grey lining

Bloghog tries to be more incoherent than Ophelia Benson. Comes close.

As the old German proverb goes, blood is thicker than water. The cesspit of lies states “It generally means that the bonds of family and common ancestry are stronger than those bonds between unrelated people (such as friendship)”. But often it is also used as a lever to coerce obligation, “this phrase is usually used to remind family members that their allegiance should always remain with their family first, and outside acquaintances second”.

It’s all a rather convoluted way of describing what are base mammalian pack instincts. In humans, whatever way you look at it, the results are always skewed in the same way – the pack does not see flaws that are obvious to outsiders and, conversely, exaggerates trivial achievements to the level of heroism whilst others don’t seem to notice a thing. Case in point: Jen McCreight’s daddy thinks the world is being unfair and cruel to his precious princess that has, evidently, done so much for the rest of us and lets us know in word salad of appeal to pity and bare-knuckle machismo. All sic –

Learn Some Civility

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been in blog retirement.  I decided that writing a blog really wasn’t me.  I am more of the loud mouth uncle at the family reunions, than the carefully thought out writer.  But, I am coming out of retirement for one last hurrah.  It seems that my daughter, who is a gifted writer and activist, has decided to quit blogging because of the negative bull shit she has to put up with. 

First I would like to make a confession: I am an atheist.  My daughter is an atheist blogger.  But for the record, she did not become an atheist because of my brainwashing.  Quiet the contrary, her courage to speak out for those who have no religious clout, greatly influenced me in realizing I was an atheist.  I admired her courage to try to fight for the civil rights of this ignored part of society. 

But, she has paid a great price.  She has caught unbelievable shit for speaking out.  People who call her whore, cunt, bitch, etc. need to learn some civility.  Some parents forgot to teach their children how to disagree without being disagreeable.

The Internet has allowed a lot of people to express their thoughts.  But, it has also allowed anonymous people to publish pure hate and filth without any accountability.  If someone has enough balls to call my daughter a slut to her face I would quickly introduce them to some accountability – a quick fist to the mouth.

What we need in our society is a multitude of free thought, not a multitude of foul mouths.  I am sorry that humanity has lost a great voice for advancing atheist civil rights.  But I am extremely proud of the unselfish service she has given to this group — which includes me.   

Now, I am going back to retirement.

[Bold – sproing go the irony meters]

My response to this paternal diatribe is somewhat confused. My initial thoughts are that he’s never actually read anything she’s written and it’s just your common, protective daddy’s-little-girl arc up. Or if he has read any, then he’s only read the highly selective director’s cuts that Jen has fed him.

There is also the slim possibility that he has read everything she’s ever babbled – in which case the blood in this family is so thick its a clot. No matter. For the benefit of daddy then, in the event he’s missed the good bits, lets recap the highlights of Jen’s selfless contributions to godlessness –

• Boobquake

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2010/04/in-the-name-of-science-i-offer-my-boobs/

This episode was more publicity stunt than protest that would make a shred of difference – and there is nothing wrong with that per se. The stunt protest itself was in response to a certain Iranian cleric blaming earthquakes on immodestly dressed women and was proposed on Blag Hag as follows –

Time for a Boobquake.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.

Now under normal circumstances, I applaud these types of stunts protests wholeheartedly. Love them. Especially when they make allah wailers jump up and down and spray feces in their thawbs. Where I do have a problem with this is when it comes from folks like Jen McCreight…

Let’s get real. Since boobquake Jen has devoted virtually all of her time cashing in on the hysterical, never ending Elevatorgate tantrum vomited up by the gruesome twosome of Rebecca Watson and PZ Myers that has managed to so utterly poison the godless community. I have an issue with Jen on the one hand organising the equivalent of a SlutWalk to protest the idiotic proclamations of an Iranian psychopath, while on the other jumping on board the neo-puritan Myers/Watson circus to revive Victorian shame, fear and guilt in human sexuality. I have an issue when Jen proclaims nonsense such as –

I don’t feel safe as a woman in this community – and I feel less safe than I do as a woman in science, or a woman in gaming, or hell, as a woman walking down the fucking sidewalk.

