Predictable outrage over Palestianian wxhibit at CMHR

A planned exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) entitled Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present is having the expected controversy and protest.

It's only a small exhibit, 12 metres wide, tucked into a corner on the first floor, just a few panels with some photos, video clips and first-person accounts, and it comes at the request of many Palestinian-Canadians who want to see some exposure of the violent displacement of some 800,000 Palestinians from their lands by the nascent state of Israel in 1947.

Many influential Jewish people, including "honorary board member" Gail Asper (who, with her father, Israel Asper, was instrumental in fundraising and getting the museum up and running), are taking issue with it, complaining that it lacks historical context and might inflame antisemitism. Jewish museum trustee Mark Berlin, who describes himself as pro-Palestinian, also resigned his position over the exhibit.

They argue that the exhibit lacks "context" in that it does not also cover the history surrounding the establishment of Israel, or the displacement of Jews from Arab lands after 1948. But, hold on, does any discussion of Nazi Germany have to include a countervailing segment on the Huns' invasion of Germany in the 4th century or Napoleon's invasion in the early 19th century, "for context"? How much context is enough context?

The so-called "Jewish nakba", in the years following the establishment of the state of Israel, is its own story, and probably merits a separate exhibit, although it bears noting that some of the resettlement of Jews was voluntary, and at least they had a homeland to resettle to, rather than languishing in refugee camps for decades like the Palestinians. 

The museum's CEO Isha Khan (not Jewish!) has defended the planned Palestinian exhibit, saying that it is not anti-Zionist, and that it does not challenge the legitimacy of the state of Israel. It is merely a piece to highlight a little-known aspect of Middle Eastern history and its human rights connotations. Moreover, the museum has for years had an exhibit on the second floor that specifically highlights the mass displacement of Jews from Arab lands, not to mention extensive galleries about the Holocaust.

An indication of just how knee-jerk a reaction this is: most of the people complaining about the display have not actually seen it yet! It only opened this weekend. The curators beg people to come and see it for themselves before they criticize.

What would the objectors have the museum do? Gloss over these historically-validated events? Grow the exhibit by two or three times in order to encompass the Israeli "context" (and thereby dilute the poignancy of the Palestinian story)? This is not a Jewish museum. Israel and the Jewish people have been the perpetrators of some pretty bad stuff over the years, as well as being the victims. Those stories need to be told too. This does not detract from Israel's - or rather the Jewish people's - vicissitudes and victimhood.

It was so predictable that there would be outrage expressed whenever Israel is criticized in any way. It was equally predictable that the "antisemitism card" would get played at some point. It's all part and parcel of the usual Israeli tendency to shut down any and all forms of criticism. I find it hard to understand that some people identify so closely with a race or a religion or a nationality that it subsumes almost everything else. But I do understand, from having observed it, that that's how it is with some people.

A plague of frogs?

I obviously missed it at the time, but back in the innocent days of June 2005, a rather bizarre event occurred in the small town of Odžaci in northern Serbia, when storm clouds gathered and thousands of frogs rained down total the ground.

Traffic ground to a standstill and the locals ran for cover as "countless" frogs fell from the air with the rain. The frogs, described as different from the frogs usually seen in the area, seemed to survive the fall, and just hopped away, to everyone's surprise.

This is an unusual, but not unique, occurrence. A downpour of frogs has been reported in Tournai, Belgium in 1625, in Lille, France in 1794, in Kansas City, USA in 1873. Pink frogs were reported to have rained on two towns in Gloucestershire, UK as recently as 1987. 

And frogs are not the only animals to fall from the sky: the small town of Yoro, Honduras celebrates an annual Festival de la Lluvia de Peces (Festival of the Fish Rain), when a rain of small silvery fish falls once or twice a year. If it's happening, I guess you may as well celebrate it!

This is not quite the Biblical plague of frogs described in Exodus 8 verses 1-15. That was actually a much less impressive event, where an unspecified number of frogs ("abundant", millions?) came out of the river (the Nile?) and "covered the land of Egypt", getting "into the houses of your servants, onto your people, into your ovens, and into your kneading bowls". No, not the kneading bowls! Deprived of water, the frogs eventually began to die off, causing a "great stench".

This must have been concerning, but the divine threat "I will smite all your territory with frogs" was perhaps not one of the Lord's most chilling. Certainly, it didn't change Pharaoh's mind on the captivity of the Israelites, because God tried eight other plagues after the frogs.

There is of course a perfectly good explanation for all these miracles, and it doesn't involve God or smiting. Regarding the rain of frogs, there is a freak meteorological event called a waterspout, where a small tornado forms over water, sucking up any lightweight objects into its extremely low-pressure centre. When the tornado loses energy and dissipates, it rains its contents to the ground wherever it happens to be. Some waterspouts can travel hundreds of kilometers, but usually they only travel a few kilometers from their source. 

