Too Good To Be True

Caveat scavenger: consumer protection for curb-side mattress browsers

More Fake News

I've mentioned that, around the time I was in Italy, the subscriber numbers for this blog started unexpectedly to grow. I wondered who these people could be - even polled them as you may recall. I marvelled at the idea that, after five years of flawless obscurity, my blog had actually found a growing global audience.

Really?

Not really.

My search for answers took me to parts of the Blogger tool kit I did not know about. For example, I'd long thought I could not see who my subscribers were. 

In fact I can. 

All thirty of you. 

The rest, all those hundreds of "subscribers" - more than 800 by the time I discovered the lie - were fake outlook email addresses making it past the Blogger bot filter. 

No, You Shut Up

Readers may be aware of the story of the Wilfrid Laurier University student who had the temerity to bring a legitimate topic of debate to an appropriate academic forum, for which seditious behaviour she was cornered and bullied by three university officials, all men, one of whom came very close to accusing her of having committed a hate crime.

Good heavens. 

This all started with a tenured kook at the University of Toronto, who made himself famous by refusing to use gender neutral pronouns. He gave his profile a further boost by proposing to start a website calling out as corrupt and illegitimate any profs on the U of T faculty whose opinions and biases he believed to be on the wrong side of history. Several meetings with the Dean and others later, the tenured kook decided against putting up his website.

Meanwhile, back at WLU, the student played a portion of a TVO interview with the tenured kook talking about his aversion to using gender neutral pronouns. This was part of a class discussion of how the dominant discourse can marginalize, alienate and even do harm to those who don't fit within it. The tenured kook's interview was to show one perspective on the issue.

Shortly after this session, an anonymous complaint initiated the meeting where the student was cornered by the three men - further proof if you need it that the impulse to pick on women is still strong. 

The young woman had the presence of mind to record her meeting with the officials, and the strength of character to share the recording with the media, where the issue still echoes.

I get it. Anyone struggling to find identity and purpose in a world where even the plainest words - such as third person pronouns - exclude them could understandably want the dominant discourse to open just a crack and let them in. 

I also get that that a person might rankle at the idea, through their use of the plainest words - such as third person pronouns - that they are wilfully oppressing a vulnerable minority.

Where it all gets real human is where, either through an insane idea for a web page, or an over-the-top reaction to the exploration of an issue, one side becomes determined to shut the other down.

Then the sides are the same.

Thanks for reading!

Karen