The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Books…And A Smittypalooza?

Posted on | July 16, 2014 | 23 Comments

— by Wombat-socho


I didn’t get much reading done last week, what with a lack of money for new books, a lack of time to stop by the library, and a lack of spare time to actually read what I did pick up last week thanks to the truck breaking down for a day – which, thanks to Northern Virginia’s idiosyncratic transit network, meant a day and a half wasted on bus and Metro riding that I could have spent reading.


Anyway, I finally got around to Variable Star, which is billed as a collaboration between Robert Heinlein and Spider Robinson. For those of you unfamiliar with the backstory on this, apparently RAH had written the outline in 1955, but never done anything else with it. When it was found (less its last page) after Virginia Heinlein’s death, Robinson was asked to finish it in his own style, which he did, and the result is something that’s neither fish nor fowl. As Nicholas Whyte said in Strange Horizons, “This is, frankly, not a great book.” I have to agree with him; with its many references to events and characters from Heinlein’s other works, and shameless Tuckerizations, it’s amusing for people who like that sort of thing, but the opening chapters are painful to read and the deus ex machina that saves the day is downright infuriating. Also, contra Whyte, the book seems as obsessed with sex and sexual relations as any of Heinlein’s later, lesser works, which is an annoying distraction since it all seems rather forced and gratuitous, a signal by Robinson that he, too, is hep, cool and with it. It’s not nearly as bad as For Us, The Living, but that’s damning with faint praise. If you really like Spider Robinson and view him as the obvious heir to Heinlein’s legacy (I don’t) then you’ll probably enjoy the book; if not, then you might want to read it once and move on.


And then we have Iver Cooper’s 1636: Seas of Fortune, which is a different kettle of tropical fish altogether. In the old days, Seas of Fortune would probably have been called a fix-up, since it began as a series of short stories, but here forms a pair of short novels dealing with a USE colony in the Guianas (and a refugee marrano from Brazil who plays an important role) and the Japanese colonization of America’s Pacific Coast with exiled Christians under the rule of daimyo Date Masumune, who was not himself Christian. Both stories are entertaining, but whether they’re worth almost nine bucks is another question, especially since the paperback is less expensive. What’s up with that, Baen?


Finally, a couple of short stories. First, Sarah Hoyt’s The Price of Gold, which is an amusing little romantic fantasy that dances along the edge of horror without falling in. The plot concerns a secret high school for magicians, the misfit boy who apparently can’t do magic at all despite his parents both being wizards, and the precocious girl whose magical skills are exactly the opposite – she’s so good, not even her teachers know what her limits might be. When the misfit boy disappears, and nobody else seems to care, our heroine sets off to solve the case – and finds the boy may have a talent their teachers aren’t equipped to appreciate.


Much less sweet (and considerably more frustrating) is Marko Kloos’ Measures of Absolution, a story set in his Frontlines universe that returns us to the hostile slums of Detroit which we previously saw in his debut novel Terms of Enlistment. This time the story is from the POV of Andrew Grayson’s squadmate Corporal Jackson, who finds out why her squad almost got wiped out – but the question is whether she’ll survive to let anyone higher in the chain of command know. I’d have been a lot happier with “Measures of Absolution” if it hadn’t ended abruptly at AN EXTREMELY DRAMATIC POINT, but as it is, it’s a good read but immensely frustrating. Maybe we’ll get to see the rest of the story after Marko finishes AngelsAngles of Attack. Maybe we won’t. In the meantime, if you don’t mind being left hanging, it’s a good story.


Finally, on a completely unrelated topic, it’s been a while since we all got together for drinks, snacks, and goodnatured hijinkery, and frankly, I don’t care to wait for CPAC. How many of you would be interested in getting together someplace in DC or Northern Virginia for beverages (adult & otherwise), nibblements and conversation? We can either follow the example of the recent Northern Virginia Moron Meetup, which reserved a private room and pre-ordered trays of appetizers after people chipped in money, or we can just pick a bar, restaurant, or lounge someplace and agree to meet there at a certain day & time. This would probably, tentatively happen in mid-October or later. Let me know what you think in the comments.


Category: Books

They Found Peggy Joseph!

Posted on | July 16, 2014 | 33 Comments

Everybody remembers the Florida woman who, during the 2008 campaign, gleefully declared in a TV news interview after an Obama campaign rally that if Obama was elected, she wouldn’t have to worry about putting gas in her car or paying her mortgage.

Over the years, whenever the headlines told of bad economic news I’d wonder aloud, “Whatever happened to Peggy Joseph?”

Thanks to documentary film director Joel Gilbert, now we know:

Ms. Joseph told Gilbert, after viewing the 2008 segment together that gave her notoriety, that not only has Obama not been paying her gas or mortgage, but both have gotten progressively harder to pay.
“During that time, we needed a change, but change for the better, not for the worse,” an awakened Peggy Joseph told Gilbert.
“He had a very big voice, just like the Wizard of Oz,” Joseph said, comparing Obama to the famous phony wizard. “The wizard was this little teeny-teeny tiny man, and I think it’s the same thing with Obama, the man behind the curtain,” Ms. Joseph said in a reflective, disappointing tone.
Ms. Joseph looks back at the time of her 2008 interview, saying, “I was Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. That’s how I feel.”
“What I learned is never trust the Wizard,” Joseph now says. “It’s within ourselves to have the determination, the courage, and the brains, to bring us to our destiny.”

What many people will find most surprising is that, contrary to widespread belief, Peggy Joseph wasn’t looking for a handout. She is not a welfare mooch. In fact, she is a suburban soccer mom, a Haitian immigrant who works hard as a nurse to support her four children. The question that remains now: Why can’t Republicans reach people like Peggy Joseph with a message of hope, growth and opportunity?

Maybe the Black Conservatives Fund can find an answer.

