More People Are Signing for Amnesty to End Its Sexist "Troll Patrol" Program

I'm pleased to report that my petition to Amnesty International to end or reform its sexist "Troll Patrol" program, which I back-burnered while I was working on a GoFundMe, has started picking up new signatures again.

 

I have also added some additional information and a link to the explanatory text: https://www.change.org/p/amnesty-international-usa-end-or-reform-amnesty-international-s-sexist-troll-patrol-program

The Canadian Association for Equality Announces Its Annual Conference

CAFE has made this announcement on its Facebook page:

 

 

 

CAFE is proud to host its 2018 National Conference in beautiful Calgary, Alberta!

You're invited to a landmark event bringing together Canadian leaders in suicide prevention, domestic abuse, and parenting - all to improve services and advocacy for boys, men and families. Plus, you'll be with us for this lynchpin event in CAFE's expansion plans. Calgary is where we plan to open our third Canadian Centre for Men and Families!

REGISTER NOW FOR OUR FULL-DAY CONFERENCE AT THE REDUCED RATE OF $80.00. VISIT https://cafe2018.eventbrite.com/ for full event and speaker info, and registration options.

This year's theme: Dads, Moms and Kids: Maximizing a Family's Mental Health and Well-Being

Join us for an all-star packed event!

Master of Ceremonies is Karen Straughan, Canada's leading men's issues youtuber and blogger
Visit Karen Straughan's YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/user/girlwriteswhat

Keynote Speaker: Mara Grunau, Executive Director of the Centre for Suicide Prevention

Featuring Presentations from a Distinguished Line Up of Guests:

Christine Berry, Director of Family Violence Prevention Initiatives, Calgary Counselling Centre
Christine Giancarlo, Mount Royal University Professor, Parental Alienation researcher and Member, Leading Women for Shared Parenting
David Shackleton, author, Daughters of Feminism and formerly publisher of Everyman: A Men's Journal

Workshop Presentations by:

David Shackleton, Branch Director of the Canadian Centre for Men & Families - Ottawa.

Topic: Opening a Centre for Men and Families - the Ottawa Experience.

Dr. Terry Singh, Registered Psychologist, expert in family counselling, divorce and separation, and family law/forensic psychology.

Topic: How to Predict Divorce: Families do not break up as a result of parents' arguments--they break up because of how parents argue.

Christine Hart, expert in relationship communications and gender intelligence.

Topic: Men and Women: How to bring out the best in each other to maximize the well-being of your family.

Dr. Ganz Ferrance, Registered Psychologist, TV and radio personality, expert in family psychology and men's counselling.

Topic: 7 Ways to Keep Your Family “Sane” in Crazy Situations

Our Special Panel Theme: The Unique Challenges of Providing Services for Men & Boys

David Shackleton, Branch Director of the Canadian Centre for Men & Families - Ottawa

Dr. Christine Giancarlo, Mount Royal University Professor and Parental Alienation Expert

Lyndsay Chaban, Edmonton Counsellor specializing in men, boys & families

Christine Berry, Director of Family Violence Prevention Initiatives at Calgary Counselling Centre

About Our Speakers

Christine Berry is director of the Family Violence Prevention Initiatives Program at Calgary Counselling Centre. Christine has a Masters in Science in Counselling Psychology from the University of Calgary and is a Registered Psychologist who has spent over a decade specializing in the area of Family Violence. When she’s not cruising in her convertible through the mountains she is addressing the impact of domestic abuse in the lives of adults and children within our ever-changing community. She plays an active role working with other community agencies to collaboratively stop domestic abuse at its root causes and has won awards for her efforts including the 2008 Selinger Award through Homefront and the Canadian Group Psychotherapy Association 2008 Group Therapy Appreciation Award for Creative Programming.

Lyndsay Chaban is a Registered Provisional Psychologist working with clients within Edmonton and the surrounding area and specializing in supporting men and their families. She believe strongly that all individuals have the power to create change in their lives. For several years, she has spent her time working with children, teens, adults and families in a number of community settings. For many of those years, she has= spent my time studying and practicing animal assisted therapy. While not an appropriate approach for everyone, counselling with animals can provide an alternative to traditional talk therapy.

Dr. Ganz Ferrance holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology and an M.A. in Developmental and Educational Psychology from Andrews University in Michigan. He is the former Public Education Coordinator as well as the former Vice-President of the Psychologist's Association of Alberta. Dr. Ganz enjoys sharing how people can get more "mileage" from their lives. He is a frequent guest on CTV News, 630AM CHED radio and other networks.

Christine Giancarlo is one of the Leading Women for Shared Parenting (LW4SP), and an active member of The Great Ape Project, Orangutan Foundation International, Nature Conservancy and the David Suzuki Foundation. She also holds memberships with the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) and the American Anthropological Association (AAA). As an applied anthropologist, Chris applies these lessons from nonhuman society to human culture in such areas as human sustainability, global population growth, the environment and marginalized populations. Her research projects and special expertise lie in social and environmental impact assessment, child welfare and parental alienation, gender, multiculturalism, and cross-cultural and cross-species relations.

Mara Grunau, BEd, MPA, is Executive Director of the Centre for Suicide Prevention.

Christine Hart has successfully built three of her own businesses. Her first was in Film + Television. Her second was in the event space and after 3 and 6 years respectively, she sold both companies in order to build her third. Her third business was a coaching service for singles and couples, focusing on effective communication. She was the expert for a full season on CosmoTV and developed an online program to train and certify coaches through Hart Coaching Academy. Christine combines her entrepreneurial background with her passion for effective communication and marketing to help businesses reach their growth targets. As a professional speaker, Christine specializes in Gender Intelligence in the Workplace + The Art of Feminine Leadership. Christine has a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies and is a graduate of the Mastery + Leadership program through PAX Programs (Alison Armstrong).

David Shackleton is a thinker and writer on gender and personal growth, and president of the Ottawa chapter of CAFE. He is the author of Daughters of Feminism: Women Supporting Men's Equality, The Hand That Rocks the World; An Inquiry Into Truth, Power and Gender, and before that was editor and publisher for 12 years of Canada's magazine off men's issues, "Everyman; A Men's Journal."

Terry Singh is a Registered Psychologist. He holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with post-graduate specialization in Child and Family Forensics, and joined Taylor Clark after more than a decade of clinical experience in Canada and the USA. He is a member of the College of Alberta Psychologists, the Psychologists’ Association of Alberta, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, Alberta Family Mediation Society, and the Canadian Association of Threat Assessment Professionals. Dr. Singh’s primary work involves assisting individuals, couples, and families of divorce and separation during and after the transition. Evaluative intervention services offered include: High-conflict Child Custody Evaluations; Risk Assessments; Independent Psychological Evaluations; Voice of the Child and Triage Interventions, and Litigation Support. Therapeutic intervention services offered include: Parenting Coordination-Arbitration, Mediation, Reunification Therapy, Parenting Counselling, Consultation and Litigation Support. Dr. Singh is also the lead developer and facilitator of the Anger Management program offered at Taylor Clark Psychological Services.

Karen Straughan is a renowned Canadian human rights activist, blogger and broadcaster focusing on gender and sexual politics. Her YouTube channel, girlwriteswhat, has over 180,000 subscribers, and more than 16 million video views, and her work has been presented in high school and university classrooms in the US, Canada and Ireland. A mother of three, Karen speaks out fearlessly on gender and equality with passion and clarity, refusing to back down when intimidated.

Identitarians Vs. Jeremy Corbyn

https://orientxxi.info/magazine/anti-semitism-orchestrated-offensive-against-jeremy-corbyn-in-the-uk,2446

In this excellent analysis of the establishment campaign to smear UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite, it's remarkable how it's using tactics more often associated with the identitarian cultural left -- for instance, Ruth Smeeth's crybullying tactics that are reminiscent of Anita Sarkeesian or Cathy Newman. Or these points:

At the heart of the dispute between the JLM and JVL were efforts by the former to broaden the definition of anti-semitism to include “the holding of beliefs” that might be “perceived” as offensive. Corbyn supporters and others warned that the move would create “thought crimes”.

and:

Jonathan Freedland, a senior columnist at the Guardian, waded in to support the JLM, arguing that the traditional definition of anti-semitism—that it was a hatred of Jews for being Jews—was too limited. Instead, he claimed, it was a mood that could be perceived only by its victims, even if there was no tangible evidence that outsiders could detect.

-- a claim reminiscent of "microaggressions" pseudoscience.

