Dog Hotels and Poverty Existing at the Same Time

Person and dog getting their picture taken in a cute Valentine's Day photo frame. From the linked article.

I read this article from NPR, Luxury dog hotels give some people pause amid the inequality of South Africa (wait, has the title been changed? now it's "Where luxury dog hotels are all the rage, but half the humans live in poverty"), by Tommy Trenchard, and I want to talk about it.

It's about luxury dog hotels in Cape Town, South Africa. The article highlights the contrast between the nice time these dogs are having, and the poverty in Cape Town:

At the same time, more than half of the population lives below the government's "upper bound poverty line" — the level at which people can afford adequate food, clothing and other basic necessities. And huge parts of the city struggle with high unemployment, rampant violent crime and a lack of adequate housing and reliable services.

The article describes the fancy services that the dogs get at the dog hotels, and some of it is quite over-the-top, like dog weddings. Doesn't it seem like there's something wrong with that happening in a place where such a huge proportion of people live in poverty? Why are rich people's dogs getting all these nice things, when there are homeless people who don't even have enough food to eat?

What I want to say is, the article seems to be implying that the customers who bring their dogs to the dog hotels are doing something wrong. Or the owners of the dog hotel businesses are doing something wrong. I don't think this framing is right- I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with being a customer or employer in the dog hotel industry while people live in crushing poverty geographically close to you. 

How close do they have to be, exactly, for it to be immoral? Why is that article talking about this like well-off people in South Africa are the ones who should feel guilty about this- aren't the rest of us well-off people outside of South Africa also living nice lives while poverty exists in Cape Town? I guess we're far enough away that we're not morally obligated to feel bad about it? This framing is all wrong. It reads like the readers are supposed to think "Well, *I* live in the US [or whatever "first world country"], so it's fine for me to send my dog to a nice dog hotel. But if I lived in South Africa, it would be morally wrong for me to do the exact same thing."

The fact that luxury dog hotels and extreme poverty both exist shows that something is wrong with society. Something is very wrong. But it's not about an individual dog owner's choice to send their dog there- they are not doing anything wrong. This is about society.

The article says that many of the dog owners who send their dogs to the hotel work full-time jobs, and they don't want to leave their dogs shut in at home all day. (I suspect that only a small proportion of the customers are paying the extra money for the fancy luxury stuff that the article describes in so much detail.) Well, yeah, that makes sense. If you have a dog, and it's not good for the dog to be alone at home all day, and you have enough money to send the dog to a dog hotel, then why not? You should totally do it. There's nothing wrong with that.

But also, you should donate money to help people. If you're in a good position financially, you should donate an amount of money that's (at the very least) in the ballpark of what you spend for yourself for things you like but don't really need. I've talked about this on the blog before- my approach is to make a plan once a year about how much money I want to donate during the year. Make a deliberate choice. I think a lot of people donate haphazardly if they see some charity ad that makes them feel bad- if you are financially comfortable, you should do better than that. 

So for these individual dog owners, they're not going to help anyone by feeling guilty about having access to a dog hotel. It doesn't help anyone, even if they feel so guilty they stop sending their dog there. What can actually help is donating money. Really what's needed is changes at the societal level- but you as an individual can't really do that- but at least you can donate money. But feeling bad about your dog doesn't help anyone. How about doing both- send your dog to the hotel, and also donate a sizable amount of money to help people?

I don't think you're morally obligated to give up everything you possibly can, and donate all your money except the bare minimum. I don't think it's workable to live that way. I think you should look at the things you typically spend money on, and think about which ones give you more or less value. For example, something costs you some amount of money and makes you really happy, and something else costs the same amount but doesn't really do much for your happiness- maybe stop spending money on the one that doesn't make you as happy. No need to give up both of them though- I don't think it's workable to live that way.

The dog hotel is an indication that something is wrong with society. But the dog hotel isn't the thing that's wrong, in and of itself. If you want to avail yourself of the services offered by the dog hotel, there's nothing wrong with that. Either way, you still have to live in a society that has something terribly wrong with it. 

(Either way, I'm sure you can find something to make yourself feel guilty about.)

I like this quote, from the end of the article:

"We can't be prioritizing the 5% over the 95%," says Luyanda Mtamzeli, of the legal non-profit Ndifuna Ukwazi, which campaigns against inequality and the lack of affordable housing in Cape Town. "You've got a huge number of people who need accommodation in the city, and then you've got the 5% of the population who need luxury hotels for their dogs. This whole situation underscores the lack of genuine political will to tackle the structural and deep-seated inequality that persists in Cape Town."

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I think the reason this article rubbed me the wrong way is because of my experiences with the different ways one can make oneself feel bad for having money and privilege when poverty also exists in this world. 

One way of looking at it is, I could have stayed in the US and gotten a job that pays much more than the job I have here in China. But I didn't want to do that because there's a ... there's a discomfort in the experience of things being easy, having enough money, being in the majority culture, but also knowing that other people in the world are living in extreme poverty- knowing that's real, but it's so disconnected from your life. It feels wrong, to live in a way that you know is not consistent with the actual reality of the average person in this world. Like you're in a bubble. Like the morally correct thing to do is leave all that behind and go live somewhere that Americans think is a "third world country."

(Which is not the real reason I moved to China, but it is a lens that has been relevant to my thinking.)

But then, you move, and life still goes on. I'm still myself, I still have a degree in engineering and haven't had any problems with having enough money to live my life. Life is still as real and complex. I have an office job and I make more money than what the average person in Shanghai makes. It's not enough for really pricy stuff that I hear about some Chinese and/or international people spending money on, like buying a home or sending their kids to international schools, but it's much higher than the average person in Shanghai. I'm still in a bubble.

And if you're American and you like dogs, then you move to South Africa, you're still a person who likes dogs, who has experience having a pet dog. You're still that person, so you get a dog. (There's nothing wrong with being that person! Everyone's life is complicated and full of individual experiences like that.) And something that is normal in the US- sending your dog to a boarding or dog-walking service when you're at work- if you do the exact same thing in South Africa, suddenly it's this ethically-questionable thing, because you're geographically closer to poverty than you used to be?

