Charlie Hebdo - new!

Unionist wrote:

I've never in my life heard a single joke about it.

I heard one today in a TV show... along the order of "What did we Germans ever do to deserve this? ...... Oh. Right."

Context.

And that goes double for transgressive art, and that which is directed at extremists. But as for how far is too far, before we start building walls around satire as a fine art it bears remembering that it is practically defined by that old image about raising babies for slaughter.

Unionist, I've heard such jokes, among Jewish people, and yes, all of them (this is in Europe) have lost family members in the Shoah. I think that is a cultural difference. Do I tell Holocaust jokes? Of course not; I'm not Jewish, and I don't come from that very scathing Français de France humour tradition. I know a very common one, but am not repeating it for that reason. I don't associate with anti-semites or other racists.

I had a nightmare about Charlie Hebdo last night, as if I worked there, or at least had colleagues who did. Probably because I met an old friend with whom I'd worked at Nouvelles CSN, and today I'm taking part in the editorial board of a very local community paper.

Hey, I'm just hearing on the news that Mohammed Fahmi is being freed!

NDPP wrote:

Meanwhile Smith, while you take your disgusting Islamophobic sadism-not-satire, hobby horse out for yet another caper,  pretending the defence of free speech, civilization, or whatever, they're building a mighty oppressive police state all around us pretending to defend the same things you are. It's a lie.

Reply...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/shots-fired-at-copenhagen-cafe-in-terror-at...

Quote:

The event was organized by Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who has faced numerous threats for caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad.

Danish police said the gunman shot through the windows of the Krudttoenden cafe, which the TV2 news channel said were riddled with some 30 bullet holes. Helle Merete Brix, one of the event's organizers, told The Associated Press that Vilks was at the meeting but was not hit

That's an ineresting bit of leapfrogging, NDPP. Too bad what actually got him on al Quaeda's most wanted list, and got that event shot up and one person murdered,  was Vilks making a picture of Mohammed as a piece of street-art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Vilks_Muhammad_drawings_controversy

And we are supposed to draw what absolute conclusions from these not widely differing numbers? That Republicans are more supportive of the separation of church and state and freedom of speech?

Seems obvious to me.

Police Killed Man Likely Responsible For Copenhagen Shootings

http://www.usatoday.com/story/main/world/2015/02/15/manhunt-underway-cop...

"Danish police said a man they shot and killed Sunday was likely behind shootings at a free speech event and a synagagogue in Copenhagen that stirred fears that another spree of terror attacks was underway, a month after 17 people were killed in Paris..."

American boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria to fight ISIS, along with some enhanced domestic surveillance and police powers perhaps?

http://www.pewforum.org/2014/09/24/graphics-slideshow-changing-attitudes...

This morning I've been perusing the website of DAL, Droit au logement (Right to Housing) an activist housing group that is known for organizing occupations of buildings kept empty for speculative purposes. They have a little exhibit of the drawings Charlie Hebdo cartoonists have done for their publications. http://droitaulogement.org/ I can't seem to copy any of the drawings though.

These drawings are explicitly anticapitalist (and some are explicitly antiracist). Doubt they would be to the tastes of US Republican Randian types.

Behind the Great Western Firewall is the Ugly Truth

http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ca/2015/02/behind-great-western-firewall-i...

"...As all false-flags are used to manipulate the masses after the fact, it is happening in spades, thanks to Charlie Hebdo. France's authorities are already telling about how Charlie Hebdo is France's 9/11 and the government will be passing a Patriot Act law, like the United States. Sayonara to Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite.

Charlie Hebdo. The whole thing stinks to high heaven..."

vineyardsaker is one of the weirdest sites I've seen in a long time. No way I'm wading through that stuff.

Yes, of course people who shoot up synagogues, Jewish schools and businesses have the same aim, "cleanse" the target country of Jews, and then good old Bibi would jump in again (as he did) and say Danish Jews should all move to Israel. I pity any Dane who has to endure the traffic chaos in Israel or any other country in the Levant. They'll be far more likely to be killed while riding their Danish bicycles in Israel than by a "lone gunman" in Copenhagen.

