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Post by lagatta on Jan 20, 2015 18:56:00 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2015 12:45:22 GMT
I finally bought my copy of Charlie Hebdo today. My Muslim news vendor was very proud to have copies printed on much better paper than what he has received on the other days -- the paper is nearly glossy. Of course with a print run of 7 million, they are probably running short of the usual paper.
The woman in front of me was told "don't fold it; it's much better if it lays flat."
When I was handed my copy, I said jokingly, "I don't know if that's really the Prophet on the cover. He was probably better looking than that." He said, "Absolutely. The Prophet had the most beautiful black eyes." I said, "Yeah, a lot of the pictures they show us of Jesus show blue eyes, and I find that highly unlikely." He snorted, "Blue eyes are effeminate."
So that was my theological discussion of the day.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2015 13:00:02 GMT
What colour are your eyes, K?
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Post by lagatta on Jan 21, 2015 14:03:59 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2015 14:42:21 GMT
There will always be some scapegoats, everywhere and for every imaginable reason.
Meanwhile, Fox News has a solution for the current problems.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 21, 2015 15:17:44 GMT
Not only is she is a nutcase, she has about the most annoying voice I've ever heard. Couldn't her like and ISIS leave the rest of us alone?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 21, 2015 18:52:35 GMT
During the ceremony of the naturalisation of Lassana Bathily, the Malian who saved a group of people in the kosher supermarket, this photo turned out to be the one that moved people the most. imageshack.com/a/img538/8697/6GOXVD.jpg
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Post by mossie on Jan 21, 2015 19:39:29 GMT
That is a very good picture Kerouac.
Now the good lady on Fox should remember the old cry that went up "Nuke the bastards", she is priceless.
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Post by questa on Jan 21, 2015 22:14:21 GMT
A serendipitous photo, from which many metaphors can be made. Well done, Photographer.
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Post by lola on Jan 22, 2015 16:02:11 GMT
Beautiful photo.
Bathily has a (similarly Muslim) first cousin here in St.Louis who teaches African dance at local Jewish community center, among other places.
Fox News blares out of TV screens all across this country, so I think it must be taken seriously. See the film Outfoxed about their methods. I think the entire film is available on YouTube.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2015 17:31:44 GMT
Ah, that video is not available to me.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2015 19:50:32 GMT
7 millions copies of Charlie Hebdo have proved to be insufficient. They are still printing 300,000 new issues every day to deliver to all news vendors who are requesting more (but no longer to every single newsstand). 700,000 copies have been sold in foreign countries, with the largest quantities to Belgium and Germany.
The number of subscriptions was below 7000 in the past but is now around 130,000.
Air France bought 20,000 copies to distribute on its flights. It made a point of paying full price (3€) per issue whereas of course airlines usually pay a pittance for the publications they distribute on their planes and in their boarding lounges.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2015 21:06:40 GMT
Considering how long this thread has continued, I feel a need to explain a bit more about how people can find Charlie Hebdo so offensive and why so few people have bought it over the years. I'm sure that very few people here had ever heard of Charlie Hebdo before the slaughter, and even when you read about it, all they say are things like "satirical" or "anti clerical" but you don't really get many examples of the "offensive" material. That's because it is really offensive to most people and they don't dare show anything. In the post-assassination issue that I bought the other day, I found an appropriate example, right on page 2, behind the prophet. It concerns Sister Emmanuelle, one of the most beloved people in France. In the 1930s, Sister Emmanuelle started teaching at the Notre-Dame de Sion High School in Istanbul, where she lived until the 1960s, with teaching assignments by her congregation of several years in Tunis and Alexandria in between.
In 1971, Sister Emmanuelle witnessed the impoverished conditions of the trash collectors in Cairo, Egypt, and decided to live among them. She remained there until 1993, when she returned to France. It was upon her return that she gained the status of a media sensation in France, as she was well received by audiences and talk-show hosts.
In addition to her charity work, she was known for her unorthodox religious views, including her approval of the use of contraception and of the idea of allowing priests to marry. She was voted one of the most popular people in both France and Belgium, and was compared to Mother Teresa, although she herself regarded the comparison as "ridiculous". In 2003, a French television station broadcast the documentary, Soeur Emmanuelle: An Exceptional Woman. In 2005 she ended in fifth place in the Walloon version of Le plus grand Belge (The Greatest Belgian).
