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2 September, 2008

Does a chat in church erode U.S. principles?

Unless there are two columnists of the same name, Kathleen Parker is normally a conservative commentator. A recent column by her about the Obama/McCain "debate" in pastor Rick Warren's "Saddleback" church seems something of a departure from that however. She seems to think that it violated the Leftist doctrine of the "separation of church and state".

There seems to have been a lot of reaction -- both for and against -- to the column so here's an excerpt:

"At the risk of heresy, let it be said that setting up the two presidential candidates for religious interrogation by an evangelical minister-no matter how beloved-is supremely wrong. It is also un-American....

The winner, of course, was Warren, who has managed to position himself as political arbiter in a nation founded on the separation of church and state. The loser was America...

This is about higher principles that are compromised every time we pretend we're not applying a religious test when we're really applying a religious test.

There have been various objections to her claims but one that does not so far seem to have arisen is what I think is the most basic. There is NO separation of church and State mandated in the U.S. constitution. Try to find it if you think there is.

All that is mandated is: ""Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". When that was written its meaning was perfectly clear. It was a reference to the fact that in England, the Church of England was at the time the "established" church. And that meant that the government paid its priests and supported it as the "right" or official religion.

So it is clear that the U.S. government must not pay clergy or sponsor any particular denomination but that is a long way from a complete separation of church and State. It is certainly clear that there is no prohibition on any clergy getting involved in politics. Clergy can talk themselves blue in the face but that won't make their church "established". So the government cannot support a particular church but a particular church can support the government -- if it chooses to.



"Babymen" a bad word

Prominent cartoonist Mike Manley has referred to adult fans of comic books as "babymen". One of the fans concerned has complained:

"Had it just been Manley reacting to overzealous Batnuts on his blog, I'd just ignore it. But now the word's seeping out in to blogs I read (well, at least Savage Critic and the ISB). So I'm going to compare it to hate speech. Hey, at least I'm transparent about my motives.

But really, I hate words that lump any group of people in to a homogenous blob that becomes a buggy man or punching dummy. I hate fanboy as a epithet, and I hate this. More so babymen because the actual word causes a tiny hot poker to stab me in the brain every time I read it.

But, I dunno, it just seems lazy to use this as the new word to refer to all of the grody, awful, tasteless, total caricatures of superhero comics fans that everyone who reads comics needs to have to feel better about themselves and anger up their blood....."

Source

Adult comic book fans are apparently much derided. "Never seen a woman naked" is one description of them. So I suppose they have some cause for complaint. They can't all be that bad. In Japan, practically all adult men read comics ("Manga").



1 September, 2008

Watermelon Art at California Fair Said to Be Racist



Art by youths at a juvenile jail angers black couple. Happy black faces are OUT, apparently:

"Colusa County officials are defending their display at the California State Fair after a black couple complained that a caricature of a smiling watermelon seed was racist. The "Waldo Watermelon Seed" drawing was removed this week after the couple said the image evoked negative stereotypes about blacks. The exhibit was intended to celebrate Colusa County's seed-producing crops, which generate $30 million a year.

Margaret Kemp-Williams, deputy counsel for Colusa County, says it was drawn by wards at a county juvenile hall where the population is roughly 40 percent black and 40 percent Hispanic. The wards created a display honoring watermelon, cucumber, pumpkin and tomato seeds. Kemp-Williams says each seed was depicted true to its real color.

Veronica Hannon Thrasher and her husband objected to the "Waldo Watermelon" caricature, which they said looked like "a happy black slave eating watermelon."

Source

I used to eat a lot of watermelon when I was a kid growing up in the tropics. I guess I must be blacker than I thought. It's true that watermelon seeds ARE black so I guess that just eating them could be racist too. You can't be too careful these days.

More details here or here



No free speech for opponents of abortion

Denver police goons again:

"Two teenagers who had been given city permission to write their messages protesting Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama's support for abortion on public sidewalks during the Democratic National Convention this week were shoved to the sidewalk, cuffed and arrested for doing just that....

