risibly archaic

In an article on the excommunication of an archbishop who conducted "ceremonies at which he performed exorcisms in which the faithful writhed and shouted," there's this little note:

[The Vatican] fully believes in possession by spirits and every diocese has an exorcist whose job is to drive them out. Yet, in western Europe and North America at least, it does not exactly draw attention to their activities for fear of seeming risibly archaic.

It's not a very good PR day when that's the politest way to describe doctrine that even the "modern" Church clings to.

scottish executive budget to be kept secret until after elections

The Scotsman reports that the £31 billion budget for the Scottish Executive is being kept secret until after the next Holyrood elections. The reason? It details funding for policies that might have an impact on the way people will vote - and having informed voters must apparently be avoided at all costs:

Jacqueline Moody, from the Executive's finance and central services department, told John Swinney, the SNP's finance spokesman, that it would be kept secret while ministers prepared for the 2007 spending review, known as SR07. [...]

In a letter to Mr Swinney, Ms Moody says: "Full disclosure of the report or indeed any section of it ... prior to the SR07 announcement in September 2007 could inhibit ministerial consideration of options for SR07 by increasing pressure on ministers to rule out contentious options at an early date because of adverse public reaction."

Oh, let us count the ways that this is god-awful. First there's the denial of information that allows - in a democracy - for informed voters to use elections as a form of accountability. Then there's the idea that contentious policies - and the funding of said policies - might be something you want to vote on. Hell, expensive and contentious policies - or policies which are contentious because they are so indescribably cash-hungry (Parliament building, anyone?) might even be the entire basis of an election.

Then there's the seemingly forgotten notion that ministers only get to be ministers because they (and their party) win elections: without elections, they have no mandate to spend our fucking money. Elections are not an inconvenient interruption to a grand ten-year spending plan where tax money is cheerfully squirted out of every parliamentary orifice.  Sweet mercy, these cretins are covering their own tracks and then claiming it's for our benefit - protecting policy from the cruel torments of public reaction.

And who decided that ministers - public servants - needed to be protected from the public? It's helpful to remember that public reaction includes such events as "voting," an experience from which we do not need to be insulated for fear of injuring ourselves.

Contentious policies are not strengthened or protected by secrecy, but made infinitely weaker by the implicit admission that such policies are not strong enough to stand on their merits. It indicates a breed of politicians who are unwilling to make the case for seemingly unpopular policies, demonstrating an almost total lack of political conviction; it also suggests a breed of civil servants who are happy for that to happen because it makes their life easier, too.

Worst of all, it transforms politics from a process of debate and compromise - which is public, and accountable - into an instinctively secret system where unaccountability is both necessary and desirable.

the wrong kind of prejudice

Checking my inbox for news from the Catholic Church, I discover that

Cardinal Keith O'Brien has written to Scotland's Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd QC asking him to reinstate the publication of a detailed analysis of offences aggravated by religious prejudice and expressing surprise that the Crown Office has not provided information on “offences aggravated by religious prejudice” for the years 2004 and 2005.

This is, of course, to do with the issue of sectarian violence - violence between different kinds of Christian - and not merely the issue of violence motivated by religious prejudice, such as queer-bashing.

Without wanting to dispute the seriousness of sectarian violence, it is interesting to hear which kinds of minority behaviour count as unallowable prejudice that can be traced to religious belief, and which cannot.

Hmm. Funny that.

"A Conga Line of Suckholes"

And we're off to the metrosexual races once more - which is, incidentally, a great idea for a cable TV programme:

AUSTRALIA'S male culture is in crisis, according to a new book by a former Labour Party prime ministerial candidate, Mark Latham.

"Australian mates and good blokes have been replaced by nervous wrecks, metrosexual knobs and tossbags," Mr Latham writes in A Conga Line of Suckholes, published today.

A Conga Line of Suckholes? Sweet mercy, that's the best title for a political biography I've ever heard. But who's to blame for the crisis in masculinity? Can you possibly guess?

Mr Latham, who left politics after leading Labour to defeat at the last general elections in 2004, blamed changes in the workplace and family, a rise in left-wing feminism and the prominence of neo-conservatism for creating "a crisis in male identity" and "debilitating" Australia's language.

Once again, the role of men in defining their own masculinity disappears: men are weakened shadows of their former selves because they were too weak to resist becoming shadows of their former selves.

However it's nice to see that both left-wing feminism and neo-conservatism share equal - if slightly confusing - blame. Presumbly the neo-cons held the blokes down while the feminists kicked them in the.. traditional stereotypes of gender.

playtime

The toy that everyone should be playing with in conference season is the BBC's Dream Cabinet machine - the only flaw in which is that you're restricted to three fantasy cabinet members.

spinning the wheel: excuses for the national id database

A refreshing change of pace, as the government argues that the plan for a national ID database which has been rumbling along at huge expense for some months now was, in fact, a waste of time and money. But wait! Discovering that will save us money! Hurray!

Home Office Minister Liam Byrne told a Labour conference fringe meeting he had undertaken a full-scale review of the controversial scheme in recent months. [...] Mr Byrne told the meeting in Manchester the ID card scheme could build on existing infrastructure.

"There are opportunities which give me optimism to think that actually there is a way of exploiting systems already in place in a way which brings down the costs quite substantially," he said.

Ah, so it's existing intrusive and illiberal databases, not a new one. So that's alright then. Everyone together now: an expensive bad idea made into cheaper bad idea does not make it a good idea.

We're also playing the magical game of change the argument - with the latest minister to front the project arguing that the card will save us money and make services faster and easier to access. I'm still waiting for concrete examples of that one, just as I'm wondering how this magical network of databases (oh, and there's an IT minefield) will make criminal record checks more effective - given that recent major problems have stemmed from human incompetence and flaws in the original information, problems for which mere technology is not an automatic solution.

All of which means we're about a week away from a shift to the anti-terror argument, followed in short succession by the credit card fraud argument, in the hope that no-one will notice that none of these individual arguments hold any water.

those dangerous experts

Comments over at DK's seem to have dead-ended into an argument that deference to specific knowledge or skill is dangerously socialist: I'm not quite sure how to argue against the idea that having experience, knowledge or education in a given field means you actually know nothing at all.

