I pretty much called it

Way back on the 3rd of May, 2015 there was an attack on the First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest held in Garland, Texas. The response to the attack included the Washington Post headline "Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas." Expecting the victim of an attempted mass murder if they'll apologize for being attacked isn't standard. In fact, I wonder how many people who only read the headline would assume the event organizer played some kind of role in the attack other than as the victim.


 Paco of Paco Enterprises in response :

I am trying to imagine the coming American "utopia", where everyone will be compelled to publicly accept the moral neutrality of homosexual acts, traditional Christian teachings on the subject will be excluded from the the marketplace of ideas, but an enormous cultural carve-out will be made for Muslim sensibilities. If Islamist radicals shoot up a gay pride parade, will the incident simply be considered a moral wash, or will gays actually be expected to apologize for provoking their assailants?

my response was this :

I think I would put money on this : the journolisters won't mention any particular religion and blame the "conservative" shooters while gays will be victims of hate/overheated rhetoric and muslims will be said to fear that perpetually mentioned backlash.

Fast forward to June 12, 2016 and the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando Florida occurs leaving 49 victims dead and dozens injured.  This mass murder was perpetrated by Omar Mateen an Islamist radical who had said "real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west ... ..now taste the Islamic state [sic] vengeance." The NYTimes coverage included this editorial :

While the precise motivation for the rampage remains unclear, it is evident that Mr. Mateen was driven by hatred toward gays and lesbians. Hate crimes don’t happen in a vacuum. They occur where bigotry is allowed to fester, where minorities are vilified and where people are scapegoated for political gain. Tragically, this is the state of American politics, driven too often by Republican politicians who see prejudice as something to exploit, not extinguish. 

Throughout the editorial there is no mention of Islam or the potential of Islamic culture,  or ISIS or Islamic texts' position on gays to influence Mateen.

Now I admit that the editorial doesn't include anything about a backlash like I predicted but the New York Times doesn't let me down. After the shooting they published an article headlined "A Muslim Community in Virginia Feels the Heat of Extremists’ Sins" and includes a quote from an imam "We’re fearful of a backlash."

How Orwellian : the censor censoring the censor

An old article (1986) from the days of Sandinistas running Nicaragua about their censor/ propagandist Nelba Blandon

On Jan. 21, 1986, we [opposition newspaper La Prensa] received an interview with Nelba Blandon on censorship, by an AP correspondent named Eloy A. Aguilar. We tried to publish it under the headline: "Blandon Comments on Censorship," but the censor's decision was: "DO NOT PUBLISH." On Aguilar's next visit he asked Blandon why the interview, which he considered accurate, was not published. The censor answered: "Because the statements I made were for publication abroad, not for publication in Nicaragua."

As an aside I would point to this previous article from 1983 where Nelba Blandon admits that the Sandinistas censored newspaper coverage of Poland or the Soviet war in Afghanistan and she says :

''Now we are determined to let them say what they want, except about military matters or questions of product shortages, two themes that could cause panic in the country if not handled carefully,'' Lieutenant Blandon said in an interview." 

Apparently, having the censor being a military member, who by 1986 had been promoted to Captain, makes the censor's conversations a "military matter" and therefore censorable. And this :

Nicaragua's press censor is Lieut. Nelba Blandon, a 24-year-old lawyer whose wit and intelligence serve to soften the image given by the military uniform she wears to work and the pistol she carries on her hip. 

I must admit that I am surprised that the NY Times would describe a gun toting military censor of the press in such flattering terms.

Also interesting is the idea that the censor demands that people being censored pretend the censorship doesn't exist :

Along with photocopies of every page of the paper we send the censor two pages of material that we call "stuffing" -- articles that can be substituted for censored stories. La Prensa has been unable to publish on 40 occasions because the censor could not find adequate material to substitute for censored stories. It is prohibited to leave any blank space on a page or in any other way give the impression that the paper has been censored.

