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Ah, Mike Adams. You remember Mike Adams; he’s the UNC-Wilmington professor who singlehandedly devalues my friend’s brother’s college degree, the idiot who once argued that we should end abortion so women will stop having sex.Well, Mike Adams is back. Truthfully, he never went away, but he writes at Townhall, so his insanity is often obscured by all the other insanity over there. Today, Dr. Mike explains what we men need to do to be Real Men, not crappy, non-Mikelike men. It starts off almost, almost sane. But it goes wrong, quickly. And soon, it is amazingly, horribly wrong. But like a car wreck, you can’t turn away. And the ending gives the lie to any idea that Dr. Mike is worried about men at all.

A divorced friend of mine was complaining to me recently about the pool of women available to him here in the coastal Carolina region. His specific complaint was that too many (I think he said “all”) of the women were carrying too much baggage to have a successful relationship.

Here’s a friendly tip to all people who find “all” women/men/eunuchs/whatever to be carrying too much baggage/too angry/too distant/too revulsed to date. If everybody you meet is horribly wrong for you, then you need to take a look and see what the constant in those releationships is. I’ll give you a hint: it’s you.

I’m so tired of hearing “men” make this complaint that I’ve made it the subject of today’s column.

Hark! What’s this? Is Mike Adams — the Mike Adams who once compared feminists to Charles Manson — could he be about to defend women?

The thesis of my rebuttal is really simple: It is not entirely fair and accurate to say that most adult women are carrying a lot of “baggage” or have a lot of “issues.” (Remember when people used to have problems, not issues?). It is much more accurate to say that most adult women are profoundly wounded and scarred by the things that “men” have done to them when they were not really acting like men.

Well, sort of; he’s going to blame all women’s problems on men’s actions. And what actions are these? Well, let’s find out, shall we?

Real Men Do Not Go To Topless Bars. I wrote about this topic two years ago in a column called “I Had a Dream.” But, it is worth repeating that topless bars are little more than fronts for organized crime. This includes the punks who operate the strip club near UNC-Wilmington. These people take women with low self-esteem – often victims of sexual abuse – and get them hooked on cocaine that is sold in their club (again: an organized crime front). To the extent that “men” frequent these places, they fund the destruction of the life of someone’s daughter. This is a disgrace and no such “man” can even remotely be characterized as a Christian.

The topless bar was no place for a Christian, and I did not long remain one.

I kid, of course; I’m not a big fan of strip clubs. Indeed, that makes it sound like I’ve spent enough time in strip clubs to decide whether I’m a fan or not, but I haven’t — I’ve been to a grand total of zero strip clubs in my life, and am not in a hurry to change the number. The closest I’ve come is when some friends and I went to see “Crazy Girls” in Las Vegas — a decision we regretted before the show was over.

I’m kinda, sorta with Dr. Mike on this one. I don’t go to strip clubs for the reason he says — I don’t like contributing to enterprises that degrade and demean women. That said, if there was a hypothetical strip club where the entertainers were truly choosing to be there, I’d have no problem with it.

Of course, my decision to not go to strip clubs is based more on my belief that women are human beings than that women are pure vessels of virginity. This may not seem like a major distinction now, but it will be.

Real Men Do Not View Pornography. I recently asked an Obama supporter whether he ever viewed pornography on the internet. He said he did “occasionally.” I asked whether he would ever want his daughter to star in a porn flick. He said “never.” When I reminded him that the porn star has parents, too, he vowed to reconsider his continued viewing of internet pornography.

Something that “men” who view pornography do not realize is that it trains the mind to be sexually stimulated by seeing images of many different people nude and engaged in certain acts. Eventually, the viewer becomes unable to be stimulated by just one person. Thus, a “man” who views pornography is much more likely to hurt his wife by engaging in adultery. And when he’s caught, he’s much more likely to hurt his children with a painful divorce. Those who believe that porn affects only the viewer are simply uneducated, dishonest, or both. Where there is pornography, there is also co-lateral damage.

I love this one; of course an Obama supporter views pornography, the bastard. He probably masturbates too!

