#guess who just read tlr

[bluezeri]

when ur name is casey jones jr and u just lost a father figure/mentor that also happens to be an old traumatized mutant turtle living in a shitty future world

[tiredspacedragon]

Ooh I wanna send some questions. I think A3, A21, A22, B3, B17, C6, and C11 interest me the most!

Ooh, lots to answer here

A3 Favourite Villain: It might not be an interesting answer, but it's Makuta Teridax. You really can't beat a good big bad. At least not one like Teridax. He's got one of my favourite qualities in major villains: charisma. Some big bads are just so thoroughly unpleasant that it's not fun to watch or read about them because you just want to drive a stake through their skull whenever they're around, or worse, they're boring, but Teridax is just a joy. He is so theatrical, so secure in his arrogance and superiority that he chews up just about every scene he's in. And it helps that he's actually smart. So many villains are portrayed as that "backup plans for my backup plans" evil schemer archetype, but then fall flat in execution when they get undone with relative ease. But Teridax actually manages to pull it off, both because he's terrifyingly good at using that facet of his personality as an intimidation tactic; go ahead, try to fight him, he has a plan for every move you could make; and because he actually wins. To this day, Teridax is the only villain I have seen succeed in their plans by taking advantage of the trope of Good Guys Always Win. How do you, as the villain, succeed when the heroes are always going to come out on top? Easy, make the heroes accomplishing their goals result directly in you achieving yours. Brilliant! And I will say, I enjoy both versions of Makuta. Both the schemer, and the malevolent force of nature of the early years. I would have liked to see more overlap between the two characterizations, but I'm happy with what we have.

A21 Favourite Order of Mata Nui Member: Uhhh...Axonn, I guess? I don't know, I've never been a big fan of most of the OoMN. I like them in concept, but very few of the characters actually interested me after they were revealed. I mean I like Helryx, first Toa and all that, and Krakua is sweet, but picking one of the two members who are Toa feels kinda cheap, especially given the whole "no Toa allowed" rule. So I guess Axonn. I do enjoy me a good heavily-armoured holy warrior every now and then, and it helps that whenever I read any of Axonn's lines, I hear them in Kevin Michael Richardson's voice in my head, so he feels a lot more defined and present than most of the 06-08 characters.

A22 Favourite Dark Hunter: Well aside from everyone's favourites, The Shadowed One himself, Lariska, and a certain spidery lad, I have a soft spot for Darkness. 'Cause like...what the heck is he?? He just shows up one day, tells TSO "Hey, I live here now. And btw, if you ever show a sign of weakness, I'm going to eviscerate you and claim your criminal empire for my own," and apparently that was totally cool? We're never given any indication that TSO hired him, or pays him for his services. He doesn't go out on jobs, doesn't make any profit, just sits there and waits for murder time with 0 explanation of how or why he is in that position. He is fascinating and I don't want to know anything else about him because quite frankly, that might just ruin him.

B3 Favourite Titan Set: I answered Lhikan and Kikanalo as my favourite set in a previous ask, so I guess that qualifies here too. For the sake of saying something different, though, I'm also gonna give some credit to the Axalara T9. I never used to care about the vehicles in Bionicle, but I have since come around. I am older, wiser, and I know awesome when I see it, so I've warmed up to the gigantic flying battle machine. It's good old-fashioned Technic wizardry, and I completely understand how it managed to win awards.

B17 Favourite Movie: Web of Shadows, no contest. I get the feeling this is an unusual choice in the fandom, but I love Web of Shadows. It's easily my favourite of the original trilogy, and TLR really does not come close. The voice acting, the music, the visuals, everything about this movie does it for me. Especially the character designs. I love the asymmetrical, more bestial Toa Hordika, especially how their weapons became natural tools, and also, I'm just gonna come out and say it, the Rahaga's propellers should have been cannon because they absolutely rule. My only gripe is that, like its predecessor, Web of Shadows moves too quickly. The pacing feels a little rushed sometimes, especially Vakama's side changes, and so much of the 2005 story is cut out to fit into the hour-and-a-half-ish time frame. It's handled better than LoMN was, but still, I would have at least appreciated an acknowledgement of time passing between certain scenes. Like at least a hint that there's like a whole month between the first scene between the Hordika and the Rahaga when Vakama storms off, and when he actually gets captured and betrays the team for that sweet snake-lady...uhh, affection. But that's my only complaint.

