Lots of blogs are posting this; we are no exception.

MANIFESTO:

Together facing the new totalitarianism

After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.

We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.

The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.

Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.

We reject cultural relativism, which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.

We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.

We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.

12 signatures

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lvy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn Warraq

And here is a collection of blog reaction to this manifesto.

Oh yes and its about the Danish Mohammed Cartoons. Nice to have you come round finally Sir Trevor.

Meanwhile an Aussie lawyer and member of ROPMA talks bollocks about Sharia law and Oz. Of course, Jay lists the reasons why he thinks Sharia is uncivilised.

The Taxpayers Alliance had a cracking good party last night to celebrate the launch of their most recent book on Government Waste. I have read and reviewed the Bumper Book of Government Waste and its a cracking read. After the champers fueled reception ended; my beloved Kim led those left to Kettners from some fine pizza and wine. A great evening was had by all.

u can look but you cant touch it
if you touch it i’ma start some drama
you dont want no drama
no, no drama, no, no, no, no drama

black eyed peas

I’ve delayed linking to this video, not the least of which is because of the vituperative reaction to it. I haven’t heard such ridicule since I showed up for the high-school prom with my blow-up date.

But part of being a blogger is having the courage to defend unpopular views, or at least to ban dissenters from the comments section.

It’s essentially a novelty song, the sort of thing that gets cooked up when you’ve got a couple of unbooked studio hours and a wee dram of Drambuie or three.

Besides, has there ever been a more perfect evocation of the sing-songy essence of female passive-aggressive behavior as in the lyrics above? I mean, since Al Gore’s last speech?

Having said that—yes, it is annoying. As a video, though, it’s terrific. I was originally going to compare it to a Kabuki dance; mulling it over, I thought this was a more apt comparison:

Noh is a chanted drama, and for that reason, some people have dubbed it Japanese opera. However, the singing in Noh involves a limited tonal range, with lengthy, repetitive passages in a narrow dynamic range. Clearly, melody is not at the center of Noh singing.

That would explain the rather monochromatic focus of the song. I haven’t figured out what they did with the masks, though.

Mind you, the Black Eyed Peas usually have interesting things going on musically, and can’t help but invest some artistry into even this trifle. Fergie’s lovely portamento slide into the male chorus “She’s got me spending . . .” I can’t replicate the timing in clumsy old HTML, but that slightly off beat “Oooohhh!” sends shivers up my spine. In gratitude for that, Fergie is welcome to come sit on my sofa anytime. Though I might want to lay down some towels beforehand.

Sheesh. You see what’s come to pass? You see the efforts I’m going to here to attempt to give this piece of fluff some intellectual heft? Kabuki? No—Noh! Portamento. It’s starting to remind me of an infamous review done when people started to figure out that these Beatles fellows just might be for real:

In December 1963, William Mann, the regular classical music critic of the London Times, wrote Lennons slow, sad song about ‘This Boy’... is expressively unusual for its lugubrious music, but harmonically it is one of their most intriguing, with its chains of pandiationic clusters… But harmonic interest is typical of their quicker songs, too, and one gets the impression that they think simultaneously of harmony and melody, so firmly are the major tonic sevenths and ninths built into their tunes, and the flat submediant key switches, so natural [in] the Aeolian cadence at the end of ‘Not a second time’ (the chord progression which ends Mahler’s Song of the Earth).

Now that’s some heavy lifting.

The Beatles, when they heard about it, more or less said: “Huh?”

Any “Aeolian cadence,” real or imagined, was more than likely the work of George Martin, their brilliant producer, who was well-grounded in classical theory. You don’t imagine that a scrappy Liverpool bar band conjured up the string sections of “Yesterday” or the sweeping orchestration of “She’s Leaving Home” out of thin air, do you? (They initially disliked Martin’s arrangement of “Yesterday,” McCartney in particular complaining that he didn’t want it to “end up like Mantovani.”)

So to sum up: You think the song sucks. I do too, but I think that the video works splendidly. (Whatever their other merits, the Black Eyed Peas are pretty good comic actors.) Let’s agree to disagree and move on to focus our hatred on a band that truly deserves it: Fall Out Boy. Andrew Mathas put together an, er, interpretation of their hit, “Sugar, We’re Going Down.” (The actual lyrics are here.)

Warning: NSFW. And you might want to lay down a few towels beforehand.

the blog québécois