Sister Emmanuelle died on October 20, 2008, in Callian, Var, in France. She died in her sleep from natural causes at the age of 99, less than four weeks from celebrating her 100th birthday.
I thought she was a wonderful person. It would be difficult to find anybody in France who didn't think she was a wonderful person. This is what she looked like. She was therefore the perfect target for a Charlie Hebdo cartoon. She probably would have laughed about it, because people who have authentic and complete faith understand 'comic blasphemy' and don't worry about it. When it is so completely over they top, everybody understands that it is not serious, but people with comprehension difficulties are offended. So here is the cartoon right after the Prophet cover. It says: The testamental book by Sister Emmanuelle: "Down Here I Masturbated." And she says "In heaven, I am going to suck cocks." I will allow you to draw your own conclusions about who can laugh about such things and who can be outraged and want to kill people. And yes, the cartoonist for this particular item was among those assassinated.
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Post by lola on Jan 23, 2015 22:50:21 GMT
A woman who devoted her long life to helping others after presumably taking a vow of chastity and giving up family life does not need her sexuality publicly lampooned. In my opinion. They can print and sell such things, but I'd never be a customer, and I don't buy the idea that nothing should be sacred.
But I like the drawing.
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Post by questa on Jan 23, 2015 23:07:40 GMT
Even if you take away the offence-giving factor, it is not even funny or witty or clever It is what you would expect from a bunch of 10 year old boys trying to impress each other with naughty words. About time people realised that maybe King Charlie is wearing no clothes.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2015 23:13:40 GMT
Or that everybody is a potential terrorist.
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Post by htmb on Jan 25, 2015 15:15:57 GMT
Why serious people just don't take Fox News seriouslyA recent piece by Pulitzer Prize newspaper columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. Tucker Carlson said on Fox that more children die of bathtub drownings than of accidental shootings. They don’t.
Steve Doocy said on Fox that NASA scientists faked data to make the case for global warming. They didn’t.
Rudy Giuliani said on Fox that President Obama has issued propaganda asking everybody to “hate the police.” He hasn’t.
John Stossel said on Fox that there is “no good data” proving secondhand cigarette smoke kills non-smokers. There is.
So maybe you can see why serious people — a category excluding those who rely upon it for news and information — do not take Fox, well...seriously, why they dub it Pox News and Fakes News, to name two of the printable variations. Fox is, after all, the network of death panels, terrorist fist jabs, birtherism, anchor babies, victory mosques, wars on Christmas and Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. It’s not just that it is the chief global distributor of unfact and untruth but that it distributes unfact and untruth with a bluster, an arrogance, a gonad-grabbing swagger, that implicitly and intentionally dares you to believe fact and truth matter.
Many of us have gotten used to this. We don’t even bother to protest Fox being Fox. Might as well protest a sewer for stinking.
But the French and the British, being French and British, see it differently. And that’s what produced the scenario that recently floored many of us.Continued........ Read more here: www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article8028834.html#storylink=cpywww.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article8028834.html
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jan 25, 2015 15:40:18 GMT
Thanks for posting that link htmb, I was really confused about why Fox News was allowed to get away with such obviously innane, ridiculous jibber-jabber. I realise that most countries across the world have some problems with so-called-journalism both on tv and in the newspapers. We have our own unethical press (the phone tapping scandal, bribery of officials etc) misrepresentation, misinterpreting events for headlines etc and most people with more than one brain cell avoid the tabloid press....this guy gets it about right imo.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Jan 25, 2015 15:46:00 GMT
warning tho...some of the other clips linked to this one could be seen as offensive by some people.
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Post by htmb on Jan 25, 2015 16:36:21 GMT
That's a good one, Cheery! I find the television news much worse than the newspapers since I can at least filter out while I read. I still haven't watched the Fox News links posted in this thread.
