Here is a compilation of women with troubles reported in news stories during November 2015. Each name is linked to an Interested-Participant blog entry displaying details.
For a more comprehensive listing, check the Women With Troubles category link.
(AZ) Stephenie Schneider, 30,
neighbor - Booked on hit and run involving death,
(CA) Lindsay Himmelspach, 33,
phys ed teacher - Accused of sexual relations with students,
(CO) Carol Gallegos, 56,
neighbor - Accused of attempted first-degree murder,
The number of deaths is rising, UK-based group Global Witness reported, with two people dying on average every week – up a fifth on 2013.
Some have been shot by police during protests or gunned down by hired assassins, its research found, while many more activists are threatened by the companies they oppose.
The defenders are being shot dead in broad daylight.
Leftist moral blindness rolls on at Australian Leftist webzine
Lissa Johnson, the tame psychologist at "New Matilda", ignores most of the facts in her latest essay. Someone has criticized her writing without getting to the heart of what she gets wrong so she gives a rather supercilious reply. I excerpt the introduction to it below. The last paragraph below encapsulates what she refuses to see and it doesn't get better from there on. She deplores the Islamist attacks in Paris but adds:
"Our grief must be grief for all humanity, and all innocent victims, including victims of our own collective violence. I cited civilians killed and injured by US drone attacks in Yemen as examples"
Get it? American attacks ON terrorists are as bad as attacks BY terrorists!
To adapt a saying by Mao, terrorists are fish that swim in the sea of the people so they are hard to kill without killing bystanders. But we have to kill them before they kill others. And the solution to that dilemma adopted by the American forces has been a very consistent one. The Obama administration has been most careful in vetoing strikes where there is a likelihood of civilian casualties involved. On some accounts two out of three target requests from the military are turned down.
The information available to U.S. military planners is of course not always perfect so some civilian casualties do occur. The only way of totally avoiding civilian casualties would be to do nothing and let the terrorists continue on in their murderous ways. I guess that's what Lissa Johnson wants.
And American caution is not a recent development, the "JAGs" were regularly a great problem for American military men on the ground in Afghanistan. Has Lissa ever heard of the JAGs? If so, she promptly forgot it. JAG stands for the Judge Advocate General's Corps, a branch of the U.S. military that aims to keep the actions of U.S. troops ethical and legal. And in JAG guidelines, killing civilians is NOT legal. So in Afghanistan they refused many targeting requests on terrorists because it was not totally clear that they were terrorists -- sometimes leading to loss of life among American troops.
So our Lissa sees no difference between the actions of an armed force that goes out of its way to AVOID civilian casualties and an armed group who deliberately aim to INFLICT civilian casualties. Can there be bigger ethical blindness that that? I can't see it. She is not so much a disgrace as a pathetic Leftist fraud
I have recently been asked by news website the Tasmanian Times to respond to an article by freelance journalist Shane Humpherys, critiquing my analysis of the psychology behind the tragic Paris attacks.
Given that replying offers the opportunity of a case study in the psychology of systemic violence, and the metaphorical head-kicking that can come from challenging the status quo, I thought it was worthwhile providing a response.
My initial article outlined the shared psychological foundations – and human cost – of all intergroup violence, state-sanctioned or not. One main point was that victims of Western violence are just as human, just as dead or injured, and their families just as bereaved as victims of terrorist attacks.
I argued that if the Paris attacks are to be an attack on all humanity, then our grief must be grief for all humanity, and all innocent victims, including victims of our own collective violence. I cited civilians killed and injured by US drone attacks in Yemen as examples.
Police said Johnny Max Mount, 45, got into an argument with the worker after she told him he had to put out a cigarette he was smoking in the restaurant, WMC Action News 5 reported.
Angered by the exchange, he allegedly went to his vehicle and retrieved a 9-mm pistol, which he used to shoot the employee once in the head, killing her, according to the Biloxi Sun Herald.
Mount is being held at the Harrison County Jail on a first-degree murder charge.
More on what lies behind the Left/Right divide
Among psychologists, the most interesting answer to the above question is that given by John Hibbing. He might be called the "rockstar" of the debate. He attracts attention because he goes down to the physiological and brain-science level for his evidence and conclusions. He says that what you believe is a product of what you are. He does not stress it but "what you are" is genetically determined. So he is looking for inherited physiological differences between Leftists and conservatives.
And he has made some progress. He has put people through a number of experimental tasks and found that the reactions he observes to the tasks do indeed differ as between the two ideological groups. He describes his findings as showing that "disgust sensitivity" is the key variable. Conservatives are more easily disgusted. Most generally, they have a "negativity bias", according to Hibbing. And last year he put up a big paper summarizing the evidence for his view. It is "Differences in negativity bias underlie variations in political ideology"
I have long argued that Left/Right differences are largely inborn so my critique of Hibbing is not to contest his findings but to question the "spin" he puts on them. You can find a pretty good summary of his experiments here and I think it is easy to see that what Hibbing calls "negativity bias" could just as well be described as caution -- and caution has long been said to be the essence of conservatism. So Hibbing has confirmed some old wisdom rather than telling us anything new.
They say that "negativity bias" is characteristic of neurotics and that all the studies show that conservatives are not particularly neurotic. I observed that in my research too. So that is a bit of a stake in the heart for Hibbing. His "spin" on his results has undone him. If he had simply described conservatives as cautious, that criticism could not so easily be levelled at him.
Their second point is that there is no single Left-Right dimension. Economic conservatism and social conservatism are quite different. So Feldman & Huddy conclude that Hibbing's work is pretty useless because he has mixed up two different things. And it is indeed true that those two types of attitudes are very distinct factorially. I noted that in one of my papers long ago.
So they are right but I am prepared to defend Hibbing on that one. Although there are two distinctly different types of conservative attitude, they are not totally different. As I found, they do correlate, albeit weakly. And that is why the "big tent" of the GOP succeeds. The two types of conservative do find some things in common, a respect for the individual, mainly.
And as we see in "Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits", Hibbing uses the Wilson scale in his research, which is primarily a measure of social conservatism. And I have shown elsewhere that social conservatism is the big one for separating people. Economic conservatism is arguably more important to our future but it doesn't get the blood boiling like social issues do: Abortion, homosexuality, religion, tradition etc.
So Hibbing may not be measuring overall conservatism but he is measuring social conservatism and that is the most central sort of conservatism. So I would summarize his findings as showing that social conservatives are instinctively more cautious than others. And I see no problem with that.
