Old news: faith healing event ends in tragedy, death

It wasn’t directly the fault of Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of Nigeria, but he was the person 150,000 people had traveled to see in Cape Town back in March. He has a reputation as a miraculous faith healer so people who should be going to doctors – or have but don’t like their diagnoses or prognoses – are putting their faith in his ability to heal. One man in the audience during the three day Pentecostal show died, another pastor by the name of Simon Williams. The fifty-six year old

was taken from hospital intensive care to the event by his family. He collapsed and died from renal failure inside the stadium.

Dr Wayne Smith, head of disaster medicine for Cape Town, said he treated about 30 patients in the stadium’s medical centre and sent 16 to hospital.

“Some of them had travelled long distances to get there, they had ongoing medical issues and were in a lot of pain,” he said.

Pastor Chris has a few black marks on him already. In 2008, he was accused of protecting another pastor from his church who might have murdered a girl. He’s been suspected of money laundering to the tune of 35 million dollars and charges exorbitant attendance fees for special events at his Christ Embassy church. He, along with a lot of other evangelicals in the country, preach the prosperity gospel, and the poor are giving him upwards of 30% of their available money in the hopes that God will turn things around for them. Of course, the truth is that only Christ Embassy and the pastors in it get to prosper and enjoy a windfall.

So, back to this faith healing business. It’s understandable why people with little hope of improvement (in health or finances) would try something like this but this shit doesn’t work. James Randi helped expose Peter Popoff as a fraud back in 1987 but he’s still kicking around and still fleecing otherwise intelligent people on a weekly basis. “Desperation changes the balance.”

If you would tell them not to give their money to Peter Popoff, what would you tell them to do instead? Would they be better off giving that $100 to the bank that’s about to foreclose on their house anyway, or to the landlord about to evict them? If we have no alternative solution to offer, then our best arguments may boil down to this: false hope is expensive, and hopelessness is free. That’s not a strong selling point.

People need hope. We have a powerful need to feel like we have some control over our fate, even if it is an illusion. That’s why those with the most serious illnesses spend the most money on quack therapies. And it’s why we can’t save desperate people from the likes of Peter Popoff through debunking alone—we need to offer a positive alternative that meets their needs.

When people really don’t know which way to turn, any wrong direction can feel like the right one. Maybe it seems like there isn’t time to look into alternatives, or it doesn’t occur to them to look for different kind of aid or support, or they think there won’t be anything even remotely close to what they need, save a miracle. I don’t know. I just hope that if I’m ever in dire straits I’ll look for real help rather than put faith in something ultimately useless.

A Question of Atheist Scruples – Round 2

I found a copy of A Question of Scruples a while back and decided it might be entertaining to go through the questions and answering them as honestly as possible. Like last time, I’ll answer three questions and add one more for readers to weigh in on.

You want to landscape your property but find that trees cost too much. Do you drive into the woods and take some?

Ha. No. I’d just raid my dad’s yard. Mom and Dad planted 2000 trees or so on their acreage in the early ’70s and saplings pop up all over the place, often where they don’t want them. They’d gotten theirs through Indian Head’s PFRA Shelterbelt Centre.

The benefits of shelterbelts are numerous. Shelterbelts reduce wind speed and thereby create a microclimate for yards, gardens, and crops. The wind is deflected up and over the shelterbelt, creating a well-protected zone in the lee of the belt. The zone of protection extends outward many times the height of the trees. Reducing wind speed can have a dramatic energy saving benefit. On average, a mature 5-row shelterbelt, with at least 2 rows of conifers, planted around a farmhouse will reduce its heat requirements by 25%. The trapped snow provides water for dugouts and soil reserves.

Not to mention trapping the pesky CO2 while they’re at it, and providing refuge for wildlife of all kinds, especially birds.

A friend wants to copy and swap some expensive software. You know it’s illegal. Do you swap?

