What I’m Reading, April 23, 2014

David Jackmanson [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)], via FlickrApparently, We Need To Remind People That Pro-Choice Women Are Allowed To Have Babies, Samantha Lachman, Huffington Post, April 17, 2014

Chelsea Clinton is pregnant, and some anti-abortion activists responded to the news Thursday by showing they don’t understand what being “pro-choice” means: being able to choose to have a baby, or not.

White Supremacist’s Genocidal Paranoia: Inside the Mind of the White Man March Founder, Toby McCasker, AlterNet, April 19, 2014

Masked ethnic nationalism had been enjoying a nice stay as a dot-point in the “dark enlightenment” of the so-called neo-reactionary movement, but bigotry is never content to be itemized. Say hi to nuwe racism, and the composite ire-ony of using the Afrikaans for “new” here seems so complexly black and white as to transcend meta. Hyper-aware there is less and less room on earth for old hate, nuwe racists dress their prejudice in conspiracy and pseudoscience and call it “pride.” Pride is a much more appealing sin than wrath, and allows them to, heinously, plead victimhood just as they pursue a policy of victimization. It is like punching someone and getting angry at them for hurting your fist.

The Supreme Court Will Consider What Defines “Pregnancy”, Mark Strauss, io9, April 21, 2014

The underlying issue is the definition of pregnancy. Biologists and doctors say it begins at implantation—when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the lining of the uterus. The owners of Hobby Lobby, however, believe that life begins when an egg is fertilized and argue that anything that interferes with implantation is abortion, since it prevents fertilized eggs from becoming viable pregnancies.

Rape of Thrones, Sonia Saraiya, A.V. Club, April 20, 2014

It’s hard to shake the idea that Game Of Thrones, the show, doesn’t see a problem with pushing a scene from complicated, consensual sex to outright rape. It would be easier to accept that idea if it were clear what the show was trying to do with those changes. Rape is a tricky thing to use as character development, for either the victim or the rapist; doing it twice raises a lot of red flags. It assumes that rape between characters doesn’t fundamentally change the rest of their story—and it assumes that the difference between consent and rape is, to use the parlance, a “blurred line.”

Photo credit: David Jackmanson [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr.

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