News from around our bizarro world
In lieu of real content, I link to strange news stories! And some commentary, I suppose.
A Baptist church in New York fires a Sunday School teacher for being a woman! She's worked there 54 years, but fuck you, Grandma! Their justification? The Bible says women should not teach men. I like how whenever "Christians" want to be all narrow-minded and ban something or disallow something, they quote the Bible - but never Jesus. In this case, it's Paul. Why? Because Jesus was a lot nicer than these pricks, and if they started using him, they'd have to be nice to women. Eeeewwww!
An Indian restaurant in Bombay (isn't it Mumbai now?) is named "Hitler's Cross"! The owner did it to attract attention, he says. India has only 5500 Jews, and Holocaust knowledge is limited. My question is, Why call it this if Hitler is only a "historical figure" in India and not seen as a monster? He wasn't terribly important to India. And it's not a German restaurant. This guy sounds like a tool.
You know who loves Paris Hilton's debut album? Paris Hilton, of course!
A postcard a mother mailed to her son in 1948 finally reached him. It only took 58 years. No jokes about the mail service, please!
Psycho killer raccoons terrorize Olympia, Washington! There has to be a low-budget horror movie in this, right? If you don't think so, let me repeat three words: Psycho. Killer. Raccoons.
A Swedish television station mistakenly shows a porn movie behind its news broadcast! Nothing fun EVER happens in the U.S.!
Al Sharpton wants black youths to resist "gangster culture." This is a bit more serious. I happen to agree with Sharpton, but maybe Roger or T., as black men who live in Sharpton's neck of the woods, can comment on this better than I can. Doesn't Sharpton cry racism any time a black man is accused of anything? How can he say "gangsterism" is keeping black men from achieving when his self-serving cries of racism might also be doing so? Or am I way off-base? I don't keep up with Sharpton as much as I would if I lived in New York.
Oh, and Pluto is no longer a planet. Our fine newspaper actually suggested a few weeks ago that astronomers were considering dropping Pluto because it had been discovered in Flagstaff in 1930 and not by some old stuffy astronomer in Europe. They were serious.
So there's some news for you as our world spins in the silent void. Aren't you glad you live on such a strange (for now) planet?
A Baptist church in New York fires a Sunday School teacher for being a woman! She's worked there 54 years, but fuck you, Grandma! Their justification? The Bible says women should not teach men. I like how whenever "Christians" want to be all narrow-minded and ban something or disallow something, they quote the Bible - but never Jesus. In this case, it's Paul. Why? Because Jesus was a lot nicer than these pricks, and if they started using him, they'd have to be nice to women. Eeeewwww!
An Indian restaurant in Bombay (isn't it Mumbai now?) is named "Hitler's Cross"! The owner did it to attract attention, he says. India has only 5500 Jews, and Holocaust knowledge is limited. My question is, Why call it this if Hitler is only a "historical figure" in India and not seen as a monster? He wasn't terribly important to India. And it's not a German restaurant. This guy sounds like a tool.
You know who loves Paris Hilton's debut album? Paris Hilton, of course!
A postcard a mother mailed to her son in 1948 finally reached him. It only took 58 years. No jokes about the mail service, please!
Psycho killer raccoons terrorize Olympia, Washington! There has to be a low-budget horror movie in this, right? If you don't think so, let me repeat three words: Psycho. Killer. Raccoons.
A Swedish television station mistakenly shows a porn movie behind its news broadcast! Nothing fun EVER happens in the U.S.!
Al Sharpton wants black youths to resist "gangster culture." This is a bit more serious. I happen to agree with Sharpton, but maybe Roger or T., as black men who live in Sharpton's neck of the woods, can comment on this better than I can. Doesn't Sharpton cry racism any time a black man is accused of anything? How can he say "gangsterism" is keeping black men from achieving when his self-serving cries of racism might also be doing so? Or am I way off-base? I don't keep up with Sharpton as much as I would if I lived in New York.
Oh, and Pluto is no longer a planet. Our fine newspaper actually suggested a few weeks ago that astronomers were considering dropping Pluto because it had been discovered in Flagstaff in 1930 and not by some old stuffy astronomer in Europe. They were serious.