C6 What Character do you Think is Underrated?: Gonna stick with Morak and Krahka on this one. And also I'll add on every single Turaga ever. Like sure we talk about their Toa selves all the time, but I feel like the Turaga don't get talked about much, in-story or out. Which is a shame, because they're still our guys, just in a new stage of life. I feel like Turaga in general get written off as a little lame, and maybe if they were talked about more, that impression might start to fade a little.

C11 What Character Should Have Been Given (Another) Physical Set?: I'm tempted to say Teridax here, because it seems odd that the big bad only ever got one true set, excluding Dume and Maxilos as disguises, and completely disregarding Ultimate Dume because it's a travesty. Hell, you could even argue he appeared in every Piraka set too, in their Zamor Spheres. But I don't know if I actually would have wanted another set for him. Teridax worked pretty well as a behind-the-scenes villain, he didn't need another physical form, because the one we got for him was great. I wonder sometimes if Icarax was planned to be a Teridax set, but Greg nixed the idea for the same reason I just stated and made Icarax his own character to continue letting Teri stay in the shadows. So with that said... I might have liked to have seen the Turaga Metru re-released in larger forms to stay in-scale with the later years. So either them, or another proper Teridax set, because it still would have been cool, even if it made no sense.

[udaitenma]

* (1/2) Hi! I’m just curious so I decided to ask: I was wondering how big (or small) does your team’s proofreader/editor change with your (or all TLrs of MS) translations. IIRC you mentioned sometimes your TLs were changed or some were even omitted (like your notes). Sometimes I read different interpretations/translations of the dialogues from other fans (as well as other MS projects like TG) with explanations. I heard that MS is more liberal when it comes to their TLs (or so they say?)

* (2/2) But I’m really grateful with your team’s work. You’re doing the community, the fans great favor of delivering us our favorite manga series for free. I’m just really curious with the process, especially the perspective of the translators (since Japanese is a very context based language). Thank you for reading! (English isn’t my native tongue so I may not express it properly. Sorry. ^^)-Hey - It really depends a lot on the week, the chapter, what I “originally wrote” and if that seemed weird to the proofer, or not. If I’m really unhappy about an edit the proofer makes, I’ll usually salt and ask for it to be changed. (Tbh in the past I used to argue a lot about the Bleach proofing changes when I was on Bleach, and I almost got kicked off the team for that HAHA but yeah we’ve been through a lot of ups and downs.) People always say MS is more “liberal” like it’s a dirty word. I don’t even know if “liberal” should be the correct terminology to describe translation style. In my opinion, taking unwarranted liberties with the translation and making shit up is not what a translator should do. However, translating everything word for word is just as egregious. It loses out on the nuance of the text, loses out on the way a character is portrayed, and loses out on how emotions are conveyed in the new language, if everything is translated word for word to the original text. It sounds unnatural, and it’s a lazy and unskillful way for a translator to do their work. People get so sanctimonious when translating and they say the do the translation literally, but too literal a translation and that just shows a shallow understanding of the base language they are translating from in my opinion. 

Like if I were translating French and I had written “and my ass is made of chicken”, I’m sure that’s really hilarious but it’s only going to be fully appreciated by the people who understand that it’s the french way of calling out someone on a lie - sure, it will make them feel great that they got the “in joke” and understood what the “original text” was, but the “English” way of saying it would be something more like “yeah and pigs are flying”. There is also a Japanese saying that can be translated to ‘a man like fresh split bamboo’. Do you want the Japanese in a translation note, and for the translator to ask the readers to go and google it? If people want to learn a language by reading literally translated text, they are better off actually opening a text book and learning the language rather than getting a language boner every time a Japanese translation satisfies their ego that they understand the original text or whatever.

See here in Haikyuu 241, “chance truly does, favour the prepared mind” is the common english phrase.

The FA version is an attempt at a word-for-word literal translation of the Japanese raws. If you wanted to know how this universally very common phrase is said in Japanese, you should go and pick up a textbook and start studying Japanese. If you liked the FA version because you could learn what the Japanese for it is,.. you should… go and pick up a textbook and start studying Japanese. A professional translation should not sound so awkward and janky imo. 

