Link Wednesday: I wish I had better news

From Queensland, renewed calls to end the use of character witnesses when sentencing those convicted of sexual offences:

"Good character" evidence was included in 91.6 per cent of the 131 rape cases sentences in the District Court from July 2022 to June 2023. "It can be particularly galling to a victim-survivor to hear at the time of the sentence that the person who perpetrated sexual harm on them is otherwise a 'good guy', a 'great father' or a model employee of citizen," the report said. "It is even more upsetting when these statements are referred to uncritically by the sentencing judge and magistrate — even if in practice they may be given little weight."

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Sky News marks Australia Day by killing history and logic

 At the end of a Catholic Mass, the priest bids the congregation farewell by telling parishoners "go in peace, to love and serve the Lord" to which those in the pews respond "thanks be to God."*

Now, imagine that a member of said congregation in attendance at Mass the previous Sunday was accused of committing a brutal murder the following Thursday. Under police questioning, the lead investigator tells our chruchgoer, "you can't account for your whereabouts at the time of the murder, your DNA was found under the victim's fingernails, and a bloody hammer was found in your car. How do you explain all this?" 

Our devoutly Catholic murderer explains "I couldn't possibly have done it. I was in church last Sunday, and the priest told us all sorts of things about loving our neighbours and told us to go in peace. No one could disobey such Godly commands!"

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Anita Bryant dead, 2025 not all bad so far

The hair is why there's a hole in the ozone layer

 

Anita Bryant, one of the original culutre warriors, died last month at the age of 84. Bryant was an early anti LGBTQ influencer and reflecting on the national reaction to her one could gloomily conclude we've gone backwards No one's quite sure who is the original culture warrior - Shirley Temple, who protested sex in movies? Even if they did work out the title holder, any awards ceremony would be fraught; someone who find out the caterer hadn't cut off their trans sister and the entire thing would be a meltdown. 

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Curtis Yarvin: Alex Jones with hair

After years of semi-obscurity, blogger Curtis Yarvin, "philosopher of the Dark Elightenment" and the bad kind of weirdo is in the media spotlight as the seer, philospher and genius intellect behind the Silicon Valley broligarchs of the new Trump order. But in truth Curtis Yarvin is nothing special. He's Alex Jones with a larger vocabulary and a lot more hair.

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Street psychiatry, the great and terrible

The New York Times recently published the article Under an L.A. Freeway, a Psychiatric Rescue Mission*, about street psychiatry, a new initiative in Los Angeles. 

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Link Wednesday: the year that was 2024...and 2004

 

New York magazine proclaimed 2024 the year of the bisexual. (And also the year of the knitfluencer, whatever the hell those are - a new type of martini?). Anyway, you mean I was on trend all year and didn't know it? What do I do now it's 2025 and I'm so last year? I wish I'd known it was my year before the year was over; when you're a middle aged schlub whose primary concerns in clothing choice are comfort and it covering my problem areas (which is all of my areas), opportunities to be part of the Zeitgeist are fleeting and must be seized. 

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Link Wednesday: all the summer long reads you can handle, and a few you might not

Summer reading lists abound, but some of us are more into long form journalism that Colleen Hoover. There's nothing wrong with enjoying Ms Hoover's oeuvre - I hear her latest tome, a kaleidoscopic exploration of gender identity and shifting ethical boundaries between guards and detainees at CIA black sites, is really something. 

But say you're a joyless dweeb with no imagination or capacity for love like me - I got you, with more quality long reads than you can shake a stick at, shaking a stick being an excellent way to ward off people disturbing you when you're trying to read. 

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