Our old friend over at the Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Technology blog is angry again. This time he’s mad at a legitimate target: National Rifle Association president Wayne LaPierre. But not because LaPierre is the head of an organization that has stood athwart every attempt at sensible gun control, making tragedies like the one in Newtown an all-too-predictable side effect of the easy availability of semiautomatic weaponry.
No, Mr. Pro-Male/Anti-Feminist Tech is made at LaPierre because he thinks the NRA big gun has turned into a feminist. No, really. Noting that in the wake of the Newtown shootings LaPierre launched a transparently opportunistic attack on violent video games, Mr. PMAFT accuses him of doing the work of the grand feminist conspiracy against men and manhood:
The most important reason why LaPierre is wrong is because what he is doing is feminist. Video games are an activity predominately enjoyed by men. So are guns. Both activities are under attack from feminists (just like other predominately male activities like science fiction are) because men are interested in them and women are mostly not interested in them. LaPierre is shooting himself in the foot (pun intended) by alienating allies among the video game community and helping out feminists in their war on male activities.
Never mind that nearly half – 47% — of those playing video games these days are girls and women, according to the Entertainment Software Association. (I await the inevitable comment from a troll telling us all that whatever games these women are playing just don’t count because blah and blah.)
What LaPierre should have done is form an alliance with the video game community. While the Newtown shootings are being used against gun owners right now, the next target will be video games and other mostly male interests and activities. Both the video game community and the gun community are fighting the same enemy, feminism. They should be working together to point out facts like how the Newtown shooter was raised by a single mother and how homes where the father is kicked out lead to more violence.
Never mind that the shooter — like virtually all mass shooters — was a dude; a woman is always to blame.
The NRA is in a position of weakness now because they are attacking video games and not the real causes of the Newtown tragedy, single motherhood and feminism. The NRA is in the same boat as the Republican Party where it needs to become an explicitly anti-feminist and pro-mens rights organization to survive. (Lots of conservative and right wing organizations are in this situation.) Guns aren’t the problem here, but neither are video games. The NRA needs to realize this and realize that its only way forward is by fighting feminism. Anything else leads the NRA to irrelevance.
So one of the most powerful lobbies in American politics needs to team up with a Men’s Rights “movement” that can’t organize a single event that draws a crowd bigger than 8 people, or else it will fade into irrelevance?
I dearly hope the NRA fades into obscurity, and I am hopeful that public opinion about guns is beginning finally to shift in the right direction, but I’m not sure the NRA needs any pointers from MRAs on political relevance.
Kitteh’s: there’s all sorts of names. Furious, sweet, honey, cheesy, etc. Biscuit.
Endless possibilities! 😀
I appear to have missed an entire page of comments.
” try anything off Enchant, iirc that’s Whataboutthemoonz’s favorite.”
I like Enchant, like a LOT, but as far as art goes I think Opheliac is her best work. I go through phases where I obsess over one album over the others.
Yay for Biscuit! Cats are great at acquiring names. My cat’s longest was (from Shazzer) Lord Shazzamatazz, Ruler of the World. (She’s a she, but Lord has a bit more of a dominating sci-fi villain ring).
Sweet kitty, Melody. I’m meaner online than in meatspace too. 🙁
Hellkell, Biscuit is a good name and you should feel good.
Maybe he is a basement cat…..
I love him.
He loves me to. He purrrssssssssssssss..
He is a jerk to other cats though.
“I think there’s a lot more malice in that ex-school teacher than there is in pellet. Even the meltdowns seem more like frustration than actual anger. Diogenes gets angry, I think. Every break is his getting angry at us.”
Agreed, Pell’s fun to toy with, Diogenes is, at best, boring. And pellet is an excellent nickname!
In other things, oh gods my fingers, I’m getting somewhere with Dominant, but Jesus Christ on a Pogostick does it hurt. /random note
@Melody
My cat was really sweet to other cats until we went to visit a friend and her much smaller cat leaped at mine from across the room (scratching the top of her head). By the next day, the friend’s cat had calmed down and tried to be friends, and my cat would have none of it. She just sat and growled for the rest of our visit, forcing the friend’s cat to hide under a table.
