Chris Navin

You may remember the girl with the mattress.

The girl with the mattress is actually a ‘mattress artist.’ She appeared at the State Of The Union, at the invitation of U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, from NY, dragging the mattress along (with her, on campus, as a symbol of her alleged rape).

Precisely because rape is such a horrible crime, next to murder, really, is the main reason not to leave it in the hands of activists alone. Activism, with its roots in ideology, often relies on emotion and outrage to advance its aims, and tends toward questionable use of statistics, and well, can lead to outcomes which violate people.

I can’t speak to the facts, nor what happened, but let’s say it was the secular witching hour, and many media outlets up to the President have reasons to incentivize this kind of behavior.

Young:

‘Yet this case is far from as clear-cut as much of the media coverage has made it out to be. And if Nungesser is not a sexual predator, he could be seen as a true victim: a man who has been treated as guilty even after he has proved his innocence.’

***We’ll probably never know what happened.

Cathy Young At Minding The Campus: ‘The Brown Case: Does It Still Look Like Rape?

Gender equity feminists are what I take Thomas Sowell to mean by ‘intellectuals’ and include many ‘intellectuals’ who use statistics to often justify preconceived ideas….which is…often misusing statistics:

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These are pretty much the kinds of policymakers finding a listening ear and ideological ally in the White House right now:

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Related Links: Christina Hoff Sommers (wikipedia) is trying to replacing gender feminism with equity feminism. She also wrote The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men.

Are You Man Enough? Nussbaum v. Mansfield…From The Harvard Educational Review-A Review Of Martha Nussbaum’s ‘Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education.’

Defending Eliot Spitzer…as a man who ought to be free of prostitution laws…but didn’t he prosecute others with those same laws?: Repost: Martha Nussbaum On Eliot Spitzer At The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A very Harvard affair: The Spelke/Pinker debate-The Science Of Gender And Science

Repost-Revisting Larry Summers: What Did He Say Again?…

From The NY Times: ‘Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity’

Ira Stoll, on blogging, after the Andrew Sullivan announcement:

‘I’ve seen the advantages and disadvantages of the old media world, and of the blog world, too. Blogging runs the risk of solipsism. The reporting resources and reputations of institutions are useful in getting phone calls returned, landing interviews, gaining access, and attention. But the issue isn’t whether, given a choice, we might return to the pre-blog world, or inhabit or invent, as Ben Smith imagines, a “post-blog” world. There is no turning back. Like it or not, we live in a blog media world. ‘

There’s a pretty low barrier to entry and much lower cost to communication since blogs like this one have become so easily available. Since then, personal-style, individual voice and personality can trump institutional authority, and have clearly affected how the media does business (Sullivan ran his blog pretty much like a business).

I’ve found there’s only so much room for depth on a blog, and I think it’s best used as a window on the world, a way to stay current, and to share one’s interests, talents, and knowledge with others, while experiencing the interests, talents and knowledge of others.

Worth keeping in mind: What you write about, how, and why, can often reveal as much about you as it does the subject you’re writing about. So, best to know something about the subject at hand, have some humility and curiosity, and expect some feedback and criticism.

Who you imagine your audience to be, and why you’re writing in the first place still matters a great deal, as it always has whether for knowledge, understanding, money, influence, praise, communication, friendship, attention, problem solving, creative expression…too many to name.

You know some of your reasons.

See you out there.