Categotry Archives: don’t get your panties in a bunch

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Kate Bornstein ♥’s TOTWK; Or, It’s Hip to be Au Contraire

Categories: (un)popular entertainment, beating them at their own game, bitterness, don't get your panties in a bunch, Humorless Tranny™, i heart oppression, kyriarchy, the transsexual empire strikes back, transphobia: now in blog format

Hey, ducks! I’ve been talking quite a bit of late about Ticked Off No-I-Won’t-Say-Its With Knives. You know, because of the outrage, and because I went to the protest. What ho!

Now, the general consensus here in Transland (Population: More than you think) is that this thing is outrageous, especially the trailer (which Luna has now modified to take out the references to recently brutally murdered transfolk. Um, thanks–I’m glad to know it took a massive outcry for you to display basic humanity! No, kudos to you, sir!) But that doesn’t mean that there’s massive agreement on the film. Some people actually are defending it! Trans people! Trans people who were not employed in it as actors!

Take, for example, Tom Leger’s post over at Trans Group Blog:

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Protest Against Ticked Off You-Know-Whats With Knives

Categories: (un)popular entertainment, cis-o-rama, don't get your panties in a bunch, hipster irony must die, Humorless Tranny™, i get around, takin' it to the streets!, we don't put the "T" in LGB

So if you are going to be in New York tomorrow, and you care to protest the shameful exploitation of both trans women and some of the most brutal murders of trans people, you might want to run down and help us protest the Tribeca Film Festival’s decision to screen Ticked Off…Disparaging-Word-For-Trans-People…With Knives.

Here are the details of the protest, from its Facebook page:

“Protest/rally Against Tribeca’s Decision to Premiere Transphobic Film “Ticked Off Trannies With Knives”

What: A protest/rally demanding that Tribeca Film Festival remove the transphobic film “Ticked Off Trannies With Knives (TOTWK)”. Melissa Sklarz- Director of New York Trans Rights Organization, celebrities, elected officials & LGBT activists will be speaking. A candle light vigil for trans victims of hate crimes will also be held.

When/Where: Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 6:30-8:00pm @ Tribeca Cinemas @ 54 Varick Street, NYC

Why: The movie makes light of violence and rape against trans women, exploits the high-profile murder of teenager Angie Zapata, includes the pejorative term “trannies” in its title, inaccurately depicts trans women’s identities as drag queen “performers” and “caricatures” and misrepresents the lives of an extremely disenfranchised group who suffer violence at alarming rates.

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A Room of One’s Own: ID Required For Admission

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, gender oh eff me, Humorless Tranny™, invasive kyriarchy, teh tranz

Well, ducks! It’s been a week since I did my little UK stomp and kicked over a fair-sized, even by Guardian standards, ant hill! Such fun!

Let me be serious. For a change. A surprise! A first! C.L. serious on her own blog!

I want to talk about one of those very tricky things that come up when trans folks, and most especially trans women, get talked about. Pretty universally, I should hasten to add, when cis folks talk about trans folks; but then I said people, and don’t we all know that people means cis people? Silly ducks.

The bugbear in the room is, of course, “women-only spaces.” In its most extreme form, this resolves to the old “bathroom libel“: the idea that, say, allowing trans people to use the rest rooms that match their gender presentation will open a flood of rapists donning drag in order to rape unsuspecting women. That no trans person has ever done this, and that women get raped in women’s rooms by men not wearing dresses, never seems to make a dent in this argument; but then it’s held by only the most set in their way anti-trans folks.

Sadly, this includes a large number of otherwise noteworthy feminists. Google it; I’ll wait.

A less extreme version of the “women’s spaces exclusion” doesn’t have a problem with trans folk in the ladies’, (perhaps because being booted from your stall for looking too masculine can happen to cis women too), but still make an exception for other spaces: women’s spiritual circles, social groups, and, most–notoriously isn’t the right word, but bear with me for a second–rape crisis centers.

Yes, that’s right–I’m bringing Kimberley Nixon into this again.

For those of you who don’t know, a precis: Ms. Nixon is a trans woman who lived in Vancouver. She applied for a volunteer counseling position at Vancouver Rape Relief, and passed their initial phone interview. When she showed up for training, however, she was read as trans and told that she could not be a counselor because of VRR’s woman-only policy. Ms. Nixon eventually sued the center, won one trial, but the decision was overturned on appeal.

