Not surprisingly, the creators of the National Youth Theatre’s cancelled production of Homegrown smell a rat.
The official explanation given by the London-based company is that the play was not ready and would have failed the meet the theatre group’s high standards. The fact that neither director Nadia Latif nor playwright Omar El-Khairy were given prior notice of this decision means that this seems more a case of censorship than quality control. Continue reading
The offending image
The Malicious Communications Act 1988 is designed to “make provision for the punishment of persons who send or deliver letters or other articles for the purpose of causing distress or anxiety”.
Under this legislation, a 19-year-old man from Canterbury, England was arrested by Kent Police for uploading an image to Facebook of him burning a paper poppy on remembrance Sunday with the caption “How about that you squadey cunts?”.
This demonstrates that this individual is a prize plonker who can’t spell (he should have written ‘squaddy or ‘squaddie”) but that’s not the issue here. Continue reading
PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and may become law with the consequences which the video explains.
How much do YOU trust the US Government to protect our freedom??
Megalomaniac Silvio Berlusconi is not content with a near monopoly of the Italian media but wants to extend his power into the heart of cyberspace.
In paragraph 29 of a law proposal, also known as “DDL intercettazioni” (Wiretapping Act) his corrupt and beleaguered government aim to stop publication of any material deemed detrimental.
It doesn’t matter if the details are true, the act merely gives the offended party the right to demand a ‘corrected’ version be published within 48 hours without further comment.
Wikipedia are correct to highlight the threat this poses to independent voices on the Internet.
As a protest all Wikopedia entries are currently hidden to anyone searching for information in Italian. Instead you will find a statement explaining why the entries they have requested cannot be shown. This is a translated version of the Wikipedia statement .
As they rightly point out, every Italian citizen is already protected in this respect by Article 595 of the Criminal Code, which punishes the crime of defamation.
Berlusconi’s proposed legislation is nothing short of a gagging order in a desperate attempt to save a sinking ship. As such all journalists, bloggers and anyone who values free speech must do everything in their power to resist it.
Part of an irregular series of bite-sized posts about 7″ singles I own – shameless nostalgia from the days of vinyl. (Search ‘Backtracking’ to collect the set!)
“There are no words for my contempt” is a very ironic line in the context of Eve Libertine’s venomous rant entitled Reality Asylum.
She hardly comes across as a woman lost for words. The track is an uncompromising tirade of venom which she justifies in the sleeve note dated 28/5/79: ” I need to exorcise myself of these things which have bound me in that powerful stranglehold of reverence for so long …… Can I really believe in this God of Masculinity, first in a long line of hideous male structures, (the church, the crown, the state, the family), and where do I stand in this order of power?”
Against a white noise backing, she accuses Jesus of (among other things) arrogance, violence, rape, self-righteousness, cowardice , warmongering and genocide.
It has to be said that she brings plenty of her own baggage to this topic. Dumping ALL the blame on Jesus strikes me as a bit harsh as he isn’t the misogynistic monster she portrays him as. She makes the mistake of branding him as guilty because so much oppression and so many atrocities have been carried out in his name. Her target is really religious (and all other) institutions but she seems to take on JC on the basis that the buck must stop somewhere. In the end she borrows a line from Patti Smith’s Gloria: “Jesus died for his own sins not mine”. Continue reading
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