(But, note that probably most customers for the dog hotel are South African, rather than being international people who moved there from other countries.)

So, in other words, you can feel bad for living far away from poverty, and also, you can feel bad for living close to poverty.

I don't think this "feeling bad" helps anyone at all. What really needs to happen is for society to change, so that everyone can get their basic needs met. To whatever extent we can advocate for that, or donate money to charities that are helping poor people, let's do it. But you can still buy nice things for yourself and your dog sometimes.

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Related:

My Weird Hangups About Charity

Blogaround

1. Acausally Asexual (July 2) "Implicitly: if you ever identify another cause, then you’ve delegitimized your orientation, and discovered that it was never a sexual orientation to begin with. I have some issues with this, to put it mildly."

2. No Kings (July 1)

3. Standard pregnancy care is now dangerously disrupted in Louisiana, report reveals (March 19, via) "'Which is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous,' said Freehill. 'The least safe thing that we do, no matter if it's early in pregnancy or full-term at your due date, is a C-section.'"

4. Shanghai’s Metro, Through the Eyes of a Guide Dog (July 5)

Also from Sixth Tone: Chinese Cities Roll Back Pandemic-Era Tourist Site Ticketing Systems (July 8) Yeah, during zero-covid, every park or museum you went to in China required you to book tickets with your real name and id number, so they could track you down if someone turned up covid-positive nearby. It's kind of a pain! And why do they need to collect all this information on us? Glad to see a lot of places discontinuing this.

5. Call For Submissions: July / August 2024 (July 7) "I'm self-hosting the Gender Exploration Carnival with the theme of "Flags" for July and August of 2024."

6. Bracket Symbols (July 3) Very useful xkcd!

7. Boeing to plead guilty to criminal fraud charge (July 9) "Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge after the US found the company violated a deal meant to reform it after two fatal crashes by its 737 Max planes that killed 346 passengers and crew."

Blogaround

1. The kingdom of heaven is like: Legal quirk allows gay couples in China to get married online in conservative Utah (October 6). I love this!

2. You CANNOT and MUST NOT Solve This Sudoku (October 3) 1-hour-35-minute sudoku solve video, with a very advanced ruleset. (This puzzle illustrates the concept of a "deadly pattern" very well.) I love this. Here are my favorite quotes:

• 55 minutes, with not one single digit in the grid yet: "And if this doesn't work, I'm turning the camera off, because my brain, my brain is already shot to pieces."
• 1 hr 03 min: "Have we been doing sudoku? That is a philosophical question."
• 1 hr 19 min: "What an extraordinary puzzle this is. Imagine if I don't manage to solve it now. I will probably cry, actually. I will probably cry, because this is, it's amazing. It's amazing."

3. Biblical Womanhood T-Shirt. I love this!

T-shirt that has a drawing of a tent peg through a skull, and says "Biblical Womanhood, Judges 4-5"

4. Sign o’ the times, mess with your mind, hurry before it’s 2 late (October 4) "We were 16 years old and our pastor, youth pastor, and the Bible teacher at our Christian school were all assuring us that we’d never be 26."

5. Forced Birth is Torture. (September 22) [content note: medical/pregnancy trauma. Mother and baby survive, fortunately] "What happened next was several hours of careful cutting and suction and burning and stitching while I lay with my arms strapped down and the baby wailed."

6. If the Media Are Reluctant To Properly Label the GOP’s Racist, Christian Nationalist Ideologies, We’ll Have Trouble Hanging on to Democracy (May 20) "Every time a Republican who has voiced “Great Replacement” views in the past is interviewed, he or she needs to be explicitly asked about it—and if they don’t actively disavow their past claims, it needs to be stated that they subscribe to white nationalist ideology—an ideology that has killed hundreds in the US in the last years alone, and millions in the last century worldwide."

7. The New York Times Has Badly Lost Its Bearings (May 13) 

8. I Opposed Abortion Until I Fought To Defeat Personhood In Mississippi. Here’s Why. (May 25) "'We’re just trying to get the amendment on the ballot. That’ll all get figured out later.' The brush-off chilled me. I had an ectopic pregnancy in 2004 and, unfortunately, that is not a pregnancy that will survive. It must be terminated, or the mother will die."

9. What Jesus Said to the Homeless Man (October 2) "In my experience, one hundred percent of people experiencing homelessness battle demons every day."

10. ‘Graduation Day’ for Guide Dogs Highlights Their Rarity in China (October 10) "However, the number of guide dogs in the country is grossly inadequate — a 2019 report by the China Association of the Blind said there were fewer than 200 guide dogs for a country with about 17 million people with visual impairments."

11. Rochester to pay $12M to settle lawsuit filed by Daniel Prude family, largest civil rights settlement in city's history (October 6) [content note: police brutality] "The settlement is not an admission of liability, the court documents show."

12. Angela Lansbury, 'Murder, She Wrote' and 'Beauty and the Beast' star, dies at 96 (October 12) 

13. How SEO Is Gentrifying the Internet (2020) "'Can Cats Eat Blueberries?' was a masterpiece by SEO writing standards and an absolute turd by regular writing standards. A reader might spend five minutes reading the article and still have no idea if it’s OK to roll one (1) blueberry across the floor for their floofy pouncemonster to chase. However, as long as the reader spends those five minutes looking at the page—and more importantly, the ads that are placed on it—then mission accomplished. This is where the SEOification of the internet has brought us, and it [****]ing sucks."

14. Sex Work and the Power of Choice (2011) "When you think about this for ten seconds, you should realize that it makes no sense. People in any other service profession can, and do, turn down customers they don’t want to work with."

15. Sex-Positivity, Compulsory Sexuality and Intersecting Identities (2012) "There are too many issues of power and privilege at play which are not adequately challenged and criticised. The institution of compulsory sexuality still underpins sex-positivism."

