Thursday, May 10, 2018



If the Met Gala was Islam or Jewish-themed, all hell would break loose – so why was it OK for a bunch of flesh-flashing celebrities to disrespect Catholicism?

My background is evangelical Protestant.  Some of us even used to refer to the Pope as "old red socks" (He wears red shoes) but even I found the Met Gala distasteful -- JR

By Piers Morgan

 I have some breaking news. Next year's Met Gala is going to have an 'Islam' theme. Yes, guests in 2019 will be encouraged to wear skimpy, provocative dresses that 'celebrate' the Prophet Mohammad, Islamic clothing including hijabs and burqas, and the Koran.

I can also reveal that the 2020 Met Gala will have a 'Jewish' theme.  Yes, a bunch of celebrities and models will be posing for the world's paparazzi dressed in all manner of Jewish attire and regalia, including dressing up as Rabbis and wearing kippahs.

Oh, wait.

Neither of these things is actually going to happen. In fact, just by suggesting it, I'm sure I will be subjecting myself to immediate anger from many Muslims and Jews.

Yet apparently it's absolutely fine to have a 'Catholic' theme, as we saw at last night's Met Gala.

Christianity, it would seem, is fair game for a mocking fashion parade.

Now I'm not a big one for 'cultural appropriation' fury.

When Utah teenager Keziah Daum recently wore a Chinese style prom dress, I found the backlash that exploded against her utterly absurd given that nobody in China seemed to be remotely offended.

But there was widespread rage towards her from PC-crazed liberals across America, and it's the inconsistent and hypocritical LACK of widespread rage from PC-crazed liberals across America about last night's Met Gala that ironically makes me angry.

Why is it deemed unacceptable to wear a red Chinese dress to a prom, but acceptable to lampoon an entire religion at a celebrity gala?

This particular subject is personal to me.

I'm a Catholic.

Not the most devout you'll ever meet, I'll admit.

But I was brought up a Catholic – I even received not entirely successful spiritual guidance from nuns as a teenager! – and I still consider myself to be a Catholic.

I know many people don't believe in any God or religion, let alone Catholicism, and I respect that.

All I ask in return is for my beliefs not to be rudely disrespected.

Just as I always respect other religions even if I don't believe in what they represent.

To me, this year's Met Gala crossed a line and was openly, brazenly disrespectful.

By doing so, it confirmed itself as an organisation of rank double standards, because everyone knows they'd have never dared do it to Islam or Judaism.

Apparently – staggeringly - the Vatican gave permission for the Gala to be 'Catholic-themed' because it has already provided a variety of clothes and other items for an accompanying exhibition at the Met.

To which my response is: what the hell was the Vatican thinking?

There is a massive difference between seeing religious artefacts tastefully and respectfully laid out in a museum and seeing them stuck on some flesh-flaunting celebrity's head at a party.

The night was titled 'Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination' and the stars and their designers threw themselves into the theme with maximum creative gusto.

Rihanna came as a silver Pope, complete with Mitre.

'It feels expensive, it would be a sin not to wear it!' she told Vogue, without it would seem a thought for whether it felt offensive.

Jennifer Lopez came as a jewel-encrusted multi-coloured cross.

Kim Kardashian wore a Versace gold gown with large crosses emblazoned on her hips and torso (The same hips and torso she's spent the past two weeks flashing naked online). She had two more necklace crosses perched above her bulging cleavage.

The Hadid sisters: Gigi went as a stain glass window and Bella went with crosses and black leather. Bella Hadid went for the black leather and PVC look, complemented by crosses.

A lot of the imagery was highly sexualised, which you might think not just inappropriate for a religious theme but also incredibly offensive to the many victims of sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

Victoria's Secret model Stella Maxwell thought it fun to have images of the Virgin Mary all over her strapless dress.

Ruby Rose wore a red tunic showing off her vulgar tattoos and a cross.

Greta Gerwig came as a nun.

Madonna, who looked preposterous in a black Jean Paul Gaultier gown and tiara, later sang her hit Like A Prayer at the after-party. When it first came out, Madonna enjoyed enraging Catholics by making a video featuring burning crosses, statues crying blood and her seducing a black Jesus. What a nice touch to have this blasphemous old crone returning in all her unedifying glory to insult us all over again.

But comfortably the worst offender was Sarah Jessica Parker who had an entire Nativity Play scene on her head.

Really, Ms Parker? You think it's perfectly OK to do that? I don't.

The bottom line is that the Met Gala would never even consider an Islamic or Jewish theme for its big night.

The organisers know full well that if they did, they'd be closed down within hours of it finishing.

They chose Catholicism, and Christianity, because they calculated that we wouldn't mind as much.

Well, I do mind.  And I think a lot of other Catholics and Christians will mind, too.

Those celebrities who took part in this offensive fiasco need to ask themselves one question: 'Would I have gone dressed as a Muslim or a Jew if I were not Muslim or Jewish?'

If the obvious answer is 'No, of course not' then they should all be ashamed of themselves.

SOURCE






Facebook’s War on Speech

By Brigitte Gabriel

The tech revolution has had a profoundly positive effect on advancing freedom of thought and expression. Unfortunately, Facebook’s recent unveiling of a so called “hate speech” button, foreshadows a dangerous future in which this precious principle will no longer exist.

For decades, leftists enjoyed a monopoly on media and entertainment.  Their ability to control the dissemination of information allowed them to advance their anti-American culture war, and silence those who attempted to sound the alarm.

