Smoke, mirrors and dog-whistles

Now this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/61583/smoking-ban-in-cars ) is one debate in the Wedding Cake madhouse I might actually follow next week.
It will be a litmus test, firstly of who in the House actually bothers to research health issues and secondly whether the Liberal Vannin project is finally dead in the water – or should at least have the decency to drop the world 'liberal' from their name.
If your only references to this smoking in cars issue are the BBC and some of what are laughingly described as 'serious' newspapers you won't have a clue. So try reading Chris Snowdon at http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/ and Dick Puddlecote at http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/ to get the real back story.
Also, you need to know that when the BMA first peddled this atrocious bit of 'research' to the press and TV three years ago the BBC had to take down the original piece within hours and every newspaper which used it printed a retraction in the next issue. This was because the BMA spokesman 'forgot' to mention that the research was a computer model (not a physical experiment) based on a stationary vehicle with the engine and air conditioning off and all the windows closed. In other words, a hypothetical situation which was not physically possible in the real world.
Despite those numerous, often badly placed, retractions after the original story, the only 'results' from the 'experiment' that have since been quoted by the BMA , various state-funded 'public health' bodies and tub-thumping populist MPs are the sensational (and physically impossible) ones. While I am a lifelong non-smoker I think it important to point this out.
For one thing because the demonisation of any subculture without objective proof of harm or wrongdoing is simply not on.
For another because it is a worrying sign that a self-interested pressure group is persuading politicians to introduce measures which weaken the family and interfere with the ability of responsible parents to raise children in a decent, life-affirming way (not to mention giving police and other government agencies increasing power to barge into people's houses on the off-chance of catching them doing something that Stepford stiffs don't like).
A pressure group of Stepforders, by the way, which is often dishonest, increasingly even worse educated than their predecessors, but who gain jobs for life and fat final salary pensions when their complaints are taken at face value.
Having once briefly been at the same workplace as Zac Hall, back when he was earning money for flying lessons, I have serious doubts about him. He was a bit of an automaton even then, and nothing in his political 'career' has caused me to think he has loosened up since.
The tests will be (1) if Hall wants the statement in order to see fair, open and informed debate or if this is just another dog-whistle issue he thinks will get him elected again and (2) if his fellow MHKs (and especially Liberal Vannin) will cluck like headless chickens until the state grants itself yet more powers to kick in doors and pester grown adults doing things they have (unlike Manx politicians)made informed choices to do, responsibly and without bothering anyone else.
If the answers are 'No' and 'Yes' respectively then the only honourable thing for Liberal Vannin to do is disband or rename, and the only sensible thing the public can do is to happily and relentlessly disobey and mock such a cretinous piece of legislation until the police find something more useful to do.

Criminal classes

If we were to take this (see http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/61318/manx-and-welsh-restorative-schemes-win-prisoner-rehabilitation-award ) at face value the local prison service has sharpened up its act with the help of some concerned and altruistic citizenry.
No, I thought that too.
So, no surprise then to find that Prison Works Isle of Man is based at The Alpha Centre, Broadway, Douglas, and according to the entry for number 1120 on the Manx charity register exists:
“to serve the spiritual, emotional, social and physical needs of offenders, ex-offenders, victims and the families of all three as well as those at risk of offending and other members of the Island Community as well as persons or groups off-island as are identified and approved on a case by case basis. Objectives include advancement of education, victim awareness, restorative justice, employment both paid and voluntary and resettlement and after-care.”

Oh joy of joys, another bogus charity run by Broadway Batwits (who, historically, tend to be rather better at hiding criminals than reforming them, by the way).

Personally, I would have thought that any contact with the type of intellectually-challenged religionistas who run this scheme could be classed as cruel and unusual punishment, and that if the future of any ex-cons might depend on them it would be nothing short of a national disgrace.

Surely the recidivism often attributed to the criminal class must be far exceeded by that of the average evangelical. And for the benefit of those who can't hold their noses long enough to look, I (who have) can also reveal that they fall into two clear subdivisions.

On the one hand, there are the 'rightists' (those who believe themselves so right about everything they never stop shouting long enough to listen to another view - and certainly not hard fact).

These are otherwise known as pastors or preachers. They tell everyone what to do and live off dumber people's money. Failing that, they invent reasons why the state should pay them to tell others what to do, on the pretence that such victims need their witless “help”.

On the other hand, we find self-pitying losers who refuse to take responsibility for themselves or anything else, who think everything in the world is somebody else's fault and that that is enough of an excuse to skive, live off family, charity and the state, and generally to sit about with a digit up the backside spouting the most banal racist, homophobic and sexist twaddle.

These make up the congregation, the preached to..... or as we smart-arse atheists have dubbed them, the sheeple.

No wonder, then, that serving convicts who have dropped out of any other education, work or rehabilitation scheme the prison can offer, ex-cons who have worn out the patience of anyone they used to call family or friends (too dumb to stack supermarket shelves and not even house-trained enough to clean toilets) or just failed criminals in general find religion so attractive. For them it is (lack of) business as usual.