The Biblical plague of frogs can have many natural explanations (as do the other plagues and miraculous events mentioned in the Bible), from a regular migration to a one-off stress reaction caused by water pollution or algae blooms or bacterial or viral agents or increased water temperatures or drying up of parts of the river due to short-term climate events or Super El Niño years.

Weird things happen in nature. You can understand that ancient religious leaders (the politicians of their day) might have been tempted to use them for their own advantage, much like even more ancient leaders used knowledge of astronomical events, extreme weather, etc, to bamboozle and control their naïve citizens.

Co-opting God in support of a Holy War

You might have noticed, but I'm not religious. In fact, I'm areligious, atheist.

Kudos to the American Pope Leo XIV, though,  for calling out all sides in the US-Israel-Iran war, but particularly those who claim to be Christian (his turf), for invoking God in support of their cause. Warmongerers have been doing it since long before the Crusades, 

Leo (I can call you "Leo", can't I?) made his position clear: that no-one can use religion to justify war, least of all Christians who worship "Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no-one can use to justify war". Furthermore, "He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them".

Well, that's pretty clear. 

So, when the likes of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth use pseudo-biblical language about US forces raining death and destruction from above "in the name of Jesus Christ", he might want to reign it in and tone it down a little. I know he is not strictly Catholic (Hegseth is an Evangelical Protestant), but still... Hegseth even has a "Deus Vult" tattoo - "God wills it" -  echoing the war cry used by the Crusaders. The guy is distinctly creepy.

And who can forget that image of Donald Trump (a self-declared non-denominational Protestant) deep in prayer with various "faith leaders" in the early days of the war. Equally creepy.

Several Republican holy rollers got in on the act. Senator Lindsey Graham called the conflict "a religious war", and Senator Kevin Cramer declared that the United States has "a biblical responsibility to Israel", whatever that might mean.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavit (Catholic, at least notionally) would also have us know that the whole White House is praying hard this Holy Week, although the fact that she felt compelled to point it out suggests a largely performative element to it.

At least one commander of US troops in Iran was reported as waxing religiously lyrical about the Americans' incursion, saying that it was "all part of God's divine plan" and that "President Trump has been annointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to earth". Yow!

Benjamin Netanyahu is also fond of invoking the scriptures in support of his wars against Palestine and Iran, quoting some pretty obscure stuff about the Amalekites (ancient enemies of the Jews in biblical times) and "wicked Haman" (a Persian official in the Book of Esther, who planned to kill all the Jews).

Of course, the Iranians are just as bad, declaring Ayatollah Ali Khamenei a martyr for being killed by the Americans, making reference tonthe "Hidden 12th Iman" who is supposed to return on the day of judgement. *Yawn*

And then there's Vladimir Putin, who has often used religious imagery in justifying Russia's war on Ukraine. In particular he has co-opted Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, to his cause, a man who is happy to declare it a "holy war" against the West which has "fallen into Satanism". Early in the war, the Patriarch vowed, "I'm going to bless the troops, I'm going to bless the tanks and bombs, and I'm going to declare that anyone who dies in the process of this war will immediately go to heaven and have their sins forgiven".

Wow. Clearly the Americans have a thing or two to learn from the Russians.

Should the US be involving itself in Nigeria?

Donald Trump has a new crusade to fight: hundreds of thousands of Christians are being killed by Muslim fundamentalists in Nigeria. He accuses Islamic State (IS) of "targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!", and accuses the Nigerian government of continuing "to allow the killing of Christians", which of course Nigeria denies. But that is more than enough for him to wade into a neutral country and carry out military strikes there, which is his idea of fun. Mr. Trump wished a merry Christmas to "dead terrorists".

The Nigerian Foreign Minister, on the other hand, told the BBC that the multiple air strikes on Christmas Day were were part of a "joint operation" in a region of northwestern Nigeria where IS is know to have operations, and that they had "nothing to do with a particular religion". But hey, let's not quibble, Trump may have misunderstood that part. 

But - just as with his ongoing campaign against Venezuela and his characterization of the Afrikaners in South Africa - a detailed BBC report shows that it's not even clear that Trump is working from reliable information. Individuals as varied as Ted Cruz and TV host Bill Maher have been pushing the narrative that the Nigerian Jihadist group Boko Haram (not Islamic State, but hey, they're all the same, right?) has been responsible for killing "over 100,000" (or possibly "50,000"?) Christians, and burning "18,000 churches" and "2,000 Christian schools". This stuff gets disseminated widely, and elaborated upon, by the Republican social media machine.

