Layer 519 . . . Secularism versus Religion, Intolerance, Warsi, Liberal Elites, Dumb Politicians and Spiritual Intelligence

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It's a strange business, this secularism versus religion - the godless versus the God-fearing and God-worshipping. Take this article in G2 today:

Is religion really under threat?

People with faith say secularism has become an aggressive and intolerant force in Britain. What has gone wrong? It should bring society together

by Julian Baggini

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/14/is-religion-really-under-threat

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/julianbaggini

Mr Baggini's 3 pages in the paper today were inspired by the incredible Baroness Warsi and her ludicrous comments about secularism in the past few days:

Baroness Warsi attacks 'liberal elite'

(The Telegraph's headline actually calls it a 'lilberal elite', but we'll gloss over that.)

Baroness Warsi, the Conservative chairman, has launched an attack on the “liberal elite” who are attempting to downgrade the importance of religion in public.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9083287/Baroness-Warsi-attacks-lilberal-elite.html

In a speech to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, which trains Papal diplomats, last night, Baroness Warsi warned of the growing danger of “militant secularists” to British life.

She attacked the “well-intentioned liberal elite” for undermining the role of faith.

She said: [They] conversely, are trying to create equality by marginalising faith in society and think that the route to religious pluralism is by creating a path of faith-neutrality.”

She claimed that this led to them attempting to “downgrade religion to a mere subcategory in public life.”

The peer continued: “But look at their supposed level playing field. Its terrain is all but impassable to anyone of belief.

“One of the arguments of the liberal elite is that faith and reason are incompatible. But they don’t realise, as the Holy Father has argued for many years, that faith and reason go hand in hand.”

“Just as reason should not be excluded from debates about faith...so too spirituality should not be excluded when we look at worldly matters.”

So here we go again - another God-worshipping individual believing that only people who believe in a God possess any "spirituality", and that atheists (and presumably Buddhists) can't consider the spiritual dimension of "worldly affairs". Which, of course, is patent nonsense.

Buddhists don't have "faith" in a supreme being. However, unlike a lot of religious 'believers' they possess enough spiritual intelligence to apply a doctrine of non-violence when it comes to "worldly affairs" - very unlike the God-bothering Blair and Bush, for example.

Readers may have noticed that Oxzen has very high regard for principled religious people of high spiritual intelligence such as the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the Rev Giles Fraser, late of St Paul's. I doubt very much whether any of these people feel threatened by secularists, atheists or Buddhists.

Interestingly Channel 4 News last night showed interviews with a rabbi and an imam - neither of whom felt threatened by “militant secularists” or felt that such people are a growing danger to 'British life' - unlike the idiotic Warsi. The female cleric who leads the daily prayers in the House of Commons, on the other hand, agreed with Warsi completely.

The rabbi and the imam both said that Britain is a brilliant country for Jews and Muslims and other religious people who wish to practise their faith.

What is it with dumb politicians and rent-a-gob careerists like Warsi? It's obvious that so many of these people would like 'godless liberals' and atheist intellectuals, who also tend to be on the left of the political spectrum, to become marginalised and disregarded in their critiques of society.

The other thing that Warsi has presumably realised is that the Establishment in this country stays powerful by sticking together - the monarchy, the political elite, the religious elite, and the financial elite. All of them consider themselves to be 'at the heart of public life'.

Give me an intelligent and truly spiritual Archbishop anyday, instead of an idiot atheist like Nick Clegg, for example. But please, someone, spare us the likes of Warsi and her diatribes - the only practising Muslim who thinks that Christianity should be at the heart of British public life, in spite of the fact that the vast majority of people in this country never set foot in a church, never pray to a god, and have no strong religious beliefs.
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Layer 402 . . . Pantomime Villains, Burlesque Performers, Politicians, Financiers and Boogie Woogie

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This year's pantomime villains? Politicians and financiers
 

by Aditya Chakrabortty

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/14/brain-food-politicians-financiers-lack-control

This is the charge sheet we like to build for our public villains: immensely powerful, yet thoughtless with their power. They shuffle around billions and cause a massive financial meltdown. Or they pack off youngsters to destroy others (and themselves) in faraway wars. Oh, and they all come from the same elite backgrounds: a private education, then a stint at Oxbridge before floating down to London on a lotus leaf to enjoy careers as unarguably middle class as their Smeg fridges.

If you thought the men and women in frontline finance and politics operated in a hermetically sealed bubble, then Davis has news for you: it's worse than you think. Not only do top politicians and financiers come to their desks with little knowledge of life beyond the Commons or their Bloomberg machines, but that bubble closes in, the higher they get on the professional ladder.

Of 22 London fund managers Davis talked to, only two had any experience in industry. Unsurprising? Consider this: only two had ever visited the companies they invested in – and that was in the distant past. Instead, hundreds of chief executives and finance heads came to them. Invest in what you know, runs an old stockmarket homily; invest in what you can find out about in an hour, would run the modern version, over a glass of fizzy water and in between checking the BlackBerry.

The specialists managing your money, whether in pensions or on prisons, will do well even to gain a puddle-deep knowledge of their subject. Yet politicians and financiers both have to make big decisions at vast speed. Fund managers typically keep a portfolio of 100 companies in their head, while considering whether to buy or sell hundreds more. They might rely on brokers to provide analysis – but they also know these "double-glazing salesmen" (as one fund manager calls them) are really only touting for commission. As for frontbench politicians, Davis describes their decision-making as almost entirely "subcontracted" – with the parameters set by colleagues, or advisers, or the latest fuss in the papers.

I am not asking you to feel pity for these people, or any other such cheap exercise in false consciousness. But anyone who thinks of financiers or politicians as the great men (and, occasionally, women) of our age, making the gigantic decisions on the issues that count, is wrong.

The other impression you are left with after reading Davis's descriptions of nerve-jangled fund managers and panicky frontbenchers is that it is no wonder so many bad decisions are made in both finance and politics.

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More on Burlesque

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/dec/13/burlesque-dita-von-teese-christina-aguilera

'Any body can do it'

If the content can vary in tone and quality, there are certain consistent conventions; a burlesque show can seem almost like adult pantomime. Cheers are expected at key moments of undress – it's literally rude not to – and the women in the audience tend to offer even more vociferous encouragement than the men. From one perspective, the scene's current popularity means demand is sufficiently high for mediocre acts to thrive. But from another point of view, mediocrity is an asset – that is, audiences are willing to celebrate performers simply for having the confidence to put themselves on display. Amateurism – or at least a kind of permeability between performer and audience – is sometimes the point.

At the Tournament of Tease final, for instance, two separate turns see performers rejected by men, moping to All By Myself then taking self-assertive pleasure in their bodies – one involving a lot of cake – to massive whoops of applause. In another, Betsy Boudoir, an older woman in a white two-piece suit mimes getting trapped in a lift then tearing her clothes off in a frenzy. Her timing is spot on, her enjoyment palpable. When Betsy is announced as winner, the 20-strong party accompanying her, including her mother and husband, go wild. "With burlesque, it doesn't matter what age, shape, size colour you are," Betsy – aka 48-year-old Adele Bolkansky – tells me. "It's about attitude. The human body is beautiful. Literally any body can do it."

"I really like the atmosphere here," says Lisa, a 48-year-old psychotherapist. "It's not lewd. The women chose to perform. To get up there and be proud of their body in front of 250 people is very empowering. A lot of them seem to be working through stuff in their performances. It's a bit like therapy."

Arthur's friends seem convinced, too. I ask one, Ricardo, how he found his first burlesque experience. "Very interesting," he says. "Surprisingly so. I expected the worst – some kind of strip club. My colleague has been trying to drag me here forever. But this was creative, entertaining, very funny. Now I'm upset he didn't bring me before."

Nice comment by AmandaStone:

I find any hint of men enjoying women's bodies to be sexist and disgraceful.

I like a guy with muscles though.

(This is The Guardian, right?)

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Boogie Woogie

Mike Sanchez
Down the Road Apiece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6UH0zpbmvM&feature=related

A great way to start your day.

Eat your heart out Jules Holland . . .
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