OK, here's what I was talking about earlier. I am strongly, viscerally opposed to male genital mutilation, and it's a source of contention with me that it's legal in nearly all western cultures and the norm in the USA.

( Cut for contentiousness, but not length or facts - mostly just opinion. )

If you feel so strongly to your stomach about an issue that you can't even begin to comprehend where the other side is coming from, or how they can begin to justify, And yet you know many people do disagree with you, including people you respect and who you know respect you ( Read more... )

Happy Birthday Bitsy!
Funny, I had a few paragraphs written about open debate and free speech and stuff.

My essential point was: free speech is the most important moral right, censorship bad, blah blah blah.

And then frightened linked to a few well reasoned thought out posts on the subject that pretty much changed my mind, because it's not about free ( Read more... )

I've generally managed to get to the point where I don't expect the following things from any of the free newspapers I read on the tube:
- factual accuracy
- commitment to journalistic integrity
- basic grasp of English

But today, for the first time ever, I actually got my pen out and corrected something in The London Paper. I was getting it out ( Read more... )

So, Dumbledore is gay, is he ( Read more... )

Everyone on darthrami's flist has already seen this, but the rest of you should, too.

Click to view

Think Equal

I am not too old to be up all night drinking and talking, get home on the first train, fall into bed at 8.30 and half two hours sleep.

Anyone who says I am will probably get away with it because I'm too tired to thump anyone.

I have been offered a subdomain to host a blog at Taktix.org As you know, if you read the kind of thing I write that would ( Read more... )

You see, people? This is why I just don't do fandom.*

But the refusal of a bunch of LJ-community mods to take responsibility for their use of loaded terminology is not the most racist thing I've seen today.

Nor is this story of racism in a Louisiana small town

This is.

That's right, ladies, and gents, Far East Asians** are like Downs Sufferers. ( Read more... )

Not to get all Bob Hoskins-y on you, but it's good to talk ( Read more... )

Thanks to tyrell for this link to the new Boots ad.

I wish it wasn't necessary for me to point out what's wrong with that, but apparently someone thought it was an effective advert, because let's shame women into spending a small fortune and subjecting themselves to painful procedures in order to be acceptable on the beach. This is offensive enough when ( Read more... )