When pressed, these activists almost all refer back to reports by the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (InterSociety for short), which monitors and tracks human rights abuses across Nigeria. InterSociety claims that jihadist groups have killed 100,000 Christians between 2009 and 2025, as well as 60,000 "moderate Muslims", although it's not entirely clear where they get these figures from. The data sources they do mention do not seem to reflect the figures they publish, according to the BBC. In the first two-thirds of 2025 alone, InterSociety claims that 7,000 Christians were killed, based, they say, on media reports, even though most of those media reports do not actually mention the religious identity of victims.

Both Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa tend to operate almost exclusively in north and northeastern Nigeria, which is a predominantly Muslim region, an area where relatively few Christians live. Nigeria's huge 236 million population is pretty much evenly split between Muslims and Christians, so calling it an "existential threat" for Christians (Trump again) is clearly ridiculous, as are claims from other US Christian groups and Republican politicians that Christians in the country could be "completely wiped out".

InterSociety also includes in its figures deaths at the hands of the militant (largely Muslim) Fulani cattle and sheep herders, which researchers say are mainly protesting about access to land and water and other ethnic tensions, and are not jihadists as InterSociety characterizes them. InterSociety itself has been accused of links with the Indigenous People of Biafra (Ipob), a proscribed group fighting for a breakaway state in the mainly Christian southeast of Nigeria. The Biafra Republic Government in Exile (BRGE) has also played a key role in promoting the "Christian genocide" in the US Congress over the years.

Nigerian politics - like that of the US, but even more so - is complicated and murky. It is far from clear that any kind of Christian genocide, or even a concerted anti-Christian hostility or persecution, is happening in Nigeria. It's even less clear that the USA should be throwing its weight around there. For an administration that claims it wants nothing to do with any "forever wars", it's sure doing a lot to start them.

Netanyahu tries to exploit Sydney massacre

The horrendous Hanukkah shooting in Sydney, Australia the other day deserves to be treated very carefully. Nerves are frayed and tensions are high. Yes, it seems to be a targeted act of terrorism by two Muslims on a Jewish group. Yes, they were driven by Islamic state ideology, but (like so many IS attacks) were essentially lone wolf actors. And yes, this is antisemitism; there seems little doubt of that.

But trust Benjamin Netanyahu to stir the flames higher and to milk the situation for his own political ends. No-one does that better than he. The Israeli Prime Minister blamed the episode squarely on the shoulders of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for having the temerity to formally recognize a Palestinian state. "Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on the antisemitic fire".

Exactly how this was supposed to have triggered such an atrocity was not explained. I have tried, and failed, to imagine his logic. But, of course, logic doesn't come into it. This is just Netanyahu doing his usual "everybody is antisemitic, but I can do no wrong" schtick. The man has no shame.

I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking that Netanyahu's own actions in his excessive and genocidal reaction to Hamas' terrorist attack is as likely as anything to have been the catalyst behind the cowardly Sydney massacre. But that is not the stuff of official public comments. (I don't count this blog, as next to no-one reads it.)

And can we also take a moment to register that the hero of the day, the man who singlehandedly disarmed the gunman and probably saved many lives, was Ahmed al-Ahmed, a 43-year old fruit shop owner and an Australian Muslim son of refugees from Syria. I'm not suggesting that his actions somehow cancel out the actions of the two Muslim gunmen, but credit where credit is due. Not all Muslims are crazy, violent extremists.

Bloc's opposition to religious exemption for hate speech makes sense

It's not that often that I agree with much that the Bloc Québécois says, but the Bloc's amendment to the Liberals' Bill C-9 (the Combatting Hate Act") does make some good sense.

Bill C-9 promises to clamp down on hate speech and make hate-motivated crimes a specific offence. But the Liberals' original formulation allowed the current criminal code's religious exemption to continue. This specifies that something that would otherwise qualify as hate speech can be allowed, "if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text". 

So, religion can be used as a cover for homophobia, antisemitism, anti-Islamism, you name it, so long as it appears to come from religious convictions or an interpretation, however tenuous, of a religious text.

As the Bloc Québécois points out, such an exemption makes a self-defeating mockery of the law, allowing for all sorts of hateful utterances provided the perpetrator claims it is part of their religious beliefs, and the Bloc refused to support the government unless the religious exemption was removed. The Liberals need the Bloc's votes to pass the legislation, so they have agreed to remove the offending clause. The Conservatives, predictably enough, continue to insist that the religious exemption is just fine.

Some of the Bloc Québécois' strident views on secularism are a bit too strong for me, a confirmed atheist. (For example, the recent ban on religious garb and symbols for public sector workers.) But this one seems sensible enough.

