timeimmortal

It’s Wednesday, and Muslims are offended again. This time, the object of their ire is a new advertisment for the Tayside (that’s in Scotland) police force which advertises the service’s new phone number for “non-emergency” calls.

The advert in question, pictured below, features a cute little puppy sitting in a policeman’s hat. And owing to the fact that dogs are considered unclean in Islam, this postcard advert “has sparked outrage from Muslims.”

Yes. This image:

…has sparked outrage.

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

Strangely, I’ve not heard any news of Muslim outrage over the blatant discrimination and oppression of women that is evident in e.g. the following:

(for reference: that’s a picture of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the woman who is apparently his wife — Iran’s “First Lady”, so to speak)

Also lacking: Muslim outrage over e.g. the honour killing of Aqsa Parvez and other daughters of Muslim parents over essentially trivial matters (Aqsa herself was murdered for refusing to wear the Islamic headscarf, the hijab).

It’s bad enough that the Muslims complaining about this advert don’t have the presence of mind to realize that they are a minority group with no intrinsic right to force their views or beliefs on anyone else, let along on the society to which they have come. As Mark Shea points out, they just “can’t seem to get it through their infantile heads that the rest of us are not obliged to bother our heads about their particular cultural taboos.”

Dundee councillor Mohammed Asif said: ‘My concern was that it’s not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.

‘It was probably a waste of resources going to these communities.

‘They (the police) should have understood. Since then, the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part, and that if they’d seen it was going to cause upset they wouldn’t have done it.’

I usually give up alcohol for Lent, O Reader, and I usually try and observe the tradition of eating fish on Fridays during that time as well. A lot of Catholics do the same. How many of us, do you suppose, have ever expressed “outrage” that bars continue to feature happy hour specials and deals on steak sandwiches on Friday evenings? Yeah…didn’t think so. And while I’ve heard more than a few hilarious jokes from Jews about the impact of eating pork on one’s mental prowess, how many Jews do you suppose have ever expressed outrage over seeing coupons for bacon in the flyers that get delivered to their houses on a weekly basis?

But evidently, Muslims in and around Tayside evidently are not familiar with the concept of maturity in faith.

And the police are apologizing for this? Where’s that Scotch spirit? Where’s that Celtic fire? Where is someone — anyone — with the courage to say to Mr. Asif and all the others who have filed complaints about this advert: “This is Scotland. Sod off and deal with it. The advert stands, your grubby traditions be damned.”

Update: There is hope!

Mr Asif’s comments have won little support among the public or Dundee’s Islamic community.

Last night Mahmud Sarwar, trustee of the Scottish Islamic and Cultural Centre and the Dura Street mosque, appealed for calm.

He said he had no problems with the postcard and called on homeowners and local businesses to display them as it is in the public interest.

“I’ve not heard anything about that from members of the community,” Mr Sarwar said.

“I was round some shops today and at the mosque and nobody has said anything about it.”

Mr Sarwar said that religious sensitivities would prevent him from displaying the postcard on a building of religious significance but there was nothing to stop them being displayed in shops.

“There is not a dog—it is just a picture,” he said.

More like Mahmud Sawar, please!

If you didn’t give up beer/alcohol for Lent, O Reader, have a pint for me! And someone pinch me! I totally forgot to wear green today.

Also, I don’t care if it means I am white — Guinness really does taste better across the Pond.

see more crazy cat pics

It’s Friday, people — no meat!

You know what that means, right, O Reader? Yup…it’s time for another movie about how the Gospels don’t tell us the truth about the life of Jesus and/or his disciples!

The BBC is to screen a new drama about the final week in the life of Jesus Christ which appears to exonerate [Judas Iscariot] and Pontius Pilate.

Producers of The Passion have portrayed the men in a sympathetic light because they believe they have been”very harshly judged” by history.

Judas is portrayed as torn between his loyalties to Jesus and Caiaphas, who organised the plot to kill Jesus.

Pilate, played by James Nesbitt, is shown struggling to manage his wife’s social aspirations and his career as he tried to”keep a lid” on tensions in Jerusalem.

Traditional Christian groups accused the BBC of rewriting the Gospel, but the makers of the series, which will be broadcast over Easter week, said they were simply trying to understand the motivations of the characters.