My copy of Scruples come out in 1984 just as personal computers were coming into focus as affordable fun for the whole family. Apple’s famous ad for the Macintosh ran that year during the Superbowl. My school bought a couple Apple II’s for the whole student body to share and by 1987 there were two IIe’s in every classroom. The junior high I attended after had a whole room filled with computers for kids who wanted to take the programming class. I was satisfied with what little I knew of BASIC and LOGO, which wasn’t much. I never owned a computer until I reached university and discovered they were actually useful for other things. To finally answer the question, yes, I’d probably agree to a swap if we each had something the other wanted. Illegal or not, cops have more important things to do than crack down on software trading when it’s on a one-on-one basis. Cops could get after the library for loaning out DVDs and CDs, too. It’s pretty damned obvious that if someone borrows fifty CDs Friday night and drops them off again Saturday morning that they probably ripped every one of them to their computer. We don’t flag their cards and report them. No proof they did that. Suspicions, but no proof. I think far too many people have already shrugged off the illegalities of it and it barely tarnishes their notion of being a law-abiding citizen. And to get biblical on your ass, “let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Do you see any stones flying?

Someone you don’t particularly like invites you to an expensive restaurant that you’d love to try. Do you go just for the meal?

Is he or she treating? I can think of a few people I’d force myself to sit across from if it meant I got free food out of it. If it’d be up to me to pay my way, I’d pass on the offer. I’d rather plan a night there with people I enjoy being around.

Last question, left for you to answer. Feel free to answer the other three as well.

The government has been overthrown by a party that is violent and undemocratic. You are asked to join the underground. Do you?

Astrological sign linked to jail time

S’truth! More Aries are in jail than Libras, apparently, but Libras are running second (and Virgos a close third) in what has to be one of the oddest behavioural surveys I’ve seen. It was done by police in Chatham-Kent, Ontario:

“You can’t really read too much into it,” says Const. Michael Pearce, a police spokesman, who used an Excell spreadsheet to classify the data. “I don’t comment too much on the Zodiac stuff because I don’t want any backlash about it. I am not drawing any conclusions about it.”

Still, Georgia Nicols, who writes the National Post’s horoscope, said that the results in Chatham-Kent make some sense.

“Aries is the sign of the warrior,” said Ms. Nicols, speaking from her home on Bowan Island, off the coast of Vancouver. “Aries rules the military. Aries jump in head first, and love adventure. A lot of people in the newsroom are Aries.”

Sagittarius stays out of the crime stats, she suggests, because “They don’t get caught. They are smooth. They can talk anybody into anything.”

Sure, believe a horoscope writer over a police officer. That’s useful.

Reminds me of something I heard on an old Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast, but I forget which one. Apparently in Japan some businesses were taking applicants based on star sign. There was another place doing something similar, but I forget where it was. Curse my brain.

There are scientific studies that seem to point to season/month of birth mattering for certain things but again, my brain is crashing when thinking of examples. I’ll have to look for some when I have more time to deal with it properly.

Anne Massey, an astrologer in Surrey, B.C., has seen statistics suggesting that Cancers are most likely to be arrested, whereas the most law-abiding signs are Capricorn and Scorpio. She puts little stock in any of this, noting, “I really don’t think the sun sign has anything to do with it because astrology is far more complex than that.”

Dr. Anthony Doob, a professor of criminology at the University of Toronto, said, “I have no idea whether people born at particular times of the year are more likely to be arrested than anyone else. You would have to look at whether there is some consistency across time. My guess is that that, just from listening to the radio, there is not a whole lot going on anywhere, so someone produced this data.”

Const. Pearce, who produced the data, concedes, “Next year the list could be completely different unless we arrest the same people.”

Of all the things people want to put their faith in…

New way to get ahead – cut one off a Jesus statue

Beats me why anyone would want one, but whatever. That’s what happened in Boston.

(via CBS Local)

The Rev. Jack Ahern of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta at St. Margaret’s church in the city’s Dorchester section says when he arrived at the church Sunday morning the statue’s head was lying on the ground in pieces and the statue had been knocked off its base.

