Storms Never Last

For your Friday music fix, something a little bit different: the country crossover duet of Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter (Miriam Eddy):

Storms Never Last


Storms never last do they, baby
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine steals the thunder
You make the sun want to shine

Oh, I followed you down so many roads, baby
I picked wild flowers and sung you soft sad songs
And every road we took, God knows, our search was for the truth
And the storm brewin' now won't be the last

Storms never last do they, baby
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine steals the thunder
You make the sun want to shine

Storms never last do they, baby
Bad times all pass with the winds
Your hand in mine steals the thunder
You make the sun want to shine

Storms never last do they, baby.

 - Miriam Eddy (Jessi Colter)

Thorsday Tonic - Changes

A little Thorsday Tonic for you!

Changes 

Still don't know what I was waitin' for
And my time was runnin' wild
A million dead end streets and
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse of
How the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
Mmm, yeah

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're goin' through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Where's your shame?
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinatin'
Ah, changes are takin'
The pace I'm goin' through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n' rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Turn and face the strange
Ch-ch-changes
Pretty soon now you're gonna get older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

- David Bowie

Tuesday Tonic - The Rabbit of Seville

For your Tuesday Tonic, a rare treat!  NiftyReaders may have noticed that I am an opera fan. Well, today you learn the secret behind my enduring affection for that musical genre: Bugs Bunny!

Yes, back in the olden days when Nifty was a sprog, the best show on television was the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner Hour on Saturday evenings right around suppertime. Dad would hold off flipping the hamburgers until the last notes of "This is it...!" had faded away to give me and my siblings a chance to watch it every week (no DVRs in those bad old days!)

Bugs was not just a clever bunny, he was cultured! We had no idea what a rich education we were soaking up while we laughed at his antics, but today I recognize the literary and musical references that were woven into nearly every cartoon.

Today's tonic, in honor of my dear brother-in-law who - to my everlasting admiration and delight - can sing the entire thing from memory: Bugs Bunny, The Rabbit of Seville

(inspired by Rossini's The Barber of Seville)

Thorsday Tonic - Fantastic Fantasia!

Today is the birthday of someone very special - and in honor of this special day, I have a special treat for your Thorsday Tonic.

From the classic Disney movie "Fantasia", 1940 edition. Beethoven's "Pastorale" ( 6th Symphony), performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of conductor Leopold Stokowski.

Happy Birthday, Dearest!

And Happy Boxing Day to All!

Per La Mia Bambina

Something special for your Wednesday Wonder. Enjoy!!

Kathleen Battle, who hails from Ohio, (UC conservatory alumnus) - sings O mio babbino caro (O my beloved father) from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi.

Happy Birthday, mia bambina!

 

It's Cloud Illusions All The Time

Both Sides Now

Rows and flows of angel hair
and ice cream castles in the air
and feather canyons everywhere,
I've looked at cloud that way
but now they only block the sun,
they rain and snow on everyone
so many things I would have done
but clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
from up and down, and still somehow
it's cloud illusions I recall,
I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and ferris wheels,
the dizzy dancing way you feel
as every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way
but now it's just another show,
you leave 'em laughing when you go
and if you care, don't let them know,
don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now,
from give and take, and still somehow
it's love's illusions I recall,
I really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud
to say "I love you" right out loud,
dreams and schemes and circus crowds,
I've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange,
they shake their heads, they say I've changed
well, something's lost but something's gained
in living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now,
from win and lose, and still somehow
it's life's illusions I recall,
I really don't know life at all.

- Joni Mitchell

(In loving memory: MTG October 16, 1933 - June 6, 2009)

Tuesday Tonic - Make Your One Life Extraordinary!

"I was not argued out of faith - I was inspired out of it." Brandon Fibbs 

For your Tuesday Tonic today: a special treat from Plumbline Pictures. The elegant, inspirational and beautiful message of this video is only matched by its stunning visual beauty. Bonus: After the main video there is a seven-minute montage of iconic film images.

The video (linked below this post) is in HD. Do yourself a favor: close the office door, turn off your phone, bring the video up on full screen, turn up the volume and soak up the goodness. You'll feel relaxed and restored after this rejuvenating Tuesday Tonic!

Here is a transcript* of the video:

One Life...

