Posted by dnotice
October 17th, 2010
This is a cross-post of an article by Dario Battisti which was originally posted on The 21st Floor.
In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, lived a strange race of people– the Druids! No one knows who they were, or what they were doing, but their legacy remains…
Thus sang Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel in the ‘hit song’, “Stonehenge”. However, the legacy of the druids is such that druidry continues today, in its revived, revised form. Recently, the Charity Commission accepted that druidry should count as a genuine religion, which should not come over as particularly shocking to anyone. Anyone, that is, except the columnist Melanie Philips, in a smugly hypocritical article protesting against the development.
Will someone please tell me this is all a joke. Until now, Druids have been regarded indulgently as a curious remnant of Britain’s ancient past, a bunch of eccentrics who annually dress up in strange robes at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice.
Can it be long before the BBC transmits Stones Of Praise, or solemnly invites listeners to Radio 4’s Thought For The Day to genuflect to a tree?
Religious programming– imagine that! Laughable! No point is being made by this derision; Philips merely sneers at a faith which happens not to be the one she champions. Her article is replete with demeaning caricatures of druids intended to portray them as inferior savages compared to Christians .
Some might shrug this off. After all, the Druids don’t do any harm to anyone. What skin is it off anyone else’s nose how they are categorised?
Well, it actually matters rather a lot. Elevating them to the same status as Christianity is but the latest example of how the bedrock creed of this country is being undermined. More than that, it is an attack upon the very concept of religion itself.
How, exactly, is accepting druidry’s status as a religion an “attack” on religion itself? By the sound of it, Philips simply doesn’t like druids, and acknowledging that they might well fall into the ‘religion’ camp is too horrid for her to contemplate. Her article is replete of demeaning caricatures of practicing druids which serve no purpose other than to portray them as inferior to Christians. Additionally, pagan belief systems were the ‘bedrock creeds’ of Britain long before Christianity came along and decided to dismantle them, opportunistically pilfering elements which would come in handy for converting the populace.
Philips goes on to claim that druids belong to a cult rather than a religion, on the feeble basis that they believe in spirits of nature but not a ‘supreme god’, and that they are not ‘mainstream’. Yet anyone who has been following our Cult Status series will be aware of the difficulties in distinguishing cults from religions. The standard by which Philips makes her judgement seems completely arbitrary, postulated only for the sake of portraying the ever beloved Judeo-Christian faiths as superior to other faiths. You know, the wrong ones.
On the prospect of charitable status, she complains about druid leaders’ statements that they want “harmony with the earth and everything in it” by noting that:
…there are many who subscribe to no belief system at all and who would say they, too, want to live in harmony with the earth and everything in it. Are they, therefore, also to be regarded as religious folk and given charitable status?
Well, wait a minute! This would suggest that people have charitable inclinations regardless of religion, rather than as a result of it, thus undermining the practice of affording charitable status to any specific religion.
The whole thing is beyond absurd. But it is also malevolent. For it is all of a piece with the agenda by the oh-so politically correct Charity Commission to promote the fanatical religious creed of the Left — the worship of equality.
The Commission was primed by Labour for this attempt to restructure society back in 2006, when charity law was redrawn to redefine ‘public benefit’ as helping the poor.
This put the independent schools in the front line of attack, since education was no longer itself considered a benefit — as it had been since time immemorial — but only insofar as it furthered the ideology of ‘equality’.
Equal rights? Helping the poor? It’s political correctness gone mad! What’s really beyond absurd is Philips’ labelling of equal rights and concern for those in poverty as ‘malevolent’ and ‘fanatical’. This kind of outdated attitude betrays an extremely callous and oppressive streak on the author’s part.
But the new respectability of paganism cannot be laid entirely at the Charity Commission’s door. For in recent years, pagan practices have been rapidly multiplying, with an explosion of the occult: witchcraft, parapsychology, séances, telepathy and mind-bending cults.
Parapsychology, an occult practice? I was not aware that Richard Wiseman was an occultist. And when exactly did this ‘explosion of telepathy’ occur?
How on earth has our supposedly rational society come to subscribe to so much totally barking mumbo-jumbo?
