February 28, 2022

Blogger from Kiev, who doesn't actually exist.

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1498349668522201099

Note: fairly long thread.

February 28, 2022

Twitter thread: geopolitical implications about Russia.

https://twitter.com/RHFontaine/status/1498101441814310914

February 23, 2022

Escape from Womanhood

Helena Kerschner is a 23-year-old detransitioned woman who identified as transgender during her teenage years and was prescribed testosterone shortly after her 18th birthday. After being on testosterone for a year and a half, she realized that transitioning was a misguided way of dealing with her social and emotional struggles. Now, years later, she is interested in exploring the cultural and psychological factors that contribute to the sharp rise in the number of adolescent girls identifying as transgender and choosing to medically transition with hormones and surgeries.

In my efforts to understand the personal factors that led me to identify as transgender and eventually decide to mistakenly transition, I’ve always been struck by the overwhelming role the internet has played in my life.

Online pornography, which studies show most kids are now exposed to by the age of 13, has become virtually inescapable. Faster than we can even measure its impact, this new world of porn is drastically changing how young people form their perceptions of sexuality and adult relationships. It would be foolish to think that it wouldn’t have major consequences. In my own life, I can see how being inundated with pornographic imagery as a young woman, much of it violent, and being repeatedly told that this was normal and even cool led me instinctively to look for an escape from womanhood.

Pornography isn’t what it once was. Fifty years ago, young boys could find a stash of magazines and become enthralled by the sexual images within them. But these still photographs, which needed to be sought out, are only loosely related to the novel phenomenon of pervasive online pornography. MindGeek, the company that owns many of the most popular porn sites, including Pornhub, boasts 125 million daily visits and quietly collects massive amounts of data from its users, which it uses to sell targeted ads and to create content that appeals directly to younger audiences. Many porn users attest to a “tolerance” effect, whereby they no longer feel sufficiently stimulated by scenarios that were once arousing and are motivated to seek ever more extreme content. To keep their audience’s attention, the endless quantities of new porn being produced are eternally novel. Without even looking for it, anyone can now stumble on footage so grotesque and abusive to the people involved, a person who does not have a porn “tolerance” would likely be mortified.

Alongside this ever-increasing normalization of pornography usage by young children and adolescents, there has been an unprecedented explosion in the number of children and teenagers identifying as transgender. Official British government figures from 2018 show that in less than a decade, the country saw a more than 4,000% increase in the number of minors being referred for gender treatments, including hormone injections. Most of the increase was driven by girls. In the year 2009-10, only 40 girls in England sought gender reassignment, but by 2017-18, the number had ballooned up to 1,806. In the United States, a 2019 report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons found that gender-confirming surgeries (GCS) were a “rapidly expanding field. Of all procedures recorded by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS), GCS was among the most rapidly increasing from 2016 to 2017.” The most rapid increase, according to the ASPS, was among women transitioning to men: a 289% increase in one year.

https://thedailyscroll.substack.com/p/escape-from-womanhood

February 19, 2022

I had forgotten about Berger. Remember what he did?

https://twitter.com/lindyli/status/1494790416008372230

February 13, 2022

Tweet of the day

https://twitter.com/EthanBearman/status/1492503493256511489

January 26, 2022

Is Old Music Killing New Music?

Old songs now represent 70 percent of the U.S. music market, according to the latest numbers from MRC Data, a music-analytics firm. Those who make a living from new music—especially that endangered species known as the working musician—should look at these figures with fear and trembling. But the news gets worse: The new-music market is actually shrinking. All the growth in the market is coming from old songs.

The 200 most popular new tracks now regularly account for less than 5 percent of total streams. That rate was twice as high just three years ago. The mix of songs actually purchased by consumers is even more tilted toward older music. The current list of most-downloaded tracks on iTunes is filled with the names of bands from the previous century, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival and The Police.

I encountered this phenomenon myself recently at a retail store, where the youngster at the cash register was singing along with Sting on “Message in a Bottle” (a hit from 1979) as it blasted on the radio. A few days earlier, I had a similar experience at a local diner, where the entire staff was under 30 but every song was more than 40 years old. I asked my server: “Why are you playing this old music?” She looked at me in surprise before answering: “Oh, I like these songs.”

Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact. In fact, the audience seems to be embracing the hits of decades past instead. Success was always short-lived in the music business, but now even new songs that become bona fide hits can pass unnoticed by much of the population.

Only songs released in the past 18 months get classified as “new” in the MRC database, so people could conceivably be listening to a lot of two-year-old songs, rather than 60-year-old ones. But I doubt these old playlists consist of songs from the year before last. Even if they did, that fact would still represent a repudiation of the pop-culture industry, which is almost entirely focused on what’s happening right now.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/old-music-killing-new-music/621339/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

January 20, 2022

Why So Many People Still Don't Understand Anti-Semitism

Most people do not realize that Jews make up just 2 percent of the U.S. population and 0.2 percent of the world’s population. This means simply finding them takes a lot of effort. But every year in Western countries, including America, Jews are the No. 1 target of anti-religious hate crimes. Anti-Semites are many things, but they aren’t lazy. They’re animated by one of the most durable and deadly conspiracy theories in human history.

This past Saturday in Texas, another one found his mark. According to the latest news reports, Malik Faisal Akram traversed an ocean to accomplish his task, flying from the United Kingdom to America in late December. On January 15, he took Colleyville’s Congregation Beth Israel hostage for more than 11 hours. When it was all over, Akram was dead and his captives were not. The hostages escaped after their rabbi engineered a distraction, drawing on security training he had received from the Anti-Defamation League and other communal organizations. Something else most people don’t realize is that many rabbis need and receive security training.

Speaking about Jews as symbols is always uncomfortable, and that’s especially the case when bullet holes are still fresh in the sanctuary. But the sad fact is, that’s why the Texas congregants were attacked in the first place: because Jews play a sinister symbolic role in the imagination of so many that bears no resemblance to their lived existence.

...

Anti-Semitism isn’t just bigotry toward the Jewish community,” Ward explains. “It is actually utilizing bigotry toward the Jewish community in order to deconstruct democratic practices, and it does so by framing democracy as a conspiracy rather than a tool of empowerment or a functional tool of governance.” In other words, the more people buy into anti-Semitism and its understanding of the world, the more they lose faith in democracy.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/texas-synagogue-anti-semitism-conspiracy-theory/621286/

YR is making a very salient point here, antisemitism tends to undermine democracy and liberal values.

January 20, 2022

Texas synagogue terrorist ranted about "f***ing Jews" in last call to family made during siege

The British terrorist who took four people hostage inside a Texas synagogue ranted about the “f***ing Jews” in the final phone call he made to his family during the siege, a recording obtained exclusively by the JC reveals.

In a chilling conversation with his brother in Blackburn from inside the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Malik Faisal Akram, 44, said: "I'm opening the doors for every youngster in England to enter America and f*** with them”.

Addressing fellow jihadists, he shouted: “Live your f***ing life bro, you f***ing coward. We’re coming to f***ing America. F*** them if they want to f*** with us. We’ll give them f***ing war.”

https://www.thejc.com/news/world/exclusive-texas-synagogue-terrorist-ranted-about-f-ing-jews-in-last-call-to-family-made-during-siege-2Y5rmNYVAwKPfoV3fMv8i6

Audio at link or here:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=5xGeobkeJRw

January 18, 2022

Don't Let CAIR off the Hook for Its Role in the Colleyville Hostage Crisis

As Saturday Shabbat services were about to start, a man showed up to a Colleyville, Texas synagogue with a gun. His name was Malik Faisal Akram, and his goal was to take those in Congregation Beth Israel—a rabbi and three other Jews—hostage. He believed this would put pressure on American authorities to free Aafia Siddiqui, a terrorist convicted of trying to kill American military officers.

Why did he choose a synagogue? First, Siddiqui openly blamed Jewish individuals and the State of Israel for her 86-year prison sentence. When she was put on trial for grabbing the M4 rifle of a U.S. Army officer and opening fire on the members of the U.S. Armed Forces interrogating her for her ties to al-Qaeda, she had one demand as to the nature of her interrogators: no Jews.

https://www.newsweek.com/dont-let-cair-off-hook-its-role-colleyville-hostage-crisis-opinion-1670123