16. that female athlete doesn’t look feminine enough (August 18) "Girls looking insufficiently feminine is now a complaint that the government takes 'seriously', and that the government then investigates."

17. The City of Philadelphia Apologizes for Decades of Medical Experiments Performed on Black Inmates (October 11) "From 1951 through 1974, Dr. Albert Kligman, a dermatologist from the University of Pennsylvania, conducted 'the dermatological, biochemical and pharmaceutical experiments that intentionally exposed about 300 inmates to viruses, fungus, asbestos and chemical agents including dioxin—a component of Agent Orange.'" And the article goes on to describe experiments even more disturbing than that. WTF????

18. Epidural-Induced Births ‘Far Behind’ in China, Says Top Expert (October 12) "Mi Weidong, an anesthesiologist at the country’s top health authority leading the taskforce in promoting epidural anesthesia, said that only 30% of female respondents in a nationwide survey were offered anesthetic services during childbirth, despite a large majority of them opting for a more painfree delivery method."

19. (Chill) Ex-Ace Narrative 1: Validation (August 14) "Amidst this chorus of voices, ace communities were the only ones to consistently say 'The subjective experiences you're having are real and okay-- even if they're non-normative and statistically uncommon. You can articulate your own relationship to sex and sexuality on your own terms. You don't need to change your behaviors/desires/attitudes to more normative ones for the sake of fitting a relationship or an ideological ideal. You don't have to organize your life around the expectation that you're someday have a more normative relationship to sexuality.'"

Lockdown Diaries: More and More People Get to Go Out (a little bit)

A worker in white protective clothing (ie, baymax) feeds dogs in cages in Beicai. Screenshot from this video.

Posts about the covid outbreak in Shanghai, China:

Complete list is here: Index of Posts About the March 2022 Shanghai Covid Outbreak

On the Current Covid Outbreak in Shanghai (March 12)
I'm in Lockdown (March 16)
I'm Still in Lockdown (March 19)
I'm in Lockdown Again (March 25)
Now All of Pudong (East Shanghai) is in Lockdown (March 28)
Lockdown Diaries: Covid Case in Our Complex, and Free Veggies from the Government (March 31)
Lockdown Diaries: Antigen Self-Tests, and Children with Covid (April 3)
Lockdown Diaries: Dressing Up, Free Medicine, Free Rice (April 6)
Lockdown Diaries: I am Okay, Shanghai is Not (April 9)
Lockdown Diaries: Part of Shanghai is Out of Lockdown (April 12)
Lockdown Diaries: Dystopian Madness (April 15)
Lockdown Diaries: 3 Covid Deaths Reported in Shanghai (April 18)
Lockdown Diaries: More of the Same (April 22)
Lockdown Diaries: This is a Human-Made Disaster (April 26)
Lockdown Diaries: Exciting New Definition of "Society" (May 1)
Lockdown Diaries: Some People Can Go to the Grocery Store (May 3)

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Here's the updated timeline:

March 16-21: First lockdown. 6 days.

March 23-now: Second lockdown. 46 days and counting.

Nucleic acid tests (conducted by baymax, ie, the workers in white hazmat suits): 23 times (March 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 26, 28, 30, April 4, 6, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29, May 2, 4, 6)

Antigen self-tests: 20 times (April 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13 [twice], 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 28 [twice], 30, May 1, 3, 5, 7)

(The above info is specific to our apartment complex. Other apartment complexes in Shanghai will have a similar situation but not exactly the same.)

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More and more people get to go out

So last time I talked about how I'm starting to see that people in "precautionary areas" (防范区) are kinda-sorta occasionally allowed out of lockdown. There are a lot of rules about it, like, only 1 person per household can go out, twice a week, for 2 hours.

Well yes, more and more people have gotten the chance to go out, under those kinds of rules. I had a video call with some friends a few days ago, and several of them said they went out and rode a bike, but nothing is really open so there isn't much of a point to going out.

Our apartment complex has now been designated as a "precautionary area" (hooray) but they haven't announced any guidelines about being able to leave, so actually nothing has changed. Oh wait, one thing changed- they announced that we are now allowed to walk around in the complex, like to pick up packages, walk dogs, take out trash, etc. Honestly we were all doing that on the down low already, so... yeah nothing has changed.

But hey, hopefully within the next few days, they'll tell us what the rules are about being allowed to go out, and they'll give us our very official-looking passes.

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Happy update about the pets in Beicai

So you may remember I mentioned Beicai in my April 18 and May 1 posts. This was the village in Shanghai where all residents were forced to pack up and leave so that their homes could be disinfected, because there had been a lot of covid cases in the area. 

They were told they had to leave their pets behind, and I was very concerned because we've seen news stories of pandemic workers killing pets in China (we all know about the pet corgi that was beaten to death in Shanghai). I said in my April 18 post, "Also I would trust the pandemic workers 0% with pets. I hope they are not killing people's pets, but they probably are."

Well, good news! They did not kill the pets. They got a team of vets to set up a pet quarantine area and take care of them. You can even see videos about it on Douyin. (Tiktok is the international version of Douyin.) Douyin user Agrass has posted a bunch of videos.

[Not sure if you'll be able to watch these if you're outside of China? They're extremely slow to load when I have my VPN on]

April 23 video where you can see the outside of the big shipping container (?) that they are using for the dog quarantine area, and then you go inside and see the dogs in cages

April 23 video showing the second shipping container with dogs in cages- except for an Alaskan malamute tied up outside- I guess they didn't have a big enough cage for it

April 23 video showing 2 birds (parakeets?) in a cage in someone's home- the volunteers are giving water to the birds

April 23 video of a cat hiding under a bed- also there is an automatic feeder and a bowl of water left there for the cat 

April 22 video of the baymaxes giving food and water to the dogs in small cages at the makeshift pet quarantine center

April 22 video showing volunteers taking care of an Alaskan malamute dog that had been left there

April 22 video showing how the volunteers feed the dogs- several dogs are crowded together in the cages

I mean, it still sucks, because they got all these dogs in small cages, which is not good. But at least they're going to be okay.