Erasing the Past : Who murdered the monks of Monasterio Montserrat

from the documentary Sagrada : Mystery of Creation (2012)

It isn't a terrible movie but it has some intrusive artistic pretensions and it uses the church as a background to tell the history of the church when I would have preferred the church and its idiosyncrasies be the subject with the history as a background.

But one thing struck me as eliding reality.

partial transcript (clip starts at about 32:30 into the film) :

Daughter of Antonio Gaudi's assistant : He [Antonio Gaudi's assistant] went there every day until July 18, 1936. Then the chaos of the civil war arrived. All the churches in Barcelona were burnt. [including the incomplete Sagrada Familia]
…
Narrator : The construction work on Sagrada Familia was abandoned. The Civil War raged on until, in the beginning of 1939, Barcelona fell, followed by Madrid shortly after.  General Franco subsequently ruled Spain with an iron hand. Speaking Catalan was prohibited. In the Monastery of Montserrat, where sermons were still held in Catalan, 21 monks were murdered. 

This suggests that Spain fell to Generalissimo Franco (true), he ruled with an iron hand (true), speaking Catalan was prohibited (sort of true) and then the monks were murdered; perhaps because they held sermons in Catalan. The problem I have is that the monks were murdered not by Franco's Nationalists but by the Republican side (more specifically, I'd guess POUM or the CNT) and they were murdered before the end of the War. Barcelona wasn't even controlled by Franco until the surrender in 1939.

Additionally, "All the churches in Barcelona were burnt." is, I think, incorrect. I could be wrong but I believe in was an anti-catholic pogrom and other churches were not targeted (as Barcelona was overwhelmingly Catholic then Protestant churches were less significant). Again, this was done not by Franco's Nationalists but by the Republican side in territory not controlled by Franco.

Anti-clerical violence started before the Spanish Civil War.  On May 10, 1931 (5 years before the start of the Spanish Civil War and less than a month after King Alfonso XIII fled) Spain saw convents set alight in Madrid, Málaga, Seville, Cádiz and Alicante and 2 dozen churches attacked.

As an aside,  I've been told that the ban on Catalan was done with typical Spanish efficiency. Schools were ordered to teach in Castilian Spanish and so they "officially" complied. The school inspector would call ahead and let them know when an inspection was coming and on that day the students would put away their Catalan books and get out their Castilian books and class would be in Castilian as required. After the inspector left the Castilian books would go back in the closet and they continued in Catalan while the inspector could file a report that he is doing a great job and everything is how it is supposed to be.

The War on Metaphor

A tweet from Richard Horton (‏@richardhorton1) who is the editor in chief of the UK medical journal the Lancet and totalitarian crankypants :

 [link to a BBC story about an NRA official saying "This is not a battle about gun rights,'' Mr Porter told attendees on Friday, saying it was "a culture war".]

Classic war on metaphor… Oops, did I say war? He is campaigning against … oops a campaign is a war metaphor too. He's targeting …ah, no.  He's going to the barricades to … nevermind. 

He even recognizes and identifies it as a metaphor! Unlike some people who don't understand (or pretend not to understand) that a metaphor is not literal, he identifies that a figure of speech is being used but unfortunately that makes him sound like even more of a book burning totalitarian.

First metaphors are jailable, then similes, then allegories, then onomatopoeia and then, well, he'll just make up a reason after you're in jail.

Speaking of war, guess who wrote a book called Health Wars? The very same Richard Horton.

Civility! : Clay Aiken

Clay Aiken is “not a fan” of his former political opponent, Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.), calling the congresswoman a “b----” and an "idiot" in a Monday interview.
…
Aiken appeared on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show on Monday to promote his Esquire Network docu-series “The Runner-Up,” which follows his failed congressional campaign.
“You should see the second episode, because she’s a b----,” Aiken told Stern, referring to Ellmers.
“She’s an idiot,” Aiken said of the 51-year-old lawmaker, “And I think her self-esteem is just in the floor, under the floor.”
At another point in the wide-ranging interview, Aiken, 36, referred to the lawmaker with a derogatory slang term for the female anatomy.

