Maga blames diversity for the Los Angeles wildfires

Apparently diversity caused the forest fires

Women, what? You just can’t trust them. Eve ate this apple; Pandora opened that terrible little box; And now women are responsible for the devastation Forest fires in California. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s what Elon Musk, one of the brightest minds of his generation – and one of the most powerful people in the world – says, so it must be true.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, another of the world’s greatest thinkers, Fact checking is now a thing of the past. However, I’m going to be terribly old-fashioned here and fact-check myself. ApparentlyI’m being facetious when I say that Musk blames women for the wildfires. Apparentlyit’s more complicated. More specifically, the tech billionaire also blames minorities, diversity initiatives and various other scapegoats for the disaster that killed at least 11 people and destroyed more than 10,000 buildings. Basically everything except the climate crisis.

On Wednesday, for example, Musk took a break from tweeting obsessively about whether the U.S.liberate“UK announces that the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) has “prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes.” He has continued to post false claims about diversity initiatives (e.g., “DEI means people DIE“) for days, along with posts suggesting that things would be very different if the LAFD fire chief wasn’t a woman.

Musk isn’t the only one trying to associate wildfires with “wokeness”: everyone usual suspects are there. Donald Trump Jr. has also been busy making uninspired jokes about DEI meaning DIE. Right-wing actor James Woods and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly have railed against the fire department promoting diversity. Even CNN commentator Scott Jennings blamed it Wildfires on DEI policies.

Of course, this isn’t the first time the MAGA folks have blamed DEI initiatives for a tragedy. Um this time last yearThey were all busy claiming that Boeing planes were falling apart because of DEI initiatives. Musk even amplified a shockingly racist tweet in which he suggested 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 the killing of hundreds of people to change the DIE’s crazy policies,” he said at the time.

Right-wing agitators, never one to let a good crisis go to waste, also used the assassination attempt on Donald Trump last July as an opportunity to criticize DEI efforts the secret service. “There should be no women in the secret service. These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best in this job are women,” conservative political commentator Matt Walsh posted after the attack.

Ideally, we would simply ignore these people and their fanatics – completely unfounded – Attacks on DEI (which are just thinly veiled attacks on women and minorities). Unfortunately, we don’t have this luxury because the right-wing crusade against DEI is working shockingly well. Companies are now slashing and cutting their DEI budgets DEI policies in response. That’s why we’re forced to continually argue that women and minorities are just as talented as white men. We are forced to point out again and again that studies show that white men as a group now have a harder time getting hired, rather than being the persecuted minority some of them seem to think they are demonstrably false. In fact, according to a Wharton economist, “If anything, female and minority candidates are penalized relative to white male candidates.”

While we can’t ignore the right’s obsession with attacking DEI, we still need to make sure we don’t get distracted. After all, Trump and his various allies are masters of distraction. They want us all to be divided and caught up in culture wars so they can wage secret class warfare. And when it comes to the wildfires, they want us to focus on the various conspiracy theories and misinformation they’re spreading so we don’t focus on the more inconvenient issue of climate change.

To be clear, there are several nuanced issues that have contributed to the wildfires spreading with the ferocity that they have. But the climate crisis is clearly a major factor. According to a 2021 study, climate change was the main reason for this Increase in fire weather in the western United States. Greed and hubris are additional factors: speculators continue to build homes in areas prone to floods and wildfires. There is a much-quoted one Essay from 1995 urban theorist Mike Davis later called it “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn.” became a chapter in a book called Ecology of Fear. In it, Davis argues that spending millions to save homes in areas never intended for neighborhoods and power lines is not only foolish, but also a waste of public resources.

“I am notorious for suggesting that the general public should not pay a dime to protect or rebuild mansions in places that will inevitably burn down every 20 or 25 years,” Davis said told the LA Times in 2018when the Woolsey Fire broke out in Malibu. “My opinion hasn’t changed.”

The fires in California are a terrible tragedy. They should also be a wake-up call. We live in a world on fire, and if we don’t take our changing environment seriously, we will continue to watch the planet burn. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that the new administration – and its de facto advisers like Musk – will treat the California disaster with the seriousness it deserves. Cutting DEI departments is far easier than fixing real problems.

Jamie Lee Curtis faces backlash for comparing the Palisades fire to the Gaza fire

“[T]“The entire Pacific Palisades unfortunately resembles Gaza or one of those war-torn countries where terrible things have happened.” Curtis said. Making such a flippant comparison to what many experts have referred to as a genocide is terrible. At least 74 children were reportedly killed First Week 2025 in Gaza. It is unclear how many people have currently died in Gaza, but a new report in the medical journal Lancet suggests so there were 64,260 deaths due to traumatic injuries between October 2023 and the end of June 2024. And that doesn’t even include all the people who are hungry or Freeze to death. Curtis has made her disdain for Palestinians clear before: she previously published a photo of frightened children being bombed and claimed they were Israelis I deleted it when she found out they were Palestinian.

Why female artists use screams to express female anger

If you feel like screaming into the void now, you’re not alone. In Artsy, Emily Steer thinks the way guttural screaming has appeared in many works by female artists since the mid-20th century, from those from Marina Abramović to Faith Ringgold and Tracey Emin.

Malawi’s religious leaders fight for legal abortions

Unsafe abortions are a leading cause of maternal mortality in the country, which has and contributes to one of the strictest abortion laws in the world up to 18% of maternal deaths. Now some Christian and Muslim clerics have joined forces Try to repeal colonial-era abortion laws.

People are moving from US states where abortion is restricted

It turns out there are a lot of people don’t like living in states who treat women like walking wombs.

French police arrest founder of website used by Dominique Pelicot

The coco.fr website was shut down by French authorities in June 2024 after being linked more than 23,000 crimes including rape, murder and pedophilia.

The world’s first blood test for endometriosis could be on the way

Endometriosis is a debilitating condition that affects many people 10% of women of childbearing age and girls worldwide. However, despite its prevalence, “it can take an average of seven years for a woman to receive a diagnosis,” and detecting the condition can require invasive procedures. Now a simple new blood test has been developed, developed by a team of Australian researchers. is in progress. If successful, this would mean more women could be diagnosed much earlier.

The week in the Pawtriarchy

It’s getting cold in South Florida, which means it’s time for Iguana Dropping Warnings. Once the temperature drops below 40°C, iguanas – which can be up to 6 feet long – go into a state of cold shock and can sometimes fall from trees. If you come across an iguana stunned by the cold, you should ignore it. Like many of us, they become very moody when they first wake up.