After many years of sterling service, the founder of this blog, Scott, wants to take a backseat from now on. That means that instead of doing around half of the posts here, I will be doing nearly all of them. But, as one person doing the work of two, I need all the help I can get. So I am hoping that readers here will be sending me lots of links to stories that might be of interest to other readers. It would be particularly good if readers would keep an eye on their local media for cases of censorship etc. I personally can only possibly keep up with the major media.
It may seem a bit odd for an Australian living in Australia to be putting up the posts on an American blog mostly concerned with America but regular readers here know me well by now so will realize that it works, no matter how odd it is. In fact, there seems to have been a slight uptick in readership since I started contributing. My posts tend to be a bit more controversial than Scott's at times but that does at least keep the comment threads humming.
I personally would like to record my appreciation of the great work that Scott has done. For a long time I used to avoid reading this blog because I knew that Scott would nearly always be ahead of me with stories that I was thinking of posting about!
Incorrect to Mention Asian Eyes
A German concert organization arranged for a performance of the music of Richard Wagner -- with the conductor being Japanese. Since Wagner was undoubtedly a racist -- like most people of his time -- having a Japanese conductor of his music seemed worthy of note. So the advertising agency produced an advertisement that showed Wagner pulling his eyes up into an Asian shape -- as a basically humorous piece of attention-getting for the unusual combination of composer and conductor.
But Asian organizations in Germany were outraged. References to the obviously different shape of Asian eyes are apparently not allowed. Details here
If the people putting on the concert had been racist, would they have hired a Japanese in the first place?
We Must not Deny that Homosexuals are the New Jews
Some time ago, Andrew Sullivan rather hysterically declared that homosexuals are "the new Jews". I personally think it's a gross insult to Jews to compare the present state of homosexuals with the vast suffering that Jews have undergone but be that as it may. Various homosexual groups however appear to have embraced the idea and are now declaring that they are the new Jews -- implying that the mainstream community is persecuting them, and ignoring the fact that their rights are in fact exceedingly well protected in the USA of 2006.
At Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, however, one student, Joel Sartain wrote a letter to the campus newspaper criticizing the way homosexuals exaggerate their problems and calling on them to tone down what appeared to him to be displays of behaviour (homosexuals kissing in public etc.) that are deliberately designed to offend conservatives and Christians. He offered the advice that if you want acceptance from mainstream people, doing your best to insult and offend them was not a good idea.
So was this reasonable advice discussed, challenged or debated? No way! It evoked a "protest" -- just the sort of exaggerated reaction that Sartain had accused them of. They were protesting that anyone would say such awful things as Sartain did. And the form of the protest demonstrated how bankrupt of reasonable argument the protesters were. Their demonstration consisted of them walking around the campus for two hours with gags on their mouths but holding signs. It was as good an admission that they had nothing reasonable to say as anything I could think of.
Double Standard on Speech About Homosexuality
You are allowed to say how wonderful homosexuality is but don't you DARE criticize it! We read about a recent episode at the Hereford Residential College of the University of Virginia:
"Controversy erupted over the weekend after a Hereford resident posted a sign on the window of his residence hall room reading "Gay? Not Fine By Me!" last week in response to the "Gay? Fine By Me" t-shirt campaign sponsored by the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center".
Source
Dissent is not allowed! There were around 1,000 students displaying pro-homosexual messages without anybody criticizing them but just ONE student displaying a contrary message was a huge offence! His sign was officially condemned as "hurtful to members of the University community." In this case, however, the local homosexual organization was more reasonable than the university. They defended his right to free speech.
NOTE: I make no judgment about the characteristic mood of homosexuals so I do not refer to them as "gay".
