Glob-a-log

(Just what we need: More boring Canterbury Tales…)

I admit that it’s almost petty and certainly silly to get upset about a few thousand pounds of tax payers’ money being wasted, while billions  are being spent to bail out failed and corrupt companies and banks - or the many millions effectively stolen from same tax payers to hand out as bonuses to those incompetent greedheads that got us into this mess in the first place.

Silly, yes, perhaps, but I still find it hard not to curse out loud when reading stupid shite like this:

“One of Britain’s most historic cities, Canterbury, has been told it is sufficiently gay – after a complaint sparked a two-month investigation costing thousands of pounds. A government watchdog decided that Canterbury in Kent does enough to promote homosexual culture, rejecting a complaint by local activists. As part of the investigation, the council had to prove its inclusiveness by giving details of “touring plays and musicals, for example, which would be of interest to the LGBT community”. And it had to show that it had “put forward suggestions for small events that it might help fund, as well as proposals for other events such as exhibitions”. “

I can’t remember who it was who said that the love that did not dare to speak its name these days did not know how to shut the fuck up already but I tend to agree with that assessment.

I’m not saying all is cool in the world, when it comes to the casual acceptance of the obvious fact that there are more ways to love your neighbour than within a traditional heterosexual marriage. That day will probably have to wait till a future Pope, chief Rabbi or Mullah will introduce his or her gay partner to a world that will treat this bit of news with the same, rather bored consideration that it bestows on the daily weather forecast.

So, yes, there’s still discrimination against gays. We know that. It’s part of human nature to discriminate against groups and individuals. We are a tribal lot and tribes tend to define themselves partly by what they are not - and by what they won’t tolerate. In effect, this means that there has always been a tendency to discriminate against people, on the basis of religion, skin colour, sexuality, class, age, income, diet, hair colour, length, weight and what have you…

… and if we wouldn’t have any of those markers left, we would discriminate against people on the basis of their eye colour.

Anyway, back to this latest Canterbury tale. So, I would suggest that these stupid activists get a life, or, at the very least, a less self-obsessed life style. There are far more serious issues to consider than the way city councils do or don’t do enough to promote ‘homosexual culture’ - whatever the fuck that is, precisely. It reeks of the kind of ghettoish nonsense we should all try to get away from but that’s a topic for another day.

No, when various schools throughout England have stopped teaching about the Holocaust, in order not to offend Muslims, where the law mostly turns a blind eye to forced marriages and where the rise in attacks on gay men remain underreported for those same, politically correct reasons, we have much bigger issues than a city council’s readiness to spread flyers for the next ‘Romeo and Julius’ production.

In fact, demanding these lengthy investigations, to find out whether a city council X or Y does enough to promote homosexual culture, is just the kind of hysterical crap that will annoy the majority of right-thinking and mostly tolerant people and energise all those who push various anti-gay agendas. As I said, there are far more serious issues that do need our attention and this kind of nonsense can only distract from those.

In other words, these idiots only manage to harm the LGBT community they say they represent.

(Some things really are less helpful to the cause than others…)

(Plus ça change…)

Am I a big admirer of the veil, or the niqab, or the burka?

Well, I was raised in a family that believed feminism was not so much a cause as the only sane way to live – so, the answer is, “No, not really.”

I believe that the many women who claim that wearing the veil is, in a way, empowering and liberating for them are probably quite sincere.

I also happen to believe that they are in denial about the misogynistic roots of the culture that first designed these clothes – and, if I’m honest, I find these claims about the liberating qualities of this type of dress more than a bit distasteful, in a world where God knows how many women per year are still being stoned to death for proven crimes against some perverted moral code, or the victims of honour killings for merely being suspected of said crimes.

I mean, isn’t it ever so nice that these liberated Muslim women choose to adopt the type of dress millions of their sisters must wear, if they want to avoid mental & physical abuse, ostracism or even a most gruesome death?

So, here’s a simple  question for you: What would you call a bunch of liberated black women who would wear ‘empowering’ silver designer chains round their necks, while 90% of their sisters would still be forced to wear the original iron ones…?

In other words, was I pleased then, when I read the following news article?

