Silent Write, who'lly shite

The local sock puppet media (though all Manx media has had either a government or corporate hand in the glove for over a decade now) brought us a sermon from Sentamu’s Apprentice at http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/god_is_good_at_nothing_1_4093685 .
Oh dear, it didn’t get a good reception, did it?
When even the under-employed dimwits who haunt Johnston Press online forums have gone off a major source of urban myth and general misinformation it may be time to call it a day. Because, as Gary Otton of Scottish Media Monitor (a contrarian colleague of mine who knows that company’s publications better than most) says, only those who stay wilfully under-informed in order to confirm their knee-jerk prejudices haunt such dives in the first place.
Garry, by the way, has the dubious honour of having been banned, even under many pseudonyms, from pretty much every Johnston Press website there is. He has this annoying habit of pointing out the myths and factual inaccuracies in PR pieces from faith-based Scottish hate groups which lazy hacks run, uncut, as their own work. That never goes down well, and as for writing both Sexual Fascism and Badge of Shame (the two best, most damning books ever on the collaboration of the Scottish media in religious hate campaigns against gays, which led to both abominations like Section 28 and a massive increase in homophobic violence) – well, that was right out!
Incidentally, follow the link on the right to Scottish Media Monitor and you will really have your eyes opened about ‘responsible’ local media, church organisations and their friends in government. After a little of that you might just see similarities to the kind of things that vex me, and the reasons I bang on about them. Same media group, linked church groups, similar political scenario.
The odd thing is, I counted four recent stories which gave an excuse for Paterson to offer his dubious thoughts. It might just be because the Manx media is cutting and pasting more twaddle provided by the usual pressure group numpties than usual. Manx hacks so hate to leave the office and actually attend events or go and speak to the public at the best of times: having to leave home and actually go to the office over the Xmas break would probably be a grind too.
But even that is not the oddest thing to me. The oddest thing is that not only have we seen nothing in the Manx media about El Bish chairing the committee charged with producing the Anglican Church ‘pastoral statement’ on civil partnerships (see Big Story, curious silence for more on that), but that the local faithful do not know about it either, and not even the few full time professional clergy have been informed.
The possible exception to this would be the tiny clique of right wingers whose job it is to hand down to Manx Anglican plebs policy and wisdom which, in turn, has been relayed to Paterson from Sentamu’s private crew– a crew which, of course, ‘our’ Bish used to lead.
Their notorious lack of other contact with ordinary churchgoers - and the even bigger gap between them and anything which might be termed the real world - explains a lot. No wonder so many of them are retired civil servants.

Yulelogy in the sad absence of morality

I briefly looked today at a website where local bigwigs like to first post their diktats to the rest of us. Well, it is Christmas Day, so traditionally a time when the great and the good like to tell us plebs where we’re going wrong and why we’re going to Hell in a handbasket, or how we might do better.
But instead of beatitudes, or even platitudes, all I found was, well.......... tweatitudes.
This (http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=31926 ), for example, from an unelected political parasite, imposed on us by foreign dictators.
This (http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=31947 ) from a Minister for No Fun, who asks that we live our entire lives as lies.
And this (http://www.isleofman.com/News/article.aspx?article=31855 )from an enforcer for unscrupulous gangsters, whose fellow thugs at this time of the year like to stop ordinary car drivers at random, mainly in order to keep the road clear for drunken civil servants and legislators on the way to or from one of a myriad of publically funded events.
I think you see the problem at once.
There is just no voice of moral authority any more. Nobody on the island who I can offer to my small daughter as a reference for anything good, or decent, or human.
But I suspect, from her dealings with various po-faced liars who turn up at her school, she may be gathering that already. She’s going to have to work it all out for herself, as are we all.
Oh well. At least life is never dull if you spend it making up the rules as you go along.
Have a Cool Yule, and try to spot the jokes, rather than electing or otherwise subsidising them.