 

Category: Barack Obama, Democrats, Economics

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.16.14

Posted on | July 16, 2014 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE: 07.16.14

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Israel Resumes Air Strikes On Gaza As Truce Deal Collapses

People play outside a bomb shelter on the beach in Ashdod

Hamas attempt to play good cop/bad cop fails miserably


Gaza residents call for peace as conflict roars on


Top Hamas leader targeted as ceasefire collapses


BRICs Set Up Bank To Counter Western Hold On Global Finances
Branches to open in Shanghai, India; $100 billion reserve pool established

Dollar Rallies As Yellen Hints At Rate Hike
Fed to maintain near-zero interest rate until economy improves



POLITICS
VA Alleges “Tremendous Progress”On Backlogged Claims

VA Undersecretary for Benefits Allison Hickey

Congress, IG skeptical


House Approves Short-Term Fix For Highway Trust Fund


Californians Ready To Vote On Splitting State Into Six


Two Former Utah AGs Arrested On Bribery Charges

Baptist Minister Wins Harsh GOP Primary For NC-6

Issa Slams White House Over Aide’s Subpoena Defiance

5th Circuit Rules University Of Texas Can Use Race As A Factor In Admissions

Policy Analyst Palmer Defeats State Rep DeMarco In AL-6 GOP Primary

Henry Kissinger Gets Heart Valve Replaced



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Asian Crude Rebounds From NY Close On Bargain Hunting: WTI $100.32, Brent $106.17
Asian Stocks Steady As Red China GDP Hits Target
JPMorgan Pulls Back From Mortgage Lending On Foreclosure Worries
Wall Street Down As Investors Digest Earnings
Reynolds American Closes Deal To Buy Lorillard For $27.4 Billion
June Retail Sales Reflect Consumer Qualms
Apple, IBM Team Up for Business Apps & Services
Google’s Project Zero Attacks Web Security Threats
SGI, SAP Collaborate For Real-Time Analytics
Novartis, Google To Work On Smart Contact Lenses For Diabetics
LeapFrog Takes On Apple with New Hardware Aimed At Kids



SPORTS
Derek Jeter Bids Farewell To All-Star Game, Leads AL To Victory

Even if he is a damn Yankee.

Farewell to the Captain

MVP Trout, Cabrera chip in 2 RBI each en route to 5-3 win for Junior Circuit

Jimmy Graham Signs Four Year/$40 Million Deal With Saints


No Guarantee Sterling Will Be Out By Start Of NBA Season

Wade, Heat Agree To Two-Year Contract

Pens: No Surgery For Crosby

NASCAR Introduces New Elements For Chase Cars

Ogumikes First Sisters Named To WNBA All-Star Game

Perfect Setup For Clippard At All-Star Game



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Lindsay Lohan To London?

LiLo with London friends

Wants to be regarded as actress, not celebrity


Tammy Bruce To “The View” As The Anti-Rosie – As Suggested By Sarah Palin?

SNL Loses Three More Cast Members

Marvel Makes Thor A Woman

Baby Girl On The Way For Nick & Vanessa Lachey

Rihanna Tweets #FreePalestine, Immediately Retracts It


Why Anna Kendrick Is Okay Not Being On The Most Beautiful List

“Once Upon A Time” Could Get “Frozen” Spinoff

Cameron Diaz Comes Full Circle

From Ugly And Bullied To Unspeakable Armenian Lookalike

Billy Joel’s Mom Rosalind Joel Dead At 92; Christie Brinkley Leaves Touching Tribute On Instagram

“Napoleon Dynamite” 10th Anniversary Reunion Pics

Nicole Richie: What You Won’t See On TV

Popular Food Blogger Admits To Eating Disorder

Nikki Finke Hoaxed By “Exclusive” Hollywood Tip



FOREIGNERS
Red China Economic Growth Accelerates To 7.5% In Q2
Strongest Philippine Storm Of The Year Kills 5
EU May Impose New Ukraine Sanctions
UK Teachers Hail Education Secretary Gove’s Departure
Moscow Subway Derailment Kills 21
Red China Removes Oil Rig That Provoked Vietnam
35 More Terrorists Killed In NWA Strikes
458 Children Rescued From Group Home In Mexico
Turkish President Approves Kurdish Peace Process Law



BLOGS & STUFF
First Street Journal: The Problem With Feminism
The Quinton Report: John Bolton Raised Over $2.3 Million In Q2 For His PACs
Michlle Malkin: Jose Antonio Vargas – The Face Of The Entitled Illegal Alien
Twitchy: Was Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson Always Such A Badass?
Yes. Next question?
American Power: Open-Borders Democrat (And Hypocrite) Martin O’Malley Won’t Accept Illegals In Maryland
American Thinker: A Plague On All Houses
BLACKFIVE: Obama Brings Tranquility To The World
Conservatives4Palin: Gov. Palin Announces Support For Johnson & Loudermilk For Congress
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, July 15
Jammie Wearing Fools: Dozens Of Disney World Workers Arrested In Pedophilia Stings
Joe For America: Feds Offer $6000 Each To House Illegals
JustOneMinute: But What About The Movies?
Protein Wisdom: April Sands Doesn’t Understand How Anyone But Straight White Men Can Vote Republican
Shot In The Dark: Open Letter To Progressives
The Gateway Pundit: Black Conservatives To Hold Event To Counter Annual NAACP Conference
The Jawa Report: Ministry Of Jiggly – Free Kurdistan Edition
The Lonely Conservative: For Obama, Bipartisanship Means Republicans Saying “Mr. President, You’re Right”
This Ain’t Hell: Kristen Gwynne Writes The Stupidest Article In The History Of Journalism
Weasel Zippers: TV Reporter Suspended For Saying Inner City Violence Stems From “Young Fatherless Black Men”
Megan McArdle: Online Ads Have Invisible Mojo


Join Amazon Student FREE Two-Day Shipping for College Students

Category: Live at Five

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Son Describes Abuse by Feminist Pagan Fiction Author

Posted on | July 15, 2014 | 39 Comments

Marion Zimmer Bradley was famous for her Avalon novel series.

“Wicca refers to the practice of European paganism popular throughout Europe and North America. . . . Dianic Wicca refers to a more radical women-only practice, named for the Goddess Diana. The novels of Marion Zimmer Bradley have been influential for Dianic Wiccans . . .”
— “Dianic Wicca,” Historical Dictionary of Lesbian Literature

Last month I reported on this startling revelation:

Moira Greyland is the daughter of famed novelist Marion Zimmer Bradley, who died in 1999. Greyland’s father –Bradley’s second husband, Walter Breen — was accused of sexually molesting a 12-year-old boy in 1989, ten years after he separated from Bradley, who was accused of covering up her for husband’s pedophile activities. Bradley’s own tendencies toward lesbianism have been noted, but now Moira Greyland has claimed that she was molested by her mother . . .