“France could bar Muslim women from wearing full veils in public, a government minister said yesterday as parliament took action over concerns about an increase in women who are wearing the niqab and burka in big cities.”

Not, really, no, to be honest.

People do many silly things. Modern Muslimas wearing a ‘liberating’ or ‘empowering’ burka aren’t that much dafter than a certain type of Western woman who claims that a pole dancing course is all about discovering your inner power and, really, quite the feminist thing to do.

Would I be in favour of a total ban on pole dancing, because it’s as offensive to women as a burka is? Again, not really. Whatever I might think of both activities, as long as women aren’t forced to do either, I don’t think it’s the state’s business to interfere.

(plus c’est la même chose…)

(Some seeing-eye gods are sillier than others…)

I’ve always had a soft spot for Judaism. Sure, it’s slightly preposterous for any subgroup of humanity to claim to be the Chosen One but, unlike most other religions, they don’t try to convert other people. All they basically ask is to be left alone to worship the God of their choice, without feeling the need to tell others what they should do.

Obviously, like anyone who asks other people to leave well enough alone, the Jews have found out that this simply does not and will not, ever, happen. Which is another way of saying that, by now, even the most simplistically devout Jew must be aware of the fact that it doesn’t exactly pay to be God’s Chosen.

Anyway, now, I’m an agnost, so I find most stories about religious nuts (whether they are of the Ayatollah or Dawkins persuasion) quite silly.

Still, I normally don’t care all much that the vast majority of people feels the need to bow to one type of beard-in-the-sky or the other. It’s fashionable to call this state of mind ‘tolerant’ but, truly, I just can’t be bothered much to care about the spiritual comfort blankets of others.

I would only claim one simple rule of thumb. That is, the moment that the religion of person X starts to seriously inconvenience or harm others, then that person, religion and/or God can go fuck themselves. No form of tolerance should be wasted on anybody who thinks his or her belief systems are worth more than the welfare of other people.

It’s a rather elementary form of social hygiene, not to play your portable music thingummies in public, not to litter or to talk too loudly and too long on your mobile phones outside your home…

… and not to bother other people with your choice of supernatural support system.

It’s one thing to claim people should respect your need to have some kind of divine seeing-eye dog; it’s quite another to expect other people to tolerate said dog to piss all over their carpets, chase their cats and bite their ankles.

So, when Popes forbid people in AIDS-riddled communities to use condoms, or certain Muslims encourage throwing homosexuals from high buildings or groups of Hindus claim they will beat up or kill couples who kiss in public, then sanity and that fore-mentioned social hygiene demand that we resist these kinds of people, totally.

Now, I have to regretfully come back to what’s supposed to be God’s favourite set of tribes, the children of Israel. As I mentioned earlier, they mostly obey all the rules of social hygiene. Still, any social, political or belief system has its own fair share of lunatics. Judaism, sadly, is not exempt from this rule.

Enter Dena and Gordon Coleman, of Embassy Court in Bournemouth, England:

“A Jewish couple are suing neighbours over motion sensors that turn on the lights in their communal stairwell, which they claim make it impossible for them to leave their flat during the sabbath. Since the sensors were installed, the lights come on as soon as they set foot outside their front door — which they say makes them responsible for switching them on and therefore prohibits them from leaving the building. The couple are suing their neighbours, saying that their human rights are being breached, and are claiming up to £5,000 damages.”

I’m obviously not saying that suing your neighbours over a few offending light bulbs is quite the same as telling people to get AIDS and die, or kill & maim homosexuals and kissing couples but it IS part of that strange pathology that insists you can sick your divine seeing-eye dog on people who don’t respect your preferred type of invisible pet.

So, I’m afraid all civilized and rational people should treat this Jewish couple in the same way as any other raving Godhead and politely insist they desist and fuck off already.

(My dog has sharper teeth than yours, so there…)

(The model of sexual tolerance: Little boys with fingers in dykes…)

You know, it used to be that, here in Holland, we could boast about our tulips, our windmills, our dyke fingering little boys and our much touted tolerance. Whether it was legalizing soft drugs, prostitution, gay marriage, abortion or the freedom to worship in the Church of the Recombined Sprout (or something), we would do it or be happy to introduce it the moment of asking.