It certainly doesn't explain why uninformed opinion is any better as it seems to render every opinion to a uniform level of uselessness, making the claim that "that's not how it is in the real world" equally without basis. And who gets to decide between false expert knowledge and authentic real world knowledge, anyway? Sounds like a job for some kind of exper... knowledge differentiation machine.

While automatic deference to people simply because they claim to be expert is silly, a degree of deference to people who seem to have spent a lot of time and effort researching a subject - and then having their research checked and peer-reviewed - doesn't sound entirely illogical. At the very least, such research can be read, checked and argued with. To dismiss it totally out of hand beause it makes the claim to be well-informed or accurate smacks - at the very least - of a lack of effort.

At the very least, I'd still like my doctors to have been to medical school: while such expert knowledge might be dangerous, it might improve the chances of said doctor differentiating between arse and elbow.

EDIT: Apparently I'm also going to need a machine that can determine which forms of health research are sociology - and thus invalidated, regardless of their empirical basis - and which are not.

*sigh*

circus in town

I'm over at DK's explaining how comprehensive sex education is the way forward and that - contrary to popular belief - it actually helps delay the first time young people have sex. For extra fun, read the comments: it's worth noting that not liking the consensus of public health research for personal moral or religious reasons doesn't actually change its findings.

UPDATE: Quoting myself in the comments section - "To mistrust experts merely because they have a degree of expertise in a given field (and possibly have a medical degree in pediatric care) seems to be a little strange."

*sigh*

case against gay police association dropped

Word on the "bloody bible" religious offence case, from Mediawatchwatch:

In their latest mailshot [the Christian Institute] reveal that they “have been told” that the Crown Prosecution Service will not go ahead with the case against the Gay Police Association for publishing their bloody bible ad.

No doubt this is because no crime was committed.

Read my take on the original complaint here and here.

As previously, it's worth noting that the arrest of Stephen Green for the distribution of anti-gay leaflets at the Cardiff mardi gras is stupid in an identical manner; however, and once more echoing mediawatchwatch, "the CI’s complaint wouldn’t sound so hollow if they hadn’t clamoured for the GPA to be prosecuted for exercising their freedom of speech."

reporting the non-existent controversy

Bah - now the BBC's doing it as well:

Around 80% of sexually active women can expect to have an HPV infection at some point in their lives. The vaccines have caused controversy over plans to give it to girls as young as nine, before they become sexually active . Boys could also be vaccinated in the hope of eventually eradicating HPV.

For fecks sake: if it's controversial, wouldn't it be useful to discuss why? Or have we internalised the lack of logical objections to such a degree that we report the controversy even when we've accepted it's full of crap? Can we at least recognise precisely who objects - religious and social conservatives - and that no-one involved in preventive health care takes such objections seriously?

Rather depressingly there's no mention of the reasons why the vaccine is most effective before the onset of sexual activity - before the risk of exposure or transmission - nor how it's much easier to innoculate young people when they are in still school and can be treated en masse.

death and magazine sales

Life: "The editor of Glamour magazine has apologised after a reporter issued an appeal for "photogenic" modern war widows."

Art:

Reporter: In here, Butch! This is our photographer. This is the grieving widow, Butch. Husband popped off while watching a 'Carry On' film.
Butch: Great, love. Is he here? Can we prop him up somewhere, love?
Widow: No, he's…
Butch: Not to worry. Have you got a bikini love? Thigh boots, hot pants?
Widow: No.

great moments in diplomacy

Get the feeling that these weren't the first thoughts that came to mind?

"The intelligence director told me that [US Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage] said, 'Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age'," President Musharraf said. "I think it was a very rude remark."

Seems that Bush's threat to act unilaterally in the territory of a supposed ally in the war on terrah didn't go down terribly well: who'd have guessed?

sore loser?

Having lost the public and scientific debate against the HPV vaccine, the Daily Mail now merely refers to the prevention of cancer as a source of controversy without even attempting to explain why.

global warming: dry slippers

Tom Utley once more proves why he is the columnist most likely to be found wandering the streets in his pajamas, having escaped the retirement home for the factually bewildered. Writing on his scepticism toward global warming and the melting of the ice caps (Daily Mail, 22 Sept 2006):

As far as I know, however, Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk is still next to the sea and not under it. I find that very encouraging. If the Norfolk coast can survive the melting of nearly a million square miles of the Arctic without suffering any perceptible ill effects then there doesn't seem to be all that much to worry about.

[EDIT: As far as he knows? Just in case Norfolk has sunk since the column went to print? Or is this the rhetorical equivalent of "I may be blithering idiot but.."?]

Tom Utley's feet are dry, therefore global warming has been exaggerated and is no cause for concern. "When I heard about global warming, I immediately rushed to the scullery which is a low-lying area of the house. I was amazed to find that - unlike in the storms of '87 - that my slippers remained bone dry."

Utley seems to specialise in open-mouthed ignorance that there might be facts in the world that he's unaware of. Such as studies that show that the sea level is indeed rising, that it's related in large part to global warming and that coastal erosion has been a growing problem in the UK for some time now.

It's an arrogance borne of ignorance that surfaces in Utley's wailing appeal to reason:

Isn't there at least a possibility that the scientists are wrong or wildly exaggerating when they say that industrial effluent is threatening the very survival of our species?

If there wasn't room for doubt, then it wouldn't be science: as it happens, there seems to be a rather large pile of peer reviewed, factual research which says that the chances of being completely wrong are very slim. In fact, almost as slim as Tom Utley writing a column that isn't packed full of uninformed posturing.

exxonmobil, the bbc and bad science

In pursuit of "balance" where controversy doesn't exist, BBC Radio 4's The Today Programme raised the issue this morning of whether "free speech is under threat from scientists." The question under debate was whether it is appropriate for groups like the Royal Society to try to silence the views of those that they disagree with. It's an interesting question, but not a relevant one - as the debate rapidly revealed that nothing of the kind had happened.