Look, as with the strip clubs, my view on pornography is centered around the fact that the porn industry is not pro-woman in any sense of the word. I’m a sentimental guy; I tend to think that sex should be fun for all participants, be it the man, the woman, the other man, or the other woman. I don’t get off on degradation. And so mainstream porn hasn’t ever held much allure to me, because, frankly, much of mainstream porn is about degradation.

That said, let’s draw a bright, shiny line here, because Dr. Mike seems to be confused about something: pornography does not prime people to be attracted to other people. Pornography is a function of people being attracted to other people. Lots of other people. If you’re a het guy or a lesbian girl, those people are going to be primarily women; if you’re a het girl or a gay guy, those people are going to be primarily men. If you’re bisexual, it’ll be everyone.

Not looking at pornography does not keep a man or woman from noticing an attractive woman or man who is not their spouse. Nothing will keep a sexually mature person from noticing attractive potential sexual partners. That’s not an excuse to cheat; if you’re in a committed, monogamous relationship, you don’t cheat because you don’t want to cheat, because you’ve accepted the trade-off of being with one person who you love deeply, rather than having many different partners with whom you have no strong connection. But that doesn’t mean you don’t notice people, or even fantasize about people from time to time. That’s not evil; that’s human.

Dr. Mike doesn’t understand humans. As you’ll see:

Real Men Do Not Have Sex With Women They Do Not Intend To Marry. I once read a survey indicating that the number of sex partners a woman has in a lifetime is only a fraction of the number of sex partners a man has in a lifetime. This can be explained by two factors: 1) men lie in an upward direction when asked how many people they’ve slept with and, 2) women lie in a downward direction when asked how many people they’ve slept with.

This becomes a problem later on in marriage when a woman is unable to forgive herself for having a lot of sex partners. This guilt is biologically, and not culturally, induced. And once a woman has lied about her past to a prospective husband, she cannot communicate with him about her guilt. The couple begins to have problems whose true origins are never addressed.

The only solution to this problem is for men to stop having sex with women they do not intend to marry. Men have it within their power to stop contaminating the future-wife pool. A little self-control can do a lot to strengthen a dying institution.

And here’s where things start to go very wrong indeed. First off, I love that Dr. Mike “read a study.” Well! That’s mighty specific there! I read a study that says Dr. Mike Adams is a huge douchebag. This can be explained by his douchebagginess. Second, I love that the concern is “contaminating the future-wife pool,” not, you know, being kind and decent to a fellow human being.

At any rate, yes, men do tend to brag about their number, while women tend to downplay theirs. Why? Well, Dr. Mike asserts that this is “biologically, and not culturally, induced.” His proof of this is (mumble mumble mumble). But of course, arguing that women have no cultural pressure to minimize the number of sex partners they have is complete and utter bullshit. When police officers are publicly slut-shaming high school girls over their MySpace pages, it’s pretty clear that we as a culture are sending really, really, really strong messages that a girl who likes it is a slut. Meanwhile, a boy who likes it is a stud. Golly, I just don’t know why it is that women then feel guilty if they’ve had sex with eight partners while their husbands have only had sex with four. I don’t know where the pressure for women to lie comes from. Must be biological, probably something hard-wired in the Madeitupital Lobe, where the Slutdometer is.

You know what would ease a woman’s guilt about having a lot of sex partners before marriage? We as a society could stop worrying about how many sex partners women have. If you’re dating a woman who’s purely virginal or had 150 partners, what do you care, if you’re the current one? Yes, it’s okay to care if suddenly you find you’re not the most recent one, at least if you’re in a monogamous relationship. But that’s true no matter what your girlfriend’s number is, or yours is.

Seriously, what do you care who she dated before she was with you? What should she care who you dated before you were with her? None of the parts wear out, folks. Indeed, evolution has made them extremely resilient.

And of course, there are boys and girls out there who are quite happy having sex with people they don’t intend to marry. There are boys and girls who settle down without guilt — or indeed, who never choose to settle down. But they never enter Dr. Mike’s brain.

And finally, the deep guilt the hypothetical woman felt about deceit might be valid — deceit, after all, is a cancer that destroys relationships. But that deceit need never have happened if she and her partner felt comfortable enough with themselves to accept each other as they are — and present themselves as they are. I’d much rather be in a relationship with a woman who had dozens of partners and was generally sanguine about it than a relationship with a woman just out of a divorce with the only man she’d ever been with — because the number isn’t important. And my number — which is low — isn’t important either, and doesn’t make me less or more of a real man. And only an idiot thinks otherwise.