For a few decades, it felt kind of nice to be that small, insignificant and decidedly geekish runt at any UN party who was widely known to be easy.

It’s kind of hard though to hang on to certain monopolies. Look at the realm of politics, for instance: It’s so much like the world of fashion. One moment you’re the only kid on the block to wear an Arafat scarf and the next, the whole world and its hawkish little Likud brother join in:

“JERUSALEM, June 14 — Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he is willing to support the creation of a Palestinian state, for the first time making a commitment that the United States, Europe and the Arab nations have pushed for since he took office.”

Okay, he immediately added a few conditions to this support, which, added up, translated into the Likud’s more traditional ‘When Hell freezes over’ message – but still: If even the likes of Bibi feel the need to express a certain type of tolerance towards ideas they find utterly distasteful, you know that your tolerance franchise might soon be facing any number of hostile takeovers.

It’s not just in the political power game though, that people have been gorging themselves on these tolerance stimulants. If it were, you could dismiss it as yet another Obama effect. No, it must be feared that the rot is much deeper.

(Oh, happy days indeed…)

Remember how socially conservative Spain used to be? For centuries, the Catholic church had the kind of stranglehold on Spanish society that led from the famed Spanish Inquisition to the Church blessed public stranglings of convicts in General Franco’s days. Those happy repressive times seem to be over, alas:

“As niche package tours go it is one of the most original and precisely targeted. As of this week, British lesbians are being invited to dig into their pockets, catch a flight to the Spanish costas and come back either pregnant, married or both. The offer comes from a fertility clinic and a gay and lesbian travel agency, which have launched joint package tours to what has now become one of the most socially tolerant countries in Europe.”

In other words, we now have Israeli hawks, crooning ‘Don’t cry for me, Palestina’, while the Spanish tourist board has turned the country’s various costas into one gigantic Lesbos style Smörgåsbord.

So, where does that leave Holland, when it come to its old tolerance patent?

That’s an easy one. It leaves us well and truly buggered and half-drowning in shit creek, with a paddle stuck up our collective little orange butt…

… and no, I’m not exaggerating. Look at what they’re up to in New Zealand these days, for God’s sake:

“In Dunedin, New Zealand, every year two Rugby teams of sevens go to battle fully starkers. The nude rugby international, which started as a celebration of New Zealand’s national nude day, was held yesterday as a warm-up to the forthcoming match between the All Blacks and France.”

Nice. So, Bibi’s opening up to Palestinians, Spain welcomes lesbians and New Zealand has turned into one huge freaking streaking show…

No wonder some people in Holland are starting to rethink this whole tolerance game. We are a nation of traders, after all, so we do know about markets – and if everyone is trying to flog the same kind of shit, it’s better to try and seek out pastures new.

Which is why it came to pass that a certain new political party in Holland decided to give up on tolerance and to take another road instead.

Enter Geert Wilders and his Post Tolerance Party, as reported on this lovely, if slightly bilious blog:

“Mr. Wilders appeared on Danish television yesterday. After being pressed by the interviewer, he acknowledged that millions of Muslims — those who support jihad and shariah, and oppose the democratic societies that they live in — will have to be deported from Europe.

He says, “There’s only one solution.””

Okay, it may not be exactly a new road…

Still, I’m sure it has more potential for profit than the boring old tolerance market.

(To paraphrase Monty Python’s ‘The Life of Brian’: What has tolerance ever done for us…?)

(”In my Father’s house are many bunnies…?”)

Ah yes, the old ones really are the best…

So, there’s this nobleman, who goes to the restaurant and has just placed his order. Says the waiter:

“How do you want your steak, sir?”

“Preferably, not through my heart,” says the count.

