Mick Hartley

Womxn no more

And the rules change again:

Streaming platform Twitch has backtracked on a new policy to change its spelling of "women" after criticism from transgender communities.

The company had said it would use the term "womxn" in order to be more gender neutral in its language.

But LGBT communities online called the change transphobic because it suggested trans women were not women.

"We're committed to growing from these experiences... and ensuring we're inclusive to all," the company tweeted.

"Womxn" has become a popular alternative word for people who say that the term "women" has patriarchal roots. Some believe the term is inclusive of trans women and some non-binary people, but that is contested.

I think "a popular alternative" might be stretching it a bit there. 

Twitch, a platform that is especially popular with gamers, announced its decision to swap "women" for "womxn" as part of its celebration of Women's History Month.

"Join us in celebrating and supporting all the Womxn creating their own worlds, building their communities, and leading the way on Twitch," it said in a now-deleted tweet.

But the company faced a fierce backlash online as some suggested the company was making an explicit distinction between women and trans women.

"With womxn you're just separating them more, you're not being inclusive, you're excluding them from women," wrote one Twitter user.

The term "womxn" was originally introduced to explicitly include or foreground transgender women and nonbinary people, apparently. "The term has been praised as being more inclusive than women and other alternative spellings." But the revolution eats its own, and what may have seemed at the time (to some) as a radical attempt to cleanse the language and thus cleanse our thinking, now merely looks ridiculous - as such efforts inevitably do in the end. It's clearly absurd, unpronounceable, and insulting, and has come to stand as a kind of metonym for all the posturings of the uber-woke. Seeing this, the trans community needed to bail out quickly - and so, hey presto, the term becomes transphobic. 

Then again:

Others have branded this a "marketing stunt", suggesting that the hype and attention caused by the term is exactly what those behind the initiative wanted.

March blossom

Stroud Green:

Imposing the identity onto them without their consent

I linked last week to David Hirsh's short piece in the JC on Bristol University's David Miller. Hirsh now has a longer article at Fathom on The Meaning of David Miller.

An extract:

David Miller includes his own Jewish students, anyway those who participate in their Jewish Society or UJS, as part of the Zionist project to prevent anti-Black racism and Islamophobia from being taken seriously, and to subvert UK public institutions on behalf of Israel....

What David Miller is doing here is defining members of UJS and the Bristol J Soc – that is to say his own students – as ‘Zionist’, by which he means racist, imperialist and dishonest. He has imposed the identity onto them without their consent. They may or may not define themselves as ‘Zionist’, and each may have a unique different understanding of the meaning of the Zionism that they themselves embrace. The Zionism of UJS and of J Socs has nothing in common with the demonising identity that Miller thrusts upon them. In truth, for the overwhelming majority of Jews, some kind of relationship to Israel, where half of the world’s Jews live, is a part of their Jewish identity. But that does not make them racists or unpatriotic to their country, or to whatever other identity Miller thinks they should be loyal.

David Miller’s work is reminiscent of the writing of the classic antisemite who sets himself up as an expert on ‘the Jews’. Miller warns Muslims at the East London Mosque to beware of Jews doing ostensibly innocent interfaith work with them. He constructs intricate diagrams which illustrate in copious detail the connections, which he claims his work uncovers, between Jewish individuals and institutions which he designates as ‘Zionist’. He portrays his work as shining a light into the hidden dark world of the racist and murderous conspiracy.

But sociology is fundamentally an empirical discipline. It starts with a rigorous and structured investigation of the world. Only then does it move on to create concepts and theories which may help to understand and make sense of what has been observed. Conspiracy fantasy works the other way round. It starts with the sense that is to be made, and then it proceeds to find the invented and fantastical patterns in the external world....

But read it all.

At the Gomdok Mine

Back in January, the Daily NK reported that the Gomdok Mine - one of the largest lead and zinc mines in North Korea and indeed the world - was embarking on a “90-day battle” to boost production despite the fact that significant damage from typhoons last year had not all been repaired. The country's dire economic circumstances dictated that production targets overruled any concern for safety. There was even a cynical attempt to pre-empt any blame for accidents by suggesting that careless workers were a cause for concern:

The announcement of the 90-day battle was accompanied by a warning to prevent “accidents” at the mine. The authorities said that many accidents have occurred because miners frequently “failed to be careful,” a catchall phrase that included “drowsiness” in the mine shafts. North Korean authorities specifically singled out mine car drivers, conductors and worker safety officers as those who need to ensure they “properly conduct their jobs.”

