Apparently, the diversity caused forest fires
Women, eh? They simply cannot be trusted. Eve ate that apple; Pandora opened that terrible little box; And now women are being blamed for devastating California wildfires. I know it sounds silly, but that’s what Elon Musk, one of the brightest minds of his generation — and one of the most powerful people on Earth — says, so it must be true.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, one of the world’s greatest thinkers, fact-checking is now outdated. However, I’m going to go very old fashioned and do my own fact checking here. clearlyI’m being sarcastic when I say that Musk is blaming the wildfires on women. clearlyit’s more complicated than that. To be more precise, the tech billionaire also blames the disaster — which left at least 11 people dead and destroyed more than 10,000 buildings — on minorities, diversity initiatives and various other scapegoats. Everything but the climate crisis, basically.
On Wednesday, for example, Musk took some time out to obsessively tweet about whether the U.S.releaseBritain announces that the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) “prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes.” He has continued to spread false claims about diversity initiatives (e.g., “DEI It means people are dying“) for several days now, along with posts insinuating that if the LAFD’s fire chief wasn’t a woman, things would be very different.
Musk isn’t the only one trying to link wildfires to “wokeness”: all of it The usual suspects They are in it. Donald Trump Jr. has also been busy making uninspired jokes about DEI standing for DIE. Right-wing actor James Woods and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly criticized the fire department’s promotion of diversity. Even CNN commentator Scott Jennings blamed it Wildfires on DEI policies.
Of course, this isn’t the first time the Maga crowd has blamed DEI initiatives for a tragedy. Around this time last year, they were all too busy claiming that Boeing’s planes were collapsing due to DEI initiatives. Musk even amplified a staggeringly racist tweet suggesting that students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have lower IQs and therefore should not become pilots. “It will take a plane crash and hundreds of people killed for them to change this crazy policy of DIE,” he said at the time.
Right-wing agitators, who never let a good crisis go to waste, also used the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last July as an opportunity to criticize DEI’s efforts to… Secret Service. “There should be no women in the Secret Service. They are supposed to be the best of the best, and none of the best people in this job are women,” conservative political commentator Matt Walsh posted after the assassination attempt.
Ideally, we should ignore these people and their fanatics – completely baseless – Attacks on DEI (which are just thinly veiled attacks on women and minorities). Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury because the right-wing campaign against DEI is working alarmingly well. Companies are now reducing their DEI budgets and cutting back on their expenses DEI policies in response. So we are forced to say over and over again that women and minorities are just as talented as white men. We are forced to point out again and again that rather than being an oppressed minority as some of them think, studies show that the idea that white men as a group are having a harder time getting a job now is… Clearly false. In fact, according to one Wharton economist: “Female and minority candidates are actually penalized relative to white male candidates.”
However, while we cannot ignore the right’s obsession with attacking DEI, we must also ensure that we do not get distracted. After all, Trump and his various allies are masters of distraction. They want us all divided and engaged in culture wars so they can wage a hidden class war. And when it comes to wildfires, they want us to focus on the various conspiracy theories and misinformation they spread so that we don’t focus on the more disturbing issue of climate change.
To be clear, there are many nuanced issues that have contributed to wildfires becoming as ferocious as they are. But it is clear that the climate crisis is a major factor. According to one 2021 study, climate change was the main driver of climate change Increase in fiery weather In the western United States. Greed and arrogance are other factors: Speculators continue to build homes in areas prone to floods and wildfires. There is one that is often cited Article from 1995 By urban theorist Mike Davis called the case for allowing Malibu to burn that later It became a chapter in a book It’s called an environment of fear. In his book, Davis argues that spending millions to save homes in areas that were not zoned for neighborhoods and power lines is not only foolish, it is a waste of public resources.
“I’m famous for pointing out that the broader public shouldn’t have to pay a dime to protect or rebuild mansions on sites that will inevitably burn every 20 or 25 years,” Davis said. He told the Los Angeles Times in 2018When the Woolsey Fire broke out in Malibu. “My opinion hasn’t changed.”
The fires in California are a terrible tragedy. It should also serve as a wake-up call. We live in a burning world, and unless we take our changing environment seriously, we will continue to watch the planet burn. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the incoming administration – and its de facto advisers like Musk – will treat the disaster in California with the seriousness it deserves. Cutting back on DEI departments is much easier than fixing the real problems.
Jamie Lee Curtis is facing backlash for comparing barricade fire to Gaza
“[T]The entire Pacific region, unfortunately, looks like Gaza, or one of these war-torn countries where terrible things happened. Curtis said. Making such a rude comparison to what many experts have described as Genocide Horrible. At least 74 children were reportedly killed in Firstly week The year 2025 in Gaza. It’s unclear how many people have died in Gaza now, but a new report in the Lancet medical journal estimates there were 64,260 deaths from traumatic injuries between October 2023 and the end of June 2024. And that doesn’t even include all the people who are starving or Freeze Until death. Incidentally, Curtis has made her disdain for Palestinians clear before: she previously posted a photo of terrified children being bombed, claiming they were Israeli, and then Delete it When I learned that they were Palestinians.
Why do female artists use screaming to express female anger?
If you feel like screaming into the void right now, you’re not alone. In Artsy, Emily Steer thinks The way guttural screaming has appeared in many works by women artists since the mid-20th century, from the work of Marina Abramović to Faith Ringgold and Tracey Emin.
Religious leaders in Malawi are fighting for legal abortion
Unsafe abortion is a leading cause of maternal death in the country – which has one of the strictest abortion laws in the world – contributing to up to 18% of maternal deaths. Now some Christian and Muslim clerics have joined forces to try to overturn colonial-era abortion laws.
People are moving from US states that have restricted abortion
Turns out a lot of people I don’t like living in countries That treats women like walking wombs.
French police arrest the founder of the site used by Dominique Bellicot
French authorities closed the coco.fr website in June 2024 after it was linked to more than 23,000 crimes, including rape, murder and pedophilia.
The world’s first blood test for endometriosis may be on its way
Endometriosis is a debilitating condition that affects approx 10% of women of reproductive age and girls around the world. Although the condition is common, it can take “an average of seven years for a woman to receive a diagnosis,” and detecting the condition can involve surgical procedures. Now, a new simple blood test, developed by a team of Australian researchers, He is in the works. If successful, it would mean that more women could be diagnosed much earlier.
Week in Patriarchal Authority
It’s getting cold in South Florida, which means it’s time Iguana drop alerts. Once the temperature drops below the mid-40s, iguanas — which can grow up to 6 feet long — enter a cold daze and can sometimes fall from trees. If you encounter a cold-stunned iguana, the advice is to ignore it. Like many of us, they become very cranky when they first wake up.