Quebec proposed ban on public prayer is just daft

Listen, I'm an atheist. I've made no bones about that throughout this blog, even celebrated it at times. But even I know that Quebec's bill to ban all prayer in public is a bad idea.

It's no secret that François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party is stridently anti-religious, or pro-secularism as they might term it. They even have a Secularism Minister, Jean-François Roberge, in the Cabinet. They have already adopted a law requiring all immigrants to Quebec to "embrace the common culture" of the province, and have passed the contentious bill that would ban public workers from wearing any religious symbols in the course of their work (using the Charter's "notwithstanding clause" to avoid claims that it is unconstitutional).

This latest bill is another step down that road, and it too will require the use of the notwithstanding clause, because it too would be unconstitutional. 

It's also wrong-headed. For one thing, Legault has (accidentally or otherwise) admitted that, when he says he wants to ban prayer outdoors, he really wants to ban prayer outside of Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica, where pro-Palestine Muslims have been holding public prayer meetings for months now. He has said he wants to send "a very clear message to Islamists".

Don't get me wrong, I think prayer is stupid, whether Christian or Muslim. To think that some putative God is listening intently when individuals pray is the ultimate in solipsism, and seems sadly deluded. But if that's really what people want to spend their time doing, well, knock yourself out, I say. Passing a law to ban it is so completely against the letter and the spirit of Canadian law that only Quebec (and maybe Alberta, for different reasons) would have the chutzpah to even try it.

A peek at some of the views of the US Secretary of Defense

The USA takes another step towards Margaret Atwood's prescient Gilead as one of the Trump administration's highest ranking members re-tweets some offensive drivel from a self-described "Christian nationalist" pastor.

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth couldn't help himself and re-tweeted an X posting about a CNN interview with Doug Wilson, senior pastor at the Christ Church in Idaho, who took the opportunity to air some of his nasty (and, let it be said, distinctly un-Christian) beliefs. And I'm sure he has many more, much nastier, beliefs he did not considered fit for prime time.

Among the ideas that Hegseth seems to approve of are: "women are the kind of people that people come out of" (a rather awkward phraseology, but you know what he means); women are the "chief executive of the home"; women should have "three or four or five" children, because that is their function; women should "submit" to their husbands; and more specifically, women should vote with their husbands, and not pursue their own political leanings; and more.

On other matters, Wilson defended his previous comments about slaves sharing a mutual affection with their masters, and his view that sodomy should be recriminalized.

Hegseth and his family regularly attend another church established by Wilson and his Congregation of Reformed Evangelical Churches organization in Washington DC. 

Remember, this is the man notionally in charge of the most powerful military in the world (although in practice he just does whatever he think Donald Trump would like, or whatever he is told to do by Trump).

Don't you just feel that these old grey men are dragging us down, inexorably, into a New Dark Age?

China does not seem to understand Buddhism

Here's an excellent quote from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning: "The reincarnation of the Dalai Lama and other living Buddhas must be approved by the central government".

This, of course, is China trying to assert its authority over the Tibetan government-in-exile. But I can't help but think that they have the whole thing rather misunderstood. Dalai Lamas are not voted in by government committee, and they are certainly not imposed by government decree as Ms. Mao seems to think.

You can roll your eyes to your heart's content over the idea of a religious leader appearing as a reincarnation, especially one that is somehow picked by the Gaden Phodrang Trust. But China's willful misconstructions are even more hilarious.

New American Pope - what should we expect?

Robert Prevost, an American, is now Pope Leo XIV. He was born in Chicago, to parents of Spanish and French-Italian descent, but has spent most of his working life as a missionary in Peru and as a functionary and insider  in the Vatican, so he's actually not THAT American. An Italian newspaper calls him "the least American" of the US cardinals.

The significance of his Americanism is lost on no-one (including Donald Trump, who was quick to claim him as one of his own), although he has already proved himself critical of some of Trump's recent actions (including the deportations of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to an El Salvador jail, against a court order), and has specifically spoken about against JD Vance's "Catholic" justification of the same.

Indeed, some of the MAGA crowd are deeply suspicious of the new Pope. MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, not known for pulling her punches (or for common sense or truthfulness) calls Leo "anti-Trump, anti-MAGA, pro-open border, and a total Marxist like Pope Francis". Ryan Selkis calls him a "new woke pope".

His adoption of the name Leo, too, may or may not be significant. The previous Leo, Pope Leo XIII, who was around over a century ago, railed against the American "heracy" of the time, as he saw it, as they were attempting to align American politcal values and cultural ethos with traditional Roman Catholic tenets 3and historical practices. Sound familiar? Leo XIII was also known, ahead of his time, for his concern for workers and social issues, and his criticism of both laissez-faire capitalism and state-centric socialism. Maybe the new Pope sees himself as carrying on that work?

