Basically we should just write this week off. We were never going to win. Most of the papers care not for the crimes carried out by or covered up by the Catholic Church and neither do the television news programs. They have God on their side so that is such a massive positive that all other things are swept away. That is the right God by the way, not one of those funny foreign Gods.
Try this thought experiment; a Muslim leader wants to come to Britain for a bit a stroll around. He has been accused and has been shown to be, with documented evidence, to have known about and actively helped to cover up sexual crimes committed against children. Do you think that he would have got a visa? How much fuss would the Murdoch press and his TV news channel have made about that? You just have to look at the Fox news coverage of the not-a-mosque-that-isn’t-at-Ground-Zero story for a bit of a hint.
Do you think that the Mail and the Express would run glowing editorials about what we can learn from him and what an all round good egg he is? Do you think he would be allowed to compare a significant number of people in this country to Nazis because they think that his unpleasant views on homosexuality, abortion, woman, other religions, contraception, reporting crimes to the Police and how important people who believe in the same sky fairy (but only if they worship it in the correct way) are and should be listened to more than others, are wrong and harmful?
To be honest we are winning anyway, there are only about 5 million Catholics in the UK, which leaves about 60 million of us that aren’t. In a fight I think we will have them.
Their numbers are also declining (as are the circulations of the papers that support them credulously but so are ours) so if we wait around a while and let them continue to shoot themselves in, what seems like an extraordinary number of, feet then they will, hopefully, dwindle away to nothing and we can go about our lives, living them in an inclusive friendly way without these nasty little bigots having a say.
Again stolen from the BBC website.
Please don’t get me wrong, I am not anti any religion, you/they have as much right to worship who or what you want as I do to not do it, but the double standards, hypocrisy and outright lies of the Pope, the Vatican and most of the British Press is becoming a little wearing.
Modern Religions have not given us our morals, these existed before these religions, the oldest of which is about 2000 years, and they merely wrapped their philosophies around them. The general principles of being nice to each and not killing others make basic evolutionary sense to preserve the group.
Whilst we are at it, lets have a look at those 10 Commandments shall we?
ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'
SIX: 'You shall not murder.'
SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'
EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'
NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.'
TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour's.'
The first 3 aren't even about morals, just God. No mention of marriage being about between a man and a woman, nothing about dodgy employment decisions against woman.
The continuing argument from the Churches, especially the Catholic one, is that Atheists have no morals and are bad people and, as I would imagine that most people who read this ARE Atheists, we know that this is just blatantly untrue.
During his sermon at Westminster Abbey, following being on the front of every paper all week, he said to an audience made up of the Prime Minister and various Ex-Prime Ministers, various leading politicians and other important types, that the Church was being side-lined. That after having private meetings with all 3 party leaders.
Sorry about the ranty style today, when the week started I really wasn't that fussed about Popey coming here. OK, I didn't think we should cough up the money for it but I wasn't to upset about it. Now however, you have no idea how filled with righteous anger I am now.
Let's do some awards to help dissipate my rage,
The Award for Making Sure Your Child Hates You and Will Definitely Get Bullied,
Congratulations to Jamie and Jools Oliver on the birth of their healthy new son.
Just one little thing, and I know that it is a little lazy to have a cheeky shot at celebrity baby name, but Buddy Bear? Really? That is what you want to call him? Sure?
The Award for Most Deserved Coming 14th in a Survey of 117 Towns of the Week,
The high street of Dorchester has been dubbed a “clone” after we came 14th in a survey of the country’s blandest high streets.
Obviously this has offended local shop keepers but the survey is quite right. Whilst there are a few independent shops, if you came here you wouldn't be enthralled by the dazzling range of artisan stores, unless you really like mobile phones.
I think that will do for today. Significant Other has written a review of our weekend at the End of the Road festival here. My podcast is here.
Have a lovely week, the Pope goes home today, I think, which will make it nicer for everyone.
And so England lost to Germany last Sunday, not by putting up a decent fight but by rolling over and letting the Germans tickle their bellies. They were embarrassingly poor and after the game the National discussion turned to whom or what was to blame.
