Reviews Category
We don’t just report off-beat news, breaking news and digest the best and worst of the news media analysis and commentary. We give an original take on what happened and why. We add lols, satire, news photos and original content.
Cambridge student too ugly to punt
THE Oxbridge universities don’t make it easy for people to like them do they? It is all ties and crests, hazing and fags, bizarre rituals and elitism and worst of all, posh folk in red trousers.
To add to this, they’re also terrifyingly vain as one Cambridge student has claimed that he was turned down for a river punting job because he was “too ugly”.
River punting is not a dirty euphemism.
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Posted: 4th, June 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
In this 1973 photo Sid Vicious is seen heading to a David Bowie gig
IN 1973, Sid Vicious – then known as John Simon Ritchie was pictured on his way to watch David Bowie perform in London. He’d have 16 or 17 years old. Four years later he joined the Sex Pistols. What impact did Glam Rock have on the punks?
[Not a valid template]Spotter: Mannequinfemme
The Gaza Strip: Israeli soldiers post these racy photos on Facebook
WHY would Israeli female soldiers pose for photos in their underwear and then post the pics on Facebook? The IDF says the women have been disciplined. How? We don’t know. But wagt6 odd the women get sent to the Gaza Strip (geddit?!)
Posted: 4th, June 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
It’s not who you know, it’s who you blow: Cambridge University ‘drinking society initiation’ exam question
STUDENTS on the University of Cambridge undergraduate law degree were presented with an exam question that asked them to consider the fates of Billy, Gilbert and Richard. All three are keen to be initiated into The Vizards. Billy is tricked into gay sex. Gilbert is assaulted with bottle up his bum. But he “actually enjoys the experience”. Richard is killed by an infection brought on a brutal ripping out of his pubic fringe.
The 2013 Criminal Law paper asked:
Sandra is President of The Vizards, a College drinking society. She is organising the initiation of new members. After a great deal of alcohol has been drunk, the members of the society form a circle around Billy, Gilbert and Richard who are to be initiated.
(i) Sandra blindfolds Billy and tells him that Tracey will suck his penis. Jonny does so.
(ii) Sandra penetrates Gilbert’s anus with a bottle. Although Gilbert appears to resist, and has to be held down by Tracey, he actually enjoys the experience.
(iii) Sandra waxes Richard’s pubic hair and pulls it off with such force that she removes a significant part of his skin. The wound becomes infected, but Richard is so embarrassed that he does not get medical help and dies.
Consider what offences, if any, have been committed.
Great stuff, guys. But as any fool knows the way to get into the uni’s best societies is for your mum or dad to shag someone of great influence. Bottles are options, as whips, chains and BBC manuals…
Question 20. How to become a Don.
Spotter: Sebastian Salek
Lesbian Hart tells us why she doesn’t dress more feminine (with watermelon)
ON YouTube, lesbian Hart tackles the question:
“If you love women so much, how come you don’t you dress like one?”
Hart repsonds expertly (with watermelon):
Spotter: Dangerous Minds
Replaced by a reporter with an iPhone a sacked photojournalist’s Tumblr life
WHEN Rob Hart lost his job at the Chicago Sun-Times, he was replaced by a reporter with an iPhone. So. He took his iPhone, opened a Tumblr. On Laid Off Form The Sun-Times, he uses his skills as a photojournalist to report on his own life.
Not everyyone can take a good news photo. A camera can record the moment but not always tell the story:
Posted: 4th, June 2013 | In: Photojournalism, Reviews | Comment
Tell Mama: using the ‘truth’ to attack Muslim victims in light of the Woolwich murder of Lee Rigby
WHAT is a hate crime? The Home Office defines it as:
[crimes] committed against a person or property that is motivated by hostility towards someone based on their disability, race, religion, gender-identity or sexual orientation, whether perceived to be so by the victim or any other person.
After the murder of Lee Rigby, the Guardian reported that anti-Muslim hate crimes were suddenly on the rise:
Sharp rise in reported cases, including attacks on 10 mosques, raises fears of sustained targeting of Muslim communities
We were told that in the week following Lee Rigby’s murder in Woolwich, there were around 200 Islamophobic incidents reported. They were not all reported to the police. The petrol bomb attack on a mosque in Grimsby was reported to police. Stuart Harness, 33, and Gavin Humphries, 37, have been charged with arson with intent to endanger life.