Now, we’re about halfway through, and you may have noticed something: all of Dr. Mike’s arguments about being a “Real Man” are really about women. None of this is about telling the truth because it’s the right thing to do, or being careful about getting involved in relationships because they can scar your heart, and cause you to have trouble relating to others. No, Dr. Mike is all about telling men how they need to ignore their sex drive entirely and this will somehow make women happy.

It’s going to get worse, though.

Real Men Do Not Engage In Post-Marital Sex. Saying “I used to be married” is a pretty lame excuse for engaging in post-marital sex. And, if you have children, especially girls, there’s a really good reason to avoid it. Put simply, if you have young girls and you start having sex after marriage your girls will find out about it from your ex-wife. Of course, your ex-wife will have learned about it from your mutual friends.

There’s a good chance that your young daughters will still look up to you even after a nasty divorce. They may want to marry someone with many of your qualities. Don’t send the message that they need to sleep with such a man in order to get his attention.

Um…Dr. Mike? My sex life is none of my daughter’s business, and I’m not going to involve her in it. One can be discreet about having sex, after all, and frankly, I don’t want my daughter to have to think about my sex life ever.

But adults have sex. If my ex-wife ever starts dating, she and her boyfriend will at some point have sex. If I ever start dating, my girlfriend and I will at some point have sex. When my daughter’s an adult and dating, at some point she and her partner will have sex. Having sex with your partner is a practice that predates humans by hundreds of millions (if not billions) of years.  It’s pretty damn natural, and it’s something most humans really, really enjoy. Not all humans — some don’t care much for sex, and that’s fine for them. But most of us enjoy it quite a bit, and given the opportunity, most of us will engage in it.

And you know what? That’s okay. I’m okay with the idea that my daughter will some day have sex, even (gasp!) outside the bonds of holy matrimony, even for reasons other than procreation.

Sex is not evil. Running your children through a whipsaw series of paramours may be, but that’s true whether you’re all canoodling or simply coming over for dinner and nodding chastely across the table. It is emotional connections that play havoc with children and adults alike.

Finally, Dr. Mike brings home the stupid:

Real Men Never Relinquish the Role of Spiritual Head of the Household. God did not give the Ten Commandments to a woman. Nor did He send his only begotten daughter to save womankind. If your potential spouse has trouble understanding this, you need to reconsider your relationship. And once your children are grown, your leadership obligation continues. If your child has strayed spiritually – whether into paganism or atheism - it may or may not be the result of poor modeling on your behalf. Regardless, men have an obligation to fight for their children’s spiritual redemption. A man’s willingness to do so determines whether he leaves behind a legacy that glorifies God or one that glorifies Satan.

And here we go. Women are inferior — God didn’t choose them to give his commandments to. Men are in charge of their families. Paganism and atheism are evil. Not forcing your children into Christianity is leaving a legacy of evil. And make no mistake — your children are yours, not your wife’s, not themselves — they are your possessions, reflections of you. And what you do with them determines your legacy, not what you do yourself.

In short, real men are the boss. They stay the boss, even after divorce. They are the boss of their children, forever. And any woman who doesn’t accept that isn’t someone you should be dealing with. Only if you are an asshole willing to tell your wife and children what to believe and demand they believe it — fight for it, fight on behalf of Jesus against Satan — only then can you be a real man.

Dr. Mike leaves us with this teaser:

In a future installment, I will deal with the issue of “real women.” That installment will talk about the things women are doing to hurt other women. “Real Women” will include, among other things, a comprehensive discussion of fake boobies, why I don’t like them, and how they contribute to global warming.

Well, Dr. Mike certainly has his finger, ahem, on the pulse of what ails women. Given what an awesome job he did at explaining to me how I can never be a real man unless I force my daughter to choose Jesus no matter what my ex or my daughter thinks, I can’t wait to see what he thinks real women are supposed to be like.

