I see that Twitter-activist for misogyny rights Milo Yiannopoulos was on that BBC The Big Questions last week, which I would have known yesterday if I had watched all of the segment on Whither Blokes? but I didn’t watch all of it so I didn’t know he was on. It’s bizarre that the BBC gives airtime to people like him, since he’s more a bully and harasser than he is an “activist.”
Anyway he was, and Kate Smurthwaite got new consignments of Twitter misogyny afterwards. One sample:
Here’s another thing we can sign – a call to political action to Free Raif and Waleed.
So far 12 MPs, 9 MSPs, and 4 members of the House of Lords have signed. Scores of prominent human rights activists, writers, lawyers and journalists have also signed as well as hundreds of others (see below). Please continue to add your name to this statement. Further action will be necessary.
Raif’s wife Ensaf Haidar has just written to us about this letter.
“I am very grateful for your action in support of my husband’s freedom– please help me get my husband back. His children need him” [Read more…]
University of North Georgia. College course catalogue. Illustration inside said catalogue.
Interesting choice, especially with the caption.
Children at a London primary school were banned from watching the eclipse for “religious and cultural reasons.”
Council officials demanded an explanation from the head of the school in a multi-cultural suburb of west London.
Phil Belman, the father of a seven-year-old girl at North Primary School in Southall, rang the headteacher to express his anger. [Read more…]
The Big Questions last Sunday – starting 20 minutes in they talk about apostasy. Amal Farah, an ex-Muslim, explains what it can be like to be an ex. Abdullah Al Andalusi bullshits for Britain. Kate Smurthwaite is there too. (The first twenty minutes are devoted to talking about whether Britain has become intolerant of blokes, which was so annoying I skipped ahead after a few minutes, but Kate was doing a good job of replying to the Bloke Representative.)
Are you kidding me.
A public school in New York state’s foreign language department arranged to have “the pledge of allegiance” recited in a different language each day for a week. I despise “the pledge” for many reasons – I think it’s nationalistic, coercive, theocratic, and just generally dopy and obnoxious – but if you’re going to have one, reciting it in different languages is quite a cool idea.
And Pine Bush High School in Pine Bush, New York decided to do that and it did it but uh oh uh oh, one of the languages was…brace yourselves…Arabic. Oh no!! Not Arabic! [Read more…]
Leo Igwe delivered The Blackham Lecture 2015 in Birmingham on March 12.
To all my friends at Birmingham Humanists, thank you for the honor of selecting me to deliver this year’s Harold Blackham Memorial Lecture.
I never had the honor of meeting Harold Blackham but I read about his great achievements. Notably his contributions to the British Humanist Association and to the international humanist movement. I am a product of that international humanist project. I stand here, grateful to Harold Blackham and others who contributed to the founding of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. Blackham was a philosopher and a teacher who cared about moral education. He understood the importance of moral questions and inquiry to the humanist project.
How should we live? This is one of the great humanist questions. For me the question has been: How are we Africans to live in the face of contemporary moral dilemmas? This question leads us to more questions: How can Africans achieve a morally meaningful life in this 21st century? What are the moral choices open to them? How should an African live in a world where moral and educational choices are constrained by powerful local and international religious interests? Is there a secular way of addressing these moral challenges? [Read more…]
It’s 126 in Sanaa, Yemen. At two mosques, during prayers. Daesh says “we did that.”
Suicide bombers have attacked two mosques in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, killing at least 126 people and wounding many others, reports say.
Worshippers were attending noon prayers at the Badr and al-Hashoosh mosques when at least four attackers struck.
The mosques are used mainly by supporters of the Zaidi Shia-led Houthi rebel movement, which controls Sanaa.
Islamic State (IS), which set up a branch in Yemen in November, said it was behind the attacks.
Is it “Islamophobia” to point out that this is Muslims killing Muslims?
Witnesses said two suicide bombers attacked the Badr mosque, in the south of Sanaa.
One entered the building and detonated his explosive device among dozens of worshippers, the witnesses added. Survivors then sought to escape through the main gates, where the second bomber was waiting.
Al Jazeera reported that the prominent Houthi cleric al-Murtada bin Zayd al-Mahatwari, the imam of the Badr mosque, was among those killed.
Two more bombers attacked the al-Hashoosh mosque, in the north of the capital, with one detonating explosives near the entrance and the other running into the mosque itself.
Lots of death. A big harvest of death. Major success in the body parts department.
“The heads, legs and arms of the dead people were scattered on the floor of the mosque,” Mohammed al-Ansi told Associated Press news agency, adding that “blood is running like a river”.
Mr Ansi said that many of those who were not killed by the explosion were seriously injured by shattered glass that fell from the mosque’s windows.
More than 260 people are reported to have been injured.
These were people at prayers, don’t forget.
Welcome to the Ummah.
There’s a report in Stern, in German, that Raif Badawi’s case has been sent by the Jeddah Criminal Court to the High Court. Elham Manea took it seriously enough to share with Ensaf Haidar, and Ensaf shared it with everyone.
That could be either good or bad; it’s unknown which.
But don’t worry – the OIC just told us that
Islam, which Saudi Arabia – a founding member of the OIC – is governed by, is centered on the values of justice, compassion, equality, tolerance and the notion of human vicegerency.
So obviously Saudi Arabia isn’t going to behead Raif for expressing an opinion about religion that the Saudi rulers don’t share. That wouldn’t be just or compassionate or egalitarian or tolerant.
