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Charlie

Charlie Hebdo covers

Tell 'em

3 Genders?

Sure, in English there are three genders. Most nouns are implicitly neuter; ungendered in fact. Apart from that there is masculine and feminine. Generally these relate to the biological sexes.

Three genders, but only two sexes.

Just check your chromosomes, the'll tell you your sex, or do a below the waistline search. That'll tell you too.

What about intersex/trans-sex. These are deformities or abnormalities, usually non-functional so are of no species-significance; let's therefore not worry about them, while empathising for their sufferers.

Sex differntiation in language is culturally significant because the two sexes are needed to make babies. Helps to know where to look for a mate and clarifies language references, also given the general range of inclinations of the different sexes.

Now it gets confusing. The desire to label and categorise every grade of variation between male and female is a modern conceit and fails to accept the wide range of behaviour, interests and proclivities within each sex. A guy can be sweet and arty, a girl can be tough and 'ballsy'. Still male and female respectively: these are the biologically active differences, and that, socially is all that matters.

Hashtags

When there is a bushfire, the authorities tell us where it sits on their public rating scale...sort of a 'chef's hat' system for fire danger.

Often the news media will report on a disaster and tell us how 'knit' the community involved is, but they use an uncalibrated scale.

Here is the basic scale they could use: an internationally recognised ISO scale of community knittedness.

Of course, If the Not quite knit is a response to a loss of life by criminal action, the status becomes 'Unrevelled'. Entertainment workers are often involved; they mean 'fuck off' but no one's written down for them.

Not what I think t-shirts

All copyright.

Hit it with a stick

Best line from Jordan Peterson: if you can't get your own life in order, "you will hit something complicated with a stick and think that you've fixed it"

Invasion #2

SBS kindly broadcast a documentary on George III, the English king who gave secret instructions to James Cook on his exporatory voyage to the southern Pacific.

The letter was shown and narrated on the documentary, George instructed Cook thus:

"...treat any locals you find with respect...endeavour by all proper means to cultivate a friendship with them...inviting them to traffic [trade]...showing them every kind of civility and regard..."

Folau

Letter sent to me by a friend:

Folau is right in a way: his religion is based in a tribal belief. Tribes rejected homosexuality because it represented an existential threat to the survival of the tribe. Islam is similar, except the Koran of course calls for death to homosexuals, but for the same reasons.

There is a sound evolutionary reason for Folau's remarks as well. Any species seeks to preserve itself, therefore members of the species will seek to reject any anti-reproductive members as a threat. So Folau has both science and history well on his side.

However, having done religion in school, I can tell him what he should have said: "I can't see into anyone's soul, but we know that those who live in rejection of the God will stay in that rejection for ever if they do not seek to live in the God's family."

Environmental Ts

Invasion?

Cook's 'secret' instructions from George III:


Cook's Secret Instructions represent Britain’s first official expressions of interest in Australia. They record the quest for scientific discovery, combined with the desire to find exploitable natural resources and to expand Britain's control of strategic trading posts around the globe. The Instructions confidently assume that these varied interests could be made compatible with a respect for the native populations in those countries so identified.

The Secret Instructions provided that, in the event that he found the Continent, he should chart its coasts, obtain information about its people, cultivate their friendship and alliance, and annex any convenient trading posts in the King’s name.

The underline below is 'cultivate friendship and alliance with them'. Nothing about invasion here!

LGBTIQ -- the T-shirt you'll want to have

School smoking ceremonies

When I went to school a smoking ceremony was a bunch of louts up the back having a fag, then after being found out, being wacked for it. You didn't used to be able to smoke in schools.

Now you can, as long as its an aboriginal smoking ceremony.

Here's a letter you can use at your school too:

Dear Chief Medicine Man,

Please excuse [children's names] from attending the smoking ceremony to be conducted as part of harmony day.

Burning wood and leaf matter can emit the following toxic chemicals: acenaphthene, fluorene, phenanthrene, anthracene, fluoranthene, pyrene, benz[a]anthracene, chrysene,m benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene, dibenz[a,h]anthracene, benzo[g,h,i]perylene, indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene.

Given [children’s names] propensity to react to unusual chemical exposure it would be unsafe to expose them to the risk of inhaling any of these compounds.

Additionally, the smoking ceremony is an animist religious ceremony. I hope the school will balance it by holding Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Christian blessing or equivalent ceremonies. I also hope the school will point out that this is a religious ceremony and it represents a superstitious and scientifically uninformed worldview to which we do not subscribe.

If the school management does not believe in evil spirits, its endorsement of smoking ceremonies is cynical and insulting to Aborigines. It reinforces a patronising perception of Aborigines as quaint curios, picturesque Stone Age relics lost in their own dreamtime, a people divorced from the rest of a nation that ought to belong to everyone who lives in it.

How it is

Easter: time to give atheists a serve

Atheists generally think they are the smartest cookies in the tin.

Here are some T shirts to give perspective.