First, Camille Paglia: An inch of perspective gained vs. the mile of perspective lacked:

Meanwhile, conservative talk radio, which I have been following with interest for almost 20 years, has become a tornado alley of hallucinatory holograms of Obama. He’s a Marxist! A radical leftist! A hater of America! He’s “not that bright”; he can’t talk without a teleprompter. He knows nothing and has done less. His wife is a raging mass of anti-white racism. It’s gotten to the point that I can hardly listen to my favorite shows, which were once both informative and entertaining. The hackneyed repetition is numbing and tedious, and the overt character assassination is ethically indefensible. Talk radio will lose its broad audience if it continues on this nakedly partisan path.

And I know quoting Townhall columnists is just too easy, but this is amazing even for Townhall:

An Obama presidency would signal the final salvo by the Left in the culture wars. Obama’s advance troops have already taken over our college campuses, have bound and gagged our conservative professors, have ravished our virgins, have pillaged our stores of wisdom, and have ensconced themselves in the thrones of power in deans’, presidents’ and department heads’ offices.

Via G Spot and Shakesville.

Let me start by asking a question. Did anyone see Clinton’s, McCain’s, and Obama’s Tuesday night speeches in their entirety?

I watched Clinton and Obama both, but I missed McCain. One thing that struck me about Clinton and Obama is that I didn’t notice either one of them make note of the historic significance of having the first black nominee for President on a major party ticket. In contrast, both of them noted the groundbreaking campaign by Hillary Clinton, arguing that she was blazing a path for women, but I didn’t hear the same for Obama. Isn’t that an interesting distinction between racial politics and gender politics? The colorblind ideology silences almost any public discussion of racism by black candidates, who are vying for white votes. In contrast, we don’t have as much silence on the gender front (from the candidates). That has been a fairly consistent pattern in this Presidential election over the past few months. I’m not saying racism or sexism is a greater barrier to being elected President, but I think it is clear that they operate in different ways.

Furthermore, any complicated analysis that examines the interactions and intersections of race, gender, age, sexuality, and class are almost always missing from pundits and candidates analysis. I remember the point in the election when Hillary Clinton talked about getting pushed around by the boys (apparently it was on the Ellen DeGeneres show). While I can relate to being pushed around by the boys and having that make me stronger, I don’t believe for one minute that Hillary was being pushed around by any black boys. I know I sure wasn’t. I was getting pushed around by the whites boys who I went to school with. They were all white, presumably heterosexual¹, and from class backgrounds remarkably similar to my own. I never heard any TV pundits point this out–Clinton wasn’t being pushed around by black boys.

All that said, why do you think there is a difference in a candidate’s ability to talk about his or her groundbreaking accomplishments in relation to race and gender? Do you think the political realm is exceptional in this way? Or do you things may be different in other fields? Why do you think it is so difficult to have a discussion that captures the intersections and complexities of various forms of social inequality?

1. Some of them may not have been heterosexual, but I definitely could say that the boys that had the most normative gender presentations and were able to create a perceived heterosexual identity were the most likely to be the ones I argued with.

Brett Favre, who I infer is a football player of some accomplishment, cried when announcing his retirement. And anti-feminist radio host Laura Ingraham commented:

“All these years, and I didn’t know there was a woman quarterback in the NFL,” said Ingraham to start her Friday show that aired on replay on Monday at 2:00 a.m. on Newsradio 620 WTMJ.

“Brett Favre…we’re watching this in the studio, obviously retiring from the NFL, great quarterback, handsome 38-year-old man, he gets up there and he does this press conference that was frankly one of the most embarrassing things I have ever seen.

“That’s a great message for young boys. ‘Get up there and act like a girl and start blubbering like a baby.”

When I first heard about this, I thought it was a disgusting example of anti-male sexism. But on reading her actual words, what’s striking about it is how perfectly Ingraham merges anti-male and anti-female sexism; note how she uses the terms “woman” and “girl” as insults.

As Jill says, what an asshole.

From the National Women’s Law Center blog:

Ending a protracted legal battle, the University of Colorado today settled with plaintiffs in a Title IX suit that accused the university of deliberate indifference to sexual harassment and assault by football players and recruits. […]

Under the terms of the settlement, the university will pay Lisa Simpson $2.5 million, hire a new counselor for the Office of Victim’s Assistance, and appoint an independent, outside Title IX advisor. The advisor will be available to all individuals reporting sexual harassment or assault, will address any concerns with the University’s response to complaints, will review issues relating to sexual harassment and Title IX compliance, and will make recommendations to the university regarding reforms to university programs to prevent future sexual harassment. […]

Ms. Simpson in 2002 filed a complaint against the University of Colorado alleging that she was raped at a football recruiting party in December 2001.