That’s Melanie Philips, speaking in the Daily Mail, invoking rationality and decrying “so much totally barking mumbo jumbo” in her defence of Christian tradition. This is an astonishingly arrogant level of hypocrisy.
After making some more lazy caricatures, Philips makes the claim that focus on the natural world– that is, this world, rather than an elusive world-in-waiting– somehow provides a justification for mindless self-gratification.
These beliefs were, therefore, tailor-made for the ‘me society’ which turned against Biblical constraints on behaviour in the interests of others. They were subsequently given rocket fuel by environmentalism, at the core of which lies the pagan worship of ‘Mother Earth’.
I’m still not sure how the worship of the natural world, outside of oneself, amounts to self-worship. That sounds like the exact opposite to me.
…they were then legitimised by the doctrines of equality of outcomes and human rights — which, far from protecting the rights of truly religious people, aim to force Biblical morality and belief out of British and European public life altogether.
This is because human rights and equality of outcomes are held to be universal values. That means they invariably trump specific religious beliefs to impose instead equal status for all creeds.But if all creeds, however absurd, have equal meaning then every belief is equally meaningless. And without the Judeo-Christian heritage there would be no morality and no true human rights.
Yes, imagine the nightmare scenario that promoting human rights as universal values would result in. Never mind the fact that the whole point of human rights is that, as far as humans are concerned, they are universal values (and therefore must indeed trump religious doctrines which deny human rights, as any civilised person would realise). In any case, what the hell does “equality of outcomes” mean? Equal rights doesn’t mean that every outcome is the same, but that individuals in society are given equal opportunities within that society and not discriminated against– that citizens should have equal status as citizens. This terminology appears to have been devised solely to imply moral relativism where no such implication follows. The pathway beginning from equal rights and leading to absolute moral relativism does not exist.
There is nothing remotely enlightened about paganism. It was historically tied up with both communism and fascism, precisely because it is a negation of reason and the bedrock values behind Western progress.
It is not in the least surprising that, like any good fundamentalist nut, Philips does not neglect the obligatory unsubstantiated Godwin. The idea that the insular and insidious brand of Christianity championed throughout – a version of Christianity which does not recognise human rights as universal values – has somehow been the bedrock of Western progress is perverse.
The result is that, under the secular onslaught of human rights, our society is reverting to a pre-modern era of anti-human superstition and irrationality. From human rights, you might say, to pagan rites in one seamless progression.
This damning of secularism as instigating a reversion to “anti-human superstition and irrationality” is also utterly bizarre. By ensuring that people can live in a society whereby the religious views of one group (cough, Melanie Philips, cough) cannot be imposed on others, therefore meaning that measures have to be negotiated according to a rational, humanist approach, secularism defends against the advance of anti-human superstition and irrationality in making sure that it does not become a basis for laws. That is essentially the very purpose of secularism.
Anyone who thinks radical egalitarianism is progressive has got this very wrong. We are hurtling backwards in time to a more primitive age.
All this leads me to suspect that Melanie Philips writes her column from the safety of some bizarre parallel universe where a red traffic light means ‘go’, and rain falls upwards. A world in which a religious group is not a religion, in which worship of the natural world means self-worship, in which human rights are not universal values, in which equality is a malevolent doctrine, in which secularism favours superstition and irrationality, and in which egalitarianism is primitive and regressive. Her near-colonialist rage at the existence of anything non-Christian belongs in only two places that I can think of: the Dark Ages… and the pages of the Daily Mail.
Categories: Guest Blog, Melanie Philips, Religion |
14 Comments
Posted by dnotice
October 16th, 2010
This is a cross-post on The Sun – Tabloid Lies, Express Watch and Mail Watch.
When you read the Sun, Daily Mail and the Express over a long-enough period of time, you start to notice a few things.
One thing that crops up regularly are hysterical ranting posts over a few small topics, including the following:
We’ve noticed that a lot of these scare stories could be stopped by a little research, which we accept that pressed-for-time tabloid journalists, for whatever reason, are unable to do.
