So does this mean that we have to have a third bathroom built around the country? Maybe we should just all go to one bathroom that would be much easier:
An Oregon judge ruled Friday that a transgender person can legally change their sex to “non-binary” rather than male or female in what legal experts believe is a first in the United States.
Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Amy Holmes Hehn legally changed 52-year-old Jamie Shupe’s sex from “female” to non-binary.
Nancy Haque, a co-executive director for Basic Rights Oregon, called the ruling a “momentous day for genderqueer Oregonians.”
“It’s really exciting for the courts to actually recognize what we know to be true: gender is a spectrum,” Haque said. “Some people don’t identify as male or female.”
Shupe, an Army veteran who retired in 2000 a sergeant first class, began transitioning in 2013 while living in Pittsburg. Shupe knew then that neither male nor female fit. Shupe chose “Jamie” as a new first name primarily because it is a gender-neutral name. Shupe prefers to be called “Jamie,” rather than by a pronoun.
“I was assigned male at birth due to biology,” Shupe said. “I’m stuck with that for life. My gender identity is definitely feminine. My gender identity has never been male, but I feel like I have to own up to my male biology. Being non-binary allows me to do that. I’m a mixture of both. I consider myself as a third sex.” [The Oregonian]
Is the below nonsense really the focus now of America’s colleges? If so, no wonder college graduates today are having such a hard time finding a job. When I was in college I spent too much time working and studying to get one of the dreaded STEM degrees to have time to worry about “safe spaces’ and “trigger warnings”:
Just as the social turmoil of the 1960s generated new vocabulary — turn-on, sit-in, sexism — this latest wave of activism and upheaval is adding to our lexicon, with terms such as safe space, trigger warning, microaggression and cultural appropriation, which we explore here. We asked student leaders and activists from local universities to define these terms for us and to elaborate based on their own thoughts and experiences.
Many students believe these concepts foster inclusion, increase sensitivity and set up parameters in which difficult conversations can occur and marginalized voices can be heard. But critics, both on campus and off, call the concepts limiting, unrealistic, even un-American. They argue that creating safe spaces and using trigger warnings, for example, serve only to stifle free speech, coddle students and ignore both history and the reality found off campus. [Washington Post]
You have to read the whole thing because did you know that it is “cultural appropriation” and disrespectful to get for example braids or wear a headscarf if you are not from that culture? So all the foreigners that come to Korea and get pictures taken in hanboks I guess are disrespectful to Koreans according to today’s American college students?
It makes me wonder if all this nonsense is going to eventually trickle into Korean universities as well?
This will be a great innovation for which ever smartphone manufacturer is able to perfect this technology:
Apple is working with partners in the United States and Asia to develop new wireless charging technology that could be deployed on its mobile devices as soon as next year, according to people familiar with the plans.
Apple is exploring cutting-edge technologies that would allow iPhones and iPads to be powered from further away than the charging mats used with current smartphones, the people said, asking not to be identified as the details are private. The iPhone maker is looking to overcome technical barriers including loss of power over distance. A decision on implementing the technology is still being assessed, they said.
With iPhones and iPads generating more than three-quarters of Apple’s revenue, new technologies can give its devices an edge and help the company sell products at a premium in a slowing market. Samsung Electronics, Sony and Google are among rivals that have released wirelessly charged smartphones that still require proximity to a charging plate. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Via a reader tip comes this unsurprising CBS News report on wasteful spending from the Wounded Warrior Project. This is why I have always advocated that people would be better off donating money to the Fisher House Foundation where far more money goes to their programs. Plus you can visit your local military base and see where your money is going to unlike the Wounded Warrior Project:
Wounded Warrior Project CEO Steven Nardizzi
A CBS News investigation into a charity for wounded veterans, the Wounded Warrior Project, looks into how the charity spends its donation money.
What caught our attention is how the Wounded Warrior Project spends donations compared to other long-respected charities.
For example, Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust spends 96 percent of its budget on vets. Fisher House devotes 91 percent. But according to public records reported by “Charity Navigator,” the Wounded Warrior Project spends 60 percent on vets.
Where is the money is going? (………)
According to the charity’s tax forms, spending on conferences and meetings went from $1.7 million in 2010, to $26 million in 2014. That’s about the same amount the group spends on combat stress recovery — its top program. ]
Former employees say spending has skyrocketed since Steven Nardizzi took over as CEO in 2009. Many point to the 2014 annual meeting at a luxury resort in Colorado Springs as typical of his style.
“He rappelled down the side of a building at one of the all hands events. He’s come in on a Segway, he’s come in on a horse.”
About 500 staff members attended the four-day conference in Colorado. The price tag? About $3 million.
“Donors don’t want you to have a $2,500 bar tab. Donors don’t want you to fly every staff member once a year to some five-star resort and whoop it up and call it team building,” said Millette. [CBS News]
It is interesting how there are companies marketing products for whiter skin to darker skinned people while countries with people with whiter skin promote tanning services to give customers darker skin. This may have less to do with racism and more do to with classism if that is even a word. In Korea people with whiter skin were thought more highly of because it meant they weren’t farmers working out in the fields all day thus from a higher social class. It could be the same rationale in Thailand. Are there any ROK Heads familiar with Thailand that can comment on this?
The video advert of a skin whitening pill in Thailand was denounced by many Internet users as racist for carrying the tagline ‘You just need to be white to win.’
After receiving widespread criticism, the maker of the ‘Snowz’ whitening pill removed the ad from YouTube and issued a public apology.
The advert featured a Thai actress attributing her success to her white skin. She added that her popularity will suffer if she loses her whiteness, thus explaining the need for her to use whitening products like Snowz.
The ad ends with the now infamous tagline ‘You just need to be white to win.’ [Global Voices]
That is the question that Foreign Policy magazine looks at due to a number of left wing publications are claiming it. For people that have been to third world countries we know this claim is idiotic, but if there is an area that America is reaching third world status it would be in the American media. The sensationalism and intentionally divisive media environment in the US which just asking this question is an example of is something that belongs in a third world country:
It’s a bombastic question, and usually it’s the domain of the nativist right or the anchorless left. Patrick Buchanan, for example, framed the question in terms of illegal immigration from Latin America:
Thousands of U.S. troops safeguard the border of South Korea. U.S. warships patrol the South China Sea to stand witness to the territorial claims of Asian allies against China. U.S. troops move in and out of the Baltic States to signal our willingness to defend the frontiers of these tiny NATO allies. Yet nothing that happens on these borders imperils America so much as what is happening on our own bleeding border with Mexico. Over three decades, that border has been a causeway into the USA for millions of illegal immigrants who are changing the face of America — to the delight of those who think the country we grew up in was ugly.
And a number of left-of-center publications — Rolling Stoneand The Nation— for example, have argued that in terms of social services, infrastructure, and government services, the United States is slipping into third world territory. [Foreign Policy]