Hibbing uses "Negativity" rather than "caution" to describe conservatives because he wants to rubbish conservatives (though he says he does not). "Negative" sounds a lot sadder than "cautious". But in so doing he lands himself in trouble. I have noted the Feldman & Huddy comment on that but there is in fact a bigger vat of boiling oil he falls into:
As is noted here, who are the "negative" people when it comes to global warming? Warmists are almost entirely Leftists but it is they who are vastly negative about the climate and our future. They predict imminent catastrophe -- while conservatives are mostly just amused by the scare. Conservatives say in summary that: "global warming is not a crisis, the likely benefits of man-made global warming exceed the likely costs, and mankind is not the scourge on Earth that liberals make us out to be"
And again, referring to conservatives simply as cautious would not enable that criticism. Warmists do say that they are the cautious ones but to swallow the arrant nonsense that is global warming would have to be a height of incautiousness. Conservatives just look at the evidence and see that there is no need for caution in the matter. Here's a graph of the amount of global warming we have had in the last 18 years -- none:
So two cheers for Hibbing. He has drawn attention to the biological basis of ideology but he should stop stretching the implications of his findings in a Leftist direction. He just makes a fool of himself with that stretch. He was pretty reasonable -- even humble -- in a 2012 paper. He should try more of that.
Jalessa K. Hill, 21, Fond du Lac, and Lana L. Morgan, 17, Milwaukee, both appeared Monday in Winnebago County Circuit Court, where Commissioner Bryan Keberlein determined there was enough evidence for the cases to continue.
Hill faces charges of trafficking a child and marijuana possession.
Morgan pleaded not guilty to felony possession of an electric weapon and misdemeanor counts of resisting an officer and prostitution.
OK
New York Woman Assaults Young Son
Jeannie Longenecker
(Gloversville, New York)
Police have arrested a Gloversville woman after they say she became belligerent with officers after Child Protective Services attempted to remove a baby from her home.
Gloversville Police, along with the Fulton County Department of Social Services, were attempting to remove a child from an apartment on Fremont Street last Friday.
Longenecker faces charges of reckless endangerment, assault, resisting arrest, aggravated offense and strangulation.
Florida Teacher Accused of Sex with Student
Virginia Houston Hinckley
(St. Augustine, Florida)
A 26-year old St. Augustine High School teacher was arrested late Wednesday afternoon after being accused of having sex with a student.
The St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office said Virginia Houston Hinckley, who lives in Jacksonville, turned herself in Wednesday at the Nassau County Sheriff’s Office, after learning a warrant for her arrest was issued.
OK
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Thanksgiving
I think Thanksgiving is becoming an occasion mainly for conservatives. Being grateful for our blessings is normal for conservatives (See here and here and here and here) whereas Leftists focus on problems. And extreme Leftists of course say that the occasion celebrates a takeover of the territory of others by invaders and is therefore nothing to be celebrated.
Nonetheless, a lot of liberals do sit down with others to share a Thanksgiving meal. And where the gathering is politically mixed there can be tensions. The Boston Globe, writing from the heartland of self-righteousness, however, has a new twist on such dinner tensions. They say:
"For years, the major Thanksgiving stressors have been set: politics and religion. But as a growing number of Americans go vegan, vegetarian, organic, local, grass-fed, free-range, wheat-free, or Paleo, a third flash point has been added — the divide between those who favor comfortable Thanksgiving fare and, well, food snobs."
And they go on to give examples of the real tensions that can cause. So once again conservatives are blessed. They may often have their own food beliefs but their appreciation of tradition would usually come to the fore -- so they would be very unlikely to make an issue of food disciplines on such a happy day.
New Jersey Teacher Accused of Sex with Student - Update
Nicole McDonough
(Mount Olive, New Jersey) A Mendham High School teacher, Nicole McDonough, 32, is accused of engaging in sex with an 18-year-old student and with having improper relations with two other students.
A Superior Court judge in Morristown issued the ruling on Thursday, Nov. 19, regarding the suspended teacher, Nicole McDonough 32, of Mount Olive. She is accused of having sex with an 18-year-old student and with having improper communications with two other students.
New Jersey Teacher Accused of Improper Student Relations [Previous 3/6/15 post]
(Morristown, New Jersey)
An English teacher at West Morris Mendham High School was indicted today on three counts of official misconduct for allegedly having "improper" relationships in 2013 and 2014 with three male students who were 18 years old.
Nicole McDonough, 32, of Mount Olive, who is also known as Nicole L. Howell, is accused of having a "physical sexual relationship" with one student, and having improper "communication" and "fraternization" with all three, according to a statement issued by Morris County Prosecutor Fredric Knapp and Mendham Borough Police Chief Pasquale Libertino.
McDonough has been suspended from her job since her arrest on Dec. 30 during the school's holiday break.
Three students, eh? McDonough was a busy teacher.
What fun! New nonsense from Lewandowsky!
The king of dodgy climate research strikes again! He claims to be researching global warming but once again he is looking at what people are doing rather than what the climate is doing. Instead of looking at the evidence for the global warming "pause", he looks at what people say about it. His findings? Warmist writers disagree about the details of it! We should worry!
The only thing that matters is temperature, measured as accurately as possible, not people's comments on it. So let me yet again bore everybody by pointing to the evidence about global temperatures:
The satellites are the only way of obtaining a truly global temperature reading and for the last 18 years they just show random fluctuations around a constant mean. Here's the graph:
And even the annual terrestrial datasets show no statistically significant global temperature change over the last 18 years.
So there's the evidence that Lewandowsky closed his eyes to! No "agreed definition" there. Just the facts
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now hear the oracle:
The study analysed scientific articles spanning the last 15 years which addressed this widely discussed 'pause' in global warming.
Though the term has been used in scientific circles for years, it has no agreed upon definition.
A new study from the University of Bristol, UK analyzed 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles between 2009 and 2014.
The study found that there was no conclusive definition to address a 'pause' in global warming, and there was no agreement on when it began or ends.
While scientists may refer to this pause in global warming, the researchers say that this comes with the greater understanding that climate change will not stop, and does not imply otherwise.
Professor Lewandowsky warns that continued use of this term is hazardous to public knowledge.
Now, the researchers are saying this is because it doesn't exist.
With no substantial evidence to support the idea of a pause in global warming, the study concluded that continued use of the term could be hazardous to public understanding of climate change issues.
The team from the University of Bristol was led by Professor Stephan Lewandowsky of Bristol's School of Experimental Psychology and the Cabot Institute, and analysed 40 peer-reviewed articles published between 2009 and 2014.