Edited to add: The Romans called Christian converts "atheists" because the latter didn't worship "the Gods".

There's a big difference, Magoo. I posted an article in the thread about the Chapel Hill shooting that points out the distinction pretty clearly. Suffice it to say that the notion that Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins have have a common cause based on nothing is absurd.

and @ lagatta

18th and 19th century deists, whose beliefs are actually quite similar to a lot of modern reform religious people, were also called atheists, because they didn't believe the more fundamentalist dogma that god had a direct hand in everything we do.

Quote:

There's a big difference, Magoo. I posted an article in the thread about the Chapel Hill shooting that points out the distinction pretty clearly. Suffice it to say that the notion that Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins have have a common cause based on nothing is absurd.

Well, I suppose some people would make a very specific point of hectoring you to not believe in Unicorns, while others simply don't believe in Unicorns (nor leprochauns, wood nymphs, werewolves, poltergeists, burning bushes that speak English, and so on).

Shame that we aren't allowed to add any new words to the English language to differentiate between Hitchens and someone who just feels no reason to believe in invisible superheroes.

"Critical" is too kind. I'm very critical of many strains of Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus (while less known than the monotheists, their fundies are as nasty as any others) and some varieties of non-believers, but I heard quite a few bigoted things in Italy the last time I was there. The current immigration from the Maghreb, the Levant, Somalia, some Balkan countries, West African countries and places I'm doubtless forgetting is not nearly as rooted in Italy as in France or the UK. When I was studying there, oh about 25 years ago, most of the Maghrebis and South-of-Sahara Africans (the groups we knew best and had friends from) were young men, transient immigrants, part student, part casual underemployed labour. This has of course changed in the meantime and their are family groups, but it remains far more recent.

Italy will have to find means of better integrating immigrants. I think they still have the mindset of being a poor country that is a net exporter of migrants to "America", to "Buenosairé e Brocolino" as an old Calabrian interviewee said to me, and later to northern Europe. There are very serious economic problems in Italy now, but they aren't the problems of an underdeveloped country, except in some pockets in the far South.

Personally, I try to differentiate by referring to "small a" atheists ("I don't believe in God the way I don't believe in vampires") and "big A" atheists ("I shall not sleep so long as anyone continues to believe in a god").

But so far it hasn't caught on.  :(

It's almost like some people DON'T WANT there to be a difference.

@ Magoo

Yup. I agree.

 Infographic spells out eight "tell-tale signs" of radicalization for people to watch out for in others.

Cant make this shit up!

1. They are suspicious of old friends.

2. They reject their family members.

 3. They suddenly change their eating habits.

4. They drop out of school or vocational training.

5. They stop listening to music.

6. They do not watch television or go to cinemas.

7. They stop playing sports.

8. They change their attire.

9. They visit violent websites.

All of France is rolling its eyes.

 "In fact, the campaign to #StopDjihadism isn't about identifying potential jihadists, it's about describing unemployed people," said one response. "The government invites you to be wary of those who do not eat baguettes," said another skeptically.

While the efforts of the French government are to be applauded (French teens have been specifically targeted as potential converts to the cause by Islamic State militants, even those from French or atheist backgrounds) this reductive infographic turns the complicated issue of religious and political radicalization into a shopping list of behaviors that nearly anyone can exhibit. Unless France wants to turn into post-9/11 America, where "terror alerts" volleyed so swiftly between yellows and oranges that the entire exercise became meaningless, it should tone down the alarmist rhetoric — at least where the baguettes are concerned.

Worth reading in full. Not just for this bit:

Quote:

One way is to say that, if you do not offend my sensibilities, I will refrain from offending yours. That approach sounds nice, and it’s popular in many quarters, but if applied in a consistent and democratic way it will lead to a tyranny of silence. In a multicultural and digital world, it’s very difficult to say anything that won’t be perceived as offensive to somebody either in your own society or in a far-away country...