In my estimation, people who watch news stations such as Fox are typically the same ones who obsess along with the raging televangelists begging for money in exchange for a prayer.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2015 16:46:00 GMT
There was a snippet from a Russian television station on the French news the other day that made Fox News look mild in comparison. It has been reposted on YouTube by an ultra right wing French organisation which totally agrees with everything in the "report."
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Post by lola on Jan 25, 2015 17:11:45 GMT
Yes, journalism of all kinds runs amok. A liberal type doesn't like it, but shrugs.
I understand the appeal of Fox News to those who long for a confident authoritative voice laying out exactly how things are, in consistent black and white. I envision a lot of older people sitting there for hours, soaking it in, guided through this complicated world. In the waiting room of a Catholic hospital radiology department recently, waiting for my turn in X-ray, I was treated to a Fox News rant against Obamacare. This is a hospital that would love for more people to have health insurance. (How I treasure waiting rooms without TV.)
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Post by lagatta on Jan 26, 2015 0:02:04 GMT
I have French of French origin friends who live most happily in St-Ouen and St-Denis. The latter has an important university and a very nice town centre. Yes, there are tough estates and neighbourhoods - isn't that the case everywhere? There were lots of tough neighbourhoods in Paris before there was a significant non-European population.
I'd love to do a video: "Visit the no-go zones". No, not the most desolate housing estates, but the lively and cosmopolitan Paris (and some proche-banlieue) neighbourhoods, like those shown in the Petit Journal video.
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Post by lola on Jan 26, 2015 14:57:21 GMT
Go for it, lagatta. One of our most fun and memorable visits last time was to St-Denis.
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Post by lagatta on Jan 26, 2015 17:22:14 GMT
A eulogy for Elsa Cayat, Charlie Hebdo's shrink-in-residence, from a (liberal, woman) Rabbi who respects Cayat's lack of religious belief: tenoua.org/eulogy-elsa-cayat/ This is an English translation, the original French is within a link in the article.
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Post by tod2 on Jan 26, 2015 17:29:41 GMT
A woman who devoted her long life to helping others after presumably taking a vow of chastity and giving up family life does not need her sexuality publicly lampooned. I am in agreement Lola. It doesn't have to be this good person or anyone else who has harmed no-one. The jibe is totally unnecessary. Pick on the big guys who will hit back. Show those turds who's the boss......
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2015 18:16:06 GMT
A woman who devoted her long life to helping others after presumably taking a vow of chastity and giving up family life does not need her sexuality publicly lampooned. I am in agreement Lola. It doesn't have to be this good person or anyone else who has harmed no-one. The jibe is totally unnecessary. Pick on the big guys who will hit back. Show those turds who's the boss...... She is dead and has been for some years. No, no one needs to have their life lampooned and, as Kerouac says, pretty much everyone admired this woman in life. However, I don't take that cartoon so much as a comment on her but on religious beliefs in general, especially ones that say we are all going to some big reward in the sky where we have eternal peace, or 40 virgins, or St. Peter, angels with harps, or whatever. I doubt she felt she was denying herself any pleasure in this life, but lots of people are routinely shutting themselves or others off from the most preposterously benign things, all in the name of religion. (They are doing unspeakably horrible things in the name of religion, too.) I believe that is what is being criticized in this cartoon. She is simply the medium.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2015 18:17:41 GMT
Ah, but the whole point of Charlie Hebdo is to lampoon absolutely everybody, and it is one of the major points of French humour, just like 'nonsense' is a basis for English humour.
I dread the day when it becomes forbidden to poke fun (even nasty fun) at 'nice' people, because that is how countries like North Korea and Iran are run. Nobody has ever been obliged to buy Charlie Hebdo and be shocked, just as nobody was obliged to slaughter the staff for blasphemy, a crime that was abolished in France about 225 years ago.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 26, 2015 18:19:55 GMT
Oh, I agree with you 100%, Kerouac. Satire loses its teeth when you're only allowed to satirize the bad ones.
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Post by lola on Jan 26, 2015 19:52:05 GMT
Seriously you would not mind seeing such a cartoon in print about a beloved elderly female relative of your own? You'd applaud it as a sign of healthy democracy? Clearly most of you are far more hip than I am.
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