We, as a nation, like to blame simple things, we don’t like complex or nuanced arguments, so we usually end up blaming the manager and firing him. It is a system that has worked well for us for the last 40 years (it has helped keep us from lifting anything shiny and cup shaped since 1966) and we are not going to start changing it now.
Other countries deal with the national humiliation that is an early exit in different ways. The French for instance, who looked like a team made up of 17 year old boys who had been forced to go on one last family holiday to the seaside, have taken their very early exit extremely badly and the Government have decided that, whilst denying that they are interfering, they need to have an inquiry. The manager and the Ex-head of the French Football Federation (he resigned after their defeat) have already been called into see Nicolas Sarkozy, a man who is not in the greatest of moods anyway as the annual Presidential hunt will be cancelled this year. More will follow.
English scapegoating and French investigations and sulking are nothing compared to the reaction in Nigeria and it's brilliantly named President Goodluck Jonathan.
They, like the French, came home after the group stage much to the disgust of the Nigerian people. Their new President reacted in way that I think may have taken a few people by surprise, he banned the team from International competition for 2 years.
The Presidents special advisor has said that this will “enable Nigeria to reorganise its football” and they have also dissolved the Nigerian Football Federation. An interim board will appointed.
Now that is a punishment.
After a couple of weeks of silence (well they did Excommunicate a Nun who sat on the Ethics committee at a hospital that approved an abortion for a woman who had a real chance of dying if the pregnancy continued, nothing happened to the men though, curious) the Catholic Church strikes back.
The offices of the Church in Leuven, central Belgium, were raided last week and Police Officers seized nearly 500 files and a computer. Prosecutors said that the raids concerned alleged "abuse of minors committed by a certain number of Church figures". They also searched the Church's headquarters.
The raids happened whilst Bishops were having a meeting and the Police refused to let them leave and they were also not allowed to communicate with the outside world. This is all normal procedure according to Belgium's justice minister Stefaan De Clerck.
This has not gone down well inside the Vatican who alleged that during the 9 hours that the Bishops were held they were not allowed any food or water, a charge that has been strongly denied by Belgian authorities.
Now at this point you would think that the Vatican may had learnt from it's previous PR mistakes and it would just say that they were helping the Police with their inquiries. I mean that would be the sensible thing to do, just keep your head down and maybe no one will notice. Did they do this? Did they bollocks. It’s paint yourself as the victim time in the Vatican again.
The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said that the raids were “serious and unbelievable" and that "There are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes," ooh nice touch. It worse here than under the communist, stop picking on us, it’s not like we have systematically covered up years of sexual abuse is it? Why should we be investigated under the same laws and rules as other people? Our leader is infallible!
Speaking of the Pope, do you think that he stayed out of it? Did he use this moment to distance himself from his loud-mouth Cardinal? No, no he didn’t. He described events as “deplorable". No, the deplorable thing here is the covering up and sexual abuse, I thought we’d been through this.
He sent a message to the Bishops Conference of Belgium that said “I want to express, dear brother in the Episcopate, as well as to all the Bishops of Belgium, my closeness and solidarity in this moment of sadness, in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, searches were carried out." How dare they search us, don't they not know who we are?
Mr De Clerck (Justice Minister) said the Vatican's reaction had been excessive and it was based on false information. Is he accusing the Vatican of lying? Oh please let him be doing that. It must make Belgians proud to be Belgian; it would if I was one of them. No deferential treatment of the arrogant, justice obstructing Church.
I’m a bit confused now. After a few weeks of 80’s style, and by that I mean things that would make Thatcher proud, Tory policy announcements, the Government seem to have gone a bit, well.. ummmmm…… liberal.
Firstly they seem to have announced that there will be an inquiry into whether Britain played any part in torturing terror suspects, mostly in other countries.
Now, they may just be doing this just so that they can discredit the last Government which would make it a little cynical but does the motivation behind the announcement undermine the significance and potential impact of it? I don’t think so. As long as the inquiry is independent who cares why it has been called.
I’m sure that there are a lot a people in the country that think that it is ok to torture people “if it helps National Security” but it really doesn't. The information you receive from the torturee is rarely helpful (they have a tendency to tell you what they think you want to hear or just plain make things up) and it undermines your moral authority.