Anyway, new Pope. Should we be excited? Meh, probably not. Leo XIV came up through the Augustinian order, and he was made a cardinal by his predecessor Francis, so it seems likely that he will continue Francis' pastoral and slightly radical trajectory. But, as I have argued earlier, Popes these days are not that influential in the wider world, and we shouldn't really expect any concrete impacts on the world as a whole. 

The argument against religious and "philosophical" vaccination exemptions

Kudos to Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard for once again telling it like it is, this time regarding the morality of vaccinations.

The column begins by noting that first California then New York have already passed laws over the last ten years disallowing parents from refusing vaccinations for their kids on so-called religious or philosophical grounds (an exemption on medical grounds remains for those with severe allergies to some ingredients of vaccines, or severe immune deficiencies). 

I had no idea this had been pushed through - in 2015 and 2019 respectively - and I can imagine it was pretty contentious. Both states, let it be said, were reacting to major measles outbreaks, mainly among religious (Jewish) communities.

Well, Ontario is currently going through its worst measles outbreak in three decades, with its origins in the vaccine-resistant Mennonite community. Isn't it time Ontario passed such a law, along with a determined educational effort to win over the vaccine-hesitant?

As Mr. Picard explains, it is currently way too easy to claim an exemption from childhood vaccinations on religious or "philosophical" grounds. Resistance to vaccinations is not a tenet of any major religion; religious anti-vaxxers are just making their own interpretations of religious beliefs, usually something along the lines of they feel it interrupts the divine plan for a person's life, or it is interfering with God's will in some ill-defined way. The "philosophical" objection is even more woolly, usually to do with "parental rights" to decide what is best for their own children.

Freedom of religion is one thing, but it was never meant to exempt people from their societal obligations, such as protecting the health and well-being of children (their own and others'). As has been codified in major court cases, the state cannot tell you what to think, but it can tell you what do, especially where it involves the greater good of society. Religionists and libertarians hate that, but it's true. 

Personal beliefs do not supersede the public good or the laws of the land. Just as we don't allow patents to beat their children, or marry them off as minors, and just as we insist on seat belts in cars to save lives (remember the fuss when that was instituted?), we should not be allowing those with anti-science views to harm others. We should not be mollifying the selfish and the self-righteous at the expense of the general populace, as Mr. Picard notes.

So, did Pope Francis change the world?

With the death yesterday of Pope Francis, the conversation naturally moves to his legacy and whether he actually made (or indeed could make) any difference in the real world.

It seems undeniable that Francis, a humble and modest individual by papal standards, was something of a radical firebrand (again by papal standards). He was not afraid to involve himself in messy political and social issues. He worked to challenge and change Catholic orthodoxy, for example through his progressive comments on climate change, homosexuality and gender issues, migration and refugees, indigenous people, divorce and nuclear weapons, incurring the wrath of the more conservative wing of the Catholic establishment in the process. 

Some activists, of course, think he didn't go far enough, and that he squandered his position of power and influence, and it's true that he steered clear of issues like abortion, clerical abuse, celibacy and women in the priesthood, among other issues that he might have been expected to weigh in on. In particular, there are questions about whether Francis did enough to deal with sexual abuse by clergy members.

He also sought to redefine and modernize the role of a pope in the modern world. As popes go, he was a breath of fresh air, especially after the stuffy, traditionalistic and reactionary papacies of John Paul and Benedict who preceded him. He had a sense of humour, and the irony would not have been lost on him that almost his final public engagement was with US Vice-President JD Vance, who embodies pretty much everything he railed against during his 12-year papal tenure.

Did he change the world, though? Despite being the leader and spokesperson for the estimated 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, it's not at all clear that anything he did or said has moved the needle on anything important in any sphere of life. Sure, he may have made some gay Catholics feel a bit better about themselves, and he may have caused a few people to think more seriously about their carbon footprint. But, however nice a guy he may have been, and however pure his motives, how can he be said to have actually made the world a better place? He may well have changed the Catholic Church (and about time too!), but he didn't really change the world.

As we speak, a real live Conclave is about to take place to elect a new pope. During his tenure, Francis elevated a lot of younger, global-south bishops to the status of cardinal, so it will be interesting to see whether another progressive is voted in to continue Francis' work - a BLACK pope, even! - or whether there is a conservative backlash from the Italian/European base to vote in one of their own, to arrest the madness, as they see it.

Do we really need a purpose in life?

Interesting article in Psychology Today, not a publication I often read, about whether we really need to have a purpose in life.