– where this community is that of atheists and skeptics. I have an issue where Jen has been smearing the entire community that is not fully supportive of her divisive gender fembot “faith” as rape apologists/woman beaters and gender traitors/collaborators without providing a shred of evidence. I have an issue with Jen personally slandering me, proclaiming me a dangerous out of control maniac, with an implied history of violence against women, akin to Dave Mabus and that no woman can ever be safe if I’m even on the same continent as them, again without a shred of evidence. Most of all, I have an issue with Jen’s narcissist delusions that she is somehow a love goddess who’s allure is so aphrodisiac no man can resist the temptation to hit on her and grope her… Get real Jen. You have no idea how hard it is for me to resist saying something both incredibly insulting and brutally realistic to puncture your self-infatuation balloon. Really, just get real. If it comforts you and makes you feel less threatened, I doubt any male has ever bragged about the experience of sharing your company.

So yeah, I do have an issue with Jen and her boobquake SlutWalk. It’s just a tad hypocritical. As in it reeks like a month old corpse in a sewer.

Curiously, the cesspit of lies entry on Boobquake notes that “She [Jen] attributes her activism to reading Richard Dawkins‘ book, The God Delusion“. We’ll get more on Dawkins below.

Special bonus bullshit: Stephen Colbert called me “smoking hot”¹ (post-Boobquake teevee appearance)

On the way out another young woman came up to me and said she loved boobquake. What she said pretty much summarizes how I feel:

Her: That’s so awesome having Stephen Colbert do a piece on you. Can it get any better than that?

Me: I used to think not, but yes, it can. Stephen Colbert just called me smoking hot.

Her: …Very true.

I can think of no better end to this New York vacation. I just can’t make stuff like this up (Nikki can confirm). Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go die of glee.

Uhuh. Whenever anyone deals with Jen, I guess it’s best to ask up front what set of standards she is applying on that particular day before doing anything else. Failure to do so only courts disaster – and tears and wailing from Jen atop her martyr’s podium.

• The Penn Jillette lynchmob

http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2012/02/women-who-dont-amuse-penn-jilette-are-cunts/

Yes, we all know how hypersensitive you Americans are to the word cunt. You expect the whole planet to be as offended as you, and therefore you are entitled to dictate to the rest of the English speaking world about how we may, or may not, use our own language variants. Possibly the greatest example of American cultural imperialism there is, bar none. But really, get over yourselves you pompous cunts.

Jen eavesdropped on a private Facebook conversation between Penn Jillette and his friend Emily Simon where Penn called journalist Lindy West a cunt. And, fine skeptic that she is, she turned it into the sweeping generalisation that all Women who don’t amuse Penn Jillette are cunts – in fact the title of the dedicated blog post where she casts him into misogynist purgatory –

I’m done with Penn Jillette. We can come up with better skeptical role models and celebrities than this.

Ouch. And as is usual, this action spawned a multitude of other monkey-see-monkey-do condemnations. It didn’t end there either, spilling out into other forums and inciting Twitter wars.

Jen quote mined (that most abhorrent of fallacious practices) Jillette, stripped context and concocted her own hyperbolised interpretation. For what? For blog hits and publicity. This is gutter tabloid territory. Is this something to be proud of daddy? OK, if you say so.

• The question of Dawkins

This is where Jen flip-flops like a frog on a hotplate. I mean really Jen, are you using your mind or your emotions? You’re like a teenage girl who’s alternately elated or in a hissy fit depending on whether her favourite boy band member has just gotten a new girlfriend or dumped one. Let’s have a look –

Richard Dawkins, your privilege is showing – 20110702

Dear Muslima – Jen berates Dawkins insensitivity because he “makes me want to cry a little when you live up to the stereotype of a well-off, 70 year old, white, British, ivory tower academic”. [Daddy is also directed to The Privilege Delusion – Rebecca Watson’s truly repugnant anti-Dawkins screed and call for a Dawkins boycott, a post Jen wholeheartedly supported]

Dawkins is not a misogynist – 200110708

Skates on thin ice by deviating from established orthodoxy – yes Dawkins has privilege, but no he’s not a misogynist. But he’s flawed and made a terrible mistake by speaking out of turn to Rebecca Watson. Jen is also generous – it’s not too late for Dawkins to change. She wants to give him time. The magnanimity brings a tear to the eye.

Dawkins announces funding for childcare at conferences – 20110719

Praises Dawkins for introducing a program to subsidise child care at conferences, but is sympathetic to those disappointed that, yet again, that Dawkins didn’t offer the grovelling apology Rebecca Watson so richly deserved. So it’s a partial victory. Because surely Dawkins did this because of pressure from the Sisterhood of the Oppressed. And only because of them.

