Due to technical issues, this week’s Weekly Update is a few hours late… but better late than never! Here’s your Canadian Atheist Weekly Update for to .
![[An illustration of Simone de Beauvoir as a news anchor interviewing Richard Rorty for the fictional PNN (Philosophy News Network). De Beauvoir asks: “And is this common conception of postmodernism an accurate one?” Rorty replies: “No, not at all. Postmodernism is really just when too many women are in movies, and stuff like that.” Below them is a CNN-like crawl that says: “Socrates forced to resign from professorship after it’s discovered that he knows some stuff”.]](https://www.canadianatheist.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/existential-comics-2017-12-31-philosophy-news-network-postmodernism-special-report-panel-7-200x201.png)
It’s also when you point out that not all Muslims are violent extremists.
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[] Debunked mosque story: Rally targets TVA Nouvelles, Islamophobia
Well damn, how did I miss this story? Quick recap: a completely bullshit story about women being banned from a construction site by Muslims for Friday prayers got published by TVA and then passed around by islamophobic bigots before the network got around to actually checking the story, never mind actually retracting it. Normally this would be par for the course for Québec… but this time Québécois done me proud. Decent Québécois, fed up with the bullshit anti-Muslim slant of their media, took to the streets to tell Québecor Media (TVA’s parent company) that enough is enough.
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Well, this shit blew up in a way I didn’t expect. If you’re not familiar with this story, it started a few months back when a publicly-funded Christian school released a handbook with anti-LGBT verses in it (apropos of nothing – like, there was no real reason why the verses were included; their inclusion was entirely gratuitous). The school division told the school to remove the verse because it violated the Alberta Human Rights Act. The Christian group running the school refused at first, but then relented… but in a show of defiance, they insisted they had a right to put whatever verses in their school materials that they wanted. Alberta Education was having none of that shit, and told them no, they would not be allowed to use verses that contravened the Human Rights Act. The Christian group told Alberta Education, “fuck you,” and AlEd told the group, “no, fuck you”… and dropped the school from the division. Now the Christian group that runs the school is suing. Wow.
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[] “Philosophy News Network: Postmodernism Special Report” by Corey Mohler (Existential Comics)
It’s a bit deep, but it’s wickedly funny, calling out the stupidity and straight-up wrongness of the antipathy of “rationalists” toward postmodernism.
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[] Public Domain Day: January 1, 2018
A new year means a new batch of works entering the public domain, which artists can use to inspire or base new works on. This year, the works of some big names in music enter the public domain in Canada: John Coltrane, Otis Redding, and Woody Guthrie to name a few. Also worth mentioning is René Magritte, so the infamous La trahison des images painting is now in the public domain. (As an aside, the works of William Moulton Marston – creator of Wonder Woman – also enter the public domain… but due to complex legal shit, it’s not clear whether Wonder Woman herself is in the public domain, so best err on the side of caution and assume not.) Once again, the Americans can only look on with jealousy because due to their shitty copyright laws nothing is entering the public domain there… but at least for them this will be the last year of the drought.
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[] Evangelical women are shaping public attitudes about sex work
An intelligent discussion of a tricky problem, and the way religious moralizing is only making it worse for everyone.
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[] Star Wars is a religion that primes us for war and violence
This is a very interesting perspective on modern mythology in general, and how it all may just be riffing on ancient mythology and keeping us stuck in religious mindsets.
Upcoming items
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[] “Say Bad Things” by Behind Crimson Eyes
The first followup to “Stardust”, which may be about a nun who was likely murdered to cover up sexual abuse at a Catholic all-girls school.
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