The Slacktiverse

Board Post, January 31 2012

 

February is being celebrated in the USA as 'Black/African American History Month' and in the UK as 'LGBT History Month'. To join in the celebration, we'd be particularly interested in articles from people of color, and non-heteronormative and non-cisnormative identities sharing their perspectives (though as always, articles on any subject are also welcome). Anyone who's got something to share, do send it in.

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



At Patheos: TFTM: The temptation of Buck Williams

Fred Clark published a new post, TFTM: The temptation of Buck Williams, at Patheos.com.

This week Fred writes about part 5 Left Behind II: Tribulation Force.

Excerpt:

My take — which probably doesn’t correspond to what the filmmakers were thinking — is that this is a parable about the sorry state of modern journalism. Just listen to what Buck says just before he shakes hands with the Antichrist: “If I’m going to report the truth, I need access to it.”

Access. That’s what it’s all about for Buck — ensuring that he gains, and keeps, access to the highest levels of power. Without that, he says, it would be impossible to do his job, so whatever trade-offs he needs to make in the name of access he regards as necessary trade-offs. Even if it means becoming a bought-and-paid-for employee of The Powers That Be. That’s contemporary journalism in a nutshell.

[Fred Clark, TFTM: The temptation of Buck Williams, January 31, 2012, posted at Patheos.com]


Commentators who would like to share their responses to the new post with all of Fred's fans (old and new) can cross-post to both boards.

 

(Nearly) Open Thread, January 30 2012

Many crafters and artists are drawn to their hobby or vocation because they love the physical property of the material - paint, wood, wool - that it involves. Is there a material you love to craft with? Let's hear about it.

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Hello to anyone who's clicked over from Pharyngula

It seems we've been mentioned rather disapprovingly on PZ Myers's blog, and we expect that skeptics who are interested in studying the evidence before drawing their own conclusions will be clicking over here to see what the fuss is about.

So, hello and welcome.

To address the issue: two things have happened which connect you to us directly to us. Somebody posting under the name 'PZ Myers' made a couple of comments linking to Dr Myers's old site; a bit suspicious, we e-mailed Dr Myers to find out if someone was spoofing his name. We haven't heard back, so we cannot make the presumption that this commenter was actually Dr. Myers absent any data to verify that hypothesis. Second, Dr Myers made a critical comment about us on his own blog:

At least since Fred turned his blog with its unique voice into a hostel for simpering accommodationists and incompetent fools, that’s [the allegation that we are hypocrites] true.

I used to read it regularly — at least a few times a week — but completely tuned out as those other weirdos turned it into a halfway house for confused blitherers.

We hope that if you read the blog here, you will come to a different conclusion.

We do not consider our position to be confused or weird. It is simply this: we believe that it is important to maintain bonds of friendship, communication and respect between people of different philosophical and metaphysical positions. (It's worth pointing out, for instance, that our administration team consists of one atheist, one Christian and one agnostic.) We are not a 'safe space' for any one group; instead we aim to be a 'safe-ish space' where the only major rule is that people do not fall below a basic level of courtesy to one another. We enjoy being a pluralistic place where we can hear worldviews that do not match our own because we feel that even if we disagree with those worldviews, it's best to hear about them from people who actually hold them. We like to learn from each other.

You could, if you like, call this accommodationist, but we do not think we're confused.

Of course we no longer have a unique voice: we no longer have a single blogger. This is now a community blog with a multiplicity of voices. We do, however, feel that we have preserved the spirit of Fred's original blog. Fred was notable for criticising what he saw as bad behaviour within his own group. The article that kicked off this fuss - a piece in which an atheist was strongly critical of atheist activist Greta Christina's stated goals of the atheist movement - was, we believed, in the same spirit. It was strongly worded, but Fred's pieces were often strongly worded as well; we did not necessarily agree with its position, but we don't refuse to publish articles just because we don't agree with them. We saw it as an article that fell just on the right side of the civility line that deserved to be put out there for debate, and which could be balanced out by other articles stating a contrary position if people chose to write them.

Well, debate happened, and attention has been called. We'll be publishing many other articles in future that express completely different worldviews. If you'd like to stick around and are prepared to abide by the community standards of 'don't be a jerk', you will be most welcome.