Moira Greyland said her mother first molested her at age 3 and the last time when Moira was 12, describing the chaos of her childhood home (“out of control drugs, orgies, and constant flow of people in and out”) with a mother who was “cruel and violent.” Now Moira’s brother Mark is speaking out about Bradley’s abuse:

There was always drama and there was always the invisible blade of what would happen if all of this dreadful secret got out. The atmosphere of fear of discovery was simply everywhere and there was no place to hide. . . .

He talks about his mother’s fans in the feminist neo-pagan movement:

When women started approaching her saying stuff like “you saved my life; now I don’t have to kill myself”, she started wearing new faces around them and more and more of them would gather around her.
Some of them were so angry they treated me like I was a crime for daring to be male around her. Others would give me the deer in the headlights look then look away.
There were times these unhappy women would gather around her by the dozens and I would stand back and watch her on stage and happy. I saw the rituals and the other weirdness close up and then at a distance. What they got out of it was something I did not understand, but I could see that the people were volatile and likely to blow up for invisible reasons.
Feminism to me was a lot of very unhappy women telling stories to each other about how they had been hurt. They were getting ready to change the world and I didn’t want to be in front of that train when it started rolling.

You can read the whole thing. Most people have no idea how influential Bradley was in 20th-century neo-paganism. Categorizing her pagan feminist genre as “lifestyle fantasy” novels, historian Brian Stableford has recounted how Bradley “became something of a guru to numerous writers of a similar stripe, several of whom — including Diana L. Paxson and Gael Baudino — described themselves as priestesses of ‘Dianic Wicca.'” Bradley and Paxson were co-founders of the California-based Center for Non-Traditional Religion, subsequently renamed the Fellowship of the Spiral Path, which is focused on the “Triple Goddess” (Maiden, Mother, Crone) of neo-pagan belief.

Dianic Wicca is quite nearly a synonym for “lesbian paganism” or “feminist witchcraft.” It was founded by a crazy Hungarian-born woman known as Zsuzsanna Budapest who became a feminist, divorced her husband, abandoned her two sons and turned lesbian. In 1975, she was arrested for violating a Los Angeles ordinance against fortune-telling, leading to what she has called “The Last Great American Witch Trial.” She is director of the Women’s Spirituality Forum, which sponsors the International Goddess Festival.

A three-day festival of ridiculous mystic nonsense for $375:

Join us for a blissful weekend filled with magic, sisterhood, and deep connection to the rhythms of the Earth! Once again, we gather together in the coastal redwoods of California among the enchanted energies of Mother Nature to honor the Goddess, ourselves, and one another. . . .
Evenings are reserved for us to come together in the Gaia Bowl, our sacred ritual space of “Fire & Light.” It is here that we call to the Goddess and weave our magic; honor and invoke our Foremothers; hold Initiation and Ordination rituals; and drum, dance, and sing our prayers — for ourselves and the Earth! All of nature is just a step outside your cabin door.

The connection between this pagan/lesbian/feminist “spirituality” and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s career is well-known, and her colleague Diana Paxson reacted to the abuse accusations:

I saw Marion’s children at family parties, and in passing when I was at Greenwalls for meetings, which usually took place in the Center for Non-Traditional Religion’s room over the garage. I never personally observed, nor had any reason to suspect, that she was abusing either of her children.
After living elsewhere for a number of years, both of Marion’s younger children have now returned to the Bay Area. Moira’s brother is currently living with us at Greyhaven. . . .
Our women’s circle met once a month to explore women’s spirituality and study the goddesses. The circle included both straight women and lesbians. I do not recall any overt sexuality within the circle, and I neither observed nor heard about any abusive relationships between Marion and any other woman or girl.

Bradley’s feminist fan Alyssa Rosenberg is disturbed:

A significant theme of Zimmer Bradley’s answers in her 1998 deposition [in a lawsuit related to her ex-husband’s sexual abuse of boys} is the idea that very young teenagers ought to be able to make their own sexual decisions, including about whether to have sex with adults who proposition them. She rejects the idea that any element of coercion is possible in these interactions, particularly when a teenager is physically larger than an adult. . . .
Answers like these throw passages from “The Mists of Avalon” into a new and disturbing light. Take one passage about a Beltane ritual. Zimmer Bradley writes that “The little blue-painted girl who had borne the fertilizing blood was drawn down into the arms of a sinewy old hunter, and Morgaine saw her briefly struggle and cry out, go down under his body, her legs opening to the irresistible force of nature in them.”
Without the context of Zimmer Bradley’s personal history, it is possible to read this sentence as a description of an ancient religious practice that is unsettling both in its depiction of an altered state and behavior that contemporary readers would not find acceptable. In the context of her testimony, and an article she wrote about sensual relationships between older and much younger women in literature, we lose the reassurance that the author shares our moral and ethical presumptions.

Whose “moral and ethical presumptions” are these, Ms. Rosenberg? Aren’t you trying to impose your morality on these neo-pagans? Isn’t your reaction rather — what’s that word? — judgmental?

Maybe you should consult a Dianic high priestess.

UPDATE: Something I hadn’t previously realized is that Bradley’s husband Walter Breen was a notorious gay pedophile before she married him. Click here to read a 1964 account of the scandal Breen’s perversion caused in the science-fiction community. What’s fascinating — the way that a bloody car crash beside the highway is fascinating — is how Breen was protected by the “bohemian” ethos of Berkeley radicals in that era. The guy was a serial child molester, everybody knew it, and nobody felt obliged to call the cops.

 

Category: Feminism

Planned Perversion

Posted on | July 15, 2014 | 63 Comments

“Planned Parenthood’s Sex Ed Pushes BDSM, ‘Asphyxiation’ On Teens” is the headline at Breitbart.com, highlighting a new video from Live Action that demonstrates how America’s leading abortion provider is teaching kids about kinky sex.