Well, I am sure these misfits will be very happy together. And if they kept themselves to themselves (and more importantly funded themselves) it would be nobody else's business.
Problem is, they never will, though constantly poking their noses into ours; all the while having the bare-faced cheek to keep asking for our money to do it.

The Missionary Imposition

I've been watching, with some interest, the increasing placement of 'news' about local Catholic 'community work', especially amongst the Manx Filipino community.
Not a lot of people know this, but last year this island was sent the first Catholic missionary since the time of the Celtic saints. It isn't that the Vatican is concerned for the state of our souls, more that it is worried about missing a gravy train on which other churches were early passengers.
For over a century the island has been adequately served by Anglo-Irish priests, who established churches for a growing Irish community in the late 19^th century. It is only fair to note that in doing so they also met head on the racist prejudices of that time against both the Irish and Jewish community, which manifested themselves in everything from petty objections over planning permission through to denial of schooling, housing and social services. From the 1930's until the mid 1980's (when we started to see the arrival of evangelical bigots who couldn't cope with a newly equal Northern Ireland) it seemed that anti-Catholicism was a dead duck.
Since then, apart from the Paisleyites, everyone else got on fine until a newer wave of 'guest workers' from strongly Catholic Eastern European countries, particularly Poland. But while the church made a show of caring about the welfare of Polish workers, the blunt truth was that many were educated young professionals here to escape not just Polish unemployment but the rebirth of the Catholic extreme right, so the last thing they wanted was more interfering priests.
Which made the arrival of Filipino guest workers a relief to such clerics. Here seemed to be more fervent religionists, except that in rejecting the Marcos regime Filipinos also started to take an interest in other brands of Christianity, particularly US televangelism, which meant that while here they were ripe for turning by (ironically enough) Paisley's sectarian chums.
So a battle for souls commenced. Except that, of course, none of these churches is quite as concerned as they say about the minds and bodies of exploited workers and their families.
The real interest is that people who work here to support families 'back home' send back a large percentage of their hard-earned income. Money meant to feed, clothe, educate and provide the medical needs of less fortunate relatives, but which might, with a little misinformation, also be directed toward religious 'charities' which claim to do the same thing, while actually keeping the poor under the thumb of anti-democratic chancers who, from way before the time of theo-fascists like Mother Teresa, always prop up the likes of Marcos.
If you want to get an idea of the problem, try Googling 'Filipino Freethinkers' and seeing their lively and humorous take on such matters. I guarantee you will laugh, but also never again consider the antics of 'religious charities' in the Philippines and their Manx allies quite so innocent or well meaning.

Silly Bankers

In his diaries, the late and gloriously camp Kenneth Williams often used the euphemism 'Having a Barclays' for the act of masturbation, and it seems to me no accident that 'Barclays' or 'banker' continues as handy rhyming slang for a person who is stupid or of low character.
Barclays always was, and still is, an awful bank, and it's a pretty good bet that wherever you find sweatshops, child labour, dodgy arms deals or 21^st century slavery you will find a helpful man from that establishment if you look hard enough.

Which makes it even funnier when the PR department for the local Barclays tries to intimate it has a cuddly management who care about the dispossessed of the world and want to make things right. Now, on reading this sledgehammer-subtle piece of hackery (see http://www.iomtoday.co.im/news/isle-of-man-news/recognised-for-operation-christmas-child-efforts-1-6347796 ) I don't think even for a second Barclays actually gave money to these chancers, but it's doubly funny when the muppets who run the gaff fall for a scam which shouldn't have fooled anybody apart from home-schooled Alabama rednecks. And, of course, triple funny when reading the comments and realising that island educational standards are even lower than Alabama.

Oh, if you don't already know why I'm alternately laughing my socks off and banging my head against a wall in sheer disbelief, just go to https://sites.google.com/site/occalert/ .

And believe me, as someone who's monitored this and similar scams since Franklin Graham and his shady peers started thinking them up, the OCC Alert site is remarkably polite.  

When you start to find stories elsewhere of, for example, Franklin Graham trying to persuade George Bush to send bibles instead of aid to saturation-bombed Iraq, or Samaritan's Purse telling victims of a South American disaster that they could only shelter in tents subsidised by US Aid if they attended Baptist services and effectively renounced their Catholic upbringings, then you might see why even the Southern Baptist Convention wants nothing to do with Graham any more.

I would like to believe that in 2014 the island can finally wise up to such nonsense. But reading the inane comments I know that is still far too much to ask.

But I still wish you all the best for 2014, in the hope that at least some of us can both laugh and rise above such idiocy.