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



This week in The Slacktiverse, January 29 2012

The Blogaround

This week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Delicate Women, Territorial Men
The problem with Bella isn’t that she’s weak in comparison to vampire Edward and werewolf Jacob. Anyone would be weak in comparison with these legendary creatures of myth. No, the problem is that she’s weak in relation to most of the rest of us, and not in a “sensitive portrayal of a disability” way, but in a “panders to harmful female stereotypes” way. She falls over. She faints. She refuses to eat and gets light-headed and dizzy. Bella doesn’t need a protector because she’s constantly being targeted by angry vampires; she needs a protector because she persistently refuses to take care of herself.

Literata writes: "A small piece of good news is that I've had another poem published. It has been confirmed that my mother has cancer, and surgery will take place in February. We both continue to be deeply grateful for everyone's good wishes, thoughts, prayers, and candles; the support helps tremendously. Thank you all."

This week Laiima posted what I learned about myself from reading biographies.

This week, Storiteller revisited the subject of her experience raising composting worms and describes how to build your own worm composting bin in Vermiculture Made Cheap and Easy. As compost too often leads to fruit flies, she describes her Ultimate Fly Trap in Building a Better (Fruit) Fly Trap.

kisekileia writes :Matthew Paul Turner at www.matthewpaulturner.net has two posts up (MARK DRISCOLL’S CHURCH DISCIPLINE and MARK DRISCOLL’S ‘GOSPEL SHAME’) that expose some seriously spiritually abusive practices at Mars Hill Church in Seattle. (Trigger Warning: spiritual abuse, descriptions of arguably fundamentalist Christian thinking and behaviour, and sex-negativity) The comments include some people condoning spiritual abuse, but a lot of people opposing it as well.

Chris the Cynic writes: This week, I talked to Windows. I wrote a bit of exposition about monsters that doesn't have a story to go with it. I continued working my way through Deus Ex's training mission writing a post on things that didn't make it into final version, and then turning my attention to what did by looking at the character of Gunther Hermann and the mechanics of how guns work in the game. Finally I started a series of posts on the anime .hack//SIGN, with a general introductory post, and a post about what happens before the first word is spoken.

Michael Mock writes: This week at Mock Ramblings: on Monday I found myself radically overthinking yet another children's cartoon, so I asked if anyone could explain Bakugan to me. Tuesday contained nothing but sinus troubles an open thread on How To Recharge Your Creative Batteries and a link to a piece on How To Create A Wooden Sword For Your Kid. On Wednesday, (and still tired and cranky), I published a rebuttal to a post called "Too Smart To Have Children", and recommended an Austin, Texas band called The Heartless Bastards. Thursday's entry recounts my attempt to tell Firstborn a story by way of explaining the concept of Plot. Friday has been devoted entirely to religious humor: The New Priest, In Remembrance, and The Pope vs. The Rabbi.

Coleslaw writes: This week I wrote about Glimpse of Gaia, the Connecticut florist that delivered flowers to Jessica Ahlquist in Rhode Island when three local florists refused. A conference took my husband out of town, so I tagged along, saw the traveling exhibit DINOSAURS: Ancient Fossils, New Discoveries, and even took some pictures. In "Some Things Are More Important Than Fear", I reposted a video of an extremist group attacking author Irshad Manji at a book signing. My fascination with Polyvore continues. I put together another outfit, but this one I can actually afford.

The former conservative blogger reports: This week I wrote about Newt Gingrich's disregard for poor children, a bad anti-Obama facebook joke, Rick Santorum's failure to deny the ignorant claims of his birther supporters, my thoughts on Mark Driscoll and William Tapley, 3rd Eagle of the Apocalypse.

Last week Sarah reported: In the past two weeks, I've posted on music and poetry and Yeats's "The Stolen Child". I also posted some bits of Martin Luther King's speeches on war and poverty.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Narnia: Playful Animals, Platonic Allies
We’re one chapter away from the end, and time for Aslan to gather the allies and join the battle. But I object to the conflation of “deformed” with “evil” and I am distressed that the “good” Giant in the Witch’s garden is good because of his family connections and not because he simply chose to be. Come explore classism and ableism in Narnia this week.

Last week Ana Mardoll posted:
Twilight: Hunting Rapists, Condoning Rape Culture
Edward Cullen has lived his life as a rapist-hunting vigilante. He is uniquely poised to understand rapists, because of his telepathic talents. So why does he use the same techniques and tactics to abuse isolate, gaslight, and control Bella, and why does he condone his romantic rivals doing the same?