Good on Lisa Simpson!¹

One of the odd things about MRAs² is that we forget how much variance there is within the MRM³. From the perspective of most “Alas” readers, someone like Glenn Sacks seems pretty far “out there” — and justifiably so. Nonetheless, within the spectrum of MRAs, Glenn is actually very far left, since he objects to misogyny on occasion, and also takes positions such as favoring same-sex marriage — for which Glenn was attacked on Men’s News Daily because same-sex marriage “is the final embodiment of N.O.W’s plan for feminist supremacy.”

So it gets a lot nuttier than Glenn Sacks.⁴ That said, many of Glenn’s views are waaaaay out there. Which brings me to Glenn’s post about the University of Colorado case, which reeks of the MRA’s default assumption that when a man is accused of rape, the woman is probably a liar:

I have no idea whether the two women are telling the truth when they claimed they were raped at the party in 2001. However, it seems strange that with two different alleged victims, prosecutors were unable to get any kind of sexual assault or rape or even plain assault indictments against any of the alleged perpetrators.

It is axiomatic in criminal law that “you can indict a ham sandwich,” yet they could not even get a single meaningful indictment. […]

Perhaps the two women really were victims of a terrible crime. However, the Associated Press article above gives the impression that the real victims here may have been the school officials who lost their jobs and the taxpayers who picked up the tab for the lawsuit.

So although he admits to not knowing for certain, Glenn thinks the women probably weren’t “real victims,” because otherwise there would have been an indictment.

Huh?

DAs can almost always get an indictment, but they often won’t bother if they don’t think there’s enough evidence to win a trial. To suggest that not referring a case to a grand jury means the accusation was false — a position Glenn clearly implies, although he doesn’t quite say it — is lunacy.

The good news here is the court finding allowing Simpson’s lawsuit to go forward. Let’s hope colleges that tolerate rape and harassment have been put on notice by this case. Also good news that Lisa Simpson settled not only money, but for CU taking real steps to improve their campus atmosphere.

UPDATE: It appears that Glenn was relying on a badly-written AP story, which conflated two separate events to give the impression that a grand jury had examined the rape allegations and declined to press charges. See the comments for more.

UPDATE 2: Just reading through the comments on Glenn’s blog, and boy are some of his readers woman-hating sick fucks. A couple of examples:

You know, it should be obvious to anyone what happened here. I can’t believe anyone would want to give any credence to these disgusting perjurers.

I don’t know which is more revolting, the scum who would make false allegations for profit, or those who enable the practice.

You know, it should be obvious that someone who thinks “it should be obvious” that rape accusations against football players can’t be true, is more revolting.

My point in saying this is that if a girl/woman goes out picks up a guy, wines and dines with this guy all night long then agrees to go back to his place or takes him to hers, agrees to the idea of having sex, gets in bed with this guy of HER own free will, removes her clothing or allows her clothing to be removed then when the act is about to happen says NO!!!! how in the world can we say that the guy raped her?

How can we say that? Because she said “NO!!!”

It’s really not that fucking complex. But one of Glenn’s readers — this one — is such a woman-hating, rape-enabling empty-headed git that if a woman “allows her clothing to be removed” he thinks she’s no longer allowed to decline sex.

Two posters responded to the above garbage — one to say “If she says no, you have to stop” (a moment of sanity!) and one to say that “No jury in their right mind would call that rape, because the consent is so obvious.” (To this person, when a woman says “NO!!!,” that’s obvious consent.)

Another one of Glenn’s readers suggested that even if the alleged rapes took place, it’s the rape victims who should be blamed:

If anything was wrong all who were drinking should be arrested for under age drinking and the renters the girls in this case that alleged rape should be held more accountable because it was their house or apartment. They did not have to allow any of this to happen. They did not have to have a drinking party. Furthermore, I do not understand how only the girls were taken advantage of because of being lubricated by booze. It would stand to reason that these seventeen year old boys (pre-freshman/high school seniors, potential recruits [and since boys {according to society mature slower than girls} should make them less responsible for their actions than the more mature and older girls] were also lubricated by booze and impaired and made bad decisions because of this.