(Also, I love how they use the word 毛孩子 in the video captions. Literally means fur child.)

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Hot pot

One fun thing was, a hot pot restaurant reopened- only for delivery, not for actually eating at the restaurant- and we were very excited to get a bunch of food delivered from there, and have hot pot at home. Hooray! We got it delivered and it was great.

Seems like stores and restaurants are kind of starting to reopen- but still, very few.

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Overall, it's really hard

Being in lockdown is just really tough. I feel like I've forgotten what it's even like to go out and go places. And be able to just buy whatever I want online. (Bread! Ice cream!) We're not anywhere close to being "back to normal"... I feel like it's hard for me to even imagine what that would look like.

Some international people are saying they plan to leave China because of this. I feel like, this is going to have a long-term impact on Shanghai's international community. Well, overall, the pandemic has definitely had the effect of decreasing the number of international people in China. It's so hard to enter China now- it's been so hard since 2020. Easy to leave though.

For me... well, we have been planning to leave China anyway, but our plans have been very delayed due to the existence of covid. (Anyone remember that post I wrote in 2019 where I said I was ready to be done living in China?) Still don't have an actual plan. I feel like the lockdown does change my feelings about it, but I'm not sure on exactly how yet. After the lockdown ends we'll be in a better position to make decisions about it.

Who knows when that will be. June?

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Links from Sixth Tone:

Marooned in a Business Park, One Man And His Dog Face Lockdown Alone (May 6)

A Volunteer's Diary (May 5) About a French woman in Shanghai working as a volunteer during lockdown

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Next post: Lockdown Diaries: Taking a Whole Building to Quarantine

Blogaround

A golden retriever puppy. Image source.

1. I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb (posted October 31) "Airbnb has created a web of more than 7 million listings built largely on trust, easily exploitable by those willing to do so."

2. Scientists plan a new orbiter mission to Pluto (posted October 30) "The mission timeline we created is as follows: Launch in December 2028, a Jupiter gravity-assist flyby in October 2030, braking into Pluto orbit beginning in 2046, and concluding in 2059." Cool!

3. Donald and Melania Trump place candy on top of child's Minion Halloween costume, video goes viral (posted October 31) I don't talk about him much because he's just THE WORST, and what else is there to say? He's THE WORST. But for some reason this- putting candy on a child's head- really bothers me. As best I can tell, the orange antichrist is standing there giving out candy as part of this Halloween event, and he's bored, and a kid shows up with a costume that has a big flat head, and the orange antichrist decides to stick the candy on top of this kid's head, just for his own amusement. This kid is in a big inflatable costume and probably can't see very well, probably can't grab the candy off of his/her own head because the costume is so unwieldy, and the candy falls off. The president is like a school bully, messing around with this vulnerable kid, whose senses and movements are extremely limited by his/her costume, just because he thinks it's funny. Complete lack of empathy.

4. If Richard Spencer Were Missing Teeth And Wearing Overalls, He Never Would Have Been On TV (posted November 4)

5. T.I. Said He Goes To The Gynecologist With His Daughter Every Year To "Check Her Hymen" (posted November 6) Ewwwwww. There is so much wrong with this. I'll just say one thing: getting your daughter's hymen checked is an example of sexual immorality.

Blogaround

A golden retriever wearing a Santa hat. Image source.

1. Blessed Be (posted December 6) "As a horny evangelical teen, I knew sex had to wait until marriage. So I wrote soft-core erotica about my wedding night." Yessss I relate to SO MUCH of this.

2. I Want to Have Sex Like… Steve Rogers (in Captain America: The Winter Soldier) (posted 2015) Oooh this is a post theorizing that Steve Rogers is demisexual. I never thought about that before, because his lack of interest in dating/sex in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" felt completely normal and reasonable to me, so I didn't think anything of it. This blogger points out that's not how movie characters typically feel though. Nice.

3. Hundreds of sex abuse allegations found in fundamental Baptist churches across U.S. (posted December 9) [content note: sexual assault]

4. Who Did Leta Say "I Love You" To? | Fantastic Beasts Theory (posted December 11) [content note: spoilers for "Fantastic Beasts 2: The Crimes of Grindelwald"] "On top of all that, it would also give Dumbledore the opportunity to observe sacrificial protection some time in the past, so that in the future he can give Harry a really vague explanation of what happened that night."

5. Talking Back to Conservative Christians as They Attempt to Appropriate #ChurchToo. A Day of Action on Thursday, December 13 (posted December 10) "Is it any surprise, then, that many of us are skeptical that anything good can come from #ChurchToo being addressed by a group of conservative Christians who are deeply invested in holding on to demonstrably harmful evangelical teachings about sex, sexuality, and gender?"

Blogaround

Three little dogs dressed as Hogwarts students, in a wagon that says "Hogwarts Railways." Image source.

1. US proposal for defining gender has no basis in science (posted October 30) "Political attempts to pigeonhole people have nothing to do with science and everything to do with stripping away rights and recognition from those whose identity does not correspond with outdated ideas of sex and gender."

2. Nazi and KKK memorabilia were sold at a Kentucky gun show. Officials say it won’t happen again. (posted October 31)

3. Honoring Pittsburgh synagogue victims, Pence appears with ‘rabbi’ who preaches ‘Jesus is the Messiah’ (posted October 30) Ugh, yeah that seems like something he would do.

4. The inherent deception of Messianic Judaism (posted October 30) "This “add Hebrew and stir” approach to Christianity is the worst kind of anti-semitism, because it pretends to be a friend to Jewish people; pretends to have their best interests at heart."

5. Eugene Peterson, author of ‘The Message’ and pastor to other pastors, dies at age 85 (posted October 22)

6. On Not Seeing Christ in the Stranger (posted October 11) "In short, the vision in Matthew 25 is one where people are welcomed for themselves and not as a proxy for receiving Christ. That revelation comes later, as a shock."