Anyway, there are some stories that, like the count, simply refuse to die. So, on a slow news day, you can always dig up some newspaper article about the Roman Catholic Church’s entertaining views about sex – and if it’s not the Pope or his officials going on about this oldest of subjects, it’s weird lay persons, like Christopher West, who’s made a career out of trying to channel the spirit of former Pope, John Paul ll:

“West’s approach to human sexuality is, well, unique. In seminars, he has blessed women’s ovaries and recommends that couples pray over each other’s genitalia as a means of overcoming shame. The recent focus on West stems from a May Nightline story about him and his work. Among other gems, West said, “I actually see very profound historical connections between Hugh Hefner and John Paul II.” West argues that Victorian prudishness and its antecedent Puritanism caused Christians to see sexuality as a source of shame. He believes that, in different ways, both Hefner and the pope challenged this attitude. Hefner’s career needs no elaboration, but Pope John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body” is still permeating its way into Catholic consciousness.”

Yes, Hugh Hefner and the Pope…

I can so see the Pope, riding his bunny through Vatican city, crying, “In Hugh Hefner’s house are many mansions…”

… or something.

Mind you, if you want to hear people saying really silly stuff about sex you don’t necessarily need to turn to Rome.

Like call centres, outrageously outdated & outré views about sex are now being outsourced to India as well:

LUCKNOW, India (AFP) — Colleges in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh said Wednesday that female students would be banned from wearing jeans and other Western clothes to halt sexual harassment by male classmates.

“Girls who choose to wear jeans will be expelled from the college,” Meeta Jamal, principal of the Dayanand girls’ college in Kanpur city told AFP. “This is the only way to stop crime against women.”

So true, that.

Like ripping out a smoker’s lungs is the only way really to stop him from getting lung cancer.

(Now, this is kinky beyond the wildest wet dream of any pontificating prelate…)

(Now, a ‘Pope in the Post’ would have been fun…!)

How cute…:

“The Open Episcopal Church has come up with a novel way of extending their reach into the community by offering to send people their communion wafers in the post. The “host in the post” service is designed to benefit those who would normally attend Eucharist but cannot do so because of age or ill-health.”

Ah well, we live in a world of gimmicks, so it might even work – and if it would seem a bit tasteless, not to say morbid, to send bits of the Saviour’s flesh through the post, like a retro serial killer, well, that’s par for the course for the organizing vicar:

“According to the Right Rev Jonathan Blake, the Open Episcopal Church bishop who officiated at the late Jade Goody’s wedding this year, it is also part of a drive to modernise access to religion, and even atheists and satanists can avail themselves of it.”

Yes, indeed, the guy who saw nothing wrong in being part of the Jade Goody Funeral Gravy Train, is still at it.

‘Host in the post’, indeed.

Next stop, perhaps, an Internet site for relics? Like, ‘Order your Jade goodies now and get some religious scratch cards for free’?

Maybe also a partnership with a seriously loaded sponsor. I can envision a new line of shirts, with a discreet little logo, depicting Jesus, hanging from an alligator, called: ‘The Sign of Lacrosse’.

Of course, there’s no reason why Christianity should be the only faith to go for fast food delivery services. Sure, with those communion wafers the Jesus heads seem to have cornered the mini pizza market but, as Deuteronomy has it, ‘Man doth not live by snacks only’.

There are also beverages.

So, I would propose that, in the oecumenical spirit, we should leave the sale of said spirits to the other two big faiths.

That would leave God’s Chosen with a potentially quite profitable line of Hebreweries.

Muslims, come to think of it, are not allowed to drink of the fruit of the vine but they could still make a tidy profit selling soft drinks and Bud Light in their new chain of Mekkaraoke bars.

(’Host in the post’: It’s not exactly the muscular Christianity of yore…)

As we all know, one of the function of fairytales is to teach children some basic truths about life. That it can be tough and scary. That things are not always what they look like and that you need to be smart and resilient to survive.

Fairytales say more or less the same thing as that grizzled desk sergeant in the old cop show, Hill Street Blues: “Let’s be careful out there.”

I was reminded of the nature of fairytales when I read the following news article. It’s such perfect story book material.

It also serves as a very timely parable. Yesterday’s results of the European elections showed that those few people who bothered to turn up had decided to give the ruling parties a damn good kicking. What with the economic crisis, the lack of faith in ‘Brussels’ and the widely held view that Muslims and other undesirables are rapidly overrunning cozy Fortress Europe, it were the smaller, more wide-eyed, populist parties that profited most from the voters’ growing fears and chagrin.