I used to be more of a “literal” translator, but I guess I’ve slowly shifted my style a bit. The reasons for this is twofold.  One is undeniably a little bit related to the proofing - too literal, and I know it’ll definitely get changed, so I try to make it sound better in English (like natural English) in the first place so I can ensure it’s correct and that it won’t get changed into something that has a chance of being incorrect/compromising the nuance and feel of the sentence. Secondly, I have come to realise that it’s a waste of Japanese ability to translate everything word for word. It’s also important to be able to capture the nuance of a sentence, make sure it doesn’t sound janky or unnatural in english, and make the experience of reading a chapter immersive - as immersive as it would have been if people were able to read the original text. I want to have style when translating - if I wanted to get a literal translation, I’d just shove the whole thing into google translate. 

Some things that the proofer will edit, is for example, if you remember last week there was the sentence “cool as a pillow”. Now, that phrase is not really in my vernacular. Maybe the proofer honestly says it, or maybe he just wanted to spice things up a bit, I’m not sure. I am not a big fan of the phrase he used, and I understand that people want to know what the Japanese text actually said in this circumstance. I originally did only write “calm” in the text file. However, stuff like this part here in 243 this week:

He says “nice game” in the original, but I felt like if he spoke English, he would say ‘good game’ as that is a more common phrase in natural sounding english than ‘nice game’. The word ‘nice’, as in ‘naisu!’ is something that has found it’s way into the Japanese language, and used a bit differently in certain cases to what is natural in English. You also know the phrase ‘gg’ gamers use? ;D That’s also why I felt this would be more common, if you hc that these guys do know gaming terminology to some extent (if they were English speakers). 

If you want to compare some bubbles between MS and FA scans (tbh I’m not a fan of the FA translations as they are rn, I miss the casanova translator :( but I went through their scan for you

My translation: It sounds more natural to me that when speaking to a friend, you’d make the language flow with the use of the word “over” and so forth.

FA version - missing the word “over”, but nbd.

My translation: In Japanese, using the person’s name could easily just mean “you”, but I thought I’d include the ‘Daichi’ here. I wanted to convey the nuance and flow of the sentences so it reads well in English too. I don’t feel that I sacrificed the original Japanese meanings, and I did my best to maintain the natural conversational tone and flow. I used “came to our match” to clarify, in the original Japanese it just says “Tashiro-san and Kurokawa-kun came!” which lacks a marker indicating where they “came to” - it’s very obvious by context and sounds natural in Japanese, but sounds unnatural in English to just end a sentence like that.

FA Translation - You can see that they clarified by saying “tashiro and kurokawa are here” instead of “came to the match” which works too. Different choice of working, works too.

My translation:

FA translation:

Again, same deal.

These aren’t the proofer’s doing, these are my choices for what I think sounds most natural and smooth in English.

As for the other discrepancies, like Lazyshima vs Tiredshima, as I’ve talked about last week… well, I don’t like to say this because think it’s in bad taste for me as a translator to badmouth other translations and call them out on their mistakes for no real reason (and I honestly can’t be bothered) but those are FA’s mistakes, to put bluntly. Same for “past students” vs “old boys”, the raws say “old boys”. I was actually tossing between OB and Alumni, but I think the use of the word “old boys” as a direct translation doesn’t lose out when it’s sounded in english - as in it doesn’t sound super weird or janky since ‘old boys’ is a thing in English too - so I just left it as is, direct from the raws.

If you see the display board page this week with all the school’s names - there are discrepancies there too between the two versions, because there is more than one way to read the Kanji. There are many alternatives per place name. That page probably took me the longest to translate,  because I spent a long time considering each of the different readings, and choosing what was the most common and likely reading and gave a lot of thought into it - I hope that pays off, and if there is clarification on the readings in hiragana in future chapters, I hope I could give people the right reading the first time, despite how insignificant that board is.

Another example you can see discrepancies is the chapter title for this week:

sorezore no shosen, and FA has put “the other first matches” or something like that but ‘sorezore’ doesn’t really mean ‘the other’, it means ‘each/respectively’. Nothing in the word ‘sorezore’ could mean ‘other’. Not in the dictionaries, and not colloqually/contextually. Furthermore, even based off context, I think this chapter focuses on not only fukurodani and nekoma’s first matches, but also the wrapping up of karasuno’s first match and some insight into their match - so I wouldn’t translate the title as ‘other’. I would say this was a mistranslation. but I’m going to leave it there now because this could go on forever and I don’t want to just trash FA’s translations. 