Planned Parenthood’s advocacy of perversion and promiscuity — under the aegis of “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” — isn’t really anything new. They’ve been promoting this deviancy for decades, and it makes sense if you understand the economics of the abortion industry: Encouraging young girls to screw around recklessly guarantees that a certain percentage of of those girls are going to get knocked up and then pay for an abortion. So the people on the “supply” end of this supply-and-demand equation will do everything possible to increase demand for their services. Q.E.D.

Of course, the push for “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” is based on a myth that kids’ problems with sex are the result of a shortage of sexual knowledge. In fact, kids have never in history had as much access to information about sex as they do now. Whatever it is, if you can spell it, you can Google it — C-H-L-A-M-Y-D-I-A — and if schools would just teach kids basic reading and writing, they could figure out this sex stuff for themselves. Believe it or not, some of us managed to figure it out even before there was an Internet. Or cable TV, for that matter.

Kids are overloaded with sexual information. What seems to be in short supply, however, is sexual virtue. We could fix this problem pretty easily, if America’s schools weren’t run by liberals.

Suppose that a Republican wins the White House in 2016 and is crazy enough to put me in charge of the nation’s sex education agenda. Within a matter of weeks, our nation’s school counselors would receive bundles of helpful pamphlets and posters.

KEEP YOUR BRITCHES ON, MISSY!
DON’T YOU KNOW BOYS HAVE COOTIES?

Just basic common-sense stuff like that. There would also be a pamphlet called, YOU’RE PROBABLY NOT A HOMO, in which young fellows would be reminded that the odds are at least 20-to-1 against them being gay, so if they’re worried about it, they should probably stop worrying. Unless they’re getting boners thinking about Justin Bieber or something, in which case, yeah.

KATE UPTON NUDE

If you feel an overwhelming urge to click that link, you’re not a homo, unless you’re a chick, but even chicks might be curious to see Kate Upton nude without being totally lezbo, so we’ll need to ask some additional questions for the chicks:

This is the kind of basic common-sense curriculum kids really need. Simple messages like, “Stop Wanking to Porn, You Horny Freaks” and “There Were More Than 1.4 Million Cases of Chlamydia Last Year. Don’t Be the Next Case. Keep Your Britches On, Missy.” We must implement the Four Basic Principles of Sex Education:

  1. Fear.
  2. Guilt.
  3. Shame.
  4. And more Fear.

For example, there was a 20% increase in unprotected anal sex among gay men. So we need pamphlets and posters: “Your Mother Would Be So Disappointed If You Got Chlamydia in Your Butt” and “Eewww! That’s Gross! Stop Doing That, You Weirdo!”

Most sex problems could be solved by this basic common-sense approach. The World Health Organization, however, is run by liberals, not people with common sense, so they want to spend $13,000 a year for every gay man in the world to provide them with HIV prevention drugs. This is crazy. All you need is some pamphlets and posters: “Why Do You Keep Doing It In Your Butt? Stop That Right This Minute, Young Man, or I’m Going to Tell Your Mother!”

Meanwhile, for those of you kids who aren’t homos or lezzies, you’re probably wondering, “How can I get somebody to have sex with me without catching a nasty case of chlamydia?”

Simple answer: Do you have a wedding ring on your finger? OK.

Just don’t do it in the butt. That’s gross.

 

Category: Education, Planned Parenthood, Sex

Obama’s Border Game, and Why Republicans Are Doomed to Lose It

Posted on | July 15, 2014 | 54 Comments

President Obama has deliberately provoked the current crisis along our nation’s southwestern border in an effort to force House Republicans to pass the Senate’s “Gang of Eight” amnesty plan. Illegal immigrants are pouring in by the trainload, and the violent MS-13 gang is recruiting in detention centers. Polls show that voters strongly disapprove (58%) of Obama’s handling of the crisis he caused, but an even larger majority — 66% — disapprove of how Republicans in Congress are dealing with the immigration problem:

Almost as many Republicans disapprove of their party’s handling of the issue as say they approve, with negative ratings rising to a majority among conservatives.

Republican voters are not so stupid that they can’t see the blinding truth: Republican politicians despise the people who elect them.

In 2006 and 2007, President Bush and Senator John McCain pushed for an amnesty bill that was only stopped because of the all-out opposition of conservative activists like Michelle Malkin. Nevertheless — despite the all-out opposition of those same conservative activists — the Republican Party nominated McCain as their presidential candidate, thus guaranteeing Obama’s election. If you talked to reporters who followed the “Maverick” around on his “Straight Talk Express” campaign trips, you could learn the depth of McCain’s contempt for Republican voters, especially Christian conservatives. He and his liberal advisers (e.g., Steve Schmidt) disdained the typical GOP primary voter as an ignorant, bigoted dimwit, and more than once McCain has condemned conservative opponents of amnesty as racists.

Nor is John McCain alone in this. As we recently learned in the Mississippi Senate primary campaign, the GOP’s big-money donors and the Republican establishment would rather run race-baiting ads against conservatives and illegally bribe Democrat voters than to permit a conservative to unseat one of the leadership’s reliable stooges. Thad Cochran will vote the way the money boys tell him to vote, and we know what that means in terms of immigration policy:

A trio of billionaires — Sheldon Adelson, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates — say they want to “End the Immigration Impasse,” to quote the headline of their recent New York Times op-ed article.
The article will do nothing to end that impasse, however, because the authors show no understanding of why it exists in the first place.
For the authors, the way to end the impasse is for Congress to enact a comprehensive reform along the lines of the bill that the Senate passed last year. They imagine that everyone important in Washington agrees on the broad outlines of that bill and are merely squabbling over petty details. Everyone would resolve their differences in short order if they only remembered their larger purpose of serving the people.
None of this is true, of course. Some people in Washington oppose the bill, or don’t want to vote for it, and not just because of the details. Others mildly favor the bill but have reasons for letting the opponents get their way. Many suspect Speaker of the House John Boehner falls into this category.
Adelson et al say nothing to address either the opponents’ concerns about the bill — such as their worry that legalizing illegal immigrants will create an incentive for new illegal immigration — or Boehner’s concerns about angering the opponents.