That’s the basics. VRR claimed that the legal fees put them in danger of closing. Julie Bindel and many other trans-exclusionary feminists castigated Ms. Nixon.

But when you go deeper, it gets a whole lot more complicated.

For starters, Ms. Nixon herself had been raped and battered by her male partner. After receiving help from a different group for battered women, she entered their counseling training course, and did very well; she would later be described as a “superior” counselor. But the first group wanted her to wait a year to heal before she became a counselor, which led her to VRR.

Now hearken with me to the little lower layer. Above, I linked to an article about a butch cis woman who was unceremoniously tossed from a restaurant bathroom for looking too masculine. This is precisely what happened to Ms. Nixon. Yet Ms. Farmer would be allowed to counsel for VRR, and Ms. Nixon wouldn’t. Even though they both looked “masculine.”

Ponder that one in light of feminist principles, if you will.

Dig even deeper: it is a misconception that Ms. Nixon was demanding a spot as a counselor for VRR; what she wanted was the chance to prove herself on her own merits, and not be judged by her appearance. Furthermore, VRR claimed that her presence might traumatize other women, who might harbor fear or resentment or hatred towards men. Fair enough, I suppose, though one would think that this could apply to very butch cis women as well. But the thing is, we’ll never know if Ms. Nixon would traumatize people; we’ll never know if she could have fit in, if she could have provided healing services to women. We’ll never know, because she never got the chance.

And neither did any of the women who might use the shelter; VRR made the decision for them.

I don’t think there’s any way to slice this that doesn’t come up as prejudice. They could have done any number of things; had her help in the office and get training from the counselors, so that even if she didn’t work out there, she would gain experience; have her act as a liaison to the trans community (one would assume that VRR would also turn away trans women who were the victims of rape as well); any number of things.

But instead they said, you look like a man. You are a man. You cannot come here.

Now, it may surprise you to know that I am ambivalent–very–about these situations. I can see many sides to these issues, and they’re always tricky. And I do not dispute for a second that there is a very real difference in the background of trans and cis women, especially trans women who transition after, say, their twenties (present company included.) We, I, don’t have the experience of growing up female; we don’t have the same bodily experiences as the majority of cis women. (This is why I will never be teaching a class on Your Period and You.)

But–and this is so important that in needs to be said, again and again–the question remains: is that condition unredemediable? Is it so impossible to think that a trans woman who has spent 25 years living as a woman might have insight into women’s lives approaching that of a 25-year old cis woman? Think on this: you could transition as soon as you were of age, have been on hormone blockers so you never experienced male puberty, spent your teens and twenties living as a woman, majored in women’s studies, gone on to become a social worker specializing in the problems of battered women and rape victims, worked for ten years in public health–and you will be less qualified, in the eyes of VRR, than a high school drop out who happens to be cis.

That is to say, that not judging a person on her merits is discriminatory. Unless, of course, you’re trans. Then it’s totes feminist.

Next: I’ll take this to Tiger Beatdown and do some feminism and gender analysis.

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And Other Stories in Transphobia (Yawn)

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, media tool kit, silly blather, teh tranz

Hey, I haven’t said anything about David Letterman yet!

I mean, not that there’s often much to say about David Letterman, besides he’s mostly a jerk. It’s, you know, what he’s famous for.

But I guess you might have heard about this…

Yeah. OK. Wow, a show hosted by a known jerk (of the douchey, cheating on his wife with interns in a bedroom he had built at the studio just for that purpose kind of way) engages in some cheap-shot transphobia. Yawn. Hand me the remote…

But what’s that you say? Speak up, Straw-Reader-I-am-making-up-for-this-piece! Are you saying that Dave at least sort of respectable towards Ms. Sampson? And that the joke is really on sidekick douchebag Kalter? That I should not, you know, get my panties all in a twist about things, you hysterical trann–sorry, you like to be called a transgenderdamajig now, right?

Sorry, Straw Reader, you’re wrong! A transgendamajig is a drink, not a gender identity, one of the many fascinating cocktails I dreamed up while vacationing on painkillers in Thailand! But you’re also wrong about the joke.

Sure, true to his straightdouche persona, Dave didn’t say anything spiteful about Ms. Sanders. (He also called her a transgendered person, not woman. Asshole.) But the joke wasn’t on Kalter–it was decidedly on Ms. Sampson.