After receiving the order, Gomdok Mine’s party committee gave notice that the mine’s workers will not be able to rest on Lunar New Year’s Day or on any national holidays until Apr. 2, the last day of the 90-day battle.

“[Workers at] Gomdok Mine have gone from battle to battle each year without rest to [meet their production goals], but now they have to [make up for] the damage done [to the facility] by the typhoons,” the source said. “Even the mine’s managers are tense because [the mine] has no choice but to make every effort to meet the production goals.”

The source added that because of the mine’s importance for the economy, its management is submitting production-related reports everyday and receiving directives from the government. “The management is suffering from stress as a result,” he added.

Well...now the Daily NK reports on a serious accident at the mine - and it wasn't caused by careless workers:

Daily NK has belatedly learned that 14 workers were killed at the end of January when a mine collapsed at the Gomdok Mining Cooperative Enterprise in South Hamgyong Province. The Gomdok Mine began a “90-day battle” to boost production at the beginning of the year. 

A source in South Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Feb. 24 that “14 workers lost their lives on Jan. 26 when a mine accidentally collapsed on them as they were attempting to connect mines together at the Gomdok Mine, which has been overwhelmed by the [demands of the] 90-day battle.” 

“On that day, the accident was caused by the blast that occurred as the workers were attempting to connect two mines together by boring a tunnel between the main mine and the one next to it,” the source said. 

The source explained that “the main reason for the accident was miscalculating the time needed to escape after laying out the blasting line,” adding that “[the managers] would have had to set the timer to ensure that the blast could not occur until after the workers in the mine could get to a distance of more than 100 meters away. The blast, however, occurred before they were able to escape and the mine collapsed on them, killing them on the spot.” 

Daily NK has also become aware that four workers who were escaping in another direction at the time were hit by rocks from the blast and taken to the provincial hospital for major injuries such as head trauma

The source mentioned that “even if accidents like this occur almost on a daily basis in both small and large mines, the mining managers are more concerned with the production goals than accident prevention.”

He also added that “comments by the managers that ‘it is natural for accidents to happen when working’ is causing dissatisfaction among the workers.” 

Local residents aware of the situation showed their exasperation by saying that “the people who died, leaving their families behind, are the only ones suffering” and are asking why the managers are emphasizing meeting state-set production goals when people could die “at any time” in the mines.

Meanwhile, the bereaved families of the workers who were killed reportedly received no other compensation other than one month’s worth of food rations. The source said that “the families who suddenly lost their main breadwinners [and forced out on the streets] are left in the difficult situation of trying to figure out how to survive.” 

Not so much heading into a bright socialist future as returning to the worst conditions at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Back then unions were formed to protect and improve the safety and working conditions of the labour force. If a society's now been created that's explicitly based on the triumph of the working class, then, ideologically, exploitation of the labour force is simply no longer possible. Problem solved. It can't happen. And therefore, in official media, doesn't get reported.

The rule of the jurisprudent

The idea of guardianship as rule was, we learn, advanced by the Ayatollah Khomeini in a series of lectures in 1970 and now forms the basis of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Khomeini said that government should be run in accordance with traditional Islamic law (sharia), and for this to happen a leading Islamic jurist (faqih) must provide political "guardianship" (wilayat or velayat) over the people and nation. Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist is often referred to as "rule by the jurisprudent". In other words, we're talking about theocracy in its Iranian form. 

Here's Iraqi Shi'ite Scholar Asaad Al-Naseri: 'Iraq Is Under Iranian Occupation'; The Rule Of The Jurisprudent Has Destroyed The People Of Iran And The Region:

"Iraq is under Iranian occupation. You can call it occupation par excellence, call it hegemony, colonialism, occupation, or whatever you like. There is no dispute over the term, but [Iran] controls [Iraq] in terms of the security, politics, and economy. The main driving force behind this is the concept of the Rule of the Jurisprudent. The Rule of the Jurisprudent is one of the things that have destroyed the Iranian people, in particular, as well as other countries in the region such as Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. [...]

