Thursday, July 05, 2012


Pink Gestapo in Canada

By Mark Steyn

I wrote recently about a small victory for freedom of speech in Canada, but, as always, it’s two steps forward, one step back. Here’s the backward one: Gai Écoute in Québec has announced the launch of the world’s first “register of homophobic acts.”

I don’t mind gay groups keeping a vast database of anonymously-reported homophobic thought-crimes if they feel that’s a productive use of their time. But it is preposterous that this sprawling directory of  cobwebbed flamer cracks and swishy-gait titters will be publicly funded by taxpayers under the Québec Government’s “action plan for the fight against homophobia,” which apparently also includes redesignating Jean-Marc Fournier, the minister of justice and attorney general, as “Minister of Justice, Attorney General, and Minister for the Fight Against Homophobia.”

As usual with these censorious types, “act” is defined with the broadest of brushes to include “moquerie blessante” (offensive mockery) and “couverture médiatique inappropriée” (inappropriate media coverage). The right to mock and be “inappropriate” are about as basic to a free society as any, so nuts to that.

To announce the launch of their secret files of inappropriate mockers, the leaders of Gai Écoute were flanked by Montréal Police Chief Inspector Johanne Paquin and Commander Alain Gagnon. In a sane world, no self-respecting gay would attend such an event. The fact that this sight — policemen publicly announcing a dossier of dissident citizens suspected of thought crimes to the approval of supposedly “liberal” “progressive” groups — is now entirely normal in Western societies is far more disturbing than any problem they purport to be addressing. To modify an ancient joke, how do you make a fruit cordial? Evidently, it’s a lot harder than it used to be. You can have that one for free, lads — just in case things are a bit quiet on the homophobia-epidemic front.

PS I’ll be interested to see how much room the database has for persons of a, ahem, certain background who say things like “all male homosexuals should be killed for their deviant behavior.”

SOURCE





Transgender student named prom queen at Ontario high school


Cripes!   Who'd make it a queen of anything except for politics?

A transgender student says being named prom queen was the cherry on top of her high school education. "I was really surprised," Connor Ferguson, an 18-year-old male-to-female transgender student at Trenton High School, said of the win. "It was pretty surreal actually. If I remember correctly my jaw hit the floor and we all started laughing because it was so crazy. I walked up and the crown didn't fit my hair, so I had to hold it."

Ferguson had an inkling she might get a few votes, but never thought she'd walk away with the crown.

"I heard some students talking about it at school, but I
thought it was just funny," she said. "There was so many other girls that could have received it."

Caroline Rolf voted for Ferguson and went with her to the prom.  "I voted for Connor because anyone who has been through as much as she has and still exudes so much class and confidence deserves a royal title, and not just on prom night," Rolf said.

Ferguson admitted high school was relatively easy-going, especially considering the stigma surrounding transgenders and the LGBT community. The school has a tolerant student body and supportive staff, as well as the positive effects of the anti-bullying campaign the school holds annually, Ferguson said.

"I've lived as I am for four years now, so I believe the ‘shock value' is gone and most people just accept me for me," Ferguson said. "It took some time for quite a few people, but the school and staff definitely helped with that, and my group of friends was endlessly supportive. I think people accept you a lot more when you stick up for yourself and have enough confidence to be yourself."

But, like many high school students, Ferguson faced her fair share of bullying.  "A couple of the older students would yell stuff at me in the hallways, but I definitely didn't care. I didn't feel the need to waste teachers time with telling them about it if it didn't make me upset," she said.

Ferguson knows the road ahead may not be as easy as her classmates and teachers have made it in high school, but she has some choice words for anyone who is trans-phobic.

"I would want to tell them I really am like any other girl," she said. "Acceptance isn't crucial in my life, but the fact is I'm not hurting anyone, so there's no reason for trans-phobic behavior. I hope I can change some views along the way. If I can't, that won't make me lose sleep at night. I just think some people would be happier if they weren't concerned with how I live my life."