Because, you see, at heart this was a gay joke. (Amazing! Letterman homophobic too? Whodathunkit?) Kalter is upset because he slept with a “man,” not a transgendered woman. At heart, this bit was calling Ms. Sanders a man.

Which is pretty much the definition of transphobia.

I of course, don’t watch any of the talk shows myself–I really could care less about the latest vapid anecdote or stupid plug a celebrity comes on to talk about. (And even The Daily Show is wearing thin on me these days.) Instead, when not reading Russian novels in French or French movies in Russian, I watch Monty Python reruns. Because our world is so surreal nowadays that they seem positively normal.

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WTF, Bilerico?

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, failings, Humorless Tranny™, teh tranz, the transsexual empire strikes back, transphobia: now in blog format

I really like the Bilerico project–it’s a great place for queer and trans folks and their allies to meet and discuss things. And it’s never shied away from controversy.

Bilerico recently added a new contributor, Ronald Gold, and reading his biography he’s just the kind of person you want to have there–a long time gay activist, one of the founders of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and a man who was instrumental in getting homosexuality removed from the DSM.

So it’s an enormous disappointment to read his first post, officially titled “‘No’ to the notion of transgender” but if you look at the url it must have been called “Transgender: a disease that doesn’t exist” at some point. And, well, let’s see if you, Gentle Reader, can understand why I was shocked to see it on Bilerico:

What is transgender? Well, there are two sorts who seem to be covered by the name, the drag kings and queens so good at portraying cartoon imitations of straight people, and transsexuals, the folks who report that from an early age they’ve felt themselves trapped in the wrong bodies. Despite the equipment they were born with that belies their assertions, they say they are really men or really women.

 Holy fuck. Did I just read that at a queer site? Seriously? Please tell me this is some kind of horrid fundamentalist satire…

I recall reading something by Jan Morris in which it seemed that he thought he needed a sex change because he wanted men to hold doors open for him and kiss him goodbye at train stations. For starters, I’d have told him that I’ve had these nice things happen to me and I’ve still got my pecker.

Oh ye ghods.

Oh, but he isn’t prejudiced against trans folk! See, this is how he ends the piece:

Perhaps it isn’t needless to say that a No to the notion of transgender does not excuse discrimination against cross-dressers or post-op “transsexuals” in employment, housing and public accommodation; and I strongly support legislation that would forbid it. I would, however, get after the doctors – the psychiatrists who use a phony medical model to invent a disease that doesn’t exist, and the surgeons who use such spurious diagnoses to mutilate the bodies of the deluded.

 See? I just think you’re deluded, C.L.–but that’s no reason for people to be cruel to you. That is, for levels of cruelty beyond calling you a man and a “transsexual.”

If I was to be charitable (I am reliably informed that for some reason December is a month we’re supposed to do so, here in Merka; the media says so), I guess I could scratch out some kind of “hmm, he’s really against gender essentialism, which I’m down with so…win?” Except, oddly enough, as I write this he’s sharing the front page with Autumn Sandeen, the transgender barista from Pam’s House Blend, and whom I’m sure enjoys having her identity crumpled up in front of her eyes and tossed away.

I just…can’t understand why this of all things should be the first post this guy makes at Bilerico. Didn’t somebody tell him there are actual trans people who visit? Or even, you know, write stuff there? Holy cow.

Grumble…gotta write that “how to take an ally to task” post that everybody is writing nowadays…sheesh.

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Rapist, International Fugitive Arrested: Media Aghast

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, monday media watch, Outrage, privilege stories, rape is hy-larious, supremely sexist, your rda of misogyny

I will preface this by saying I like Roman Polanski’s movies, at least the ones I’ve seen–Rosemary’s Baby, Frantic, The Pianist, and especially Chinatown; I saw a restored print of it ten years ago that was almost a religious experience.

His sudden arrest in Switzerland over the weekend has stunned the world’s artistic community. A true cinematic artist, one who’s long-suffered and even been forgiven by his victim, opinion seems to be that…the man is a rapist and why the fuck are we having this conversation?

Yeah. Rapist. He didn’t “have sex” with a 13-year old girl. He raped her. Well, first he got her drunk and high on quaaludes. Then he raped her.

Don’t believe me? Check out the Smoking Gun’s transcript of her testimony. I looked at it for the first time on Sunday. It made me ill.