The Republican Party is led and controlled by greedy unprincipled swine who believe in nothing except the aggrandizement of their own power, privilege and personal wealth. These selfish and corrupt swindlers didn’t get to where they are because they were unwilling to do whatever billionaires would pay them to do. The GOP leadership loves money almost as much as they hate voters.

Obama is now “negotiating” with House Republicans over their next agreement to betray the people who elected them.

 

Category: Immigration

LIVE AT FIVE: 07.15.14

Posted on | July 15, 2014 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE: 07.15.14

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Egypt Proposes Cease Fire For Israel, Hamas

IDF artillery on the Gaza border

Proposal calls for ceasefire at 0900 local, reopening of border crossings, talks within 48 hours
Hamas rejects cease-fire without truce
Israel accepts Egyptian truce proposal
Hamas Scores Own Goal

Ukraine: Russian Army Officers Fighting Alongside Rebels
NATO confirms Russian military buildup near Lugansk

Negotiations To Launch BRICS Development Bank Hit Snag
Diplomats can’t agree on where bank should be located or who will head it



POLITICS
VA Watchdog Says Department Is Making Disability Payment Errors In Rush To Cut Backlog

Kristen Ruell, a QR specialist at the Philadelphia VA Regional Center, waits to testify before a Congressional committee

Rep. Huelskamp: “They are all concerned about numbers and not veterans.”

Bergdahl Returned To Active Duty

Missouri Governor Vetoes Bill Allowing Teachers To Carry Guns

McDaniel Asks Court To Open Poll Records

Is California’s Latino Legislative Caucus Breaking The Law By Barring GOP Lawmaker?

Feds Sue Law Firm Behind Debt-Collection Lawsuits



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
WTI Trades Near Two-Month Low Before US Stockpile Data: WTI $100.98, Brent $106.89
Citigroup And Mergers Help Wall Street Regain Traction
Asian Shares Gain, Count On Fed’s Support
Trump Plaza Workers Get Layoff Notices
MakerBot Brings 3D Printers To Home Depot
VW To Add SUV Production To Chattanooga Plant
EBay, Sotheby’s Team Up To Stream Auctions
iPhablet Reportedly Delayed Until Next Year
Microsoft Brings Fight To Google Chromebooks With Trio Of Sub-$200 Laptops
Adventure Time Meets Super Smash Brothers: Adventure Brothers?
Tech Giants, Startups Split On Tactics In Net Neutrality Battle



SPORTS
Yoenis Cespedes Defends Home Run Derby Title

¡El tiempo de La Potencia!

First successful defense since Ken Griffey Jr. in 1999


Who Is Morgan Shepherd, And What’s All The Fuss?

Red Klotz, Iconic Owner Of Washington Generals, Dies At 93


Ugly Reality Intrudes On World Cup’s Glow

Hernandez, Wainwright Named As Starters For All-Star Game

Olympic Medalist Alice Coachman Davis Dies, 90

Luiz Felipe Scolari Canned As Brazil’s Coach After World Cup Failure

Trophy For New College Football Championship Unveiled

Morrow Signs With Lightning For 2014-2015

Nats Experiencing Local TV Viewer Slump



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Erin Andrews Bumps Pam Oliver To Fox’s Second String

Bumped for not being blonde?

Leaving the sidelines for good after this, her 20th season

Weird Al Yankovic Gets “Tacky”(Video)

New Royal Baby On The Way

Selena Gomez Blasts Instagram Follower For “Absurd” Bullying Comment

“I’m Alive, Penis Or No Penis!”

Zachary Quinto, Emma Roberts Join James Franco’s “Michael”


Gavin Rossdale To Be Gwen Stefani’s Team Adviser On “The Voice”

“Game Of Crowns” Premiere Party Fight

Christopher Walken To Play Captain Hook In NBC’s “Peter Pan”

Jenny McCarthy To Host Own Series On Sirius XM

Bethenny Frankel Responds To Criticism After Wearing Her 4-Year-Old Daughter’s Clothes

Meredith Vieira Uninterested In Returning To “The View”: “You Can’t Go Home Again”

“Real Housewife” Hurls Fake Leg Across Restaurant

Simon Cowell Double Dates With Baby Mama In The Hamptons



FOREIGNERS
C of E Votes to Allow Female Bishops
William Hague Quits As UK Foreign Secretary
Militia Shells Tripoli Airport, UN Pulls Out Of Libya
Iran Nuke Talks Uncertain After Kerry Push
Nigerian President Johnathan Promises Malala Missing Girls Will Be Home “Soon”
Red China’s Xi Invites Modi To Visit, Calls For “Early” Border Settlement
Philippines Brace For Floods And Mud Slides From Oncoming Typhoon
Kim Jong Un Supervises Rocket Launches Close To ROK Border
Hollande Booed At Bastille Day Parade
Iranian Court Hands Down Jail Sentences To Eight Facebook Activists



BLOGS & STUFF
First Street Journal: Another Unintended Consequence?
Steven Crowder: How Marriage Makes Us Stronger
Doug Powers: Eric Holder’s Justice Department To Investigate Nebraska Farmer’s Abuse Of Power
Twitchy: Voxer Blames Israel For Palestinian Deaths, Ignores Hamas “Defense” Strategy
American Power: Leftist Protesters In Seattle Depict Jews As Drinking Blood, Eating Gentile Babies
American Thinker: The Conservatives Who Deserve Blame For The Border Breakdown
BLACKFIVE: Vets For A Strong America Hold Hillary Accountable
Blackmailers Don’t Shoot: Eddie Vedder Is Still An Idiot
Conservatives4Palin: Chicago Blacks Slam Obama On Illegal Immigration
Don Surber: Daily Scoreboard, July 14
Jammie Wearing Fools: WaPo Fact Checker Says Democrats Lying Through Their Teeth On Hobby Lobby Ruling
Joe For America: Five Cases Of “How Did They Manage That?”
JustOneMinute: Back On The Border
Protein Wisdom: Small Lifeless Children Reportedly Found Washed Up On Rio Grande Riverbank
Shot In The Dark: The Democratic Party Just Isn’t That Into You Any More
STUMP: Obamacare Watch – Is Obamacare Racist?
The Gateway Pundit: Egyptian Media Calls For Destruction Of Hamas, Obama Makes Them Peace Partners
The Jawa Report: Jawa Promotion – Act of War!
The Lonely Conservative: Communities And States Push Back Against Warehousing Illegals
This Ain’t Hell: The Myth Of The Posse Comitatus Act
Weasel Zippers: With Illegals Flooding The Border, Records Show Tenfold Increase In Asylum Approvals Since Obama Took Office
Megan McArdle: What Will Crooks Do When Crime Doesn’t Pay?