Spokeswoman Danielle Versluys told WND the group had consulted with Denver city officials as well as police prior to the DNC, and had been told that chalk messages on sidewalks would be allowed. Even though the city's deputy chief was in the meeting, that message apparently didn't get forwarded to officers on the street.

"I was peacefully sidewalk chalking when I was forcefully pushed to ground by a police officer from behind," Jayne White, 17, described. "As I was being cuffed on the ground, the police officer pushed his knee into the back of my neck. I was pulled roughly off the ground and taken away. I was given no warning to stop and was completely shocked when I was arrested.'...

"I am horrified and outraged at the treatment of these two girls. Not only were they legally expressing their opinions on the public sidewalk, but they were doing so peacefully and without incident. The officers acted without provocation, and should be ashamed of themselves for terrorizing two young women," Versluys said.

"I am also appalled that the city of Denver boasted of the city's preparation for the convention but clearly neglected to train their police force to respect the First Amendment and the rights of citizens to peacefully demonstrate," she said. "The city of Denver sent a clear message to civic-minded young people this week: the First Amendment doesn't apply here," she said.

Source

See here and here for more examples of Denver police-goons spitting on the 1st Amendment. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is a Democrat so the fact that his police are pro-Democrat to the point of thuggishness is not much of a surprise. Stalin would understand.

Many will remember that Hickenlooper initially showed negligible reaction to a black singer mangling the national anthem in front of him. Am I questioning his patriotism? You bet!



31 August, 2008

Britain: Black doll sparks outrage



We read:

"Binmen who drove round with a large golliwog mascot strapped to the front of their truck have outraged residents. But passersby in the town, which has residents of many different racial origins, were horrified by the prank - one said the council workers were smiling and laughing at the reactions the lorry invited.

The refuse truck was owned by Woodend Municipal Services - but leased to Reading Borough Council, whose staff used it to collect rubbish from the streets of the Berkshire town.

Local resident Tim Rhodes said that he was shocked when he saw the bin lorry driving towards him in the town centre's Milford Road. 'My reaction was one of complete shock and disbelief. It is the sort of thing you would see in the 1960s but I thought we had all grown up a bit now,' said 40-year-old Mr Rhodes.

A spokesman for Reading Borough Council apologised for the golliwog incident and said action was being taken against the binmen involved. 'The council has investigated this matter and spoken to the lorry driver,' he said. 'The employee has been informed of the serious nature of this complaint and his management colleagues are giving further consideration to how the matter will proceed. 'In its role as an employer and a provider of public services in Reading, the council has a responsibility to directly and consistently tackle exclusion, disadvantage and discrimination.

Source

Jokes are becoming very risky in sourpuss socialist Britain. Previous uproar in Britain about golliwog dolls covered here. I had a golliwog myself when I was a little kid. They are a stylized representation of a black man but kids loved them. Is that bad? I would have thought that teaching kids to have warm feelings towards blacks would be acclaimed by the do-gooders. Silly old me!



Must not mention skin color

We read:

"A white police lieutenant received a three-day unpaid suspension for comments in a conversation with a black detective that "deeply offended" the white police chief, but did not offend the detective, according to records released Wednesday.

Lt. Katherine England, who is white, received the suspension following the July 3 interaction involving Detective Jesse Streeter, a longtime friend of hers, and Officer Christine Davis, who at the time was with her new K-9 dog partner, Boss.....

"They then told him that the dog had not been trained yet," a report states in summary of Streeter's comments. "Lieutenant England then told him that the dog would not bite him and that she would prove it to him. At this point she told the dog to, `bite the black man, bite the black man.'"

Streeter saw Chief Sean Baldwin walk by as England said, "Bite the black man, bite the black man." Baldwin, who is white, reported being "deeply offended" and directed an internal investigation into the matter.