As a Christian, I believed, as most persons of faith do,
that this life was temporary,
a sort of proving ground, in which we made ourselves worthy, through our beliefs and our deeds,
for an eternity spent with god in paradise.

The most critical decision anyone could possibly make, was to accept god's redemption
for their broken, sinful nature,
and to love others into the Kingdom of God.
Because this mortal existence was destined to evaporate in the blink of an eye
it was critical to understand the bigger picture
and recognize that only eternity mattered.

Absolutely everything else was superfluous.

All pleasure, all happiness, all love,
even all the good you did in this life
was to be jettisoned
if it in any way distracted you from your heavenly goal.

Pain and hardship was to be endured cheerfully
because the worst of it was nothing compared to the glory that awaited.
This life was merely a foretaste of things to come,
a trial run, an existential impostor, a pale reflection of future glory.

As an atheist, however, I have a very different perspective.

When I gave up a belief in god, I also relinquished any sort of claim on an afterlife
While such a surrender is not, by definition, required by atheism,
I have found as much evidence for life beyond death as I have for the god
who supposedly awaits us in it.
As with the concept of god,
I see far more persuasive evidence that the afterlife is an human construction
meant to allow us to pretend we can cheat death
and hold our tenuous mortality at bay.

The afterlife exists only within the pages of our ancient books;
we have no true evidence for it.

We have no reason to believe human beings have eternal souls
or that anything outlives the cessation of our wondrous but constantly degrading biological machinery.

Life is not some sort of launching pad for something greater.
The human story is far simpler
and far more profound:
this is the only life you and I will ever have. Right here. Right now.

The belief in an afterlife cheapens and diminishes the value of this existence,

and dehumanizes the people in it.

It hobbles our ability to live life fully
because we imagine there's something much better waiting in the wings. It's the ultimate greener grass.

If life is eternal, then where is the sense of urgency?
We take our pleasure and our pain less seriously.
Such a belief allows us to downplay our own discomfort, biding our time for relief later.

We consent, we surrender, we settle.

Such a belief gives us the ability to overlook injustice
because an omniscient god sees all and metes out punishment even after death.
But if there is no afterlife,
much less an ultimate judge keeping tally of our sins and transgressions,
it means we are responsible for our own choices, actions and deeds.

You are not some sort of spiritual marionette,
with the forces of good and evil pulling your strings.
No one made you do anything, and no one will absolve you of it later.
You are not born monster,
you become a monster through your own choices.

We must not shirk our responsibility to see justice done in the here and now.

Knowing that this life is all there is pushes you to live well,
not because of some reward or punishment, but because this is all you have.
The truth is, our desire to love brightly,
live fiercely,
hold death at bay
and mourn our dead
shows that, whenever we may claim to believe,
it's not how we actually live.

Look around you.

What you see is all there is or ever will be.
Don't neglect it. Don't trivialize what it offers or who you shares it with you.
The great American poet Walt Whitman said:
"O Me! O life!...of the questions of these recurring What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer: That you are here, that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse."
George Bernard Shaw said:
"Life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself."
Some people are terrified at the prospect of creating their own meaning and purpose.

They prefer to have something larger and smarter than themselves in charge.
Others, like myself, find it liberating.

You are the captain of your ship.

Your fate is in your hands.
You carve your own shape from life's marble.
While religion forces you into prescribed molds,
forbidding and punishing those who leak out into other shapes,
a life without faith has no prescribed limits.

Stop allowing religion to permeate you with fear,
and trick you into believing that your life must be lived within the tiny boundaries of suffocating ideology.

Your freewill is not the false freedom religion prescribes.
Don't live as if everything is predestined.
Your steps are not ordered.
You do not have a destiny.

You are not a automaton.

Nothing is written.

This is not terrifying, it is emancipating.

It is one of the great privileges of being human.

Instead of working toward some ephemeral reward,
turn those energies to the here and now.

Seize this empowerment.

Decide for yourself.
Your world is moldable.

You can change it.

It responds to your touch.

Death could come for us at any second.

We are breathtakingly fragile.

Recognize that you are human, that you are mortal,
that your time here, in cosmic terms, is a blip of a blip.
But that is what makes us so precious.

An eternal being is not rare or special.

Instead, our lives are defined by our limitations.

We are exquisite exactly because we are rare,

because we are born, bloom and perish.

