aw dude it wasn't sarcasm, but i could do with out the agro. but i will promise to educate where i can. my kids wont be growing up hating islam.
Neither will mine. My son's best mates, with whom intends to share a flat, are called Hussein and Mukhtar and daughter's best friend is called Amerra. They are all great kids, but given that their parents all fled oppressive theocracies, that's not surprising. The lads are still devout, and I did chuck them out of my house for making anti-Semitic remarks when they were about 14, much to my son's huge embarrassment, but I still like them. They were young and I explained to him that I didn't want to make them believe what I believed but I would not allow them to speak in such a way in my house, so it was a good lesson for him. Don't know about the girl.
Who censors our media? What we see and understand of any given situation is diluted by what it is decided we should see - is that democratic? Why were we 'protected'/obstructed from seeing the distressing images of the wounded policeman writhing on the floor, pleading for his life, tragically to no avail, with the approaching gunman? Like most people, these are not images I want to see, but I don't agree with someone deciding I shouldn't be allowed to see them. Most media outlets around Europe will show the full graphic effects of barbaric acts - why are we so mollycoddled in Britain, why are we protected (for our own sakes?) from the shock and the ugly realities of outrage? Without the full impact of witnessing the imagery of the aftereffects of these acts, we are generally reacting to reporters' descriptions or to pixellated guessing games - how much stronger would our reactions be if we took the full ugliness onboard? Who is it that doesn't want the population having those reactions? Is the British skin somehow thinner than that of our close neighbours? Or is the agenda something else?
@Speed_Triple deffo, we ether educate or disintegrate. been meaning to ask, did you know these poor sods that where murdered?.
The future you paint has Sharia law incorporated into our legal system, woman obliged to cover their heads, etc............to ensure we are seen as being accommodating and appropriate in our attitude to aggressive Islam and avoiding any offence and confrontation? Not a country I want to live in thanks. Since the start of this post, my attitude has changed. Some of the quality posts and other articles I've read; Programmes I've watched, and debates heard; I am now feeling less inclined to accommodate something that does not work in it's present form, especially in the West. The Koran needs to be brought up to date and Salmond Rushdie is right in stating that there is a 'deadly mutation in the heart of Islam.'
If it's any consolation, I often look at the news on 3 channels on any one day: the Swiss TV, the French TV and the BBC. No network showed that footage without pixelating the policeman being topped. For one thing, it would be distressing for people in the middle of their dinner, their kids shouldn't see it, and we are all quite outraged enough without building it to fever pitch. Plus, the family of the copper are most upset that his death should be all over the world's media. The bloke who took the footage, put it up on FB without thinking, as a sort of habit, and then took it down again within the hour when he'd realised that it was inappropriate. But by that stage, it was all over the world.
As someone who works in the media I can categorically state that matters of taste and decency are not determined by anything other than editorial policy, which is, in turn, decided by the news outlet's editors. They may be influenced by their proprietors, to a greater or lesser extent. But I do not believe there is a state conspiracy to prevent people seeing the truth. Individual journalists would have broken ranks to tell everyone about it if there were. After all it would be a great story to break. And we love a scoop. Newspaper editors would also never risk alienating readers by putting a really disturbing image on the front page because they wouldn't be able to issue the sort of warning TV does so that parents can shield their children, if they so wish. I'm not sure actually seeing those images would help anyone's understanding and I don't think many people would feel the need to see them anyway.
Saudi cleric issues fatwa on snowmen | World news | The Guardian Why do you and your editors think people shouldn't be allowed to decide for themselves?
a mate with a computer company through in edinbro had colleagues that where killed in the 9 11. attack. it is shocking. horrible.
For the reasons given above. And the fact that they can make an informed decision without seeing the gruesome reality. How does seeing a man decapitated inform anyone more than being told he has been. Would you want your 10-year-old seeing that if you had one?
The reasons given above seem to rely on your conviction that your judgement is somehow superior to that of the general population and your responsibility is to decide what they should and shouldn't see. My 10 year old is now 24, I never felt the need to shelter him from the occasional ugliness of life, nor from the great beauty in most things. However, if your reporting is predicated upon the reaction you might get from an audience of 10 year olds, Google up 'after the watershed'.
I can't help but see some irony in this post. The thread has been largely about what people can publish so as not to cause offence. I won't bother summarising all the arguments, but although it is my conviction that religion of any stripe is fair game, that doesn't mean that there aren't limits to good taste - it's just that religious jokes don't transgress them. On the other hand, watching people get executed does, in my view, overstep what is decently acceptable. I've never watched a beheading video - why would I want to? Nor do I need to see this poor policemen get bumped off. But I'm sure that the net can cater for all these things, should you feel inclined to watch them.
I haven't thought deeply about this issue before. I broadly agree with the self-censorship as regards graphic images but that is simply because I don't wish to see them and I don't understand why others would do so. However, that is not a good enough reason on its own. OK, thoughts: It is, as far as I am aware, self-censorship. There is no real pressure from government to censor such images, it comes from the proprietors or policy-makers of the media outlets who have made their decision. It is their choice. You don't like it? Create your own media outlet. There is a watershed, as far as TV is concerned - for all the use it is, with Sky player, Sky plus and other similar facilities. Still, we can "shelter", if we so wish, our young people from imagery that would give them nightmares* and it might work, for some households at least. Can we force media outlets to show the full horror of what happens on the streets and on the battlefields? Would you want to do that? I am comfortable with images being censored as they currently are. If you want to see the gore, there's YouTube. I am happy for it to exist there, as long as there are safeguards for children. The under-10s don't need to see this shit, in my opinion. I don't want to see my opinion made law, I just want a buffer to be available from the direct images, which I can imagine for myself from the written descriptions, if I so desire. * For myself, I saw a movie when I was very young called Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte, a hokey bit of melodrama in Black & White. I had nightmares as a result of seeing a prop head go thump-thump-thump down a flight of stairs. It was a movie. Imagine my reaction had it been in colour and a real incident?
When I was at primary school, we had to keep a diary as some sort of English exercise. Nothing much seemed to happen in my 10 year old life, so to get some material for my diary, I started watching the 6 o'clock news. In 1970 it was all full of IRA atrocities, bombs, killings and unhappy people. I remember it making me extremely depressed. I probably shouldn't have been focusing on this grim adult world aged 10.