Therefore, in the spirit of co-operation, we’ve decided to help them out by listing great sources of information, thereby saving them valuable time:
There are also a variety of websites which can be used for any “Bloody Foreigners! Coming over ‘ere! Takin’ our jobs! Takin’ our wimmin!” stories*:
There are also more general fact-checking sites**:
Of course, any and all of these lists could also be used by anyone else who wants to know more about the articles which the Sun, Daily Mail and/or the Express publish.
If anyone has any other suggestions as what other sources our tabloid journalists could use, just leave them in the comments.
* Thanks to Tabloid Watch for these particular links
** Thanks to Bloggerheads for these suggestions
Categories: EU, Healthcare, Immigration, Media, Political correctness |
4 Comments
Posted by sim-o
September 29th, 2010
The EU is only interfering again. This time it’s telling Cadburys’ to change it’s slogan…
EU forces Cadbury’s to axe its iconic glass-and-a-half slogan from chocolate bars
Grrr!
Oh, hang on. I think someone forgot to read the article before coming deciding on the headline because…
Experts at the Trading Standards Institute (TSI) said the EU rules should not apply in the Cadbury case.
TSI spokesman, Andy Foster, said: ‘The Cadbury slogan is well known by consumers and should not be confused or caught up with food labelling laws.’
He said the slogan was not part of the ingredients list, and so was not affected by rules regarding food labelling.
‘Therefore the Trading Standards Institute would have no objection to the continued use of the famous slogan unless it was considered misleading by consumers,’ he said.
That last quote is in the article itself.
Maybe a better headline would be “Mail blames EU for Cadbury getting it wrong”
h/t Mr Power
Categories: EU |
Tags: Cadbury, EU, misleading headline | 12 Comments
Posted by 5cc
September 27th, 2010
‘Sense of humour failure: Council slaps ban on mother-in-law jokes for being ‘offensively sexist’‘ appeared in yesterday’s Mail, claiming that Barnet Council had banned the jokes in a 12 page council publication.
What did Barnet Council say? Um:
“Barnet council does not have a policy on mother-in-law jokes.
“There is no booklet and no ban on mother-in-law jokes.
“Our advice to staff is that they should be polite and avoid giving offence to any member of the public.”
What really happened is that an external training company gave handouts to 30 odd staff that went on one training course, which only advised against doing them in front of members of the public.
Hardly Political Correctness going mad is it?
Remember: when the Mail says something ridiculous has been banned, what it really means is that someting ridiculous hasn’t been banned. At all.
Categories: Political correctness |
2 Comments
Posted by Dave Cross
September 25th, 2010
The Daily Mail never misses an opportunity to push its agenda, does it. Writing about the Labour Leadership election today, Nicola Boden says:
Once regarded as the dark horse in the competition, the energy
spokesman, 40, took the crown thanks to the party’s complicated voting
system.
“Complicated”? How can you possibly describe the single transferable alternative vote as “complicated”? Unless, of course, you’re writing for a publication that is trying to persuade its readers that any deviation from first past the post is unnatural.
Update: Corrected STV to AV. And that, of course, makes the Mail’s comments even more political. AV is the voting system that we’re due a referendum on.
[Cross-posted from davblog]
Categories: Politics |
11 Comments
Posted by Tim Ireland
September 16th, 2010
The Daily Mail have just engaged in what can fairly be described as a typically misleading attack* on someone with whom they have a difference of opinion; rather than allow their argument to stand on its own merits, they have chosen to entirely misrepresent the position of their opponent.
All praise to Stephen Fry, not only for having the courage to stand up to the Daily Mail, but for also having the wit and patience to pick their pathetic straw man to pieces:
Hated By The Daily Mail
I was one of 50 signatories to a letter that called into question the official state nature of the papal visit. I didn’t write the letter, but am proud to stand behind it and with my fellow signatories. Otherwise my “hate campaign”, as they well know, begins with the words, “I’ve no objection to the Pope coming to visit Britain, he is welcome to do so…” it is, as I go on to say, none of my business. I go out of my way to make it clear that I fully respect the desire of the pious, the faithful and the devout to welcome their spiritual father, their supreme Pontiff.