Unscientific ecofascist, Alan Betts, just KNOWS the truth
Elderly British-born and NOAA funded Vermonter, Dr. Alan Betts, has scientific credentials but a real scientist is always open to new evidence and argument. We see below however that Betts regards the global warming theory as beyond question and is unrepentant of his wish to use all methods to suppress scientific discussion of it. He is an ideological descendant of the Nazi book burners. He regards it as corruption to fund research that does not lead to Warmist conclusions. He just KNOWS the truth, indicating that it is he who is the dogmatist, not skeptics. And everything he himself says below is unsupported assertion and selective use of evidence. That oil companies give far more to Greenies than to skeptics is unmentioned, for instance. Skeptics of course have nothing to fear from a RICO investigatiuon -- but such an investigation would create the impression that they have. It would be amusing to hear what Betts thinks of the First Amendment
A couple of months ago, I was one of 20 climate scientists who signed a letter to the United States attorney general requesting a RICO investigation of the companies that have poured millions into campaigns against climate science. This law, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, and it was used to expose the way the tobacco industry knowingly deceived the public for decades at the cost of many lives.
But when we suggested that this kind of deliberate fraud should be exposed, since this obstruction of political action will lead to staggering loss of life on Earth this century, the hate mail poured in — targeting us for challenging the gospel of money and power. Fellow scientists at public universities were attacked with demands for all their emails for the past five years, driven by the fantasy that we are a scientific conspiracy, threatening the noble fossil fuel industry with false climate analyses. Really! When there is over $100 billion in annual profits at stake, it is not hard to guess where the conspiracy lies.
We now know that the Exxon team of research scientists examined the evidence that greenhouse gases were warming the global climate back in 1978. Their assessment agreed with the 1979 National Academy of Science report that said doubling carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would warm the planet by 5 to 8 degrees F. But Exxon management decided they should suppress their own scientific assessment and instead fund groups to undermine climate science, because they could see that climate science was an obvious threat to oil industry profits. Two weeks ago, the New York attorney general began a RICO investigation of Exxon Mobil to determine whether the company lied to the public and investors about the risks of climate change.
But it is hard to deny reality forever. Last month the Canadian government that had silenced their own government scientists on climate change to protect the tar sands industry, was thrown out of office. I recall back in 1980, around the time Exxon decided to suppress its own science, meeting with a group of brilliant young Soviet scientists. We were part of an international science team for an Atlantic Ocean tropical experiment. After hours, they explained that the Soviet Union was on the path to collapse because of the irreconcilable conflict between ideology and reality. They were prophetic.
For two centuries the United States government respected scientific evidence and prospered. Now it faces collapse, because the merge of web technology with the infamous principle of the “big lie” has undermined the integrity of so many politicians.
So we, the people, must speak up, elect leaders who stand for the truth, start to work with the Earth, and build communities that are sustainable for generations to come.
The US has issued a worldwide travel alert for its citizens in response to "increased terrorist threats".
The state department said "current information" suggested the Islamic State [IS] group, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and others continued "to plan terrorist attacks in multiple regions".
The alert, it said, will remain in place until 24 February 2016.
It seems we have trouble ahead.
Scientology Banned in Moscow
(Moscow, Russia)
A court in Moscow has banned the local branch of the Church of Scientology, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported from the courtroom Monday.
[P]olice say four children were left alone Monday night and their mother came home to find one of them dead.
The two 3-year-old siblings of the 19-month-old little girl who died, J'Zyra Thompson, told authorities that one of them put the baby in the oven and the other one turned it on and made it "hot," ABC 13 reports.
OK. Can somebody explain to me how young children are left alone?
Long overdue straight talk about Europe addressed TO Europe
Farage's speech to the European Parliament is Churchillian in its pin-point accuracy and clarity.
Interesting that this superb performance by Nigel Farage of UKIP in Brussels wasn't reported in the French or German media - and it's wonderful seeing the shots of Merkel's and Hollande's faces as they listened to it! In clear RP English with French subtitles:
"If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live."
Greenies love that quote because it gives a veneer of profundity to their totally ignorant scares about fluctuating bee populations. They even attribute the quote to Einsten, even though it in fact comes from the writings of Maurice Maeterlinck, who was a Belgian poet. And Maeterlinck was wrong if honey bees were what he was talking about, which he probably was and which Greenies clearly are. Honey Bees Are Not Native to North America so how did the Indians get on before the white man introduced them? Did they starve? Hardly. Background article on that below. More on the 20,000 species of bees here. Something I didn't know but which seems obvious when you know it, is that bees are descended from wasps
Honey bees are among the most recognizable and beneficial of the insects that live in North America. But these insects are not even native to the Americas. Like most of the livestock associated with American farms, honey bees were imported by European settlers.
Prior to the arrival of the Old World settlers, honey bees were unknown to Native Americans. In fact, several early American writers, including Thomas Jefferson, reported that honey bees were called “white man's flies.” The name was recognition that the appearance of honey bees in America was associated with the arrival of the Europeans.
There was a close association between the westward migration of Europeans and the establishment of wild colonies of honey bees. Native Americans were said to have noticed that shortly after colonies of honey bees were discovered, white settlers would not be far behind.
So when did the first colonies of honey bees arrive in the New World? These bees probably came from England and arrived in Virginia in 1622. By 1639 colonies of honey bees were found throughout the woods in Massachusetts. Some of the colonists who arrived at Plymouth likely brought bees, as well as sheep, cows and chickens on the trip across the Atlantic.
Once the bees were introduced, they, like other insects, were able to increase their range by moving into new territory. Honey bees increase colony numbers by swarming. Swarms are able to fly several miles to establish a new colony.
Such migrating swarms brought honey bees to Connecticut and Pennsylvania by the mid 1650s. Honey bees had swarmed their way into Michigan by 1776 and Missouri, Indiana, Iowa and Illinois by 1800. In the next 20 years or so, bees had made their way to Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, as well as Wisconsin.
Further westward migration of the honey bee was slow. In 1843 it was reported that there were no honey bees beyond Kansas. However, Mormons arrived in Utah, and the first bees were taken there on the back of a wagon in 1848. So successful was this introduction, it was reported that a considerable amount of honey was being made in the southern counties of Utah. By 1852 the swarms had reached Nevada.
Bees were finally introduced into the Pacific Coast states by using a sea route along the East Coast and crossing Panama, before using the Pacific Ocean for the final part of the journey. It was in 1853 that botanist C. A. Shelton used this route to introduce the first honey bees into California. Only enough bees from 12 colonies survived to establish one colony, but it was enough to allow history to credit him with starting the honey bee industry in the golden state.
Transporting colonies of bees either by sea or land in the 1700s and 1800s was not easy. The sea voyage from England lasted six to eight weeks, and it was not easy to keep bees alive for that length of time while confined. Many of the attempts to transport bees were unsuccessful as many stories relate.