Ahern tells The Boston Globe the statue was right next to the sidewalk and people used to touch it for inspiration as they walked past.

He says the statue is beyond repair and there has been no discussion of replacing it.

I’m sure the community will rally around and help them commission another one at some point. Quoting CBS Local, quoting the radio:

“It’s so disrespectful. There’s no respect any more,” a parishioner told WBZ NewsRadio 1030 Wednesday.

“I wonder how people are raised with the lack of morals, that they would even think of doing that.”

Can’t say for sure it was done by people lacking morals. They might be people who are nice to their parents, always say please and thank you and would never rob, cheat, or lie. For all we know it was really an “act of God” that will jumpstart a cavalcade people announcing their miraculous healings just because they walked by the pieces of the thing and now claim to be cured. Then the pieces will get collected as first class relics and others with even worse morals will break up pieces of plaster to sell to people as second and third class relics at exorbitant prices and fleece the really gullible believers…

Or it was just petty vandalism by idiots who’ll brag about it on Facebook and be caught by tomorrow.

–
Edit Jan 27/12 — New article about incident with headline “Boston police seek mystery witness in beheading of Jesus statue at Dorchester church” and my very first thought was, “Finding God’s not going to help them solve this…” Well, it was funny at the time. Actual news is that police have lost track of someone who claims he or she has information and want that person to step up and tell them more.

Psychologist underfire for planting satanic cult memories

(Note: This was typed up prior to my hand injury. I like that WordPress lets people schedule posts to run later. Too bad I didn’t see the future and prepare more of these…)

That’s Lisa Nasseff’s story and she’s sticking to it. The Minnesota woman went for help at Castlewood Treatment Center in Ballwin once she decided to deal with her anorexia. She’s claiming the psychologist she saw over the 15 months, Mark Schwartz, duped her into believing she’d been abused by satanic practitioners.

Nasseff’s lawsuit said she was treated for anorexia with psychotropic drugs and hypnosis, which brainwashed her into believing she was repeatedly raped, had multiple personalities and suffered from and participated in satanic ritual abuse.

The lawsuit filed by Nasseff’s attorney, Kenneth Vuylsteke of Webster Groves, also claims that Schwartz implanted the false memories to keep Nasseff in the treatment center long-term because she had insurance that would pay her medical bills of $650,000.

Vuylsteke could not be reached for comment.

Castlewood’s director, Nancy Albus, and Schwartz deny the allegations. Albus reportedly pledged to fight the lawsuit, which seeks the repayment of medical expenses and punitive damages.

It’s he said/she said right now. Dr. Azfar Malik, CEO of CenterPointe psychiatric hospital in St. Charles was asked for his opinion on this case. He stated that no doctor would use hypnosis to treat an eating disorder.

“An eating disorder is a very complicated disease, and basically is treated with a medical model,” Malik said. “Hypnosis and going into the past are not indicated, there’s no data or research showing that would be the treatment of choice.”

But he also states that he’s unfamiliar with all the practices that would go on at Castlewod, saying only, “They don’t have a lot of physician oversight of the cases that I know about.”

“Oversight” being doctors keeping an eye out for questionable ethical practices? There’s mention in the article of psychologists pushing the notion of repressed memory on patients in the past but that entire style of treatment has been largely debunked. Some still like to claim it’s possible to get to the root of a problem this way anyway, though. Psychoheresy links the continued practice to some Christian counselors. Considering the accusations coming from Nasseff re: satanic rituals, would that include Scwartz, I wonder? No way to know from where I’m sitting. Psychologists operate from a position of authority and it’s important for the patient to be able to trust the treatment and advice. If he did somehow abuse his power over her, and the Center did nothing about it… It will be interesting to see what comes of it. If I remember to look for an update, of course.