My only objection is that this be a State Visit. It hasn’t happened before and the Vatican is in no real sense a nation state. Visit the place: it takes fifty minutes to walk round. You don’t need a passport or visa to enter. It is a curlicue of history that makes this “absolute monarchy” (to quote the Holy See’s own website) a “country”. Under no reasonable or worthwhile definition does the Vatican match up to the old-established and widely accepted Montevideo protocols on statehood. So by all means come, but please don’t ask the British taxpayer (a figure whom the Daily Mail is usually so zealous to protect) to help foot the bill.
Believe me, there is no hate there. None whatever. The Mail knows this perfectly well.
As Fry points out in his opening remarks, this is an example of the staff at the Daily Mail “intentionally, knowingly lying” to their readers, and we make no secret of the fact that the purpose of this site is to warn their readers that they are under a constant barrage of balderdash designed to make them afraid and/or hostile, sometimes for no other discernible logical purpose than to keep sales ticking over… but we do not discount the theory that some of this activity may be due to an unknown number of writers and editors being as mad as cut snakes.
[*The online version of this article was updated at 10:29am, and presently acknowledges the true position of the signatories of this letter (that Pope Ratzinger should not be given the honour of a state visit to this country), in passing, before going on imply/maintain that this equates to a refusal to engage in or allow open dialogue on religious matters. Further, this minor acknowledgement of reality does nothing to address the "atheist hate campaign led by Stephen Fry" text under their front page headline.]
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UPDATE – You’ll probably want one of these as much as we do:
Click to buy! You know you want one!
Categories: Religion |
14 Comments
Posted by sim-o
September 16th, 2010
This post was originally posted as Us British Munters by Kate at her Cruella-Blog
How thoughtful of the Daily Male to let us know how we British women are doing in the International “Whose Chicks are the Hottest?” Olympics. Today’s line-by-line destruction will be of this dreadful piece by Sean Poulter entitled Why French Women beat Brits in the Beauty Stakes: They spend twice as much on products. And incidentally if you want to place a bet on the beauty stakes do call William Hill. My money is on Chile – they’ve taken the South American title twice recently and a lot of their national chicks compete with international clubs.
“The women of France may enjoy perfectly powdered and smooth faces, however they pay more than twice as much as their British counterparts to achieve this effect.”
So the women of France all enjoy perfectly smooth faces do they? Guess all those holiday postcards of wrinkly weathered old women sat on street kerbs in Provence are staged then or done with latex special effects make-up?
“Spending on creams and potions designed to hold back the ageing process runs at £1.85billion a year on the other side of the Channel, compared to £854 million here.”
Designed to hold back the ageing process or designed to rip women off? I’m calling this a victory for British women who have an extra £1bn a year to spend on enjoying themselves.
“Although Italian by birth, Carla Bruni, the wife of the French president, has come to epitomise the women of France for whom no price is too high to hold back the wrinkles.”
You said it Sean. She’s Italian. Italian. And she’s an Italian supermodel. If anyone thinks she represents the women of France they should try speaking to a French woman. A real one. And if no price really was too high for the women of France the country would be bankrupt in about a week and every woman’s bathroom cabinet full of royal jelly and placenta.
“Indeed, some of the 42-year-old’s treatments, thought to include laser skin peels and botox, have produced some startling and bizarre results.”
Startling and bizarre – no price is too high for me to achieve THAT look.
“By contrast, Samantha Cameron, who is three years younger, apparently enjoys a more natural – English Rose – beauty regime.”
Samantha Cameron is also NOT a super-model. She’s a part-time accessory designer. And comparing one English part-time bag designer with one Italian model and then drawing conclusions about all British and all French women is just weird. There is real news out there you know Sean? Try visiting Congo, I think some women have been raped. Let us know if that helps to “hold back the wrinkles”, won’t you?
“New reseach looking at the body hang-ups of the women of Europe identifies some surprising differences.”
Surprising? So like German women wish they had two heads while the Latvians long for lustrous feathered wings? Something tells me I am going to be less surprised than I was when there wasn’t a fiver in that novelty birthday card last year.