So there's some news for you as our world spins in the silent void. Aren't you glad you live on such a strange (for now) planet?
Labels: Americana, Astronomy, Culture, Religion, This insane world, Weird news
posted by Greg | 4:18 PM
5 Comments:
Tricky question, Greg. Clearly, Al Sharpton, who does things to irritate me at least as often as he does admirable things, operates to publicize himself, to become the "leader of the black community", which, to be honest, I'm not at all sure what that means today.
To be sure - and this is true locally as well as nationally - if someone IS identified as a "leader of the black community", when the press needs a quote, the reporters will call that person.
If you're a black person, believe that the press tends to ignore racial issues, and agree with what "the leader" is saying, then that's a good, even an empowering thing. However, if you don't buy into one or more of those criteria, e.g., you think what "the leader" is saying is rubbish, then it's a problem.
I think Rev. Al has been constantly re-inventing himself since the Tawana Brawley disaster. (And there are people who ALWAYS bring it up.)
The last time he ran for President, any number of my white friends suggested that his positions on the issues - not just "black" issues, but peace & justice isuues, the environment, the war - were more clearly articulated (no John Kerry waffling), and more in line with their thinking than any of the other candidates.
And, many of the things he points to of late I would say bear pointing to. Read this rather unflattering piece on Rev. Al http://www.realchange.org/sharpton.htm but note the last paragraph. He's not as much of a blowhard as he used to be.
So, according to my elementary science textbook, we've gone from ten planets to eight in my lifetime. I remember that whole Planet X crap being spouted around about there "maybe" being a tenth planet. Now one gets demoted?! Make up your mind, science!
Roger - I like in that article that he's a "known associate of Michael Jackson." Horrors!
I have seen him in interviews recently, and he does seem to have mellowed. This article is an indication of that. We'll see what he does in the future to help black youth instead of just blaming the white people! It makes me feel bad!
Science hates you, Woody!
As far as Al Sharpton goes, he may have mellowed out now but unlike another Civil Rights leader that mellowed over time, Malcolm X, I've yet to see Sharpton express a single tinge of regret for any of his past actions. He still gets self-righteous when people point out how he almost ruined an innocent cops career in the Tawana Brawley incident and proudly bragged on TV about how the cop couldn't get any of the settlement he won against Sharpton because Sharpton kept his money tied up in his organizations. Then there's his actions involving Freddie's Fashion Mart, where he initially even lied about being present until confronted with videotape. And even then he still didn't express remorse, even though several people died. Yet somehow white Democrats have rehabilitated this man's image? To the point where he delivers a major address at the 2004 Convention? He's only toned down because he wants to take his power and status to the next level, it's just shrewd business and politics.
Anyway, my guess would be that he would reconcile his stance on gangsterism with white racism by saying that white people's racism forced blacks into being attracted to crime. "Don't jump through whitey's hoops. He keeps opportunities from you because he wants to see you resort to crime so that he can lock you up. Don't play HIS game." See? Decry black gangsterism and STILL keep the blame on "the man." That's my guess anyway.
I find the Indian "Hitler's Cross" thing interesting. He claims he did it to get attention, but also says that very few people have a true understanding of Hitler and the Holocaust, which begs the question of how much attention it really could attract if many don't even know much about Hitler. From tourists maybe?
I wouldn't say Indians know little about *Hitler*. The Nazis recruited several thousand Indian POWs to fight against the Allies. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3684288.stm) They were incorporated into the SS and fought in France.
The Nazis were essentially playing on Indian anti-colonial feelings.
To some extent the war against Germany helped weaken Britain's grip on India, which is probably considered a point in Hitler's favor in India, even if it was accidental.
So I doubt that Hitler is an unknown quantity in India. However, they may have a hazy idea of why he's considered evil. And the Holocaust death toll might not seem very significant to people in such a poor, populous country.
There have been Nazi-themed bars and the like elsewhere in Asia. (S. Korea, Hong Kong)
Trivia: Those snappy SS uniforms were designed by fashion designer Hugo Boss, who died in 1948. Oddly enough, the company doesn't mention this in their company profile, nor anything about the company's history.
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