It's a piece of misdirection that the Guardian also repeats:

In an unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

The Royal Society actually wrote to Exxon Mobil asking them to make good on the promises they had made in a previous meeting - to stop funding groups whose statements were misleading, inaccurate and didn't even begin to represent the scientific consensus:

In the letter, Bob Ward of the Royal Society writes: "At our meeting in July ... you indicated that ExxonMobil would not be providing any further funding to these organisations. I would be grateful if you could let me know when ExxonMobil plans to carry out this pledge."

But still The Today Programme entertained the idea that freedom of speech was under attack, with "scientist and author" Dr David Whitehouse arguing that "science is about free speech" and even asking, rhetorically we hope, "does it matter if science is bad science?" The fact that Whitehouse is also a science correspondent for BBC online seemed to slip by without being mentioned - presumably they didn't want to associate too closely with a science correspondent arguing that it's "not about who's right or wrong" but the right to speak. Hurray for a brand new age of scientific relativism - how do you feel about gravity?

Let's be clear: science is not "about free speech" and the value of a scientific statement is not derived from the fact that it's someone's opinion. Science is about the pursuit of objective knowledge, attained through rigorous examination and peer review.

While you might need a culture rooted in free discussion for that process to take place, it's far from the notion that a call to recognise scientific consensus is in some way outrageously partisan, and that challenging the lies and misdirections of others is an affront to free discussion.

To pretend that corporate voices are being unfairly silenced by criticism also depends on a belief that such groups have a leg to stand on - that their unsupported, unscientific claims should be treated with the same respect as the peer-reviewed work of thousands of scientists, world-wide.

The claim that it's dangerous to science to argue for a cut in funding to other "scientific groups" who disagree with that consensus is also highly misleading, given that the work of those groups is not in any way scientific. When someone is paid to argue a particular case without evidence, they are not scientists, they are lobbyists.

How can I put this? A belief that the world is flat, a message packaged and distributed with the generous help of corporate sponsors "Flat Maps Inc.", does not make the world flat.

It's also ludicrous to suggest that the Royal Society - asking only that ExxonMobil make good on their own promises - is in some way censoring that company, one of the largest multinationals on the planet. If anything, the Royal Society - who have no powers to stop ExxonMobil from doing anything - are exercising their right to free speech in pointing out that Exxon are full of shit.

The idea that the Royal Society "shouldn't be allowed to hector private companies on how they spend their money" is also ridiculous, and it's shameful that the BBC should raise it as a serious topic for debate. Why should a private company enjoy protection from criticism? Why should their profoundly unscientific claims (made by lobbyists under the claim of science yet without peer-reviewed evidence) be shown any deference at all? And deference from scientists, in particular?

ExxonMobil are, of course, entirely allowed to continue polluting the public discourse with the idea that the central tenets of global warming are debatable, but they shouldn't expect to be taken seriously when they do. The claim to "freedom of speech" has nothing to do with it.

You can listen to the Today Programme discussion online here for the next 24hrs.

those liars we keep voting for

Story of the day is the Hungarian prime minister admitting that "we lied to win":

"Evidently, we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true.

"You cannot quote any significant government measure we can be proud of, other than at the end we managed to bring the government back from the brink. Nothing. If we have to give account to the country about what we did for four years, then what do we say?"

Mr Gyurcsany thanks "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks" for keeping the economy above board.

For a wonderful moment I thought that someone had slipped Gordon Brown some sodium pentothal and smuggled him into eastern Europe: sadly not.

My favourite part of the BBC's coverage is this:

Some analysts suggest the leak may be with the prime minister's permission as he posted a full transcript on his own web blog.

You think?

I do hope this heralds a new age of politics: we're useless lying bastards who promise you things that if you thought for a second you'd know we can't deliver. And have no intention of delivering. And you keep voting for us anyway.

ladylike modesty and other super-powers

Harvey Mansfield has cropped up here a couple of times in discussion of his "desperately seeking Achilles" book on Manliness - but I have to share one last quote. From an article at Reason.com by Cathy Young:

Then there’s this, from the book: "To resist rape a woman needs more than martial arts and more than the police; she needs a certain ladylike modesty enabling her to take offense at unwanted encroachment."

Wow.

In Mansfield's world, women who get raped are responsible because they fail to take sufficient offence: presumably this is his version of the logic that any woman who reacts positively to any sexual interest at all has given consent to the entire human race.

Cathy Young's piece is worth reading because it points towards how much of Mansfield's panic attack about the state of men is primarily an attempt to define and control women - which tells you what kind of man he's really interested in.

the relative value of "skinny"

It's worth looking at the ban on "supper-skinny" models in upcoming fashion shows in Edinburgh and Milan in closer detail:

A BMI of 18.5 or below is currently classed as underweight by the World Health Organisation. A model who is 5ft 9in tall would have to weigh a minimum of 8st 11lb to appear in Madrid or Edinburgh. The average catwalk model, according to estimates, is 5ft 9in tall but weighs just 7st 12lb, giving a BMI of only 16.

Before we celebrate a victory for healthier, positive attitudes, let's remember that the "average" UK woman has a weight rather closer to 11st, and that a focus on the BMI conceals other incredibly strong biases towards body shape, height and model ethnicity that are just as significant in the definition of what passes for beautiful.

Let's also note that BMI ratings can be highly misleading, not least because the traditional fashion model may tend towards the ectomorphic. From wikipedia:

The BMI is meant to broadly categorise populations for purely statistical purposes. As noted, its accuracy in relation to actual levels of body fat is easily distorted by such factors as fitness level, muscle mass, bone structure, gender, and ethnicity.

People who are endomorphic tend to have higher BMI numbers than people who are mesomorphic, because they have greater bone mass and greater muscle mass, respectively, than do mesomorphic individuals.

Similarly, an ectomorphic individual could conceivably receive an unhealthily low reading, when in fact their body type makes them naturally thin no matter what they eat.

I'm not sure that the focus on model BMI isn't unhelpful - while it does act against the sharper end of weight obsession, it still sends the message that beauty is inextricably tied to body size. The message here isn't that big is beautiful, but seems rather to be that "super-skinny" is ugly and dangerous.

