A bit of old business I’ve been meaning to get to for several days. This question of religion and the focus of its public rhetoric and exhortation on a narrow view of sexual morality with a comparable neglect of social justice – of, if you prefer, poverty, oppression, exploitation, bad working conditions, injustice, and the like. One of our readers took issue with that view of the matter, and I thought I would offer one or two more places where I’d seen the idea discussed.

One is this piece by Ishtiaq Ahmed in the ‘Daily Times’ of Pakistan.

The Islamic position on life on earth was that Muslims should enjoy the good things of life within limits prescribed by Sharia…What

The comments by Juan Golblado on the ‘Paying Too Much Attention’ Comment have prompted me to hurry up and do what I’ve been meaning to do, which is to say a word or two about this bizarre article at Index on Censorship. It is, as Mr Golblado says, a striking case of the fox being invited into the henhouse. Unless of course the Index on Censorship is supposed to be an organization that sings the virtues of censorship, but I kind of thought it wasn’t supposed to be that kind of organization.

Van Gogh’s juvenile shock-horror art finally led him to build an exploitative working relationship with Somalia-born Dutch MP Ayann Hirsi Ali, whose terrible personal experience of abuse

Okay, I give in. I’ve had a conversion experience. I’ve recognized the error of my ways. All these people who have been telling me what a horrible elitist I am have worn me down. I’m convinced. It’s true, I am an elitist, and that makes me a terrible person, so I have to stop. Okay. I’ll stop. I’ll become a better person. I won’t like anything that is not extremely popular, and I won’t dislike anything that is extremely popular. (God, for instance.) I won’t do anything that lots of people don’t do, and I won’t refrain from doing anything that lots of people do. I’ll become as humble and modest and unassertive as the people who tell me what … Read the rest

Go, Manchester City. Go, Paula Radcliffe.

Update. She went.… Read the rest