7. Power and pow’r (posted October 23) "In Isaiah 1, it is God who finds all this blood and bloody imagery 'problematic.'"

8. Why I’m Not Scared of Migrants Who Are “Gang-Aged Males” (posted October 31) "By this metric, I have four brothers who are 'gang-aged males.'"

9. Autism & Late Diagnosis: I Wish I'd Known - Sensory Processing (posted November 7)

10. Pennsylvania Mural Highlights Migrants Who Were Traumatized in ‘Family Prison’ (posted November 3) [content note: mention of attempted suicide] 

11. Women put 'I voted' stickers on Susan B. Anthony's grave (posted November 6)

Blogaround

Two dogs laying together. Image source.

1. So about Joshua Harris's announcement that he realizes "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" was harmful and he's not publishing it anymore. I think it's a good step. I know a lot of ex-purity-culture friends are EXTREMELY UNIMPRESSED about this because he only seems to be taking back the "be terrified of dating" parts while still believing the "premarital sex is a sin, LGBTQIA is a sin" parts, and also he is making a documentary that's going to take stories of people who were hurt by his teaching and spin them a certain way and he'll make money off it... and all those things are valid criticisms... but I just can't really find it in me to be upset about this. Like, I don't really expect him to come around to "unmarried sex is not intrinsically sinful"- it's just UNTHINKABLE that a "good Christian" would believe something like that.

So yeah I think Harris is doing a good thing by making this statement. Of course I don't recommend anyone go and listen to his current views on dating/sex/marriage/etc. Maybe the whole thing just makes me glad I'm no longer part of a Christian culture that takes Joshua Harris seriously.

2. ‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration (posted October 21) Whoaaaa no no no no this is bad.

3. It’s okay to let your transgender kid transition — even if they might change their mind in the future (posted October 22)

4. Pence: 'It’s inconceivable there are not people of Middle Eastern descent' in migrant caravan (posted October 23) Wowwww I always saw Mike Pence as one of those nice church people who would be a little more subtle about his racism, but here we are. Disgusting. How will I explain Mike Pence to my children?

Blogaround

A chicken sitting on two puppies to protect them as if they are her babies. Image source.

1. The Bible is literature for the resistance (posted July 12) "And so the Bible honors women like Shiphrah and Puah, the Hebrew midwives who defied the Pharaoh’s orders by safely delivering the sons of Hebrew slaves, and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who essentially “took a knee” by refusing to show the required patriotism at one of King Nebuchadnezzar’s state parades." Preach.

2. This sun-chasing robot looks after the plant on its head (posted July 12) Adorable!

3. What Reporting Sexual Harassment Taught Me (posted July 9) [content note: sexual harassment, victims being re-victimized when reporting] "These questions convey the message that we should only report incidents that were traumatic, and only if we’re sure that the harasser deserves dire consequences. This is part of a broader pattern of holding people who report sexual harassment to an impossible standard."

4. Film Theory: Can You SUE a Superhero? (Disney Pixar's The Incredibles) (posted June 19) "Clearly this timeline isn't an accident on the part of Pixar."

5. Abortion is Immoral, Except When It Comes to My Mistress (posted July 11) [content note: violence against women, "pro-life" politicians] 

6. Trump’s Spiritual Advisor Calls Babies Smuggled into the U.S. “Sinful” (posted July 16) What Paula White did here is called taking the Lord's name in vain.

Related: If y'all aren't already reading Libby Anne's blog, you should. All her recent posts about immigration, politics, and Christianity are very good.

Blogaround

Three big fluffy shiba dogs. Image source.

1. The Harrowing Of Hell, and All Its Works (posted April 2) "This is a bit like someone reading Nietzsche’s references to the “superman” and interpreting that as him talking about Clark Kent."

2. Crossing Lines (or What I Mean When I Say, “I’m Genderqueer.”) (posted April 18)

3. Inside the Memorial to Victims of Lynching (posted April 8) [content note: photos of lynching]

4. Chilling Study Sums Up Link Between Religion And Suicide For Queer Youth (posted April 18) "In fact, lesbian and gay youth who said that religion was important to them were 38 percent more likely to have had recent suicidal thoughts, compared to lesbian and gay youth who reported religion was less important." The ax is already at the root of the tree, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

5. Purity Culture Can Ruin the Sex Life of Christian Couples: A Therapist’s Perspective "It is also easy to be taken advantage of because it is hard to consent to sex when you don’t know what your sexual needs/desires are."

And also: How Depression & Sexless Sleepovers Got Me Run Out of My Church [content note: church being horrible about handling depression] "No one asked me about my depression, no one asked me how they could be supportive." Yes. This. When Hendrix and I started living together, I was still terrified of sex. But Christians think every couple who's living together/ sleeping together is by definition having sex. It's not okay.

6. Chase rarely lends to people of color in DC – and it’s probably legal (posted March 22) "The bank turned away 26 percent of African Americans and 18 percent of Latinos who sought conventional home purchase loans in 2015 and 2016. It denied 7 percent of applications from white homebuyers."

7. Watch Beyonce's Full Set at Coachella 2018 (posted April 15)

8. What is Genesis About? The Big Idea that Cleared it Up for Me (posted 2017) "The Judah and Tamar story, which seems so out of place in Genesis, is a way of addressing indirectly a topic that the writer felt could not be whitewashed: David’s unjust treatment of Bathsheba and her husband Uriah."

And the follow-up post: More On What Genesis is Really About (If You Keep One Eye Focused on the Monarchy) "Isaac has exhausted his good blessing by giving it to Jacob, and so he has to scrounge up a blessing for Esau." Wowwwww mind-blowing.

9. Stopping the Deportation of Immigrants Injured on the Job (posted February 9) "Some workers were detained by federal immigration agents and deported without getting proper medical treatment for serious injuries."

Blogaround

A puppy. Image source.

1. How 2 Women Are Working to Erase Anxiety Around Being Plus-Size in Public (posted April 5) "I have scrolled through more photos of ravioli than you can imagine, when all I really want to know is if a restaurant's booths have tables that move or tables that are bolted down".

2. Film Theory: The Cost of Disney's DARKEST Business!! (Pinocchio) (posted April 3) An analysis of the economics of Pleasure Island.

3. C.S. Lewis' Trilemma is Naive and Unhelpful (posted April 7) Yep.

4. Crisis Pregnancy Centers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (posted April 8) John Oliver talks about crisis pregnancy centers as if it's *shocking* how dishonest and manipulative they are, and how they take advantage of vulnerable people. But as an ex-evangelical, I am not shocked. Not a bit. Even though I was never involved with crisis pregnancy centers back then, every single thing Oliver says about their dishonesty rings true to me. Because I used to do evangelism in basically the same way. I know all about trying to manipulate people into giving the right response in a "life-or-death situation" that they don't even believe is a "life-or-death situation." I know all about pretending to respect people's right to make their own choices.

5. The Courtship Constraints of Homeschool Erotica (posted April 11) "The “homeschool erotica” I created in my mind, then, had to involve circumstances that would result in marriage anyway—because that was the only context within which romance or sex were allowed." This is a really interesting topic- about how those of us who grew up in purity culture used to fantasize about the love story we wanted, and how those fantasies had to be constrained by the rules about when romance and sex were or were not sinful. (And I'm realizing my own fantasies were ... a little more on the asexual side.)

6. Ultimate SCB Film Bracket (posted April 7) Fill out this bracket of the best Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and Harry Potter movies.

Blogaround

A fuzzy puppy laying flat on the floor. Image source.

1. Why Joy DIDN'T send the Core Memories to HQ with a Recall Tube! - EXPLAINED! (posted March 26) An "Inside Out" theory~

2. Black Marjory Stoneman Douglas students want the movement to include their voices too (posted March 29) "To him, extra cops around doesn’t mean more people to protect him; it means more chances to become a victim of police brutality."

3. Abortion and hospitality: we know what we feel (sometimes) (posted March 13) "You may have been taught that this is what you’re required and expected to feel."

4. That Is Not What ‘Lovesick’ Is (posted March 23) [content note: murder, toxic masculinity] "This is not the way things play out in real life — sometimes a woman is just not interested in you and there just is not a damn thing you can do about it, and we need to start doing more to raise boys who understand this."

5. The Difference Between a Welcoming Church and an Affirming One Is Huge (posted April 3) [content note: queermisic "hate the sin, love the sinner" ideology] Yep this rings true. And I am so done with Christians carefully trying to parse the nuanced meanings of various buzzwords- we are "accepting" and "loving" but not "affirming"- ugh, so done with it.

6. Austen Hartke Loves His Body (posted April 3) An episode of the Queerology podcast where Austen talks about being trans and Christian.

7. The Nazi History Behind ‘Asperger’ (posted March 31) [content note: Nazis, killing children, eugenics]

8. Teenage Activism and Conservative Hypocrisy (posted April 3) [content note: school shootings] "In 1999, evangelicals used the Columbine teens and their tragedy to bolster their calls for revival."

9. Spectrum (posted April 1) An art piece related to asexuality.

Blogaround

Two lab puppies playing in the snow. Image source.

1. Sunday favorites (posted February 18) The author of Isaiah says God has HAD ENOUGH "thoughts and prayers."

2. Perfect Number Watches VeggieTales "King George and the Ducky" (posted February 22)

3. Why Some Winter Olympic Sports Are "Faster, Higher, Stronger" For Men Only (posted February 22) "Apparently only two dudes can lay on top of each other and fly down the ice on a sled."

4. Why Janelle Monáe’s ‘Make Me Feel’ Is a Brilliant Bisexual Pop Anthem (posted February 23)

5. Where Billy Graham 'missed the mark' (posted February 22) "According to Martin, Graham would preach that 'all men are created equal under God,' but backtracked when segregationists criticized him by saying he 'followed the existing social customs' in whatever region of the country he preached. He sometimes accepted segregated seating at his crusades for fear of offending whites."

6. Answers in Genesis’ Tone-Deaf Rainbow Tussle (posted February 26) "In other words, Answers in Genesis’ message to the LGBTQ community is 'the rainbow is actually a symbol that you will burn with fire for your wickedness.'"

Happy Year of the Dog!

Red silhouette of a dog, with the text "2018 the Year of the Dog". Image source.

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! This year, February 15 is the night that we all stay up late to ring in the new year.

2018 is the year of the dog, so go pet all the dogs in your life and tell them they are good dogs.

新年快乐！

Blogaround

Four golden retrievers. Image source.

1. Break the Cycle: Spiritual Abuse and the Conversion of Children (posted September 1) "We discover that Jimmy has never asked Jesus into his heart. My heart pounding, I convince Jimmy to let me lead him through the sinner’s prayer. I feel both very uncomfortable and somehow accomplished. By this time, most nights I don’t lie awake crying, repeating the sinner’s prayer over and over in a state of severe anxiety."

2. Florida Demands Parents Call Their Kids "Limited" or Lose Health Care (posted August 28) "We should never have had to justify services by listening to others denigrate our son."

3. The ugly ingratitude of the ‘Nashville Statement’ (posted August 31) "But Paul wasn’t having it. He insisted it was wrong to “trouble” and “unsettle” these uncircumcised believers by telling them that they would have to first become something else in order to follow Jesus."