For once in our history, the introduction of a foreign insect has a happy ending. After all, honey bees are a very important part of agriculture in this country, and we really can't do without them. Even if they do sting us once in a while!
State Attorney General George Jepsen announced Thursday a Hartford Superior Court judge recently approved the revocation of Aaron Huntsman's pension.
So, Huntsman loses out on $1,530 a month pension and was sentenced to one year in prison. Huntsman apologized.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Virginia Murder-for-Hire Plot
Tammy Kelly
(Culpeper, Virginia) A 44-year-old local woman, Tammy Kelly, has been accused of trying to have four family members killed.
Kelly, of Stevensburg, was arrested Thursday after authorities allege she attempted to hire an undercover officer to kill her grandson’s maternal grandparents and their two adult children.[…]
The Sheriff’s Office became aware of the plot on Monday and set up the undercover operation.
Kelly faces counts of soliciting for murder and attempted capital murder.
Colorado Woman Accused of Attempted Murder
Carol Gallegos
(Colorado Springs, Colorado) A 56-year-old woman, Carol Gallegos, was arrested for repeatedly ramming her minivan into walls of a home, causing a wall to collapse.
Gallegos was arrested after she fled the scene. She is in custody for DUI, domestic violence and three counts of attempted first-degree murder.
California Teacher Faces Student Sex Charges
Lindsay Himmelspach
(Butte County, California)
A Butte County teacher accused of having sexual relations with her students appeared in Butte County Court Wednesday, pleading not guilty to charges of unlawful sex with minors.
Lindsay Himmelspach was a PE teacher at Las Plumas High School in Oroville until she was arrested on October 30.
The 33 year-old is accused of having sex with two 17 year-old boys, one from Prospect High School and the other from Las Plumas High School.
OK
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Tennessee Teacher Faces Child Sex Charges
Serena Rae Milan
(Knoxville, Tennessee) A local teacher is in trouble.
A grand jury indicted Serena Rae Milan, 28, on charges of statutory rape by an authority figure, solicitation of a minor, especially aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor, and sexual activity involving a minor.
According to the grand jury presentment, the alleged sexual abuse happened between February and July of 2015.
Milan was an English Language Arts Intervention teacher. I have no idea what that means. Does it mean that the teacher intervenes in English?
Bimbo gives scientific advice
Only problem: It isn't scientific. She has no idea of the regulatory hurdles businesses have to get over in order to release a new product. And her usage "linked to" can mean anything. Let me do some of it: Christie Brinkley is a Communist. I have no idea if she is or not, but now I've said that other writers can accurately say: "Christie Brinkley has been linked to Communism". Easy, isn't it? How to prove nothing in one easy lesson
Supermodel Christie Brinkley is speaking up about Monsanto, genetically engineered foods, or GMOs, and the role these controversial crops play in our health.
The 61-year-old’s new book, Timeless Beauty, provides insights on living a healthy lifestyle. One topic she’s particularly concerned about is food and how Big Food impacts our lives.
“I think there are so many issues with our food industry that are blatantly disrespectful to our planet and us as individuals,” Brinkley told FoxBusiness.com.
Brinkley spoke of the threat of monocultures on the honey bee population, in which enormous tracts of a single type of GMO plant such as corn or soy appear to make it hard for pollinators to thrive.
“The bees are suffering right now and without the bees—well, Einstein said when the bees go, the next thing that goes are people,” Brinkley said.
In response to Brinkley’s statement, Monsanto told FoxBusiness.com:
“We were surprised to hear Ms. Brinkley’s comments. Honeybees are essential in agriculture. Monsanto’s own fruit, vegetable, canola and alfalfa seed businesses depend on healthy pollinators to be successful. We have made significant investments in collaborations and research for the betterment of honey bee health. All GMO crops are tested for potential impact on honey bees, as was glyphosate herbicide. These products, when used as intended, do not impact honey bee health.”
Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicide, Roundup, kills every plant except for the genetically modified (“Roundup Ready“) plants that are designed to grow right through it. While neonicotinoids are usually pegged as a chief culprit to the country’s devastating honey bee decline, scientists have linked the monarch butterfly decline to the near eradication of the milkweed, a critical food source decimated by Monsanto’s flagship weedkiller.
Glyphosate formulations have also been linked to a slew of negative human health effects, including cancer. Monsanto denies these allegations.
During Brinkley’s interview with FoxBusiness.com, she also made it clear that she’s an advocate of GMO-labeling, something that nearly 90 percent of Americans are in favor of.
“What I don’t like about GMOs is that we’re the guinea pigs. The testing—if there’s testing—we’re the ones doing the testing and that is not fair and furthermore it’s not labeled so we don’t know if we’re the ones eating them,” Brinkley said.
“All the time we’re finding various links and I want my food pure and it can be done,” Brinkley added. “Monsanto and these giant companies are just taking over and their disrespect for our health and our rights is really maddening.”
Brinkley, who is a vegetarian, eats organic food but recognizes that not everyone can afford it.
“The more we all join in and demand organic foods, the better off that we’re going to be because every day they’re linking the chemicals, insecticides, pesticides and herbicides to men becoming sterile and with women it could be linked to the breast cancer epidemic that we’re seeing,” Brinkley said.
Brinkley also suggested other ways we can learn more about what’s in our food. “One way that’s very easy to get involved is for people to Google Monsanto and read about what’s going on,” she said.
She urges people to sign online petitions and have discussions about GMO food labeling, and to “make yourself heard so we can clean up the food industry and know what we’re eating.”
Brinkley is not the only celebrity involved in the contentious GMO food fight. Musician Neil Young dedicated his entire last album to taking on big corporations like Monsanto.
Detectives conducted a traffic stop of the vehicle near IH-10 and FM 105. As the Detectives approached the vehicle, they observed the female driver attempting to hide a package that they believed contained illegal drugs. The female admitted to possessing the illegal drugs and was arrested. The total amount of drugs found was approximately 9.6 ounces of what was believed to be methamphetamine.
Courmier was arrested with bond set at $300,000.
Montana Embezzlement Case
Laura Nicole Simpson
(Deer Lodge, Montana) The 42-year-old former treasurer of the Montana School Counselor Association (MSCA), Laura Nicole Simpson, has pleaded guilty to embezzlement.
According to court records, Simpson served as treasurer for the organization for approximately 12 years. On Oct. 16, 2014, the Executive Board voted to remove her from the MSCA account and open a new account after newly elected president Catherine Dennehy noticed discrepancies when she began reviewing the MSCA bank accounts. The record indicates the past president had not enforced the organization’s policies that required the executive board to approve expenditures over $100.