"Does it make sense that the Iranian people, who experienced openness under the Shah, and at the time was considered to be close to the Europeans... Does it make sense that in a short period these people became completely religious? Does it make sense that all the women [suddenly] wear hijab in the street? Many religious scholars and thinkers have been either imprisoned, placed under house arrest, or executed. Members of the opposition have been executed. [...]

"This tyrannical rule is being implemented by the Rule of the Jurisprudent in Iran."

It's nothing less than the truth. The Iranian theocratic revolution, as the man says, is destroying Iran, as well as helping to destroy Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq. The foundation of the state of Israel, by contrast, has, apart from the Palestinians who continue to make the worst possible fist of their situation, had minimal impact in the Middle East - outside of its usefulness as a scapegoat. It's encouraging that people are beginning to see and articulate this obvious point.

Trying to control the past

The issue of the Polish government's attempts to whitewash Poland's WW2 history came to the fore recently with the case of the two Holocaust historians ordered by a Warsaw District Court to issue an apology to a woman who claimed her deceased uncle had been slandered in a historical work they co-edited. I linked to a piece by Laurence Weinbaum which looked at the historical record of Polish collaboration with the Nazis. Yes, of course the responsibility for the death camps lies with Germany's Nazi regime, and yes, the Poles suffered appallingly as the country was carved in two by the Nazi-Soviet pact. But they were often far from innocent bystanders when it came to the organised extermination of the Jews. 

Last week Tablet featured a piece by Stanisław Żaryn, a spokesman for the office of the Polish Prime Minister, which tried to explain why Poland supposedly had to act to protect its good name, and attempted to justify political interference into historical research. Havi Dreifuss now takes it apart:

Repeating old anti-Semitic tropes, Żaryn and the government he represents would have us believe that this worldwide concern for academic freedom in Poland is in fact evidence of coordinated German-Russian-Jewish collusion against Polish integrity and identity. Evidentially, my own expertise in security issues can be compared with Żaryn’s apparent ignorance of contemporary history. Just as I have no business enacting laws, so, too, governments have no role in writing history; this must be left solely to historians and scholars. Therefore, I am not sure what he means by the need for Poland to “control [sic!] Holocaust memory,” a concept unheard of in a free democratic society, and certainly not in the world of academia. As an historian in this field, I fear that we are facing a further pinnacle in the current Polish regime’s attacks on history, and its attempts to revise the fact-based historical narrative of the Holocaust. [...]

Of the many inaccuracies and distortions his article contains, it is sufficient to focus on three of them.

First, according to Żaryn, “Poles were the first nation the Germans had selected for extermination in the Auschwitz death camp.” In fact, they were not. While tens of thousands of Poles perished in Auschwitz, the Polish nation was never “exterminated” there (nor anywhere else). True, the first prisoners sent to Auschwitz were Poles—728 political prisoners deported as early as June 14, 1940. However, Auschwitz at this point was a concentration camp—horrible, horrific, and often deadly—but not yet part of the machinery of systematic mass murder (of Jews, not of Poles). Only in mid-1942, with the implementation of the so-called “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” did Auschwitz (mainly Auschwitz II-Birkenau) become an “extermination” camp, where Jews from all over Europe were brought for annihilation. According to the most up-to-date statistics, nearly 1 million Jews were murdered there, along with perhaps somewhat more than 100,000 non-Jews, among them about 75,000 Poles and 21,000 Sinti and Roma. Blurring the fate of all Jews who faced systematic genocide during the Holocaust with that of those Poles who were killed during WWII is a well-known characteristic of Poland’s current “history policy.”

Second, Żaryn maintains, “It is indisputable that among the Poles there were many more ‘righteous’ people than traitors.” Wrong again. The fact-based information, as well as the latest research, including that which is found in the cutting-edge study Dalej jest Noc [Night with No End], edited by Engelking and Grabowski, indicates that a great many more Poles were involved in persecuting the Jews than in assisting them. Even numerical acrobatics cannot suffice to pave the road for the ambitious current governmental Polish journey of heroism. It was, in fact, the State of Israel that initiated the title of Righteous Among the Nations on behalf of the Jewish people, and the rigorous research-based process each and every case must follow before being awarded this most coveted recognition. Attributing the courageous actions of Righteous Among the Nations to the whole Polish nation, while omitting the much more prevalent acts in which Poles blackmailed, persecuted, informed upon, and murdered Jews, is nowhere near a reflection of the complicated reality that existed in German-occupied Poland. It only fits the current wishful thinking of PiS.