Until then, here’s a site that gives instructions on how you, too, can create fake memories and amuse/freak out your friends and family. I don’t actually recommend doing that; the brain’s entirely capable of inventing memories without any outside help, actually. What might be real fun are these perception tests that help demonstrate just how fallible our minds really are. Maybe it will turn out that Nasseff invented these memories all on her own.

I think people misunderstand the term “God-given” right

For one thing, they seem to think there actually is such a thing as a “God-given” right, and for another thing, they tend to apply the concept to things that would never qualify even if there was. Take this story from Britain involving the garbage men and an impending strike in Birmingham and the title of the piece:

Binmen have ‘God-given right’ to wake residents at dawn

Ding the writer or the editor of the piece for a jarring inaccuracy. Sure, it gets readers interested in checking out the story, but here’s what was actually said.

The threatened walkout is over a plan by the city council to change working arrangements. Officials are drawing up contingency plans to deal with the strike should it materialise.

Mr Green said: “I’m sure they’re going to upset a large number of residents, but they need to come into the real world.

“I listened to their union representative the other day and he seems to think they have a God-given right to start early in the morning, wake half the city then finish at 11.30am and put their feet up for the rest of the day.

Not anyone actually believing there’s a god-given right to be at work that early, just one person’s assumption about the way another person thinks.

I don’t think it’s about rights so much as it is about “common” sense and sensory input. Trash smells worse once the heat of the sun’s been on it for a while so there’s logic in getting out early to get it off the street before the stench starts knocking people over. Surely those who’d like to have a lie-in would rather be disturbed by their garbage men first thing in the morning than be enveloped in the foul odour of black bags and greenhouse effect later in the day. Smell tends to linger whereas garbage guys like to get a move on. What would you rather deal with?

Here’s a different story, this one from Canada:

Vancouver man says smoking ‘Tree of Life’ is God-given right

A man named Chris Bennett from Vancouver is in Federal court in Ottawa these days and he’s arguing that weed is sacred to him and therefore must be smoked. He and his lawyer have been trying to claim this is a freedom of religion issue.

With Insite attendees allowed to inject illicit drugs, medical pot permitted, peyote and mescaline approved as sacraments, and the Brazilian syncretic religious group Santo Daime consuming the Amazonian hallucinogen ayahuasca, Chris Bennett says he is being discriminated against.

In a carefully argued brief submitted to the court, his lawyer Kirk Tousaw says that the middle-aged Bennett smokes seven grams of pot a day in the belief cannabis is the Biblical “tree of life.”

I’m not a user and his name means nothing to me, but maybe pot smokers have a greater appreciation for him. Apparently he’s written several books based on the history of pot in the ancient world. I get the feeling that the writer of the piece is sympathetic to his plight, too.

Bennett is a reverend with the Church of the Universe.

He was not contacted by Health Canada or asked to provide additional information about his religious beliefs or practices.

No significant research into the history of cannabis use in the context of religion appears to have been conducted: certainly, no one at Health Canada read his books.

No reason for the rejection was provided except the bald statement that it was not in the public interest.

Not a majority public, at any rate. I quote from an article that came out in 2008 about Adult pot smokers on rise in Canada

just 3.9 percent of Ontarians between 30 and 39 surveyed in 1977 said they had smoked marijuana in the previous year. In 2005, that number had jumped to 17 percent. Similarly, while 2.3 percent of Ontarians aged 40 to 49 had smoked pot in 1977, that number was 10.8 percent in 2005. Men were significantly more likely than women to have tried cannabis during the previous year.

Overall, the CAMH report found 14 percent of Ontarians aged 18 and older surveyed in 2005 had smoked marijuana in the previous year, a jump from 8 percent in 1977.

I doubt Bennett will win this one. It would set one hell of a precedent if he did, one I think the Court would like to avoid. I’ll quote his lawyer once more:

Tousaw said documents obtained via freedom-of-information requests indicated the government had treated the Santo Daime’s use of ayahuasca, which contains the banned substance DMT, much differently even though marijuana was far less potent a psychotropic.