Predictably, the comments at the New York Times website were full of fail. A lot of people seem to feel that he’s “suffered enough.” They base this, I guess, because he hasn’t been allowed to re-enter the United States since he fled in 1977. Instead, he’s had to content himself with making lots of money directing movies in Europe and living in France.

Ya know, I just got back from France. That’s really not a hardship assignment.

The latest bit of doucheoisie posturing is this:

Nearly 100 entertainment industry professionals, including the movie directors Pedro Almodovar, Wong Kar Wai and Wim Wenders urged in a petition that Mr. Polanski be release, saying: “Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision.”

Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar as screenwriter of “The Pianist,” which Mr. Polanski directed, said: “It’s really disgraceful. Both the Americans and the Swiss have miscalculated.”

Jack Lang, a former French culture minister, said that for Europeans the development showed that the American system of justice had run amok.

“Sometimes, the American justice system shows an excess of formalism,” Mr. Lang said, “like an infernal machine that advances inexorably and blindly.”

One wonders, however, if Wong Kar Wei, Wim Wenders, or Pedro Almodovar would feel comfortable leaving a prepubescent female relative unattended around Roman Polanski. Or if they’d be arguing about the “great artist” exemption for a shocking act of rape if it were their 13-year old daughter.

Liss McEwan, as usual, hits it right on the head:

Very few, if any, of the people who have publicly defended Polanski, or who have worked with him, make it their business to champion or associate themselves with admitted child rapists. They make an exception for Polanski for the same reason exceptions have been for other famous, artistic men – directors, writers, actors, comedians, singers, musicians, dancers, choreographers, painters, sculptors, photographers – who have been known to sexually assault women and/or children: Because geniuses get special dispensation.

Because there’s only one Roman Polanski.

So goes the breathless defense of the artiste, while the flipside of that particular coin, because thirteen-year-old girls are a dime a dozen, goes unspoken.

So yeah. Overaggressive prosecution! Of a child molester! Who admitted to it! That’s overzealousness, all right! Just remember, as long as you can paint a nice picture or make a good movie, you get to rape young girls!

But not boys. That would be sick.

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Womyn Born Better…Than You

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, teh tranz, Your RDA of Outrage

Over on Below The Belt there’s this piece about the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.

If you’re trans, the festival is fairly notorious. This is because of its “womyn-born-womyn” policy: only those people born female are allowed to participate; trans women need not apply.

Now, I’m all for safe spaces for women, and I can even see having places and services that might deal with the stresses of having grown up female. But I’m not sure that a music festival has much to do with it, at least not everywhere, at all times during it.

What makes it even more fun is that, much like Lu’s Pharmacy in Vancouver, the festival has historically included trans men. So the “born womyn” thing obviously trumps the “womyn” thing.

Like I say, biology equals destiny is such a feminist point.

Supposedly the festival now allows trans women to attend, although still (in the words of organizer Lisa Vogel) “If a transwoman purchased a ticket, it represents nothing more than that woman choosing to disrespect the stated intention of this Festival.”

Nice.

While I believe in community spaces, and even in community leadership for groups that advocate for a community even if the group doesn’t restrict its membership (for example, I think a male president of NOW would be…disturbing somehow), I’m not a fan of separatists of any stripe–not even trans separatists. (For a taste of how that looks, check out this thread of fail at Bilerico.) Too often, in my experience, separatism and division only leads to each group acting out a shadow play of their own oppression against other groups–like they were building sandcastles instead of tearing down real castles.

Of course, I won’t attend MWMF. But that’s not about politics; I just hate camping.

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And the Lightbulb Goes On

Categories: all about me, don't get your panties in a bunch, invasive kyriarchy, privilege stories

So I’m reading this post at Shakesville about a full-of-FAIL article by Satoshi Kanazawa about how feminism is evil and unneccesary because women are HAWT and only need shoes (or something; his logic is hard to follow, mostly because there doesn’t seem to be any.) And there’s a comments thread that is in the best tradition of Shakesville comments threads. Which means, among other things, that there’s a discussion of why a common epithet turns out to be far nastier than you thought.*

In this case, it turns out the word “maroon” really is a racist term**, even though I (and the original commentator) seem to have always associated it with Bugs Bunny’s joking mispronunciation of “moron.” (Which is also not cool, because it makes fun of people with mental disabilities.)