To wrap it up - there’s no real way to definitely explain to what extent a translation is liberal, or literal, or which is better, etc. I can tell you too liberal is bad, too literal is also bad. I try to not to be google translation simulator 2.0 - so I do my best to make sentences flow and convey the nuance for an immersive and authentic reading experience (yes, newsflash, you can have an wholesome, different authentic reading experience without having the sentence being word for word translated from the Japanese to please the ego of people who want to feel like they know Japanese without actually putting in the hours and effort to consult a textbook)  .If the proofer changes too much, I will do my best to ask it to be changed. FA goes too literal in my opinion, but their translation has the bare bones and there is a demographic that do enjoy that particular style. However, because I’ve read the raws, I can tell you it’s not like the literal translators don’t have their liberal moments when the inspiration hits. It’s not really fair to ask a translator to explain exactly how literal/liberal their translations are - it’s honestly best to just learn the language yourself, get fluent, and judge for yourself. I know a good translation when I see one, as well as the fact that I can see laziness and mistakes when I see one - but it’s a bit difficult to exhaustively explain. 

Anyway, sorry this got so long. This is why it took me a while to reply, because I had to think of a response and set aside the time to write it! But I’m grateful for your interest and appreciate your support. Thank you, I hope you keep an eye on all the translations and enjoy the story. 

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By Kitty Testa

By now you’ve heard of James Damore, the Google software engineer who penned an internal memo for discussion entitled Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber, How bias clouds are thinking about diversity and inclusion. Once unleashed on the Internet, the memo was immediately damned as a sexist, anti-diversity manifesto and sparked outrage.

I’ve read through the memo several times, and as a woman, I would have to go out of my way on purpose to be offended by it.

It seems that the passage that has provoked the ire of many is this section:

Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech

At Google, we’re regularly told that implicit (unconscious) and explicit biases are holding women back in tech and leadership. Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story. On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:

They’re universal across human cultures

They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone

Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males

The underlying traits are highly heritable

They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective

Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from all women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions.

Damore goes on to describe some of the differences between men and women on average, with a variety of hyperlinks as references to support his conclusions. Nothing he states is in any way new, and only recently considered controversial enough to evoke hysteria. Damore was addressing Google’s difficulties in reaching its diversity goals, and was critical of the company’s programs and policies that were clearly not working. He stated upfront that he was supportive of the diversity goals, and wanted to suggest alternative tactics to achieve those goals, and to consider—God forbid!—the costs and benefits of diversity initiatives.

And for this he was fired.

Well, I don’t work for Google and Google can’t fire me, so I’ve given a little thought to how Google can solve its diversity problem. Here are my top five suggestions.

  1. Encourage more male employees at Google to identify as women

It’s my understanding that Google would like to have a workplace that is more equally male and female. I don’t know how members of the other 49 genders fit into that plan, but I’m pretty sure that Google won’t insist that the females that work there actually be female in a biological sense. Google could offer incentives to males who are willing to identify as females—bonuses, perks, Starbucks gift cards, that sort of thing.

If 10% of the men working at Google were willing to do this, it would drastically change the ratio of men to women, and they wouldn’t even have to suffer employee turnover!

You may think this is sort of a cheat, but is it? On the one hand, the dominant culture insists that there is such a thing as being a man trapped in a female body and vice versa, but on the other hand also rebuffs the idea that there are inherent differences between the sexes. So what actually makes a man or a woman is just whatever anyone wants to say it is.

  2. Start their own tech university, and don’t offer Women’s Studies

Google rejects 99% of applicants who apply to work at the company. Google employees report 84% satisfaction with their jobs, and it’s rated one of the best companies to work for year after year. But Google is evidently not a pleased with its workforce and believes it needs a little fine tuning.

Google could easily afford to create its own university to train future employees to the standards they require. They could also populate their university with the mix of people they want to carry forward into the corporate culture. Google U would have the ability to nix majors that women are often drawn to, such as English, Psychology, Social Work and Education, and only offer majors in business and technical fields.

And they could give scholarships to women and others they wish to recruit to engineer their student population to exactly the balance they wish. This would be a tremendous stream of properly trained and selected employees into Alphabet, Inc. It would also give them the opportunity to format their future employees’ minds in ways that will ensure there will never be another divisive opinion bandied about at Google ever again.

  3. Fire a lot of men

Oddly enough, the firing of James Damore was a tiny step toward reaching Google’s diversity goals as Damore is a white male. But it’s not enough. To reach the harmonic balance of diversity, Google should just fire a slew of men and replace them with women. They can’t get rid of Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, because he’s Indian. But they could start with Alphabet’s CEO, Larry Page. He’s a white guy! So what if he was a founder of Google. He’s the personification of the patriarchy. Give him his golden parachute and replace him with a woman.