Sounds a bit heavy perhaps, but I've always thought that having a purpose in life, and  constantly searching for a "meaning" of life, to be overrated, just a back door into the dead end of religion. Personally, I don't feel the need for a meaning to my life, or a purpose to it. I'm here and it's quite nice, and that's just fine for me. But lots of people agonize over it, and the lack of it leads many people into mental health problems. So, you could argue that often it is this need for meaning and purpose that CAUSES mental illness.

The article outlines the way in which wanting and having a purpose in life helps many people become successful, happy members of society. But if it turns out that they change their minds about that purpose they have set for themselves, that's when the stress and anxiety clicks in. And if someone feels they need a purpose and don't find one, they too turn stressed, depressed and worse.

Better, then, not to go there at all, it seems to me. Just live your life, be nice to people, try to leave things a bit better than you found them (or at least not worse), and just enjoy it. I know I am perhaps in an enviable position, born into the western world, well-educated and not short of money, so maybe I have a rosier outlook than many. Personally, I blame religion for much of that obsession with meaning and purpose, but then I tend to blame religion for many things.

Israelism - another side to the story of Israel

I finally got around to watching Israelism, a hard-hitting documentary about indoctrination and misinformation about Israel among American Jews.

Subtitled "The Awakening of Young American Jews", the 2023 film didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know because I have read around the subject, although I'm sure it will be a shocking eye-opener for a lot of people.

It looks in some detail at the way in which young Jewish people in America are fed a very one-sided and often false story about the creation of Israel, the way Jews are treated, and how the state of Israel is a paradise for Jews. It explains how well-funded this movement is, and how young impressionable American Jews are being indoctrinated and even recruited into the Israeli army.

It also shows that there is a whole cohort of young American Jews who are questioning this indoctrination, and visiting Israel and Palestine personally to see for themselves. They come away with a very different impression - a place where Palestinian lands are illegally settled by a rapacious Israeli political machine and fanatical fundamentalists, and Palestinian people are subjugated and oppressed in an apartheid system at least as brutal and absolute as anything in 20th century South Africa.

This has led to a plethora of activist groups in America of Jews opposed to the politics of the Israeli state, and supportive of Palestinian freedom and human rights. These groups are being routinely harassed and threatened online and in person by angry Zionist elements, and subjected to regular death threats, but they are bravely persisting because they have seen the injustice and feel they cannot remain silent.

The film makes no secret of the fact that there is indeed a burgeoning antisemitic movement in America (and worldwide) as the far right gains a foothold and unquestioningly pro-Israel populist politicians and demagogues proliferate. But it makes the point that, notwithstanding, the propaganda we are being fed about Israel remains wrong, and that criticizing Israel is not in itself antisemitic, as we are also told.

The documentary was produced before the October 7th 2023 incursion by Hamas and the bloodbath in Palestine that ensued in its wake. Perhaps not surprisingly, after the attack and the start of the war in Palestine, there was a concerted effort to get the movie banned on the grounds that it is antisemitic - it's not, and the movie itself explains why it's not.

It should be required viewing, but so entrenched are the pro-Israel views of many people, Jews and non-Jews, that I don't hold much hope that it will change many minds.

Breaking news: expedition to prove that the Earth is round

A group of prominent flat-earthers made a (very expensive) trip down to Antarctica to see first-hand whether there was indeed 24-hour sunlight there at this time of year.

For some reason, they seem to accept the premise that, if there is 24 hours of sun at the Pole, then that is sufficient evidence that the Earth is indeed round (spherical), not flat. Why they would accept that particular piece of evidence and not all the other evidence pointing towards a round earth is not clear. 

And why they felt the need to go to the South Pole, not the much more accessible (and much cheaper) North Pole at a different time of year, is also not clear. But then, they were not actually paying for it - some Colorado church was picking up the tab, again for unknown reasons. And why they couldn't go just partway to the Pole and see the hours of sunlight increase to arrive at the same conclusion is likewise a mystery....

There are many more baffling aspects to this expedition, which are just too depressing to go into here. But, hey, this is not a scientific endeavour after all; logic need not apply. As one of the flat-earthers explains, "Actually, what I am is somebody who has left the cult of science". Hmm. But wait, testing a hypothesis by empirical observation? Isn't that pretty much the definition of the scientific method.

You'll be relieved to know that they did indeed find 24 hours of sunlight at the South Pole, and that at least some of them now accept that the Earth is indeed round. Phew!

Taliban continues to erase Afghan women

The Taliban in Afghanistan are starting to jump the shark with a series of new proclamations that are pretty hard to take seriously (unless of course you are Afghan, particularly an Afghan woman).