On Oct. 28, 2014, Simpson deposited a cashier’s check for $38,758 from the First Security Bank in Deer Lodge (her personal account) into the MSCA bank account.
A pre-sentence investigation is underway.
Tuesday, November 17, 2015
New York Teacher Guilty of Child Sex Abuse - Update
(Binghamton, New York) A 39-year-old dance instructor, Julie Werkheiser, has been found guilty of sexually abusing two children.
Werkheiser was convicted on two counts of predatory sexual assault against two different children under 13 years of age.
Being found guilty, Werkheiser faces many years in prison. She currently resides in the Tioga County Jail.
* * * * *
New York Teacher Accused of Sex Assault of Child [Previous 11/11/14 post]
(Binghamton, New York) A 38-year-old dance teacher, Julie Kay Werkheiser, has been accused of sexual assault of a young child.
The alleged sex assault occurred over a period of three years, from 2004-2007.
According to the Waverly Police Department, Tioga County Court issued an arrest warrant after Werkheiser was indicted on two felony counts of predatory sexual assault against a child.
She also faces two felony counts of course of sexual conduct against a child.
Werkheiser was booked into custody at the Tioga County Jail without bail.
Britain in decay
Compare the two articles below. The British cops will no longer investigate if your car is stolen or your house is broken into. But they will arrest you if you say bad things about Muslims. How twisted can you get?
A 43-year-old woman has been arrested over a 'racially abusive' message posted on a beauty salon's Facebook page.
The woman has been named locally as April Major, the owner of the beauty business in Bicester, Oxfordshire.
The post, made following the terrorist attacks in Paris, said the salon is 'no longer taking bookings from anyone from the Islamic faith' , 'whether you are UK granted with passport or not'.
It added: 'Sorry but time to put my country first'.
Thames Valley Police arrested the woman yesterday after receiving a number of complaints about the message.
She has been released on bail until 30 November.
It was also met with criticism online, with social media users branding the person behind the post 'racist', 'ignorant' and 'vile'.
Laura Burt wrote: 'Thank God you have been arrested! Foul woman you deserve all you get!'
Victoria Alice Brady posted: 'Fantastic news TVP! In the light of the attacks on Paris.'
Scott Woods said: 'Can put fake lashes on ignorance but you can't educate it. You've a LOT to learn...racist and ignorant.'
A Thames Valley Police spokeswoman said: 'We have arrested a 43-year-old woman in Bicester today after a number of complaints about a racially abusive post on social media.
'The woman was arrested under section 19 of the Public Order Act which relates to the display of written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting with the intention of stirring up racial hatred, and for producing malicious communications.
'We take all such complaints seriously and will investigate.
'If you suspect that racially aggravated crimes are being committed please report them to Thames Valley Police on 101.'
British police force says it will STOP investigating minor crimes
A police force says it will stop investigating some minor crimes as it is forced to make £25 million worth of cuts over four years and faces losing 250 staff members.
Surrey Police's Chief Constable Lynne Owens said the force is not a 'civil debt recovery agency' and claimed crimes such as petrol theft may no longer be investigated.
As part of the cuts they will lose nearly 250 members of staff from its criminal investigation department.
It blames the measures on 'austerity-driven budget cuts' and an increase in crimes affecting vulnerable people.
Police and Crime Commissioner Kevin Hurley said: 'It has been impossible to escape the news stories highlighting desperate attempts by police forces and Police and Crime Commissioners to mitigate the effects of government funding cuts.
'I would like to thank Surrey Police for their concerted efforts to make sensible and thoughtful savings in this restructuring plan that is 'Policing in Your Neighbourhood'.'
The announcement comes just weeks after police forces were accused of giving a 'green light' to criminals after they admitted they had given up investigating some crimes.
It came as officers claimed they could no longer afford to pursue thieves who drive off without paying for petrol, walk out of restaurants before the bill or steal from shops.
And in a direct threat to motorists one police chief has pledged to 'max out' speed cameras along the M1 to fine every driver over 70mph because it could raise an extra £1million a year.
It led to campaigners accusing police forces across the country of 'holding motorists to ransom' after they admitted to using motorway speed cameras to cover shortfalls in their budget.
In the latest announcement, Surrey Police will cut 266 jobs and will be working with business and the public on preventative measures in order to reduce crime.
They will also run a campaign in the New Year to tell the public who to call with an issue, saying last year 10,270 requests could have been dealt with in a 'different way or by a more appropriate agency'.
The criminal investigation department will be slashed from having 393 officers and back room staff to just 147.
A police spokesman said: 'It will happen through people being reassigned. And in those roles when people vacate them they will not be replaced. There won't be redundancies.'
The announcement came as Chief Constable Owens was grilled by MP Keith Vaz at the Home Office Affairs Select Committee over the policing plan on Thursday.
The Labour MP said: 'Isn't this a green light to the criminals that actually, you can come to Surrey, fill your car up with petrol, make off and not be pursued?'
Chief Constable Owens replied: 'If we have a repeat vehicle, repeat person or repeat location there is always going to be a requirement on policing to respond.
'But we are not a civil debt recovery agency and there are too many examples where policing has moved into gaps caused by others and it is those gaps that need to be filled.'
Of the 266 jobs cut, 32 will be officers jobs and the force will also merge its firearms and major crime investigation services with neighbouring Sussex Police.
Recently, a Daily Mail investigation exposed the shocking scale of fat cat pay in the public sector.
Amid the outcry about cuts to constabularies, it found some police chiefs were on more than £700,000 in pay, with allowances for home improvements.
One police back-office manager landed a six-figure deal for just 19 days of work over a year.
(Belmont, North Carolina) A 45-year-old former South Point High School teacher, Teika Watkins Helton, has been charged with sexual activity between school employee and a student.
Authorities say Helton was involved with a male student.
Maryland Teacher Sentenced in Sex Case - Update
Kelly Michelle Riddle
(Salisbury, Maryland) Former English teacher at Bennett Middle School, Kelly Riddle, has been sentenced in accordance with a plea deal to 18 months with all but 8 days suspended. The eight days will be spent doing community service.
* * * * *
Maryland Teacher Accused of Sex Abuse [Previous 5/31/15 post]
(Salisbury, Maryland) An eighth-grade science teacher at Bennett Middle School, Kelly Michelle Riddle, 32, has been accused of sexually abusing a student.
Riddle faces two counts of sexual abuse of a minor.
According to online Maryland court records, the two alleged incidents of sexual abuse occurred between June 1, 2014, and May 11, 2015.
A bond amount of $25,000 has been established.
