Hollywood, having done gay, moves on to incest

Posted on September 11, 2012 by David

Since Hollywood sets the moral climate for what’s left of western culture, it won’t be that long before incest between consenting adults is legal, those who disapprove will be labelled incestophobic bigots, and batty church denominations will be falling over themselves in the rush to be the first to offer a generous pastoral response to committed monogamous brother-sister relationships.

And why not? After all, as the director piously intones: ‘You know what? This whole movie is about judgment, and lack of it, and doing what you want.’

The last thing we want to do is judge anyone or stop them doing what they want.

From here:

The Hollywood film director behind beloved romantic drama, The Notebook, has proved himself a true champion of love by admitting he doesn’t think there is anything wrong with incest.

In an interview about his new movie, Yellow – which debuted at the Toronto Film Festival this weekend – Nick Cassavetes defended his protagonist’s affair with her brother.

The Alpha Dog director reasoned that since he had no personal experience in the matter, he didn’t believe he was in a position to condemn incest and went on to compare it to gay marriage.

Love and tolerance from the left

Posted on September 11, 2012 by David

T-shirts looking forward to celebrating Margaret Thatcher’s death are “proving very popular with trade unionists” at the annual Trades Union Congress.

Nothing like longing for your enemy’s death to usher in an era of utopian egalitarian harmony.

From here:

T-shirts celebrating the eventual death of Margaret Thatcher – on sale at the TUC conference – have been condemned.

Tory MPs called the garments “beyond the pale” and “sickening”. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber called them “tasteless and inappropriate”.

The T-shirts were proving “very popular” with trade unionists, stall holder Colin Hampton said.

Baroness Thatcher, 86, has been in declining health in recent years and has withdrawn from public life.

Atheists sue museum for displaying 9/11 cross

Posted on September 11, 2012 by David

American Atheists have filed a suit against the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation because the WTCMF is displaying a cross formed from some steel beams left after the building collapsed.

The fact that the cross was on display for five years as a symbol of hope to thousands of people makes it an historically significant artefact worthy of display in a museum.

That is not good enough for today’s atheists whose hatred for the God in which they disbelieve is so bitter that they cannot countenance any reminder that billions of people know that he is real. As Kenneth Bronstein, New York City Atheists President pointed out: “That a worker resurrected one of these girders and dubbed it a Christian cross is an affront to all of us who believe in our constitutionally based right to have public places free of religious propaganda and religious coercion.” That the cross is an affront to those who are perishing is not exactly a new idea, but that its display is somehow religious coercion defies all the rationality that atheists are so eager to claim as their own.

Contemporary atheists will not rest until all expression of Christianity is expunged from our civilisation and its citizens’ lives are rendered as narrow, unimaginative, and vacuously meaningless as theirs.

From here:

The American Atheists organization has sued the National September 11 Memorial and Museum over the installation of the “9/11 cross” in the museum. The organization’s president, David Silverman, insists that it will not “allow this travesty to occur in our country.”

The 20-foot cross — two steel beams that had held together as the building collapsed — was discovered in the rubble of Ground Zero on September 13, 2001, by construction worker Frank Silecchia. The 9/11 cross became a venerated object, and many of those who were searching for survivors and clearing debris from the “pit” took solace from its existence. On October 4, 2001, it was moved to a pedestal on Church Street, where it was treated as a shrine by visitors to Ground Zero for the next five years. In October 2006 it was removed to storage, and in July 2011 it was returned to the site for installation in the National September 11 Memorial and Museum.

Muslims swell the ranks of the Democratic National Convention

Posted on September 7, 2012 by David

As the article below notes, God was not mentioned at the DNC this year; at the next convention I expect Allah will be invoked instead.

It seems that Muslims may have stayed away from the Republican National Convention because of its anti-Sharia position. The Muslim perception of the Democratic Party must, presumably, be that it is not anti-Sharia; perhaps it is even pro-Sharia.

Welcome to Hope and Change 2012: polygamy; prohibition; criminalisation of homosexuality; dhimmitude; the death penalty for apostates and rape victims – and no bacon sarnies.

From here:

The word “God” may have been absent at the Democratic National Convention, but there were record numbers of Muslim delegates present at the Charlotte, N.C., meeting.