If the producers want to understand Judas’ motivations, and Pilate’s also, perhaps they should try the more traditional route for gaining such insight — reading the Bible, consulting reliable exegetical commentaries, and attending Mass on a consistent basis (especially during the season of Lent, which began last month and continues for another week and change). Producing glib historical fiction that seeks to portray Judas — the archetypical greedy betrayer — in a positive light is not a path that leads to understanding, but to greater confusion.

It’s so drearily predictable. Oh, one likes to pretend that all these entertainment and media organizations are just driven by profit and care only about the bottom line. And yet, almost like clockwork, something challenging Christian orthodoxy can be counted upon to emerge, from a major media organization, almost every time Easter rolls around. That’s not profit driving…that’s agenda and bias.

Don’t believe me? Let’s wait and see if some “alternative historical fiction” challenging the traditional interpretation of a Koranic story gets released during Ramadan. Then tell me there’s no bias.

brookelyn writes in with some further commentary on Bill C-10, following up on another article I had written about same.

I’m going to break this one up and respond to it in parts.

First of all thank you for posting a link to the actually bill, it’s been hard to find.

Just for the record: from the default parlimentary website for the Government of Canada, the text of Bill C-10 can be found in four clicks (Bills > Government Bills > C-10 > As passed by the House of Commons).

The current government requirements for the tax credits are more than sufficient they are very detailed, very specific and focus on work being created in Canada by Canadians.

And to think that people consider it jingoistic when Americans express with pride, on various products, that said products were made in America, by Americans.

The idea being that if a Canadian creates the content, it is intrinsically Canadian.

See, this is where I would actually dispute that idea. Someone like Jim Carrey is Canadian by birth, but he lives and works in the U.S. Anything he “creates” — a comedy routine, a movie, etc. — is not intrinsically Canadian even though a Canadian was involved, in whole or in part, with the production of the content in question. The sentiment that since a Canadian created something, that something is intrinsically Canadian seems, at best, rather misguided, and at worst rather dishonest.

The problem with allowing the government to monitor content is that now a small group of people is determining what is Canadian.

Except that we’ve already established that the government already has stipulations and guidelines regarding the granting of funding to Canadian media productions, which presumably require that the government take a role in monitoring the content of those productions to ensure that they are “intrinsically Canadian,” and therefore worthy of receiving funding.

In other words, the extant system already appoints a “small group of people” to determine “what is Canadian.” So why present a methodological objection to a bill that won’t significantly change the methodology employed in the government’s process of deciding which productions do or do not receive funding? The primary changes effected by this law will be to decision-making criteria, not to the method by which the decision is reached.

For example if a person is really offend by the word Fucking or the idea of teenagers fucking — it’s called “Young People Fucking” by the way — and wants to cut funding to a film because of it. Martin Gero the director of that sweat, funny, refreshing truthful romantic comedy, is brilliant and his artistic voice is exactly what I want my tax dollars to pay for. And it is exactly the type of project that needs a tax break to get made.

Why? Couldn’t he secure enough independent funding to complete the project? Was he unable, as many other directors have had to do, to fund the project himself? Could he have perhaps sought international investments of some kind? This film may be everything you say, and may even be a great film, although one wouldn’t know from the title (as an analog, would we assume that a book with a title like “The Divine Taste of Baked Feces” contains some of the most amazingly flavourful recipes known to humankind?).

But there’s another question. As has been established, existing guidelines attempt to ensure that funding goes to “intrinsically Canadian” productions. What is “intrinsically Canadian” about Young People F**king (I know what the movie is actually called — smarter than a box of hammers, here! — but I am trying to curb my cussin’ for Lent)? Do all Canadian teens f**k? Do all young Canadian teens f**k? Should they be f**king, if in fact some are currently not f**king? Is sex between young teenagers an “intrinsically Canadian” concept and/or practice?

Some people may feel that a production of this sort is exactly what they want their tax dollars to go toward funding. Others, myself included, would rather our hard-earned dollars not be funnelled into such productions. Whose preference, then, is the more valid? Should Canadians get a direct choice as to which productions their dollars go toward funding, and which productions their dollars should be denied to? Methinks such a system would be a little too clunky (and would doubtless result in Martin Gero, among others of questionable taste, losing quite a lot of access to dollars as a result). So…should the people be able to rely on their government to better appropriate the use of government funds, almost all of which come from taxes in the first place, by being more cautious in its investments and more exacting as to the qualifying criteria for receiving funding?