More on Philippians 2:6
In my reading of the Bible I treat the text with great respect. With the obvious exception of parables and clearly Gnostic passages in the writings of John, I take it that the text means what it says and says what it means. And as an atheist I have no reason to do otherwise. I have no doctrinal position to defend. My interest is historical. I like to get back to what the text actually says and ignore the often pagan interpretations that have been laid on it by centuries of Christian writing.
And Philippians 2:6 is one of those passages that have been much subject to interpretation -- which is why I recently tried to point out the plain and simple meaning of what was being said there.
A reader has however drawn my attention to what the theologians and exegetes say on the subject so I thought it might be useful to comment on that.
In my initial comments, I started out with the passage as given in the KJV, which laboured under the fact that a critical Greek word -- harpagmon -- in the text was quite rare and therefore of unclear meaning. Following the precedents they had, the KJV translators rendered it as "robbery", which has caused much debate.
Ever since the Revised Standard Version came out, however, something of a consensus has emerged that harpagmon means more or less the opposite of robbery. I quote the RSV passage:
"Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped"
So it DENIES that Christ was equal with God -- much as John 14:28 does and directly in contradiction to the borrowed pagan doctrine of the trinity.
But you can't win 'em all, so the RSV translation of the Greek "isa" (as "equal") in that text is contentious. A word in one language often has no exact equivalent in another language but the Liddell & Scott lexicon gives "is" as the normal prefix for indicating that two things are LIKE one another. So a straightford translation of the text that fits in with Paul's use of "morphe" in the same sentence would be:
"Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count being LIKE God a thing to be grasped"
But you can see why they did not use that translation. It once again says that Jesus was NOT God. He was both in the "morphe" of God and "isa" God.
And "grasped" is still a bit ambigouous, which is why I originally suggested "hang on to" as the clearest and most straightforward translation.
So the in-context meaning of the text is that a godlike being became a human being -- which is, of course, the central Christian claim and in accord with the rest of the NT: In no way a strained claim, a perfectly straightforward claim.
Paul is however vague about in exactly what way Christ was Godlike. He spoke of Christ having the "form" ("morphe" in Greek) of God but what exactly did he mean by that? The most common more explicit meaning of "morphe" is "shape". But does God have a shape? That was surely not what Paul meant. Elsewhere in the NT, Paul is big on there being a spirit world with many inhabitants so once again context can guide us to the view that Paul was speaking of a spirit form. And that makes perfect sense of the text: Paul was saying that a spirit being became a human being.
So, on to the theological points raised by my correspondent:
I see Paul's letter as a pastoral one -- a letter explaining things to a Christian congregation, not some fancy bit of Greek philosophy. But some commentators dispute its classification as pastoral and call it "a basic Greco-Roman 'letter of friendship'". As Paul was a learned man in Greek thinking, that could be -- and complex interpretations of it in terms of Greek philosophy might be justified. But that is not what Paul actually said. In the opening verses of the epistle, he is perfectly clear what his letter is. From the NIV:
"Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all God’s holy people in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now"
There is nothing formal in that. It is a humble greeting to the whole congregation. And he goes on throughout the letter to give advice, which is what "pastoral" means. So the letter is meant to be understood by the whole congregation, not just by learned men. Interpretations of it as anything other than simple are therefore unwarranted.
Discussing what is meant by Jesus having the "form" ("morphe") of God, J.B. Lightfoot, however says:
"It remains then that morphe must apply to the attributes of the Godhead. In other words, it is used in a sense substantially the same which it bears in Greek philosophy"
As it happens, however, I think Lightfoot's interpretation is unusual even in the context of classical Greek. Liddell & Scott is the usual authority on classical Greek meanings and the synonyms for morphe that they give are: form, shape, figure, fashion, appearance, kind, sort. And all of those synonyms make clear that Jesus had something in common with god. They do not allow an interpretation that Jesus WAS god.
So I can see no reason to inject Greek philosophy into an interpretation of the text. Once the confusion caused by the mistranslation of "harpagmon" etc. is cleared away, the passage is quite straightforward.
It is however something of a wonder that, in such a short text, three Greek words can be mistranslated. It shows how ready people have been to twist scripture to fit their doctrinal preconceptions.
Incidentally, the translation in the New English Bible is quite good. The NEB aims at elegance so the translation is a rather free one but it conveys the overall meaning well. It reads "For the divine nature was his from the first; yet he did not think to snatch at equality with God". Once again we see that Jesus was like God but not God.
Detectives arrested a 30-year-old woman Friday in connection with a fatal hit-and-run crash in June that killed a man she knew and had been following, Tucson police said.
Detectives determined that the driver of the vehicle that fled the scene was Stephenie Schneider, who was booked Friday into the Pima County jail on suspicion of manslaughter and hit-and-run involving death, police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Bay said in a news release Saturday.
Schneider is accused of critically injuring Jonathan Potts, 33, who died at the hospital.
Nebraska Woman Arrested on Meth Charges
Mariah L. Buck
(Lincoln, Nebraska) A 38-year-old local woman, Mariah L. Buck, has been arrested in a methamphetamine drug bust.
When Buck answered the front door, a report says she allowed officers inside.
The report says she turned over 29.8 grams of meth, totaling about 149 doses. Officers said they also discovered a digital scale and multiple small baggies and meth pipes.
Buck was also charged with delivering meth within 1,000 feet of school.
Another domino falls: Southern California College Dean Resigns Amid Racial Issues
Parading their superior wisdom to the adult world is something students have always done, no matter how shallow or conventional their "wisdom" in fact is. And that takes the form of "protests" against adult authority. But the Left are so fully in charge of the universities and colleges that there is little of a conventional sort to protest about. So nowadays they pick on tiny things and demand the impossible. There HAS to be something to protest about that will draw attention to themselves. Their "protesting" will give them warm feelings of righteousness and heroism for many years to come
The dean of students at a small Southern California college resigned Thursday after protests linked to racial concerns on campus.
Mary Spellman, who held the position at Claremont McKenna College since 2010, announced her resignation in an email to students.
"I believe it is the best way to gain closure of a controversy that has divided the student body," she wrote.
"I hope this will help enable a truly thoughtful, civil and productive discussion about the very real issues of diversity and inclusion facing Claremont McKenna, higher education and other institutions across our society," Spellman added.
Student protesters had demanded her resignation amid complaints that her office wasn't doing enough to deal with the concerns of students of color and others who felt marginalized.
Last month, Spellman responded to a college newspaper piece by a Latina student discussing her concerns by saying that Spellman would work to help students who "don't fit our CMC mold."
"This was her decision. She did not consult with anyone in the administration before making her decision," college spokesman Max Benavidez said.
