Daily Archive

The “Christian festival” of Easter is shortly to be upon us. On Easter Sunday, Christians commemorate the resurrection of their major religious figure, one Jesus Christ. Their holy men are particularly central in the celebrations.

On the activities in one London locale in the run up to that happy event next weekend, The Sunday Times reports:

An Anglican priest is in hospital after he was beaten up and insulted in what appears to be a “faith hate” assault by Asian youths.

Canon Michael Ainsworth, 57, was kicked and punched in the head and left with deep cuts, bruising and two black eyes in the grounds of his historic church in east London after he asked three Asian youths there to be quiet…

Intolerance on that priest’s part, clearly.

…Alan Green, area dean for Tower Hamlets, said: “It was a nasty cowardly attack. There were several groups in the churchyard and two from one group attacked him and the other group came and helped him back to the house.

He was kicked and punched in the head as he lay on the ground, I believe that what was shouted was ‘you f****** priest’ before they attacked him.”…

…The church had previously been targeted when a brick smashed a window during a service. Allan Ramanoop, a member of the parochial church council, said: “On one occasion, youths shouted: ‘This should not be a church, this should be a mosque, you should not be here’…

So presumably his attackers weren’t irate Asian Anglicans?

…[His wife] said her husband was concerned publicity about the attack could fuel inter-faith tensions. “He does not want the level of fuss and attention. I think he feels it’s quite difficult in the local area.”

Why should it ever be “quite difficult” for an Anglican priest to go about his business anywhere in this country?

Lastly, notice these interesting choices for factual summations, in the conclusion:

The Met recorded an upsurge in attacks against Muslims after the July 2005 bombings in London. There are also numerous attacks against Jews but, according to police statistics, relatively few Christians are attacked because of their faith.

On the first, is that supposed to be some sort of weird justification? Well, in media terms it might be. For it has become a matter of sloppy dogma (for lack of a better word) in much media that there was an “upsurge in attacks against Muslims” following the 7/7 attacks.

Yet that characterization conveniently starts the “tale” in — at best — mid-paragraph. That’s because planting that statistical flag in the 7/7 context requires one to be less than candid in choosing also statistically to omit any reference to the unbelievably murderous “hate crimes” that were the 7/7 attacks themselves. Indeed, there is absolutely no reason to believe those relatively minor “attacks” afterwards — including the reported avalanche of “dirty looks” — would have ever taken place if the 7/7 suicide bombings had not.

And, as for the second, does The Times happen to think more Christians should be targeted for their faith?

The Sunday Times:

Labour has slumped to its lowest poll rating since 1983, when Michael Foot was leader, as voters delivered a withering verdict on last week’s budget.

Gordon Brown’s party slipped to 27% – 16 points behind the Conservatives – amid growing concern about the government’s economic competence, a YouGov survey for The Sunday Times shows today.

If the results of the poll were repeated in a general election, David Cameron would storm into Downing Street with a landslide majority of 120 and a string of high-profile cabinet ministers including Alistair Darling, the chancellor, would lose their Commons seats…

The problem is, there won’t be an election in the foreseeable future. For after dipping in a toe in the electoral water last autumn, only to discover that if they dived in they’d be eaten alive, there will almost certainly not be an election called much before the required five years have passed.

Which means there probably won’t be one before 2010. But the British are resilient. If need be, the country can likely survive another two years of these incompetents this Government.

Interestingly, one Times’ commenter noted:

Alan Millburn’s assessment that ‘the next election is up for grabs’ is hopelessly wide of the mark as far as Brown’s Labour is concerned.

They have no chance.

How long before we start to hear ‘Bring back Tony’ ?

He whom so many in that same Labour couldn’t wait to toss overboard, of course.

The BBC reports:

…Friends of the Earth’s aviation campaigner Richard Dyer said if the government was serious about tackling climate change, the opening of Terminal 5 would mark the end of airport expansion in Britain.

“The government must abandon its plans for a third runway and Terminal 6 - it should invest in fast rail links and ensure that Britain’s share of international aviation emissions is included in its new climate change law,” he added…

So all should be precisely . . . always as one god “Richard Dyer said” (who is regularly granted air time by the Beeb) all should be, huh? We witness his sort of private advocacy regularly dropped into so-called reporting so casually that we no longer even think about it. Yet why is it simply taken for granted by most media that his opinion (and that of his little private group) on how this world should function deserves even an ounce more consideration than yours, mine or anyone else’s?

Think about it this way also. There we were, well aware already that much major media had long ago decreed as infinitely laughable those who didn’t believe in evolution? Yet that same media (which usually also cannot suppress a condescending smirk even at the obviously unsophisticated personages who dare to consider Christianity perhaps a life outlook worth considering) has no problem daily subjecting viewers to the various musings of people like Mr Dyer, who underneath everything obviously fantasize of a planet in which human technological development had been arrested at the very latest just before Fulton, or even better had it been stopped back in the Bronze Age, but optimally had it been halted before the first human had stumbled upon how to spark f*%£*#g fire.

Well, here’s my private musing. As there will not anytime soon be a “fast rail link” between Britain and America, or Britain and Australia, or Britain and China, hundreds of thousands of travellers can’t wait to use the new British Airways Terminal 5. It looks like it is a remarkable evolution improvement from Terminal 4.