And for dessert, some pleasant savagery from Hitchens; a relief from all that offendedness-frotting.

There’s a lot to dislike about Gibson. He is given to furious tirades against homosexuals of the sort that make one wonder if he has some kind of subliminal or “unaddressed” problem. His vulgar and nasty movies, which also feature this prejudice, are additionally replete with the cheapest caricatures of the English…He has told interviewers that his wife, the mother of his children, is going to hell because she subscribes to the wrong Christian sect…And it has been obvious for some time to the most meager intelligence that he is sick to his empty core with Jew-hatred.

I’m not sure Hitch has a very high opinion … Read the rest

And then there’s the tragic clash of world views (or Weltanschauungen as we call them in old Stuttgart) between the Gay Police Association and ‘Christians’ i.e. some Christians.

An advert placed by the Gay Police Association (GPA) that claimed a 74 per cent rise in homophobic incidents due to religious belief has caused widespread offence among Christians…The GPA advert has also prompted a police investigation. The Metropolitan Police says the inquiry “centres on whether the advert constitutes a faith crime”.

A – what? A what crime? A faith what? I know about the religious hatred bill and all, but so do you guys now have something called a ‘faith crime’ that the police investigate? Seriously? For real? Isn’t that just … Read the rest

Okay a great tidal wave of opinion, by which I mean one person, has demanded a post on the contribution of high theory to the Israeli military. I never resist surges of opinion; I splash about in them like a happy little child playing in the surf. By which I mean, that is quite an intriguing piece, isn’t it.

The Israeli Defence Forces have been heavily influenced by contemporary philosophy, highlighting the fact that there is considerable overlap among theoretical texts deemed essential by military academies and architectural schools.

Oh, that fact. Well, one can see that both military academies and architectural schools have a genuine and keen interest in the subject of buildings – but one can also … Read the rest

There were some very interesting (and alarming) comments (by one ‘tarxien’) on this post by Sunny on the Brick Lane fuss by (the comments say) a GP who has seen some distressing examples of arranged marriage.

There is a very fine line between ‘arranged’ and ‘forced’…This is an issue I feel strongly about because as a GP working in Tower Hamlets and south London I have seen many desperate, depressed women in ‘arranged marriages’. None of them could be called ‘forced’ in that the women were not tied up and raped as has happened in some cases but you cannot ignore the emotional pressure that is put on young women by their families (i.e fathers in most cases). Once married

How come novelists are so violent? Why are they always running around swinging baseball bats and roughing people up? Are they on steroids or what?

Novelists Salman Rushdie, Hari Kunzru and Lisa Appignanesi have attacked community groups, the police and the media after Ruby Films decided to move shooting of an adaptation of Monica Ali’s Brick Lane out of London’s Tower Hamlets area last week.

Wow. That seems like a lot of people for three unathletic novelists to attack. Did they draw blood?

The criticism follows a march organised by the Campaign Against Monica Ali’s Film Brick Lane yesterday which drew no more than two women and 70 older men. Threats of violence and book-burning failed to materialise.

Ohhhhh, … Read the rest