For those of you scoring at home, we’re no longer linking Pat Dollard because the man has gone completely nucking futs.


Shop Amazon – Contract Cell Phones & Service Plans

Category: Live at Five

Sex Trouble: Radical Feminism and the Long Shadow of the ‘Lavender Menace’

Posted on | July 14, 2014 | 240 Comments

“The supersensitivity of the [Women’s Liberation] movement to the lesbian issue, and the existence of a few militant lesbians within the movement, once prompted [NOW founder Betty] Friedan herself to grouse about ‘the lavender menace’ that was threatening to warp the image of women’s rights.”
— Susan Brownmiller, New York Times, March 15, 1970 (quoted in In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution)

“What is a lesbian? A lesbian is the rage of all women condensed to the point of explosion. …
“It should first be understood that lesbianism … is a category of behavior possible only in a sexist society characterized by rigid sex roles and dominated by male supremacy. … In a society in which men do not oppress women, and sexual expression is allowed to follow feelings, the categories of homosexuality and heterosexuality would disappear.”
— Artemis March, et al., “The Woman Identified Woman,” May 1970

No one can honestly discuss feminism without addressing the enduring question, “Which feminism are you talking about?” From its inception as the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1960s and ’70s, modern feminism has been fractured by schisms that its would-be mainstream leaders have sought to conceal from the larger public.

Many women who today identify themselves as feminists have never examined the history of these conflicts and are unfamiliar with the militant personalities and radical ideologies that have influenced feminism for the past half-century. When confronted with the extremist rhetoric of feminists — vehement denunciation of males, condemnation of heterosexuality, claims that men (collectively) oppress and victimize women (collectively) in ways comparable to the Holocaust — the average woman is understandably startled and, if she thinks of herself as a feminist, she quickly shifts into denial mode. The anti-male passage you’ve just quoted to her is an aberration, an anomaly, an expression of fringe beliefs that does not represent the feminism that she endorses. She is not a Marxist, she is not a lesbian or a man-hater, she is not the kind of pro-abortion fanatic who views motherhood as male-imposed tyranny. The question thus arises: Is she actually a feminist?

Any honest person who undertakes an in-depth study of modern feminism, from its inception inside the 1960s New Left to its institutionalization within Women’s Studies departments at universities, will understand that without the influence of radicals — militant haters of capitalism and Christianity, angry lesbians who view all males as a sort of malignant disease, deranged women who can’t distinguish between political grievances and their own mental illnesses — there probably never would have been a feminist movement at all. Yet no matter how many examples of radical feminism we may cite, or how crucial the connection between ideological extremism and the rhetoric of “mainstream” feminists, many women (and men) will continue to insist that the evidence offered is irrelevant to the kind of feminism they endorse and advocate.

Unthinking acceptance of simple slogans, a superficial discourse built around glittering generalities — “equality,” “choice,” etc. — is not an ideology, nor could this bland kind of feminism ever have been enough to inspire an enduring political movement. Even while they ignore the chasm between radical theory and their own feminism, however, women seem surprised to find that real life contradicts even the least controversial understanding of “sexual equality”:

I have always found it hard and confusing to be both a feminist and happily married. Why? Because in a good marriage, where both parties are equally happy, no one is keeping score. Feminists emphasize equality of roles, but in a real life marriage, this isn’t always realistic.

If women make equality the measure of their happiness, they are hopelessly doomed to misery in real life, if their ambitions include men, marriage and motherhood. Somewhere, there may be a perfect Feminist Man acceptable to the egalitarian ideal, but feminists generally mock that possibility. “Not My Nigel” is feminist shorthand for the claims of women that their man — their boyfriend, their husband, their son — does not engage in the sexist oppression that feminist rhetoric attributes to the male-dominated system of patriarchy. Feminists scorn the idea that any man can be an exception to their general condemnation of men, so that the acronym NAMALT (“Not All Men Are Like That”) is deployed to ridicule any woman who takes offense at feminist claims about the ubiquitous villainy of males.

Even if a woman is certain that she herself is not being victimized by her husband, even if she refuses to accept the claim that all men are violent oppressors complicit in “rape culture,” however, she will find that the routine conflicts and misfortunes of her everyday life are characterized by feminists as proof of women’s universal victimhood. If she heeds the voices of feminism, she will mentally magnify her problems into evidence of a pervasive pattern, and view the men in her life — her husband, her father, her male co-workers — as participants in, and beneficiaries of, the system of “male supremacy” denounced in the 1970 manifesto, “The Woman-Identified Woman”:

Lesbian is a label invented by the Man to throw at any woman who dares to be his equal, who dares to challenge his prerogatives . . . who dares to assert the primacy of her own needs. To have the label applied to people active in women’s liberation is just the most recent instance of a long history. . . For in this sexist society, for a woman to be independent means she can’t be a woman — she must be a dyke. That in itself should tell us where women are at. It says as clearly as can be said: women and person are contradictory terms. For a lesbian is not considered a “real woman.” . . . [W]hen you strip off all the packaging, you must finally realize that the essence of being a “woman” is to get fucked by men.

Is this brief excerpt taken out of context? Read the whole thing and see for yourself if the “context” attenuates the meaning. Nor can this manifesto be dismissed as an obscure fringe document irrelevant to feminist history. It was published less than two months after Susan Brownmiller’s important New York Times article about the nascent Women’s Liberation movement had mentioned the effort of Betty Friedan to prevent “the lesbian issue” from “warp[ing] the image” of feminism. Brownmiller herself dismissed Friedan’s fears, playing on the phrase “red herring” to mock the “Lavender Menace” as a “lavender herring,” only to see that clever jest thrown back in her face by the collective that published its manifesto as “Radicalesbians.”