----------------------

 Clay Aiken (July 2, 2014) : 

Will we ever get Washington to return to days of civility when compromise is no longer a dirty word?

 Clay Aiken (Mar 7, 2014) : 

And after the release of the video, we took that message of civility and compromise on the road.

Clay Aiken quoted in his campaign material (2014) :

“Politics shouldn’t be a game of tearing each other down. It should be about building everyone up,”

by Gene Conti,  Senior Adviser to Clay Aiken for North Carolina (his official Congressional campaign) : 

Clay Aiken believes that you can disagree without being disagreeable.  He wants to restore civility to Congress.  That is one of the reasons why he is running …Let's keep the momentum going. And let's restore civility to Congress.

I suspect he wanted civility and compromise from others not from himself.

Respect is reciprocal so he is simply setting the standard for how he wants to be treated.

How Orwellian : Joschka Fischer & Putzgruppe

The NYTimes in 2001 says about Joschka Fischer (former Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany under Gerhard Schröder) :

The minister says he has never hidden his leftist past, always opposed terrorist violence and apologizes for having been a ''street fighter.''

and

''Should I distance myself from the struggle over Vietnam or Chile?'' Mr. Fischer asks in a conversation with a handful of journalists. ''No. What I must distance myself from is being a street fighter.'' But, he adds, to compare freedom fighters with rightists or Nazi revisionists -- as has happened here of late -- ''is simply grotesque.''

Above is Joschka Fischer (former Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor of Germany under Gerhard Schröder), Hans-Joachim Klein and other putzes beating/freedom fighting German police officer Rainer Marx.

"Putz," as everyone knows, refers to a stupid person and is Yiddish for "dick."  Although this seems entirely appropriate, it turns out Putzgruppe is German for "cleaning squad" while the first syllable being an acronym for Proletarische Union für Terror und Zerstörung, "Proletarian Union for Terror and Destruction"

Fun fact : Joschka Fischer harbored members of the Red Army Faction and lent his car to Hans-Joachim Klein and Klein used the car to smuggle guns that were latter used to assassinate Hessian Secretary of Commerce Heinz-Herbert Karry. The German wiki page for Putzgruppe mentions they used molotov cocktails more than once including burning (or freedom fighting, if Herr Fischer would prefer) policeman Jürgen Weber over 60% of his body.

When he says the comparison to rightists or Nazis is "simply grotesque" I think he really means "accurate but not flattering."

I wonder if the NYTimes might want to rethink paraphrasing without qualification "always opposed terrorist violence" about a member of a group that included the word "Terror" in its name.

Civility! Calle Mateu Morral

In 1906 Mateu Morral threw a bomb concealed as a bouquet from his hotel window at the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, and his bride Victoria Eugenie as the wedding procession moved along the Calle Mayor in Madrid, Spain.

While his bomb left the king and queen unharmed, 25 bystanders were killed and over a hundred injured. After he was captured he killed his guard and then killed himself. 

Fast forward about 30 years :

During the Spanish Civil War, Calle Mayor (Main Street) was renamed Calle Mateo Morral by the Republican Madrid council.

civility : pissing on a grave

Eduardo Labarca appears to urinate on the grave of Jose Luis Borges on the cover of his book The Enigma of the Modules

"Peeing on that tomb was a legitimate artistic act," … "I am not just a person who goes around peeing on tombs, but a writer with a serious oeuvre," he said today.

By legitimate he means fake :

 The photo has provoked outrage in Borges's native Argentina, even though Labarca admits the stream of water descending on the great man's grave actually came from a bottle of water hidden in his right hand.