Third—Irena Sendler, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka, and Wiktoria and Józef Ulma were indeed noble people whose heroism has earned them the appellation of “Righteous Among the Nations,” and rightly so. Yet it might be worth mentioning that all of them were forced to hide their courageous actions for fear of revenge attacks by local Poles; and that the Ulma family was murdered only after being denounced to the Germans by a fellow Pole. Despite Witold Pilecki’s heroism in the struggle against the Germans, the Jewish issue was a marginal dimension in his activities, and one of his deputies, Dr. Władysław Dering—a Polish underground hero—committed horrific crimes against Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz. History is complex, and some so-called “Polish heroes” turned out also to be monstrous tormentors of Jews. [...]

It is important to note that the Polish nation of the mid-20th century was not (solely, or even chiefly) responsible for the tragedy of the Jews during the Holocaust, even though many Poles did take an active part in it. Yet the current Polish government, and its many agencies, are defiantly responsible for trying to “control” the uncontrollable past, which reveals the not insignificant complicity of Poles in the Holocaust, by using lies and not a small measure of anti-Semitism.

Entirely captured by trans-activism

I mentioned GC Academia Network a couple of weeks back - a site collecting testimonies from those who feel that their freedom to debate on campus has been compromised by their universities signing up to the Stonewall "diversity champions" ideology, the dominance of queer theory, and the obeisance paid to everything trans - and posted a couple of examples. Here are a few more:

Higher education in the United States has been entirely captured by trans-activism and compelled speech. We are pressured to use and declare pronouns, and confess our cis or trans status. Teaching Women and Gender studies is a nightmare no one wants to talk about. Queer theory is the law of the land. This means that the dictum to validate identities is all the rage. This produces a tremendous de-stabilization in institutions that are meant to teach and promote independent thought.
There is little room for questioning this trans orthodoxy, and I have lost potential relationships with colleagues over suspicion of TERFNESS.

Recently, the number of female students with breast amputations has grown, and a number of my male students truly think they can escape being male through hormones and surgeries. It has pained me to see males (including men of color) jumping in with both feet.

The trans-orthodoxy's denial of biology coupled with the inanities of queer theory are breathtaking, forcing us to repeat mantras and pretend that female existence and social subordination are not real or even intelligible.

I spend sleepless nights trying to figure out how to navigate this nightmarish state of affairs. The latest insult to free thought was our library's refusal to purchase a book I requested because "it will make people feel bad." It's hard for me to look at our head librarian with respect. This after 22 years of a productive and cordial relationship. Censorship and self-censorship are running rampant on campus.
Same at the high school in town. A long-time friend is afraid to talk to me, because I told her I read a book that is critical of RODG and teen trans surgeries. When I offered to lend her the book, all I got was silence. She has not spoken to me since.

I am counting the days until retirement! I still need this job to pay bills and take care of family. I'm an experienced teacher and scholar, but this ideology pummels you. At a time when many could benefit from my many decades of reading, thinking and from my intellectual maturity, I am forced to be quiet.

Again:

I was recently an MA student in a Scottish uni. I posted on Facebook about a convicted rapist who used self-ID to get into a women's prison. I questioned why mainstream media had not reported on this case. I felt confident that this post would illuminate the obvious problem with Self-ID legislation and media censorship. How wrong I was! I was unfriended and blocked by many friends without discussion. Female arts academics and published authors discussed my views openly on FB -branded me a terf and cut me off. The two friends I thought I had from uni are now avoiding me. I put it down to Covid anxiety, but I now accept that they have stopped communicating with me. Ironically, they are both obsessed with The Salem Witch trials. My cousin has stopped talking to me since that ill-judged post. My husband's best friend's wife has also stopped communicating with me, It took me ages to figure out why! She's a lecturer in a prestigious uni, we used to chat twice a week until I mentioned that I thought JK Rowling's essay made some reasonable points. She didn't argue with me so I thought she didn't really care. She just stopped talking to me. I have only one friend in academia who shares my views and she is relieved she doesn't have to socialise with colleagues due to covid. She dreads going back to uni and despite being a gifted lecturer, wants to leave academia as suppressing her views is making her ill. I feel deep disgust for being cast aside so cruelly by people who pride themselves on their academic ability who are incapable of engaging in debate and believe themselves to be morally superior to me. All I see are cruel cowards.