And when this life ends-
and it will end for us all, prince and pauper-
all we experienced, all we loved, all we learned, all we changed,
will vanish.

This is not a hopeless situation, as some assert.

It merely transfers importance from there to here.
It exchanges false hope for present actions.

When I die,
my body will disintegrate back into the atoms which make up its constituent parts
I will, once again, become stardust.

I will feed the cosmos,
and I find that breathtaking.

You are but an infinitesimal speck in a Cosmos that has not the agency to know or care of your existence.

And yet, you -finite, fallible you-
are able to take it in, to investigate it,
to examine it, to interrogate it, and even,
to some degree,
to comprehend it.

You possess the most special power of all:
a human brain capable of rational thought.

The ability to reason.

That is what makes you marvelous.

It is what sets you apart from all the other animals sharing this planet with us.

You can peel back mysteries and see the clockwork of the Cosmos.

That should make you feel...

massive!

You only get this one chance

this one chance to experience this exquisite planet.

The world is vast and full of wonder.
Replace judgment with curiosity and explore.
Be famished, every day, to learn something new.
Love incandescently and be loved the same in return.
Laugh as often as possible.

Instigate happiness-
for yourself and for those around you.

Aid in transforming the suffering of others whose brief flicker in this universe may be one of pain and anguish.

Stop judging others and trying to control how they live and who they love.

Stop killing time, treading water and running in place.
Stop limiting yourself.
Risk standing out.

Dare to be unique and unfettered.
Dare to dream big and live even bigger.

This is it. This is all you get.

One life.

No exceptions.

It's not for the timid,

but it rewards the bold.

How will you make your life...

extraordinary?!

- Brandon Fibbs, January 2, 2013

I can hardly believe that this video has only about 6,600 views - I hope NiftyReaders will share the link and do something about that! (This video is a feast for the eyes: the niftiest way to view it is to turn off the CC and just take it all in).

* transcript via transcriptsearch.

Monday Music - Sisters!

Today's Monday Music break is in honor of my sister, who celebrates a birthday today!

Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen (both parts sung by Rosemary Clooney): Sisters!

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Hitchens on Free Speech

There was much to admire about Christopher Hitchens. His incredible facility with language, his rapier wit, his impressive intelligence. He was extremely well-read on a wide range of topics, but his passionate defense of free thought and free speech are perhaps his greatest legacies to humankind.

 I don't agree with everything Christopher Hitchens said and did (I think his vehement support of the invasion of Iraq combined with the sharply rightward tilt of his ideology in the last decade of his life were deserving of the criticism they received), and I find some of his remarks in this speech discomfiting, too. However, if one allows the full arc of the speech to be heard, the overarching message is of essential importance. The discomfort he evokes in his audience is necessary. With his trademark eloquence - and the inevitable poke in the eye for 'political correctness' - Hitchens makes a powerful argument for the urgent need to protect Free Speech.

Context: In November 2006, Christopher Hitchens was invited to speak at the University of Toronto's Hart House Debating Club to voice his opinion on the subject of the evening's debate: Be it resolved: Freedom of speech includes the freedom to hate.

In honor of Christopher Hitchens birthday: On free speech:

(It is better to watch and listen, but if you prefer to read, here is a transcript courtesy of how to play alone):


Fire, fire, fire, fire. Now you’ve heard it. Not shouted in a crowded theatre, admittedly, as I seem now to have shouted it in the Hogwarts dining hall. But the point is made. Everyone knows the fatuous verdict of the greatly over-praised Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who, when asked for an actual example of when it would be proper to limit speech or define it as an action, gave that of shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre.

It’s very often forgotten what he was doing in that case was sending to prison a group of Yiddish- speaking socialists, whose literature was printed in a language most Americans couldn’t read, opposing Mr. Wilson’s participation in the First World War, and the dragging of the United States into that sanguinary conflict, which the Yiddish-speaking socialists had fled from Russia to escape. In fact, it could be just as plausibly argued that the Yiddish-speaking socialists who were jailed by the excellent and over-praised Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes were the real fire-fighters, were the ones shouting fire when there really was a fire in a very crowded theatre indeed.

And who is to decide? Well, keep that question if you would — ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, I hope I may say comrades and friends — before your minds.

