Islamic advice on how to beat your wife

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As  Egyptian cleric Mahmoud Al-Denawy points out: “there are so many…. misconceptions about this.” Here he is, then, to straighten us all out.

The nub of it is: let’s face it, some wives are just plain disobedient. If the husband refusing to sleep with her doesn’t do the trick (this must be an example of Islamic reverse psychology), a spot of beating is in order; try not to break her arms, or teeth, though. And mind out for the face: it belongs to Allah. Besides, someone might notice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4UF2Jq1xys

Ozymandias

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I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
                                       Percy Bysshe Shelley

Breaking Bad – Ecclesiastes for existentialists – returns:

Rainbow flags burned: outrage unanimous

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From here:

RCMP in Fort McMurray are investigating after two rainbow flags were burned outside the first gay pride event in the northern Alberta city.

A group of people took the flags from Bailey’s Pub around 11 p.m. Saturday and subsequently set fire to them in the parking lot.

Michael Kenny, vice-president of Fort McMurray LGBTQmunity, the group that sponsored the event, called the actions “saddening.”

If this had been an American flag, no-one would have been “saddened”, the media would be applauding – or at least smirking -, the RCMP would be indifferent and the youtube video would have 10,000 likes.

Winchester Cathedral awarded £10.5m lottery money

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From here:

Winchester Cathedral is one of several sites receiving multi-million pound awards from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

A total of £47m is being shared among six heritage tourism projects in England and Wales aimed at improving visitor experience and developing their potential as tourist attractions.

The Heritage Lottery Fund gets its money from National Lottery Good Causes which gets its money from The National Lottery which, like every other lottery, is a scam that cheats people out of their money by promising them a chance – slightly less than that of being struck by lightning twice – of winning a fortune.

Wonga has something to learn from this: donate substantial sums to cathedral renovations and the pious tut-tutting from elevated ecclesiastical quarters will be replaced by:

The support of the Heritage Lottery Wonga Usury Fund is very exciting as it will enable the Cathedral both to maintain its fabric and to fulfil its potential with a fresh burst of energy and dynamism in our own generation.

Somewhere over the rainbow crosswalk

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In preparation for Vancouver’s Pride Week, the city has painted tax-payer funded rainbow crosswalks onto the street; the rainbow crosswalks are to remain after Pride Week as a sign that Vancouver is an inclusive city – anyone at all can walk on them:

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From here:

The rainbow crosswalks were put in over the weekend as part of the annual Pride Week in the city and feature two more colours than the usual pride flag.

Vancouver Coun. Tim Stevenson said that’s because they’re a throwback to the ‘70s.

“The eight colours is the original flag,” Stevenson said. “Since this is the 35th anniversary (of Pride Week) they decided to put the original eight colours in.”

He said the $25,000 project isn’t just for the crosswalks, picnic tables and plants that adorn the area, but also for making a nice little meeting point in the centre of city’s LGBTTQ community.

The Diocese of New Westminster is also doing its bit by displaying a rainbow stained glass window on its website – neither real nor permanent, I suspect – as a sign that it is an inclusive diocese. It is so inclusive that the largest Anglican church in Canada was driven out of the diocese; it’s funny how an over-abundance of inclusion tends to do that:

30-07-2013 12-55-18 PM

Fighting the homophobia web virus

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At St. Christopher’s in the Diocese of Niagara, 1 Timothy 6:12 has taken a strange turn.

They are “fighting the homophobia web virus on the internet”:

St.C

I can almost see the homophobia web virus shrivelling, like a vampire in the sunlight, before the onslaught of rainbow flag, candles and small but doughty semicircle of crusading Anglicans.

I don’t know about you, but I had no idea there was such a thing as a homophobia web virus; the next time the Windows Technical Department calls I plan on asking them about it.

Diocese of Niagara: anything to keep the membership numbers up

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In spite of all the excitement I am having with its bishop, the Diocese of Niagara is still mailing me a paper copy of the Niagara Anglican.