And again:

I work in a student services team as a welfare adviser in a university in the North of England. I have seen multiple cases over the last few years of people tolerating terrible behaviours from a couple of trans students because people in the students' union and in the university were too afraid to confront the student for fear of being labelled transphobic.

Last year, for example, we had multiple reports from students of an male-to-female trans student frequently assaulting and threatening other students, rubbing up against them, sending them explicit images and texts, and, in two reported cases that I am aware of, making it very obvious that they had an erection through their dress.

We reported these alleged incidents every time to the students' union (who managed the events where these alleged incidents happened) to try to protect the students who reported these issues to us. But, every time, the trans student's behaviour was downplayed and we were told that there was little or nothing they could do. "That's just X", they would say, as though we all just had to accept their behaviour.

As it turned out, it wasn't just that this student was allowed to get away with these behaviours. They were actually lauded by the students' union, receiving multiple prizes at the end of the year for their voluntary work and cheered as a trans rights activist.

We also know, from other cases, that the students' union was very prepared to take strong action against others accused of similar behaviour (for example, when a male rugby player was accused of similar conduct, they punished both the player and his sports society). And students' union representatives would openly criticise gender-critical students and staff members as 'terfs'. So it is not as if they were generally afraid of asserting themselves.

It was just that gender ideology has become such a difficult issue for them that the way they decided to manage these cases was by avoiding any conflict with trans students, no matter what their behaviour.

We tried to encourage some of the students to report the alleged incidents to the police, but they were reluctant to speak to the police (possibly rightly, for all we know) because they feared that the trans student would accuse them of transphobia and flip the police investigation on them.

To be clear, I am absolutely not suggesting that this sort of behaviour is common from our trans or non-binary students; it is very rare! However, what is absolutely clear is that gender identity has gotten such a hold of university cultures that, when rare serious cases like this do emerge, they have become pretty much impossible to handle effectively.

Not only do I feel for the students who reported those incidents (there was nothing about their reports that led me to doubt they were true), but I also feel for the trans student concerned. What messages have our university and students' union sent them about how to behave out in the world after they graduate? We've either set this person up to act inappropriately like this for a very long time, or we have set this person up for a very rude awakening at some point.

And one more:

Checking in from the University of Edinburgh. The postmodern thought and language police are very active in my subject area. Their latest is an instruction to check our course materials for 'cis-normative' assumptions and monitor ourselves, our students and each other for 'micro-invalidations'. We're supposed to use all the Stonewall-approved terminology, and talk about sex being assigned at birth and people having a true gender and so forth. I'm in a junior role and on a temporary contract, and my life wouldn't be worth living if I was to object out loud - there are people on my team who could do quite a lot of damage to my career prospects. Between the thought police, the authoritarian bullies of the Staff Pride Network and UCU branch, and the managers who nod approvingly from their rainbow-themed zoom backgrounds, it's all very unpleasant. 

Of course, as these testimonies are (necessarily) anonymous, there are no checks possible on accuracy. You just have to take it in good faith. 

But yes, as I said before, it's like reading Soviet-era samizdata smuggled out to the West.

The Drake Family

Photos by Arthur Rothstein of the musical Drake family, at the Farm Security Administration's Mercer Evans camp in Weslaco, Texas. From February 1942:

Fiddler Nathan Drake

Nathan Drake on fiddle; on banjo and guitar are his sons Jasper ("Sleepy") and Weldon.

Nathan Drake, Jasper "Sleepy" Drake, and behind him brother Weldon Drake

The Drake family playing at a Saturday night dance.

That Saturday night dance again.

Weldon Drake

Jasper "Sleepy" Drake on banjo,  sister Monnie on guitar.

Back from the Saturday shopping trip.
[Photos: Shorpy/Arthur Rothstein]

A campaign of terror against the small child

Still in Ireland, here's a case in point:

A 32-year-old who routinely sexually assaulted his young step-son and threatened to break his arms and legs is serving out a six-year sentence in women’s prison. A solicitor for the child sex abuser is appealing the sentence, arguing that the prison time is far too difficult for a “transgender woman.”

The man, whose identity is being withheld from the public in order to protect the identity of his victim, had become romantically involved with a woman and moved into the home where she lived with her four-year-old son.

Between September 2011 and September 2013, the man had engaged in a campaign of terror against the small child, abusing the boy whenever his mother was not looking.