And then they could have a raffle at Google to see which lucky guys get to keep their jobs. The rest? Happy trails. Go make Facebook or Apple look bad.

  4. Redefine diversity

What is diversity in practice? Is it accepting and treating those around you with respect or is it a kind of social engineering? At Google, it appears to be the latter.

On Google’s diversity webpage, it highlights its special Employee Research groups to “connect with a network of people who share their values of supporting diversity.”

Here are the groups showcased:

Asian Google Network

Black Google Network

Filipino Google Network

Gayglers

American Indian Google Network

Google Veterans Network

Greyglers (50+ crowd, I’m guessing)

Hispanic Googlers Network (HOLA)

Indus Googlers Network

Mosaic

Disability Alliance

Woman@Google

Why does diversity have to revolve around ethnicity and age? Why encourage people to “stick with their own kind” and avoid others? How about a diversity policy that brings people together instead of building walls between them? How about these groups?

D&D Googlers

Google Fantasy Footballers

Libertarian Googlers

Google Scrapbookers

Foodies@Google

Musical Googlers

You get the idea. People like to network with others who like the same things that they do. Ethnic and age diversity will occur naturally within these groups and people will form connections with others they otherwise would not. If what Google is going for is a harmonious community in which people value one another, perhaps allowing them to discover those things they have in common will do more to promote diversity than creating echo chambers.

  5. Treat people as individuals

This is something Damore suggested, and it seems that the company was none too pleased with the suggestion.

Google has more than 57,000 employees, and trying to engineer outcomes for large populations is an impossible task. Yes, Google should be cognizant of hiring biases and paying all individuals fairly. But there are too many variables out in the world that are beyond Google’s control. They cannot create a diversity ratio and expect to achieve it out of sheer will.

There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that women don’t get a fair shake in tech. (If there is an authoritative study on this subject, I haven’t found it.)  The complaints of women being dismissed and discouraged in technical fields seem to be mostly against educators, start-up ventures and smaller players in the tech world, and not so much against the big tech powerhouses. The chances of working for a Google or a Facebook or an Apple are very low for anyone, and whatever Google does with its diversity goals, it is unlikely to affect most women in tech.

Perhaps some of James Damore’s ideas might gain some traction after all of this attention. Some of his ideas focused on making tech careers more attractive to more women, and also using women’s inherent strengths to improve the tech industry overall. His missive was not anti-diversity; it was simply a different approach, one more focused on individuals and less dependent on the progressive ideology of victimhood.

And that’s what triggered the Internet.

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By Jonah Bennett

White nationalist Richard Spencer’s speech at Auburn University (AU) on April 18 sparked a firestorm of angry protests, but one Auburn student showed up in an orange suit to take the edge off the moment. His antics have since earned him the title of “Carrot Man.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation caught up with 20-year-old AU student Ivan Phillips-Schmidt for an interview about his appearance at the protest, where he dressed in an orange costume and held a sign that read, “I don’t carrot all about your outrage.”

Phillips-Schmidt, who was born and raised in Alabama, told TheDCNF he’s a junior at Auburn and studying at the nursing school. In the future, he’d like to spend his time volunteering for Doctors Without Borders or engaging in other activist movements. He notes that he was a supporter of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.

In the video below, Carrot Man faces off against one of the more outspoken anti-fascist protesters at AU, which earned him his notoriety.

WATCH:

  TheDCNF: What prompted you to attend the protest, and where did you get the idea for the Carrot Man costume, the sign, the dancing, the music? How did you hear of the Richard Spencer event?

Phillips-Schmidt: I decided to attend the protest when I realized that Antifa and Spencer were both recruiting people to travel hundreds of miles to converge on my campus. I was aware of the havoc that both radical groups caused at Berkeley — over $100,000 of property damage. I didn’t want to see the same thing happen here.

I started brainstorming ideas of something stupid and hilarious I could do to mock both groups of non-local extremists, bring some humor to the situation, and prevent fights and riots. I pitched the idea to some of my friends, they helped develop the pun on the sign, and Carrot Man was born.

TheDCNF: Every figure who captures the public’s imagination immediately ends up being assigned a memorable name. Yours is Carrot Man. How does this make you feel?  

Phillips-Schmidt: I think it’s hilarious. Pretty self-explanatory title. Makes me want to join a boxing gym and go fight crime. They’ll be laughing so hard at my awful dancing they’ll never see the right hook coming.