He added that his client meets all the Supreme Court of Canada tests to establish his relationship with pot is religious and spiritual.

“In order to invoke the protections guaranteed by Section 2 of the charter, a religious claimant like Mr. Bennett need only demonstrate that he sincerely believes that a particular practice, such as the consumption of cannabis, fosters his ability to connect to the divine and/or is undertaken as part of his spiritual practice,” Tousaw explained.

“He need not demonstrate that his practice conforms to any dogma.”

I added the link to the Santo Daime information. I hadn’t heard of them before.

Although, from a pharmacological point of view, ayahuasca may be considered a very potent psychoactive agent, rich in DMT and other alkaloids, the ample use made of it by these religious organizations does not seem to lead to any apparent ill results, as attested by recent medical studies of long time users. This is probably due to the strict ritual control built around this practice and to the fact that the brew is rarely taken extraritually.

Prolonged pot-use has documented adverse effects and Bennett’s looking for the legal right to smoke it every day. Then again, people smoke cigarettes every day without needing to claim they get to chat with God while they do it. Where am I sitting on this issue? On the fence. It bugs me when people want to use religion as an excuse to get their own way, though. I have to say that for certain. Too bad this is the way he wants to argue his case, even if he does believe everything he says about getting a spiritual vibe off it.

Maybe I should get this Jesus statue obsession of mine looked at by a professional

I write a lot about the darn things. That may be, but at least I’m not going out of my way to steal one:

The Rev. Charles Kieffer said he noticed the statue missing from outside the parish near 52nd Street and Thomas Road in Phoenix early Saturday morning.

He said a family donated the 4-foot-tall bronze statue to the parish in 2005.

“It was a statue of a welcoming Christ and the whole idea, especially at the entry to our campus, was to convey the fact that all people are welcome here at Saint Theresa and that we’re open to all,” Kieffer said.

A surveillance camera captured someone loading the statue apparently wrapped in a tarp into the back of a pickup truck driven by another individual.

Phoenix police are asking for calls from anyone who might have information about the theft.

A noble lie: child trafficking and the Catholic church

I was as appalled as anyone when I read about the documentary that just came out regarding Spain’s stolen children. Over a span of fifty years some three hundred thousand children were taken from their birth mothers and sold to couples who could afford the adoptions.

The children were trafficked by a secret network of doctors, nurses, priests and nuns in a widespread practice that began during General Franco’s dictatorship and continued until the early Nineties.

Hundreds of families who had babies taken from Spanish hospitals are now battling for an official government investigation into the scandal.

Several mothers say they were told their first-born children had died during or soon after they gave birth.

But the women, often young and unmarried, were told they could not see the body of the infant or attend their burial.

In reality, the babies were sold to childless couples whose devout beliefs and financial security meant that they were seen as more appropriate parents.

Documentation was then forged to make it look like adoption never took place, that the children had been born into those families, but it’s suggested that many of those couples had no idea they were buying a stolen child.

At the moment, that’s neither here nor there. I want to take a different angle on this. I was thinking about it instead of sleeping in this morning and wondering what kind of positive impact this may have had on Spain’s future.

What got me thinking about this was a chapter out of Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. U.S. crime rates were falling sharply in the early ’90s and theories abounded over the reasons why. Levitt and John Donohue, a law professor out of Stanford, came up with an ingenious one: the legalization of abortion after Roe v. Wade. Children who would have been born into single parent/low income families in bad neighbourhoods were not born, thus eliminating the potential for them to become criminals as teens and adults. Was that the destiny of every fetus aborted? Of course not, but it’s obvious a percentage of them would have resorted to a life of crime. After all, there was still crime in the ’90s so it makes sense that a percentage of kids born the ’70s found nothing productive to do with their lives except steal and kill people.

So, getting back to Spain. Am I condoning what they did? Fuck, no. Priests and nuns have a lot of power over Catholics and the assumed direct line to God creates a sense in believers those holy folk know what’s best and can be trusted not to lie through their teeth. I pity everyone who was tricked and deceived by the people involved in this long-running scam.