Given that the definition of a beautiful model involves her (or him) being avowedly more than average in every respect (except, of course, weight), is the catwalk really the place to be sending messages about healthy body image?

li-ving in an empirical world (empirical-al)

To go with yesterday's news that equality in Scottish adoption law has moved one step further along, here's Ampersand linking to some handy debunking of the claim that the research showing the neutral (or indeed positive) impact of gay parenting is flawed.

In the next six months in Scotland we're going to here the same unthinking arguments again and again: that children of gay parents grow up confused about their gender and sexual orientation, that they get bullied at school and that they do less well than with straight parents. None of this is true and there is a body of reliable research which proves it.

What's new? My apologies, because I'm probably going to have to keep saying it, again and again.

adoption reform in scotland supported 103 to 8

Excellent news, as reforms which will allow gay and unmarried couples to adopt children pass the first stage:

The new legislation, which also provides more support services for adopted children, passed its first hurdle at the Scottish Parliament by 103 votes to eight following a passionate debate.

Even with this overwhelming level of support, The Scotsman frames the decision as "controversial." Without wanting to be any more pedantic than usual, "controversial" would apply to every single piece of legislation under debate, insofar as debate is dispute and dispute is controversy. It's almost as though The Scotsman is trying to frame the legislation as unpopular, when the reverse happens to be true.

For the record, though, let's take a look at one of those arguments against. Here's Roseanna Cunningham of the SNP:

"I can't see how overturning tens of thousands of years of nature's design moves us forward," she said.

Quite how adoption with heterosexual couples is any part of nature's design is unclear. Feel free to note that mounting evidence of a biological component for homosexuality would also count as nature's design.

If Roseanna Cunningham is entirely dedicated to nature, I expect her to abandon any the use of profoundly unnatural soaps, fuels, technologies and contraceptives - and to conduct her parliamentary business from an unlit cave.

As I argued in June, the issue of "natural" is pointless - if gay adoption is unnatural, then logically that problem would apply in different degrees to all adoption and child-rearing by non-biological parents.

As for the faux-concern for the welfare of children (children "confused" about gender, bullying at school), there's always empirical research which shows that "children of same-sex parents do as well as children whose parents are heterosexual in every way."

Finally, when arming yourself against self-appointed guardians of children (who would rather see children remain in care) remember that there is no "right" to adopt - only the right to enter the stringent process of assessment that considers whether you are suitable and able to offer a stable, positive environment for a child. Despite bold lies to the contrary, being gay will not send you to the front of the queue.

For extra credit, check out the comment section on The Scotsman website which includes conspiracy theories (this "is because of extreme manipulation, carefully orchestrated by clever men – I’ve seen their documents on how they infiltrate education establishments and the media"), people who don't understand what adoption is ("If a man/men want to have kids, they should engage in sex with a WOMAN and allow nature to takes it's course") and the baseless "homos are paedos" argument which rather ignores the large number of adult men who abuse children of the opposite sex.

Of course, all of these fine people would be allowed to go forward to be considered as adoptive parents, while those crazy homos are out in the cold.

Hmm..

For previous posts on this subject, go here. For the traditional picture of a tiny monkey, go here.

participation and gender online

I'm at home with a chest infection thing and taking huge horse-pills of antibiotics, so please note that this post comes to you via a haze of drugs and fever. Having filled you with confidence, I wanted to say that I've been reading Jane McGonigal's blog with a kind of drooling awe for some time now: she's a designer of networked games for real-world spaces.

Fascination with her work aside (particularly given that I've been involved in managing and taking part in a number of small-scale interactive performances) I wanted to point to her comments on the lonelygirl serial drama that appeared on YouTube and elsewhere.

Interviewed in the LA Times, the producers described how they responded to comments from the public left on various sites during the project. Jane comments:

Okay, fair enough. I'm all for collaborative storytelling. But I don't think it's right to accept this account of the kind of participation that happened during the lonelygirl project at face value. [...]

As the statistics on this traffic counter show, each lonelygirl video has roughly 1000-4000 comments, nearly all of them left before the puppet masters were unmasked. And I have to say this: the level of hate, mean-spiritendess, crudeness and often downright misogeny of the majority of them is impossible to ignore. [...] To give you an idea, here is a sample of comments that I would characterize as representative of at least 33% if not more of comments to the lonelygirl videos:

You are pretty boring. Get a psychologist.

Ok. Why don’t you just keep your personal problems to yourself and stop making a scene

show us your tits

you are really ugly i hope you know that

Your eyebrows are too far apart. But, you’re still pretty.

Fuck you. Welcome to the new world we Don’t Have to Respect what you think. get over it

I hope Daniel rapes you. No hard feelings.

WHORE lol

I'd direct you to over to Jane's post for her discussion of the kind dynamic of participation at work here - how does the audience feel about being hoaxed or played - and there's a great discussion in the comments to her post about the significance of the kind of comments suggested above, given that they appeared before the "hoax" was revealed.

However, from the gender theory corner, anyone about to argue that such comments are part of life on the internet and should be tolerated as such (which Jane doesn't, btw) should consider what basic level of conduct we're accepting as normative.

Beyond the re-discovery of a baseline of casual (internet) misogyny, the lonelygirl project describes circumstances in which the producers of the narrative either didn't anticipate or weren't concerned by, or were unable to manage the prospect of abuse making up a third of comments to a character they were trying to pass as a "real" woman. In other words, that potential reaction to a "real" and apparently vulnerable woman was either ignored or internalised.

Is this because the producers saw lonelygirl as a fiction and beyond harm? Or was it because they saw it as unavoidable and therefore not something which they should focus on because it was, in nature, unmanageable? Is there a responsibility, in designing this kind of character, to address these very kinds of problems? If you create a vulnerable character, should you throw her to the (internet) dogs?

Enough blind speculation, and back to Jane - for something which I really think applies to recent discussions I've seen in queer and feminist communitities about comment policies in diverse and often antagonistic groups:

And most importantly how do we inspire participation that is more than hostile juvenile comments? How do we create a real participatory community around an entertainment property, and what forms of participation are possible... and desirable?