SOURCE



   

Jews Do Control the Media

Larry David is a comedian but I think he is half-serious below

We Jews are a funny breed. We love to brag about every Jewish actor. Sometimes we even pretend an actor is Jewish just because we like him enough that we think he deserves to be on our team. We brag about Jewish authors, Jewish politicians, Jewish directors. Every time someone mentions any movie or book or piece of art, we inevitably say something like, “Did you know that he was Jewish?” That’s just how we roll.

We’re a driven group, and not just in regards to the art world. We have, for example, AIPAC, which  was essentially constructed just to drive agenda in Washington DC. And it succeeds admirably. And we brag about it. Again, it’s just what we do.

But the funny part is when any anti-Semite or anti-Israel person starts to spout stuff like, “The Jews control the media!” and “The Jews control Washington!”

Suddenly we’re up in arms. We create huge campaigns to take these people down. We do what we can to put them out of work. We publish articles. We’ve created entire organizations that exist just to tell everyone that the Jews don’t control nothin’. No, we don’t control the media, we don’t have any more sway in DC than anyone else. No, no, no, we swear: We’re just like everybody else!

Does anyone else (who’s not a bigot) see the irony of this?

Let’s be honest with ourselves, here, fellow Jews. We do control the media. We’ve got so many dudes up in the executive offices in all the big movie production companies it’s almost obscene. Just about every movie or TV show, whether it be “Tropic Thunder” or “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is rife with actors, directors, and writers who are Jewish. Did you know that all eight major film studios are run by Jews?

But that’s not all. We also control the ads that go on those TV shows.

And let’s not forget AIPAC, every anti-Semite’s favorite punching bag. We’re talking an organization that’s practically the equivalent of the Elders of Zion. I’ll never forget when I was involved in Israeli advocacy in college and being at one of the many AIPAC conventions. A man literally stood in front of us and told us that their whole goal was to only work with top-50 school graduate students because they would eventually be the people making changes in the government. Here I am, an idealistic little kid that goes to a bottom 50 school (ASU) who wants to do some grassroots advocacy, and these guys are literally talking about infiltrating the government. Intense.

Now, I know what everyone will say. That everyone tries to lobby. Every minority group and every majority group. That every group has some successful actors and directors. But that’s a far call from saying that we run Hollywood and Madison Avenue. That the Mel Gibsons of the world are right in saying we’re deliberately using our power to take over the world. That we’ve got some crazy conspiracy going down.

Okay. Fine. So some of that is kooky talk.  But let’s look at it a bit deeper.

Maybe it’s true: everyone lobbies. Maybe it’s true there are actors of every ethnicity out there. But come on. We’re the ones who are bragging about this stuff all the time. Can’t we admit that we’re incredibly successful? Can’t we say it to the world?

I’ll give my theory for why Jews don’t want to talk about their control of the media.

First of all, as much as Jews like to admit that so many of them are successful, and that so many of them have accomplished so much, they hate to admit that it has to do with they’re being Jewish. Maybe they’ll admit that it has something to do with the Jewish experience. But how many Jews will admit that there is something inherently a part of every single one of them that helps them to accomplish amazing things?

The ADL chairman, Abe Foxman, was interviewed in a great article about the subject and he said that he “would prefer people say that many executives in the industry ‘happen to be Jewish.’” This just about sums up the party line.

The truth is, the anti-Semites got it right. We Jews have something planted in each one of us that makes us completely different from every group in the world. We’re talking about a group of people that just got put in death camps, endured pogroms, their whole families decimated. And then they came to America, the one place that ever really let them have as much power as they wanted, and suddenly they’re taking over. Please don’t tell me that any other group in the world has ever done that. Only the Jews. And we’ve done it before. That’s why the Jews were enslaved in Egypt. We were too successful. Go look at the Torah — it’s right there. And we did it in Germany too.

This ability to succeed, this inner drive, comes not from the years of education or any other sort of conditional factors, but because of the inner spark within each Jew.

Now, the reason groups like the ADL and AIPAC hate admitting this is because, first of all, they are secular organizations. Their whole agenda is to prove that every Jew is the same as every other person in the world. I cannot imagine a more outlandish agenda. No, we’re different. We’re special.