In case you missed this

A member of our community sent in a link to this article (When safe words are ignored) on problems with consent in the BDSM community (Trigger Warning: sexual assault, victim blaming with regard to sexual assault).newsletter.

A member of our community thought this article (A Point of View: Can religion tell us more than science?) was relevant to the ongoing discussion at The Slacktiverse.

Another member of our community writes: I saw this news item (Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence)(New Hampshire Republicans Propose Bills That Prevent Police From Protecting Domestic Abuse Victims), think it should be mentioned:
The New Hampshire GOP has proposed a bill that would forbid police from making domestic violence arrests unless they witness the abuse firsthand or have a warrant. A concurrent proposal would limit the authority of judges to order arrests for those violating domestic abuse restraining orders.

Friday, 27th January, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yesterday was the day that Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops. Here are some links to stories and art from Holocaust survivors about the war. (Trigger Warning: genocide, anti-semitism, racism, etc):

the story of a boy who survived the Budapest ghetto.
David Olére was a Polish painter who painted his memories of Auschwitz.
This site has the stories of six survivors, from Belgium, Lithuania, and Poland.

And some of the less talked about victims of the Holocaust:

about the Porajmos
Heinz Heger, a gay survivor of the Holocaust writes of his life in the homosexual block in a concentration camp.
about the treatment of the disabled

Things you can do

Theologies of Immanence has a page that provides links to a number of environmental and pagan friendly charities.

--Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)

Completely open thread Friday January 27 2012

Due to several requests in the comment threads, we now declare this an ABSOLUTELY OPEN THREAD.

One, two, three... Comment!

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

Board Post, January 26 2012

 

Regular Business

Don't forget to send in items that you want included in This week in The Slacktiverse January 28/29 2012.

The three sections of the weekend post are:

The Blogaround

Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website during since the previous weekend post is invited to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to TBAT. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.

In Case You Missed This

Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers.

Things You Can Do

Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to TBAT.

Deadlines

Please email all submissions to slackmods at gmail dot com. The deadline this week will be 2000 GMT on Saturday.

Urgent or time-sensitive announcements will be posted immediately rather than being held for the next regular "This Weekend" post.

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The Board Administration Team
(hapax, Kit Whitfield and mmy)



Atheist Announcements

TBAT has two major announcements on this subject:

1. The round table will be published on February 8 2012. We hope that we will be able to agree final drafts of all the pieces submitted by then; however, if a piece is still not in a version that both the author and TBAT can agree on, it will have to be omitted. We hope to include everything, but at this stage, getting it published in a version that represents at least most of the authors is the priority. Authors who could not agree with TBAT on a final version will be, of course, welcome to add their comments to the thread. If they do and people feel they were left out unfairly, TBAT reserves the right to explain what the disagreements were; obviously we won't quote any private correspondence should we need to make such an explanation.



2. As most of us know, an Atheist 101 was requested some time ago and we've been working on it for ages. However, while it's been referred to on and off as 'the atheist 101', we've been planning to call it an atheist round table rather than a 101, because we felt '101' wasn't quite accurate: there are so many different ways of being an atheist that a 101 on the subject would be practically impossible. How do you do a 101 without overgeneralising to the point that some atheists end up getting excluded from something that's supposed to speak for them? Well, lately we were struck by Nick Kiddle's comment^[1] which talked about this very problem: there are certain myths circulating about atheists, many of them hostile, and atheist activists have been taking steps to correct and debunk them. However, those debunkings can be a problem in themselves when they're too sweeping; in trying to refute the basic misconception that atheists are all miserable rotten people, one can sometimes risk sounding as if unhappy atheists, or atheists with mixed feelings, or even just atheists who disagree with other atheists, aren't 'proper atheists'.

So, we now have a 101 idea:

Atheist Myths 101: It's More Complicated Than That

The structure will be this:

Introduction:

In cultures where atheism is a minority position, there are often misconceptions about what atheists are actually like - and if atheists are a mistrusted minority, those misconceptions are often rather hostile to boot. Atheist activists are attempting to debunk these myths, quite rightly; however, when trying to debunk a hostile myth it can be easy to go too far in the other direction and end up oversimplifying things in a way that makes other atheists feel excluded. In the spirit of our motto, we'd like to promote an understanding of the debunked myths about atheism that's rather more complicated than that.