I don’t judge Glenn by his readers; he seems to pretty much not moderate at all, and for all I know he doesn’t read all the comments. But I think it says a lot about the pathetic state of the Men’s Rights Movement (MRM) that even on the blog of an unusually reasonable and moderate MRA, the comments are full of woman-hating, rape-denialist venom.

1. Simpson was actually one of two plaintiffs in the case, but the other chose not to disclose her identity.
2. MRA = “Men’s Right Activists”
3. MRM = “Men’s Right Movement”
4. IMO, Glenn Sacks and Robin Steele are the two most sane self-identified MRAs.

I received an email from a reader about a round table on the Tavis Smiley Show. Apparently, Tavis will have a panel discussing Thomas’s book and his appearance on 60 Minutes. Panelists are Marc Morial, President and CEO of The National Urban League, Princeton Professor Cornel West, and Columbia University President, Farah Jasmine Griffin. If you are in New York, the Tavis Smiley Show airs at 12 midnight on PBS.  If you are in another market, I’m not sure of the time, but you can check you local PBS station.
Did anyone else see the 60 Minutes interview with Thomas?   I thought he came off as really bitter.  He kept using the anchor’s name in a pejorative way.  It was very uncomfortable from my vantage point.  For those interested in abortion and sexual harassment issues, Thomas made the claim that the controversy surrounding his appointment was really about abortion.  The panel on the Tavis Smiley Show will discuss this issue in some depth.

Update: Some students at CCSU have started their own blog–Take Back the Recorder– in opposition to the paper’s editorial staff.  Go show them your support.

Last February we heard the story of a college newspaper in Connecticut that printed an article saying “rape is a magical experience” and “rape only hurts if you fight back.” The author claims he was trying to satirize rape, which he clearly did not achieve. ¹ Well it looks like this bunch is at it again and more emboldened than ever since they managed to survive their last go round. This time, among other offensive diatribes, the Central Connecticut State University newspaper has published a cartoon about urinating on a 14 year old Latina, who is locked in a closet.²

I found out about this debacle from a comment left in the thread on the West Virginia rape and torture case over at Feministing. A commenter named prof/activist provided a link to the PDF copy of the paper. The offending cartoon can be found in it’s original context if you scroll to page 16, the final page of the PDF file. The cartoon consists of two figures one triangular and the other square. The triangle says that his urine smells like honey after he eats certain cereals, and the square asks if it tastes like urine. Then the triangle says, he doesn’t know he’ll have to ask the Latina girl tied up in the closet. Then, it jumps to the final frame where the square says, “Tell Juanita I said Hola.” The cartoon also has a sentence printed under it that says, “The Recorder Does Not Support the Kidnapping of (and Subsequent Urinating on) Children of Any Age.” I was going to repost the cartoon here, but it’s not worth the bandwidth. You can open the PDF file above to read it.

Students and faculty members, disgusted by the paper’s racist and sexist reputation, protested the cartoon on Friday. The story was covered in the local paper and it received national attention. Here’s a quote from the AP article in the New York Times:

The university’s president vowed on Friday to cut off advertising in the paper, and its critics have planned a protest on Monday on campus to push for reforms, including the ouster of the paper’s editor, Mark Rowan.

“We believe the climate here at Central is one that fosters this kind of behavior,” said Francisco Donis, a psychology professor and president of the university’s Latin American Association, “so we want more systematic changes to create a welcoming environment for everyone to feel safe and secure.”

About 5 percent of the 9,600 undergraduates are Hispanic, according to university figures. The campus is in New Britain, a racially diverse city of 71,000 about 12 miles southwest of Hartford.

Mr. Rowan, 21, was the editor in February, when the newspaper was criticized for publishing a satirical opinion piece titled “Rape Only Hurts if You Fight It.” The satire called sexual assault a “magical experience” that benefits “ugly women.”

The author of the article lost his position at the paper and apologized, but Mr. Rowan was allowed to retain his post.