Of course, people hate when anyone says this. They assume that if you’re saying that Jews are special, it somehow implies that they’re better.

To be honest, I’m not really sure what the word “better” even means. What I do know is that being special simply means a person has a responsibility to do good.

I think that’s the real reason most Jews are so afraid to admit that there’s something inherently powerful and good about them. Not because they’re afraid of being special. But because they’re afraid of being responsible. It means that they’re suddenly culpable when they create dirty TV shows that sully the spiritual atmosphere of the world. It means that things can’t just be created for the sake of amusement or fun or even “art.”

Suddenly, we can’t screw up the world.

The interesting thing is that Jews have done so much for the world in so many other ways. They’ve moved forward civil rights; they’ve helped save lives in Darfur, Haiti and just about everywhere else.

But that’s not enough. Fixing the world physically is only half the battle.

Our larger battle, the harder battle, is elevating the world spiritually. And this is what the people that fight with every inch of their soul to prove that Jews are just the same as everyone else are afraid of. It means that we can no longer just “express ourselves.” We’ll have to start thinking about the things we create and the way we act. It means we’ll have to start working together. It means we’ll have to hold one other, and ourselves, to a higher standard.

The time has come, though. We no longer have to change our names. We no longer have to blend in like chameleons. We own a whole freaking country.

Instead, we can be proud of who we are, and simultaneously aware of our huge responsibility — and opportunity.

SOURCE





Not what the feminists foresaw

By Rachel Johnson,  editor of "The Lady"

Marlborough College has hit on a brilliant way of making parents feel hideous and over-the-hill as their child comes to the end of their happy time at the honey-stoned, Wiltshire alma mater of Kate Middleton, Sam Cam, Sally Bercow etc. The Master three-line-whips the parents of leavers to buy tickets to his “Invitation Dance”.

The above paragraph is rather witty so I suppose I should decode it for non-Brits:  Kate Middleton is the future queen of England,  Samantha Cameron is the wife of the British Prime minister and Sally Bercow is wife of the Speaker of the House of Commons;  "Alma mater" is not widely used in Britan so is a humorous affectation; A three line whip is an instruction to vote given to parliamentarians which is underlined three times.  Disobeying one is a serious breach of party loyalty (something expected in Britain);  Applying it to an invitation to a ball is therefore also humorous -- JR

“Oh my God, the girls,” groaned Giles, a father in his fifties, as we sat with all the other wrinkled parents in black tie (the fathers) or brave jewel shades and shawls (the mothers), watching hordes of teenage supermodels with glossy manes, dewy skins, perfect teeth and sweeping false eyelashes parade about in plunging, backless and even somewhat frontless gowns. “In my day there was perhaps one pretty girl in a year, but now…”

It is true. Girls nowadays are different. My mother bought all my clothes from Debenhams in Taunton, but my daughter’s generation combine the athleticism of Maria Sharapova with the grooming schedule of show ponies at Goodwood.

I’m not sure what to think about this. The fact is, the stunning girls we were all gawping at had spent ages – months, really – “getting ready”. Many had had their hair, nails and make-up done. They wore designer dresses. Now, we all enjoy looking at beautiful young things, but I do worry: after all, many costly decades of what Nora Ephron called “maintenance” and I call “admin” lie ahead of these 18-year-olds, all of whom would have looked sensational had they rolled out of bed and come in their pillow-cases. As Ephron said, the amount of time and money hair consumes as one gets older is “overwhelming” – and as one heads for 70, one is only about eight hours of beauty salon time away from looking like a tramp.

I agree with Giles that teenagers are prettier than they used to be. But when I recall those fronds of fake lashes, and wonder why 18 doesn’t look how it used to, I think there is another factor, one that would disturb feminists such as Naomi Wolf, who argued that the imperative to look beautiful is the force that prevents women from being liberated, and it’s this: far from becoming less onerous, female maintenance/admin is incessant, and starts earlier and earlier for every successive generation of girls.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCHAUSTRALIAN POLITICSDISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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