Bah Humbug

Well, Sentamu's prodigy has given his first Xmas sermon (see http://www.manxradio.com/readNEwsItem.aspx?id=30228 ), and as you'd expect it got prime coverage on a radio station where the news staff were at home instead of in the newsroom.
As he highlights 'the Island’s growing problem of homelessness, and criticises what he calls the “I want” culture', so will I.
I was talking to a volunteer at Kemmyrk (the local homelessness charity) recently. On one of the coldest nights of the year just three people stayed either there or with Graigh , the rival service also getting public money run by Broadway Baptists. That's approximately ten down on the known users even in mid-summer last year, before either service got government backing and extensive publicity. Meanwhile I know of two pensioners trudging the Douglas streets each night with sandwiches and coffee for an average of 30 street sleepers in that town alone.
In other words, since the Social Services and local evangelists combined to close down the Island's only alcohol treatment centre and hand it over to an 'independent' housing charity set up according to private instructions from civil servants at the DSS, politicians and church leaders (who also collaborated to keep any member of the public off the management committee) more people are sleeping in the street. This tells me the homeless know they're safer sleeping in a doorway, squat or even a skip than a warm building funded by government and staffed by biblebashers.
The Manx public have shown interest in dealing with the issue, but been prevented from even expressing an opinion by churches. In my book, that makes the churches directly responsible. All they have done is manipulate a growing crisis to get public money which is used for evangelising, not to solve the problem.
Then, if we want to talk about 'the “I want” culture', there's a beauty at http://www.manxradio.com/readNEwsItem.aspx?id=30244. To learn more about the apparent background, see previous publicity for this at http://www.manxradio.com/readNEwsItem.aspx?id=29688 and
http://www.three.fm/christmas-nativity-with-a-twist-997075.
The things to note are it's Xmas Eve, a time when there's panic buying, and the only car-parking for this event is down the road at Stepford Central. Curious that evangelicals put on a public show and to get to your car afterwards you have to walk through the most expensive shopping centre on the island, which is owned by....... oh, another evangelical.
Obviously a complete coincidence, Stepford hosting all those government conferences at special rates, two of their management committee being on all the police bodies you'd have to liase with to arrange public order and all.
Coincidence. Complete. Really.
Scrooge is alive and well. He's probably just left a church near you.

A Christmas message I wish I'd written

Yesterday the ever excellent Garry Otton over at Scottish Media Monitor
(see http://www.scottishmediamonitor.com/index.cfm for more) delivered a Christmas message that would do for any of us fighting religious privilege and prejudice.
As I wouldn't want to miss out a word of it, here it is in full:

"66 countries in the United Nation's General Assembly have agreed a declaration to decriminalise homosexuality. Now let's read the Big Print: France, the sponsor, didn't have sufficient support for an official resolution. Amongst those refusing to support the non-binding declaration were the so-called United States of America, China, Russia, the Vatican and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, none of whom share a particularly glowing record on human rights. You don't have to be Hercule Poirot to see religionists' fingerprints all over the declaration. The Holy See's observer mission issued a statement saying that the declaration 'challenges existing human rights norms'. Tell that to Amnesty International, sweetheart! And while we're here, what legal justification does the Vatican have to be a member state of the UN? Discuss. Let's not make any excuses for religion; exponents blaming their bigotry on a 'higher authority'.
Yes. A hydra-headed 'authority', as venal as it is contemptible; condemned to crawl for eternity in the darkness and slime of its manufactured superstition.
Such a declaration says nothing of the United Nation's capabilities of protecting the human rights of the world's citizens and everything about the hopeless and ineffective nature of this otiose organisation. The writing is on the wall. In a time of greater need; the United Nations is destined to fail us all.
Christmas. What can I say? To all my friends and readers who will be forced to watch their mum pushing her fingers up a turkey's arse to the sound of 'Hallelujah', please join me in raising a finely-honed Sabatier to Santa's neck. It's dark at three and I'm at home watching pre-recorded drivel in high definition. Give me two religious-free weeks in August! And remember before poking your pennies in that collection box: The poor and lonely don't want to be patronised this Christmas; they want equality and fair play every day. "

I'm always inspired by such a mix of wit, scrutinously researched corrections to lazy mainstream media shite and totally in-yer-face, up front queer attitude.
Slainte, Gary! Here's me, and I hope many others, raising a glass to you.