In several instances, the man pulled the child’s trousers down and made him lie on the bed, where he was subjected to sexually abusive acts. In addition, the man often slapped the child and threatened to break his arms and legs.

The man’s abuse of his step-son came to light when neighbor’s witnessed him shouting at and threatening the boy.

On December 9, 2019, convicted of 10 counts of Sexual Assault Contrary to Section 2 of the Criminal Law (Rape) Act 1990 and a count of Child Cruelty. The man has since begun identifying as a woman.

This man has had no treatment - not even cross-sex hormones - but he's in possession of a gender recognition certificate, which is what really matters.

Though even a spell in a women's jail is too much for him:

Senior Counsel Roderick O’Hanlon is appealing the convicted child sex abuser’s sentence on the grounds that the sentencing judge did not have sufficient regard to the difficulties a “transgender woman” would face in prison.

And the number of female child sex abusers has been going through the roof recently. Have you noticed?

A staggering betrayal of Irish women

Julie Bindel on the situation in Ireland, where an open letter signed by major Irish NGOs, including Amnesty International (AI) and the National Women’s Council (NWC), has called for the removal of media and political representation for women who won’t capitulate to the demands of trans activists.

‘We call on media, and politicians to no longer provide legitimate representation for those that share bigoted beliefs, that are aligned with far right ideologies and seek nothing but harm and division,’ reads the letter. ‘These fringe internet accounts stand against affirmative medical care of transgender people, and they stand against the right to self-identification of transgender people in this country… they stand against trans, women’s and gay rights by aligning themselves with far-right tropes and stances.’

"Far-right tropes and stances" - as, for instance, the idea that biological sex is real, or that trans women - biological men - have no place in women's prisons.

Dr Christine Gaffney is a social scientist specializing in gender equality and a member of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Alliance Ireland (LGBAI). She is furious about Amnesty’s latest stance: ‘Why have human rights organizations like Amnesty abandoned women and girls? Is it simply policy capture? Either way, they have sold women out.’Rachel Moran is an Irish writer and feminist who’s spent 10 years campaigning for global women’s rights. What she has to say about the NWC is no more flattering than White’s assessment of AI.

‘The idea that the NWC speaks for Irish women is laughable. They have dismissed, sidestepped and flat-out ignored direct questions regarding the adult male sex offenders walking around the women’s wings of our Irish jails,’ says Moran. ‘To refuse to address this is reprehensible, and classist to the core.’ Moran is right. The women in Mount joy and Limerick prisons are among the most vulnerable in society, and the vast majority have been sexually violated by men. ‘An organization that willfully ignores the psychological violence of incarcerating women alongside sex-offending men has no right pretending to speak on behalf of women,’ says Moran. She calls the NWC-signed letter ‘a direct and totalitarian act of aggression and a staggering betrayal of Irish women’....

For Ceri Black, a founder of LGBAI, extreme transgender ideology leads to the bullying and silencing of lesbians. Black says the women supporting the notion that ‘trans women are women’ are the most privileged, with the least to lose.

‘To hear rich, white, self-proclaimed “feminists” expound from inside their gated communities and ivory towers the thesis that trans women are women and belong in women’s spaces sticks in my throat. It is the absolute definition of elitism. There they sit, smugly proclaiming, facing none of the consequences of their dangerous words. “For thee, peasant, not for me.”’

This comes after Amnesty stripped Alexei Navalny of his “prisoner of conscience” status after they were "bombarded" with complaints highlighting xenophobic comments that he'd made in the past, even though an Amnesty spokesman admitted that the wave of requests to "de-list" Navalny seemed to be part of an "orchestrated campaign" to discredit Vladimir Putin's most vocal critic and "impede" Amnesty's calls for his release from custody. 

They seem to have rather lost their way.

Madrileño brutalism

No, I didn't know there was any brutalism in Madrid - but there is, and Italian photographer Roberto Conte has been there to capture it:

He decided to capture Madrid's architecture, with a specific focus on brutalism as Conte felt it hadn't been fully documented previously.

"I focused on brutalism in particular both because it's a 'concrete line' that has driven my personal research for many years and because it's a term that usually not associated with Madrid," he explained.

"The city that automatically triggers other associations and that makes it even more interesting in my point of view."

