In the news

The pope can piss off.

I'd rather see respectful dialogue, obv, and criticism of ideas, and not people

I broadly agree though.

Yep contradicting myself there, by going for the pope.

But I find it hard not to play the man due to all the things the RCC and his lackeys are up to.

He has a lot of power, but doesn't use it to actually ensure rights for gay people in Catholic schools. Anti bullying policies would be nice.

In theory only ideas ought to be criticised, but I've lost patience with him and most religious figureheads.

Trying to back up extremists is the final straw it seems...temper temper ^=^

Brighton's council leader must be split on a lot of issues.

Did anyone see the Mayor of Rotterdam's comments on Charlie Hebdo?

It's possible to disagree with somebody's beliefs without blundering about telling them they're ridiculous and don't deserve respect as human beings.

Agreed - that was basically the point I was trying to make before being side-tracked by Winni's outraged strawmen. Respecting other people, and treating them with dignity and respect is a good thing. But it doesn't mean that everything they believe in requires respect too.

Did anyone see the Mayor of Rotterdam's comments on Charlie Hebdo?

Yes. Some people did.

Winni's outraged strawmen.

I had to go and look up the definition of staw man to work out what you meant by this, then I realised that by accusing me of straw manning you were... straw manning? mind blown

I'm not outraged, Dan, it's just that your post about ridiculing everyone's beliefs gave the impression you were on a bit of a crusade, and it's still not clear what you hope to achieve by it other than amusing yourself. Surely you will alienate people further if you tell people their beliefs are stupid just for the sake of it?

Every belief system should be open to questioning, but when it turns into antagonistic, targeted ridicule for it's own sake, it's counter-productive. For example I think the latest Hebdo cover could have been alot more intelligent. I don't understand why they didn't point out that two muslims were killed in the attacks.

Excellent invterview with a Muslim doctor on Radio 4 just now. I think it was a repeat of this one from yesterday. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04y55r6

Does anyone know when and what the next cash cow atrocity might be?
I see a lot of people cashing in on re-selling French magazines so I was wondering if there's something I should be investing in now. I got stung on the Lance Armstrong shirts so I'm looking to claw something back.

I enjoyed the quotes muchly.

Meanwhile, in racist fuck news: http://dailysikhupdates.com/breaking-details-knife-attack-sikh-uk-tesco-supermarket/

I'm still not sure whether I agree with him but it did make me and the Mrs chuckle

its nice to be nice

That's a three-hour episode of the Today programme. I couldn't find any Muslim doctors in it. Is that what you meant to link to?

but when it turns into antagonistic, targeted ridicule for it's own sake

And again we have the gulf of misunderstanding between French humour and British humour. French satire is not only provocative, but very intertextual and self-referential. So the jokes don't necessarily make sense unless you're paying attention to French politics. You're not their audience, after all.

Try reading this.
http://toohotforjacobin.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/if-charlie-is-racist-then-i-am-by-zineb.html?m=1

This is related to that ^

https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/equal-in-paris/

From that article -

Charlie Hebdo cartoon depicting France’s first black Justice Minister, Christiane Taubira, as a monkey

Which was taking the piss out of the FN for comparing her to a monkey. The cartoon may not have been to everyone's taste, but the target was the FN, not her.

Again, I think Brits and Yanks just don't really get it.

Jolly good, cup of tea.

Wow, you really get an idea of how crap Cameron is at public speaking next to Obama...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wrongly-convicted-men-launch-new-case-against-the-justice-secretary-9985773.html

The latest image of the prophet comes across as tit-for-tat retaliation. What is there to 'get'? What are they trying to prove? It seems to say "we will continue to depict the prophet because it is our right and we won't be silenced". I can't see what point it makes other than being a stand against the terrorists, in effect, engaging with them for it's own sake.

Edit: In other words, to clarify, depicting the prophet is exactly like murdering 12 people.

Yeah, drawing a picture with the words 'all is forgiven' is just like executing 12 people. You've got this tit-for-tat thing down pat.

What did you expect them to do? Wave a white flag?

Long post coming:

First, very good point. However, I've got a couple of things I'm uncertain about:

1) If I understand many of these types of claims, there's some sort of relativistic wall between France and the Anglo world which makes their sense of humour impenetrable (at times). Therefore, we shouldn't impose our own views on their art. It's no racist, we just don't get the humour.

Okay. But when it comes to minorities or other groups which are the targets in these types of pieces, it is acceptable to ignore cultural differences, and make use of one's own understanding of the world to criticize them? That is to say, they are not protected by this wall of incomprehensibility, and therefore, they can be criticized?

It seems to me if we can't call these types of comics racist, why can the French call religious groups nutters?

I'm not suggesting they shouldn't be able to publish these things (just as we should be able to judge the beliefs of religions). Instead, I'm suggesting that we should be able to pass judgment on the cartoons in Charlie, and that they are neither culturally incomprehensible, nor immune to criticism. Because:

2) I think you've made a really good point on drawing context into this. That it to say, I think you're absolutely right that there is a very strong argument that this can be viewed as not racist.

However, I don't think there's anything impenetrable about that particular cartoon to foreigners (if they're familiar with French politics and current affairs). Here's the joke: "The Front National are racist. Here's a fake ad for their racist party. It's a successful black woman drawn as a monkey. How outrageous is that? This is how the NF sees the world."

With the exception of actually including the racist image, it's not particularly different from any other satirical fake political ad you may find here. With one exception (and maybe this is where the French differ in this regard): the French seem less likely to blush at printing such things. However, that doesn't mean they don't think/know the image is racist. They very clearly do know that it's racist. Otherwise it wouldn't be satire and the image itself wouldn't have any meaning. But in the context of satire they think it's acceptable to publish racist images (just as in the context of satire, we think it's permissible to compare our leaders to Hitler. You wouldn't see the Germans doing that). None of this is impenetrable, however, and it is very much open to criticism. Culture or tradition does not excuse or offer immunity to criticism.

That's all to say, I'm not convinced by the "cultural differences" argument, and I think the article does a good job of raising some of those questions.

I have edited my post to fit with your reply so no-one gets confused.

By tit for tat I actually meant engaging with the terrorists in the way they want, i/e, in a way that suggests this is some kind of war. The idea that not publishing another image of the prophet is 'surrendering' also plays into this unhelpful mindset, as thought they are defending their pride.

its nice to be nice

your name is earl aicmfp

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11331353/The-hypocrites-have-jumped-aboard-the-Magna-Carta-bandwagon.html