Paglia: Transgender & Civilization’s Decline

Link to entire video

Camille Paglia discussion at last fall’s Battle Of Ideas festival in the UK, in which the lesbian scholar and provocateur identifies transgenderism as a mark of a civilization deep into decadence, nearing collapse.

Via Instapundit link

Something for the hipters to think about.

"It was an early Sunday morning in April 2008 when I received a text message from my friend Ryan. “So sorry about what happened,” it read."

“What are you talking about?” was my response.

“Just Google Spike’s real name,” was all Ryan would say.

So I booted up my computer and typed in the name of my boyfriend of three years. I froze as I read the chilling words — it said he was “being held for the murder of his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.”

It didn’t make any sense. I was Spike’s girlfriend. I didn’t even have any ex-boyfriends. The reporter must have made a mistake.

But it turned out that the news story was correct. Spike had allegedly killed his girlfriend’s former lover. Except the girlfriend wasn’t me. Of all the ways to find out that your boyfriend is cheating on you, this one took the cake. (read more)

Don't you just hate when that happens.

"Rachel Dolezal's appearance is 'blackface,' brother says"

"On that day three years ago, he said, his sister Rachel Dolezal, 37, told him she was starting life anew in Spokane, Washington, where she's now head of the local chapter of the NAACP and chairwoman of a police oversight committee."

Ezra Dolezal came to visit her from Montana, where their parents live. His adopted sister was on her way to becoming one of the most prominent faces in Spokane's black community.

"She told me not to blow her cover about the fact that she had this secret life or alternate identity," Ezra Dolezal said Saturday. "She told not to tell anybody about Montana or her family over there. She said she was starting a new life ... and this one person over there was actually going to be her black father." (read more)

Someone on twitter is claiming questioning Dolezal's entry into Howard University, a historically black college, may have come at the expense of a natural born... African American person of color.

"I was going to rob this place but I know you"

The store clerk said the suspect looked at him and said, "(Expletive), I was going to rob this place but I know you."

The suspect then asked the clerk, "Do you know me?" When the clerk replied he did not recognize the man, the suspect said, "Good" and walked out of the store while giving a "thumbs up" sign to the clerk.

"An attempted robbery suspect changed his mind"

"Ulbricht denies all allegations. He is not the Dread Pirate Roberts"

"The prosecution insists off the bat that Ross Ulbricht = the Dread Pirate Roberts, and the Dread Pirate Roberts = Ross Ulbricht. The grand jury indictment is premised on that equation."

The Dread Pirate Roberts could not have picked a better pseudonym. The name is taken from a character in William Goldman’s The Princess Bride (later made into a film in 1987)—a dastardly masked man in black who later turns out to be the female protagonist’s childhood sweetheart Westley in disguise. In the novel and the film, “The Dread Pirate Roberts” is itself a pseudonym without a stable identity. Westley inherits the name from the previous Dread Pirate Roberts, who hands it over after retiring. The Dread Pirate Roberts is not so much a single individual as it is a persona, a reputation, a mask.

In the Silk Road case as well, there are rumors that the Dread Pirate Roberts was actually multiple people. It remains to be seen what the Ulbricht defense’s exact theory of the case is, or whether they will completely flesh out an alternative theory.

Adding to the strange ephemerality of this case is how the bulk of the evidence seems to be electronic in nature: digital footprints, IP addresses, e-mail accounts, chat logs, Internet postings, messages, Bitcoin transactions. Much of this evidence comes from the laptop that Ulbricht had open at the time of his arrest, so it is not as though the government’s case is impossibly flimsy. But the nature of the evidence still undermines their efforts to make the allegations sound as serious as possible. The evidence they present inevitably makes it all sound like a video game, or a recap of an Internet forum dispute in which the community manager bickers with other moderators and ends up permabanning them from the site.

Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt Support Shiloh's Wish To Be Called "John"

The couple's oldest biological child, who was assigned female at birth, joined brothers Maddox and Pax wearing sharp suits and short haircuts.

The eight-year-old's family fully supports their decision to self-identify — from an affinity for suits and ties to shorter hair to the name change. (Editor's Note: We have followed the Advocate's lead, and referred to John Jolie-Pitt as "they" as a gender-neutral pronoun to respect John's decision, whatever gender they may end up being.)

John (formally known as Shiloh)

"It was hard at first, to think, 'Who am I?'"

"The University of Utah is investigating a complaint that a convicted felon working at a fertility clinic replaced a customer's sperm with his own, fathering a girl 21 years ago."

The mother of the girl, Pamela Branum, says she and her husband discovered a genetic mismatch in their daughter, and were able to trace her lineage with help from relatives of the now-deceased fertility clinic worker, Thomas Ray Lippert.

"I don't think we're the only ones," Branum told CBS affiliate KUTV in Salt Lake City. "We think we're one of many" victims who used a clinic that was operated by faculty members.

The University of Utah says there is "credible" evidence of semen tampering or mislabeling. On Friday, the university announced it was opening a hotline and offering paternity testing to anyone who used the clinic between 1988 and 1993.

This may sound callous, but, I'm not sure what the fuss it about. Can you guys set me straight? I don't want to walk around in a crooked fashion ;)

“I know that people accept me for who I am.”

Eric Fromm has received a lot of hugs on campus lately — at least once a day since he “came out” as an atheist last week in an article in his Christian university’s online newspaper.

And while the Northwest Christian University student body president doesn’t quite know what to do with all the new attention he’s receiving, he says it’s a welcome change from the isolation, verbal attacks and accusing questions that he’d grown to expect as rumors about his nonbelief circulated.

Though his active campus involvement was enough to win him the student government presidential election, Fromm said he’s felt judged by some of his peers throughout college because, as he wrote in the article that appeared in the school’s Beacon Bolt newspaper last week, “I couldn’t force myself to believe in God.”

“I’m too young to really know what’s going to happen after death,” Fromm said. “What I really want to focus on is what I’m doing here, and what it’s going to change.”

The Register Guard

Goth Said Let It Be Dark

"Last week, “South Park” devoted an entire episode to mocking “those goth kids.” The compliment was perhaps backhanded, but it is a testament to the staying power of a countercultural identity that had its heyday in the mid-1990s. “Goth never truly dies,” said Lauren M.E. Goodlad, a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and an expert on goth culture. “Part of its aesthetic is undeath.” And yet, the goth “look” remains surprisingly difficult to pin down. Contemporary goths put together a collage of styles drawn from a variety of fringe influences. “‘Wear that! Do this!’ That would be a goth’s worst nightmare,” Professor Goodlad said. “And I don’t mean that in a good way.”

Beginning paragraph of an article on the Style Section of the NY Times written by Jennifer Daniel and Alicia DeSantis.

"I prefer curvy"

4 Plus-sized models comment on the Plus-Sized industry.

(Trooper York please pick up the white courtesy phone...)

Candice Huffine

Have you ever been encouraged to lose or gain weight in order to get a modeling job?

"When I was meeting with agencies hoping to be signed, the plus industry was very fresh; I honestly had no idea it was an option. As a result of that lack of info, I ended up seeing agencies who did not represent curvy girls. I was asked to lose 15 pounds. I was 14 years old at the time and hungry for a contract but knew that way of getting it was just not for me. I declined and was signed as a plus model that afternoon."

Fluvia Lacerda

How did you get into modeling?

"I used to work as a nanny in NYC, and one day, while on a cross-town bus, I was stopped by a magazine editor, and she asked me if I had ever considered the idea of becoming a plus-size model. She gave me her card and told me briefly about agencies that had the divisions that worked with plus-size models and encouraged me to go visit them."

Have you ever had to pad for a shoot?

"Never needed!"