TheDCNF: Everyone wants to know your politics. Do you describe yourself as conservative, liberal, progressive, libertarian, alt-right, communist, ecofascist, or esoteric Linkola-Kaczynski fusionist?  

Phillips-Schmidt: I would label myself as a progressive, but I’m convinced that the current obsession with party politics is doing massive damage to our country. Civility and compromise are desperately needed. I voted for Gary Johnson in the general election.

TheDCNF: Much of the footage from Auburn features you in a battle for the audience’s attention with the antifascist drummer protesting Richard Spencer. The drummer didn’t seem to care for your Carrot Man antics. Do you have anything to say to him?

Phillips-Schmidt: You’re on the right side, but you’re doing it COMPLETELY wrong. You don’t bring neutral people to your side by calling them “motherfuckers.” Fight smarter, not harder.

TheDCNF: What was the crowd like? How many supporters of Spencer, how many antifascists, how many regular students just along for the ride?

Phillips-Schmidt: At its biggest, the crowd was composed of probably 1,000 people, mostly neutral students. It was hard to get a good estimate of the total number of Spencer supporters and anti-fascists because not all of them were decked out with gear/weapons. They were in the vast minority. Most students were neutral and just wanted the whole ordeal to be over with.

 TheDCNF: What kind of response have you gotten so far from friends, students, and random people on social media and in person?  

Phillips-Schmidt: I have had complete strangers tell me I’m a celebrity or a superhero. I guess that would make my superpower bad dancing? I’ve had suggestions to fly to Berkeley, wear the suit for Auburn football games, or start a stripper business. A local DJ photoshopped Carrot Man onto a flier for a 4/20 bar event last week. I was kissing a girl at a party on Saturday, and someone in the crowd yelled, “GET IT, CARROT MAN.” That was annoying.

I have had some angry people contact me asking why I would make fun of anti-fascist protesters. They usually calm down when I explain that I mocked both groups equally because I think they are both equally stupid.

TheDCNF: Have you received any threats since? Did you receive any threats while at the protest?

Phillips-Schmidt: I have not received any threats, yet. Both Spencer’s goons and Antifa both absolutely hated me at the protests (which is how I knew my strategy was working), but if either group had touched me the crowd of onlookers would have murdered them. That’s what I told myself at least. Lots of them screamed insults; I was called a “disgrace to America,” etc. Occasionally, the Nazis would purposefully bump into me, trying to provoke me, but I just laughed and kept on dancing.

TheDCNF: Did you accomplish what you wanted to, or was there anything left undone?

Phillips-Schmidt: I DEFINITELY prevented fights, and probably much worse. The critical moment not captured on video (that I know of), occurred after Spencer’s speech was over, and the Nazis were leaving campus. An Antifa member singled out an Alt-Right guy, grabbed him, and just started screaming in his face, hands raised, ready to throw fists. The big group of Nazis with shields and weaponized flag poles turned around, started marching. I stepped in between the two groups and just stood there playing “Why Can’t We Be Friends.” The police came through the crowd fairly quickly, and their presence deterred any further escalation.

Only one fight, zero students arrested.

Overall, I’d call it an amaize-ing success.

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By: Paul Meekin

Jacob Tobia wrote an article for Time Magazine advocating for gender neutral bathrooms. The logic being of everything in our society, gendered bathrooms are one of the last institutions that serve to segregate people along gender lines. It’s a great read. Also, for those who don’t consider themselves male or female – there is no ‘proper’ bathroom choice.

Tobia doesn’t consider themselves male or female. They wear eyeliner, makeup, and feminine clothing – but also sport a scruffy beard and dress sort of like Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Tobia is happily in between the male and female polarities.

However, if they go into a woman’s bathroom, people may freak out about this wild-man in their restroom. If they go into the men’s bathroom people may freak out about this tranny queer in theirs.

I don’t think it’s a stretch of the imagination to assume Tobia has run into some major jerks in bathrooms in their time. In the 9490 or so days Tobia has been on this planet earth, they have used the bathroom thousand and thousands of times. It’s probably happened to them – and more than once.

With that said, I do get that people are freaked out about the rapidly evolving definition of man, woman, and those in between. That talk of transgender bathrooms, custom pronouns, and conversations associated with these issues often come with a bullhorn and not from a place of understanding – from either side.

One side will tell you that ‘sexually confused’ people shouldn’t be sharing bathrooms with little girls – and that hypothetically anyone with a wig could storm into a woman’s bathroom and cause all sorts of terrible atrocity. They are skeptical of any biological man trying to entering a very private space. Which if you consider the history of biological men, is a legitimate reason for a bit of pause.