The university created a task force that recommended providing more training for its student journalists, buying libel insurance and creating a student-run alternative paper or Web site.

Mr. Rowan, who is set to graduate in December, said lingering anger over that controversy was adding to outrage over the cartoon. He said he did not know if he would be asked to resign.

Rowan and his cronies have caused enough trouble for the University, ushering the school into the national spotlight on two separate occasions. It seems clear that Rowan lacks the ability to judge the quality and appropriateness of the paper’s content. Both pieces in question were not only offensive, but they also were of poor quality. Petroski’s rape article didn’t succeed at being satire, and this cartoon didn’t succeed at being funny. In fact, only a person like Ted Bundy would find either of these articles amusing, which makes me wonder if there are some sociopaths running this paper.

Mr. Rowan has shown poor judgment, and has allowed the student newspaper become a bottom feeder with little journalistic integrity. Right now Mr. Rowan holds two journalism related positions. He’s an editor of the CCSU student paper, and he has an internship with the Hartford Advocate, but at the rate he’s going he may never have another position in journalism. How is he going to explain these gaffes to potential employers? Who would want to hire someone, who routinely brings negative attention to their publication? He hasn’t learned his lesson, and that’s going to come back to haunt him in the future. A good editor thinks about getting the story, and getting quality material, not just pushing his political agenda and publishing anything that comes across the desk.

I know the retorts that the student editors will have–We have free speech. We didn’t mean to offend. Lighten up, it’s just a cartoon. You’re being too sensitive. I hear these arguments every time someone engages in offensive behavior like this. Rather than taking responsibility, they try to deflect the criticism by condemning the condemners. At this point, it’s pretty clear, that the University needs to step in and revamp the paper. If the student editors are unwilling to do this themselves, it is incumbent upon the University administration and the majority of students to oust the paper’s editors. This surely doesn’t represent the school, its administrators, and the vast majority of its students.

1. If you want to see real rape satire, go here to Marcella’s site. (↩)
2. The writers and editors clearly haven’t learned their lesson. While scrolling through the electronic copy of the paper I found an article written by Justin Kloczko. The primary purpose of the article is to taunt a local reporter who is leaving the New Britain Herald to write for the Hartford Business Journal. The taunts and insults are directed at this reporter because he was one of the people who brought the February rape article to light. The article appears next to a picture that says “Crotch Shots, Nipple Slips, Cellulite Legs! The Recorder is not looking for the above, but is looking for dedicated photographers to cover local and campus events. Contact us at ccsurecorder@gmail.com and make us forget that Britney picture.” (↩)

I’m going to organize this as bullet points for each episode. 

Gods Jewish Warriors

• I thought this was the best one of the series. 
• It was balanced in showing both the extremist settlers, and the more mainstream Jews who were opposed to the extremists.
• They gave ultra-orthodox Jews a free pass on the sexism issue, which was unfair.  They noted the treatment of women by Muslim and Christian fundamentalists, but mentioned nothing that I recollect.
• I was also impressed with how they discussed the international dimensions of the settler movement, and the fundamentalist Christians and right wing Jews who provided money and support to the settler movement.
• They also discussed the changes throughout history and covering the various peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors.  One of the most disturbing parts of the special was the discussion of the killing of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.  If you don’t know the story, you can click on the link.

God’s Muslim Warriors

• I felt like this one was a little more predictable because we are quite accustomed to critiques of Muslim fundamentalists–people promoting violence, Jihad, etc.  I do wish they would have highlighted more of the moderate leaders, and more people opposed to Islamic fundamentalism.  They did interview a few people who left extremist groups, which was interesting, but I wish they would have talked with people who were fighting these extremists all along.
• I thought the scenes of the Iranian women protesting were the most moving.  Heart has several postings on the women’s movement in Iran; you can find them here.  Many of the Muslim countries in the Middle East have draconian anti-women policies, and these policies are often justified in the name of religion.  By far one of the most consistent trends with Muslim, Christian, and Jewish extremists is their disdain for the rights of women.
• They did very good at focusing on the international dimensions of the movement; in particular the growing movement in Europe.  What I also found interesting was how both the Christian and Muslim fundamentalists were obsessed with the “cultural decay” in the West, focusing mostly on the decline in traditional definitions of family, materialism, and hedonistic popular culture. 