“Well,” replies the defender of “mainstream” feminism, “those lesbians were just a bunch of extremist kooks nobody ever heard of.”

Except they weren’t, and their kooky extremism did not hinder their influence. The “Radicalesbians” collective included Rita Mae Brown, a former staffer at Friedan’s National Organization for Women. In January 1970, Brown and another lesbian NOW staffer, Michela Griffo, resigned and joined forces with Ellen Shumsky and Artemis March (neé March Hoffman) to form a lesbian faction within the male-dominated Gay Liberation Front. In a series of meetings in Brown’s apartment, they formed a conspiracy to stage a disruptive protest as the Second Congress to Unite Women in May 1970. “The Woman-Identified Woman” was a statement largely written by March on behalf of the collective, and no one can say that either the manifesto or its authors were “fringe” obscurities. Artemis March, Ph.D., taught at Harvard University and was awarded a fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute, without ever repudiating her militant anti-male ideology (here’s an example from 2010). Rita Mae Brown became a best-selling author whose 1973 lesbian novel The Rubyfruit Jungle is often featured in high school reading lists (e.g., Belmont High School in Massachusetts). Ellen Shumsky became a psychotherapist; her 2009 book, Portrait of a Decade 1968-1978, featured an introduction by lesbian historian Flavia Rando. Michela Griffo became an artist and was recently a featured Gay Pride Month speaker in Boston.

The authors of “The Woman-Identified Woman” were not as famous as celebrity feminists like Gloria Steinem, but even if they were completely unknown, their radical manifesto would continue to be influential, because it is routinely included in the curricula of Women’s Studies courses across the United States: Michigan State University, the University of Oregon, the University of Massachusetts, and the University of Minnesota, to name a few. It is not difficult to trace the influence of this early radicalism down to the present day, or to cite similarly influential treatises — e.g.,  “Lesbians in Revolt” by Charlotte Bunch (1972) and “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” by Adrienne Rich (1980) — commonly included in the syllabi of Women’s Studies programs. Any attempt to separate this kind of explicitly anti-male/anti-heterosexual ideology from “mainstream” feminism would require us to argue that the most eminent academics in the field of Women’s Studies (including the lesbian editors of the widely used textbook Feminist Frontiers) are not “mainstream.”

Once we go beyond simplistic sloganeering about “equality” and “choice” to examine feminism as political philosophy — the theoretical understanding to which Ph.D.s devote their academic careers — we discover a worldview in which men and women are assumed to be implacable antagonists, where males are oppressors and women are their victims, and where heterosexuality is specifically condemned as the means by which this male-dominated system operates.

“But the hatred of women is a source of sexual pleasure for men in its own right. Intercourse appears to be the expression of that contempt in pure form, in the form of a sexed hierarchy; it requires no passion or heart because it is power without invention articulating the arrogance of those who do the fucking. Intercourse is the pure, sterile, formal expression of men’s contempt for women . . .”
— Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse, 1987

“Fucking is a large part of how females are kept subordinated to males. It is a ritual enactment of that subordination which constantly reaffirms the fact of subordination and habituates both men and women to it, both in body and in imagination.”
— Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory (1992)

“Male sexual violence against women and ‘normal’ heterosexual intercourse are essential to patriarchy because they establish the dominance of the penis over the vagina, and thus the power relations between the sexes. . . . Men’s sexual violence against women is the primary vehicle through which the dominance of the penis over the vagina is established.”
— Dee Graham, Loving to Survive: Sexual Terror, Men’s Violence, and Women’s Lives (1994)

“Male supremacy is centered on the act of sexual intercourse, justified by heterosexual practice.”
— Sheila Jeffreys, 2005

All these quotes are from authors and academics whose works are widely cited in feminist journals and included in Women’s Studies curricula. To say that these feminists are outside the “mainstream” is to invite the question of who has the authority to define feminism.

If lifelong activists and professors who have devoted their lives to feminism aren’t “mainstream,” who is? To understand this problem, consider the career of Charlotte Bunch.

Then and now: Charlotte Bunch (left) in the 1970s and (right) as Rutgers professor.

In 1968, Bunch was one of the organizers of the first national Women’s Liberation conference and in 1971 — after being seduced by Rita Mae Brown — she divorced her husband and became a radical lesbian separatist, publishing “Lesbians in Revolt” in January 1972:

In our society which defines all people and institutions for the benefit of the rich, white male, the Lesbian is in revolt. In revolt because she defines herself in terms of women and rejects the male definitions of how she should feel, act, look, and live. To be a Lesbian is to love oneself, woman, in a culture that denigrates and despises women. The Lesbian rejects male sexual/political domination; she defies his world, his social organization, his ideology, and his definition of her as inferior. Lesbianism puts women first while the society declares the male supreme. Lesbianism . . . politically conscious and organized . . . is central to destroying our sexist, racist, capitalist, imperialist system. . . .
The only way oppressed people end their oppression is by seizing power: People whose rule depends on the subordination of others do not voluntarily stop oppressing others. Our subordination is the basis of male power. . . .
Lesbianism is a threat to the ideological, political, personal, and economic basis of male supremacy. The Lesbian threatens the ideology of male supremacy by destroying the lie about female inferiority, weakness, passivity, and by denying women’s ‘innate’ need for men. . . .
Our rejection of heterosexual sex challenges male domination in its most individual and common form. We offer all women something better than submission to personal oppression. We offer the beginning of the end of collective and individual male supremacy. . . .
Lesbianism is the key to liberation and only women who cut their ties to male privilege can be trusted to remain serious in the struggle against male dominance.

Is that an extremist statement? Do most feminists disagree with Charlotte Bunch? Did her radical lesbianism cause her to be ostracized, marginalized and excluded from the feminist “mainstream”?

Au contraire! Charlotte Bunch became one of the most influential feminists in the world. She is a professor and founding director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University. She is a top advisor to the United Nations on women’s issues; she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in October 1996; and in 1999, President Clinton bestowed on her the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights. Let us ask an obvious question:

Q. If Bunch’s radical ideas are rejected by “mainstream” feminists, where are the books, articles and essays by leading feminists denouncing her as an irresponsible extremist?
A. There are no such denunciations, because the feminist movement endorses Bunch’s radical anti-male ideology.