My assumption of a genderless pseudonym was a deliberate attempt to guide the kind of reactions I would get online - though my "true" biological gender is hardly any kind of secret. As a result, I've most commonly had discussions where my discussion of gender issues makes me presumptively female (and, not unfrequently) that my arguments are flawed because I am a woman. My strategy has tended to involve asking why that assumption has been made, rather than pulling aside the internet curtain to flourish my man/lady parts. There are other sites for that, I'm told.

Go over and read the post - and stop by her website. Mmm... thought food.

EDIT - and yes, "true biological gender" is a deliberate attempt to confuse. :)

freeeedom?

Not entirely sure what to make of this:

The YouGov poll found that more Scots now want Scotland to become independent than those who want to stay within the United Kingdom. A total of 44 per cent back independence, with 42 supporting the status quo and 15 per cent undecided.

While The Scotsman trumpets this as proof that "Scotland would become an independent country if a referendum was held tomorrow," I'm not sure that an apparent disatisfaction with the Union isn't part of a rather more specific disenchantment:

The poll also found that voters would like to see Alex Salmond, the SNP leader, as First Minister. He is seen as more honest, competent and likeable and less conceited than Jack McConnell, the Scottish Labour leader, who is regarded as out of touch.

It's also one of those polls of comparative quality that can't fail to make a person look good: compared to Jack McConnell, the evil vizier from Disney's Aladdin is also rated as more honest, competent and likeable and less conceited.

There's also the sense here that the general public have managed to entirely separate the failings - or, to be polite, the limited success - of the Scottish Parliament from.. well.. the Scottish Parliament:

The survey also revealed that 64 per cent of voters favour at least enhanced powers for the parliament while only 19 per cent favoured the status quo.

Despite the First Minister's high-profile crusade to tackle antisocial behaviour, 58 per cent of Scots believe the problem has got worse since the last Holyrood election. Some 39 per cent said the NHS has got worse and 22 per cent believe standards in schools have deteriorated.

But is that worse because the Parliament isn't powerful enough, worse because the parliamentarians in charge are incompetent or worse devolution added another layer of management? Or even worse because large sections of the public sector are clinging to life like bloated ticks?

It is, however, deeply entertaining to hear the Labourite line that we'll hear ad nauseam between now and the next round of elections, regardless of the actual circumstances:

A Labour spokesman said: "This poll is one of a number recently, all of which have shown hugely differing results, although all have made clear the electorate faces an important choice in 2007: investment in schools and hospitals with Labour, or breaking up Britain and economic instability with the SNP."

Translation: even if you hate us, it's only proof that we're the good guys trying to save you from yourselves.

selective anglican amputations

Having previously covered Rowan William's apparent reversal over the issue of gay clergy, gay people and teh queer in general, it's worth remembering that "don't hit me" isn't a strategy that works with bullies. The consequence is that "I can't believe it's not schism" enters a new phase, which seems to be a move toward detaching the head of the church from the rest of the body:

Conservative Anglican leaders are exploring ways to "adopt" seven American dioceses that have rejected the pro-gay agenda of their own Church. The proposals, which would be likely to split the Church irrevocably, will be discussed at a critical summit in Africa this month attended by 24 conservative primates, who represent two thirds of Anglicans around the world.

Please make up and insert your own gay adoption joke right about here.

If adopted, the development would sink the hopes of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, of brokering a compromise between conservatives and liberals and would provoke a formal schism. It would be seen as a declaration of open war by liberals, and trigger a bitter "divorce" battle as rival factions fight in the law courts for the Church's wealth and property.

This last element is very interesting because it draws attention to how the supposedly moral struggle over homosexuality may involve, at root, a financial struggle over wealth and property. Would the liberal minority of the Anglican church in the US be considered such a problem if they weren't spending money that their conservative brethren see as rightfully theirs?

melanie phillips: christians are being persecuted (for persecuting queers)

Melanie Phillips exercises her customary restraint to argue that the arrest of Christian Voice's Stephen Green means that Britain is turning Christianity into a crime. Ah, no. Not at all. Not even slightly. It was a stupid idea to arrest him but the arrest was far more to do with the government's current position on free speech (loosely summarised as "no, thank you") than an antipathy toward religion.

Beyond praising the "the majestic words of the 1611 King James Bible" which happen to condemn those pesky queers, Phillips argues that "the police are still studiously refusing to act against Islamic zealots abusing British freedom to preach hatred and incitement against the West" while noting that "the former leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, also had his collar felt by police after he said that homosexuality was harmful."

Presumably being ardently anti-gay isn't enough to qualify a person as a zealot. Could it be that, for Phillips, anti-gay sentiment is one of the qualities of Western culture that must be protected?

In order for a problem with homophobia to actually be a problem with religion, Phillips performs the traditional move of making queer-bothering the central tenet of Christianity, which in turn underpins our society: "The Bible is the moral code that underpins our civilisation." Blessed are the meek, the peacemakers and the gay-bashers.

There's a hefty amount of denial here, as Phillips declaims:

Christianity is fast becoming the creed that dare not speak its name. It is being written out of the national script by ideologues seeking to hasten its disappearance. Yesterday, the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said in a radio interview that Britain was "no longer a Christian country" because people no longer went to church.

And that happens to carry a fairly large grain of truth, whether you like Livingstone or not. While a majority of UK residents might identify as Christian, the number of people who go to church - that is to say, practice their Christianity in a traditional manner - has dropped sharply since the 1950s and contiunes to drop. From the Office of National Statistics:

In 2000, 60 per cent of the population claimed to belong to a specific religion with 55 per cent being Christian. However, half of all adults aged 18 and over who belonged to a religion have never attended a religious service.

As with the move away from "traditional family values" - again, blamed on nefarious queer-friendly ideologues - the main cause of Christianity "being written out of the national script" is ordinary people deciding that traditional religious adherence isn't relevant any more - and that includes empty mouthed posturing about gay people when there are real social and personal issues in our lives that might actually deserve time and energy.

further adventures in manliness

Go read Dave Hill on Harvey Mansfield - author of the book Manliness mentioned here a few times before and who seems to think we live in a gender neutral society. Hill responds:

This is utterly laughable. It may be true that certain "alpha male" types find themselves weak and isolated by their pursuit of dominance and power. But they are extreme conformists, not outcasts.