And then Wednesday saw Ken Clarke (one of the few Tories I actually quite like. He likes Europe a bit, single malts and has done several series for Radio4 on jazz. He seems to understand that life is for enjoying but not at the expense of others. Yes he does/did sit on the board of British American tobacco but he has some redeeming features unlike most Tories) announced that there were too many people in prison and that short sentences don’t work. He said that we should focus more on rehabilitation.
I’m scared now Mummy, what has happened to them?
During the election campaign the Tory party criticised the Labour Government for early release scheme and the Liberal Democrats pointed out that both parties polices were mostly a who can lock the most people up dick-swinging contest, I’m paraphrasing there but the point stands. Now, however, the new Government seems to have come round to the LibDem way of thinking. Or have they?
Have they become more liberal because it will probably be cheaper? Did this “Road to Damascus” moment strike the eyes of Ken Clarke before or after he was told that he had to make budget savings of 25%? But again, does it matter what the motivation behind the announcement is? Well maybe. If there is a lack of belief will enough effort be put in?
Usually it is people in other parties or in the press that deliberately “misinterpret” what a politician says but this happened to Ken Clarke when he was attacked by the very scary Michael Howard.
Mr Howard is a proper, lock 'em up and throw away the key, type of Tory who famously said to conference, whilst sounding like he had just spotted the neck of a very tasty virgin in the front row, “Prison Works”.
After Mr Clarke's speech he announced that he wasn't convinced by it and that “Serious and persistent criminals need to be put in prison,". Yes, I think we all agree on that point but that was not what Ken was saying, did you not listen or was this just a prepared, trotted out, half thought through response?
Or was it more cunning than that? Was the whole, rather underplayed by the press, statement aimed deliberately at the Tory base? Was it pre-approved by the Party? Was it allowed because it was all part of a plan, look a bit liberal by talking about rehabilitation and community sentences but then point out that serious offences will be punished?
There are spies amongst us people! Well there are in the US anyway. I have to admit that I was surprised by people who were surprised about this. We have MI6 and the US has the CIA, what do you think they are doing, crochet?
Anyway, back to my point. The English press reacted in the only way that it knows, find out if one of the people involved was a woman and if a woman is implicated in anyway the next question is, is she hot? If so then plaster her on every front page and seem surprised that an attractive woman can do anything but appear in FHM with very little on (unless you are the Daily Mail where you offended that FHM exists but you print the pictures anyway saying how terrible they are. “Look at them! There are awful! See this woman with virtually nothing on, it’s dreadful!”). For another example of this there is also the murder of Meredith Kercher in which we were treated to pictures of Amanda Knox whose crime was somewhat diminished by the press nicknaming here “Foxy Knoxy”.
Right, let’s do the awards as there is some tennis on soon (unless you are reading this after Sunday afternoon) and I want to watch it,
The Award for A Great Film’s Anniversary of the Week,
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Airplane! Happy birthday to you.
I know it’s silly and I know it’s childish but Airplane! is one of my favourite films and it is 30 years old this weekend. It is film that is so gag heavy that I am still finding new sight gags in it now. It's always possible that I am still finding new gags in it because I haven’t really concentrated that hard enough on it the innumerable times I have watched it before but I like to think that it is because it is so well written. It isn’t, it’s because I haven’t really concentrated that hard on it when I’ve watched it before.
The Award for Just Being A Much Cooler Country Than Ours of the Week
Iceland may have had a bit of an effect on World finance but they are still are very, very cool country. I don’t think that in comparison to Iceland David Cameron government look even slightly progressive.
Iceland have elected a woman Prime Minster, Johanna Sigurdardottir, ok we’ve done that, once. She is Gay; ok they are moving ahead of now. She was in a Civil Partnership, ok we have them (but we don’t have Gay marriage is beyond me.)
Now if she had taken advantage of a recent change in Icelandic law and married her partner then that would be cooler than the soles of a bare footed Bjork standing on a glacier.
What’s that you say? She has now married her partner, oooh, I think that is a level of progression and coolness that we will never ever get close too.