 The reason for it all :

"Anyone who is offended by this is very short-sighted," he said. "Borges was a giant as a writer but I feel complete contempt for him as a citizen. As an old man, almost blind, he came to meet the dictator Pinochet in the days when he was busy killing."

p.s. if you find the design of Borges' gravestone as interesting as I do there then someone has already done the research on it.

Phillip Adams : totalitarian crankypants

Phillip Adams is an old Australian lefty with a newspaper column, a radio show, and apparently a bit of a totalitarian streak.

The target of the US war on terror should be those NRMA nutters-who outgun and outmaneuver every challenger from POTUS down.And always have

NRMA is a typo for the NRA (National Rifle Association). (Or it isn't a typo and Adams has strong feelings about the National Roads and Motorists Association)

So, Phillip wants the US government to arrest and/or bomb people for engaging in free speech, questioning ideas, and peaceably petitioning the government. Who knew that merely advocating for one's explicit Constitutional rights would get you demonized as a terrorist. 

Notice it isn't the people actually committing the murders that he wants to targeted but the NRA.  Keep quiet about my support for the Third Amendment or he might call for my hands to be cut off.

Presumably, if the NRA were less successful then Phillip might tolerate their free speech and might not want them dead. Maybe. 

I'm sure all of those who fret over civility and campaign against eliminationist rhetoric will be up in arms and demand that he be denounced. Phillip Adams will be outraged when he hears what he's been saying. Here's Phillip Adams from Sept 10, 2011 : 

It was widely accepted that her [Gabrielle Giffords] attempted assassination was triggered, no pun intended, by the verbal violence of US politics – such as the “lock ’n’ load” rhetoric of gun-totin’ Sarah Palin, whose campaign literature literally targeted political opponents, depicting them in the crosshairs of telescopic sights. 

…

While sticks and stones break bones, words can never hurt? Manifestly untrue. Politics everywhere are holistic, interconnected, and the rhetoric of right or left can produce toxic atmospheres in which lunacy thrives.

…

It’s not enough for Abbott to tell us he “doesn’t entirely agree” with vile placards being waved at right-wing rallies. He must denounce them.

…

Today, words. Tomorrow, sticks and stones. And the day after that?

By the way, "It was widely accepted that her [Gabrielle Giffords] attempted assassination was triggered, no pun intended, by the verbal violence of US politics" was written a full 8 months after the shooting – that is, long after everyone but Phillip Adams realized Jared Loughner was motivated by being coo coo for cocoa puffs.

Update :  Here is some inflammatory demagoguery I've heard more than once.

To arms, citizens,
Form your battalions,
Let's march, let's march!
That impure blood
May water our furrows!
...
Tremble, tyrants and you traitors
The shame of all parties,
Tremble! Your parricidal schemes
Will finally receive their reward! 

Not only does it call for violence it also refers to the "enemy" tyrants and traitors as having "impure blood" which is a creepy bit of racial demogoguery. We can only hope Phillip Adams will do something about it before it kills us all.

Update II : On reflection, if Adams considers the NRA to be terrorists then perhaps his opinion about terrorists should be explored. 

In a column in the Australian July 12, 2005 titled "Britain had this coming" Adams explains :

And let's be clear about it: the people who died in the subway tunnels and on the bus were victims of the Iraq war. They died because of Blair's London Bridge, the one he built from the Thames to the Euphrates
.…
We say that what's happening in Baghdad and now London is inevitable, that the invasion has not liberated democratic forces but detonated more hatred, much of it directed against US hegemony and hubris.

Adams appears to think that terrorists lack an agency of their own and only react to outside stimulus.  I think this means Phillip wants to examine the NRA's root causes and conscientiously avoid doing anything that might provoke the NRA or its members into engaging in more of that free speech he finds so odious.

Update III : Phillip's twitter tirade includes "National Ratbags. National Racists. …The charnel house of Charlton Heston … those NRMA(sic) nutters" with all this incivility and "verbal violence" it raises the question : it seems Phillip is trying to provoke someone into murder, does he have a victim in mind? (assuming he believes his own writings)