Again, via Darleen in the comments:

It’s as if the movie Inherit the Wind had a different ending.

She’s referring to this intriguing academic development: 

Instructors at a prominent university in Australia have been warned not to lecture on the natural historical record of that country; instead, they should teach a creation narrative regarding the origin of indigenous Australian people. Lecturers at the University of New South Wales “have been warned off making the familiar statement in class that ‘Aboriginal people have been in Australia for 40,000 years’,” The Australian reports. Instead, they should state that “Aborigines have been here ‘since the beginning of the Dreaming/s’ because this ‘reflects the beliefs of many Indigenous Australians that they have always been in Australia, from the beginning of time, and came from the land’.”

It seems we’ve gone from “The aboriginal population is primitive and unable to think rationally about things,” which is a sentiment to be denounced, especially in academia, and progressed to “We must treat the aboriginal population as if it were primitive and unable to think rationally about things.” Which, apparently, is something to be applauded. Especially in academia.

Would a future women-only space colony have to live with that same fear? Would the very idea of a self-sufficient community of women so infuriate and threaten men that they would take it as a challenge to seek out and invade any feminist planet? And what about the frozen sperm?

I’m sorry. I’m reading the Guardian. Perhaps things will settle down.

If our future colony is reliant on what it can transport from Earth, stocks will eventually run out unless they can be replenished, which means giving birth to at least a few male children. Whether, in a matriarchal society without examples of male aggression, those boys would grow up to be the kind of man who grabs a peaceful protester by the back of her neck remains one of the great unknowns.

Or not. Never mind.

Readers may be tickled by the conceit that men would be infuriated and threatened by the departure from Earth of the planet’s feminists. And not, say, delighted. In fact, given recent trends, it seems more likely that feminists would be the ones determined to sabotage and eliminate any all-male spaces, while exempting themselves from comparable restrictions. 

The rest is fairly predictable, the standard template, with jabs at “jowly white men in positions of power,” and inspirational rumblings in which women “just take the sperm and leave the men behind.” This bold vision of tomorrow is then traded for a more modest scenario, a compromise of sorts, in which, rather than being “redundant” and eliminated entirely, men are merely “educated… out of bullying and aggressive attitudes towards women” – an education that entails “putting women in positions of power on this planet before we think about how to populate others.”

We await the Guardian article in which a male columnist, perhaps white and somewhat jowly, ponders the appalling nature of women and how they require correction lest they contaminate the heavens with their inherent awfulness.

Via Guardian Science.

A title I’ve stolen shamelessly from Orwell & Goode:

A new superstitious belief has emerged in some areas of Mozambique – that bald men have gold in their head. However, the head has to be taken to a witchdoctor who will use magical powers to extract the gold – and make them rich. As a result, police say five bald men have been killed in central Mozambique.

Adjust those holiday plans accordingly, baldies.

Not entirely unrelated.

Professor Child’s presentation was not explicitly concerned with space exploration or Mars, which is not surprising since her area of expertise is indigenous education and history. She told us that indigenous people have travelled extensively – specifically, by canoe – and mentioned some indigenous people who travelled to Europe in earlier eras, though not by canoe.

A panel of woke scolds share their thoughts on space travel – which turn out to be rather limited and not of obvious use. They do, however, have thoughts, many thoughts, on how terrible able-bodied white men are.

Janice Fiamengo takes notes:

Should we stop using the word ‘cyclist’?

So asks Laura Laker in the pages of the Guardian, thereby adding to our collection of classic sentences from said newspaper. This is promptly followed by another contender: 

As the repair man rummaged around in my gas oven, I tried to explain something to him about cyclists.

Which perhaps conveys a flavour of what follows.

Stopping using the term “cyclist” has been up for debate since an Australian study last week found 31% of respondents viewed cyclists as less than human. 

Specifically, a minority of motorists have been known to indulge in “humorous references to violence against cyclists,” which is entirely unwarranted, apparently, and must not be allowed to continue.

It is easy to dehumanise people who cycle… because they often dress differently and move in a mechanical way, and drivers cannot see their faces… Public references to violence against cyclists are not uncommon, and rarely given the same condemnation as, for example, violence towards women or bullying.

It occurs to me that cyclists are more likely to be the subject of unkind humour if their behaviour, not their chosen outfit, is causing a problem, or is perceived as such. And note the bold conflation of actual violence with merely joking about it.