May 6, 2015 | Politics
From Double standard on offending Christians and Muslims:In 1987, Andres Serrano submerged a crucifix in a glass of his own urine and took a picture. Entitled “Piss Christ,” the photograph won first place in a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts.In 1996, another avant-garde artist, Chris Ofili, smeared elephant dung on a portrait of the Blessed Mother and displayed it in a government-funded Brooklyn museum.And so the stage was set for the ensuing nightmare of Christian terror and violence that descended on the American art community.
Just kidding. Nothing of the sort happened. There were no canonical death warrants issued, no attempts on the artists’ lives, and no threats of violence against the artists, the contest organizers, the museum curators, or anyone else.To be sure, Christians objected to “Piss Christ” and the feces-covered Holy Virgin. And they rightfully wondered why their tax dollars had been used to promote these blasphemies. But their objections and questions were condescendingly dismissed by the secular left in the media and intelligentsia. As one prominent art critic sniffed, Ofili’s “The Holy Virgin Mary” was “deliberately provocative” in order to “jolt viewers into an expanded frame of reference, and perhaps even toward illumination.”As if in one voice, the mainstream media and self-anointed intelligentsia argued that antiquated religious sensitivities must not be allowed to interfere with either an artist’s free expression or his right to government funding regardless of how offensive his work may be to Christians.Well, it seems that things have changed.
May 5, 2015 | Politics
I don't think the Onion cannot make this stuff up!From Reading to children at bedtime: ABC questions value of time-honoured practice | DailyTelegraph:
THE ABC has questioned whether parents should read to their children before bedtime, claiming it could give your kids an “unfair advantage” over less fortunate children.“Is having a loving family an unfair advantage?” asks a story on the ABC’s website.“Should parents snuggling up for one last story before lights out be even a little concerned about the advantage they might be conferring?”The story was followed by a broadcast on the ABC’s Radio National that also tackled the apparently divisive issue of bedtime reading.“Evidence shows that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t — the difference in their life chances — is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t,” British academic Adam Swift told ABC presenter Joe Gelonesi.
Gelonesi responded online: “This devilish twist of evidence surely leads to a further conclusion that perhaps — in the interests of levelling the playing field — bedtime stories should also be restricted.”Contacted by The Daily Telegraph, Gelonesi said the bedtime stories angle was highlighted by the ABC “as a way of getting attention”.Asked if it might be just as easy to level the playing field by encouraging other parents to read bedtime stories, Gelonesi said: “We didn’t discuss that.”
That would be "blaming" the parent who does not read to their kids. Perish the thought. As one reader notes, "The fact that people like this are given a respectful hearing, rather than being run out of polite company, is a sad commentary on our cultural decline."
May 5, 2015 | Politics
From Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Jihad Comes to Texas | TIME:
The right to think, to speak, and to write in freedom and without fear is ultimately a more sacred thing than any religion.
[...]
There is no “but” in the First Amendment.
May 5, 2015 | Politics
From Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Jihad Comes to Texas | TIME:
The right to think, to speak, and to write in freedom and without fear is ultimately a more sacred thing than any religion.
[...]
There is no “but” in the First Amendment.
May 3, 2015 | Politics
From Victims of Communism Day - The Washington Post:
Today is May Day. Since 2007, I have advocated using this date as an international Victims of Communism Day. I outlined the rationale for this idea (which I did not originate) in my very first post on the subject:
May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes’ millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so….The main alternative to May 1 is November 7, the anniversary of the communist coup in Russia. However, choosing that date might be interpreted as focusing exclusively on the Soviet Union, while ignoring the equally horrendous communist mass murders in China, Cambodia, and elsewhere. So May 1 is the best choice.
Our relative neglect of communist crimes carries a real cost. Victims of Communism Day can serve the dual purpose of appropriately commemorating the millions of victims, and diminishing the likelihood that such atrocities will recur. Just as Holocaust Memorial Day and other similar events have helped sensitize us to the dangers of racism, anti-Semitism, and radical nationalism, so Victims of Communism Day can increase awareness of the dangers of extreme government control of the economy and civil society.
From Diana West - Islam, the West: Differences Growing Smaller Every Day:
