Nutter News

I can imagine the traditional justice statue over the Nigerian High Court. On one hand the scales have been replaced by a bag of stones and on the other...well its gone...cut off at the wrist. No doubt the plaque below boasts about the proud tradition of tolerance and justice. Of course in reality, the more nutters preach about tolerance, the more they prove the opposite. Probably true tolerance goes hand in hand with universal acceptance that then needs few words.

From BBC News

At least 100 people are now known to have died in riots in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna over the Miss World beauty contest, Red Cross officials say. A heavy security presence has been imposed after protests started by Muslim youths which also left hundreds injured.

They began after a newspaper suggested that the Prophet Mohammed would have probably chosen to marry one of the Miss World contestants if he had witnessed the beauty pageant - which Nigeria is hosting.

Kaduna is one of Nigeria's most volatile cities; more than 2,000 people died there in clashes between Christians and Muslims two years ago. Further sporadic clashes were reported on Friday despite the deployment of the hundreds of police and soldiers and the imposition of a curfew.

On Thursday, thousands of Muslim youths rampaged through the suburbs of the city, putting up barricades of burning tyres, setting fire to buildings, and attacking churches. Muslim groups complain that the contest is immoral and degrading to women, and are also angry that preliminary events began during the holy month of Ramadan.

Miss World events are only taking place in the southern, largely Christian, part of the country. A spokesman for the organisers told the BBC the final would go ahead as planned in the capital, Abuja, on 7 December.

The trouble in Kaduna escalated on Thursday after an attack the previous day by hundreds of people chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) on the office of ThisDay newspaper, which printed the offending article.

Amid fears that the unrest could spread, security forces were expected to be on heightened alert for during Friday prayers in Kano, the north's biggest city, Reuters news agency said.

The Nigerian government has appealed for calm and has assured Muslims that those responsible for the article, which appeared in ThisDay newspaper, would be brought to book, for exceeding "the bounds of responsible journalism." ThisDay has retracted the offending article and has published apologies.

From the Seattle Times

Terengganu (including the Perhentian Islands), a conservative Malaysian state with an Islamic government is trying to impose nutter rules on tourists.

Terengganu's state government came under the control of the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party in 1999. The party has since tried, with varying degrees of success, to restrict alcohol and separate the sexes, and is now turning its attention to tourists.

State tourism officials are considering regulations that would ban bikinis and require new resorts to build separate swimming pools for men and women.

But back in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, Tourism Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh, a Muslim, compares Terengganu's officials to the Taliban and says some Europeans have canceled visits because of the bikini battle. The tourism industry fears a bikini ban would drive away many of the 1.4 million tourists who visited the state last year.

The Terengganu government is already having difficulty making its edicts stick. A rule segregating men and woman in supermarket checkout lines is widely ignored, and a bikini ban might go the same way. The state's tourism minister, Wan Hassan Mohamad Ramli thinks that foreigners should respect Islam and that segregated pools would make resorts more appealing to Muslims. One solution, he said, would be to allow bikinis in some places but not others. Another would be a "code of ethics" telling tourists what to wear on the beach.

As this was hardly noticed by the mainstream press we will have to rely on a report from the nutters themselves. From Media March.

Some 500 protestors, young and old, marched under a long column of banners along Whitehall to Trafalgar Square last Saturday 11 May. There an even larger audience at the mediamarch Rally heard guest speakers sounding stern warnings against the ever increasing content of explicit violence, sex and bad language in TV, films, videos, magazines, etc.

Innumerable marchers in this, their 4th mediamarch, were holding banner boards aloft, displaying terse slogans impressing on the Government their serious concern about the harmful effects of so much of the media on our society, and especially on children. Rally speeches included convincing evidence which effectually supported the demands of mediamarch for radical government action.

On only the previous day, the Broadcasting Standards Council had published the damning results of their official enquiry into the ever-rising level of violence portrayed in TV soaps - which have been provoking masses of public complaints. The rally crowds were also told of the recently-published US research covering an 18 year study, which gives undeniable evidence of the linkage between TV viewing among adolescents and the extent of subsequent aggressive behaviour. Therefore, said one speaker, the 'silent majority' must surely now take up their phones and/or their pens and determine to help others to bombard the broadcasters with their own complaints about specific programmes which serve to normalise even glamourise, sexual depravity as well as lawlessness and brutishness.

Supporters gave a resounding cheer on being told that over 100,000 signatures have already been collected by them on mediamarch's nationwide Petition, which calls for Britain's obscenity laws and related media regulations to be radically strengthened. The Petition campaign will therefore be continued to gather ever more signatures throughout 2002, as more and more people become motivated to stand up and be counted.

Speakers at the rally included:

• John Milton Whatmore, Chairman of mediawatch-uk (formerly National Viewers' and Listeners' Association)
• Dr M Katme from the Muslim Council of Britain
• Dennis Wrigley, from maranatha Christian community in Manchester
• Cindy Kent from Premier Radio

In closing, Pippa Smith and Miranda Suit, both being mothers of teenagers and founders of mediamarch, vowed to continue this grassroots movement and thereby reflect the heartfelt cry of millions of parents and ordinary citizens in the UK, as they struggle to counter the undermining influence of the media.