Far from denying that the sexes are different, western societies are as obsessed as any others with defining and emphasising gender differences - even more so in some ways as part of a backlash against the boundaries between the sexes are revealed by cultural shifts to be highly permeable. And it's not so-called manly men who have trouble fitting in!

Reading through the transcript of the radio programme in which Mansfield appeared, I notice that he's still trotting out the same arguments about the icons of manliness.. based on the same fictional men:

Right at the beginning of Homer’s Illiad, Achilles has a private grievance: his boss, Agamemnon, has taken his girlfriend away from him and he wants her back.

But instead of just asking for her back, he blows up the issue and expands it, makes it much more abstract and theoretical and says: ‘People like you shouldn’t be ruling, but people like me – manly, heroic men – should be’. That’s the assertive part of manliness.

Ah, so it was an entirely abstract and theoretical war that lead to the death of so many ordinary (if fictional) men and the destruction of a city: sounds more to me like a collossal case of egotism where the girlfriend (hey, maybe she had a name?) is a token playing piece in a massive game of political cock-slap.

But, I digress. Go read Dave Hill.

daily mail lies about abortion education

A piece of deception from the Daily Mail so obvious that it's almost amazing it reached print - "Government abortion lessons for five-year-old children." Of course, if you click through from that headline to the story you get to see exactly what kind of half-truth is at work here:

The recommendation from the Independent Advisory Group on Teenage Pregnancy would mean - if accepted by the Government - that pupils would be taught about abortion from the age of 11.

But they could also have abortion lessons in primary schools that teach children from the age of five.

So 11 year old children might get sex education in the same building as 5 year old children - which, given that most primary schools have pupils aged between 5 and 11, would hardly be suprising. No-one is arguing that five year olds should receive sex education about abortion: this is entirely false.

The reasoning given for increased information about abortion is actually rather pragmatic:

Gill Frances, head of the advisory group, said in a message to ministers yesterday: "Pregnant young women and their partners need to understand all the options open to them, including abortion, so that they can make an informed decision about whether or not to continue with their pregnancy.

"We are concerned that PSHE programmes very often avoid the subject and do not provide sufficient evidence-based information about abortion, therefore leaving pregnant teenagers ill-equipped to assess abortion as an option."

Of course, anti-abortionists get around this logic by.. well, ignoring the facts that its based in -

Phyllis Bowman of Right to Life said: "It is absolute rubbish to say that young people do not know about abortion. They know only too much about abortion.

- which rather raises the question what the problem is, if young people are already fully informed. Such fearmongering also ignores the possbility that knowledge of the kinds of support available to young women might encourage some of them to keep their pregnancies.

The problem for the Mail and its socially conservative allies is that giving people more information makes it far more difficult to control them through fear and ignorance - which is why the Mail manages to make it sound as though one of the greatest lies surrounding abortion is still true:

[The report] cited the idea that abortion can lead to infertility as misleading.

Well, it said that because it happens to be true; abortion can only lead to fertility in problems in the case of severe and untreated infection.

What does it say about the opposition to comprehensiv sex education if those that make that case are so dependent on distortions, misdirection and outright lies?

"disloyal, discourteous and wrong": the further adventures of blair's ego

Apparently, Blair now thinks that expressing an opinion and sticking to your personal convictions is "discourteous and wrong." Excerpted from Tom Watson's resignation letter:

It is with the greatest sadness that I have to say that I no longer believe that your remaining in office is in the interest of either the party or the country. How and why this situation has arisen no longer matters.

I share the view of the overwhelming majority of the party and the country that the only way the Party and the Government can renew itself in office is urgently to renew its leadership.

Devotion to party and country? How rude.

Of course, when Blair accuses his ex-junior ministers of being "disloyal, discourteous and wrong," it has nothing to do with the country or the Labour party: as is rapidly becoming clear, it's about his messianic ego puffing defensively like the neck of some kind of exotic frog.

more confusion over teen pregnancy

Another day, another issue of the Daily Mail crammed with misdirection and outright lies:

Free morning after pills will be handed out to pupils under the age of consent at every school in England, it emerged last night.

Oh, so very close to the truth and yet still crammed with falsehood. Despite what the Mail tries to suggest, morning after pills will not be freely distributed to every pupil in the school system: instead, a range of contraception (including the morning after pill) will be made availabe through consultation with a school nurse or health worker.

This rather less exciting information is hidden further down the page:

...nurses will be able to 'provide contraceptive advice to pupils and emergency contraception and pregnancy testing to young women' ...

School nurses are told to 'support young women to access services to make timely choices about emergency contraception, pregnancy or abortion'."

This "teen pregnancy plan" - more education and better access to health services is framed - as is sadly usual - as the source of more teen pregnancies:

The teenage pregnancy plan outraged family campaigners who warned it would only fuel soaring rates of conception among teenagers.

Such "logic" is entirely unchallenged; it seems the Mail has now entirely internalised the batshit logic that "condoms cause sex" and no longer even tries to explain or defend it.

The Telegraph does a much better job of reporting the facts - putting the latest measure in the context of a package of attempts which have yet to have a meaningful impact on teen pregnancy rates:

More details of the Government's plans will be spelt out next week when the Government publishes a new strategy paper on teenage pregnancy.

The flurry of activity reflects growing alarm in Downing Street that the number of teenage pregnancies has risen by nearly 12 per cent over the past decade, despite a string of initiatives.

However, The Telegraph also labels the new measures as "controversial" without ever discussing why that might be the case.

It will be interesting to see if the papers - or indeed the government - pays much attention to existing research, such as the report on teenage pregnancy produced by the Social Exclusion Unit which identified three major reasons for teen pregnancy.

Contrary to the Mail's wordview, those reasons have very little to do with simple access to contraception. The three major causes:

Low Expectations. Teenage pregnancy is more common among young people who have been disadvantaged and have poor expectations of education or the job market. The UK has more young people who see no prospect of a job and foresee a future on benefits. As the report said 'put simply, they see no reason not to get pregnant.'