With the exception of Fox News, traditional media outlets such as ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. continuously spew the same leftist talking points on a nightly basis and remain united in their coup against President Trump. But what these ideologues didn’t realize throughout the 2016 Presidential campaign was, Americans weren’t buying their fake news propaganda anymore. Why? Because the way Americans and the world itself retrieves information has changed.

With the tech revolution, Americans have a more customizable means of getting their news and being entertained. Instead of sitting down at the same time every night watching the evening news, they can stay updated on current events through Facebook, or Twitter throughout the day, by simply glancing at their phone.

Gone are the days when Americans couldn’t fact-check leftist pundits and politicians on television, who deceptively frame stories in order to advance their agenda. More to it, gone are the days when the mainstream media could bury a story, simply because it contrasted with their worldview. Now, information is everywhere, and the left’s ability to control the culture is dwindling.

Consequently, the left has gone into panic mode, after the wake-up call they suffered in November 2016. They’ve since attempted to reframe this rebuke of their propaganda efforts by doubling down on them and spewing fake news about so called “collusion” between the Trump campaign and mysterious Russian operatives.

While they wear their poker face on a nightly basis, continuing this factless and embarrassingly absurd narrative, they know that deep down, it wasn’t Putin who elected President Trump, it was the American people.

“But how could this be?” They must’ve asked themselves this question a thousand times.

After all, from the day he announced his candidacy, every mainstream media outlet in America united to attack, malign, and smear then candidate Trump on almost a 24/7 basis, and yet, he was legitimately elected by the American people.

Acknowledging this terrifying reality that they no longer have the ability to control information, the left has turned to tech outlets themselves to try to put the cat back in the bag before it’s too late.

Facebook Founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently testified before joint Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees about a massive Facebook data breach. During his testimony, Senator Ted Cruz appropriately took Zuckerberg to task over political bias at Facebook, which led to the removal of pages and stories that were apparently deemed by Facebook administrators to be too conservative.

Senator Cruz specified how stories relating to the IRS scandal, Mitt Romney, Glenn Beck, and the annual Conservative Political Action Conference were all suppressed. In one egregious example, the page of renowned black female Trump supporters, Diamond & Silk, was deemed to be “unsafe to the community.”

Zuckerberg tried to reassure Senator Cruz that he was committed to keeping political bias out of Facebook and allowing freedom of expression to flourish.

“We're proud of the discourse and the different ideas that people can share on the service. And that is something that, as long as I'm running the company, I'm going to be committed to making sure is the case," said Zuckerberg.[1]

Unfortunately, it appears those words were just words.

A recent Facebook test, which was supposed to remain internal, gave users the option to click below the post if they thought it contained so-called “hate speech.”

A spokesperson for Facebook proclaimed that a "bug caused it to launch publicly," but has since been disabled.

Facebook’s explanation that they were merely trying to understand what users thought was hate speech, is hard to believe, given their track record of political censorship.

One thing is certain, the left is on a mission to silence their political opponents and using “hate speech” as justification for suppressing opposing views is their newest strategy.

The radical left hates freedom of speech because it knows it cannot win in the arena of freedom of expression. Consequently, they will now infiltrate tech outlets like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google to suppress opposing voices and take back control of their monopoly on the dissemination of information.

Beware of this emerging trend, because if the left is able to suppress information through these new streams of freedom, there may be nowhere else to go for advocates of liberty. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, political correctness must die, so that freedom can live.

SOURCE






Britain: Drug gangs spread knife crime epidemic to shires; City drug gangs bring bloodshed to counties

No mystery about the ethnicity of the "gangs"

Britain’s knife crime epidemic has spread from the cities to the suburbs and shires.

Sunday Times analysis of the most recent Home Office figures show that knife crime in Hertfordshire, Warwickshire, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, Essex and Norfolk has almost doubled in three years. Official statistics suggest people are now more likely to be a victim of a knife attack in Bedfordshire than in Greater Manchester or Merseyside.

This extraordinary picture emerged after the US president, Donald Trump, in a speech to the National Rifle Association on Friday, criticised the extreme level of knife crime in London. He compared one hospital to a “war zone . . . knives, knives, knives”.

 SOURCE





Bank of America to provide financing to "assault" gun maker

FBN's Cheryl Casone on Bank of America to provide financing to Remington Outdoor weeks after its pledge to stop loaning money to companies that make assault weapons.

Bank of America may be making an about-face when it comes to financing certain gun makers.

Bank of America is preparing to provide financing to Remington Outdoor, which makes assault-type rifles, just weeks after the bank said it would stop financing “military-style” firearms for civilians, according to the New York Post.

The bank, reportedly contributing $43.2 million to a $193 million lending package funded by seven banks, according to court documents.

The plan will help stabilize Remington as it comes out of bankruptcy later this month.

Remington makes the Bushmaster assault-style rifle — the one used in the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut in 2012.

In April, the bank said it was going to stop lending to those companies, according to Bloomberg.

At the time, Bank of America was joining Citigroup as the second major U.S. lender to address gun sales since the Parkland, Fla., high school shooting that left 17 dead on Feb. 14.

Bank of America's vice chairman, Anne Finucane, told Bloomberg, in an interview, at that time, that the company is in discussions with a few manufacturers who make military-style firearms for civilians.

"It is not our intent to underwrite or finance military-style firearms on a go-forward basis," she said.

The Parkland shooting, reignited the long-running national debate over gun rights, pitting the students who survived against gun-rights advocates like the National Rifle Association.

The bank said it does not comment on client matters, according to the New York Post.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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