“Certaintly, the women of France are content with their enviably flat stomachs.”
Ah, enlightenment… That’s probably also why Shakira looks so smug. And like Carla Bruni – she’s not French!
“Just 27per cent list their stomach as a problem area, which is a fraction of the 44per cent of British women who are worried about their flabby midriff.”
The question of course is what percentage are actually dangerously overweight and what percentage have merely been convinced they are by the beauty industry? But that would be journalism wouldn’t it Sean? And your speciality is copying out corporate press releases. Sidenote though: I don’t believe doubling your creams and lotions budget is going to shrink your midriff – it might be a better idea to halve your dessert budget.
“However, British women are far more content with their breasts and thighs than their counterparts across the Channel.”
I can’t wait to hear what percentage prefer not to rate their bodies like cuts of meat.
“Just 31per cent of women here are worried about having chunky thighs, compared to 43per cent of the French. Similarly, 30per cent of women in this country are concerned about their breasts, versus 38per cent of the French.”
The real issue is right across Europe women have been convinced to hate some part of their anatomy that is perfectly healthy.
“Looking at other nations, Italian women have a problem with their bottoms with some 47per cent listing this as a concern, far more than any other nation.”
If you have “a problem with your bottom” you should see a doctor. [Se hai un problema con il fondo si dovrebbe vedere un medico.]
“Rather alarmingly, some 57per cent of Spanish women have a worry about their entire face. Again a higher percentage than other nations.”
Well spotted Sean, that is certainly alarming. Can’t wait for your in depth research to discover what is behind these numbers, why we allow the beauty industry to bully women into feeling this way…
“Among German women, 46per cent are worried about their bigger bellies.”
…or you could just carry on cut and pasting that press release. Stick to what you’re good at eh?
“The research was conducted by retail analysts at Mintel for a report investigating the sales patterns of beauty creams and potions.”
It’s like I’m psychic isn’t it?
“It found that for British women, concerns about ageing are focused on the eyes and the dark circles, bags and wrinkles that give their age away.”
I find for me what gives my age away is that I just tell people because I don’t think getting older is shameful.
“Some 48per cent said the eye area is a worry, while 35per cent were concerned about a sagging jaw line.”
I still want to know what percentage told the interviewer to go f*ck themselves.
“Sixty-two per cent were worried about fine lines and wrinkles and 49per cent wanted to do away with the dark circles they have.”
What percentage were worried about all this rubbish BEFORE the market researcher started asking stupid intrusive questions?
“Nica Lewis, head consultant Mintel Beauty Innovation, said there is enormous money to be made by beauty companies that find a way to hold back the ageing process.”
Indeed. So much so that it might seem like even some of the companies who haven’t managed it will claim they have. If only there was a journalist around to investigate, but there’s only you eh, Sean?
“‘Ageing skin is no longer only a worry for older consumers. Younger women are now paying more attention to preventing wrinkles while they can rather than trying to cure them at a later stage,’ she said.”
So now they’re selling wrinkle cream to women who don’t even have wrinkles. Shouldn’t you be exposing the lies, pseudo-science and creepy advertising tricks that make women believe they should spend a lot of money on products that don’t even work? Sorry – almost forgot you’re working for the Mail…
“‘Educating these younger women about the benefits of a good facial skincare regime is an important way to ensure product take-up.”
“Ensuring product take-up”? Honestly – I know you didn’t write this, some PR puppy did – but really Sean – don’t put your name on articles this humiliating. It’s … well … humiliating.
“‘Brands could use mobile phone apps to remind young girls when to cleanse and moisturise on a morning and at night…”
Mmm how helpful of my phone to tell me when morning and night come round. What if I run out of battery though – if only some giant glowing orb would appear and disappear from the sky…
“…and notify them of new products or competitions and offers they could take advantage of.”
Wouldn’t that be ace? Having companies send junk mail direct to your actual phone so you don’t have to go downstairs and find it on the hall floor.
“A clear link between teen lines and ranges aimed at women in their early to mid-20s could also help brands retain customers…”
Sean, really, I understand that besuited twerps doing “brand management” graduate internships say this sort of thing but you are a journalist. Or at least you probably think you are.