Or should the proles just shut up and accept what the Martin Geros have to offer them?

The point is it’s all of our money, it’s all of our culture, and the decision to view a film should be made by all of us at the box office.

Were a film privately funded, I would be the first person to agree — let the box office decide, and let the private entities who invested in the film reap the rewards of having made something people like and support, or reap the losses of having made something people feel isn’t worth supporting.

But with the issue of government funding of films, the rules change a bit. Whether or not I, as a Canadian taxpayer, go and see Young People F**king at the theatre, I’ve already contributed to it financially by the simple act of paying taxes. So the notion of voting for (or against) a production with my wallet is meaningless — money that I worked to earn has already landed in the hands of the production’s producers.

The fact of the matter is, it is not “all of our money” — it is either our money (as individuals), or it is the government’s money. Either way, other people apart from us and the government are not entitled to receive so much as a red cent; the only money we’re ever entitled to receive is the money we work for, after making an agreement with our employer that for a specific quantity and kind of work, we will receive a set financial compensation. Tax revenues are not the collective property of all Canadians, any more than my bank account is the collective property of all Canadians.

Because of the fact that my bank account is my own, and its contents mine alone, I exercise discernment and discretion about which causes I choose to support, and which I do not choose to support. No cause can — or should — expect that I will support them, and no cause should dare assume that it is entitled to my support of it. That decision rests with me, and me alone.

What is so wrong about the government reasserting that government funds are not the automatic entitlement of every two-bit Canadian hack director who has a video camera and a couple of no-name actors willing to doff their clothes? If government funding of film and television productions should go to those productions that reflect Canadian values and are “intrinsically Canadian,” then shouldn’t the Canadian government have every right — as the elected representatives of the people of Canada — to tighten the criteria it uses to reward those funds to those productions, the same as any citizen of Canada is fully entitled to do?

It’s not Censorship to say that the government will not fund certain categories of production, because the government is not actively forbidding people from producing content within those categories — it is simply saying that it will not, in and of itself, fund those productions (they will have to secure private funding instead of public). At no point would actually making something like Young People F**king become illegal (which would be true censorship). If those productions which do not qualify for public funding cannot secure private funding either (that is, if a Canadian production cannot secure adequate private funding within Canada), perhaps the producers of those affected productions should sit down and reflect on whether the majority of Canadians would really, honestly look upon their work as something “intrinsically Canadian” and/or representative of Canadian values.

Dutch Catholics have re-branded the Lent fast as the “Christian Ramadan” in an attempt to appeal to young people who are more likely to know about Islam than Christianity.

That’s it. I’m going to start calling Ramadan the “Muslim Lent” from now on. In this information-driven age, rhetoric is such an intergral part of any argument. Too bad the Dutch Catholic Church wimped out on an opportunity to make some very necessary waves and put the Islamist bullies in their place.

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: Mark Steyn)

Once more, the season of Lent has arrived, and once more Catholics world-wide will be receiving the sign upon their foreheads of ashes.

In the past, I used to struggle to reconcile the very visible sign of an ashen Cross upon the forehead with Christ’s teaching that, unlike “the hypocrites”, the faithful ought to pray in secret, so that God (who sees in secret) may be pleased and give blessings and reward. (Matthew 6)

But then, I think that would be the wrong teaching to reflect on when one is thinking about what Ash Wednesday is about, and what the ashes signify.

In another place in the Gospels (Luke 18), there is an interesting contrast given between two different people who have come to the temple to pray. One one hand, Jesus criticizes the very public prayer of the Pharisees, remarking on how they pray so as to be seen in prayer and lauded by others for how devout they are. On the other hand, the tax collector stands at a distance and openly weeps for being a sinner — he can be seen by others, and indeed others do notice him, but his prayer is offered in meekness and sorrow. He is not there to be seen, and would probably prefer not to be seen, but it is more important to him to beg forgiveness for his many sins.

It’s no coincidence that the above reading is sometimes used in Ash Wednesday services, and I think it more properly encapsulates just what the sign of ashes is all about. This is not an instance where we Catholics are professing our being Christian to the high heavens and expecting to be lauded for it. It is, first and foremost, a sign that we are weak, sinful, mortal, and doomed without the love of Christ to guide us. We are not saying “we are great”, but rather admitting that we are lowly, weak, and lost.