God’s Christian Warriors

• This was by far the worst of the three.  First, they didn’t show any of the Christian fundamentalists who advocate murder and violence.  There was a brief mention of bombing abortion clinics, but I wish they would have had an in-depth interview with someone like American terrorist Eric Rudolph or any of these people who have engaged in violence at abortion clinics. What about the Christian Identity movement?  What about Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps and his family?  They did talk with Christian fundamentalists, but they didn’t talk to the ones who engage in or promote violence like they did in the first two parts of the series.
• I was happy to see them discuss gender, and the treatment of women, especially when Christiane Amanpour told the one minister that the Taliban said the same thing as him. That was classic.  But they didnt get into the depth that they could have– discussing churches who barred women from being ministers.
• There were not enough interviews with people opposing Christian fundamentalism.  They had two ministers who stepped away from some parts of the movement.  I liked the Minnesota minister, who couldn’t figure out why these groups were so obsessed with homosexuality as a sin, but not materialism, greed, or gluttony.
• There was no coverage of the international nature of Christian fundamentalism.  You would think it is only in the US, but there are places like.  Several of the countries in the pink on this map prohibit abortion even in the cases of rape and incest, and Christian fundamentalists are responsible for promoting this in many countrries.  This list also includes some of the various Christian based terrorist groups around the world.

What do you think?

In another ignorant white people moment, we have this comment from Elizabeth Edwards.

As her husband trails Clinton and Obama in national polls, Elizabeth Edwards has been an outspoken critic of his opponents. Last month, she said her husband would be a better champion for women as president than Clinton and more recently said, “We can’t make John black, we can’t make him a woman. Those things get you a lot of press, worth a certain amount of fundraising dollars.”

Some of her other points in the full AP article are legitimate, but this quote is just nonsense.  Being white and male doesn’t get a candidate press?  Being white and male makes it hard to raise funds?  If this is the case, then why is it that out of the field of nearly 20 major candidates only 2 are not white and male.

The quote seems to suggest that Clinton’s gender and Obama’s race are why they get media attention and financial supporters.  I’m not saying that the gender and race angles haven’t been covered, but to insinuate that that is the reason for their early success in fundraising and polls is unfair.  Perhaps they are both getting attention because people like what they have to say.  Maybe Clinton is getting attention because of her tremendous name recognition.  Maybe Obama has hired a creative and talented campaign staff. 

If white women, women of color, and men of color have been so successful at running for President then why have white men been the only ones to win? 

This certainly isn’t going to help Edwards move up in the polls with white women and people of color (he’s already doing poorly with African American voters).  I was thinking about voting for Edwards, but if the campaign is sending Elizabeth Edwards out to make these types of comments, John Edwards is moving down on my list of preferred candidates.

I wasn’t going to comment any more on Clint Heine, but his comment threads get worse. SimonD said:

I want to offer a job for Maia in K’Rd. My massage parlor needs 2 women to dance nude on stage.

Does anyone know Maia’s full name? I want to forward the job offer to WINZ, so they can get registered unemployed people like Maia to apply. I know WINZ doesn’t like unemployed people who are registered with them to decline a job offer (any jobs really). So, there is a chance that Maia will take my offer.

For those who don’t know the NZ benefit system, if you turn down a job you can go on a benefit stand-down for up to 13 weeks. So people on benefits can’t turn down work.

SimonD wants to coerce me into sex-work by cutting off my other forms of income.*

Clint Heine’s objection to this isn’t based on my right to my own body:

If her blog is accurate I do believe she is already well known to the WINZ staff in her area. I somewhat doubt you’d want somebody like her in with your lovely girls. :)

I’m proud to say that he’s right. If I was to work on K’Rd I’d educate, agitate and organise, and SimonD wouldn’t know what hit him.

But the point here is that coercing a woman to work in the sex industry by cutting off her other forms of income is rape. These clearly men view women as objects to be used by them, and my desire is irrelevant. This is the second time a man on Clint Heine’s blog has expressed a desire to punish me with sex, and Clint Heine has no problem with that at all.

* In reality WINZ do not require women to accept jobs in the sex industry.