4. The Adorkable Misogyny of The Big Bang Theory (posted August 31) Well full disclosure, I really like "The Big Bang Theory," but this video is absolutely right. The sexism in this show is very bad and as a nerd girl I really hate it. In the first few seasons of "The Big Bang Theory," Raj "can't talk to girls"- which meant he literally was unable to speak in the presence of a woman- and this was presented like "oh look how pathetic he is," as if it was something that mostly affected his love life or lack thereof. COME ON. Women are not just potential romantic partners. If you can't even speak to half the people you encounter, that's just unacceptable at school, at work, or in any other setting where people talk to each other. (Reminds me of the "Billy Graham rule.") Also I hate all the jokes about how nerds can't get a girlfriend. Like when Sheldon is making his youtube series about flags and brings in his girlfriend to prove to all the doubters in the comment section that she really is real- because a nerd boy having a girlfriend is apparently something unbelievable. Or when Penny is signing autographs at some nerdy convention and the nerd boys who come and ask for her autograph don't believe that Leonard is really her husband, because how could a man like him ever get a woman as hot as her? Both Penny and Leonard have to tell the fans repeatedly that it's true, he really is her husband- and then a giant group of nerd boys gathers around to hear the tale of how on earth that could be possible. (And to learn how they can achieve the same result.) It's disgusting because it says that women and nerds are completely separate and it's unimaginable that they would ever have anything in common. It erases the existence of nerd girls. (And I hate how in the first few seasons of "The Big Bang Theory", none of the main characters were nerd girls.)

5. Harvey Is What Climate Change Looks Like (posted August 28)

6. And also I started a Patreon a month ago~ so if you've benefited from reading my blog and you're able to support, that would be great! Thanks~~~

Blogaround

A yellow labrador attempting to eat the spot on the wall where refracted light has created a rainbow pattern. Image source.

1. ACLU Will No Longer Defend Hate Groups Protesting With Firearms (posted August 17) "For decades, the ACLU has defended white supremacists and other hate groups against government efforts to curb their speech, driven by the belief that carve-outs to the First Amendment weaken its protections for everyone."

2. Protesters in Durham “Turned Themselves In” to Show Solidarity with Takiyah Thompson (posted August 17)

3. The coolest checkerboard magic trick (posted 2015) Oooooh this is a really cool math question.

4. Sex Repulsed Aces in Fiction (posted August 17) "I glared at him. 'How is that what makes someone human?'"

5. Harry Potter Theory: Was Hagrid Dumbledore's Secret Weapon? (posted August 17) "...and it is the most, like, Dumbledore thing I can think of to fix Hagrid's wand."

6. An Atheist Reads The Case for Christ: Chapter 9 (posted 2012) "So Jesus kills an entire herd of animals that didn't belong to him. He devastates the livelihood of whichever farmer happened to own those pigs, when he could have just cast the demons out without letting them jump into the pigs. We don't see demons being cast out of people and having to jump into animals or other people any other time. You think Jesus can't be convicted of any sin? Ask the guy who owned the pigs." Wowwwww I have NEVER thought about it in that way before. I'm really glad I'm watching this video series. I'm not saying I 100% believe that Shives's interpretation of that passage is correct- it would require more research before I could form an opinion about it- but what I'm really astonished at is the way I was carefully trained to read the bible so that it would never even occur to me to think such things about Jesus' actions.

Back when I was a "good Christian," I attended many a bible study where we addressed the issue of "what God did in this passage sounds really bad- let's figure out how to convince ourselves that it wasn't actually bad." And it worked. I learned all sorts of clever arguments, ways to call good evil and evil good. And now it's been YEARS since I quit believing that everything God/Jesus did in the bible is by definition right, and I decided it's okay to just say "no, this was bad, and I'm not going to believe any twisted reason you invent about why it wasn't actually bad." (For example, when God commands genocide. In order to believe that everything God did in the bible is good, you have to be heartless.) It's been YEARS, and I watched this video today and this is the first time I've ever thought about "hey, those pigs belonged to someone, and Jesus just killed them all? WTF?"

I learned how to read the bible like a good evangelical. And I'm angry.

7. I'm a black Southerner. I had to go abroad to see a statue celebrating black liberation. (posted August 16) "But the fact that the national debate still centers on whether pro-slavery monuments should be taken down, not on how many anti-racist monuments should be built, speaks volumes."

8. The U.S. Capitol has at least three times as many statues of Confederate figures as it does of black people (posted August 16)

9. On the Vandalism at the Boston Holocaust Memorial (posted August 16)

10. Cover Story: Facing Our Legacy of Lynching (posted August 18) [content note: description of lynching] "But in America, he says, 'We don’t talk about lynching. Worse, we’ve created the counter-narrative that says we have nothing about which we should be ashamed. Our past is romantic and glorious.'"

Blogaround

A small dog stands with its front feet on top of a pot. Also, for some reason, the dog is wearing a knitted hat that looks exactly like the pot. Image source.

1. Remembering Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern Gynecology (posted February 7) "[The surgeries] were performed without anesthesia. There was a belief at the time that black people did not feel pain in the same way. They were not vulnerable to pain- especially black women."

2. After Columbine, martyrdom became a powerful fantasy for Christian teenagers (posted April 20) [content note: gun violence] "A teenager named Tina Leonard, Rosin reported, told a Southern Baptist news service that “God has laid it on my heart that I'm going to be martyred. When I told one of my friends, he said, 'That's awesome. I wish it could happen to me.’”"

3. I Underwent Genital Mutilation as a Child—Right Here in the United States (posted April 21) [content note: descriptions of assault and genital cutting of children]

Blogaround

Three doggies on a couch. Image source.

1. Moana Theory: Tamatoa's True Identity (posted March 28) Wow, now THAT is a fan theory.

2. Mike Pence May Be Extremely Close to His Wife Karen, but That Doesn’t Mean He Respects Women (posted March 29)

3. "Show me the receipts" (posted 2016) "That Jesus retains the scars of his crucifixion in his resurrected body tells us that God respects our traumas too much to forget them."

4. Mike Pence’s Dinner Rule Is Only the Beginning (posted April 3) "Evangelical concern about sexual impropriety goes so far that schools like PCC require men and women to use different stairwells to prevent any chance of private contact between members of the opposite gender."