The cast majority of incidents were recorded by Faith Matters’ Tell MAMA (Measuring Anti-Muslim Attacks):
The TELL MAMA national project can support and assist individuals if they have been subjected to anti-Muslim prejudice or Islamophobia, whether through a street-based, on-line or institutionally based incident.
It invites Muslims to tell them if they have been a victim of any of the following:
What are the classifications of attack?
Attacks are classified as follows:
1. Extreme Violence – i.e, a violent attack on a person / property that has the potential to cause the loss of life or Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH).
2. Assault – i.e, a physical attack against a person which does not pose a threat to their life and is not GBH. This includes objects being thrown at someone, even if the object misses.
3. Damage and Desecration of Property – i.e, this includes anti-Muslim graffiti being daubed on Muslim property and damage to vehicles motivated by anti-Muslim hatred.
4. Threats – Any clear and specific threat, whether physical, verbal or written. If the threat is not clear and specific then the incident should be recorded as Abusive Behaviour.
5. Abusive Behaviour – Verbal or written anti-Muslim abuse.
6. Anti-Muslim Literature – Mass produced and mass mailed literature with anti-Muslim content.
How high or low they set the bar will be interesting.
Its parent outfit Faith Matters is:
Faith Matters is a not for profit organisation founded in 2005 which works to reduce extremism and interfaith and intra-faith tensions and we develop platforms for discourse and interaction between Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jewish and Hindu communities across the globe. We have offices in the United Kingdom, Pakistan and the Middle East (Jerusalem)
It’s an interesting group. In 2011, Faith Matters launched a paper on Secular reforms of the Ottoman Empire:
The Ottoman Empire is often presented, by such groups as a model political system upon which to re-build a global Caliphate. Osama bin Laden marked the decline of the Ottoman Empire as the fall of Islam – that the Islamic world “has been tasting this humiliation and this degradation for more than 80 years” and that “the righteous Khilafah will return with the permission of Allah”. Through the implementation of an Islamic legal and political system, extreme groups who mis-use the Islamic faith call for the rejection of liberal values and the current systems in place, which do not fundamentally clash with Islam.
The short paper authored by Ishtiaq Hussain who has long studied such ideologies, offers a new challenge to these claims, arguing that the Ottoman Empire bares little resemblance to the model proposed by such groups. In focusing on the period known as the Tanzimat (1839-1876), Hussain shows that the Ottomans were in fact attempting to secularise their laws and state institutions rather than implementing religious laws into State laws.
These are some of the key findings in the report which show that:
• Homosexuality was decriminalised
• Ottoman society in general moved away from punishments such as stoning
• The death penalty for Apostasy was not implementedIslamists often bypass these facts and use a warped interpretation of history in order to weave their own narrative into mainstream debate; using their own projected picture of a perfect Ottoman society living under a deeply rigid interpretation of Shariah Law in order to argue for the building of a modern day Islamic Caliphate. Those who spin this historical account help to prop up a narrative used as an ideological basis for extremism. The attacks of 9/11 were even marked by Bin Laden as “a great step towards the unity of Muslims and establishing the righteous caliphate”.
All valid work, then.
Tell MAMA’s co-ordinator, Fiyaz Mughal, was quoted on the post-Woolwich violence:
“These things are cumulative and I do not see an end to this cycle of violence. There is an underlying Islamophobia in our society and the horrendous events in Woolwich have brought this to the fore and inflamed the situation.”
But not everyone is a bigot. Far from it.
The Guardian then followed up with a pieced called “Attacks on Muslims: numbers in detail”:
It’s been almost a week since the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich. During that time, many have considered the consequences of the two attackers’ actions for Britain’s crime policy, its foreign policy and its media.
The media cry against giving terrorists the oxygen of publicity whilst broadcasting graphic pictures and giving weight to one of the two alleged killer’s words, elevating him from a psychotic, happy-slapping jihadi nutjob to an expert on British policy, religion, war and race relations.
The Guardian noted:
Individuals are able to report Islamophobic incidents in a number of ways: by filling in an online form, phoning their helpline, sending a text, email, tweet or message via Facebook. It’s not clear how these reports are verified but Tell MAMA does explain how they classify attacks which include anti-Muslim graffiti, verbal threats and physical attacks against people or property.
Other sections of the Press were more sceptical. The Telegraph and Daily Mail both produced the same headline:
The truth about the ‘wave of attacks on Muslims’ after Woolwich murder
TRUTH. As opposed to a lie?