And then there's the selective speaking in the name of a minority group only when its members support a preferred narrative:

Though it is rarely mentioned, a significant proportion of those who were summarily suspended,or expelled, for anti-semitism by a Labour party bureaucracy still dominated by anti-Corbyn Blairites were Jewish or had Jewish ancestry, such as Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein, Cyril Chilson and Glyn Secker.

In one case, a respected Israeli Jewish academic based in the UK, Moshe Machover, found himself expelled until an outcry forced party leaders to grudgingly reinstate him.

The thread connecting these high-profile cases was that all of them were vocal critics of Israel....

In reaction to the unchallenged dominance of the JLM as the voice of Jews in the Labour Party, a new breakaway group, one that was pro-Corbyn, launched at the Labour party conference last October called Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL). The new group quickly found itself tarred with claims of promoting hate speech at the conference.

All of which simply goes to show that the Right is just as susceptible to this sort of irrationalism as the Left is.

Thanks to Alexandra Stein for posting the link to this article on her Twitter timeline.

Reforming Muslim Maajid Nawaz is suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for libeling him as an anti-Muslim extremist. Learn more about his case and maybe make a donation at http://maajidnawaz.com/. You can order his book at http://www.powells.com/partner/35751/biblio/9781493000616

Pauley Perrette Is Acting Out Her Munchausen's Syndrome Again

This from Yahoo! News: https://www.yahoo.com/news/pauley-perrette-reveals-apos-multiple-103934839.html

Perrette has a long history of seeking attention with dubious claims of victimization. Here's one example: https://www.avoiceformen.com/featured/star-crazy-star-pauley-perrette-accuses-yet-another-homeless-man-of-attacking-her/ She's also been called a "poster child for restraining order abuse," repeatedly getting restraining orders against people on dubious pretexts, then deliberately going out of her way to places where they'll be so she can have them nabbed for a "violation." She did this kind of thing not only with her former husband Coyote Shivers, but also with the wife of a previous husband.

Remarkably, she actually wrote an outline of an idea for a TV show about a woman who... wait for it... develops cozy relationships with cops, then uses these to entrap people with phony restraining order violations! Talk about writing about yourself! You can verify this by searching the Web for "Star Crazy."

I'm not a psychologist, but I bet she'd be diagnosed with Munchausen's syndrome among other things.

"No, Gamergate is Not Right Wing"

Wow! I'd known for a few years that the portrayal of #Gamergate as right-wing was an oversimplification, but not until reading this did I realize just how wrong it is.

http://www.gameobjective.com/2016/11/21/no-gamergate-is-not-right-wing/

This is a timely discovery as just the other day I made a sign for an anti-occupation demonstration on which I put the GG logo, linking the issues with the slogans "Zionism, this Jew is #NotYourShield" and "NO to authoritarian identity politics!"

One small point: the author writes that "Gamergate, which adores gaming culture and the consumption of gaming products, is in direct conflict" with an anti-capitalist philosophy. I think that only applies to a certain puritanical variety of anti-capitalism. I'm a socialist and I don't see any contradiction between that and gaming (although it isn't my main fandom -- I'm mostly into literary sf).

Thanks for a Great Campaign!

Greetings!

I again want to thank everyone who's contributed to my GoFundMe campaign.


https://www.gofundme.com/SGAworkshop

Unfortunately, I started later on it than I really should have -- just last Thursday, in fact. This is partly a consequence of my past cult experience itself -- people affected by involvement in high-demand groups tend to have difficulty asking for help, because they've been conditioned to see themselves as having only obligations and not rights.

Because of how late I started the campaign, even though we've raised enough money to pay for both registration and transportation, it likely wouldn't start arriving in my bank account until after the workshop is over. And because of their own constraints, the workshop organizers can't be that flexible about when they receive payment.

Fortunately, however, the same group that is organizing the workshop -- the International Cultic Studies Association -- is holding its annual conference in my home town of Philadelphia this July. Though not as intensive as the workshop in Connecticut this weekend, this will provide me with some of the same sort of psycho-educational help.

ICSA's executive director says they can provide with scholarship for the conference to the extent the funds raised in this campaign aren't sufficient to pay for my attendance. If the funds come to more that the cost of registration, I'll simply turn them into an extra donation to ICSA to further its work.

I want to again express my deepest thanks for all those who've helped either by contributing or spreading the word about this campaign, which will now close.