Source

30 August, 2008

Islamic hate speech popular on campuses

At a California university, two Muslim speakers go beyond criticism of Israel into outright anti-Semitism

"IRVINE, Calif. - At a speaker series titled "Never Again? The Palestinian Holocaust," it was no surprise to hear denunciations of Israel. But students who attended the weeklong event this spring at the University of California, Irvine (UCI) were treated to more disturbing rhetoric when two of the speakers trotted out anti-Semitic canards blaming Israeli Jews for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The speakers, Imam Mohammad al-Asi and Amir Abdel Malik Ali, also asserted that Zionist Jews control the media, financial institutions and the U.S. government.

Although pro-Israel advocates sometimes questionably accuse critics of Israeli policy, especially Muslim critics, of being anti-Semitic, both Al-Asi and Ali seem to have repeatedly crossed the line from lambasting Israeli policy to promoting bizarre anti-Jewish conspiracy theories of the sort typically favored by neo-Nazis, as well as by giving voice to loathing for all Jews as a people.

As Al-Asi put it in a previous speech at UCI: "We have a psychosis in the Jewish community that is unable to co-exist equally and brotherly with other human beings. You can take a Jew out of the ghetto, but you cannot take the ghetto out of the Jew."

"Mr. Ali and Mr. al-Asi are part of a speaking circuit that regularly makes appearances at California campuses beyond UCI and has done so for many years," said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. "It's troubling because they embrace anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, glorify violence against civilians, promote antipathy toward democratic institutions and introduce fabrications that go unchecked - not because they have political views critical of American policies, Israel or Zionism."

In fact, between the two of them, Ali and al-Asi have spoken at more than 15 colleges, including San Francisco State University; Sacramento State University; California State University, Long Beach; University of Southern California; University of California, Santa Cruz; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Los Angeles; Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Portland State University in Oregon, and York University in Canada.

Source

Muslims have special speech privileges. The Left would howl like banshees if a conservative said such things.



Obamabots try to silence critic

Post below excerpted from Michelle Malkin. See the original for links and details:

"First, they came for TV stations daring to air an independent ad about Barack Obama and unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Next, they came for GOP donors.

Now, they are shamelessly attacking National Review investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz - one of conservatism's most thoughtful and penetrating writers on academic and educational affairs. Kurtz has been at the forefront probing Obama's relationships with left-wing ideologues. It was his public information request and public call for help that led to the University of Illinois - Chicago finally releasing tons of files that shed light on the Obama/Ayers working relationship. The Obama camp is condemning Kurtz in harsher terms than it ever condemned the terrorist Ayers. Kurtz has been attacked now as a "right-wing hatchet man" and "slimy character assassin."

As I reported yesterday, Kurtz spent two hours on legendary radio talk show host Milt Rosenberg's Chicago program on WGN last night detailing his initial findings. The Obama campaign went ballistic - and in typical Chicago mafia-style, smeared Kurtz and tried to shut down the show.

It's interesting to see what lengths the Obama campaign is willing to reach to stifle dissenting voices. Kurtz said it best at the end of the show- If a respected conservative who writes for mainstream conservative publications like the Weekly Standard and National Review can't speak his mind, then what dissenting opinion can be voiced?

The Obamabots are terrified that Obama's close ties to an America-hater and terrorist will become well-known.



29 August, 2008

"Racist" to describe past cannibal practices

New Zealand:

"A study of Maori cannibalism by historian Paul Moon has prompted a racism complaint to the Human Rights Commission. Sent anonymously to Dr Moon, the complaint said This Horrid Practice "describes the whole of Maori society as violent and dangerous. This is a clearly racist view claiming a whole ethnic group has these traits".

The commission has taken no action on it yet but a spokesperson said yesterday any mediation would occur in confidence and the complainant's name would not be released. The commission said books and publications were covered by the Human Rights Act, however there was a high threshold that had to be met to prevent unwarranted incursion into the right to freedom of expression.

Released in August, the book posits that consuming vanquished enemies' mana had little to do with the underlying reason for Maori cannibalism. Instead cannibalism, in pre-colonial times, was simply about "rage and humiliation".