Nearly all the buildings in the series were built by architects who were from Spain, and sometimes from the city itself. They were largely constructed in the 1960s, 70s and 80s in "a period of gradual and progressive liberation of Spain from Francoism," said Conte.

The Cultural Heritage Institute of Spain

The Beatriz building from 1968

The Department of Information Sciences from 1971

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Inside the Cultural Heritage Institute, nicknamed the Crown of Thorns

The 25-storey Torres Blancas

Edificio Princesa, with verdant hanging gardens

Nuestra Señora del Rosario de Filipina

Los Cubos, 1974, the only building in the series designed by a non-Spanish architecture team

[Photos: Roberto Conte]

Sheer evasion

Rachel Levine is Joe Biden's nomination for assistant health secretary, and also happens to be a trans woman. She was questioned by Senator Rand Paul during the confirmation hearings. You can see the exchange here. Rand asks - twice - whether Levine thinks that children are capable of making life-changing decisions such as changing sex. And twice Levine simply avoids the question. It's quite extraordinary.

Madeleine Kearns in National Review is astonished by the US media reaction. Blinded by the sacred aura of trans-ness round the blessed Levine, they ignore her refusal to answer Paul's perfectly reasonable concerns, and concentrate solely on the supposed transphobia of anyone who dares to to ask hard questions of such a brave gender pioneer:

Yesterday, I noted on the Corner the perplexing reaction (from all the usual suspects) to Senator Rand Paul’s entirely legitimate line of questioning aimed at Rachel Levine, Biden’s pick for assistant health secretary. The absurd headlines and “hot takes” keep on coming.

“Exchange between GOP senator, transgender nominee draws fire from Democrats,” reports the Washington Post. “Rand Paul’s ignorant questioning of Rachel Levine showed why we need her in government,” opines a writer for the same publication.

“1st transgender nominee deflects inflammatory questions from GOP senator,” reports ABC News. “Rand Paul Launches Into Transphobic Rant Against Trans Nominee,” opines The Daily Beast.

“Rachel Levine Responds to Rand Paul About Transgender Medicine,” reports the New York Times, neglecting to mention that Levine’s “response” was one of sheer evasion.

Talk about burying the lede. Contrary to what progressive pundits insist, the real story of interest here is not Levine’s transgender status, but rather the fact that Levine refused to answer a crucial and highly topical question related to child welfare.

Rand Paul cited the Keira Bell case here in the UK, when the judges decided that children were unlikely to be capable of making life-changing decisions about changing sex at such a young age. As a result the whole gender dysphoria industry, centred on the Tavistock Clinic, has ground to a halt. It's not likely to happen in the US, though.

The Keira Bell decision happened in Enlightened, secular Britain — and at the behest of impartial and liberal-minded judges. Unfortunately, in the absence of a similar judicial intervention — or indeed of a centralized health-care system — the situation in the United States is far more out of control.

There are currently 40+ transgender-youth clinics (and counting) in the United States, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The largest transgender-youth clinic in Los Angeles saw more than 1,000 patients in 2019; the youngest patient was four years old. And the director of that clinic has admitted to personally recommending double mastectomies for “probably about 200” adolescent females, a decision she has justified by the argument that “they don’t identify as girls,” thus breast removal is actually “chest reconstruction.” Similarly, a study entitled “Age Is Just a Number,” published in 2017 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, reveals that eleven out of the 20 surgeons interviewed admitted to having performed vaginoplasty — that is, castration followed by the inversion of the penis to form a pseudo-vaginal canal — “1 to 20” times on males under the age of 18.

If the British judges think that minors can’t consent to taking drugs and hormones to halt puberty, how likely is it that a minor can consent to having his or her sexual organs removed or mutilated?

Here’s another question worth pondering: If the Democratic nominee for assistant health secretary won’t answer basic questions related to child welfare — and the liberal media and political class won’t hold that nominee to account — how likely is it that this dangerous ideological agenda is about to get worse?

Happy Motoring!

An Enco gas station in Navajo County, Arizona, 1971. Just by Baby Rocks.

[Photo: Shorpy/Don Cox]

Antisemitism is re-grouping in academia

I was noting earlier how universities are the last place nowadays for free and open discussion, with the rush to close down, say, any gender-critical feminists. But there's one area where the academics are indeed prepared to come out and put themselves on the line in defence of freedom of speech - and that's the right of Bristol University's David Miller to keep churning out his deranged fantasies about Israel, accusing Jewish students of being agents of Zionist imperialism.

