Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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  • The Darlington Five go to Westminster

    From the Times:

    Wes Streeting said “something has gone wrong in our society” as he met NHS nurses fighting to keep biological males out of a women’s changing room in their hospital.

    The health secretary confirmed his belief that sex is biological, according to the “Darlington Five” nurses, who handed in a 48,000-name petition at No 10. It called for party leaders to “stand up for women” to ensure they had access to single-sex changing rooms and lavatories.

    Confirmed his knowledge that sex is biological. He doesn't just believe it: he knows it.

    Bethany Hutchison, Lisa Lockey, Annice Grundy, Tracey Hooper and Joanne Bradbury are suing the NHS trust for allowing a colleague who was born male to use the female changing room at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

    Born male, therefore male. That's how it works. 

    Streeting met the women and a sixth nurse who claimed she had panic attacks after being confronted by the male, who goes by the name Rose.

    According to the nurses, Streeting told them the issue of why single-sex spaces were important to women had not been “taken seriously enough” and that “we have created an unnecessary conflict”.

    He replied “yeah” when one of the women asked: “Do you recognise that sex is a protected characteristic and that sex is biological? We would like you to commit to and reflect that in the day to day running of the NHS?”…

    The five nurses have filed a claim against County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust with an employment tribunal. They say their employer has failed to protect staff from sexual harassment. The first pretrial hearing is expected next month.

    Rose, who works in the operating department, identifies as female. The nurses claim their colleague does not take female hormones, is sexually active and has said they were trying to get their girlfriend pregnant.

    The nurses said the colleague stared at their breasts as they were getting undressed and spent “a long time walking around the female dressing room”, sometimes wearing tight boxers that showed their genitalia.

    His genitalia. Is he non-binary now, this Rose?

    The group has said that 26 nurses wrote to HR and senior management outlining their concerns, but were told via HR that they needed to be “re-educated”, “broaden their mindset” and be more “inclusive”.

    Shades of the wretched Mridul Wadhwa of Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre notoriety, who suggested that victims unhappy with trans (male) counsellors needed to "reframe their trauma" 

    Still, good for Wes Streeting.

     

  • Outraged by allegations of genocide in Gaza

    From the Times of Israel – Pioneering genocide researcher Father Desbois denounces mass murder charges against Israel:

    After a recent tour of Gaza border communities devastated by the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught, pioneering Holocaust researcher Father Patrick Desbois said the Jewish state should bring the terrorists to trial.

    “We have to show the crimes, but we [also] have to name the criminals,” said Desbois. “Without criminals, you have no crimes,” Desbois told The Times of Israel after returning home to France.

    An internationally acclaimed expert on identifying modern-day genocide, the French-Catholic priest was in Israel to commemorate the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered and 251 people taken into captivity.

    He is known for his innovative methods in bringing truth to light and seeking justice for victims of mass murder — from the Holocaust to Yazidis murdered by the Islamic State.

    In 2008, Desbois published, “The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews.” Since then, historians have adopted the term “Holocaust by Bullets” to refer to hundreds of open-air massacres perpetrated by the Nazis in eastern Europe before the construction of extermination camps in 1942.

    Given his expertise in mass murder, Desbois said he is outraged by allegations that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza.

    “I think the accusation of genocide is [anti-Israel] propaganda. Why does nobody ask if Bashar Assad in Damascus has committed genocide against his own people,” said Desbois.

    Or, currently, the slaughter of black Africans by largely Arab groups in Sudan.

    One of his most disturbing visits in Israel, said Desbois, took place at Kibbutz Be’eri, where 132 Israelis were murdered. The priest walked through several homes that were burned to the ground by Hamas terrorists.

    Spray-painted onto a wall in Arabic, Desbois saw the words, “Death to the Zionists under the name of Abu Ali,” he said.

    “He signed it,” said Desbois, referring to the terrorist. “These people will be well-known in their families for generations for killing Jews,” he said.

    In part through deploying social media on October 7, Hamas “advertised a lot of what they did, and they showed it was easy to do it,” said Desbois.

    “There were large celebrations in Istanbul and Baghdad,” said Desbois. “Ideology is destroying the brains of people who do it. They think it’s a holy duty to kill Jews".