I exempt myself from the speaker’s kind offer of protection that was so generously proffered at the opening of this evening. Anyone who wants to say anything abusive about or to me is quite free to do so, and welcome in fact, at their own risk.

But before they do that they must have taken, as I’m sure we all should, a short refresher course in the classic texts on this matter. Which are John Milton’s  Areopagitica, (Areopagitica being the great hill of Athens for discussion and free expression). Thomas Paine’s introduction to The Age of Reason. And I would say John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty in which it is variously said — I’ll be very daring and summarize all three of these great gentlemen of the great tradition of, especially, English liberty, in one go: What they say is it’s not just the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen, and to hear. And every time you silence somebody you make yourself a prisoner of your own action because you deny yourself the right to hear something. In other words, your own right to hear and be exposed is as much involved in all these cases as is the right of the other to voice his or her view. Indeed as John Stuart Mill said, if all in society were agreed on the truth and beauty and value of one proposition, all except one person, it would be most important, in fact it would become even more important, that that one heretic be heard, because we would still benefit from his perhaps outrageous or appalling view.

In more modern times this has been put, I think, best by a personal heroine of mine, Rosa Luxembourg, who said freedom of speech is meaningless unless it means the freedom of the person who thinks differently. My great friend John O. Sullivan former editor of the National Review, and I think probably my most conservative and reactionary Catholic friend, once said — it’s a tiny thought experiment — if you hear the Pope saying he believes in God, you think, well, the Pope’s just doing his job again today. If you hear the Pope saying he’s begun to doubt the existence of God, you think he might be on to something.

Well, if everybody in North America is forced to attend, at school, training in sensitivity in Holocaust awareness and is taught to study the "final solution", about which nothing was actually done by this country, or by North America, or by the United Kingdom while it was going on, but let’s say as if in compensation for that everyone is made to swallow an official and unalterable story of it now, and it’s taught as the great moral exemplar, the moral equivalent of the morally lacking elements of the Second World War, a way of stilling our uneasy conscience about that combat.

If that’s the case with everybody, as it more or less is, and one person gets up and says, “You know, about this Holocaust, I’m not sure it even happened. In fact, I’m pretty certain it didn’t. Indeed, I begin to wonder if the only thing is that the Jews brought a little bit of violence on themselves.” That person doesn’t just have a right to speak, that person’s right to speak must be given extra protection. Because what he has to say must have taken him some effort to come up with, might contain a grain of historical truth, might in any case get people to think about why do they know what they already think they know. How do I know that I know this, except that I’ve always been taught this and never heard anything else?

It’s always worth establishing first principle. It’s always worth saying what would you do if you met a Flat Earth Society member? Come to think of it, how can I prove the earth is round? Am I sure about the theory of evolution? I know it’s supposed to be true. Here’s someone who says there’s no such thing; it’s all intelligent design. How sure am I of my own views? Don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus, and the feeling that whatever you think you’re bound to be OK, because you’re in the safely moral majority.

One of the proudest moments of my life, that’s to say, in the recent past, has been defending the British historian David Irving who is now in prison in Austria for nothing more than the potential of uttering an unwelcome thought, on Austrian soil. He didn’t actually say anything in Austria. He wasn’t even accused of saying anything. He was accused of perhaps planning to say something that violated an Austrian law that says only one version of the history of the Second World War may be taught in our brave little Tyrolean Republic. The republic that gave us Kurt Waldheim, as Secretary General of the United Nations, a man wanted in several countries for war crimes. The country that has Jorg Haider the leader of its own Fascist Party in the cabinet that sent David Irving to jail.

You know the two things that have made Austria famous and given it its reputation by any chance? Just while I’ve got you? I hope there are some Austrians here to be upset by it. A pity if not. But the two greatest achievements of Austria are to have convinced the world that Hitler was German and that Beethoven was Viennese. Now to this proud record they can add, they have the courage finally to face up to their past and lock up a British historian who has committed no crime except that of thought in writing. And that’s a scandal. I can’t find a seconder usually when I propose this but I don’t care. I don’t need a seconder. My own opinion is enough for me. And I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, anytime. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass.

Now, I don’t know how many of you, don’t feel you’re grown up enough to decide for yourselves and need to be protected against David Irving’s edition of the Goebbels diaries for example, out of which I learned more about the third reich than I had from studying … and … combined, when I was at Oxford. But for those of you who do I recommend another short course of revision.

Go again and see not just the film and the play but also read the text of Robert Bolt’s wonderful play “A Man for All Seasons”, I am sure some of you must have seen it – where Sir Thomas More decides that he would rather die than lie or betray his faith. And one moment More is arguing with the particularly vicious witch-hunting prosecutor: a servant of the king and a hungry and ambitious man.

And More says: “You’d break the law to punish the devil, wouldn’t you?”

The prosecutor - the witch-hunter - says: “Break it?" he said, "I’d cut down every law in England if I could do that, if I could capture him”.

And More says,“Yes you would, wouldn’t you?” And then “When you would have cornered the devil and the devil would turn around to meet you, where would you run for protection, all the laws of England having been cut down and flattened? Who would protect you then?”

Bear in mind, ladies and gentlemen, that every time you violate – or propose to violate – the right to free speech of someone else, you in potentia you’re making a rod for your own back. Because (…), to whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful, or who is the harmful speaker? Or to determine in advance what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom are you going to award the task of being the censor?

Isn’t the famous old story that the man who has to read all the pornography, in order to decide what is fit to be passed and what isn’t, is the man most likely to become debauched?

Is there anyone you find eloquent enough to decide for you what you could read? You would give the job to decide for you? To relieve you from the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear?

Does anyone have a nominee? Hands up?

You mean there is no one who is good enough to decide what I can read? I had no idea.. But there’s a law – or some piddling sub-section of a law – that says there must be such a person. Well, to hell with that law. It is inviting you to be liars and hypocrites and to deny what you evidently know already.

About this censorial instinct: we basically know already what we need to know, and we’ve known it for a long time, it comes from an old story from again a great Englishman (..) Dr. Samuel Johnson, the author of the first great dictionary of English language. When it was complete he was waited upon by various delegations of people to congratulate him, (..) also by a delegation of respectable ladies of London (…). "Dr Johnson," they said: “we are delighted to find that you’ve not included any indecent or obscene words in your dictionary.”

“Ladies," said Dr Johnson, “I can congratulate you on being able to look them up.”

Anyone who can understand that joke gets the point about censorship, especially prior restraint as it is known in the US for it is banned by the first amendment of the Constitution. It may not be determined in advance what words are apt or inapt. No one has the knowledge that would be required to make that call and – more to the point – one has to suspect the motives of those who do so. In particular those who are determined to be offended, those who will go through a treasure house of English language (..) in search of filthy words, to satisfy themselves, and some instinct about which I dare not speculate…

Now, I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hatred in the world is religion, and organized religion. Absolutely convinced. I am glad that you applaud, because that is a very great problem for those who oppose this motion (the motion to cut the law on hate speech). How are they going to ban religion? How are they going to stop the expression of religious loathing, hatred and bigotry?

I speak as someone who is a very regular target of this, and not just in rhetorical form. I have been the target of many death threats and I know several people (…), who can’t go anywhere without a security detail because of the criticism they’ve made on one monotheism in particular. This is in the capital city of the United States. So I know what I’m talking about, and I also have to notice, that the sort of people who ring me up and say they know where my children go to school, what my home number is and where I live, and what they are going to do to them and to my wife, and to me, whom I have to take seriously because they already have done it to people I know, are just the people who are going to seek the protection of the hate speech law, if I say what I think about their religion, which I am now going to do.

Because I don’t have any ethnic bias, I have no grudge of that sort, I can rub along with pretty much anyone of any origin – as it were -, or sexual orientation, or language group – except people from Yorkshire of course, who are completely untakable – and I’m beginning to resent the confusion that is being imposed on us now between religious belief, blasphemy, ethnicity, profanity and what we might call “multicultural etiquette”.

It is quite common these days for people now to use the expression – for example – “anti-islamic racism”, as if an attack on a religion is an attack on an ethnic group. The word islamophobia in fact is beginning to acquire the opprobrium that was once reserved for racial prejudice. This is a subtle and very nasty insinuation that needs to be met, head on.

Who said “what if Falwell hates fags? What if people act upon that?" The Bible says you have to hate fags. If Falwell says he is saying it because the Bible says so, he is right. Yes, it might make people go out and use violence. What are you going to do about that? You’re up against a group of people who will say ‘you put your hands on our Bible and we’ll call the hate speech police’.  Now what are you going to do when you’ve dug that trap for yourselves?