Dr Moon said he was disappointed that a complaint had been made. "I spent several years researching this book, using an enormous body of documentation, and I am not about to denounce it just because it upsets a few people.

Source

'Man on the street' is offensive to women

Or so says a document put out by Chichester District Council, West Sussex, in England:

"The document claims the popular saying is based on the assumption that the world is male and makes the views or work of women invisible. It suggests that town hall officers should use "general public" a positive and less offensive alternative. The guide also kills off the phrase "manning the switchboard" and suggests "staffing" or "running the switchboard" instead

The council said that the document, which is distributed to all staff and council members, is not a rulebook but a guide to help staff and members find the correct words. A spokesman said: "We introduced the guide because as community leaders we must be aware of what modern society requires of the public sector. This includes the sensitivity of various individuals and groups, and current thinking in society in general.

Source

28 August, 2008

Jewish Groups Decry Madonna's Comparison of McCain to Hitler

We read:

"Pop diva Madonna, who less than a year ago declared herself an "ambassador for Judaism," has drawn on the Jewish people's most painful memory to bash Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz).

Jewish groups said Madonna insulted Holocaust victims and all Americans with her comparison of McCain to former German dictator Adolf Hitler as part of her new world tour.

Madonna opened world concert tour over the weekend in Wales. While singing a song called "Get Stupid," a photo montage showed images of destruction and global warming followed by video images of Hitler, Zimbabwe's ruler Robert Mugabe and McCain, reports said.

"I find Madonna's attempt to compare John McCain with Hitler beyond the pale and an insult to all Americans, Democrats as well as Republicans," said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center.....

Foxman said that it was "inappropriate and offensive" to compare present or former world leaders to a man who was responsible for the death of six million Jews. "Doing so trivializes the history of the Holocaust and is an insult to the memories of the victims and their families," Foxman said in a statement.

Source

Political correctness ruins country humor

We read:

"Politicians are known for lame jokes. But when Otis "Bullman" Hensley tried a generations-old Appalachian jest on a woman and two girls at the grocery store, the family thought it was downright criminal....

The ordeal began last week when Hensley's wife sent him to a local grocery store to buy ground beef. While there, Hensley encountered a woman with her two nieces, ages 11 and 13. "I offered to trade her a fattening hog for those girls," Hensley said. "I meant it as a joke. I've said it a million times. Most people get a kick out of it."

The woman didn't laugh. Instead, the family obtained a warrant for Hensley's arrest from the local prosecutor, claiming the comment was intended to entice the children into illegal sexual activity.

On Tuesday, the girls' father accepted an apology from Hensley and shook hands with him in a Harlan County courtroom. The man declined to discuss the case with reporters afterward.

Prosecutor J.D. Smith asked the judge to dismiss the charge, saying both sides want to put the matter behind them. "He absolutely meant no harm," Smith said of Hensley. "It was a joke to him."

Appalachian scholar Loyal Jones said the jest Hensley made has been around for generations and actually is intended as a compliment. "I've heard many variations of that," said Jones, retired director of Berea College's Appalachian Center. "You might hear 'That's a good looking boy; I'd trade you a pocket knife for him' ... Political correctness has ruined country humor."

Source

27 August, 2008

Muslim hatemongering finally recognized at the University of Southern California

We read:

"As Muslim Student Association (MSA) chapters have become increasingly influential at universities and colleges around the country, critics have charged that it is a hate group that sympathizes with the international jihad and promulgates an anti-American and anti-Semitic ideology in its campus actions. In response, the MSA has claimed that it is merely another religious and cultural group similar to Hillel, a club for Jewish students, or the Newman Club for Catholics. That deception has been now unmasked at the University of Southern California, where the school's Provost, Chrysostomos L. Max Nikias, reacting to a call from the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, has ordered the campus MSA to remove a "despicable" hadith calling for Muslims to murder Jews as a condition for redemption from its website.