That said, I think it could be argued they unwittingly did Spain a tremendous favour by moving babies out of “bad” situations and into “good” ones. Never mind the assumption that these young mothers were sinners in the eyes of God because they had sex out of wedlock; if they were unwed, it was going to be difficult to hold down a job and raise a kid alone. They probably never got far through school, either. And, if they were actually married but dirt poor, that’s hardly the best environment for child-rearing, at least in terms of making sure a kid gets decent food and housing. We know this. We’ve seen enough evidence that this is the case. Transferring the babies to families that could afford to raise them well was a sensible decision. Horribly played out, but sensible.

I know nothing about Spain’s history or Franco’s regime so I have to nick some from Wikipedia:

Francoism professed a devotion to the traditional role of women in society, that is: loving child to her parents and brothers, faithful to her husband, residing with her family. Official propaganda confined her role to family care and motherhood. Immediately after the war, most progressive laws passed by the Republic aimed at equality between the sexes were made void. Women could not become judges, or testify in trial. They could not become university professors. Their affairs and economy had to be managed by their father or by their husbands. Even in the 1970s a woman fleeing from an abusive husband could be arrested and imprisoned for “abandoning the home” (abandono del hogar). Until the 1970s a woman could not have a bank account without a co-sign by her father or husband.

And due to the sheer number of human rights violations in other ways,

in 2007, the Spanish government banned all public references to the Franco regime and removed any statues, street names, memorials and symbols associated with the regime. Churches which retain plaques commemorating Franco and the victims of his Republican opponents may lose state aid.

I hope I get a chance at some point to see this documentary. I wonder how many of these people will be able to reunite with their birth families. Franco had “encouraged” a lot of people to emigrate instead of sit jobless in Spain and if the Church had nothing in the way of compunction when it came to tweaking church records, good luck getting to the truth of origins. That’s one hell of a mess for all involved.

“Don’t be that guy!” ads target offenders not victims

Rebecca Watson’s “Elevator Guy” debacle over the summer highlighted a problem women and men need to deal with, not just in atheist circles but across our communities. I just learned this week that there’s an anti-rape ad campaign going on in Canada and posters hanging up in men’s rooms of bars and other places are inadvertently following in Watson’s footsteps here. I heard about it on CBC on the drive home from work one day and a quick poke of the interwebs finds me an article about the launch of these ads in Edmonton back in November. Chloe writes for Feminsting and her source is an article that no longer exists via her link, alas.

In a series of posters, it addresses the legal reality that a woman who is extremely drunk, or even passed out, cannot consent to sex. With messages like “just because she isn’t saying no… doesn’t mean she’s saying yes ”and“ Just because you’re helping her home… doesn’t mean you get to help yourself,” the campaign targets “opportunistic offenders,” as Edmonton Police Superintendent calls them. According to the Vancouver Sun:

The three advertisements were chosen after focus-group testing showed the messages were clearly understood by, and resonated with, young men.

Campbell said she hopes the “graphic” and “blunt” messages make a real difference in educating young men and reducing sexual assaults.

A friend of mine dropped a tweet on Facebook yesterday about Saskatoon’s Premier Fine Wines, Spirits & Specialty Foods Festival going on now. Cammi noted,

Just left the wine premiere festival. great time, not sure how I feel about a rape whistle as a keepsake though.

Too bad she didn’t mention which booth provided it, or if it was something being given to women on their way in. I wonder what guys would have been getting.

I’ve never been raped. I’m starting to feel incredibly lucky because I can say that. A random check of statistics on sexual assault led me to some grim numbers.

Of every 100 incidents of sexual assault, only 6 are reported to the police
1 – 2% of “date rape” sexual assaults are reported to the police
1 in 4 North American women will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime
11% of women have physical injury resulting for sexual assault
Only 2 – 4% of all sexual assaults reported are false reports
About 50% of sex assaults occur on dates
60% of sexual abuse/assault victims are under the age of 17

And it goes on.