Already banned from showing flesh of any kind, looking at men they are not related to, and singing, reciting and reading aloud in public, a new Taliban edict has now come down disallowing women from being heard at all, even by other women. So, they cannot sing or play music, they cannot hold down a job of any kind, they cannot hold conversations with one another, they cannot even pray or recite Quranic verses:."Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear". 

Because? Well, female voices are potential instruments oftemptation and vice, don't you know? 

At the risk of incurring punishments that include beatings, detentions, torture, rape and even death, Aghan women are gradually being completely erased.

For what it's worth, men are now obliged to cover their bodies from their navel to their knees when they are outside their home, so no more of that naked shopping, guys! The Taliban's laws are becoming increasingly restrictive and bizarre, some of them worthy of a Monty Python sketch were they not so distressing and sad.

UPDATE

It gets worse! The Taliban has now banned windows that look onto areas where women MIGHT be seen inside their homes. A government spokesman explained: "Seeing women working in kitchens, in courtyards, or collecting water from wells can lead to obscene acts". He didn't elaborate on what kinds of obscene acts such a sighting of a working female might lead to, which is rather disappointing. I'm not sure even Monty Python could have thought up some of this stuff.

Taliban (hilariously) responds to allegations of gender discrimination

The Taliban's response to criticism is priceless. 

Four countries - Canada, Australia, Germany and the Netherlands - with the support of at least 20 other countries, are starting legal proceedings against the Taliban for violating the UN convention on women, to which Afghanistan is technically a party. The writ says, in part, "We condemn the gross and systematic human rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan, particularly the gender-based discrimination against women and girls". It also says, for what it's worth, that they do not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of the country.

Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban has barred girls from education beyond 6th grade, banned them from public spaces and most jobs, and forbidden them from showing their bare faces and raising their voices in public.

Nothing daunted, a Taliban spokesperson - sorry, spokesMAN - responded, "It is absurd to accuse the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan of human rights and gender discrimination". They purport to genuinely believe that human rights are protected in Afghanistan and that nobody faces discrimination. They believe that, because their actions are in line with (their interpretation of) Islamic Sharia law, they can't possibly be wrong.

It's quite shocking to see the extent to which they are in denial, and the extent to which their religion has warped them. That is, if they truly do believe what they say.

Taylor Swift and the cult of personality

I've tried my best to see the whole Taylor Swift phenomenon as a positive thing. I mean she's pretty wholesome and sensible, isn't she? A pretty good role model for the hordes of pre-teen, teen and even adult Swifties who follow her every move and word? A bit vapid and Barbie-like perhaps, but even Barbie has her redeeming facets.

But I don't know. Seeing the gathered masses as they attend or travel to her Eras Tour performances, it's a little bit scary. That kind of obsessive single-minded group activity reminds me of the Muslim hajj, or maybe a mass personalty cult (and we know how those usually turn out).

The other thing, of course, is the fact that ISIS and other groups have established her and her followers as a terrorist target. Ms. Swift has not made any anti-Muslim statements that I am aware of, nor even any pro-Christian ones for that matter. So, why would they see her as a legitimate target, unless they see her as the head and deity of a new upstart religion, or maybe just the glaring apotheosis of Western decadence and hedonism.

Sometimes it does seem that way. Seeing the reverence on the faces of these (mainly) young girls, and the way in which people are willing to travel huge distances and pay huge sums of money to see her, it does have some religious overtones, with friendship bracelets and sequins replacing crucifixes and hair shirts (a slight improvement, I guess).

Maybe it's no different from Beatlesmania (and maybe Presleymania, Michael-Jackson-mania, BTS-mania) at its height. Pictures of screaming, swooning fans of that era are also pretty disturbing to watch. I guess any phenomenon that is quite so successful (commercially, emotionally, whateverly) is never quite comfortable to watch. One always thinks of other charismatic, but much less wholesome, historical figures - think Hitler, Stalin, Manson, Trump - even if the circumstances are quite different.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into this, but I'm far from the only one who sees cult-like qualities in Taylor Swift's fandom. Her passionate, uncompromising and uncritical supporters have generated many online analyses like The Cult of Taylor Swift (and why we keep worshiping at her altar), The Terrifying Cult of Fandom - a case study in Swifties, The Modern-Day Cult of Taylor Swift's Fandom, Are Swifties In A Cult?, etc. and many fans and ex-fans talk about how they extricated themselves from the toxicity of the Swiftie cult (often suffering a backlash from the faithful). 

As a billionaire faux-feminist with a ruinous carbon footprint and a rather half-hearted political conscience, there is a lot to criticize in Ms. Swift. But if you try doing that in a public forum, you will be pounced upon by legions of oblivious fans and stans who believe she can do no wrong. If that's not a cult, I don't know what is.