According to a news release from the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the convention hosted more than 100 Muslim delegates from 20 states—up from 43 Muslim and Arab-American delegates at the 2008 convention and 25 four years before.

“The more than doubling of Muslim delegates at this year’s Democratic National Convention is a direct result of their hard work and grassroots organizing within the Democratic Party,” said CAIR’s government affairs coordinator, Robert McCaw. “It is also a sign of the American Muslim community’s growing civic engagement and acceptance in the Democratic Party.”

McCaw noted that only a handful of Muslim delegates attended this year’s Republican National Convention (RNC), during which the RNC adopted an anti-Sharia platform plank targeting the religious practices of Muslims. CAIR has asked the party to reject this policy.

Anglican Church of Canada archives threatened by budget cuts

Posted on September 7, 2012 by David

This is a shame, since the archives are just about the only parts of the Anglican Church of Canada worth preserving.

From here:

Church and secular archivists across Canada fear that funding cuts to Library and Archives Canada (LAC) will severely restrict their ability to acquire, preserve and make accessible the precious original documents that chronicle our history.

This mandate, legislated under the Library and Archives Canada Act, is considered equivalent to that of the U.S. Library of Congress or the British Library. “This constitutes an attack on one of Canada’s most important cultural institutions,” said James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) in a press release. Staff at our national archives and library are the stewards of our collective memory.”

[….]

“The impact on the local archival work of the Anglican church will be devastating,” says Nancy Hurn, General Synod archivist.

By the pricking of my thumbs, no prison spells on taxpayer funds

Posted on September 7, 2012 by David

Not yet at least.

In the name of religious freedom, incarcerated pagans in B.C., have requested a shaman chaplain to assist them in the casting of spells and double doubling their toil and trouble. Oddly enough the request has been denied.

In the interests of full inclusion, I am anticipating ecumenical intervention on their behalf by Bishop James Cowan – in time for the winter solstice.

From here:

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews appears less concerned about the quality of spells cast from behind bars than he is about a backlash from taxpayers, cancelling a Corrections Canada tender for a priest to nurture the spiritual needs of witches in prison.

Earlier this week, the federal prison agency put out a request for a proposal for a Wiccan chaplain in British Columbia who would provide about 17 hours of service a month, about an hour less service than the department says it needs for the Jewish faith.

About an hour after The Canadian Press reported on the contract, a statement from Toews’s office said it will not proceed until after a review.

Who’s on top at St. Matthew-in-the-city

Posted on September 6, 2012 by David

The Auckland Anglican church is a progressive church and, as such, supports same-sex marriage.

St. Matthew’s has a reputation for erecting strange billboards, so it is no surprise that it is at it again with this declaration of support for same-sex marriage plastered on billboards-in-the-city – what the church should really call itself.

As St. Matthew’s says: Welcome to a church like no other: a church of vertical inclusiveness:

As Chopin observed: Nothing is better than a guitar, save perhaps two

Posted on September 4, 2012 by David

Here are Julian Bream and John Williams playing the exquisite Suite for 2 Guitars by William Lawes.

Lawes was a 17th century composer, son of Thomas Lawes, a vicar choral at Salisbury Cathedral. He wrote quite a lot of secular and sacred music; this particular piece is probably among his best known compositions.

I saw Julian Bream in person in Cardiff in the late ‘60s; I confess, for me, the highlight of his performance was a mistake he made in something I was attempting to play at the time.

Interestingly, even though Bream and Williams are among the foremost classical guitarists of their generation, neither is a musical snob. Bream loved nothing better than to thump out some Django Reinhardt gypsy jazz with his mates and Williams has recorded many jazz and pop tunes.

Anglican Samizdat

Monthly Archives: September 2012

Hollywood, having done gay, moves on to incest

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Love and tolerance from the left

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Atheists sue museum for displaying 9/11 cross

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Muslims swell the ranks of the Democratic National Convention

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Anglican Church of Canada archives threatened by budget cuts

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By the pricking of my thumbs, no prison spells on taxpayer funds

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Who’s on top at St. Matthew-in-the-city

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As Chopin observed: Nothing is better than a guitar, save perhaps two

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