I’ve certainly been in positions where, had the company been different and less respectful of my right to consent, I’d be counted in those numbers. I’ve been stupid in bars ever since I was old enough to legally be in one. That’s 19 in Saskatchewan. I’m 37 now. Maybe “lucky” doesn’t begin to cover…

Chloe thinks this campaign shows promise.

This kind of approach is the only kind that can truly end sexual assault. After all, in the words of Karen Smith of the Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton, “as long as society directs prevention strategies at women, we all stop looking at what the real problem is – the perpetrators.”

I’m going to hold off on the applause for a bit yet. I don’t really know how ads like this will impact behaviour. Will they be taken to heart by the jerks truly in need of the lesson, or will they just freak out the inept, geeky flirters and result in a lot of lonely hearts going home defeated before they even get a chance to start a chance romance?

Over the summer, dozens of cities held SlutWalks. The events were prompted by shitty comments a police constable in Toronto made regarding victims of sexual assault. Saskatoon hosted one and some Freethinker friends and I were among the hundred or so hollering down the blocked off streets about respect and the like. One of these friends is one of those women born for cleavage, short skirts and hooker boots. She loves the style and how she looks, and her husband (and others) do as well. I almost wonder how we wound up friends, as I have my ample cleavage hidden usually and tend to keep my pants on. She’s sexually vocal, as well, not one who feels she should be ashamed of her carnal interests. I certainly admire her for that but have, on a few occasions, wondered how close she’s gotten to becoming a statistic, too. I’d hate to see her get hurt simply on account of how she’s dressed and false perceptions on the part of other people in terms of what kind of person they think she is. I think that’s badly worded, but hopefully understandable.

It is completely unfair to train girls and women into thinking that they have to hide themselves in public lest randy men lose all sense of themselves if they see a little skin or hair. Why should it be up to women alone to protect themselves from predators? Why shouldn’t guys carry more of the responsibility on their shoulders?

I don’t know. What do readers think? Can a campaign like this change much or is it more likely to be a fart in the wind?

Ramadan is no excuse to not pay parking tickets

The end of Ramadan is today and devout Muslims filled the nearby sports stadium and its parking lot this morning for some sort of celebratory service. More of their cars filled our work parking lot and the grass and sand surrounding it, some all the way from Alberta and B.C. The police came in, too. All the cars were parked illegally; there are signs up around the parking lots at the library indicating those areas are for employees and patrons only. Some in our work area have put notes on the calendar for the next Muslim holidays in case it becomes necessary to call the cops again. This was not the first time we’d had this problem, either.

I’m not sure how many cars ultimately got dinged. I heard seventeen, but there had to be double that number taking up our space and getting in the way of those who arrived at work later. When some car owners were told they’d have to move their vehicles, staff were accused of being racist. One reportedly said something like, “You pray for us at Christmas, we shouldn’t get tickets when it’s Ramadan.” I’m not sure I’m quoting it correctly, but it was something that illogical. Who cares when you pray and to whom. You break city parking laws, you get tickets. No matter what religion you follow, that’s a fact.

Later at lunch people were chatting about what had gone on and someone who’d gone over to the stadium for a workout came back with word that an NDP politician (likely Muslim, but I never heard a name) had been over there passing out pamphlets. I don’t recall precisely what that staff member said but she wasn’t impressed by that and I think she called it something like “morally reprehensible behaviour!” She was quite irate.

The minion part of me was itching to pipe up, “Would it still be reprehensible if it were a Catholic politician handing stuff out after Mass?” I really couldn’t tell if she meant mixing politics with religion was appalling, or if it was specifically appalling to see a Muslim doing it. In the end, the “keep your head down” part of me won out. It’s one thing to wear a Darwin shirt to work, but another to get religiously snippy around superiors.