It seems this issue is focused on the issue of transwoman, as well. It seems transmen have received less coverage regarding this issue.

The other side will say those concerns make you a bigot and a jerk and you should either get with the program or go die in a fire. Any concerns are unfounded – adapt or die, as they say. On top of that, even IF some transgendered people turn out to assault someone in a bathroom – it’s such a small fraction of people that you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Basically the same arguments conservatives use for gun rights.

I’m somewhere in the middle. I don’t care where anyone wants to pee – as long as it’s not in my face. But I get why folks find themselves a little concerned about the notion of a biological male in the women’s bathroom because biological men are routinely pigs and staring at a shocking new reality that gives traditionalists pause.

So perhaps eliminating gendered bathrooms all together is the answer. “I went to a restaurant that had no gendered bathrooms whatsoever. Instead, there was an open, communal area with seven or eight sinks, flanked on either side by a dozen individually locking bathroom stalls with floor-to-ceiling doors. It was totally comfortable, completely gender-neutral and, most importantly, provided plenty of privacy in which to do your business.” Said Tobia in the Time article.

Talk about potty utopia. If businesses have the space and resources for something like that – go for it. Unfortunately, many bathrooms are small, cramped, isolated, and the resources would not be available for many businesses to construct such a wonder.

I also have to imagine the idea of co-ed bathrooms in elementary and high schools would go over like a fart in church, too.

Additionally, a bathroom like this in a casual restaurant is one thing. Picture a nightclub, singles bar, NASCAR racetrack or in a rural town that isn’t quite as progressive as New York or Los Angeles. I foresee a situation where a male notices the kind of underwear that’s down around the ankles of a woman and makes a stupid comment about how sexy they are, how not sexy they are, or even about how much of a bitch she is for making loud pooping noises.

Luckily, this is hypothetical. Surely a few bad dudes harassing women in the bathroom isn’t enough to change the whole system, right?

Would most women feel comfortable sharing their bathroom with men? I don’t know. I DO know women often take solace in their bathroom if they are being harassed by a man at a public location. I also know I personally would feel uncomfortable pooping in a bathroom full of women.

I’m a gentleman like that…I guess, but I could get over it.

This issue is so tough because we’re dealing with gender roles, ideologies, prejudices, institutions, infrastructure, hypothetical worries, men, women, girls, boys, those in between, and literally shit, too.

And it is here being a libertarian provides an opportunity so ripe I want to bite into it on a warm summer day. By definition, a libertarian will defend a person’s right to privacy, liberty, and in this case, the liberty to use whatever bathroom you want. A libertarian perspective could careless if you’re male, female, trans, questioning, or the cookie monster. A libertarian, would, I imagine, advocate for gender neutral bathrooms because gender specific ones could be considered a useless regulation – and a limitation on personal liberty.

Realistically, a libertarian could be entirely put off by the very notion of transgenderism, but defend their right to use whatever bathroom they want. Just like how the ACLU defended the rights of the KKK in Skokie Illinois.

Also, Tobia isn’t saying this is what we SHOULD do. They are advocating for a serious national conversation about it and pose it as a viable option. It provides an avenue for an actual conversation with tough questions and an open exchange of ideas.

Speaking selfishly, the more LGBTQ people we have on the libertarian side, the more money, influence, and elections we’ll win. Keep in mind Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton didn’t come around on gay marriage until a little under a decade ago. Libertarians don’t care about gay marriage, they care that everyone has the same rights under the law.

Libertarians also care about the rights of private business owners – let them handle the bathrooms however they want and let the free market sort it out. That could be problematic if you’re the kind of person who advocates for federal regulations on these things in lieu of wallets and public opinion doing the talking.

But at least we’re talking. I think. On twitter I reached out to Tobia about what pronouns they’d prefer (They/Them) and got some pretty gross comments from self-proclaimed libertarians.

Ultimately, I ask of libertarians to have an open mind and warm heart. LGBTQ peoples and libertarians want all of the same things.

Of the LGBTQ community I ask the following questions:

Do you want to change people’s minds, or do you want to get what you want?

If someone who disagrees with your personal politics is still willing to defend your rights, will you work with them?

If you answered yes to the above, can I interest you in a pamphlet?

EDITOR’s NOTE: The views expressed are those of the author, they are not representative of The Libertarian Republic or its sponsors.

