Halo Halo / Tiny Tips
Halo, Halo
The UK has, amongst other anti-hurt-feelings legislation, the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. In a ten year period there were ten individuals who were arrested for publicly saying words out loud in public that were considered to be ‘hurty’. Note that in all cases once arrested no further action was taken. Some of these arrests were for the ‘offence’ of preaching from the Bible or rather some bits that criticised particular lifestyles. The UK does not have a blasphemy law but ninety plus countries in the world do.
Two Californian Assembly Bills just enacted mandate training, for companies with five employees or more, on recognising, reporting and confronting workplace speech that ‘vilifies, humiliates, or incites hatred’ against people based on protected characteristics and one of which ‘requires paid local officials, to receive “anti-hate speech” training as part of their existing harassment training, and directs the state to develop an online course “on responding to hate” for state officials’. These have churches in a tiswas because the fear is that the legislation will be used to prevent them from proselytising.
In no way are we encouraging the propagation of religious hooey. The prohibition, or attempted prohibition, of speech can lead to unintended consequences. The encouragement of ‘protected characteristics’ whereby those placing themselves in such categories see themselves as victims or special because they’re in an exclusive club is not the benefit that some might think. Division merely profits the minority class.
In September a visit to the Eiffel Tower by Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha Hindu monks (BAPS) resulted in individuals born with XX chromosomes becoming personae non gratae. Females were not allowed to be seen, heard or make their presence felt in any way lest it upset the delicate sensibilities of the Hindu monks. BAPS say that that decision lay with the Tower bosses and was nothing to do with them. But where did the bosses get the idea that monks would be defiled by the sight of, or interaction with, women?
Just as bizarre, an American council meeting opened with a prayer to Satan. Some were not amused. Why is such poppycock occurring anyway, whichever sky muppet is being invoked?
It is not often that this column feels sympathy for Church of England wage slaves, the ones with the back to front collar, but it was elicited recently when two members of the cloth were harassed and abused online forcing them to block and lock their social media accounts. Described as ‘satan spawn’ and ‘evil’, their monstrous ‘crime’ must have been unspeakably vile.
Actually it was to post that you don’t need to spend one hundred and twelve quid on an advent calendar when you can get a nicer one for six. This apparently triggered the distributor’s supporters to a state of hysterical frenzy and a barrage of abuse.
One cannot help but think that even if clergymen were a group with ‘protected characteristics’ this particular ad hominem would still have occurred.
DC
Here is a number that should stop us cold: 64 percent. That is the share of Black families in America who, right now, lack the income and resources needed to meet the true cost of economic security. Not poverty or survival, but genuine stability. On the heels of the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, that number tells us how far we have to go… 49 percent of all Americans — nearly half the country — lacks the resources they need to be economically secure. Economic insecurity cuts across racial lines, affecting families of every background and in every part of the country (The Hill, tinyurl.com/mka86edr).
‘Commodities must be sold, profits must be made, capital must accumulate. Short-term corporate gains are more important than long-term social losses. Capitalism, in short, is incompatible with the maintenance of the conditions that have made human civilisation possible for more than ten thousand years’ (Yorkshire Bylines, tinyurl.com/yexf48ju).
The future of Babylon 5 shows time and time again that life may be different in the far future, but humanity’s problems remain much the same. There’s a long history of labor strikes and riots throughout the world, making the dock workers in ‘By Any Means Necessary’ another footnote in the ongoing battle between those who control the means of production and those who do the actual production (Giant Freakin Robot, tinyurl.com/33v2chtn).
The leader of the Norwegian Union of Trade Unions, Helene Harsvik Skeibrok, expresses her condolences to the royal family and the entire Norwegian people. ‘It is very sad to hear that King Harald has passed away. Our thoughts go out to Queen Sonja, the rest of the royal family and everyone who mourns the loss of a king who has meant a lot to very many, says Skeibrok’ (Fagforbundet, tinyurl.com/yp7fjaw7).
‘Marxist Meghan’s’ list of demands for her kids’ school exposed (YouTube, tinyurl.com/524bhrva).
In 2026, the ‘rainbow nation’ will face the longest wave of organized xenophobic violence since the end of apartheid in 1994 (rosalux, tinyurl.com/4re2kk6y).
Mason quotes the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, with an obituary of his state on the last day of its existence in 1991: Sixteen per cent of the national income went on armaments; another four on the KGB … the country was ruined, the people were kept half starved … And this was called the class approach. If that is socialism it can go to hell (The Spectator, tinyurl.com/yrue4yrn).
‘I’ve been sounding the alarm about how Tyson treats their workers for years’, said Nana Ouro-Agoro, founder of Akwaaba, a nonprofit organization that provides support to the Quad Cities’ immigrant population.Originally from Togo, Ouro-Agoro came to the Quad Cities after winning the immigration lottery in 2008. She learned that many of her neighbors worked at Tyson, where they were frequently injured on the job and afraid to speak out. Workers told her they were being treated ‘worse than the cattle’ (Labornotes, tinyurl.com/c5hjzzf4).
(These links are provided for information, target sites don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)