated. If someone is posting this reality-denying bullshit on your facebook page or emailing you nonsense, I urge you to make them aware of what medical professionals think about treating a fighting dog like you would any other sort of canine.

hey old white republican dudes

shut the fuck up about rape. Seriously. You don't know what you are talking about.


I am sick and tired of hearing the word "rape" when I am watching the morning news for weather/traffic, and knowing that it isn't because someone gives a shit about rape victims. It ruins my day to know that some asshole with political power said something incredibly insensitive on a national scale. Victims of rape are subjected to a lack of social support which includes rude and insensitive comments in their personal lives. Now they can't have it stop there, famous politicians have to rub some salt into the wound by repeating the same stupidity. Some are in a place where it makes it impossible to function for a day or two when they are subjected to this. The fact that so many people hate you for what someone else chose to do can be bearable when you aren't being reminded of it every five minutes.

The republican party is showing its true colors more and more as the rape apologist party, and men  in general don't seem to care much about that either. They are siding with republicans more frequently, apparently able to ignore the way that republican policy would treat the women in their lives. No one in the news media is taking this fight to the presidential candidates, despite the fact that Romney likely handed out The Miracle of Forgiveness to victims of sexual assault during his time as bishop in the LDS church. The book says that unless you fought to the death, you are partly to blame for being raped and must repent. It fits right in to all these other misogynist narratives of rape that republicans are letting loose so often these days.

None of the asshats who feel compelled to lecture rape victims about pregnancy stepped up to condemn this man, a major fundraiser for the republican party in Utah who had been accused of kidnapping and rape by five different women. The dude killed himself today and his attorneys whined about the "one sided" news coverage pushing him too far, as if a full statement from his attorneys being played at every fucking update wasn't enough to count as objective in their view. I had to turn the TV on mute most days that they played something because it was nothing but bullshit about how the women were simply confused about having been held captive at a cabin and raped repeatedly. Someone left this gem of a comment on the salt lake tribune page about the suicide:

Now he is in Hell with all the liberals that murdered those yet to be born.

Nice. Women who vote republican need to look around and see the kind of woman hating scum they are surrounded by and realize that it isn't a fuck up here and there that causes these comments, its an ideological commitment to the oppression of women. Men hate you.

mitt romney: americans are not entitled to food, shelter, medical care

In case anyone is somehow not aware, the man who wants to lead the country believes that roughly half of the people in it do not deserve basic life sustaining food. They don't deserve shelter or medical care either, apparently. Mitt Romney has confirmed and doubled down on the horrible screed recorded at one of his millionaires only fundraisers:

There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.

The Crommunist was reminded of a scene from American Psycho upon hearing it, and so was I. Romney's extreme wealth, lack of self-awareness, and contempt for gays and women fit right in to the characterization, too. 

It is worth noting that his figures aren't accurate at all, but it is somewhat beside the point.

Funny how people who pay into the system their whole lives and cannot work anymore are lumped in with the "victims" in Romney's mind. I am struck with the sense that republicans, who keep calling themselves "pro life", are not interested in helping anyone actually stay alive once they are born. They also seem to have no problem completely disobeying what their team mascot says regarding the poor and underprivileged, all while calling atheists evil and immoral. None of this is new, but its still infuriating. What really bothers me is that so many people are so ignorant of history that they may like the sound of romney's comments. 

The historical amnesia required to think like Romney and his ilk astounds me. It is as if they think that the social programs of government sprouted up out of no where, that they were put in place because lazy people somehow quit being lazy long enough to get these programs enacted, ultimately with the goal of never working again. Or perhaps they think FDR was some kind of radical who ruined the country despite cries of protest from Real Americans. The truth is that government social programs came to be because people were dying in the fucking streets from preventable causes. There is not any alternative system in place to take care of people if these programs go away, and the fight will have to be won all over again, with all the casualties falling on one side. 

It reminds me of another group with terrible ignorance of the past: anti vaccine activists. They don't seem to fully understand the situation that spawned vaccine schedules or how close we are to returning to such a fate if the system isn't kept in place. I doubt that any of them would keep their resolve about "too many too soon" after actually witnessing the horror of preventable death from say, polio. I also doubt the majority of people who buy into the republican social darwinist line of bullshit would keep with it if they had a realistic representation of the results of such policies available. You would have to be a fucking sociopath to see people who need medical care and refuse to give it to them, for any reason. Ditto for food and shelter. Most people aren't sociopaths; we just live in a society that champions their values. 

Its also worth noting that Romney's position in the mormon church included deciding who was "worthy" of aid (after paying 10% of their income in tithing for years and years, of course). Unless mormons are automatically considered to be better than half of the country, it is hard for me to imagine him doling out food and assistance with much compassion. He has had endless opportunity to work with poor people and help them, and he has an attitude devoid of empathy despite all that. 

There is more to come from the undercover tape, though I am not sure how it could get any worse.