The Telegraph said:
Tell Mama confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph that about 120 of its 212 “anti-Muslim incidents” – 57 per cent – took place only online. They were offensive postings on Twitter or Facebook, or comments on blogs: nasty and undesirable, certainly, but some way from violence or physical harm and often, indeed, legal. Not all the offending tweets and postings, it turns out, even originated in Britain…
Fewer than one in 12 of the 212 “incidents” reported to Tell Mama since Woolwich – 17 cases (8 per cent) – involved individuals being physically targeted. Six people had things thrown at them, said Mr Mughal, and most of the other 11 cases were attempts to pull off the hijab or other items of Islamic dress.
Without in any way denying the distress and harm caused by such attacks, they do stand at the lower levels of seriousness…
And:
Two other sets of figures are available. According to the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), forces nationally reported 71 anti-Muslim hate crimes or “incidents of note” to the National Community Tensions Team in the week after the murder of Drummer Rigby.
“That would cover everything they feel has a link to Woolwich, though an incident of note would not necessarily be a crime,” said a spokesman.
The second set of figures is from True Vision, an online hate-crime reporting tool operated by Acpo. There were 136 reports of anti-Muslim activity – internet or physical – received via this website in the week after Woolwich, overwhelmingly in the first few days, though Acpo said that not all were crimes and some reports were duplicates.
As for the claim that there is “no end” to the cycle of anti-Muslim activity, it has substantially ended already. According to police, there was a sharp spike in reported incidents in the day or so after the killing, but they have already subsided to pre-Woolwich levels…
What the data broadly show, in short, is that Drummer Rigby’s killers have failed. The breakdown in community relations has not come. There has been a rise in incidents, but it appears to be very short-term, overwhelmingly non-violent and even then almost entirely at the lower end of the scale.
The Mail is, however, darker:
But more than half of the incidents reported to the Tell Mama hotline related to offensive messages on Twitter, Facebook or online blogs, and only a tiny minority were physical attacks, it has emerged.
Tiny. Seventeen people being attacked, allegedly. The Mail then delivers its thrust in bullet points:
More than half of incidents reported to hotline were internet comments
Questioned raised about the way Tell Mama project presented figures
The Mail and to lesser degree the Telegraph appear to be undermining Tell MAMA, which has been running for just over a year. It is a useful tool to counter anti-Muslim violence and bigotry. It’s wrong that the organisation should be looked at only in light of the Woolwich murder. Anti-Muslim attacks do happen, as the BBC has reported:
“I started wearing the hijab at university in 2006 but last summer I decided to take it off because I didn’t feel safe after someone tried to pull it off my head, said Alisha, a student from Middlesbrough.
She and her husband were targeted because they were Muslim, she believes.
“I started to get panic attacks. I never thought I’d feel like this, but everyone is so afraid.”
Her husband was also attacked on his way to work.
“He was verbally abused, called a ‘Paki’, ‘terrorist’, and he was spat on. When he confronted the men, security guards tried to arrest him until an old man pointed out who the attackers were,” she said.
Another victim, Usman Choudhry, an IT manager in Salford, said he has suffered at least one incident of abuse per week over the last five to six years. “I haven’t reported it to the police,” he said, “because I am not sure they could have caught the offenders.”
I for one am glad that such an outfit exists. It aims to do something about a problem. The Press were full of praise for the few people who helped Lee Rigby. But overlooked were the scores of others who just stood about taking photos and tweeting. You can’t blame them. What would we have done? Maybe nothing. Maybe we’d have been heroes. Maybe at least recording the offence is a start. The world about us is mediated by technology. But rather than saying ‘I was there’, Tell MAMA helps us realise that someone else really is there on the sharp end of abuse, that the snippet of news, tweet or camera phone footage reflect people’s real, everyday existences.
Posted: 3rd, June 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
Michael Adebolajo kisses the Koran in court and Islam winces
MICHAEL Adebolajo is not shy. The 28-year-old accused of murdering Lee Rigby in a barabric sacrifice to his god kissed the Koran as he left the dock at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Before leaving – we’ll see him next at the Old Bailey – the suspect told Deputy Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot that he wanted to be adressed as Mujahid Abu Hamza. He said:
“I am only a man, I would like to alleviate the pain.”
Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook Michael Adebolajo kissing the Koran, as he appears at Westminster Magistrates Court, where he is accused of murdering soldier Drummer Lee Rigby and of the attempted murder of two police officers and possession of a firearm, a 9.4mm KNIL model 91 revolver, with intent to cause others to believe that violence would be used.
Is the accused a psychotic nutjob hiding behind a religion? Well, yes, allegedly. But he keeps harping on about Islam. And many are listening. Says Tony Blair
“There is a problem within Islam – from the adherents of an ideology which is a strain within Islam. We have to put it on the table and be honest about it. Of course there are Christian extremists and Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu ones. But I am afraid this strain is not the province of a few extremists. It has at its heart a view about religion and about the interaction between religion and politics that is not compatible with pluralistic, liberal, open-minded societies.”
Dennis Prager takes a view on the alleged killers’ claims that the murder of Lee Rigby was an act of righteous vengeance:
Here’s a question for Muslims and leftists who buy this argument about the West killing Muslims in Afghanistan: Who are we fighting in Afghanistan?
I thought the Brits and Americans were fighting the Taliban, the people who throw acid in Muslim girls’ faces for attending school, the people who murder nurses who inoculate Muslim children against disease. Now, if fighting the Taliban is to be equated with fighting Muslims, this is a real contradiction of everything much of the Islamic world and virtually all of the left have been contending for years – that the Taliban represent a tiny group of extremists in the Muslim world, and that they have so completely perverted Islam that they cannot even be called Muslims.
Well, you can’t have it both ways. If killing the Taliban is the same as “killing Muslims,” then you can’t argue that the Taliban don’t represent Islam or Muslims.
So, on the issue of the West fighting in Afghanistan, the Muslims and the left need to make up their minds: Is killing the Taliban a service or a disservice to Muslims? This is the first and last question both groups need to answer. Everything else is commentary.
Much to debate…
Posted: 3rd, June 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (3)
In photos: the changing face, hair and statues of Lenin
THEY erected statues to Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov Lenin, In all of them he looks aged and sporting a noble brow. But how do you remember the great leader? Is that image what he would have wanted?
Born 22 April 1870, this is Lenin in aged 3 or 4.
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Posted: 3rd, June 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Politicians | Comment
Police arrest mother after son kills neighbour’s dog
WHO to blame? Desiree Gillard, 41, of Spring in Texas has been charged with child abandonment. Why? Becaues her 11-year-old son allegedly deliberatly drowned their neighbour’s dog.
Patricia Martin recorded on CCTV the child taking her dog. Police say the child admitted that he stole it, choked it unconscious and drowned it in a hot tub at a nearby empty home.
Desiree Gillard had left the boy alone. She’d gone to Buffalo, Texas to pick up her husband after his truck broke down. She told police she had not time to take him along with her “because she was in a hurry”.
Says mum:
“It’s not normal to kill, to kill animals. I miss my son. I want him home. He doesn’t belong there. He’s not a gun-toting gangbanger. He’s 11 years old.”
If only he were a gangster…
Newport shopkeeper threatened with arrest for asking shoppers to obey law
INCREDIBLE new from Newport, South Wales, where shopkeeper Matthew Taylor has been threatened by police for telling people to obey the law. The T-shirt he’s selling – the ones that declare “Obey Our Laws – Respect Our Beliefs Or Get Out Of Our Country“.
The message “could be seen to be inciting racial hatred”.
Mr Taylor created the slogan after the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby. But some one complained. The police arrived and told him to remove the item or face arrest. He says:
“I had a visit from two CSOs (community support officers) because it has been reported by someone who felt it was offensive. It’s not meant to be offensive. I didn’t produce it to be offensive. It’s what I believe… I don’t see it as racist. I took it down because it is meant to be a statement about any race. Any colour. I’m offended I have had to take it down. I can’t see why I can’t share my beliefs.”
And then Newport city councillor, Majid Rahman epitomsies the nonsesne that that been alaloed to pervaded our society:
“I believe in freedom of speech and defend his rights to say what he wants…”
Good. They have been hard won.
“…but…”
I belivee in dreedom BUT:
…once it starts offending people then it’s a police matter and it’s up to them whether they think it’s broken any laws.”
You can be an unwitting racist. If someone says you’re a bigot, then you are one.
Bloody hell!
1944 in photos: French shave heads of women who collaborated with the Germans
AFTER the Second World War, the French shaved the heads of women who collaborated with the Germans. Men were shot.
A woman collaborator holding a German baby is led back to her home by a jeering crowd after having her hair shaved off. Date: 26/08/1944.
Two French patriots drag Grande Guillotte from her home in Normandy, France on July 10, 1944. After she was discovered to be collaboration with the enemy. Date: 10/07/1944.
Two Paris women collaborators, partially stripped and their hair cropped, are marked on the foreheads with the Nazi sign and marched by armed patriots through the streets of the French capital of France on Sept. 1, 1944. Date: 01/09/1944
Members of the French resistance party deal out punishment to all known Axis collaborationists, on the morning of Bastille Day. Housemaids, servants, etc., of the Germans were gathered together, shorn of all their hair, and paraded through the streets of Cherbourg, France on July 17, 1944, their hairless heads the emblem of their violations of the rules of the party. Date: 17/07/1944.
Woman arrested for punching clown in nose – clown damp but unhurt
A SMALL story about clowns from Berri, near Adelaide in southern Australia. When two men and a woman were evicted from the Stardust Circus clown for fighting, the female – a teenage girl – turned her attention to the talent and punched a clown on the nose.
The trio were charged with various crimes. And the clown? Well, it wasn’t injured. Of course it wasn’t. Hitting a clown on the nose is now worst than stamping on his toes. It just doesn’t hurt.
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Daily Mail fails to mention Richard Littlejohn’s part in the trial and death of Lucy Meadows
IT’S time for Richard Littlejohn to show remorse – and if we think coroner’s attack on the Press was out of order, then we still haven’t learnt our lesson
Admitting that you were wrong can be unpleasant. Admitting that you have done something bad can be terrifying. Remember staring at scuffed sandals rather than at the teacher who ‘could wait all day’ for some hapless culprit to put up their hand?
Newspapers don’t like admitting it when they get something wrong. Most have a corrections and clarifications slot, but this is for misspellings of names or inaccurate historical dates. When they get something seriously wrong it generally goes upstairs to the lawyers, who will wriggle a bit and haggle a lot until money changes hands and suddenly it all goes away.
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Posted: 2nd, June 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
White jihadi plot to kill Prince Harry – homeless fraudster turns to Islam for free prison bed and food
IN “Jihad Brit in Harry kill plot”, the Sun reports on “a white Muslim convert” who “walked into a police station and told cops he was going to kill Prince Harry”.
Ashraf Islam made his chilling threat a day after the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, South London.
Islam, 30, is now facing ten years in jail after admitting threatening to kill soldier Harry, 28, who is third in line to the throne.
Islam has stood in the doc at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court and pleaded guilty. He’s in custody awaiting sentencing.
The Sun adds that police allegedly found a laptop belonging to Islam “showing internet searches for kidnapping, guns and vans. His internet history is also said to show he had been on terrorist and firearms websites.”
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Posted: 2nd, June 2013 | In: Reviews, Royal Family | Comments (2)
Kenya’s epic jumpers present a history of high jumping before Dick Fosbury flopped
BEFORE Dick Fosbury (above) flopped in the mid-1960s, high jumpers took on the bar with a scissors kick. They went high. You can still clear a high bar with the old pre-Fosby method. In this video, Kenyan high school students show us how it’s done. They land in sand pits:
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Brazil v England: the ten most interesting encounters
WITH the renovated Maracanã stadium reduced to well under half its previous capacity, and finally ruled safe for England’s match against Brazil – and with the record standing at 11 wins for Brazil, four for England, and nine draws – we look back at ten of the most interesting encounters…
1956: England 4-2 Brazil
Hungary may have thrashed England 6-3 and 7-1 a few years earlier, and England may have been unceremoniously dumped out of the 1954 World cup by the USA, but as far as most people were concerned, the Empire Stadium at Wembley was still the home of football.
This was Stanley Matthews’s day, and his domination of the legendary full-back Nilton Santos was probably the deciding factor in winning him the first Ballon d’Or. A notable achievement in itself, and even more so when one considers that he was 41 years old.
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Posted: 1st, June 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Eight arrested as kindergarten graduation ends in hammer and stick fight
To de-Nazify these German children who from kindergarten have been taught the misrepresentations, hate and obscenities of Nazi Ideology is the tremendous task facing the United Nations’ educators and statesmen. The council of education on world citizenship and the London international assembly has advanced a general plan for the reeducation of German Youth. It believes reform must start from the cradle and work up through every facet of German life. These German youngsters are shown at a Hitler rally during the early days of Hitlers regime, April 5, 1935. (AP Photo)
EIGHT people have been arrested following a fight at a kindergarten. The end-of-year graduation show at Michael R. White School was livelier than usual. Roseann Canfora, a spokeswoman for the city schools, says two teenage girls starteed to row over a spilled drink.
