The outgoing president of Uruguay, who chose to maintain his humble lifestyle while in office, has refused a $1 million offer for his Volkswagen Beetle as he prepares for the end of his term. Jose Mujica is a former left-wing urban guerrilla who was imprisoned in the 1970s. He was elected on a centre-left platform, and has made significant changes in Uruguay, by attracting investment; introducing many wind farms (taking advantage of the slump in European demand due to the recession); and legalising abortion and marijuana, despite personally disapproving of both. “Look, no-one likes abortion, but women need it,” he said. His reasons for legalising marijuana are more cogent: “Drug trafficking is much worse than consumption of marijuana: look at Mexico, Honduras or Guatemala. … And the problem is that state build giant systems to fight it, and [all state employees] start thinking their task is the centre of the world. Instead of repression, I need doctors to deal with this filth!” He plans to continue to live in the three-room house that he has shared with his wife throughout his term of office, and to help her in her trade as a chrysanthemum seller.
The protests in Blackfriars against co-locating an abortion clinic with a GP’s surgery have reached Parliament. A petition against the clinic has attracted 1500 signatures – but a petition against the displays of aborted babies mounted by protesters outside the clinic has attracted twice that number of signatures, despite the protesters placing a banner further down the street warning of “graphic abortion images ahead”. Now Labour MP Diane Abbott has raised an Early Day Motion in Parliament to prevent the protesters from showing such pictures in public. Such Motions have almost no chance of becoming law; they are used to allow MPs to express support for a cause by signing the motion, or even for humorous purposes. Abbott’s motion has only been signed by one other MP to date, the maverick Tory MP Peter Bottomley.
The international news coverage of the terrorist attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem has been criticised by Israeli sources. Some of the criticisms are of the media’s slowness to confirm that this was a terrorist attack, which perhaps reflects justifiable media caution; but other criticisms include the BBC refusing to show the dead body of one of the rabbis who was killed (an Israeli interviewee held up a photo of it and was asked to take it down) despite being prepared to show photos of dead Palestinians on other occasions; the Guardian deliberately excising the fact that the attackers were Palestinian from its initial reports; and CNN describing the event as an “attack on a Jerusalem mosque.” CNN have subsequently apologised.
The New York Times has discovered that the rules of the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) permit IRS undercover agents to pose as “an attorney, physician, clergyman or member of the news media.” The IRS is already facing a Congressional investigation for apparent past bias against right wing and Christian organisations, and the possibility that “when American citizens share their concerns with the clergy, they will actually be talking to an IRS agent” has raised a whole new controversy.
Another “Christian” film that was made for TV in 1994 has been made freely available over the Internet this year. “Time Of Violence” tells the story of the sufferings of Bulgarian Christians under the (Muslim) Ottoman empire, and has good reviews on the Internet Movie Database. It is available at http://shoebat.com/2014/11/13/movie-every-christian-must-watch-understand-christians-lived-islam-2/.
In technology news, a group of artists from London and Zurich are populating their latest art exhibition by shopping on the “darknet” i.e. on the illegal equivalent of Ebay. They programmed a computer to buy one random item per week with a budget of $100 in Bitcoins. The exhibition will display both the items and the packaging in which they were sent. So far they have acquired a set of fire brigade master keys; ecstasy tablets which were shipped in a DVD case; fake Chesterfield cigarettes from Ukraine; fake trainers; a baseball cap with a hidden camera; and a copy of the “Lord of the Rings” novels, which cost less than a pound. Their last art project involved posting a camera to Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, and programming the camera to take pictures of its journey through the postal system.
And finally, a male Australian TV presenter decided to make a statement about sexist attitudes – by wearing the same suit every day for a year. Karl Stefanovic, a presenter on the breakfast show on Channel Nine, said he began the experiment when he wore the same suit two days in a row and no-one noticed. “I get judged on my interviews and on my appalling sense of humour – basically on how I do my job. Whereas women are often judged on what they’re wearing or how their hair is.” He conceded that the suit was now “a bit stinky” and that he planned to get it dry cleaned.
No comments:
Post a Comment