The Award for Scary Video of The Week,
I genuinely try not to get involved in the politics of other countries (no, honest I do) as it has very little to do with me but when the lovely @waccachica linked to this on twitter I couldn’t really ignore it now could I,
Now I assumed that it was some sort of well crafted joke as it hits all the Republican stereotypes that you can think of (If she had been yellow and had only 3 fingers on each hand I would have assumed that she was drawn by Matt Groening) but it seems it isn’t. This Pamela Gorman really is standing and this really is a campaign advert. Still don’t believe me? Well there is a website for her if you want to see, it’s here.
Sort of makes me grateful to live in England really, I mean we my have our own problems but it really could be much worse.
So Andrew Lansley, Health Secretary, told the BMA conference that lecturing people on their health and diets doesn't work (we don't lecture people, we tell them what is health as I can assure you that they really, really don't know) and has sighted Jamie Oliver's healthy school lunch thing because less people have school lunches then before.
A number of things wrong with this, 1) So? If the children wanted Crack should the school provide that? If the children want really unhealthy food should the school provide that? I don't think so, they should be setting an example and 2) Jamie's little crusade has had a positive effect, you can read about it here on Tim Harford's blog (Yes he is the bloke who presents Radio4's More or Less but I'm not obsessed).
It seems the a Government Minister is either ignoring or unaware of evidence that disproves their ideology.
I think that that will do for now, have a super fun week, it seems that the sun will continue to shine.
So when you are in the company of a group of woman and they ask, in general, why their lives are a little hard, the correct answer is not “because you tricked us into eating the apple, it's your own fault”. Just a little bit of social etiquette advice for you there.
Do you know how much water your jeans used in their production? No? Well let me tell you, it takes 10,850 litres per pair of jeans. This massive figure includes the water used to grow the cotton and what is used in the factory.
Ok, how about a pint of beer? 1 pint of fluid, it can’t be that much can it? 150 litres apparently.
The Engineering the Future alliance of professional engineering bodies has released a study (I know I said I wasn’t going to cover “Studies” but I don’t think that this is a PR puff piece) in order to show the hidden amounts of water being used (most of it aboard) to make our stuff.
It is estimated that you (and I) use about 150 litres (about a bath full) of water everyday but that is only the water that we see, up to 10 times as much is “embedded” in the British made goods bought by consumers. This, however, only represents about one-third of the total water embedded in all the average consumer's food and goods, with the remainder coming from imports.
Forecasts suggest that when the world's population soars beyond 8 billion in about 2030 the need for fresh water rising by 30%. Developing countries are already using large amounts of their water to grow food and produce goods for consumption in the West.
This really can’t end well. If the Gulf war was fought over oil, as many claim, how long before we have wars over water?
Here we go again,
Gays, blamed
The Media, blamed
The Devil, blamed
and so, who or what else can they blame? Ah I know, how about you blame the Internet.
Another week, another Senior Catholic Priest not taking responsibility for the actions of their colleges and trying to shift the blame. It's not the fault of the person who did the child rapings, oh no. See how many external factors we can find. I will stop going on about this when they sort themselves out.
Step up Bishop Felipe Arizmendi, it's your moment in the, being-mostly-ignored-by-the-mainstream-media, sun.
Oooh, just a brief aside before the main story. Whilst I am wondering why the press seems to be going a little easy on the Vatican, it seems that if you make films and are convicted of having sex with a 13 year old girl at the home of Jack Nicholson in 1977, this will be ignored as long as you make a good film whilst under house arrest.
Why is Roman Polanski not vilified around the world? I truly do not understand.
Anyway, back to the story. Speaking in Mexico City he said “With so much invasion of eroticism, sometimes it’s not easy to stay celibate or to respect children. If on television and on the Internet and in so many media outlets there is pornography, it is very difficult to stay pure and chaste.” So this is your excuse for attacking children? If you really can’t help yourself just have a wank, it's much better for all involved. I know your Church is against that too but surely it’s less of a sin than the thing that you were trying to excuse.
He added “Obviously when there is generalized sexual freedom it’s more likely there could be cases of paedophilia.” Ummm, no. Can you show me some evidence for that please? An email will do, just a hyperlink to the study that you are referring to. I think you might just be making that up.