  • No diplomatic solution to a theological problem

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    Full text:

    Iran and Israel don’t have a border dispute, don’t compete over natural resources or trade, and don’t support rival sides in a civil war. It’s not even an “ideological rivalry” as some mistakenly assert.

    It’s a conflict resulting from the singular theological belief of Iranian clerics that Israel’s existence is an affront to god and must be destroyed.

    There is no “diplomatic solution” to a “theological problem.”

    Until the global community understands this, Iran will continue to be a highly destabilizing force in the world.

     

  • The UNRWA saviours

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  • New passages born of a deepening social responsibility

    The Chicago Manual of Style is a guide for American English published since 1906 by the University of Chicago Press, dealing with aspects of editorial practice, including grammar and usage, as well as document preparation and formatting. In its own words, it's "the indispensable reference for writers, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers, informing the editorial canon with sound, definitive advice". 

    And, as the LA Review of Books informs us, the 18th edition has just been published:

    The newest edition is billed as “the most extensive revision in a generation,” one that “balances tried-and-true editorial logic with an attention to real-world usage based on evidence that is easier than ever to find and evaluate.” This means (one shouldn’t give away the whole plot) that there are critically important new passages born of a deepening social responsibility in line with the times: how best to render text accessible to consumers with disabilities, a brand new section on inclusive language, guidance on Indigenous languages and sources (and rules advising that we capitalize Black, White, and Indigenous), and an endorsement of the singular “they” as a pronoun for an individual—“as needed,” the editors write, “to refer not only to someone who is nonbinary but also to anyone whose gender is unknown or irrelevant (or concealed for reasons of privacy).”

    Not just describing the use of the language, then, but pushing it along on the correct ideological path. "In line with the times" indeed.

  • Hit on a critical building used in Iran’s nuclear program

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    "Damaged facilities for missile fuel integration and production site in Khojir too.

    "Iran tried hiding suspicious experimental equipment there—did they move it before the strike? And even if they did, this hit undermines a key future nuclear asset. This is big."

    If true, it suggests that Netanyahu's reported  "the US does not tell Israel what to do" – please please don't hit Iran's nuclear sites – may have some point to it.

  • The erasure of women

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    "What is particularly astonishing to me is that like the rest of humanity, every single one of those issuing and enforcing these edicts came from a woman’s womb and has/had a mother at some point. To be so keen to mistreat the human beings that gave you life and live amongst you is as incomprehensible to anyone as it is outrageous.
    "We must put an end to this erasure of women."

  • Small worlds

    Some of the top entries to Nikon’s Small World 2024 Photomicrography Competition:

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    Steven A. Valley, Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) Entomology Lab Albany, Oregon. Immature male damselfly (Calopteryx aequabilis)

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    Dr. Bruno Cisterna and Dr. Eric Vitriol, Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia. Differentiated mouse brain tumor cells (actin, microtubules, and nuclei)

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    Thomas Barlow and Connor Gibbons, Columbia University, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, New York. Cluster of octopus (Octopus hummelincki) eggs

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    Chris Romaine, Kandid Kush, Port Townsend, Washington. Leaf of a cannabis plant

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    Gerhard Vlcek, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria. Cross section of European beach grass (Ammophila arenaria) leaf

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    Paweł Błachowicz, Bedlno, Świętokrzyskie, Poland. Eyes of green crab spider (Diaea dorsata)

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    Alison Pollack, San Anselmo, California. Seed of a Silene plant

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    Zhang Chao, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China. Beach sand

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    Dr. Robert Markus, University of Nottingham, School of Life Sciences, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, U.K. Dandelion (Traxacum officinale) cross section showing curved stigma with pollen
    [All images © the photographers, Nikon’s Small World]

  • Blue and white and red all over

    Whoops. From the JC:

    A New Jersey woman has been charged with bias and intimidation after tearing down Greek flags from a Greek restaurant in a fit of rage after she mistakenly took them to be Israeli flags.

    Amber Matthews, 23, who goes by “Ambamelia” on TikTok with over 12,000 followers, posted the video of her outrage at the restaurant’s supposed public display of support for Israel on October 15, several months after the incident took place.

    The embarrassing blunder quickly went viral, amassing over 9 million views across various social media platforms.