“…as they progress through their age-related skincare needs.”
Oh gosh yes so here’s a quick run down of your age-related skincare NEEDS…
Age 0-5: soap and water
Age 5-10: soap and water
Age 10-15: soap and water
Age 15-20: soap and water
Age 20-25: soap and water
Age 25-30: soap and water
Age 30-35: soap and water
Age 35-40: soap and water
Age 40-45: soap and water
Age 45-50: soap and water
Age 50-55: soap and water
Age 55-60: soap and water
Age 60-65: soap and water
Age 65-70: soap and water
Age 70-75: soap and water
Age 75+: soap and water
Oh sorry Sean, I thought you said NEEDS. No-one needs expensive anti-aging products and treatments. In any case the treatments you suggest Carla Bruni has had are medical procedures like Botox. She’s not having those because she got a text about brand loyalty.
And worse still there is a real story hidden in here about body image – the rise in Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Eating Disorders and the irresponsible attitude of the beauty industry pushing expensive products that don’t actually work on women across Europe. Instead we’ve got a male journalist regurgitating a press release that reads like an advert for these products.
Please stop.
Categories: Guest Blog, Healthcare |
Tags: advertorial, cosmetics, press release | 3 Comments
Posted by sim-o
September 9th, 2010
If you’ve got a Facebook account you’ve got a serious choice to make.
Where do you book yourself into first? The oncologist, the school or the pyschotherapist?
Not only does Facebook give you cancer, it doesn’t just make you stupid (as does anything else that distracts from studying), it also means that you’re narcissistic with low self esteem. Apparently.
Using Facebook is the online equivalent of staring at yourself in the mirror, according to a study.
Is it? Is it, really?
This conclusion is arrived at from a study, of which at least they give some details of.
So what did the study consist of?
They [the subjects] all took psychology tests to measure their levels of narcissism, which the study defined as ‘a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and an exaggerated sense of self-importance’.
Those who scored higher on the narcissism test checked their Facebook pages more often each day than those who did not.
There was also a difference between men and women – men generally promoted themselves by written posts on their Facebook page while women tended to carefully select the pictures in their profile.
As we all could’ve guessed without a study, the narcissistic people checked Facebook more often, which isn’t quite the same as the headline…
Facebook users ‘are insecure, narcissistic and have low self-esteem’
Which suggests that all facebook users have those qualities. Not misleading at all is it?
Oh, the size of the study? 100 18-25 year old students. 100 out of 500 million of the most narcissistic, insecure users of Facebook.
Categories: Media |
Tags: facebook, misleading headline | 9 Comments
Posted by adambienkov
September 7th, 2010
The Daily Mail has a killer story in the paper today:
Sunshine can give you wrinkles ‘even through a window’
By SEAN POULTER
It’s a well-known fact that shunning the sunscreen and basking in direct sun leads to wrinkles.
But those who thought their skin was shielded while driving, or sitting in a conservatory, could be in for a nasty surprise
Yes that’s right readers. We all knew that sunshine gave you wrinkles but what we didn’t know is that it can pass EVEN THROUGH A WINDOW!
Look, the Mail even has a picture to demonstrate just what sunlight coming through a window looks like:
And I know it must be a nasty surprise, particularly if you have been confusing those glassy type wall things with those other more bricky type wall ones.
But this isn’t just a scaremongering puff piece. No there’s real sciencey stuff behind it:
Professor John Hawk, an Emeritus Professor of dermatological photobiology and UVA expert, said: ‘We believe up to 90 per cent of the visible signs of ageing are due to the sun’s ultraviolet radiation and more than 95 per cent of these are known to be UVA rays.
‘What’s needed is a step-change in awareness of the damaging effects all year round, not just during summer holiday season.”
And of course nobody needs that step change more than the company who is paying for it:
The research is published by Boots, which is introducing UVA sun protection into a line of No 7 moisturisers.
Which is terribly nice of the Daily Mail to mention of course, because otherwise I’d just assume they were wasting our time.
Categories: Healthcare |
Tags: advertorial | 12 Comments