How “mainstream” is Charlotte Bunch’s radicalism? In 2010, the Young Feminist Task Force promoted an International Women’s Day symposium where Professor Bunch was not only a featured speaker, but the agenda included a “Tribute to Charlotte Bunch” that included a preview of the film documentary Passionate Politics: The Life & Work of Charlotte Bunch. Her advocacy of “rejection of heterosexual sex” as a necessary means to ending “male supremacy” is therefore not radical feminism or extreme feminism, it is simply feminism.

Nevertheless, every time feminists complain about normal women who refuse to identify themselves as feminists, it is claimed that “the negative view of feminism” as being an anti-male lesbian advocacy movement is a false stereotype rooted in ignorance. The same feminists, meanwhile, insist that one cannot oppose their radical gay agenda “unless you are part of the extremely extreme extremist right wing.” One almost wonders if these feminists have ever read any feminist literature, or even if they are capable of comprehending the logic of their own words.

More than four decades after Artemis March and her radical comrades took up the banner of the “Lavender Menace,” their rhetoric condemning “rigid sex roles and . . . male supremacy” is more influential than ever. University faculty devoted to the study of “Gender Theory” reject the categories of masculinity and femininity. What most people understand as the natural traits and normal roles of the sexes are, according to the proponents of Gender Theory, an elaborate deception into which we have been brainwashed by the anti-female, anti-gay social system called heteronormative patriarchy.

Such intellectual jargon strikes the normal person as ludicrous, yet it is taken so seriously on university campuses that no one who aspires to employment in academia would dare treat it as a joke.

The ferocity of campus feminists, most notoriously demonstrated by their destruction of Lawrence Summer’s tenure as president of Harvard University, imposes a fearful silence within the world of higher education. Unaccustomed to criticism or opposition, academic feminists are emboldened to speak in terms of hateful extremism. Seldom does anyone even notice the poisonous quality of this rhetoric, much less object to it. One of the rare critics, Professor Daphne Patai, spent a decade teaching Women’s Studies at the University of Massachusetts, and exposed the problem in her 1998 book Heterophobia: Sexual Harassment and the Future of Feminism:

[M]uch of the zealotry we are seeing in the university (and out of it) on the issue of sexual harassment should be construed as an attack, quite specifically, not only on men but on heterosexuality itself. … [M]en are the main target and … the cessation of heterosexual expression — or even interest — seems to be the chief agenda of many feminists. …
[T]he standard feminist critique … sees private heterosexual life, and heterosexual interaction in school and workplace, as a patriarchal imposition that must be resisted and transformed.

What Professor Patai recognized was that feminism’s rhetoric about sexual harassment was focused entirely on condemning male expressions of heterosexual interest in women. This was a manifestation of the complaint in Artemis March’s lesbian manifesto that “all women are dehumanized as sex objects” by men, and of Charlotte Bunch’s celebration of lesbianism as a rejection of “the ideology of male supremacy . . . by denying women’s ‘innate’ need for men.”

Does heterosexuality “dehumanize” women? Has the woman who thinks of her sexual interest in men as “innate” been brainwashed by “the ideology of male supremacy”? Mocking laughter would be the response of most women to such claims, and if you told them that they had to accept such beliefs in order to escape the oppressive impositions of patriarchy, normal women might think you were insane.

Yet the faculty in Women’s Studies departments are not normal women, and the concept of “sexual harassment” was popularized by a lesbian, Lin Farley, who was the first director of what became the Women’s Studies program at Cornell University.

A man who expresses romantic interest in a female has dehumanized her as a sex object, feminism tells us, and if this male expression of heterosexuality occurs in the workplace, the man is guilty of sexual harassment — he has violated her civil rights.

No such condemnation can be made of women expressing their lesbian interest in other women. In fact, any woman who objected to a lesbian’s sexual advances could be accused of homophobia — possibly violating the civil rights of her lesbian pursuer!

This attitude of hostility toward heterosexuality as male oppression of women, and the celebration of lesbianism as the feminist ideal, has become so mainstream that we scarcely notice its manifestations. Why was it, we may ask, that both the American Civil Liberties Union and Florida’s largest gay-rights organization sided with lesbian sex offender Kaitlyn Hunt when it was claimed that homophobia caused her prosecution for molesting a 14-year-old girl ? The idea of a “lesbian loophole” in sex offender laws is startling, as is the number of recent cases in which minor girls, some as young as 12, were victimized by women teachers and coaches. The tenured radicals on university Women Studies faculties have been notably silent about such criminal cases.

Traditional morality is now routinely denounced by feminists as a “social construct” of the “heteronormative patriarchy.” What has happened in the past four decades is that feminism has waged a war on human nature, and has striven (with remarkable success) to replace our normal understanding of Right and Wrong with a new system of values: Women, good; men, evil.

Thus we return to contemplate the schisms that have divided feminists since the beginning of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Women who claim to endorse only “mainstream” feminism are quick to reject as a “stereotype” the image of feminists as man-hating lesbians. Yet these “mainstream” feminists refuse to criticize or condemn the influential man-hating lesbians who rule the academic world where feminist theories are promulgated. These campus radicals are not content merely to rule their collegiate domain, however. The American Association of University Women (AAUW) is now pushing to introduce “gender studies” to the high school curriculum, “creating innovative spaces for young people to engage in feminism and activism, equity, and social justice in today’s classrooms.” One of the leaders of this AAUW program is Ileana Jiminez, a lesbian English teacher from New York who is, among other things, an alumnus of elite Smith College, a founder of the New York Independent Schools LGBT Educators Group and a board member of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

Perhaps someone should tell Ms. Jiminez that her feminism is not “mainstream.” Good luck with that. Feminism is no longer threatened by the Lavender Menace — now it is the Lavender Menace.




 

Category: Education, Feminism, Gays, Sex Trouble
« go back — keep looking »

    About

    This is an area on your website where you can add text. This will serve as an informative location on your website, where you can talk about your site.

    Subscribe to our feed

    Search

    Admin