However, "it was the right thing to do given the situation," he said.
Spellman's decision also follows Monday's resignation of the University of Missouri's president and chancellor in the face of racially tinged protests.
The liberal arts school east of Los Angeles has a high academic reputation and around 20 percent of its students are international students. School figures showed that as of last fall, the campus had 1,325 students, including 57 African-Americans, 180 Hispanics and 137 Asians.
Last April, about 30 students wrote to President Hiram E. Chodosh to say they felt excluded and among other things asked for a mentoring program and more diversity in hiring.
There also were tensions over a photo that appeared on social media showing the junior class president with white women who were wearing false mustaches, sombreros, ponchos and holding maracas at a Halloween party.
Spellman's resignation came a day after the school president announced the creation of new "leadership positions" on diversity and inclusion in student and academic affairs.
An 18-year-old Fort Dodge woman was arrested Friday on child pornography charges.
Kelliann Beals allegedly created a fake social media account that portrayed the name and photographs of the victim, a Fort Dodge girl, according to a Fort Dodge Police news release.
Beals allegedly possessed several sexually explicit photos of the victim and then put the photos on the fake social media account, according to the news release.
Beals faces child porn charges.
Ohio Teacher Sentenced for Child Sex - Update
Lori Anderson
(Columbus, Ohio)
A veteran judge who has witnessed the worst in humanity over the years told a former Cridersville Elementary School teacher who sexually assaulted a child that she ranked up there with the worst he’s ever seen.
“You are a despicable person,” Judge Dale Crawford said Thursday to Lori Anderson before he sentenced her to 15 years in prison on three counts of sexual battery, each a third-degree felony.[…]
Anderson, 51, committed the crimes with her ex-husband, Charles Wycuff, 54.
OK
* * * * *
Ohio Teacher Guilty of Child Sex [Previous 10/5/15 post]
(Columbus, Ohio) First-grade teacher Lori Anderson pleaded guilty to sex charges involving a child today.
Anderson, 51, pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual battery, each a third-degree felony, and one count of misdemeanor obstructing official business. In exchange for the plea, 20 other criminal charges were dropped, including 12 counts of rape.
Sentencing is scheduled for November 12.
Philippians 2:6
This scripture has the unfortunate combination of being theologically significant while also being hard to translate. Verses 5-7 in the King James version read as follows:
5 "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6 who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7 but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men"
Which implies that Jesus was equal with God. Yet Jesus himself said: "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). Trinitarians wriggle around that in their usual pagan way but it is a pretty blatant contradiction.
And the whole interpretation depends heavily on the meaning of one Greek word: "harpagmon". It is mostly translated as "robbery" but it is a very rare word so firming up the meaning of it is difficult. I have a list of 7 different translations of it from 7 different Bible scholars.
And, even more importantly, the KJV translation "the form of God" above is misleading. The original Greek is "morphe theou", literally "of god form". The definite article is not used in the Greek so it is not the central God of the Christians that is being referred to at all. The text simply says that Jesus was godlike or of divine essence -- "a god", if you like. There are many spirit beings in Heaven so it is implied that Jesus was simply one of them, not the big boss over all.
Even without relying on fine points of Greek grammar, however, it should be clear that when Paul said Jesus was "morphe theos" he was in fact making clear that Jesus was NOT God. Jesus was simply in the form or shape of a god. If Paul had wanted to say that Jesus WAS God ("ho theos") there was nothing to stop him. But he was careful to claim only that Jesus had something in common with God -- his form or shape, probably meaning only that he was a spirit being. That Paul did believe in spirit beings we read at some length in 1 Corinthians 15.
Given all that, I think the meaning of the text as a whole is quite clear. I would translate it as: "who, although being of divine form did not try to hang on to that but [became a man]"
So I translate "harpagmon" as "hang on to", which makes perfect sense of the passage as a whole. I interpret "harpagmon" in context, in other words. And I am not going far out on a limb in doing that. "something to cling to", "something to hold on to" are used by other translators. See here.
So there is no contradiction with John 14:28. The humility of a spirit being becoming flesh is simply being pointed out.
A woman who impersonated a man to trick her female friend into sex in a "complex" and "bizarre" two-year deception has been jailed for eight years.
Gayle Newland, 25, wailed as she had to be forcibly removed from the dock at Chester Crown Court to begin her sentence.
Newland, of Willaston, Cheshire, disguised her appearance and voice as she persuaded the other woman to wear a blindfold at all times when they met up.
Newland was convicted of sexual assault.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Tennessee Woman Accused of $362K Theft
Teresa Sumpter
(Memphis, Tennesee)
A former secretary is behind bars after she allegedly embezzled more than $362,000 from her employer, a Memphis attorney.
Teresa Sumpter, 48, worked as a secretary for attorney Jerry Schatz from July 2013 to September 2015, according to the affidavit.
OK
Feminism
Writing here previously, I made some very summary comments on feminism so I thought that it may be time to say something more systematic about the subject. I have actually done some academic survey research into feminism so I do have some claim to being aware of the issues.
The first step in any science is taxonomy so I must offer some thoughts in that direction: Some women are not feminist at all. They are happy ladies who think that being a stay-at-home wife and mother is a great racket and that it's the men who bear the heaviest burdens. I married such a lady. She was a working mother when I met her and she jumped at my offer to "take her away from all that", to use an old and sometimes mocked expression. She is a keen cook too so the outcome was very beneficial to me too. I have told that little story in the knowledge that it will fill real feminists with disgust and anger, which is rather amusing.
But most women do subscribe weakly to feminism. They like equal pay for equal work and the opportunity to choose any occupation etc. As a libertarian I agree with that too.
Amusingly, they also often try to give their baby sons dolls and their little girls toy trucks. The children concerned educate them, however. In something like 95% of the cases, the boys go for the guns and the girls go for the dolls. Loving their children as they do, the mothers concerned rapidly admit the defeat of their experiment and conclude that "boys will be boys" -- as indeed they always will be.
One little anecdote a mother recently told me concerned her family of three boys, all fairly close together in age. Being fairly traditional, she gave her little boys the normal boy's toys but it is difficult to avoid the yammerings of feminists so she felt that maybe they would like a doll too. So she gave them one. They promptly tore its eyes out and ignored it thereafter. Normal boys do NOT like dolls!
But I happen to know a couple of little girls who really like trains! How come? Are trains not a boy thing? I certainly like trains. I can at times feel quite weepy with happiness about a magnificent steam train tearing along with its conrods flashing -- such as "Mallard" and "Bittern".
So how do we account for the little girl below? She is enjoying being near a train whilst holding a toy train. That is pretty trainy! So does the "stereotype" fall down there?