“There were no students from our school involved.”
Cleveland Police Commander Wayne Drummond adds:
“There were no guns, but one individual did pull out a club or a stick and one person did grab a hammer. Officers were able to separate the combatants.”
What kind of hammer you grab at a kindergarten is unclear.
CS Monitor says Drummond added:
“You had adults fighting adults, juvies fighting juvies, and so forth… You just had a melee here.”
Seven adults and one teenager were arrested.
Meanwhile, we’re wondering why a child needs to ‘graduate’ from kindergarten. And if you don’t graduate are you held back a year until you can recite all of Hickory Dickory Dock?
So what did you learn in kindergarten today, kids?
Photo: To de-Nazify these German children who from kindergarten have been taught the misrepresentations, hate and obscenities of Nazi Ideology is the tremendous task facing the United Nations’ educators and statesmen. The council of education on world citizenship and the London international assembly has advanced a general plan for the reeducation of German Youth. It believes reform must start from the cradle and work up through every facet of German life. These German youngsters are shown at a Hitler rally during the early days of HitlerÂs regime, April 5, 1935. (AP Photo)
1974 T-shirt slogans: ‘I Dreamt I was Raped by Mick Jagger in my David Bowie T-shirt’
In 1974, Lonely Ladies T-shirts presented “I Dreamt I was Raped by Mick Jagger in my David Bowie T-shirt”. Why was The Rolling Stones frontman wearing his alleged victim’s David Bowie T-shirt? And lest you think this was perverted, the San Francisco outfit let prospective rape victims know that their dream rapist could also be dressed as Elvis, Judy Garland or Boby Dylan…
Posted: 1st, June 2013 | In: Celebrities, Fashion, Flashback | Comment
Three prostitutes arrested but which is the man?
COMPETITION time now, readers. Police in Clarksville, Tennessee, have arrested two men and one woman for prostitution. The pinched are Cody Hughes, 23, Ramonica Gainey, 24, and 22-year-old Riley Gatta.
Which is the male? Remember it’s nighttime, you’re a long way from home and furtively looking for emergency physical relations. Take your pick. The understanding of your work colleagues and wife depends on what choice you make…
Extracts from Joanna Rohrback’s Prancercise (with inner horse video)
IN 1989, we, like you, were getting fit with Joanna Rohrback’s Prancercise. As she says:
This video shows the 4 modes of Prancercise.You can visit me at www.prancercise.com where you can learn more about Prancercise: “A springy,rhythmic way of moving forward, similar to a horse’s gait and is ideally induced by elation.” copyright 1989, taken from my book Prancercise:The Art of Physical and Spiritual Excellence, now available to the public for the first time!
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Posted: 31st, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, The Consumer | Comment
McDonald’s offer 100 Big Mac reward for stolen statue
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MULTI-MILLION dollar industry, McDonald’s have offered a reward of 100 Big Macs for the return of a stolen statue of Ronald McDonald.
100 Big Macs. As opposed to money. What on Earth would anyone do with 100 Big Macs anyway? That’s worse than when Bullseye gave out speedboats to people who lived in flats in landlocked towns.
This unusual reward was offered by a store in Muenden, Germany and Hamburglar is the most likely suspects.
The post reads: “He is wearing a yellow suit a red and white jumper and red clown shoes. We are so desperate to get our mascot back, the person who returns it will get 100 free Big Macs.”
As if anyone wouldn’t know what Ronald McDonald looks like.
Lee Rigby: The narrow-minded EDL and Muslim bigots can learn from Walt Whitman
TWO views on the apparently racist and religion-driven murder of Lee Rigby in Woolwich and the outpouring of bigotry it sparked in support for the EDL and criminal attacks on innocent Muslims. Philip Collins in the Times:
The two suspects seem, instead, to be two men who had come to believe that, underneath their many layers of being Nigerian, black, male, students and sons of their parents, lurked an identity that trumped everything else.