Now my cat is pretty antisocial and takes a much longer time to warm up to people too. (She’s a bit of a bully to people, so they take a long time to warm up to her too.)
Kitties <3
I was away from the step-kitties for 10 days and we had a happy reunion yesterday. Many cuddles were had. Many head-to-head purrs. Well, I didn't purr. They purred.
Aw. JR is nice to all people except the vet. We sedate him everytime he goes because our vet claims he is the most intense cat she has ever treated. He did some hardcore damage right through the leather gloves.
I’ve watched JR beat up cats in their own yard and send them scurrying away. He is a bully.
But he is super sweet to me. He cuddles and purrs and loves pets. And follows you down the street when you go for walks.
Viscaria – “Well, I didn’t purr. They purred.”
You’re just not trying hard enough! 😛
“I appear to have missed an entire page of comments.
” try anything off Enchant, iirc that’s Whataboutthemoonz’s favorite.”
I like Enchant, like a LOT, but as far as art goes I think Opheliac is her best work. I go through phases where I obsess over one album over the others.”
Agreed on Opheliac, though after 8 hours of nothing else I kind of burned out on it — I definitely have my phases too (still head over heels for FLAG, G!G!G! is just too funny)
8 hours of Opheliac because I bought it through Amazon which meant that when my best friend’s car CD player broke in CT, he downloaded it to his smart phone so we’d have something for the 8 hour ride back to Pittsburgh. After the first 4 or 5 plays through it, you start understanding why Swallow says “all of my songs are pretty much the fucking same”
Clearly I still love it, as dear gods are my fingers sore from trying to play Dominant…still can’t shift into sixth position with any skill, forget the damned timing of the first half.
You see the new costume yet? http://twitpic.com/btckui http://twitpic.com/btmaoa The Scavanger (fitting really)
Through leather gloves is totes impressive! JR sounds like an awesome cat!
JR is a huge monster cat. You can’t tell, but he is muscel. He is beautiful though. I’m always sad though when he brings dead things home : songbirds and squirrels are his fav. Sorry, I’m a little cat obsessed.
I’m sauteing eggplant and garlic. NOM!
@Viscaria You can purr. I purr. My nickname with my friends is Kitten.
And why, pray, is anyone apologising on this blog for being cat obsessed?
Mr K purrs. He’s also taken to head-butting me a la kitties. Silly man. 🙂
Melody, are you quite sure this isn’t JR?
@Melody
Aren’t we all?
Shazzer, for all her bullying, is a terrible hunter and she hates when she kills whatever bug she found in our apartment. She begs us to bring it back so it will move again. (Most of the time, she loses track of them and accidentally stomps them to death. Silly cat.)
I once found her sitting over a mouse (alive), purring. She’d made a friend! She was so sad when we brought it outside.
I think all cat lovers can purr, and should. However, I once attended an Algerian wedding and a bunch of women spent quite some time trying to teach me to ululate with no success. There was a lot of laughing, but in a kind way not a way that felt mean. Then they made me join in in the group dancing, which also caused lots of laughage. Definitely one of the most fun weddings I’ve ever attended. Oh! And there was a portion of the reception when all the men started yelling at the groom in Arabic, telling him how to be a good husband but no one yelled at the bride. Plus the couple had to sit on hard chairs at the front of the room while we ate. Misandry!
Kitteh! It is a secret don’t give JR away!
Shazzer sounds adorable!
I just felt like I was babbling on and on about my kitty
Babbling about kitties is the right and proper Manboobz way.
I’m ok leaving the purring to the kitties. They always leave the talking baby talk to me.
Me too. It’s identical to this.
That’s one of my favorite XKCDs.
I’ve just been looking at random ones and having a giggle. Never really gone through the site before. I suspect I shall now do the same as with Hark, a Vagrant, and spend a day looking at ALL of them.
Right, I’m off to get my knees
torturedtreated by my osteopath. Catch yez later!@The Kittehs’
Good luck! I hope it is only as bad as it has to be.