Now, being what I am–a human being caught in the invisible web of the kyriarchy–I couldn’t help for a second thinking, “great, another word I’ll have to be careful about using.” (Just for a second, ducks, we take checking privilege seriously around here.) And then it occurred to me: oh yes, how terrible it would be to end up living in a world where a person’s thoughts would have to be actually addressed, instead of just dismissed by a senseless epithet that lets you turn off your brain. How truly awful that would be for everyone.

But I never claimed to be quick on the uptake.

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*That’s not snark; one of the great things about Shakesville is that you continually get your assumptions challenged there.

**The people the term applied to were actually pretty amazing–fleeing slavery to forge an existence out of almost nothing.

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Headesk Is A Verb

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, douchebaggery, the patriarchy: you can't live with it....that is all

Greetings, ducks! Sorry about the delay since yesterday’s post, but I had to call a carpenter in–it seems my (quirky, writerly, rolltop) desk had developed a mysterious dent ever since I started using Google Reader to search for stories with the keyword “feminism.” Oddly enough, the dent seemed to fit my forehead perfectly, and got deeper after each one of the mysterious headaches I seem to be suffering from–strange.

However, in any case, I now have a nice shiny new desktop, and it’s time to take a look at what Google brought me today–oh. Oh, dear. Something titled “Hating Feminism.”

Well, let’s not be hasty; maybe it’s a feminist response to people who hate feminists! My heart leaps! See, it starts well:

I know to a degree where she’s coming from. A lot of the feminist-bashing is nothing more than people taking their personal problems and putting a political spin on it. But, of course, NOW is not responsible if you can’t get sex or can’t get your wife to respect you.

Well, not great, but not bad.

We’ve all seen those people. All their stories are about someone taking advantage of them. But even before the stories started, we knew just by looking at them that we are about to deal with a loser.

But that doesn’t negate that feminism has become a cancer. Many of the complaints against the feminists are the same as against Civil Rights warriors.

Oh dear.

Women will acknowledge that a big, tall man who’s in great shape is stronger than they are. What they don’t realize is that a 5-foot-3 110 pound high school boy is still vastly stronger than any woman who’s not taking steroids (aka male hormones).

Riiight…I forgot, that high school kid can whup Laila Ali one hand behind his back–because he’s stronger than every woman in the world.

Women get into an aggressive pose if you ever say that they can’t do something as well. But of course you can’t do some things as well, and you can’t do anything on an exceptional level (historic inventions, Nobel prizes).

Even when you look at things that women do much more than men (write poetry, cook, design clothes), almost all the great ones are male.

Right, because of ten millenia of denying women access to education, devaluing all work they do, and institutional sexism wherever people (read: men) do work for money that women traditionally have done for free, that in no way invalidates your argument. It’s all about the biology, right? I can take comfort in that, scientifically proven….wait a second.

I’m not exactly all about the biology, you know.

The worst outrage (other than the claim by feminists in Sweden that men should be forced by law to sit on toilets like women rather than stand) is the feminist demand that all men’s room become unisex while the women’s bathrooms remain for females only. The logic is that women always have to wait in line and men don’t, so that’s just unfair.

Okay, seriously? Do not take a trans person on about the bathroom.

No society treated women as well as the West. White men didn’t put you in wooden shoes to make your feet unnaturally small, didn’t cut off your clitoris, didn’t “Honor Kill” women for being rape victims. Whether a white woman chose to be a nun or a prostitute or anything in between, she was treated with at least some level of respect.

I’m going to laugh here. Because this has to be satire, right? Because we all know how well prostitutes are treated in our society, right? I mean, they have respect, which is why so many upper-class women have traditionally turned to prostitution; you know, Victorian gentlemen went on the Grand Tour, Victorian ladies went On the Job.

Is there any way you could make your satire richer?

(Update after this was already written: I was originally thinking of writing “whore” instead of “prostitute”, but decided not to because I thought people would react to it negatively. Upon re-reading this, I realized that this in and of itself made my point – Westerners do not accept gratuitous degradation of even the lowest class women.)

I think…I think you need to, I don’t know–I was going to say “take a women’s studies course” but I think I’ll start with, “meet a woman.”

I’ll just…just read a little more…I’m feeling woozy…

Just as blacks have a very special way of looking at things (black-dominated NBA is good, but white-dominated swimming is an outrage), so too do the feminists. That they dominate the Angry Bitch Studies and departments like Sociology is just taken for granted, but all hell breaks loose every time feminazis find out that engineering or physics departments are mostly male.