Julian Barnes introduces us to his ill-remembered namesake

I have been reading Julian Barnes' 2022 novel Elizabeth Finch. And, while it is a good read, like all of Barnes' books, it is a strange animal, and not at all what I was expecting.

This is largely because a sizeable proportion of it is given over to an extended account of one of the Roman Empire's less-talked-about emperors, Julian the Apostate. I can only think that Mr. Barnes went down a rabbit hole concerning his namesake, and decided to lead us down there too. It's a strange detour in a novel that is ostensibly about a student's long-term unrequited love for an eccentric but brilliant teacher, but in fact it also makes an interesting novelette in itself (and yes, there is a kind of connection to the main story, it's not completely random).

Julian the Apostate (Flavius Claudius Julianus) was Caesar of the declining Roman empire for five short years, from 355 to 360 AD. He inherited the position from his uncle Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor and the founder of the great city of Constantinople.

Julian, though, was a maverick. He was, by all accounts, oafish, hairy unkempt, and poorly-presented in an age when the patrician classes prided themselves on their clean-cut, well-coiffed image. Julian was oblivious to such worldly concerns, and devoted himself to philosophical ruminations, becoming remarkably well-read for a late-Empire emperor. He made some attempts (none too successful) to weed out the corruption and foppery that had taken over the higher echelons of Roman society in his day.

His studies led him to an intellectual rejection of Christianity, preferring the divinity-rich paganism of old and the philosophy of Neoplatonism. He spent much of his time and money on elaborate auguries, animal sacrifices, etc.  However, he did not purge Christianity in a violent manner (in traditional Roman fashion), but preferred to use words and arguments, showing a policy of "ingenious clemency" or blanda persecutio ("persecution by gentleness").

He was reviled by most in his own time, partly for his appearance and methods, and partly for his anti-Christian rhetoric at a time when Christianity had taken strong hold among the general public and particularly among the gentry. He enjoyed a short period of endorsement and validation among the intelligentsia of the French Enlightenment in the 18th century, but in general he has been treated shoddily by history.

Julian was killed trying to extend Roman occupation into the deserts of Persia, which he undertook based on his own positive auguries and in spite of the dire warnings of his advisors. Go figure.

It is, though, an interesting academic exercise to imagine how history might have been changed had Julian lived, and had he succeeded in steering the civilized world away from Christianity. What if? If the great scholarly libraries of ancient times had never been destroyed or lost, there would perhaps have been no need for a European Renaissance or an Enlightenment. Might Christians, Jews, Muslims, pagans and tree-huggers have lived side by side in peace, with no need for the religious wars that racked Europe for centuries, no need for over-zealous missionaries scouring the world for souls to save, decimating their populations in the process? Imagine science progressing unhindered by religious persecution and shortsightedness. People living for the joy to be had in life, rather than cowering before the threats of the priesthood in the forlorn hope of some imaginary life after death.

Probably not. But it's nice to speculate.

Record numbers dying at annual hajj as Middle East climate worsens

Religion leads people to do amd say some very silly things. Thus has it always been. It is almost the exact antithesis of common sense.

What would lead thousands - no, millions - of people to spend many hours out in the sun in record-breaking temperatures, surrounded by so many other people it is almost impossible to move, let alone seek shade when necessary? Oh, yes, religion.

Muslims are very strongly encouraged by their imams to make the hajj pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Poor people sell all their worldly goods and even abandon their families to make the trip. Every year, many die, mainly due to crowd crushes and stampedes, but also because of the heat. It's kind of a crazy thing.

This year the hajj coincides with 52°C temperatures (although the temperatures are almost always dangerously high), and an estimated 550 people have died (so far), mainly Egyptians, Indonesians and Jordanians, and almost all from heat-related causes. Other tallies put the death toll at 577 (so far). Over 2,000 have been treated for heat stress.

The Saudi authorities caution the use of umbrellas and water, and avoiding exposure to the sun during the hottest part of the day. But, as they well know, many of the prescribed rituals involve being outdoors for hours during daytime hours. There are some air-conditioned facilities along the route, but these are not accessible by the thousands of "unofficial" pilgrims who cannot afford the often costly procedures for official hajj visas, and often skimp on food and water too. The Saudi health ministry seems to consider it a huge success that they managed to avoid any major disease outbreaks.

Do people who die at the annual hajj count as martyrs for the cause? Do they get to enjoy all those virgin? I doubt it somehow. And, anyway, did anyone ask the women whether they want to enjoy virgins? Ah, forgive my flippancy, but it does make you despair about religion in general, doesn't it?

UPDATE

The heat death numbers have now surpassed 1,000, the vast majority of them unregistered Egyptians.

UPDATE UPDATE

The final tally was at least 1,300 deaths. Really, this has to stop.