Each Saturday after doing the paper round, my lad puts the television on while we do breakfast. He watches Discovery Science Channel and a programme called Mythbusters. It is excellent and any science geek should watch it. Each episode they take a couple of myths and... Yep bust it prove them. Basically it's a couple of special effect dudes playing and experimenting. Great fun. Kids programme for adults.
I watch it as well FLT unfortunately this will be the last series they make.......they even made one episode with Barack Obama trying to make science fun for kids.
Your general point I go with. I am wholly opposed to any belief system that belittles women, or is predicated on the belief that its followers are in any way superior. But what is un-British? The norms of the Isle of Wight or Oldham? One of the things I love about Britain is its incredible diversity in accent, dialect even complete languages (Welsh, for example) and the range of cultural norms. An American friend of mine who has lived in the UK for 10 years commented to a family member who was visiting that the Americans had no idea about diversity. "Man, here go from one street to the next and you're meeting different species", he declared. A little over the top, but I knew what he meant.
Should have been clearer...being British has nothing to do with worship, clothes or dietary habits, but everything to do with freedom, equality, respect for others and a general sense of fairness. All things sadly lacking in some Muslims....they make a nod to it in the Koran, but it is not how they behave. It may anger or annoy us, but the people it really threatens are their own. How frustrating to escape tyranny and find you brought it with you. If we don't take a stand...it is asking a lot of these women for them to do it for themselves when they stand to lose their family or worse. It took us thousands of years to get here, but I don't see why British Muslims have to wait that long.
I was all for defending Evans and the new show as I think he is a successful TV chap who knows how to make a show work. People slag him because they have had bad experiences or think he's a dick which is fair enough, but he knows how to entertain. If he brings in Eddie Jordan, I'll struggle to defend them.
Jeeze, just watching Evander Holyfield on Soccer AM - really rather depressing. Boxing has taken it's toll, put it that way.
In total agreement then! I used to be on our local REC group, and there was a Bengali guy on there who used to scream at the white liberals on the subject of arranged marriage. The liberals would be all "It's their culture" and my Bengali friend would retort that the women were British citizens and should be protected by British law. I count myself lucky enough to have a number of Muslim friends, none of whom would support the excesses you and I clearly both deplore. It's a complicated business, but the touchstones you mention of fairness etc are ones that everyone should be able to acknowledge (unless they read the Daily Mail, of course. Sorry. Bloody Tourettes)
My answer to liberals saying it's their culture is that apartheid was the culture in South Africa, but we didn't defend that. Some things aren't defensible. Harder to oppose the suppression of women in other cultures...we'd be fighting half the world...but we cannot permit it here. Must lead by example.
"So Evander, tell us about Real Deal Bet" "Well errr, its about making a bet. Sports. Betting. Sports betting. Making a bet on sports" Yeah it was tough to watch.
We saw Vieux Farka Toure, the 'Saharan Hendrix' at the Turner Sims last night. Just incredible, if you like Mali/North African music and you like virtuoso electric guitar...
So it was you blighters that filled all of the car parks. The very lovely Mrs Godders had a hard job finding a parking space when we went to the Nuffield.