Because those smaller parties are telling it how it is… Because they listen to the people… Because they understand where normal folks are coming from… Because they rage against the posh, bureaucratic machine…

Right.

People will always fall for snake oil merchants, of course. Nothing new there but it’s still very funny how these good citizens will march behind any banner that promises that ‘things will be different’ if you vote Brand X.

It’s quite insane but your average voter will willingly worship any damn frog that can change its colour for long enough for people to stop noticing it’s still a stupid, old frog but there you go: Democracy and human nature in synchronized action.

As yet another European election result and the following story show:

“A frog that constantly changes colour is being worshipped as a god in India. The creature was discovered in a flower bed and now draws hundreds of followers to the home where it is kept in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Now one of India’s top zoologists has decided he will study the unusual creature – provided it can be kept alive. Reji Kumar, 35, a lift worker, said he is doing its best but the frog has lost its appetite.”

Anyway, back to those fairytales and this inconvenient truth:

You can embrace and kiss most frogs as often and passionately as you want but most of them will stubbornly refuse to magically change into princes.

(They went all the way to the polls and all they brought back was this lousy Geert Wilders…)

(They’re playing our song - again…?!)

Let’s start with a question you probably won’t find in any kosher food guide (or medical handbook):

‘What is worse: Getting chickenpox or chickenpork?’

Staying with the topic of ’stuff you won’t find in…’, as far as I know, there isn’t yet an Oscar for the category ‘disgusting yet funny performances’ but if there was, the following news story could have high hopes of getting remade as a Hollywood blockbuster.

The story did remind me of the movie ‘Leon the Pig Farmer’, described by Wikipedia as ‘a 1993 comedy about a Jewish estate agent in London who discovers that thanks to an artificial insemination mishap, his real father is a swineherd from Yorkshire.’

Here’s the story, as presented in the Telegraph’s science section:

“Restaurants have been serving chicken secretly injected with beef and pork proteins, a study by the Food Standards Agency has revealed. The proteins have been used by food manufacturers as a method of bulking up chicken meat with water. The bovine and porcine protein powders allow the chicken to hold far more water, and gives unscrupulous manufacturers the opportunity to sell their meat at a higher price to wholesalers.”

‘Porcine protein powder’ has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

Especially, if followed by a ‘Rabid rabbi rips head off restaurateur’s romp’...

(Chickenpork: Not unlike Montezuma’s revenge…)

(Gravity: Been coming to a place near you, out of nowhere, since Newton…)

Now, this truly is a tale for our time:

“Office worker Mr Coleman, 23, was ‘tweeting’ to his followers on his Blackberry while jogging to work when he cracked his head on a heavy low-hanging branch. The force of the impact sent the dazed runner crashing to the pavement and left him with a badly bruised black eye.

“One minute I was running along posting a tweet, the next I was lying on my back on the pavement in agony. The branch came out of nowhere and hit my face hard.””

Yes, that old ‘came out of nowhere’ defence.

Also beloved by car drivers who use their mobiles while driving (and the more old-fashioned creeps who enjoy a bit of drunk-driving) and subsequently hit a dog, child, granny or cuddly E.T. crossing the road – all of whom ALWAYS came out of nowhere.

The ‘came out of nowhere’ defence also has a twin brother, called the ‘noone could have foreseen this’ gambit.

That one has been used extensively, throughout history, both by the ‘Peace at any price’ brigade and by those who’ve never seen a a fight they didn’t want to pick or join, immediately. (Humanity isn’t very good at learning from past mistakes but it wouldn’t hurt for our professional doves and hawks to be forced, each day, to watch clips of Mr Chamberlain’s trip to Munich and Colin Powell’s WMD speech at the UN, respectively.)

More recently, both the ‘came out of nowhere’ and ‘noone could have foreseen this’ defence were used by both governments and financial institutions to ‘explain’ the latest global economical meltdown.

(It’s close to being a law of nature that, whenever both these defences are used, we deal with the kind of crisis that could, in fact, have been foreseen by any toddler with merely a working knowledge of piggy banking.)

Of course, all of us are human and thus kind of stupid, so it’s good that we can fall back on these commonly used tactics – and, as long as we don’t overdo it, we maybe should allow ourselves and our fellow dumb critters the use of them.

