When South Park is censored, then things are a lot worse than we thought they were. Here’s an extract from an Op Ed piece that appeared in The New York Times on April 26th written by Ross Douthat. You can’t portray Muhammad on American television anymore, as South Park’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, discovered in 2006, when they…
Intolerance
I don’t know what it is about religious leaders, in fact anyone put into a position of leadership and authority, that they end up betraying the very values they are supposed to uphold. This piece is not in response to the Catholic Church’s reluctance to take swift unequivocal action to remove and defrock sexually predatory priests. Of course they would…
Shoes Can Kill
The Sunday Times of London reported on April 11th that the Metropolitan police in London allowed protestors to throw shoes and the English Courts have agreed that the shoe-throwing incident was simply a ritual form of protest and therefore not a criminal act of violence: Judge Denniss agreed that the act of shoe-throwing should not be considered in a charge…
Tino Sehgal
There was a time in my life when I was interested in trying to answer the question “What is Art?” Although I have long given up trying to find a formula that satisfies me, the nearest I can get is that it is something that sets out to stimulate, visually and intellectually, even if it does not work for me.…
Women in the Park
The last days of Pesach are associated with the narrative in Exodus of crossing the Red Sea. If any reader happens to be in Jerusalem, it is worthwhile making your way down to Rehov Mea Shearim to the Toldos Aharon “court” of the Reb Ahrele Chasidim. There, on the last day of Pesach, the rebbe has his faithful pack the…
GM
No, not General Motors, but seeds that are Genetically Modified. Pesach is a time when we “moderns” focus on grains more than at any other time of the year. Shavuot may be the main summer harvest festival, but very few of us nowadays are involved in commercial agriculture. (Even in Israel, the kibbutz dream of Jews returning to a nostalgic…