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By Jonah Bennett

Judges have so far faced no discipline more than a year after getting caught hosting a “Forum of Hate” listserv at the Department of Veterans Affairs that, among other things, called veterans “shit,” black people “niggers,” and then-VA Director Eric Shinseki an undisclosed racist slur for Asians.

Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA) administrative law judges (ALJs), attorneys and managers were busted in late 2015 for what members called the “Forum of Hate” (FOH). The forum directed comical and shockingly offensive rhetoric towards upper management, who they believed were focused on procuring bonuses for themselves, as well as rank and file employees, who they regarded as little more than low-quality affirmative action hires.

“Everything is shit. We are shit. The union is shit. The front office is shit. We work for shit in the service of shit and at the end of the day we attempt to clan [sic] the shit of of us with a liquid shit-shower. Nothing matters except that the front office fuck gets paid a Tier 1 bonus,” wrote a member of the group March 31, 2014, comparing veterans to excrement.

The judges are in charge of impartially weighing whether veterans should get disability compensation. The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group obtained a draft inspector general report on the email group, which had existed in one form or another since 2007. Employees’ names were redacted.

Here are some of the most inflammatory things BVA employees discussed on the email list, using their government accounts while on the clock.

Members speculated that an obese black female employee they nicknamed G-POT — because they said she looked like a hippopotamus and acted like a rapper — would soon get the top job at the BVA. The words, “Fat twat shouldn’t manage a KFC for God’s sake,” were found in the email.

They described in great detail the sounds that would be overheard if chicken wings were stapled to the ceiling, which they said would be the only way to get her to work hard. The emails also referenced the Klu Klux Klan and lynching and said “n—-rs just gotta nig.”

In one email chain from Aug. 28, 2013, one member published a photo of four people receiving an award from a former BVA chairman. The award text was digitally altered to read: “Guess I didn’t kill all the gooks in Vietnam cuz you’re here. You’re fired!”

An email thread from Nov. 4, 2014, shows an advertisement with a woman about to eat a sandwich.

“Datz right, girl attorney: just pretend itz a big thick hot meaty [front office] sandwich with au jus sauce and when you’re done swallowing it you’ll get a [redacted] or a GS-15 promotion.”

Another email as recent as April 1, 2015, read: “So what’s the report on this suckhole event? Did lots of ambitious tools get the architecture of their throats and rectums ‘built out’ by the schlongs of management?”

The inspector general draft report noted that while the VA allows for some personal use of government office equipment for personal needs, that personal use must be non-work time, and additionally, VA policy “prohibits its use for activities that are illegal, inappropriate, or offensive to fellow employees or the public, to include hate speech, or material that ridicules others on the basis of race, creed, religion, color, sex, disability, national origin, or sexual orientation.”

The VA put out a statement March 1, 2016 — without disclosing details about the emails or the employees’ names — saying it found a “pattern of inappropriate emails that were racist and sexist in tone” and that “accountability actions against the Board judges have been referred to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), which has direct jurisdiction over cases concerning administrative law judges.”

After obtaining some of the actual emails this month, TheDCNF followed up and found that more than a year later, nothing had come of those complaints. Spokesman Randal Noller said “in August and September of 2016, the MSPB conducted hearings on the Department’s recommendations. Those proceedings are still pending with the MSPB.”

The languishing occurred despite the high-level status of the judges and the fact that all the necessary evidence exists in writing on government servers — the kind of case that is hard for employees to dispute. Managers also didn’t manage to secure swift discipline, even though the forum referred to the top manager, Shinseki, who is Asian, as a racial slur.

Congress has repeatedly said that the MSPB makes it slow and difficult to fire employees and overturns disciplinary actions that are obviously deserved. The American Federation of Government Employees union opposed it, arguing that firing so many VA employees would be racist since a large number are minorities — an ironic line of defense, since the same process protected employees using extensive anti-black language on the job.

VA leadership under former President Barack Obama initially resisted Congressional efforts to reduce MSPB’s role, but after three high-profile executives busted for egregious conduct all successfully appealed their demotions to the MSPB, it began warming to the idea.

The reason the VA hasn’t been able to do anything about the judges, is because MSPB currently still has the case, VA spokesman Randal Noller told TheDCNF

“VA cannot execute any action against the judges unless and until MSPB determines such action is warranted, and MSPB has not yet issued its decisions in those cases,” Noller said. “When the MSPB has the case, it is out of VA’s hands until a decision is rendered.”

One of the attorneys involved in FOH retired and another has resigned.

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