Ignorance. Young people in the UK lack accurate knowledge about contraception and sexually transmitted infections, they are uncertain of what to expect from a relationship and have an unrealistic picture of parenthood. Contraceptive use is low compared to countries like Denmark and the Netherlands and young people tend to have a rosy view of what being a parent is about.

Mixed messages. Young people are surrounded by sexual images and messages which imply that sexual activity is the norm. Yet some parents and many public institutions are at best embarrassed about dealing with young people's sexuality or try to ignore it completely. This leads to the situation, described by one teenager quoted by the Teenage Pregnancy Report, where it seems as if sex is compulsory but contraception is illegal.

It's also worth noting that the age at which women (and men) first have sex has been dropping steadily since the 1930s: our current problems are part of social trends that span the better part of 75 years. While that doesn't absolve this - or any other - government of responsibility, it does point far beyond the very recent moves to make contraceptives more available to young people.

let the fool speak

I'm with mediawatchwatch - I'm not happy about the precedent set by the arrest of Stephen Green over the anti-gay leaflets he was handing out at at the Cardiff Mardi Gras.

I might disagree strongly with his bullshit religious posturing, but freedom of speech isn't dependent on me liking particular speech acts. This issue cuts both ways - to quote mediawatchwatch:

Freedom of speech not only means the right to say things others don’t want to hear, but also involves hearing things you don’t like the sound of. If Stephen Green is prosecuted for his silly leaflets, or the GPA [Gay Police Association] gets done for its bloody Bible ad, it will be a sorry day for freedom of expression in this country.

I'm also not desperately impressed by how this allows Green to play the faithful martyr - which in turn churns up more divisive language, even though those who support Green's particular creed form a tiny minority of Christians and social conservatives. Let's be clear and pragmatic - Green might be an odious fool, but the best remedy for that is to allow him to prove it in public.

womb transplants and (a lack of) moral outrage

Today's coverage of an impending breakthrough in the transplant of wombs is curiously devoid of further comment - that is, devoid of the appeal to "values" campaigners who abhore any medical intervention into reproduction. Though ripe for Frankenstein scaremongering, the desirability of womb transplantation has been discussed in relatively balanced and coherent terms.

Such uncharatersistic restraint is notable because it marks a further element of the uneasy treatment of IVF and other fertility treatments. Whereas anything involving the technologies of cloning or genetic screening tends toward the screaming condemnation ofthe unnatural, IVF - for all its dependence on intrusive and "unnatural" science has become a strangely neutral option, only controversial when questions are raised about cost (to the NHS) and of who should get free access (single women, lesbian couples, the "elderly").

It's a silence matched by an unwillingness of religious and "family" campaigners to touch the issue. Is this because - in the imagination of the mainstream press - IVF has become something common to "ordinary" (that is to say, middle class) people?

My point is that the line between acceptable "help" and unwarranted meddling has been acquired incredibly rapidly but without any real coherence. Why, for example, is the news that wombs can be "borrowed" for two years (in the words of The Daily Mail) an almost uniformly positive story without any coverage of who donors might be, while the possibility of artificially engineered sperm is the sign of the end of man?

hpv vaccine and "moral" objections in the media

Would our self-appointed moral guardians like to step up and explain the direct link between cervical cancer and adolescent sex?

While many newspapers have reported the impending HPV vaccine for what it is - a genuine chance to save lives and improve sexual health - both The Daily Mail and The Independent found space to repeat the objections of a supposedly moral minority:

Research has suggested that the vaccine should be administered to girls at the age of nine, but the Catholic Church and some family campaigners have protested that such a plan could encourage underage sex.

Yet neither paper spent a moment to analyse or consider this claim, instead choosing to repeat its preposterous "logic": that nine year olds will be more likely to have sex if they're not threatened with cervical cancer.

The idea that the threat of disease (along with a refusal to adopt safer sex practices) could somehow produce a positive attitude towards sexual health tells you almost everything you need to know about those arguing that case. Not to worry, though: given that the vaccine may only protect against around 85% of the viruses that cause cervical cancer, there's still room for scaremongering.

A previously under-reported consequences of an HPV vaccine is the impact on the developing world, where neither smear tests nor cancer care are widely available - or indeed available at all. As such, the Catholic Church and family campaigners appear to be on the verge of repeating the stand against condoms: where the threat of AIDS and other STIs is somehow more desirable because even if many die, a few others might avoid pre-marital sex.

If newspapers must insist on repeating the objections of self-nominated moralists, then those same papers might at least take the time to examine the absence of moral logic that underpins such posturing.

the village people defence

More on the fire-crew story. First, a Christian businessman famed for his support of anti-gay campaigns which fail threatens to sue:

He claims that the officers, who were forced to undergo diversity training as part of their punishment, have had their human rights infringed.

The St Andrews-based mogul found God after a lucrative career in the music industry. He used royalties from the Sinitta song So Macho to launch the Scottish Christian party, which preaches that homosexuality is a sin. [...]

Hargreaves said the action contravened the European convention on human rights.

“Who sets the bounds of acceptable diversity? Should it be employers, the state, the individual or the highly organised minority whose practices deviate so much from the mainstream that acceptance of their diversity needs to be forced by edict on the majority?” he said.

I presume the answer to that last question is "gay people" and not "fundamentalist Christians," though it could be either.

Then there's the rare treat of an opinion column in The Scotsman poking fun at the Cardinal Conti of the Catholic Church's support for the fire-crew:

The Archbishop made his views known after nine Strathclyde firefighters were this week given a ceremonial roasting for disobeying an order to hand out safety advice leaflets at a gay pride march.

It is important to stress that this was not some silly diversity exercise. Fireman have a duty to give out advice to the public, and homosexuals are members of the public. Yet the Archbishop thinks the firefighters had a perfect right to refuse on the grounds that some people on the march might have laughed at them in their uniforms. This is what is known as the Village People defence, after the iconic Seventies gay band of that name. The only problem is there was no fireman in that group.

