Natalie Solent |
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Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing.
You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.
E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.) Back to main blog RSS thingy 
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Monday, July 29, 2013
A public intellectual shares her thoughts for the public goodOnce upon a time there was a wise princess. She lived in a magic castle together with her friends, who were also wise. One day, the princess, taking pity on the ignorance of the common folk, decided to go among them and teach them. Alas! Some rough people said rude and nasty things to the princess. She had to run back to her castle and issue a proclamation. This what it said: Anthea Butler: Conservatives bashed me for speaking out about the Zimmerman verdict. The princess was very sad. She even wondered if the people were worthy to go on being allowed to hear her wise words. What is the role of a public intellectual in the age of Twitter and soundbites? Is it to share your thoughts for the public good, or is it to curate the heaps of hate emails, tweets and right-wing articles that trash your intellectual and social work? The princess felt that she had to choose between sharing her wisdom and keeping a record of all the bad things the rough people had said to her. Why she felt that way, we do not know, but we know the reason was wise. Anyway, the princess held her head high as befitted her rank. Who cares what peasants say anyway? Then she had a good idea. She gave herself a medal. In the age of conservative grievances about education however, how many people will be willing to go through what I do every time I publish an op-ed or in order to share what they have spent a lifetime to learn? Thursday, July 11, 2013
Discussion point: the ethical issues surrounding unsolicitied sales phone callsIs it better to just hang them or should we draw and quarter first? Sunday, July 07, 2013
Is the site down or something?How odd. No one seems to be commenting or posting, but there seems to be a bit of a racket going on down our street, people shouting and stuff. Friday, July 05, 2013
On being ejected from the premises due to self-chosen body shapeThe trashtastic AOL home page instructs me to "Guess why this woman was kicked out of a water park?" "Because her bottoms were too small," claimed the staff of the water park, in opposite talk. As commenter rmsaerials put it, "She will never drown." The lady concerned, Madelyn Shaeffer, is now suing the water park. She says, "I felt like it was both age and body discrimination and I felt like I could look around me and I could see a handful of other girls half my age, wearing the same size swimming suit and not being singled out and told to put on clothes or leave." The instant I read the words "suing" and "discrimination" the sympathy I had for Ms Shaeffer evaporated - but I have condensed some of it back by mental effort. Although I support the right of clubs and other private establishments to admit and eject whom they please for good reasons or bad, those reasons ought if possible to be honestly stated in advance and predictably and consistently applied. I can see why Ms Shaeffer is angry that she was ejected on grounds of costume when other women in similar costumes are not ejected. The trouble is, both sides are pretending. Both know but do not say that the actual reason she was ejected was that her artificially enlarged breasts mean that in a bikini, any bikini, she is emitting a loud and continuous sexual signal. It is a difficult situation for the water park. I stand by my statement that it is desirable that their rules be known and predictable, but nobody can write rules in advance for every situation, which is why it has to come down to the manager's discretion in the end. I hope Ms Shaeffer loses her suit, but I also hope her entrance fee was refunded. The rule behind the rule against nudity or near nudity is a rule against unignorable sexual signalling. She was doing that, and I think she knows it. When I look at her pose I see someone who is more than ordinarily aware of her appearance. (Truly, the first thing I noticed about her picture was that her stomach was really, really sucked in, to the extent that for a moment I thought it was photoshopped.) A water park should have the right to position itself in the market as a "family" place where customers are not going to be bombarded with sexual signals. Equally, the water park down the road should have the right to position itself as the place where the hot girls go. The latter ought to have the right not to admit people for not having sexy enough body shapes, whether self-chosen or not. Oddly, this right is often honoured even in our unlibertarian society - the bouncers at many a club will not let ugly or fat people in and nobody sues. Tuesday, July 02, 2013
I always said this would happen eventuallyMongolian neo-Nazis rebrand themselves as environmentalists. |