David Horowitz, President of the Freedom Center, hails this as a breakthrough moment when the double standards that control the political and intellectual culture of most universities have finally been challenged. "Up to now, the slightest criticism of radical Islam on campus has been slammed as `Islamophobia,' while Muslim groups and their radical fellow travelers have been allowed to say the most hateful things imaginable about Christians and Jews without any reaction from university administrators whatsoever," Horowitz says. "Provost Nikias has called the hadith on the MSA website for what it is: despicable. Given the atmosphere that prevails on most campuses today, it was an act of integrity on his part to make this call and to demand that the MSA live up to basic standards of civility that should govern the university."

Source

Another example of Leftist "projection"

I have received an email [SocRes@newschool.edu] from New York's neo-Marxist "New School" which in part reads as follows:

"I am writing to announce an upcoming Social Research conference, which I think you and some of your colleagues and readers may be interested in attending. This conference, Free Inquiry at Risk: Universities in Dangerous Times will be held at The New School in New York City on October 29, 30, and 31, 2008 and will be the 18th conference in the Social Research series dedicated to enhancing public understanding in an engaging, multi-disciplinary discussion.

Over three days, the conference speakers will explore how the trends and challenges that face universities in the US and abroad today may affect the core values of academic freedom and free inquiry. These current trends include rapid globalization, changes in the geo-political arena, modes of financing, the extension of higher education franchises, the rise of collateral institutes and research centers, the relationship between specialization and integration, regime change, and other conditions of duress."

No mention of threats to free enquiry coming from the Fascist New School itself -- where "hundreds of students, staff and faculty members" have done their best to prevent even a moderate conservative from being heard. And nor does there appear to be any mention of the pervasive speech codes in American universities that effectively stifle any criticism of homosexuality, Islam etc.

And how would I go if I offered to give a talk at the New School on the topic: "Psychopathy as an explanation for the high rate of black crime"? I have had articles published in the academic journals on both psychopathy and black crime so I would be reasonably qualified to discuss that topic. My qualifications on that topic would at the very least be greater than Al Gore's qualifications in climatology. But I think I would be taking my life in my hands if I endeavoured to discuss that topic in front of the brownshirts of the New School.

I am an atheist but I think that the best advice for the New School is to be found in Matthew 7:3-5.



26 August, 2008

"Racist" Mickey Rooney

Must not laugh at Asians

"Mickey Rooney got heartburn when he learned why his 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" had been pulled for "Ratatouille" at East Sacramento's free Screen on the Green movie series Saturday night. "Ratatouille? Never heard of it!" Rooney, 87, said in his classic Brooklyn accent in a spirited phone interview from his southern California home this weekend.

One of the most beloved and enduring movie actors in American history, Rooney was shocked to hear his comic role as Mr. Yunioshi, Audrey Hepburn's cantankerous upstairs neighbor, had been branded racist by several Asian American activists in Sacramento....

CAPITAL (Council of Asian Pacific Islanders Together for Advocacy and Leadership), an umbrella group for more than 90 local organizations, told the Sacramento City Council that Rooney's buck-toothed Japanese character with thick glasses and exaggerated Asian accent perpetuated "offensive, derogatory and hateful racial stereotypes detrimental and destructive to our society."

Source

It was comedy at the time but laughter is dangerous these days



British bank embroiled in row over Sumo advert



Must not pretend to be Japanese?

"HSBC has become embroiled in a race row after it dressed up an overweight white man to look like a Japanese sumo wrestler for its latest advert. The model called Brian, who stars in the bank's commercial with the tag line "Fixed savings rates that won't budge", had his skin darkened and is wearing make-up that makes his eyes look narrower, it has been claimed. He is pictured in a Japanese-style wig and a traditional mawashi belt....

Godfrey King, director of the Anglo-Japanese Society of Wessex, said: "The fact that the picture depicts a sumo wrestler who is not actually a sumo wrestler, but has been made up to look like one, would be considered a high insult to the Japanese community. It is culturally insensitive. "It has insulted the honour of our nation."