5. Rayford Pence and ‘the Billy Graham rule’ (posted March 31) "Rules like this don’t address the real solution to their problem, which is that they need to learn not to be creepy. That necessary lesson becomes all the more difficult if you’re following a strict practice that trains you to regard every encounter with every woman as dangerously fraught with erotic potential."

Blogaround

A group of labrador puppies, sleeping in a row. Alternating between yellow and black puppies. Image source.

1. Do you remember your first time? (posted 2014) [content note: descriptions of assault by medical staff] "I remember the first time I was treated by force."

2. The Obamacare provision that saved thousands from bankruptcy (posted March 2) "This Obamacare provision took effect September 23, 2010. Timmy was born September 29. On December 17, he surpassed $1 million worth of bills in the neonatal intensive care unit. He didn’t leave the NICU until he was 6 months old."

3. Feeding the hungry is a Good Thing (posted March 16) "The disagreement is about something far simpler, far more basic and fundamental. Some people think that preserving the health, nutrition, and dignity of older Americans is an important Good Thing. And other people do not."

4. A Janitor Preserves the Seized Belongings of Migrants (posted March 12) "He’d always known, technically, about the C.B.P.’s strict confiscation policies, which were posted on bilingual signs and applied to all items classified as either “non-essential” or “potentially lethal.” But he hadn’t spent much time thinking about these policies, and he hadn’t realized how broadly they were applied, or just how many of the confiscated items—including cell phones and wallets, many still containing I.D.s, prepaid debit cards, and cash—were ending up in the trash, never to be returned."

5. The audacious claim that we are not shaped by history (posted March 21) "That claim is this: Hundreds of years of slavery and a century of Jim Crow oppression had no effect on the shape of American Christianity."

6. How University Professors React to Requests for Disability Accommodations (posted 2015) "Universities tend to work on a reporting system so if something goes wrong, students are put in the position of reporting the bad behaviour of people who have power over their academic success."

7. Why I’m Done Being A ‘Good’ Mentally Ill Person (posted March 27) "We see this kind of ableism most distinctly when we categorically divide up disabled people into “higher” and “lower” functioning — which can be a coded way of saying, 'These are the people that can conform to society’s expectations of what a ‘typical’ person should be, and these are the people who fail to do that.'"

8. 'Sightings' of extinct Tasmanian tiger prompt search in Queensland (posted March 27) Cool!

9. Science, reality and ‘persecuted Christians’ (posted March 27) "Dinosaurs are cool, but these poor folks aren’t able to fully enjoy the latest cool news about cool dinosaurs because they’ve convinced themselves that they’re obliged to hear every such bit of news as a kind of attack on their faith."

10. can you explain why "straight passing privilege" isnt a thing? (posted 2014) "regardless of your sexual orientation, the vast majority of people are going to assume you’re straight all the time unless you are doing something specifically coded as being romantic or sexual with someone of the same gender (or someone who is assumed to be the same gender) at that exact moment. still in the closet? straight. went out to grab dinner with someone of a different gender than you? straight. hanging out with your friends? straight. stepped out of the house to get milk? straight."

Blogaround

Two dogs, dressed as a bride and groom. Image source.

1. By releasing his killer, Louisiana just said that Joe McKnight’s black life didn’t matter (posted December 2)

2. The Daily Show - The Dakota Access Pipeline's Reservation Reroute (posted December 2) "The conversation seems to go 'the pipeline is completely safe' and it's like, well then why didn't you build it under the white people's houses? 'well, because it might leak.'"

3. Concordance-ism backfires for anti-gay preacher (posted November 26) "It’s quite effective. That concordance search for “slavery,” after all, won’t ever turn up any of that “loose the bonds of injustice” and “break every yoke” business. Nor will it show you how Jesus made such a passage the mission statement for his ministry. Nor will it remind you of the freaking title of the second book of the Bible."

4. Satanists Say Texas Rule Requiring Funerals for Aborted Fetuses “Violates Their Religious Beliefs” (posted December 3) "If Texas is going to treat the disposal of fetal tissue differently from the disposal of any other biological material, in contradiction to our own religious beliefs, they need to present a compelling state interest for doing so."

5. White evangelicals cannot allow themselves to understand miscarriage (posted November 30) "Recognition of that can shape — and improve — our ability to respond pastorally to the heartbreak of miscarriage. But recognition of that is not permitted. And so our pastors become cruel."

6. In Victory For Protesters, Army Halts Construction On Dakota Pipeline (posted December 4) and A timeline of the year of resistance at Standing Rock

7. In White America, Girls’ Clitorises Were Cut Off Because Christian Parents Feared Masturbation (posted December 6)

8. US Border Patrol uses desert as ‘weapon’ to kill thousands of migrants, report says (posted December 7) "'The known disappearance of thousands of people in the remote wilderness of the US–Mexico border zone marks one of the great historical crimes of our day,' the group said in a blistering report, the first of three reports documenting alleged abuses by Border Patrol."

[links below are all about he-who-must-not-be-named and the associated apocalypse]

1. Hundreds of Jewish scholars of holocaust history call on Americans to 'mobilise in solidarity' against Trump (posted November 18)

2. Questioning Safety Pin Solidarity Revealed Why I Can’t Trust White People (posted November 13) "A small symbol that so many white people have been eager to point out is “work friendly” is not enough. How about you make a few privileged people uncomfortable at work?"

3. Five myths about the electoral college (posted 2012) "The electoral college distorts the political process by providing a huge incentive to visit competitive states, especially large ones with hefty numbers of electoral votes."

4. N.C. man told police he went to D.C. pizzeria with assault rifle to ‘self-investigate’ election-related conspiracy theory (posted December 5) "The restaurant’s owner and employees were threatened on social media in the days before the election after fake news stories circulated claiming that then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief were running a child sex ring from the restaurant’s backrooms."

5. Now Is the Time to Talk About What We Are Actually Talking About (posted December 2) "Now is the time to resist the slightest extension in the boundaries of what is right and just."