We will then list common myths about atheists or atheism, the common refutation to them, followed by a longer and More Complicated Than That discussion of the issue.

For example:

Myth:

Atheists believe in a hostile and meaningless universe.

Oversimplified response:

No, atheists simply locate meaning in non-divine interpretations of the universe.

More Complicated Than That response:

Atheism as a philosophical position doesn't necessarily imply a meaningless or hostile universe. Concepts like 'meaning' and 'hostile' are very much dependent on personal interpretation: what one person finds meaningful, another finds meaningless, and there's no absolute scale of 'hostile' or 'not-hostile' to measure things against. Some atheists consider the material universe to be meaningful in itself. Some atheists aren't particularly bothered about the nature of the universe and find meaning in other things. Some atheists do think it's a hostile and meaningless universe. Of those, some think that this is no reason not to enjoy life and create our own meaning while we're here. Others find life hard - atheists are just as prone to depression as anyone else - but simply don't believe in any deities even if they wish they could. Atheism is simply a lack of belief in deities; this can co-exist with a wide variety of beliefs about what kind of universe this is.

In the interests of preserving the privacy of atheists who would suffer from being 'outed' in their communities, the piece will handled in the same communal way as with the Depression 101. This means:

1. It will be credited thus: 'Co-authored by the Slacktiverse community.'
2. Suggestions and additions should be e-mailed to slackmods@gmail.com, who will edit and compile them.
3. Copyright will be public domain.

So if anyone wants to write a piece on atheism that they can sign their name to and retain copyright, best to write a solo piece and send it to us for publication separately.

Everyone who sends in a suggestion, addition or contribution to the Atheism 101 and anyone who emails TBAT indicating their interest in the project (including beta reading) will be sent (by return email) a link to the location of the working draft.

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^[1] The other thing that really bothers me is when people make pronouncements like "atheists don't see the universe as bleak and hostile". I know they mean that there is nothing inherent in atheism that would make you see the universe that way, but the way it comes across is always that atheists are all above such things. And I'm very much not. I do see the universe as bleak and hostile because of my history and my mental state. And I feel like I'm not welcome among atheists because I make the movement look untidy and give religious fundamentalists a weak point to attack. [The Problem of Proselytizing, Jan 20, 2012 at 05:40 AM]↩

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.

At Patheos: TFTM: This story can’t be part of this story

Fred Clark published a new post, TFTM: This story can’t be part of this story, at Patheos.com.

This week Fred writes about part 4 Left Behind II: Tribulation Force.

(Trigger Warning: Comments include discussions of suicide and suicidal ideation.)

Excerpt:

This is disappointing, a step backwards from the more capable and independent-minded Chloe we met in the first book and the first movie. The first Left Behind novel spent several chapters tracing Buck’s efforts to travel from Chicago to New York in the aftermath of the Event, yet Chloe managed to travel even further — from San Jose to Chicago — without any of the connections or financial resources Buck had at his disposal. She’s also the only person in that book with enough clarity and gumption to question Bruce’s pat, simplistic explanation of the calamity they’re all experiencing. But so far in this movie, she’s mostly been just a whiny brat.

And that seems deliberate. The earlier scene in the church-based emergency shelter seemed to have been included just to show us that Chloe is useless in a crisis. I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the filmmakers’ treatment of female characters may be even worse than the madonna-whore abominations of the books. For the first half of this movie, Chloe exists only to serve as a foil — a weak character used to make Rayford and Buck seem stronger.

[Fred Clark, TFTM: This story can’t be part of this story, January 23, 2012, posted at Patheos.com]


Commentators who would like to share their responses to the new post with all of Fred's fans (old and new) can cross-post to both boards.

 

Kung Hei Fat Choi / Gong Xi Fa Cai

Today marks the beginning of the 15 day celebration of the "Chinese" new year. A large proportion of our planet's population (including, but not limited to, people living in the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Macau, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand) will be taking part in the festivals that take place over the next 15 days.

Happy Year of the Dragon, one and all!

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The Slacktiverse is a community blog. Content reflects the individual opinions of the contributors. We welcome disagreement in the comment threads, and invite anyone who wishes to present an alternative interpretation of a situation to write and submit a post.