.. to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. Streicher served two prison sentences. Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public-relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate. In the years from 1923 to 1933, Der Stürmer [Streicher’s newspaper] was either confiscated or editors taken to court on no fewer than thirty-six occasions. The more charges Streicher faced, the greater became the admiration of his supporters.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/copenhagen-speech-violence

That's a pretty appalling info-graphic, but the translations should be full ones to actually understand what's being said -- there is a world of difference between "they stop playing sports" and "they stop playing sports because the sports are mixed [gender]," for instance. 

Was good to hear on the radio that Danish Jewish leaders say they will not gomto Israel because Denmark is their home. 

[url=http://news.yahoo.com/denmarks-jews-defiant-attack-vow-stay-185206401.html]"We appreciate the invitation, but we are Danish citizens, this is our country," Dan Rosenberg Asmussen, chairman of the Jewish Society in Denmark, told Reuters as he offered condolences to mourners at the synagogue."[/url]

Damn straight.

What I posted is the full (loose) translation of what the infographic says. What NS posted is a translation of only the text in blue, omitting the text in black. I've added the omitted parts in very loose translation in bold below. 

NS wrote:

1. They are suspicious of old friends [b]who they now consider "impure"[/b]

2. They reject their family members. 

 3. They suddenly change their eating habits.

4. They drop out of school or vocational training [b]because the studies offered are part of a conspiracy[/b]

5. They stop listening to music [b]because it takes away from their "mission"[/b]

6. They do not watch television or go to cinemas [b]becasue they might see images that are "forbidden"[/b]

7. They stop playing sports [b]because they are mixed[/b]

8. They change their attire [b]particularly girls, with clothes that conceal the body[/b]

9. They visit violent websites [b]or social netowrks of a radical or extremist nature[/b]

This is not to justify the infographic, of course, which remains disturbing in its imagery (oh noez, they aren't eating baguette!), just to provide a fuller rather than partial translation. Others can no doubt translate more elegantly.

Here's a similar infographic about depression:

[IMG]http://i57.tinypic.com/e037up.jpg[/IMG]

Evidently not eating a baguette could indicate radicalization, but not eating Swiss cheese could indicate depression.  As could a crucifix, lightning, arrows pointing wherever, a mild incline, and Pac Man.

Looking back, it's obvious the whole thing was cribbed from Adorno's theory of the "authoritarian personality", which is also the basis for some of those checklists people pass around to "prove" that right-wingers are all mentally ill. I guess the Ministry had hired a philosophy MA who was chomping at the bit to prove that his degree wasn't totally useless.

A baguette is a logical representation of food in France or much of southern Europe, although of course nowadays the role of bread of any kind has diminished in 1st-world diets. And baguettes are eaten as much in the "no-go-zones" as anywhere else; moreover several of the recent winnters of the Best Baguette award (very serious in France) have been from the Maghreb or West Africa.

A flatter, denser bread is also common in Maghrebi communities - it isn't as flat as a pita. Similar bread is eaten in nearby Sicily. But it seems easier to draw a baguette to indicate "bread" - baguettes are very common throughout the Maghreb... and also in the former "French Indochina", whence our lovely Vietnamese banh mi.

That depression graphic is very discriminatory. I guess Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and atheists can't be suicidal?

It is also strange to show loss of appetite alone when depression can also lead to overeating, especially "seasonal depression".

A group of Muslims plan on forming a "peace ring" around a synagogue in Oslo, Norway, following the recent attack on a synagogue in Copenhagen.

Hajrad Arshad, the 17-year-old organizing the event, told Norway broadcaster NRK that the group wants to "extinguish the prejudices people have against Jews and against Muslims."

"We think that after the terrorist attacks in Copenhagen, it is the perfect time for us Muslims to distance ourselves from the harassment of Jews that is happening," she said.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/muslims-protect-norway-synagogue?utm_content=buffer685fe&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer