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We don't call a man mad who believes that he eats God, but we do the one who says he is Jesus Christ

Kruzifix by German artist Stefan Strumbel. Pictures by Oliver Rath/Sarah Davies.

From Berlin's Circleculture Gallery: "Strumbel uses traditional motives that are associated with his origin, the Black Forest. On an abstract level, Strumbel deals with the paradigms of “home“ and simultaneously questions its concept. The exhibition encompasses objects from folk art that refer to the clichéd notions of home, folklore and popular piety: the traditional cuckoo clock, wooden masks of the Alemannic Carnival or typical crucifixes mainly used in catholic households. Strumbel exaggerates these objects of popular cult and culture with elements of urban art and pop art. By doing so, he puts these objects into a new, partly provocative context. Significant elements of the cuckoo clock, such as traditionally carved ornaments, are replaced by aggressive motives that stand for violence, pornography and death."

Dezeen has more.

Title quote: "We don't call a man mad who believes that he eats God, but we do the one who says he is Jesus Christ." Claude Adrien Helvétius, French philosopher, 1715–1771.

Art is either plagiarism or revolution

THROUGHTHE LOOKINGGLASS

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS is a new weekly feature inspired by one of my favourite blogs, the truly wonderful PORNCAKE. Just think of it as a virtual scrapbook. From top to bottom: 1. Unknown, 2. Tube train by Garçon Stupide (2009), 3. Jungle Brothers - Done By The Forces Of Nature (1989), 4. Servalan, Blake's 7 (1978-81), 5. Plate by Maxim Velcovsky, 6. Ade Obayomi, 7. Good advice... Title quote: "Art is either plagiarism or revolution." Paul Gauguin (1848 - 1903)

ISLAM IS SO GAY

...OR RATHER, IT will be. The BBC's EastEnders will invoke the wrath of the Muslim community with a storyline depicting openly Muslim Syed Masood (Marc Elliott) kissing openly gay Christian Clarke (John Partridge). A recent Gallup poll found that Muslims in Britain have zero tolerance of homosexuality. Actor Marc Elliott told the BBC Asian Network, "I think EastEnders would be doing the programme a disservice if they didn't give a voice to various communities. I think that's really important because I think London is a very ethnically diverse multicultural place, and EastEnders has a job to reflect that in the storylines it gives people and the characters they have on board." The Muslim Public Affairs Committee isn't happy: "The Muslim community deserves a character that represents them to the wider public because Islamophobia is so great right now. There's a lack of understanding of Muslims already and I think EastEnders really lost an opportunity to present a normal friendly Muslim character to the British public." Well, it could be that Islamophobia is so high because of statements like that. That, and the blowing up trains. The MPAC clearly equates heterosexual with normal and friendly, and homosexual with abnormal and unfriendly. Presumably then, the September 11 hijackers were all homosexuals, since flying planes into buildings is a). abnormal, and b). unfriendly. EastEnders executive producer Diedrick Santer says, "Sometimes there's a danger of being too careful with black or Asian characters that we might go into territories that might offend. But it seems to me if we steer away from any controversy, they don't stand a chance of being a great EastEnders family - they'll just be in their kitchen unit making curries for years and years and that's not going to be very interesting." The story will start to unfold next month. ELSEWHERE - Gay Muslim story for EastEnders ELSEWHERE - Muslims in Britain have zero tolerance of homosexuality PREVIOUSLY - Boys Shouldn't Kiss PREVIOUSLY - EastEnders "All Black" Cast PREVIOUSLY - EastEnders: The Drinking Game

Shut Up And Stick To Making Music

IF THERE'S ONE thing I can't stand, it's celebrities making populist political statements.

I get the theory behind it. Stupid people who spend their days reading Heat magazine and mourning the death of Jade Goody (having previously called her every dehumanising name under the sun) will pay attention to Beyonce lecturing us about poverty and buy a little coloured band to wear on their wrist to show they've done their bit.

There's few "celebrities" who I can take seriously when it comes to The Issues. Annie Lennox on AIDS: yes. The Pet Shop Boys on most things: yes. Except...

Talking to thelondonpaper, Pet Shop Boy Chris Lowe said, "CCTV cameras have turned Britain into a gulag. You get off a train at a railway station and it's like a prison camp. There's not one little camera - they're all over the place."

Er, and what?

Fellow Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant added, "People would have found it slightly sinister at one time. But a generation has grown up thinking: 'Whatever'."

Yeah, whatever. CCTV can be abused, but the benefits far outweigh any negatives. It's thanks to CCTV that the Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Osman Hussain were convicted for their failed attempt to bomb three London Underground trains and a bus on 21st July 2005 - just two weeks after the 7th July atrocities.

Condemning CCTV will go down well with Stupid People, who will nod vigorously and whine about their civil liberties. But the threat doesn't come from a Big Brother state, it comes from Islamic extremists. Chris Lowe is living in another world if can't see that.

And that's the point - he is. Back in the real world, I'm glad cameras are watching every move I make, and every move They make, too.

ELSEWHERE - Terrorist ringleader Muktar Said Ibrahim: A robber and a sex offender

Conservatives Ditch Bible, Prefer Playboy

MOST LONDONERS BELIEVE that man evolved as a result of evolution. In a poll by think tank Theos, 37% said that evolution removed the need for God. 28% believed in theistic evolution - the idea that evolution is God's plan. 11% believed in intelligent design - the notion that humans evolved by a process of evolution which required the special intervention a higher power at key stages. Just 17% believe that human beings were created solely by God within the last 10,000 years. Of course, it's depressing to think that so many grown adults cling onto fairytales and cult fantasies (which is what religion is, effectively). But the vast majority of us accept the science of Darwin's theory of evolution. As the report says: "A significant number of people in the UK believe that you can't do both God and Darwin. Strangely, this is one issue (the only one perhaps) that 'fundamentalists', atheist and religious, are likely to agree on." Speaking of religious fundamentalists, there was other heartening news this week, with the revelation in the US that Conservatives (who tend towards the Christian right) are the biggest consumers of porn. Gee, there's a surprise. If there's one thing bible-bashers do best it's hypocrisy. Benjamin Edelman of the Harvard Business School said, "Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by." Uh huh, sounds like the gospel to me. It also turns out that the 27 states who passed laws banning gay marriage boast 11% more porn subscribers than states that don't restrict gay marriage. And 8 of the top 10 pornography consuming states voted for John McCain in the presidential election. You've been found out - there's a Playboy hidden in between the pages of your bibles, and God knows what else... (Pictured above right: a porn star and a conservative Christian. Ain't that sweet). Elsewhere - What is Darwin's legacy? Elsewhere - Porn in the USA: Conservatives are biggest consumers

7/7 = BNP

TWO STORIES GRABBED my attention on Friday morning. One was the disturbing news that the extreme right-wing British National Party (BNP) had gained a seat in local council by-elections in Sevenoaks, Kent. Make no bones about it, this is bad news. Then I read another story, in which a teaching pack for primary school students asked pupils to look at the 7/7 terrorist attacks from the point of view of the terrorists. The pack was subsequently withdrawn at the behest of the education ministers who had initially approved it. Now, call me biased, call me simplistic, but might not the two things be connected? The BNP are utterly vile. But the BNP and I agree on one thing: Islam is a threat. To them, Islam is a threat to English values, English this, English that. To me, Islam is a threat to liberal, progressive society (ironically, something the BNP also abhors). The question is why are more and more people voting for the BNP? They shouldn't be. Tahir Alam, who represents the Muslim Council of Great Britain, had this to say: "If children are asked what the justification of bombings might be, they might talk about foreign policy or other grievances." Justification? For July 7? Meanwhile, the European Court of Human Rights has demanded that British taxpayers pay compensation to Abu Qatada, previously described by a judge as "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe". Islam is incompatible with the modern world. It is incompatible with the West. It is anathema to rational thought. The public at large is incapable of processing complex sociological and political ideas. They know only that they've had enough of Islam, and it is because of Islam that the people of Sevenoaks are voting for a right-wing political party. It is because of Islam that more people will turn to these abhorrent groups. If that happens, we're all in trouble. Elsewhere - Pupils study 7/7 attacks from bombers' viewpoint Elsewhere - Shock BNP by-election gain in Kent Elsewhere - Fury as Abu Qatada wins token payout over human rights

Westboro Baptist Church Does Blighty

THAT BASTION OF Christianity, compassion and good 'ole fashioned values, Westboro Baptist Church, is on its way to Britain. The group is planning to demonstrate at a performance of The Laramie Project in Basingstoke. The Laramie Project looks at the last days of 21 year old hate crime victim Matthew Shepard. "Y'all turned the world over to fags so you are coming back in body bags," says Shirley Phelps, spawn of founder Fred Phelps, when asked why her group is coming to the UK. Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell says, "In the past they have threatened to picket events in Britain but they never turned up. They are such an absurd, fringe, fanatical group that it’s probably best to just ignore them." Since he doesn't use phrases like "y'all" I'm slightly more inclined to listen to him than Ms. Phelps (although maybe I'm biased - I was well hacked off not to get an invite to the wedding between Ms. Phelps and her brother, y'all). The Home Office was also obliged to make a statement: "The Government opposes extremism in all its forms... that was the driving force behind tighter rules on exclusions for unacceptable behaviour that the Home Secretary announced in October last year." Jolly good. Personally, I'm all for the Phelps cult descending on our little island. As Tatchell says, they're so absurd their loopy proclamations could only benefit homosexualists. Bring it on, y'all! Elsewhere: Coming to Britain, church with a mission to demonise homosexuals

There Is A God, Apparently

GOD HELP US. At least, that's what they'd like. Following the British Humanist Society's daring campaign to spread some light on the murky waters of superstition, the Christian Party, the Trinitarian Bible Society and the Russian Orthodox Church have put their top spin doctors on the case. Alas, the genie is out of the bottle and they're running scared. There's no God, say the Humanists. Yes there is, say the bible thumpers. And they're determined to get that crucial message out there for everyone to see. "There definitely is a God. So join the Christian Party and enjoy your life," their adverts say. Well, I don't know about you kids, but that's convinced me. I'm off to find the nearest ex-gay group. Who needs blowjobs when you can saddleback all night long, eh? Previously: The Truth Really Is Out There. It's Big, Red and Square

Elsewhere - SGL Cafe: Saddlebacking

I Am An Alien

AS A YOUNG BOY, I was taken away from Ireland on December 31st 1989, never to return.

Going back after such a long time is a constant source of wistfulness, and fear; that it won't be the place of my childhood, and it won't be 1989, as it always is in my mind's eye. And that I'd be as foriegn there as I am anywhere I've lived since.

Not only foreign, but gay too. A report by the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network has found that one in four LGBT people in Ireland have been violently attacked, and 80% verbally assaulted. One fifth have tried to take their own lives. One third had heard teachers make homophobic comments, and a staggering 8% had been denigrated by a teacher.

Ireland is a country steeped in religion; nearly 90% of the population is Catholic, and homosexuality and religion are never good bedfellows. When I read news like this, I remember why I'm here, and not there.

Elsewhere: Was Jesus Gay?

The Truth Really Is Out There. It's Big, Red And Square

BACK IN OCTOBER, I wrote with no inconsiderable joy at the prospect of a campaign by the British Humanist Association to counter religious fundamentalism with billboards on buses using the slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

"Religion is accustomed to getting a free ride - automatic tax breaks, unearned respect and the right not to be offended, the right to brainwash children. Even on the buses, nobody thinks twice when they see a religious slogan plastered across the side. This campaign to put alternative slogans on London buses will make people think - and thinking is anathema to religion." So said Professor Richard Dawkins, who supports the campaign and wrote The God Delusion. The campaign launched on 6th January with some fanfare. So far, none of the buses have been struck by a bolt of lightning. Maybe they're blessed. Probablemente Dios no existe. Deja de preocuparte y goza de la vida. How many of you clever boys and girls know what that means? Yes, you at the back, you're right! It's a direct translation of the BHA slogan, and it's going onto buses in Spain next week. This isn't going down too well in a country where Catholicism is the main faith. "Faith in God is not a source of worry, nor is it an obstacle for enjoying life," says the Catholic archbishopric of Barcelona. Tell that to the victims of the September 11th. And I suppose the Spanish Inquisition was just a jolly knees up too? Spain, is reflecting the worldwide trend of religious fundamentalism inveigling its way into issues of state and of law, where it has no business being. Prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's socialist government has passed laws "allowing gay marriage, simplifying divorce and reducing the importance of religious instruction in the school timetable," and is changing the country's abortion laws. The Catholic church has been spurred into action and is fighting the progressive measures.

Back in good old Blighty, the Advertising Standards Authority has received 150 complaints about the campaign. The complainants say the adverts are offensive to people of all religions (what, even Jedis?) "It is given as a statement of fact and that means it must be capable of substantiation if it is not to break the rules," says Stephen Green of Christian Voice. "There is plenty of evidence for God, from people's personal experience, to the complexity, interdependence, beauty and design of the natural world. But there is scant evidence on the other side, so I think the advertisers are really going to struggle to show their claim is not an exaggeration or inaccurate, as the ASA code puts it." Well, if the beauty and design of the natural world are the evidence for God, then I'd offer this video of the natural world's violence, and man's inhumanity, as evidence to the contrary:

At least I would offer it, if I thought I needed to. But I'm grown-up enough not to need a Santa Claus figure to explain the whats and wherefores of life, so I won't. The final word on the nonsense complaints about the buses should go to Hanne Stinson of the British Humanist Association: "(I pity) the ASA if they are going to be expected to rule on the probability of god's existence. However, if they do investigate we will be very happy to respond."

In Pictures: 2008 By Garçon Stupide

January: Barack Obama announces that his favourite TV show is The Wire (the seminal cinema experience of this decade), and that his favourite character is Omar Little. Well, that should have made Mister Obama my favourite politician, like, ever. Except he added, "That's not an endorsement. He's not my favorite person, but he's a fascinating character," which yours truly decided to interpret as a wholesale attack on the gay community. I'm a bit silly.


February: Keyontyli and Taleon Goffney, known to boys (and maybe even a few girls) the length and breadth of the world wide web as gay porn twins Keyon and Teyon, are arrested for a series of alleged robberies. The juicy details of the story are widely reported, but no one seems interested in delving into the real heart of the matter. Who are these young men, and what happened to them, for it to come to this?



March: Serapis Kephra, a.k.a model and stripper K-Rock, is taken by cancer.








May: Left-wing, pro-gay, pro-green, pro-diversity Ken Livingstone is ousted as London's Mayor. Conservative toff Boris Johnson, infamous for his quips at the expense of gays and ethnic minorities, is voted in. Within weeks, one of his deputies is demanding Afro-Caribbean Londoners go back where they came from, whilst another resigned following financial irregularities.




June: BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF BAD WOLF (or to put it another way, the most exciting forty-seven seconds of television this year).

July: The story of Kamal, a young gay men in Iraq, makes for gruelling reading. Rape and torture are rife for our brothers (and sisters) in that country. I wonder where Kamal is now, and what 2009 holds for him?






August: I love animals. They're much less disappointing than people. I especially like dogs, so the BBC's expose of the pedigree dog industry sickened me. Man's inhumanity to man? Man's inhumanity, I say.






September: D'Angelo, D'Angelo, D'Angelo... You been gone so long, and after reading David Peisner's incredibly informative article in Spin, I finally understand why. They say the Voodoo man will be back in 2009. I really hope he is.






October: The justice system claims my bff, my ex, my rock, or as R. Kelly (hmm...) once said, my homie, lover, friend. Losing him was like losing a limb, and I was angry. I lost it, and I haven't really recovered yet.






November: Nabeer Bakurally is the 28th - and last - teenage boy murdered in London in 2008. Shaquille Smith, left, was killed in August, at the height of the murders. The loss of so many bright, beautiful young men is horrific. I mourn them all. We were once them.





December: Religion sucks. God is a lie. December sees the Mumbai terrorist attacks, and the marriage of an eight year old child in Saudi Arabia to a middle-aged man - fully sanctioned by an Islamic dictatorship (meanwhile, the Pope compares Us to the holocaust).

Gay? Islam Condemns You. Paedophile? Islam Embraces You

Welcome to the wonderful world of religion, kids. Yes, it's true. Homosexuality is Wrong & Bad, (allegedly) according to various imaginary cult figures like God (that's Dog backwards, didntchaknow), Allah (that's Lah La, as in lalalalalala, whatever) and Percy Sugden out of Coronation Street. No, in all seriousness, in those countries where religion is allowed to seep like a cancerous, toxic sludge, into government, into law, things turn pear-shaped. Look at Afghanistan. Hell, look at America. And bless their cotton burkhas, just look at Saudi Arabia, where man can lie with child and get away with it. Gary Glitter, why did you bother with Thailand? Why didn't you just convert to Islam and emigrate to Saudi Arabia? You could have had all the pre-teen kiddies you like, and the courts - dominated by Sunni clerics - would have gladly rubberstamped it. For in the kingdom, an eight year old girl has been married off by her father to a man of fifty-eight. She cannot file for divorce until she reaches puberty. Human Rights Watch say: "There is confusion in Saudi Arabia over the fundamental question of what constitutes adulthood. There is also vast judicial discretion." Clearly. It gets even better. The marriage cannot be consummated until the child reaches eighteen - but that's only a verbal condition set by the child's father. SGL Café has video on this story. Read The Guardian article here.

Godless Sodomites In A Christian America

Via SGL Cafe. You'll laugh, and cry.

Islam Is Never To Blame, Is It?

This picture is one of a series of 35 at boston.com. The other 34 in The Big Picture series are no less harrowing.

"Islam is incompatible with democracy and freedom. Islam and democracy are in the opposite sides of the spectrum... Islam is anti-democracy... And let us not be deceived - Islam is not a religion of peace. Citizens... must be vigilant in understanding the imminent threat of Islam to their culture and on their own soil. The threat of Islam is real." Amil Imani Islam: The greatest threat to Western Civilization and Christianity is a must-read article at Islam Watch, written by Amil Imani, "an Iranian born, pro-democracy activist who resides in the United States of America. He is a poet, writer, literary translator, novelist and an essayist." I'm not concerned about the threat to Christianity - I'm opposed to that to - but there can be no doubt that this barbaric, medieval cult is eroding progressive, liberal civilisation.

Islamic extremism accounts for a quarter of all terrorism fatalities worldwide, according to statistics gathered in 2006 by the National Counterterrorism Center of the United States. For a majority of the overall fatalities, Islamic extremism was responsible. A catalogue of Islamic terror attacks can be found here. Expect to see more stories from Islam Watch - Telling The Truth About Islam (Islam Under Scrutiny By Ex-Muslims) at the ka-os blog.

September 11 2001: World Trade Center, "The Falling Man."

July 7 2005: A bombed London Underground car.

July 7 2005: A bombed Transport for London bus.

Proposition 8: All White Gay People Are Bad!

"When white evangelical Christians (or Mormons for that matter) attack GLBT people, the response is loud and harsh: bigots! homophobes! haters! But when black religious leaders attack gays, which is a regular occurrence in many churches, the response is muted because, well, it’s a cultural thing and we white people just wouldn’t understand. Bigotry is bigotry, whether emanating from the pulpits of white churches or black ones." So writes someone smart, called Kevin Naff, in response to an article by someone stupid, Jasmyne Cannick. Oh, what the hell, she's a vile, racist c***. Yay! Got that out of my system. Oh, Miss Cannick (above), what if I was black and you were white? What would that make you, and your views? Read Kevin Naff's excellent article here. Cannick's racist diatribe is here.

Elsewhere, the adorable-looking Reverend Irene Monroe (below) was trying to build the bridges Cuntick - er, I mean, Cannick - is intent on destroying: "The present-day contentious debate between black and queer communities concerning what constitutes a legitimate civil rights issue and which group owns the right to use the term is both fueled and ignored by systemic efforts by our government that deliberately pits both groups against each other rather than upholding the 13th and 14th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution that affords each of these marginal groups their inalienable rights. While it is true that the white LGBTQ community needs to work on its racism, white privilege, and single-issue platform that thwart all efforts for coalition building with both straight and queer communities of color, the African-American community needs to work on its homophobia."

Reverend Monroe talks a lot of sense. I like her.

Towleroad has comprehensive coverage of the Proposition 8 drama, which seems to be all about white vs black and not at all about Us vs Them. And that's a shame.

So kids, what lessons have we learned today? 1). White gay people can be quite racist (but it's wrong and bad). 2). Black gay people can be quite racist (but it's ok and totally justified). 3). Not all black lesbians are Evil Bitch C***s (and at least one is jolly pretty). 4). Mormons are bad.

Proposition 8: The Black Folk Did It!

Pictured: Aww! Black and white united against the fags. It warms the heart!

Here at the ka-os blog, I've made my feelings pretty clear on the toxic, malignant force that threatens civilisation. No, I'm not talking Madonna, I'm talking religion. Not all religion. I've got nothing against Hinduism or Buddhism. Voodoo seems pretty cool, and Scientology gives us something to laugh at. No, the poison I'm referring to is Christianity, Islam, Mormonism et cetera. Why? This is why. Proposition 8 succeeded because the ignorant, blinkered masses, desperately clutching their bibles, unable to think for themselves, voted for it. Yet people have chosen to make the successful passage of the legislation a racial issue. The logic goes something like this: black people are to blame, because a large percentage of black people (relative to the black population as a whole) voted for it. A lot of angry gays have grabbed onto that fact, and clung to it in their rage. And we should all be very, very angry about Prop 8, whether we live in California or not, but that anger is very misguided. Here's some further figures: "Of those that voted for the ban, 60% were white, 13% black, 18% Hispanic, 6% Asian, and 3% other." That's right kids, if this is a racial issue, then white people are to blame for Proposition 8. Six out of ten Yes votes were from whites (see, I can do math). When I was younger, I used to think that the real battle to be fought was that of gays against straights. In fact, you can probably find articles right here on this blog in which I disparage heterosexuals wholesale. That view has been challenged by the great many heterosexual people I know who frankly couldn't give a damn about gay this or straight that; people who are open-minded, rational individuals. I also know many gay men - and gay youth particularly - whose minds have been pickled by the garbage their church-going parents have rammed down their throats. Incoherent nonsense about God and the bible, a dubious fiction penned centuries ago, the interpretation of which dictates the moral code of boys and men in the here and now. It's insane. You know, it's so ironic hearing black people talking about finally throwing off the shackles of slavery with the election of Barack Obama. What those same people fail to realise is that they are placing horrible mental shackles on their youth - with their twisted, hypocritical religion. This isn't me talking out of my hat. I see it time and again in friends and acquaintances; young black males, usually African/Afro-Caribbean, confused and distraught by the shackles of religion. The real poison here is religion, because "God" told all those good folk to vote for Proposition 8, didn't he? The truth of that matter is that America is so pickled in religious fervour that it's easier to make a scapegoat of black people, than to confront the basic fact that the church, the bible, the mosque and God are weapons of mass destruction - and they're aimed right at YOU.