Once honour was paid to Drummer Rigby and the unwatchable grief of his family had been noted, the reaction has been predictable and depressing. One side searches Islamic scripture for some special propensity towards violence. The other side insultingly echoes Adebowale’s deranged speech that an eye and a tooth taken in Afghanistan is bound to be matched by an eye and a tooth taken in Woolwich.
Both sides share an assumption that the “Muslimness” of the atrocity is the central question. Peaceful Muslim preachers have pointed out that the suspects are not “real” Muslims, as if the idea of a real and an unreal Muslim made even the slightest sense…
In recent years people of Pakistani origin in Britain are usually described as “Muslim”, much more than those of Indian origin are called “Hindu”. To subsume an actual person under a single label and then to suggest that it is somehow more deep-seated than all the others is historically unwarranted, presently untrue and a dangerous stereotype that reinforces the silly idea that the world faces a battle between warring civilisations.
Don’t flatten the human being into a single dimension. Don’t define yourself and others by one act or one thought. See subtlety and irony. Don’t lose yourself in the mob.
It’s not only the Islamists who define themselves in the narrowest of terms. Lee Rigby’s name seems to be always punctuated with reference to his career in the Army. In the media he is Drumemr Lee Rigby. But he wasn’t only that. He was a father, a son, a thinker and all other aspects that made him a man. His reductive, weak-minded killers defined themselves by one thing: Islam. They did the same to Lee Rigby. To them he was only a soldier. They were too stupid and bigoted to see the man.
Francis Beckwith responds to a Northwestern University student refusing to perform a tune penned by Walt Whitman:
“You do yourself no good by not seeing the greatness even in people who have held disreputable ideas. To look at Walt Whitman and just see a racist is precisely what makes racism wrong: you don’t see the entire person–in all his complexities, virtues, and foibles–you just see the race. By doing this, you artificially flatten the person, and thus you literally lie to yourself, for you intentionally deny the truth that a great man can have within him both grandeur and vice.
“If you want to be better than Whitman, rid yourself of the habits of mind that in him resulted in the beliefs that you now find offensive. The ability to separate the wheat from the chaff is a sign of intellectual maturity. Thus, discarding the wheat because you can’t bear the chaff does not punish Mr. Whitman; it punishes you.”
We want debate. Can we handle it..?
Morrisons letter to worker suspended for wearing Poppy and Help for Heroes wristband
THIS is the letter Morrisons supermarket sent to one of its staff who wore a Poppy and Help for Heroes wristband.
Adam Austin worked at a Morrisons in Portsmouth, Hampshire.
A Morrisons spokesman explained:
“It’s all about food hygiene. The rules are the same in a restaurant kitchen as they are in a supermarket food preparation area. We have a dress code and the dress code is primarily around the health and safety of the staff member and the members of the public…
“As a company we encourage store colleagues to show their support for the Royal British Legion by wearing poppies in October and November. We currently ask that colleagues adhere to a company dress code which precludes bracelets and pins. However, we have reviewed these guidelines and colleagues working in non-fresh food preparation areas will now be permitted to wear a registered charity wristband.”
Is a Poppy only for autumn? Mr Austin says he was wearing the Poppy as a tribute to Lee Rigby, the soldier murdered in Woolwich. If the Poppy is a sign of remembrance for fallen soldiers, why can’t it be worn all year round? Wars don’t stop for summer.
But is the Poppy also a political statement? Would Mr Austin be allowed to wear a Poppy in Morrisons Barack Street, Glasgow, store on the day Celtic were playing Rangers at home? To many Celtic fans the Poppy is a symbol of Britain’s imperialist wars. For them it is a symbol of death not sacrifice. And then there’s that enforced two-minute’s silence…
If the Poppy is a symbol of the fallen and of freedom, banning it makes Morrisons look bad. But the the Poppy is also a political symbol. It can be worn to show support for our armed forces and wars being fought. And that will not be to everyone’s taste.
Morrisons error was in not letting its staff be free to make their own decisions.
Compare and contrast these two very different court drawings of Woolwich murder suspect Michael Adebowale
MICHAEL Adebowale is the second man accused of murdering Lee Rigby in Woolwich. He is the other man, the bit part who stood around as Michael Adebolajo boasted about his alleged crime. Adebowale has appeared in the dock at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. He confirmed his name, age and address. He did not stand. He was carrying a visible limp. He is accused of murder and of possessing a 9.4mm KNIL Model 91 revolver “to cause persons to believe that unlawful violence would be used”.
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Posted: 30th, May 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
