Christopher Mackay’s Blog

Pharyngula: Bloggers, you have a job to do: Expelled

Far from only censoring extreme graphic or suggestive content, this article in The Independent outlines some of the mundane things that were censored in Ireland in years past:

Confessions of an Irish censor: why Clark Gable, ‘Casablanca’ and Cliff got the chop - Europe, News - Independent.co.uk: “Such seemingly inoffensive titles as Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, Brief Encounter, The Quiet Man and On the Waterfront were also banned or heavily censored. In all, about 11,000 films were cut and about 2,500 completely banned.”

The article cites some of the earlier censors’ preoccupations, which included:

• dancing (special mention for the Rumba)
• kissing (an ‘unsanitary salute’!), and
• “the antics of Elvis Presley with his most suggestive abdominal dancing”

Fortunately, this kind of censorship is coming to an end in Ireland, but it clearly shows what ridiculous lengths people will go to control what other people think.

Hardly seems like the time to begin censorship in Canada.

globeandmail.com:

Evangelist takes credit for film crackdown: “A well-known evangelical crusader is claiming credit for the federal government’s move to deny tax credits to TV and film productions that contain graphic sex and violence or other offensive content.”

Televangelists like Charles McVety qualify as offensive content, don’t they? I wouldn’t dream of censoring them, though: they have every right to be offensive.

This is more nonsense from the people that brought us moral indignation and outrage as their best response to jazz in the 1930s, Elvis’ pelvic gyrations in the 1950s, and purple Teletubbies in the 1990s.

McVety goes on to say:

It’s fitting with conservative values, and I think that’s why Canadians voted for a Conservative government.

Please. If Canadians had voted for a Conservative government, Liberals, NDP and Bloq members wouldn’t out-number Tories in Parliament, would they? In fact, more than 63% of Canadians didn’t vote for the Conservatives in 2006, so it might be more accurate to say that most Canadians don’t value Conservatives…

What the federal election results from 2006 showed was that Canadians didn’t want a repeat of the Chrétien government’s Québec-referendum advertising scandal (and, by extension, Paul Martin).

If McVety’s radical evangelical agenda actually reflected Canadians’ wishes we wouldn’t have Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and Justice Minister Rob Nicholson going to such lengths to distance themselves from McVety, who represents exactly what so many Canadians expected from the Reform Alliance Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

Parents are more than smart enough decide for themselves when to turn off their TVs, or whether to bring their children to see films like Young People Fucking. They certainly don’t need self-appointed moral authorities like McVety and their delicate sensibilities to tell them what they should — and what they shouldn’t be allowed — to think.

Update: March 4, 2008

As a follow-up, this appeared on Canada.com today:

No censorship threat in Bill C-10: Verner: “‘We are far from censorship here. We are just putting forward an intention from our government and (from) the former Liberal government just to make sure that we will take fiscal measure to make sure that the Canadian taxpayers’ money won’t fund extreme violence, child pornography or something like that,’ Verner said at a press conference.”

Of course, there’s no need to address these issues with Bill C-10; there’s existing legislation for that. So why do we need the changes to the tax rebate structure introduced by C-10?

Further, when asked if C-10 was influenced by McVety, Minister Verner issued the following non-denial:

I never met with that guy and there’s no meeting scheduled in my agenda…

which says precisely nothing about McVety’s influence.

RickMercer: Science: 21st century menace: in which Rick Mercer speaks truth…

The Street: “Mac Owners Are Snobs”

So, according to this article,

Mac owners are more likely:

• to be perfectionists
• to use notebooks
• to use teeth whitening products
• to drive station wagons
• to pay for downloaded music
• to go to Starbucks
• care about “green” products and the environment
• to own a hybrid car
• and last but not least … to buy 5 pairs of sneakers in a year

• Perfectionist? Nit-picky, maybe, but I’ve never really mastered it, so, no.
• I do use notebooks (paper ones and laptop computers; not sure which they mean…)
• My teeth don’t need to look like they’re made of plastic, thanks.
• Don’t own a station wagon. Ask me again in two weeks, though…
• I do buy all of my music from iTunes. I’ve become allergic to CDs, and I value my time too much to use P2P networks.
• I don’t recall ever buying a drink in a Starbucks. I might’ve, once: I was with other people, and wouldn’t have gone in on my own… Does that count?
• Caring about the environment makes me a snob? Wow. There’s a baseline in need of adjustment…
• No hybrid car. Doesn’t make sense when most of your driving’s on the highway.
• I don’t think I’ve bought five pairs of sneakers in the last fifteen years. Maybe I should walk more (would that make me an environmental snob, though?)

So there.

(Via TUAW.)

Hand-wringing About American Culture - Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?: —New York Times

…she first got the idea for this book back in 2001, on 9/11.

Walking home to her Upper East Side apartment, she said, overwhelmed and confused, she stopped at a bar. As she sipped her bloody mary, she quietly listened to two men, neatly dressed in suits. For a second she thought they were going to compare that day’s horrifying attack to the Japanese bombing in 1941 that blew America into World War II:

‘This is just like Pearl Harbor,’ one of the men said.

The other asked, ‘What is Pearl Harbor?’

‘That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War,’ the first man replied.”

That’s chilling.

(Via Digg.)

Doesn’t look a day over 150:

His genius is more relevant today than ever…

In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, suggests that more accommodation should be made in the British legal system for peoples’ religious views:

There’s one law for everybody and that’s all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts — I think that’s a bit of a danger.

He’s proposing nothing less than two classes of citizens; those with basic legal rights and responsibilities, and special people with extra rights and, presumably, fewer responsibilities.

Not wanting to cause undue alarm, he hastened to add that the

principle that there is only one law for everybody is an important pillar of our social identity as a western democracy.

He doesn’t seem to believe it, though:

But I think it is a misunderstanding to suppose that means people don’t have other affiliations, other loyalties which shape and dictate how they behave in society and that the law needs to take some account of that. [emphasis added]

The law should do no such thing.

Especially not based on anything as ill-defined as a belief system. Where would that lead? Exemptions for people who believe in Thor, Zeus or little green men? Special rights for Sagittarians? Why not? Astrology is a belief system.

One set of laws for everyone is the only way to protect everyone’s rights.

He stresses that ‘nobody in their right mind would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that’s sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well’.

But this is exactly what his suggestion would lead to. Does he imagine that once that door is opened an inch, that the demands would end there?

Dr Williams is more interested in not offending anyone’s beliefs than in safeguarding democracy. The special accommodation he seeks represents nothing less than the undermining of western civilization.

Michael Geist says Microsoft Misleads on Copyright Reform in an article in The Hill Times. Shameless.

Muslim leader fears conflict of rights in new B.C. taxi policy:

The new taxi bill of rights for Metro Vancouver ensures that Muslim taxi drivers cannot refuse to take passengers with guide dogs.

You cannot say, just because they refuse it, he should be fined. You should respect the belief of a person. Whether right or wrong, it is his interpretation.

—Aziz Khaki, the vice-chair of the Muslim Canadian Federations

Oh, really? I guess I agree with Khaki, then; to the extent that those drivers refusing to accept passengers should not be fined. I believe they should be fired for refusing to do their jobs; that’s my interpretation.

And according to Khaki, I should be respected (for believing that there should be no special treatment for people who believe ridiculous things).