This is either a desperate bid to create the illusion of there being two more people on the diocesan membership roll that there actually are, or it’s an attempt to goad me into saying something else that could prove very expensive; I can’t decide which.

NA

Desmond Tutu prefers Hell to homophobia

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Whenever someone uses the slippery word “homophobia”, we know immediately that rational thought has been abandoned in favour of a treasured but meaningless cliché. The OED defines homophobia as “an extreme and irrational aversion to homosexuality and homosexual people”. My daughter suffered from arachnophobia, leading to numerous pranks involving rubber spiders finding their way into her glass of water; the resultant shrieking was gratifying to no-one but the perpetrator – usually her brother. That was (she has overcome it now) a true phobia.

I don’t know anyone who is homophobic; I am not denying the possibility of the existence of such a phobia, but I’ve never encountered it. I suppose it could be treated in much the same way as arachnophobia, by systematic desensitization: first the sufferer would be invited to look at a photograph of a homosexual, then be placed in the same room at opposite ends, later a “good morning” could be exchanged and finally the whole thing would end with a hug.

That is absurd because, of course, it isn’t what Desmond Tutu and his ilk mean by “homophobia.” In Tutu’s view a person who is “homophobic” is anyone who doesn’t agree with him about the morality or immorality of homosexual activity, regardless of whether the disagreement is founded in rationality or revelation.

For Tutu, it’s all about emotion; if fact, it almost appears as if he experiences an extreme and irrational aversion – a phobia – to anyone who disagrees with him about homosexuality – including God.

From here:

“I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would much rather go to the other place,” Archbishop Tutu said at the launch of the Free and Equal campaign in Cape Town.

“I would not worship a God who is homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this.”

 

Worsening Wonga-gate

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It seems that the Church of England has investments not only in Wonga but in gambling, tobacco, pornography and arms dealing, not to mention alcohol – I expect that is just communion wine, though.

I think that the real problem is not so much what the church invests in, but how much it has to invest in the first place. An organisation that wastes no opportunity to heap opprobrium on a secular government for not doing enough for the poor, is sitting on £5.2billion which, instead of distributing to the poor, it invests, taking advantage of the capitalist system of which it disapproves, at the highest possible interest rate, all the while venting its indignation on Wonga for – that’s right – charging the highest possible interest rate.

From here:

It also emerged that the Church’s ‘ethical’ rules allow it to invest its £5.2billion assets in firms involved in gambling, tobacco and alcohol.

Even firms involved in arms dealing, pornography and human cloning are not barred from receiving Church investment.

The Archbishop confirmed the Church had a £75,000 stake in US venture capital firm Accel Partners, which injected capital into Wonga in 2009.

Wonga arrives in Canada to the sound of Justin Welby gnashing his teeth

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I’d never heard of Wonga until today but, thanks to the free advertising provided by Justin Welby, I’ve not only heard of the company but discovered that it now has a Canadian branch.

The Archbishop of Canterbury – eager to set the world to rights, presumably because it looks easier than setting his church to rights – was furious to discover that, having denounced Wonga, the CofE has indirect investments in it; Wonga is a short term loan company with outrageous interest rates.

Investing in Wonga is, according to Anglican lights, not ethical, implying that Wonga itself is not ethical. The reason, I imagine, is Wonga’s interest rates: if you borrow $500 from Wonga and repay it in one month, you will have to repay $600 – 20% interest per month. That is atrociously high; but unethical? Surely it would only be unethical if the actual interest rate were concealed from the hapless borrower until it was time to repay.

When does an interest rate cross the threshold from ethical to unethical? A credit card company’s 1.5% per month is still high but it doesn’t seem to have met the Anglican criterion needed for ritual excoriation.

Justin Welby clearly doesn’t think charging interest on a loan is inherently unethical because he wants to set up credit unions in competition with Wonga. They will still charge interest but they won’t make a profit.

So profit – or capitalism, really – is the enemy.

Here we go again: another Archbishop of Canterbury who hates capitalism.