The Radio Authority has recently banned mediamarch's intended adverts on radio because our call for UK obscenity laws to be strengthened is too political. Please help us to achieve the publicity we ought to have, by right, in a democratic society! (My pleasure to oblige as long as the rest of us are allowed the right to watch what we want on TV)

Based on an article in the Sunday Times

A Catholic group has launched a campaign to challenge the portrayal of churchgoers in television drama programmes as mad and morally suspect. Of course this campaign provides more than adequate proof that churchgoers are indeed mad and morally suspect.

The Pro-Life Alliance, an organisation set-up by the late Cardinal Thomas Winning, is angry that religious soap characters, such as EastEnders' Dot Cotton and Mrs Mack from High Road, are shown as objects of fun and ridicule.

They are asking Catholics to monitor the content of television programmes they watch and to lodge complaints where they see religious characters depicted in a negative way.

Sister Roseann Reddy, who runs the Glasgow-based group which offers financial help and emotional support to women considering an abortion, said few people could take characters such as Dot Cotton or Mrs Mack seriously because they were 'over the top' and 'mad'.

In other soaps, such as Brookside, religious characters were only introduced into shocking storylines. She cited the examples of the character Margaret Clemence, a nanny, who ran off with Father Derek O'Farrell, a Catholic priest. Reddy wrote to Brookside scriptwriters to complain. In another plot, a resident of the close, Simon, set up a shady religious cult which recruited regular characters Katie Rogers and Terry Sullivan. Reddy said:

Religion is not a minority thing in this country, yet in any of the soap operas, Christians are mad . Any religious people in them are bonkers. They are complete wimps or completely mad. It concerns me because it is really very inaccurate. It is about balance. Most Catholics do not run off with their priest.

From the Scotsman

Two firms are investing hundreds of thousands of pounds to establish "upmarket" sex industry outlets in the Edinburgh. A local firm unveiled plans to open a plush massage parlour in the New Town within weeks, while US-based lap dancing chain Spearmint Rhino recently confirmed plans for a "sex multiplex" in the city by the end of the year.

The owners of Club 7 Leisure today also revealed plans for their A-listed premises in York Place. Located next to a casino, each of the facility's 12 bedrooms will be equipped with four-poster beds, trouser presses, refrigerators, stereo systems, DVD players and satellite television. The company also intends to launch a limousine service to ferry punters from the airport for intimate encounters with so-called "surrogate girlfriends" who will earn up to £1000 a week.

A spokesman for Club 7 Leisure said: We want to bring the sex industry to the level of a five-star hotel. It's no longer seedy back streets and a lot of the cloak and dagger stuff has disappeared . We're providing services for people who are upfront about their needs - the new millennium man who isn't afraid to admit he needs a massage. (Whereas the new millennium company is surely afraid to admit what services they are really enabling!)

Both Club 7 and Spearmint Rhino say they will target a high-class clientele of "discerning" professionals in elegant surroundings. Spearmint Rhino today confirmed that negotiations are under way for three potential sites in Edinburgh and remain confident it will have launched a club by the winter. The firm, which has been nicknamed the "McDonald's of table-dancing" over plans to open clubs in every major city in the UK by 2007, offers full-contact "friction" dancing sessions in private rooms.

Stephanie Harvey, of the Broughton Village Association - which unsuccessfully opposed plans for a gay sauna in a nearby residential location, today called for councillors to consider limiting the number of sex spas in the city. She said: Brothels are a necessary evil but we don't want to become like Amsterdam. I'm worried that the council doesn't seem to have any limits to how many of these establishments there are in the city. My concern is that there may be too many of them operating. (ie one!)

Catherine Harper, of Scottish Women Against Pornography, warned that the city council was now renowned as a "soft touch" by sex club owners. She said: You can call it anything you like, but offering sexual services for money is prostitution. I think the council has to be held to account. They're giving licences to more and more premises and sexualising whole areas. They're turning Edinburgh into a sex-tourism capital.

Thanks to Ian

If memory serves this is actually a scene from the forthcoming episode of The West Wing when Martin Sheen, rips into a right wing radio talk show hostess. It is a brilliant scene to watch as it is done as such a put down. The name of the episode escapes me at the moment but it is definitely in the Season 2 episodes that started on C4 recently.

Spotted in a US magazine

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank yon for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your radio show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however regarding some of the specific Bible laws and how to follow them.

• When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Lev.l:9). The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
• I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? She's 18 and starting University. Will the slave buyer continue to pay for her education?
• I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15: 19- 24). The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
• Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not Canadians. Can you clarify?
• I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should this be a neighbourhood improvement project?
• A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a far lesser abomination than homosexuality. l don't agree. Can you settle this?
• Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wriggle room here? Would contact lenses help ?
• Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.l9:27. How should they die?
• I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football If I wear gloves?
• My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread. He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Lev.24:10-16) Couldn't we just bum them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their In-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.