Author: Ophelia Benson

It was embarrassing to be an American during the Bush era, but what’s up with those zany people in Italy? Why do they vote for Berlusconi? Don’t they think owning most of the country’s mass media is power enough? And then…he’s such a…

The Italian Prime Minister has called President Obama “tanned” again — but this time he did not miss the opportunity to joke about the First Lady’s skin colour as well. After his return from the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Mr Berlusconi told a rally of conservative supporters that he was bringing greetings from someone in the United States. “What’s his name? Some tanned guy. Ah, Barack Obama,” he said. He then added: “You won’t believe it, but the two of them sunbathe together, because the wife is also tanned.”

Gee – what a funny joke. I can’t wait for his next tour of Africa.

Look: here is Independent World Report. It’s a new bimonthly reader-supported magazine covering the forgotten and untold stories of the world. It just launched. Subscribe to it if you can!

The editor is Tasneem Khalil. You know Tasneem – he used to report on corruption and police misconduct in Bangladesh, until one midnight he was arrested and his computer was seized and he was beaten up. He’s in Sweden now and he’s started this terrific magazine. I’m proud to say I have an article in the first issue. There’s one on the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. There’s a lot.

Once again I’m startled at the casual malice of Andrew Brown. No charge is too unsupported to make, it seems. No inhibition causes him to pause and ask himself, ‘Wait, do I really know any of this? Am I just blackguarding a whole category of people on the basis of nothing in particular? Should I perhaps rephrase things by adding a ‘some’ or a ‘may sometimes’ in places just to be fair?’ – no sense of shame prompts him to stop making things up about a group of people he dislikes. Why is that?

Oh well, the pope does it, Kevin Padian does it, so why should a journalist hesitate?

At any rate, he doesn’t.

It’s obvious that in the US, the new atheism is a reassuring fundamentalism for the college educated: it provides them with the assurance of a brighter future and with an enemy (“The religious”) on whom can be blamed all the bewildering and humiliating changes in modern American society…

No it’s not obvious. It’s possible, and it may be true of some people, but it’s not obvious, and Andrew Brown just spinning words about it doesn’t make it obvious.

How can we maintain the distinction, so essential to civilised life, between ourselves and the readers of the Daily Mail? The new atheism supplies a clear and simple answer. Subscribe to a set of pious hopes about reason and progress, read a few of the right books, and you have found a clear social identity…Obviously, it is no longer done to sneer at the working classes for being idle, brutish, smelly, and breeding too much. But it’s perfectly OK to sneer at “faith heads” for all these things: that shows you’re enlightened. It’s pure coincidence that the despicable believers are for the most part lower class as well.

Is it perfectly ok to sneer at Andrew Brown for being exceptionally vulgar? Because he is. It’s sheer vulgarity to abuse people on the basis of your own fantasies that way. That’s not to say that there is no possibility that atheism can sometimes be tainted with intellectual snobbery – but that doesn’t justify Brown’s trashy raving.

Somebody should do a vulgar hit-and-run pseudo-sociology job on why Andrew Brown is the way he is.

The Catholic church is so brilliant at PR!

The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was “busy cleaning its own house” and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger. In a defiant and provocative statement, issued following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva, the Holy See said the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not paedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males.

Great! Brilliant! We’re busy, don’t bother us. Everybody else does it even more than we do, don’t bother us. It’s mostly queers who do it, don’t bother us.

That’s good enough for me! I take it all back about the Catholic church.

The statement, read out by Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the UN, defended its record by claiming that “available research” showed that only 1.5%-5% of Catholic clergy were involved in child sex abuse. He also quoted statistics from the Christian Scientist Monitor newspaper to show that most US churches being hit by child sex abuse allegations were Protestant and that sexual abuse within Jewish communities was common.

Aha! Okay then! Only a small fraction of Catholic clergy abuse children, so it’s not a problem then. Most churches that are accused of abusing children are Protestant so child abuse by Catholic clerics is not a problem then. Sex abuse ‘within Jewish communities’ is common so child abuse by Catholic clerics is not a problem then. That’s some impeccable logic! I’m convinced; who wouldn’t be?

He added that sexual abuse was far more likely to be committed by family members, babysitters, friends, relatives or neighbours, and male children were quite often guilty of sexual molestation of other children.

So what’re you picking on us for?! They do it too! They do it more than we do! Little boys do it, so why are you yelling at us for doing it too?! If little boys do it we can do it! That’s fair isn’t it! Shut up, leave us alone, go away, you’re excommunicated, god is going to hit you, shut up!

Representatives from other religions were dismayed by the Holy See’s attempts to distance itself from controversy by pointing the finger at other faiths…The Ryan Report, published last May, revealed that beatings and humiliation by nuns and priests were common at institutions that held up to 30,000 children. A nine-year investigation found that Catholic priests and nuns for decades terrorised thousands of boys and girls, while government inspectors failed to stop the abuse.

Well…but…uh…well…other people beat and humiliate children too! Lots of them do it! Bullies do it – sadists do it – rapists do it – lots of people! So what are you shouting at us for?!

All together now: Compassion is at the heart of every great religion. Amen.

I’ve been wondering about something, and thinking I was the only one who was wondering, and then just now I did a bit of googling and found that I was not the only one who was wondering. Our friend Parrhesia wondered about it last July and then our other friend Salty Current also wondered and went on wondering (scroll down if you’re interested). Wondering what?

Why there are so many men on the speakers’ list at the Atheist Alliance International and so few women.

Yes quite: why is that? Seventeen men and four women – why is that?

Because there are no atheist women, of course.

No, perhaps it’s not that. Because……uhhhhhhh…they forgot?

Who knows. But it’s irritating. And it’s especially irritating to me, this time, because there are several people there that I’m friendly with and would like to meet. But I wasn’t invited. I don’t, offhand, looking at the entire list, see why not. And this business of just…..uhhhhhhh…forgetting, is doubly or triply annoying, because it makes it seem as if it just doesn’t make any difference what you do, you’re always going to be forgotten and ignored and sidelined and overlooked and passed over merely because things have always been run by men so they keep inviting men to things because it seems natural and they just can’t quite manage to remember that oh hey gee what do you know we could have asked some women.

But at least I’m not the only one wondering about it. Some people on that thread even suggested me among the women who might have been asked. Oi, Atheist Boys’ Alliance: wake up! Ask some women next time! Duh.

The pope is humbly issuing everyone instructions again.

Pope Benedict XVI said yesterday that all of Europe – and not only this former communist country – must acknowledge its Christian heritage as it copes with rising immigration from other cultures and religions.

Must it? Why? That way communalism lies – my religion is bigger than your religion so ha! A secular public square is a much better way to ‘cope with’ immigration from other cultures and religions. (What else would immigration be from? Identical cultures and religions?)

“History has demonstrated the absurdities to which man descends when he excludes God from the horizon of his choices and actions,’’ Benedict said.

Well, history has also demonstrated the savage cruelty to which human beings can descend when they think they are doing god’s will – like Ben’s own church in Ireland, imprisoning women and selling their children, and imprisoning and torturing other children for the crime of being poor, or orphaned, or neglected.

We want no lessons from you, Ben. Go home and think about condoms and AIDS, and repent.