It's alll good.

magazine lost in the rough: sex, golf and stupidity

Here's a very stupid story - of a publishing company taking a magazine about golfing green maintenance and cramming it full of sex stories and half-naked women in the hope of getting more, younger readers.

A clue - it didn't work:

Golf Course News International decided to sex itself up in a - literally - naked bid to attract a new generation of young readers. [...]

Some golf clubs and organisations - such as the St Andrews Links Trust, which runs the world-famous Old Course - will no longer display the magazine in their clubhouses or practice ranges. Readers have bombarded the magazine with protest letters, while some of the industry's leading advertisers have withdrawn their business. [...]

The first new issue set the tone with a front cover depicting a blonde model in a black bikini top with a flaming golf ball disappearing down her cleavage. The justifying headline was: Women And Golf, The Burning Issue.

The edition also had a "world exclusive" on doctors prescribing more sex as an aid for playing better golf. But its most eye-catching feature was The Hunt For The Birdie Bucks. This was a piece on the female golfers most likely to be courted by marketing men - for their looks as much as their ability.

Italian professional Sophie Sandolo - known in her native country as "La Bod Bella" - was captured posing on a green in a revealing string dress while Australian Carlie Butler was photographed in a tight, red glittery top.

The newspaper report suggests that most of the protests have been due to the change in tone from professional magazine to a "sexed-up, dumbed-down" relaunch version - not because such treatment of women and women golfers might be incredibly patronising.

The entertaining upside is that advertisers have been deserting the revamped magazine in droves:

Main conceded that many of the adverts in the third issue had been placed by parent company Seoul Nassau. "But we hope that now we have toned things down advertisers will come back. We have a meeting with them next week."

Asked if golf clubs had told the company they would no longer display the magazine, he said: "That was the general consensus, yes."

What an arse.

assault and schools

If you've ever wondered why sexual assault is still not taken seriously in our culture, here's another piece of the puzzle:

Schools across the country are failing to expel pupils for sexual assaults on classmates, an investigation has found.

Thousands of teenagers, the vast majority of them boys, have been accused of sexual misconduct in school over the past three years. The behaviour ranges from groping and indecently interfering with female pupils, pulling down the underclothes of classmates, sexually harassing staff and pupils, exposing themselves in class, to allegations of assault and even rape.

But, according to council documents, above, released to The Sunday Telegraph under the Freedom of Information Act, even serious sexual misconduct rarely leads to permanent exclusion.

Cultural expectations and values that manifest in sexual assault - overwhelmingly of women by men - is learnt.

If the message is not being sent that such attitudes and behaviours are unacceptable in school - a supposedly safe environment, supposedly free of prejudicial treatment - where kind of message are young people taking away with them when they leave?

mannies and other real men

Reading the Sunday Times' feature on "mannies" - female nannies - reveals just how persistently confused attitudes towards gender can be, as traditional divisions of masculine versus feminine are determinedly adopted even as the person being described fails to fit into such neat categories.

To kick off, there's Jaro, the manny of two boys. His employer comments encouragingly that:

His domestic skills are short of what you’d expect; his cooking is not very imaginative and he’s not so good at cleaning. ... However, he’s good at maintenance around the house, which none of our female nannies has been, and that teaches the boys important skills.

However, he's also intuitive and "not the alpha male" - apparently a good thing even though part of his value is "from a security point of view." As a less-than-alpha man (but still "an aggressive driver") he's free from the (imagined) bitchiness and moodiness of female nannies:

Jaro doesn’t suffer from mood swings. He’s completely straightforward. A man is easier to handle, easier to instruct — and there are no issues with female rivalry.

The second case study repeats the pattern - as gender stereotypes are invoked even as the admission is made that such categories don't really fit either "manny" or child:

His approach to childcare is based on Steiner, so it’s child-generated learning through creativity and play. His toys are not feminine — they are solid lumps of wood and resin. Nothing is frilly or fancy, and Isla always comes back filthy. I don’t think my little girl is turning into a boy, though; I like the fact that she likes building things with blocks, or playing football and hammering things.

She has become interested in girlie things without me or Mark generating it — nature comes through over nurture. But Mark is not an entirely male influence; he plays the guitar and sings with her, and they bake bread and wash up.

Here, baking bread and cleaning is not only feminine but female - and yet:

Mark completely subverts the male stereotype. He’s big and blokey, with tattoos, but he’s neither a bloke-type person nor quiet and shy. He doesn’t get emotionally wound up.

He subverts the stereotype, but the stereotype is seeming the only way to describe him in the first instance: expectaiton is more important than anything else.

The emotional distance that mannies are supposedly able to maintain is presented as a positive and seemingly masculine quality - even though one of the mannies describes those skills in terms of intuition and "being in touch with [his] female side":

I’ve never felt flustered if a child cries all day — most women can’t handle it. I do get upset, but I don’t get emotional.

I’ve always been in touch with my female side. I often know what girlfriends have been thinking. They’d always say to me, “How do you know that?”

The idea that such skills might not be strictly gendered - or indeed directly related to context (one of the nannies having been a house-husband ot his own children) and differing cultural expectations (that two of the three featured "mannies" are from eastern Europe - Hungary and Slovakia respectively) passes without comment.

bully

Given the Catholic Church's new-found support for potential victims of bullying ("A Roman Catholic archbishop has given his support to nine firefighters disciplined for refusing to hand out leaflets during a gay rights march [...] Glasgow Archbishop Mario Conti said they "had legitimate concerns about being the subject of taunts and jokes.") would they like to throw their support behind actual victims of bullying?

Homophobic bullying is an "effective and powerful" form of abuse and a growing cause of concern for youngsters, according to research due to be published this week by the NSPCC children's charity. [...]

During April, 60% of the young people who called ChildLine about sexual orientation, homophobia or homophobic bullying were 12 to 15. Thirty-four per cent were aged 16-18, and 6% were 11 or under. Boys account for 55% of the calls in this category, even though they represent only 25% of all calls to the helpline.

Or does the fear of harassment by gay people magically trump the actual harassment of gay people? Could it be that the latter enjoys the tacit support of the Catholic Church?