Richard Dawkins disappoints me yet again – 20120828

Richard has the gall to re-tweet a woman who tweeted that maybe the reason she hasn’t experienced harassment was because she didn’t assume all men were misogynists. How fucking traumatically awful…

But the pièce de résistance has to be the CFI’s Women in Secularism Conference panel on The Intersection of Non-theism and Feminism

Let me repeat what was just said in case you could not make it out. It’s aimed squarely at Richard Dawkins and his fellow oppressors that constitute the 4 horsemen (sans the sadly departed Hitch). They are –

super-star, white male atheists who’ve institutionalised a very narrow prescriptive, white supremacist, patriarchal version of atheism

And daddy, that is your princess sitting on that panel, nodding in agreement like her heads going to fall off, to claims that the hero that inspired her to be what she is today is an old, white, racist, patriarchal oppressor. A much hated demographic that you too would fall into daddy, should the Atheism+ Jacobins ever turn their sights on you.

Jen’s angry vagina

That sums up the activities of note. The rest is more or less the same. Self-promotional stunts of lesser note in the desperate pursuit of blog hits; repeated, baseless, sensationalist accusations against others in the community that fail to subscribe to her narrow and rigid brand of ideological “faith” for the same reason; protracted attacks against myself and countless others to manufacture BigLies to permanently slur reputations, most notably Abbie Smith of Scienceblogs, where she partook in a campaign to have her blog censored or removed, and to have her university terminate her employment (one assumes these activities were just for the fun of it); and her long running campaign to undermine and subvert the godless movement – attacking, amongst others, DJ Grothe of JREF and Paula Kirby, the original “gender traitor”; and, last but not least, working overtime to entrench the repugnant “atheist misogyny” meme into the psyche of the community by an endless stream of self-pity and mountains of alleged “physical threats” that for reasons known only to her, are never reported to authorities that do look into these things, nor any evidence ever presented. There’s a much simpler term for most of these activities – smear campaigning – which is pretty much all that she and the rest of the inner cabal of Freethoughtblogs seem to do with their time.

And as for your boasts of being proud of the unselfish service she has given to this group – sorry, we actually need evidence. The closest I can come up with is her angry vagina workshop, making cunts out of cardboard and ribbon. The rest of the time she seems to do little but freeload off the community, in the same manner as the rest of the parasites at FfTB and Skepchick, traipsing around the world from one subsidised conference booze up to the next. As much as it may pain you, her real contributions have been NIL.

Basically daddy, your princess has been pissing all over the godless community for years now, calling them (depending on gender) rapists, rape apologists, rape enablers, gender traitors, collaborators, misogynists, sexists, stalkers, threat makers, abusers, harassers and whatever other hate buzzword is popular on any given day, all without any kind of evidence to support the relentless smearing.

And the ugly reality, daddy, that doesn’t seem to penetrate Jen’s solipsist reality space is that the internet actually is a cruel place. Those that spend as much time as your princess shrieking about imaginary evils, sooner or later, do start to attract those evils – the drive by trolls like 4chan or EncyclopediaDramatica for example. Princess is very much what you would call a “self-fulfilling prophecy” – her darkest, most paranoid fears have begun manifesting around her from folks that aren’t even atheists, don’t really care who they pick on, only do it for the lulz and just love folks like Jen that can be made to jump in such predictable patterns.

You want to blame someone daddy? How about blaming Jen for building such an irresistible honeypot of outrage and indignation that juvenile jerks – who spend their days toying with people like Jen because they know very well what reaction they will get – simply can’t resist. Jen, of course, would react in the predictable way, and pull out her “you’re blaming the victim card” – but as a parent, you are obligated to deliver harsh truths.

So daddy, maybe you should sit princess down and have a long father to daughter talk. Because if she wasn’t such a spiteful moron in the first place, none of this would have ever happened. You might also suggest some professional assistance too – because for Jen to go from proclamations of Victory over the Forces of Evil to pity flouncing in the space of a week or so tells me that princess is on an emotional roller coaster that’s starting to get a few loose rails. Bipolar anyone?

Daddy, it’s time for you to stop snarling at who Jen tells you to snarl at – using the coercive version of blood is thicker than water – and ruminate on the bigger picture.

¹ – Well, Colbert is a satirist…

Addendum 20120918 – And as a punchline to how the baboon brain works… Jen could not hold out on her flounce and simply had to inform the world of how monstrous it is to daddy (playing victim must run in the family) –

You know how I was afraid the hate would spread to my family?

Lets see. Daddy comes out all guns blazing, asserting her non-existent “unselfish service”; ignoring her relentless gibberish, deception and slander; and then threatens to beat her critics up – and Jen turns it around and makes out the “hate” came to him…

There was a time when this kind corrupt thinking and delusional mendacity would have surprised me. Those days are long gone.