Fight Fire with Sapphire!

The appalling Matt Hayden displays what can only be described as universal ignorance in this hateful post about the joyful discovery, and naming, of a new constellation.

Oh, where do I start, Matt! 

One:  What you, in your typically speciesist manner, insist on calling the "humanities" departments are certainly not dominated by "politically correct" left-wingers.  Just as in the mainstream media, appalling peenie-waving testosteroids continue to ruthlessly inflict their hateful agenda upon a terrified community. 

Two: You seem to believe that astronomers have forsaken their objectivity and are revealing some sort of political bias in their nomenclature (if only it were "no men" but that's another matter!).  Actually, Matt, they are being very rational indeed.

"Red Square" is what the citizens of that most spiritually evolved constellation call their harmonius home.  The astronmers are merely reporting that fact.  So don't shoot the messenger, Matt! 

You may be wondering how I know this?  Well, Jocelyn and I have been to this destination (we astral travelled there only recently) and we can assure you it is a workers' paradise. 

You see, Matt, you and your evil cohorts on the right may be presently winning the battle here on Earth, but we are winning the war intergalactically (and pacifistically, of course).

So there! 

Speaking of sexist attitudes ...

The appalling Matt Hayden is just full of them.  You see, poor sexist Matt is terribly threatened by the mere presence of women the public sphere (unless they are appalling reich-wingers like himself -- hello A man, duh!) and so he seeks to demean them -- usually by constructing some form of commodification or other -- whenever possible on his blog.

Recently he suggested an appallingly sexist (and environmentally unfriendly) scenario in which two female Queensland Green candidates should perform for his optico-patriarchal amusement.

Apart from the overt misogyny in this appalling post there is a covert attitude that I find deeply offensive: namely that "wildness" is associated with the loss of sexual inhibition; and that women actually enjoy displaying their bodies to unreconstructed testosteroids.   

Since when did Sister Nature commodify sassy sisters with lookism, Matt?  Hmm?  Hmm?

Fellow travellers, it never ceases to amaze me that even now, in 2007, appallingly sexist attitudes still dominate in the Australian media. 

Take, for instance, the endless and vicious campaign to destroy Julia Gillard.  Journalists continue to portray this feisty, sassy sister as hard, cold and lonely.  Remember that vicious campaign focusing on her "bare", "barren" kitchen?  Would a male politician have suffered such a violation?

Of course not. 

Tragically, the violence continues unabated.  Here, one of Rupert Murdoch's henchpersons reminds us that even though Julia has a significant other (who, fortunately for her, does seem to be be at least partially attitudinally reconstructed) Julia is still not the marrying kind.

Appalling.  Just appalling.