Funny......absurd even......but just not fun

Someone close to me came home giggling today, after hearing a Creationist refugee from non-sectarian 'Norn Eylan' claim that I wrecked his chance to fleece Manx tinfoil-hatters - sorry, that's 'organise a challenging weekend of seminars from an eminent geologist'...no, sorry, wrong audience again, maybe that should be 'offer a prayerful exploration of alternatives to the atheistic theory of evolution for the benefit of true believers'........

Oh, you probably guessed it!

Actually, all I did was send a letter to the papers a few months ago pointing out to any churchgoer about to pay to hear a career creationist that said tinfoil-hatter also believes his Imaginary Friend commands bigots to execute gay people.

I wouldn't presume to tell anyone capable of believing six impossible things before breakfast to abandon their 'sincere beliefs'. There is very little point arguing with anyone who lives in a hermetic thought-bubble within an alternate universe, so I never bother. But even they have a public duty to consider if their odd ideas actually excuse genocide in what the rest of us recognise as the real world.

It appears that this odd character (clearly unable to distinguish between the results of several centuries of rigorously tested hard scientific exploration and the amanita muscarita-influenced ramblings of bronze age goat-herders) also does not understand why such views might be a problem.

My spy on the spot observed that he is considered an oddball even amongst his funny friends, so did not attempt enlightenment. For myself, I do not intend to follow the tongue-in-cheek example of experimental artist Joseph Beuys, who once performed a piece entitled Explaining art to a dead hare. It isn't just that it would be pointless, because I quite like the absurd.

It just wouldn't be fun.

So many possibilities, so little creative thinking

Someone pointed me towards http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/wont-go-back-to-creationist-zoo-bristol , posing the question “How long before we see something like this on the Isle of Man?”

Strictly speaking, of course, we already do. For a start there's every Manx schoolchild’s nightmare “field trip” to the God World theme park (or as Manx Heritage insists on calling it, Rushen Abbey). There impressionable children are chased round a muddy field by the strange folk from Scripture Union, who want them to consider how much fun it would be to be a mediaeval monk. As any kid who watches Horrible Histories knows already, the answer to that is 'Absolutely none'.

Apparently SUMT get paid for this, which I've always found odd. It seems to me if little children are keeping care-in-the-community candidates off the streets it's the kids who should get paid for performing a public service, not SUMT. An over-literal interpretation of the Bible might well be an early sign of psychotic illness, but it doesn't excuse a failure to look for a proper job.

Then there are some of the Tourist Department's odd niche holiday breaks.

A couple of years back, I'm told, they were offering discreet discounts to off-island churches to organise Celtic Christian tours of the island. I suspect they got the idea from a wily cleric who used to strike deals with local travel agents for tours to various Christian pilgrimage sites, both UK and much further abroad. In return for rounding up a bus-load of punters, said cleric and Mrs Cleric got more annual free holidays than he already racked up as fact-finding missions to sunny climes for various government bodies on which he......well, not so much served as turned up and collected benefits.

But as there aren't actually any functioning island churches which date back more than three centuries, and towns have changed so much since even the 19th century that these are in semi-abandoned villages, the Celtic Christian trail is a bit thin. The presumed sites of any worship prior to that are windswept places in the middle of nowhere, so in practice the tours consisted of dragging pious elderly types up moors, through bogs and down slippy cliffs on wet days during Force 9 gales. I'd have thought the insurance alone would have made the price too high for all but the most determined masochist.

And talking of masochism....maybe we could clean up on another Manx fetish - birching. I'm sure the UK S&M scene is over-run by wealthy ex-public schoolies who would pay through the nose (possibly even other orifices) for a spot of corporal punishment. At last, a useful and valid economic role for all those sensibly shod ladies, built like battleships, who marry diminutive Old Barrovian heirs to Manx businesses then spend decades angrily polishing churches to within an inch of their lives.

Or again, for those who remember the chimp's tea parties that used to be a feature at UK zoos, how about putting up public seating behind a splatter-proof screen at the side of the dining area in large Manx hotels which specialise in corporate affairs and political receptions? Surely foreign visitors would pay to watch what happens when one of our more excitable Rotarians or MHKs hears a polysyllable uttered by a fellow free-loader?

So many possibilities, so little creative thinking from the so-called experts.

Is it any wonder Manx tourism is dying?

Do E Mek E Larrff, Nelson?

As someone who during the 1980's (and even the late 1990's) got grief for constantly pointing out that our finance sector was originally built on helping apartheid era South Africa avoid economic sanctions I had to raise an ironic eyebrow at

http://www.isleofman.com/News/details/60035/island-s-south-african-community-pay-tribute-to-mandela .

So would that be the same Terry Toohey who (prior to being offered a job here by a former punter) ran publicity at Sun City, the notorious 'Seff Effrican' whites-only venue no international entertainer worth watching wanted to play?

And in the late 1980's didn't the Manx government, having just created a tourist policy based on subtly attracting ageing Brit racists to 'Look forward to going back' , then come up with a new resident policy intended to entice thick and wealthy 'white flighters' fleeing countries about to experience democracy?

What sniggering noise?

Me?