He wasn't the only Priest talking utterly offensive bollocks this week as the Bishop of Tenerife, Bishop Bernando Álvarez, tried to blame the victims.
Now I know this was always going to happen as it is a well known phenomenon but that doesn't detract from how utterly deplorable this is. He said “There are 13 year old adolescents who are under age and who are perfectly in agreement with, and what’s more wanting it, and if you are careless they will even provoke you.” I just want that to linger with you a while. “and what's more wanting it”. Ah yes, the Lolita defence.
What an absolute bastard this man is. He didn't leave it there though; he tried to blame the Gays as well.
Although I do have to be fair, whilst the Vatican could limit the damage by admitting responsibility and having a proper investigation, the English and Welsh bit of the Church is at least trying.
Bishops have written a letter that will be circulated to all churches expressing a “heartfelt apology and [their] deep sorrow to those who have suffered abuse”. They also recognised that there were “no excuses” for what has happened and said that it was a “profound scandal.”
Well that is a start, now how about getting the police involved. You have admitted that many crimes have taken place and there is only one thing that you can do in this situation.
It is not only the Catholic Church that has a monopoly on blaming the innocent, oh no. A senior Muslim Cleric in Iran has said that earthquakes in the geologically unstable city of Tehran are caused by woman! No wait, come back, his reasoning is fault (ha, do you see what I’ve done there?) less.
During the Second World War we had a saying, “Loose Lips Sink Ships” but in Iran they have one all of there own, “Loose Chicks cause significant shifts in the Earth Crust.” Whilst I agree that this is not as catchy but it does seem to be the view of some in Irania. No, really!
Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted in the Iranian media saying “Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes,”
The Muslim world helped shape science during our “Dark ages”, they translated the ignored Greek texts on Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, they were proper clever people, however it does seem that some of their religious leaders are a little shaky on the basics of plate tectonics. Now, to be fair to this man it may have been something to do with a mistranslation of the post-coital question, “did the earth move for you?”. Although it seems more likely that this bloke is just a bit of a misogynist, “the Christians have blamed them for the fall of man in the Garden of Eden; we need something to equal that. Ah! I know, blame woman showing a little bit too much fringe for Earthquakes. That’ll wash.”
The good thing about our reliance on oil is that extracting it from under the ground is always safe and that there is no danger of any pollution. Oh now wait…..
On Tuesday night an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and caught fire. 11 crew members are still missing. It has now sunk. A short pause to think of their families please.
Local Coastguard believe that this could lead to the ex-oil rig leaking up to 8000 barrels of oil per day into the surrounding area.
It is claimed that the safety of rig work has improved greatly recently but since 2001 there have been 858 fires and explosions in the Gulf, according to the federal Minerals Management Service. That still sounds pretty fucking unsafe if you ask me.
I don’t want to make you feel guilty about all the oil we use (I was trying the with the water bit at the beginning) but here is a picture of what open cast mining for Tar Sands looks like,
It used to by Canadian woodland you know. I’m not lecturing you, I’m just pointing out the realities of how we all live our lives.
All very serious and far too religious for my liking, lets do some awards,
The Award for Any Excuse to Show Very Cool Pictures,
The Hubble space telescope is 20 years old. Happy birthday Hubble.
It has bought many exciting discoveries or confirmed existing theories. It helped age the Universe to 13.7 billion years old, it showed that the universe is still expanding and is accelerating as it does so and it showed that there are very large black holes at the centre of most Galaxies but what I think it will be most remembered for are the simply incredible pictures that it has been sending back. As good excuse as any to look at some of those pictures,
The Award for Breaking a Stereotype,
This goes to sprinter LaShawn Merritt, Olympic and world 400m champion, is facing a 2 year ban having tested positive for a banned substance.
His lawyer has released a statement saying that his client admitted to taking “an over-the-counter male enhancement product”. Male enhancement product? Does he mean some of those tablets that you get spam email for offering you an extra inch or 2? Is there some thing you want to tell us Mr Merritt because I always thought, oh never mind.
Good luck to those running in the London Marathon today; I hope it does get too warm for you.
I’ll leave you alone know, have a lovely week. Honestly I tried to keep it short this week but hey, it’s Sunday and what else do you have to do? xx