*thump*

Wow, look at that–there’s already a new dent in my desk.

I think I better keep that carpenter on speed-dial.

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Preggers and Old Uns: Hit the Bricks!

Categories: don't get your panties in a bunch, media tool kit

Mustachio’d libertarian mouthpiece John Stossel showed up on The View today. (Yes, ducks, I was watching–I overslept today.)

I’ve long held that libertarianism is a luxury only the privileged can afford; if you’re a victim of institutionalized prejudice, you tend not to be so sanguine about the idea of folks just doing what they want to do–like, say, issue literacy tests before you can vote, or decide that a penis was the most important instrument in a symphony orchestra.

Among the views Iron John elucidated:

There should be no laws to protect pregnant women in the workplace, because of the “unintended consequences.” You might not hire a woman! Because of the Babies! Even Elizabeth Hasselbeck–Elizabeth Hasselbeck!–had a problem with that. “If you don’t protect these women, aren’t they more at risk?” she asked. Whoopi asked why the laws should be chucked instead of “tweaked.” “Because tweaking never works,” huffed John. I could swear I saw him twirling the ends of his mustache, but that might just have been me being blinded by outrage.

We protect seniors waaay too much because we spend 6-1 on the elders versus the young. Oh, and Ponzi scheme! Medicaid-paid for Viagra! The elderly have a higher net worth than the rest of the population! (Well, yeah, John, and if Bill Gates and I are in the same room together, our average net worth is higher than yours; most seniors I know are very worried about making ends meet nowadays.) Joy asked if he would income test Social Security at this point; when John said he would, she told him he was taking a very “liberal” position. “I’m a classical liberal,” he smirked.

Sherri then wondered “If the government isn’t taking care of seniors, then who is?” John’s reply was that we should take care of ourselves, by saving. Let me tell you, ducks: my parents worked very hard in their lifetime; they each had made a major change in vocation in their thirties, and so had to make up a lot of time. In addition to the full-time jobs they both held, they taught college part-time, and for years had their own test prep side business. Because of that, when they retired they had a tidy little sum to carry them through their old age–my dad was even able to retire early.

Of course, the two Bush stock market crashes caused their net worth to drop pretty precipitously each time; both of them now work part-time. And they’re the kind of success story Stossel wants everyone to have! Oh and Free Markets! Yeah!

Poverty is the natural state of all human beings. This came towards the end of the segment; the discussion of social security naturally blended into general social policy. Stossel gave the classic libertarian answer as to the purpose of government: it should do what only it can do: keep us safe, keep people from stealing things. (I’ve noticed that American libertarians always make national defense a priority, even though it would seem to be a logical inconsistency: shouldn’t we all be able to defend ourselves? Certainly the Founding Fathers thought a standing army was the greatest instrument of tyranny known. Oh well.) In any case, Joy wondered about the Great Depression, and asked John about that, leading to the quote above, plus: “free markets!” (Ah, history blindness is another great privilege of the privileged; a lot of people at the time of the Depression saw it as proof of the failure of capitalism–and it certainly wasn’t free markets that lifted us out of it, but massive government spending, first from the New Deal, then from World War II.) Oh, and private charities. (Whoopi: “are there no workhouses? are there no orphanages?”)

Professional atheletes should be allowed to use steroids, oh and by the way the link to heart disease and cancer hasn’t been proven. Right. Whatever.

The way to save endangered species is to eat them, since there’s no shortage of chicken, and by the way when we allowed people to raise bison for food, didn’t that bring them back from extinction? Of course, the great cause of extinction nowadays is habitat destruction–I wonder how you’re supposed to build a rainforest to keep your valuable, edible frog herds alive?

I first encountered Stossel way back when I was in high school. I think I thought he made sense, until he did a piece on why giving to charity was counter-productive. (He told Ted Turner, who has given millions to the UN, this theory in an interview, and Turner nearly decked him; I’m aware that it doesn’t take much to do that, but still.) He’s been dishing out his libertarianism-light for years now, and getting praised for being a maverick and “telling uncomfortable truths.” And yet, there’s not a similar position from somebody on the far left: 20/20 doesn’t have any segments where a socialist talks about the evils of government non-intervention. But I’m assured that the media has a liberal bias.