HSBC is one of the largest banks in the world, with about 9,500 offices in 85 countries, including several in Asia. It was formerly known as the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

Source

25 August, 2008

Chicago email controversy

Apparently it is offensive to quote the Prime Minister of Australia! Several senior Australian conservative politicians have indeed said that Muslims should leave if they don't like the way things are done in Australia:

"Sporting a patriotic tie, Frankfort Township assessor Paul Ruff launched his bid for re-election as he charged that recent controversy over an e-mail he forwarded was "manufactured" and "politically motivated."....

In a written statement, Ruff said he receives thousands of e-mails "with provocative thoughts." "As I have done thousands of times, I forwarded the message on my private e-mail account to people I know," the statement read. "This wasn't a hateful e-mail but one that touched upon a sentiment in this county and around the world that immigrants have to adapt to their new homes," it said. "It was not done with any malicious intent, but unfortunately some people have attempted to make it a political issue."

The e-mail, forwarded by Ruff to several in the Mokena/Frankfort area in June, suggested that America follow the sentiments of former Australian prime minister John Howard, who said Muslims who want to live under Sharia law should get out of the country. "Maybe if we circulate this amongst ourselves, American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the same truths," the e-mail continued. "If you agree, please send this on."

Ruff refused to comment on the e-mail for weeks. "It really, really makes me mad when a newspaper calls me a racist," he said.

Source

Stupid Leftist hate-speech in Australia

At least the stupidity seems to be repented:

"Rose Jackson, the former campaign manager for failed Labor candidate George Newhouse, has retracted anti-Zionist statements she made in 2006 as she attempts to clinch a seat on a Sydney local council with a large proportion of Jewish voters. The 23-year-old law student, who is the daughter of award-winning ABC journalist Liz Jackson, said two years ago she opposed Zionism because it calls for the creation of a Jewish state, "and I think all governments should be secular". "No Jewish, Islamic, Christian states anywhere in the world, just good, robust, secular democracies," Ms Jackson said in an email to an online chat group. "By speaking out on behalf of the Palestinians and Lebanese people, we can give voice to those that some governments and media would wish to silence."

But this week, as Ms Jackson prepares to run on the ALP [Labor Party] ticket for Waverley Council in Sydney's east, which is home to a significant Jewish population, she admitted her comments, made when she was president of the National Union of Students, were "naive". "Looking back, I think I just bought the prevailing polemic on campus at the time that Israel was some sort of quasi-theocracy. Having explored the subject more deeply since then, I understand this is nonsense," she told The Australian Jewish News this week. "I realise I just misunderstood. Obviously, the state of Israel is not a state for the Jewish religion, but a homeland for the Jewish people.

"It's a really robust democracy; there are plenty of non-Jewish people in Israel who have full citizenship rights. "If there is discrimination, it's no worse than what would happen in Australia or America or anywhere else. I completely support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." ...

Source

24 August, 2008

Must not refer to the fact that Asian eyes are different



I guess most readers will have heard of this controversy by now. Anything to do with the Olympics gets big coverage.

Various Spanish sporting teams marked their departure for China by having their photos taken while they were pulling their eyes into a slant. Apparently the Spaniards thought it was funny, the Chinese didn't give a toss and all the do-gooders were outraged.

Pics above from here.



Must not mention ugly women

In my home State of Queensland in Australia there is a large mining town called Mt. Isa -- where men outnumber women 5 to 1. The mayor of Mt Isa thought he might do a bit to spread some happiness around by announcing that even ugly women would do well for themselves in Mt. Isa -- and encouraged them to move there.

Bad move! He has been abused up and down dale over that charitable thought. There is a story here headed "Protesters demand Mt Isa mayor resign over 'degrading' comments"



23 August, 2008

Ruling lets stand school's Confederate flag ban

We read:

"A federal appeals court panel has ruled in favor of a Tennessee high school that banned students from wearing clothing with the Confederate battle flag after several racial incidents. Students Derek Barr, Chris White and Roger Craig White claimed in a lawsuit that their free speech rights were violated by the 2005 ban on the Confederate symbol at William Blount High School in Maryville.