I’d suggest anyone up till the age of ten might use them, more or less, indiscriminately. Teens probably should be given a monthly allowance, until both their zits and hormones have had time to settle down a bit.

Between the age of twenty and thirty, we might just let people get away with these lame excuses once per season but after that, until death, senility or incontinence hits, there shouldn’t be a call for this type of defence more than once a year.

One caveat though: It doesn’t matter whether you talk about the collapse of a global market system or the disintegration of an overstuffed bin bag: If you’ve used one of these two defences for either of these occasions, you’re not allowed to use any of the two, during the rest of that calendar year.

Me, I’ve been saving up mine, for the last few years but I do intend to use one of them with a vengeance, whenever the time is ripe.

It involves a baker’s dozen of beehives, an outdoors swimming pool filled with honey, a half brick and a quite elaborate pulley system.

Now, I’m not picky and I only need one individual out of the following groups of persons to walk past my house:

1) Any TV quiz or reality TV show host or TV sports analist
2) Any politician
3) Any professional PC plodder
4) Any raving Godhead, be they Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Jew
5) Any Holocaust denier, Scientologist or Elvis-shot-Kennedy-and-blew-up-the-Twin-Towers type
6) Any of the makers of ‘Mama Mia!’, ‘Dances with Wolves’, ‘Spiderman 3′, ‘The Nutty Professor’, ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ and/or ‘Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves’
7) Any of the inventors of the karaoke machine, the Crazy Frog ring tone, elevator music and speaking toilets
8) Bono

So, whenever any of the above mentioned persons will find themselves struggling not to drown in my honey pool, while beset by a horde of angry bees who don’t like their hives getting pulley-ed from over them and while sporting an angry bruise where a carefully coincidentally launched half-brick hit them…

… well, then I will simply smile politely, with a slightly puzzled look on my face and state that whatever just happened precisely:

a) came out of nowhere and
b) could not have been foreseen by anyone…

(On the Hill, in Westminster, in any self-respecting pub and wherever people roam and gather…)

(Resistance is futile: Have a nice day…)

It may not be safe to say this, in various parts of the world (and it would certainly be frowned upon in certain European circles) but I do like America. Granted, not its surface culture of fast food, fast living & fast spending but there is so much more to this vast and quite diverse continent than those who judge it on the merits of its (regrettable) TV shows and Hollywood movies will probably ever learn - but then, we know that prejudice is a condition that doesn’t welcome new information.

Anyway, on the whole, in America, people are certainly more friendly, welcoming and, definitely, more polite than in most of the other places I’ve visited and lived in.

The only gripe I share with a large amount of other Europeans who’ve spent time in the USA, is the way people in various types of shops, bars and restaurants wish you, upon leaving, a very nice day, with smiles as big and as fake as Elton John’s toupet.

It’s not the fault of these individual employees, of course: It’s their bosses with their ‘Smile or be fired’ policy who are to blame for this nonsense but it is, nevertheless, quite grating.

Having said that, the following news story is still vaguely depressing:

“Few places in Virginia are as draining to the soul and as numbing to the buttocks as the branch offices of the Department of Motor Vehicles. And yet, until recently, smiling was still permitted there. No more. DMV officials say the smile ban is for a good cause. The agency would like to develop a facial recognition system that could compare customers’ photographs over time to prevent fraud and identity theft. “The technology works best when the images are similar,” said DMV spokeswoman Pam Goheen. “To prepare for the possibility of future security enhancements, we’re asking customers to maintain a neutral expression.””

Quite.

‘Technology’ will only ever be happy if each and every individual person becomes part of an identical looking, thinking, consuming, voting and overall similarly behaving herd.

A sad looking herd, no less – since our new overlords, the machines, can’t cope with deviating expressions on the faces of individual pieces of cattle.

All this to prevent fraud, identity theft and, no doubt, terrorism.

Homeland Security already demands we remove our keys, our belts and bottled water, before we even go through ‘control’…

… and now, the powers that be have started to demand we drop our smiles as well.

Which is the kind of news, I imagine, Osama bin Laden will find highly amusing.

Not that you would notice, of course, with that beard of his.