Not at all. As her insightful mother explained to me, it is all about Rev. Awdry's "Thomas the Tank Engine" stories, now very widely circulated. Thomas stories humanize trains and give them very recognizable faces and emotional lives. So the girls concerned see and like that side of Thomas and some tend to generalize that to all trains. So the inborn male/female differences ARE still at work in the photo
So that's normal people for you
Then we come to the radical feminists -- the women of the sort who appear in print claiming to be feminists and at the same time being obviously very Leftist. It is they who do all the howling at the moon and despise the normal divisions of labour between men and women that have always occurred and always will occur. As with all Leftists, the impossible ideal of "equality" is their watchword.
I think such women are mentally ill. Kate Millett being a good example. Loss of reality contact is the key feature of mental illness and these females seem to me to be in an advanced state of that. No facts are allowed to interfere with their conviction that they only difference between boys and girls is merely "something in the underwear" and that men systematically oppress women. The idea that men might love women is deeply alien to them. And they abhor marriage! A housewife is a "parasite," Friedan said: Such women are "less than fully human". And all the evidence from neurology about structural differences between male and female brains is simply ignored.
So how does such insanity arise? Mostly, I think, it is inborn. All the evidence shows that our level of happiness is inborn. Some of us are born cheerful and positive and become conservatives. Some of us a born with dysphoria and become Leftists -- whiners and miseries to put it plainly. And feminism is simply a subset of that.
That it is NOT about women is plain. It is about their own hangups only. Real crimes against women such as the genital mutilation practiced by many Muslims leave them silent -- even when such things are happening in their own country. And is there ever a whisper from them about the real oppression of women in such Muslim countries as Saudi Arabia? If feminists were really focused on the welfare of women, they would be unrelenting critics of Islam -- but in fact they ignore it
So all Leftists find in their environment things that are not ideal but, instead of adapting to it or bypassing it, they rage about it. Leftist men find things in their environment that enrage them and Leftist women find things in their environment that enrage them. And, because women are inherently more relationship-oriented, the often-difficult relations between the sexes drive Leftist females wild. "Men are the enemy" is seriously believed by many of them.
One subset of what makes women anger-prone is however hormones. Elevated levels of Progesterone, in particular are a known cause of irritability. So a small subset of feminists could presumably be "cured" by some sort of hormonal rebalancing. Men who have seen much of the normal hormonal cycle in women will readily identify the sorts of verbal outbursts they get at "that time of the month" with what one hears from the mouths of feminists. But the causes of chronic hostility are presumably various so many feminists are presumably normal hormonally.
OK. Another little illustrative anecdote: I particularly remember breakfasting one morning with a very grouchy wife. When I got home that night, however, I found a happy little thing sitting there. I said, "You've had your period, haven't you?". "Yes", she replied happily. Men who don't know about hormones don't know anything.
For whatever reason, however, hormones or not, Feminists have no perspective about male and female lives. They cannot see that men have hardships too. They think their own hardships are unique. They are narcissists. They are incapable of looking beyond themselves and their own experiences. Their evaluation of the world is totally lacking in balance. So they would never understand what is behind the Leibnitzian contention that we live in "the best of all possible worlds".
The truth is that "men" and "women" are mostly inadequate generalizations when it comes to privilege or lack of it. As the old saying goes: "One Man's Meat is Another Man's Poison". It all depends on individual likes and dislikes. Exactly the same situation or the same behaviour may seem fine to one woman and intolerable to another. What feminists see as "patriarchy" might seem to happier women as "womens' privilege".
For instance, many conservative women not only decry the eclipse of old-fashioned courtesy between men and women but in fact insist in their own lives that the courtesies be maintained or revived. I have had a lot of women in my life and I have yet to meet one who did not appreciate having a car door opened and closed for her! I suppose it is rather silly in some sense but feminists miss the point of it: It is a form of fun. We enjoy doing it. From a woman's POV it is a token of esteem and respect and those are very desirable things indeed.
So feminists are basically misfits lashing out mindlessly -- seeing as faults things that are made faults only by their own inadequacies and incomprehensions.
But have not feminists done some good things for women? They have, though not as much as one might think. Giving women the vote was once claimed by both sides as something that would bring about great social change. It does not appear to have done so. The old divisions still bubble on. We still have Leftists proposing solutions to problems that will only create further problems and we still have conservatives trying to prevent such follies.
And some of that continuity is probably due to what I noted above: The folly of treating women as an undifferentiated whole -- a fallacy feminists are much prone to. For instance, in recent U.S. Presidential elections, married women have tended to vote Republican while unmarried women have tended to vote Democrat -- to oversimplify a little.
And the "liberation" of women can go too far for the good of the society. With the possible exception of Muslims and Tasmanian Aborigines, all human societies have tended to protect their women. They try to keep their country's mothers out of the line of fire. Mothers and their children are seen as the future of the nation. These days, however, that is under heavy attack from feminists. They want to see women in the front lines of their national armies. They WANT their women to be shot at. And in the U.S. army that day seems to have come close
And the great feminist urge that women should have a career has been immensely destructive. Many men can't understand that at all. Men have careers to get money. Lucky ones are in jobs that they would do for nothing but most have to spend a lot of time doing things that they do not much like amid people whose company they would not normally choose in order to get on in their career. Why wish that on women too?
But many women are taken in by the feminist gospel and prioritize a career over having children. And by the time they are "ready" to have children they find that nature will not co-operate, with even IVF not helping to bring forth a baby in many cases. And those women who undergo the travails of IVF clearly want children badly, so their disappointment at missing out on children is very great. Children are undoubtedly the best thing in life -- even though there is no gain without pain -- so missing out on children is to miss out on a large part of life. And there are many women who bitterly regret being lured into that dead-end by feminist propaganda.
For some useful documentation of feminist insanity see here
UPDATE: I specified above that I was speaking of radical feminism but did not formally define that so I probably should expand my treatment a little there:
1). As with most Leftism, there are sects, schisms and theological disputes among radical feminists. Although I have read some of that literature, I don't think any sect in radical feminism is worth attention. It is the people who adopt the "gender feminist" stance (that biology does not matter) who seem to me to be mentally ill -- and most radical feminists are in that category.
2). There is of course a form of feminism that is well-accepted among conservatives: "equity feminism", as argued for by Christina Hoff Sommers and others. That form of feminism simply says that women should not be restricted in their choices by society simply because they are women. As I mentioned above, that view is just a form of libertarianism, and one with which I see no difficulty. If a woman CHOOSES to enlist in the Marines and can meet the same physical and mental standards as the men (normal women cannot) she should be given the opportunity to try out.