Eh, somebody said that the antisemitism and Kristallnacht in Germany was the result of ten years of Jew-bating. Ten years?! You must be joking, it is the result of 2000 years of Christianity, based on one verse of one chapter of St. John’s gospel, which led to a pogrom after every Easter sermon every year for hundreds of years. Because it claimed that the Jews demanded the blood of Christ be on the heads of themselves and all their children to the remotest generation. That is the warrant and license for – and incitement to anti-Jewish pogroms. What are you going to do about that?

Where is your piddling subsection now?!? Does it say St. John’s gospel must be censored?

Do I – who have read Freud and know what the future of an illusion really is and know that religious belief is ineradicable as long as we remain this stupid, poorly-evolved mammalian species – think that some (Canadian) law is going to solve this problem?

Please…

No our problem is this: our prefrontal lobes are too small. And our adrenaline glands are too big. And our thumb/finger opposition isn’t all what it might be. And we’re afraid of the dark, and we’re afraid to die and we believe in the truths of holy books that are so stupid and so fabricated that a child can – and all children do, as you can tell by their questions – actually see through them. And I think it should be – religion – treated with ridicule, and hatred and contempt. And I claim that right.

Now, let’s not dance around, not all monotheisms are exactly the same – at the moment. They’re all based on the same illusion, they’re all plagiarisms of each other, but there is one in particular that at the moment is proposing a serious menace not just to freedom of speech and freedom of expression, but to quite a lot of other freedoms too. And this is the religion that exhibits the horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness and self-pity. I am talking about militant Islam.

Globally it is a gigantic power. It controls an enormous amount of oil wealth, several countries and states with an enormous fortune it’s pumping the ideology of Wahhabism and Salafism around the world, poisoning societies where it goes, ruining the minds of children, stultifying the young in its madrasas, training people in violence, making its culture death, suicide and murder. That’s what it does globally, it’s quite strong.

In our society it poses as a cringing minority, who’s faith you might offend, who deserves all the protection that a small and vulnerable group might need.

Now, it makes quite large claims for itself, doesn’t it? It says it’s the final revelation. It says that god spoke to one illiterate businessman – in the Arabian peninsula – three times through an archangel, and the resulting material – as you can see as you read it – is largely plagiarized from the old and the new testament. (...) It has to be accepted as the final revelation and as the final and unalterable one and those who do not accept this revelation are fit to be treated as cattle infidels, potential chattel, slaves and victims.

Well I tell you what, I don’t think Mohammad ever heard those voices. I don’t believe it. And the likelihood that I am right – as opposed to the likelihood that a businessman who couldn’t read, had bits of the old and the new testament re-dictated to him by an archangel, I think puts me much more near the position of being objectively correct.

But who is the one under threat? The person who promulgates this and says I’d better listen because if I don’t I’m in danger, or me who says “no, I think this is so silly you can even publish a cartoon about it”?

And up go the placards and the yells and the howls and the screams – this is in London, this is in Toronto and this is in New York, it is right in our midst now – “Behead those who cartoon Islam”.

Do they get arrested for hate speech? No.

Might I get in trouble for what I just said about the prophet Mohammad? Yes, I might.

Where are your priorities ladies and gentlemen?

You’re giving away what is most precious in your own society, and you’re giving it away without a fight and you’re even praising the people who want to deny you the right to resist it. Shame on you while you do this. Make the best use of the time you’ve got left. This is really serious.

Now, if you look anywhere you like, because we had implications of a rather driveling and sickly kind tonight about or sympathy, what about the poor fags, the poor Jews, the wretched women who can’t take the abuse and the slaves and their descendants and the tribes who didn’t make it, and their land of which all was forfeit… look anywhere you like in the world for slavery, for the subjection of women as chattel, for the burning and flogging of homosexuals, for ethnic cleansing, for anti-Semitism... 

...for all of this, look no further than a famous book that’s on every pulpit in this city, and in every synagogue and in every mosque.

And then just see whether you can square the fact that the force of the main source of hatred, is also the main caller for censorship. And when you’ve realized that you’re therefore this evening faced with a gigantic false antithesis, I hope that still won’t stop you from giving the motion before you the resounding endorsement it deserves. Thank you. Night night, stay cool.