Almost 200 academics have signed an open letter in defence of Bristol’s Professor David Miller, claiming the outcry over his remarks is an attempt to “crush academic freedom.

Miller, a lecturer of sociology, sparked a backlash in the Jewish community and beyond when he called for an “end to Zionism” and then accused Bristol’s Jewish student society of being “pawns” of Israel.

This week, a rally involving leading figures in the community such as Countdown’s Rachel Riley and Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl, slammed Bristol for not taking action over Miller’s “intimidation” of Jewish students.

But now high-profile academics including Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler, have signed an open letter in defence of Miller, praising him as an “eminent scholar.”

“We oppose anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all forms of racism. We also oppose false allegations and the weaponisation of the positive impulses of anti-racism so as to silence anti-racist debate,” state the group.

Dave Rich, director of policy at Community Security Trust branded the letter a “list of shame”. He said: “The signatories are closing ranks around a proponent of antisemitic conspiracy tropes while he slanders Jewish students as racists and Islamophobes. They bring disgrace on academia and shame on every university listed on this letter.” 

More from David Hirsh at the JC:

Miller is reminiscent of antisemitic “experts in the Jews” from bygone eras. He produces highly complex diagrams which purport to uncover the hidden unity of ostensibly distinct Jews and Jewish organisations. He tells Muslims that interfaith efforts function as a ‘Trojan Horse’ to smuggle Zionism, and therefore Islamophobia and racism, into mosques. It is dangerous to make chicken soup with Jews, he warns.

Miller likes to articulate his worldview clearly. Like Ken Livingstone, he enjoys chasing the logic of his fantasies all the way down the rabbit hole. But his defenders are a little more careful. They, describe Miller’s output, for example as an “honest” response to a query on “Israel-Palestine”. They say the Board of Deputies want him fired because he is “critical of Zionism”. They hope people don’t read Miller’s work but rely on their own description of it. You can assume that many of the signatories themselves have not read his work.

The Macpherson Principle states that when somebody says they have experienced racism, you should assume that they are telling the truth, and that should be the starting point of any investigation. The Miller Principle would seem to be that when Jews say they have experienced antisemitism, that is evidence that they are agents of Israel secretly trying to sow racism and Islamophobia in Britain. [...]

Miller, and his defenders, are not just playing clever word games, they are forging an intellectual system which has the potential to be dangerous to Jews. It looks plausible but it portrays the overwhelming majority of Jews and their community as a cunning, hidden, racist threat to the rest of society. It positions Jews as a formidable block in the way of any movement which hopes to change Britain for the better.

Miller is not just an eccentric individual. He has been promoted to Professor, he brings in research money, he is published in the journals, he speaks at conferences and he teaches students. And a long list of academics is jumping to his defence. Miller is part of an antisemitic culture and he is protected by academic institutions and by the academic union.

Antisemitism is being driven out of the structures of the Labour Party but it is still present in significant layers of left wing and academic thinking. It is present emotionally, offering an object onto which people can project their own fury, fear and fantasies. Antisemitism is re-grouping in academia, not least around the campaign against the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which it finds threatening because it suggests that hostility to Israel may, in certain contexts, be antisemitic. This campaign employs the language of free speech and academic freedom, but it aims to strip people who have the courage to speak out against antisemitism of their confidence and of any hope of institutional protection.

Empowering women

UNISON’s Empowering Women – Live! online event began last week, as reported on their website - ‘Empowering women is what this union does’:

Empowering Women in UNISON – Live! was opened by UNISON’s national women’s committee chair, Emma Procter. “Women have had to deal with the most extraordinary set of challenges in the pandemic,” she said.

“In the UK, women do the majority of caring, whether paid or unpaid, doing three times more unpaid care than men.

“As the UK’s largest trade union, we intend to keep growing so we can make a difference to even more women.”

And here is Emma, in person:

This is how the roles of women in public life are being filled by males who identify as trans. Meanwhile women die as these great boundaries are crossed and celebrated as “diversity”. It is an insult to women to talk of “empowerment” whilst replacing them as spokeswomen. pic.twitter.com/6jB2vGXKVc

— Jean Hatchet (@JeanHatchet) February 26, 2021

Perfect. What better way of showing how strongly they feel about empowering women than having a man as chair of their national women’s committee.