Blog

If you don’t know if it’s a joke or a lie, what’s it called?
There is a word. When they issue statements halfway between jokes and lies, and they joke about it being a lie and lie about it being a joke, there’s a word for that.

Atheist-theist encounters
If you’re pretty sure there’s no god, when may you tell theists they’re wrong? Sometimes knowledge is best cultivated through personal encounters rather than intellectual demands. We see each other, and we’ll also know the world.

Moral analysis of what is ‘at stake in this story’
Naomi Kanakia on discussing novels. How to discuss a book itself and also let our learning transcend the book? To see the book as art, and to see it as a tool for our growth?

A few drops of context: On snatching the Panama Canal
And why Trump is talking about trans people too. On Day One, it will be the official policy of the Trump administration that no one is allowed to be trans. Let’s talk about erasures.

He lied on his college applications and went to prison
‘Conning Harvard’ gives an example of what not to do. Adam Wheeler made headlines in 2010 when it was discovered he’d been admitted to Harvard under false pretenses. His prize-winning work had been faked too.

Publishing doctors’ names is a threat
The Nuremberg Files was 1990s anti-abortion doxxing. Some who presumably accessed ACLA material went on to murder abortion doctors. The court awarded millions of dollars in damages. The website was deleted.

I have questions, but Chait says I’m not allowed to ask any
Per Jonathan Chait’s NY Intelligencer column, trans people who ask questions are risking the 2024 election. When will we be allowed to speak? Can we speak up after the election? No, as then we’ll be told to start worrying about the next election.

The ‘man’–‘woman’ porridge has gotta stay in the Goldilocks Zone
Transphobes don’t want to be any more, nor any less, specific. They don’t want more specificity about ‘man’ & ‘woman.’ ‘Cis’ is a slur, they say. They don’t want less specificity either. ‘Person’ is erasure, they say.

Sorry, I’m out-of-body right now
I’ll answer your hate mail in another lifetime. Asking fake questions about etymologies and intra-community debates they don’t care about. They’ll follow up with fake theories about floating out-of-body.