    In the video, Matthews approaches Efi’s Gyro restaurant in Montclair, New Jersey in broad daylight and proceeds to rip down Greek flag bunting and decorative lights from the establishment’s exterior while proclaiming “Free Palestine, b****”.

    Police launched an investigation in March after the restaurant’s owner reported than an unknown woman tore down their string of flags while screaming there’s a “genocide going on,” according to local media.

    For several months Police had no leads, until Matthews published her now-viral blunder online.

    In the video, titled “The time I mistakenly thought the flag for Greek (sic) was for Israel and took the restaurants flag down OMG”, Matthews can be heard saying, as she clutches the flag of Greece in her hand: “You see this s***? I don’t stand for it.”

    “What you looking at?” Matthews asks the confused-looking restaurant workers inside, “You know damn well there’s a genocide. You know there’s a genocide. Now stop it. I’m taking this s*** down,”

    “It’s nothing against people who are Jewish, but this is not okay,” she clarified to two employees who had come out to check on her. “Be proud of your heritage?” she asks them, “you understand there’s a genocide right?”

    After the pair politely informs the misguided Matthews that the flag represents Greece, not Israel, she asks in disbelief: “What? Really?

    “Oh, I thought it was Israel – my bad. Really? Oh s***, it looked like Israel.”…

    Matthews was charged on Tuesday with intimidation, according to the Montclair Police Department, and is due in court on December 3.

  • Talking perfect sense

    They got there in the end. A UN report, “Violence against women and girls in sports", points out the problem – which has been obvious for years – of men stealing all the medals in women's sport. Damian Reilly in the Spectator:

    The UN has just issued a report on violence against women and girls in sport that appears to want to put a stop to the bending of gender rules in sport for good. Reading it is like waking up from a particularly wild dream in which everyone seemed to have gone insane. Finally, someone – the UN Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem, in this case – is talking perfect sense.

    Alsalem doesn’t hold back. She points out that since trans women – she calls them by the old fashioned term ‘males’ – have been allowed to compete with biological women in sport, ‘over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports’. She makes clear, too, that everything we’ve been told about medications to suppress testosterone in trans women, thereby ensuring they have no athletic advantages over biological women, is a load of rubbish.

    She says: ‘Male athletes have specific attributes considered advantageous in certain sports, such as strength and testosterone levels that are higher than those of the average range for females, even before puberty… Pharmaceutical testosterone suppression for genetically male athletes – irrespective of how they identify – will not eliminate the set of comparative performance advantages they have already acquired.’ Quite.

    It goes without saying the ridiculous debate about whether men should be allowed to compete against women in any sport, let alone contact sports, has had serious repercussions for actual women. Alsalem says: ‘When female-only sports spaces are opened to males, as documented in disciplines such as in volleyball, basketballand soccer… injuries have included knocked-out teeth, concussions resulting in neural impairment, broken legs and skull fractures.’

    She cites, too, a study published in Sports Medicine that found:

    Even in non-elite sport, ‘the least powerful man produced more power than the most powerful woman’ and states that, where men and women have roughly the same levels of fitness, males’ average punching power has been measured as 162 per cent greater than females.

    None of this can possibly come as news to anyone who has walked about in the world with their eyes open.

    The way the entire trans issue has been weaponised in recent years by those on the front lines of the culture wars strikes most people, I think, as extremely bizarre. ‘What is a woman?’ has become a staple question of any media interview with a politician, and all of us increasingly – particularly during Pride month, when even captured corporations get in on the fun – are stridently impelled to agree that trans women are indeed women.

    Personally, I’ve come suspect the point of it all is just a diabolically clever and deliberate means of making the West question itself constantly, eventually causing it to suffer a nervous breakdown. Looking around, you’d have to say as a plan it’s working quite well.

    That may be tongue-in-cheek, but it's not a joke. As Arty Morty points out, the whole issue of “gender identity” has tainted progressive politics in the eyes of an entire generation, with countless people abandoning their liberal political affiliations and losing trust in liberal media outlets because of it. And the most obvious, the most blatant, lies concern the participation of men in women's sport under the mantra that trans women are women, and in the name of inclusivity. It's nonsense, everyone knows it's nonsense….everyone can see it's nonsense. In the spirit of 1984: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”