Off to make an apple crumble and not think about work.

Ad astra per aspera

So great was the outrage that, after much cajoling, they took the post down.

Having been involved this time last year in a campaign against our local trans-hater, Julie Bindel, and the gay organisation, Stonewall, that chose to reward her, I can no longer work up the head of steam necessary to give a damn. I know that there are transphobes everywhere, not just the right wing religious maniacs that would have us and gay people killed, but even among those whom we might imagine to be our natural allies. Not least in the gay community.

But they are diminishing in number. The essay was taken down when enough people pointed out that he was using similar speech to that which was/is used against gay people, that it was hypocritical to accept such hate speech. Bindel is now finding that she can only publish her hate on rightwing antigay sites. Germaine Greer hasn't said anything hateful in years. Janice Raymond is now notoriously silent on the subject that made her famous.

So, i look at the trends and can't be bothered. Of course, every TransGender Day of Remembrance I am reminded that the murderous behaviour such attitudes enable have never gone away. That when a country like Uganda wishes to render being gay a crime leading to the Death penalty you realise that the Christian right will not sleep until we are dead or hidden so deep back in the closet that they can get back to buggering children with impunity. But most times, when I'm faced with simple minded ignorance from someone whose days of relevance are long gone....meh !!

keep to the Fen Causeway

We are a group of young journalists from Palestine.

After a short training organized in Bethlehem by the NGO TAM, "Women Media and Development", with the support of the french development agency CFI, we launched An-Nathra ("the view") in November 2009, a blog dedicated to palestinian actuality.

Made by women, An-Nathra intends to inform its readers originally: it will display our women's view on social matters, our palestinian view on local issues and our journalistic view on information.

"The trouble with a lot of government initiatives about faith is that they assume it is a problem, it's an eccentricity, it's practised by oddities, foreigners and minorities. The effect is to de-normalise faith, to intensify the perception that faith is not part of our bloodstream."

this after the Labour Party has bent over backwards to accomodate faith groups having entirely separate state funded schools with different curricula to suit the superstition du jour. Hate crimes legislation is wrecked to accomodate the religious need to express hatred for people who are born either female, gay or transgendered.

they have umpty members of the second legislative chamber of the Houses of Parliament by right, they are listened to for no other reason than they hear voices in their head.

And still they complain !!! Will no one rid us of these turbulent priests ??

keep to the Fen Causeway

The 2009 Russell Crowe Pottywood adaptation of the same name had nothing of the subtleties of the BBC thriller - that has another great performance by John Simm, the usual brilliant quirkiness of Bill Nighy, and a host of other good actors. As an editor of a major newspaper, Nighy, far outclasses Helen Mirren's version in the movie.

I've saved the last part till I've had supper... soon.

You can't be me, I'm taken

Modern conservatives engage in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.Galbraith