School officials said their ban came after racial tension that included a fight, a civil rights complaint and graffiti of a Confederate flag, a racial slur and a noose. In its opinion filed Wednesday in Cincinnati, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that school officials had a right to ban the flag because they could "reasonably forecast" that it would disrupt education.

Source

Free speech can be limited if it is "disruptive"? Surely it is precisely disruptive speech that needs to be protected



Censored: Imam of Dibley is banned from British TV

We read:

"Have you heard the one about the Islamic comedy sketch that ITV ordered its latest star to remove? Katy Brand was the victim of humourless lawyers who instructed her to delete a harmless-sounding spoof called The Iman of Dibley.

"It was not intended to be offensive," says the comedian, whose Katy Brand's Big Ass Show returns on ITV2. "A new iman arrives in a sleepy parish and the comedy arrives from the misunderstandings that causes. But the lawyers said it might be culturally insensitive."

It's no laughing matter, argues Brand, 29, an Oxford theology graduate. "The vast majority of Muslims are able to have a laugh at themselves just like everyone else. Why should they be excluded from comedy? It's funny that ITV had no problem with a new sketch about a pregnant Jesus's girlfriend who has to deal with dating the Son of God."

Source

("Imam of Dibley" is a reference to a popular British TV comedy: "The vicar of Dibley" -- featuring a fat female priest of the Church of England)



22 August, 2008

Must not imply that male homosexuals are not fully male

This is a bit hard to follow but I think my heading above covers it:

"Brian McFadden claims it was his tongue in his cheek, not his foot in his mouth, which saw comments he made about men wearing pink slammed as gay slurs. Fans and lobby groups damned the remarks on New Zealand radio as "homophobic" and the singer a "hypocrite" over the off-the-cuff fashion faux pas.

The Irish crooner got into trouble when he said: "If you are not gay, a man should not be wearing pink. Saying pink is a form of red is the same as saying homosexual is a form of male."

Yesterday McFadden, via a statement from his publicist, said his pink thinking was taken out of context.

While McFadden defended his style statement as a joke, the singer-turned-TV presenter was set upon by gay rights activists on both sides of the Tasman. After hearing McFadden on More FM, local Auckland charity Rainbow Youth slammed the ex-Westlife singer - whose former bandmate Mark Feehily is gay.

Source

British road sign insults the elderly?



We read:

"Pensioners' groups called for the road sign depicting old people to be scrapped because it is insulting.

Age Concern and Help the Aged said that the hunched figure with a walking stick, above, should be replaced with a new image. Barry Earnshaw, Age Concern Lincoln chief executive, said: "The sign doesn't represent older people as they are today. There should be a generic sign that is representative of all vulnerable pedestrians, regardless of age."

A Highways Agency spokesman said that new signs would be costly and require a change in the law.

Source

(In Britain, a "pensioner" is someone living on Social Security)

Update:

The following email from a Brit may be of interest:

"Just a small correction. "In Britain, a "pensioner" is someone living on Social Security" is misleading. A pensioner is, broadly speaking, any woman over 60 and any man over 65, because they are entitled to receive the state pension to which they have contributed during their working lives. I am a pensioner and receive this payment, but because I also have an occupational pension and some independent income, I could easily do without it. It is true that some pensioners have no other income, and as the state pension is niggardly theirs is not a lot to be envied. But most are perfectly comfortable financially, and would be rather piqued at the suggestion they were living on social security!

I think pensioners' views on the road signs would be ambivalent. On the one hand many of us are very spritely (I go hill-walking and sailing, am perfectly upright, do not use a stick and am physically strong provided I watch my back a little) and don't look the least bit like the sign. On the other hand, most of us couldn't give a toss, having more important things to think about!"