5 Jun 2016

Mike Buchanan Debates Sexism With Two Feminists

By Mike Buchanan: One of the things that make the interview memorable for me was that I was told I'd be debating with a feminist, and would be informed of the person's identity in advance. This is always helpful, because I can then carry out a little research on the person, knowing that (s)he may do likewise with me. The person turned out to be a male feminist, and I wasn't informed of his identity in advance. He, however, was well informed about me.
The same happened with this interview, prompted by remarks by the actor Kit Harington, about 'anti-male sexism' - being 'objectified' when seeking new roles. It would have been useful to have been informed the feminist I'd be debating with was Talat Yaqoob, but I wasn't.

How Americans Came To Kill In The Middle East

By Craig Cantoni: The writing of this historical synopsis began yesterday, Memorial Day. It is an attempt by this former artillery officer with a father buried in a veteran’s cemetery to understand why brave Americans were sent to their death in the Middle East and are still dying there.
The hope is that we finally can learn from history and not keep repeating the same mistakes.
It’s important to stick to the facts, since the history of the Middle East already has been grossly distorted by partisan finger-pointing and by denial and cognitive dissonance among the politicians, foreign policy experts (in their own minds), and media blowhards and literati on the left and right, who now claim that they had nothing to do with grievous policy mistakes that they had once endorsed.
The key question, as in all history, is where to begin the history lesson.
We could go all the way back to religious myths, especially the ones about Moses and the Ten Commandments and about Mohammed and his flying horse. Or on a related note, we could go back to the schism that took place between Shia and Sunni Muslims in the seventh century. Such history is relevant, because American soldiers have been foolishly inserted in the middle of the competing myths and irreconcilable schism, but without the inserters acknowledging the religious minefields and steering clear of them.
We also could go back to the First World War and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, when France and Britain carved up the Middle East into unnatural client states, when Arabs were given false promises of self-determination, when American geologists masqueraded as archeologists as they surreptitiously surveyed for oil, and when the United States joined Saudi Arabia at the hip through the joint oil venture of Aramco.

Privileged Women Promoted Men’s Education In Medieval Islamic World

Under the heading of gender equality and development, international organizations today prioritize educating women and girls. That makes about as much sense as prioritizing violence against women. In the medieval Islamic world, highly privileged women promoted men’s education.
Princess Ismah was a highly privileged woman in the medieval Islamic world. The daughter of a sultan, she married Caliph al-Mustazhir about 1108 GC. Two years after that marriage, she took up residence with the Caliph in the Caliphal Palace in Baghdad. She apparently was in no rush to be with her husband, nor he, with her. She was known as a “highly intelligent woman, an aristocrat and a virago.”[1] One suspects that the Caliph married a virago for the political power she brought to him, the nominal ruler of the Islamic world.
Princess Ismah made an important contribution to men’s higher education. After Caliph al-Mustazhir died, she returned to her native city of Isfahan in present-day Iran. There she founded a law college. In a work written shortly before 1258 GC, the Baghdadi historian Ibn al-Sa’i, who had served as the librarian of two great law colleges in Baghdad, noted of the law college that Princess Ismah founded in Isfahan:

The Unmaking Of The CBC

Feminism LOL: Canadian taxpayers are losing because the CBC refuses to deal with their real problem. The Ghomeshi scandal is just part of a pattern that won't stop until they are #notafraidofjesse

BBC Woman’s Hour - Hateful, Sanctimonious, Man-Hating

By: There are few jobs more dishonest than being a radio critic in Britain. I know this because it was how I got my first break 25 years ago as a columnist. In those days you used to get sent huge yellow envelopes full of preview cassettes, whereas now it’s all digital, but the fundamental lie is just the same: essentially you are telling the reader something they know not to be true — that BBC Radio 4 is a wonderfully civilised place to hang out, brimming with all sorts of marvellously fascinating programmes that transport you to another realm
Yes, of course it does happen. In the same way that when Grozny was reduced to rubble in the Chechen wars, I expect there was some beautiful old building left standing, a mosque maybe, which you could have gone to visit. But if you’d then come back home and told your friends, ‘God, you really must go to Grozny. The architecture there is totally amazing,’ you wouldn’t have been telling the full story, would you?
So it is with Radio 4. (Which, as far as reviewing goes, is radio.) There are times — we’ve all been there — when you’re desperately trying to stay awake on a late-night drive or you’re slogging along a tedious stretch of motorway or you’re stuck in a jam, and to your rescue comes a documentary or even, on rarer occasions, a play so absorbing that time ceases to exist and you could happily stay there for ever.
Be honest, though: it’s not that often, is it?

Daycare Generation Are Now The Students Throwing Tantrums Over Safe Spaces

By Laura Perrins: I have been giving the brain a good workout on all these students and their demands for safe spaces. Why do they want to go to university to be safe? Why do they want ban actual political parties like Ukip from campus? Why do they cry when you say ‘gender studies is not a thing.’
Then, it occurred to me that this generation of students were probably the first to be put in heavy-duty long hours in nursery care. And this, dear reader is what we produce. Not robust adults thirsting for challenge and rigour, but tender toddler-adults making obscene demands and throwing tantrums when denied it.
We know long hours in nursery care can cause aggression, and we certainly have that from the Social Justice Warriors. “Milo Yiannopoulos’s event at DePaul University had to be cut short Tuesday night after protesters stormed the stage, blew whistles, grabbed the microphone out of the interviewer’s hand, and threatened to punch Yiannopoulos in the face.”
There is also the infamous case of the shrieking girl bellowing at a Yale University professor because he did not protect her from Halloween costumes. (That is not a joke).
The students sought an apology ‘for their hurt’ and told the professor that his job was ‘to create a space of comfort and home’ as opposed to a space of intellectual challenge, curiosity and investigation.

Terrorist Israel And Terrorist Jabhat Al-Nusra Are Coordinating Attacks In Syria

By Khaled Atallah: Since the start of the Syrian crisis, the Syrian regime has routinely accused Israel of playing a hidden role, from Qusair in the Homs countryside in May 2013 to the emergence and advances of the southern front in September 2014. UN reports published in December appear to vindicate the regime’s arguments that Israel is involved with the southern rebels.
According to a UN report covering the period from March to May 2014, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) detected contact between rebels and the Israeli army across the Golan cease-fire line, particularly during fierce clashes between the Syrian army and the rebels. The report also confirmed that the UN forces spotted rebels transporting 89 wounded across the cease-fire line into the Israeli occupied zone, where they were handed over 19 people who had received medical treatment in addition to two dead. The UN forces also noted that the Israeli army delivered two boxes to rebels on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
Communications increased between rebels and the Israeli army before the eruption of the southern front in Daraa and Quneitra in September, according to Quneitra opposition activist Mohammad Qasim, a pseudonym due to the sensitivity of the subject.

Mojo

Max and Stacy discuss how America lost its mojo while the UK became 'the most corrupt country on Earth.' In the second half, Max interviews filmmaker Tariq Nasheed about his crowdfunded documentary, Hidden Colors 4, which is highly ranked on Amazon in terms of pre-sales.

Paul Elam And Warren Farrell Discuss UK ICMI And US Presidential Election

"The second international conference on men's issues is coming up in just a few weeks in London in the UK. We have 22 speakers from 16 different countries gathering for a three day event July 8th through 10th." Said Paul Elam. "A conference is a better alternative than death! Said Warren Farrell.