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| Too... much... food... |
Now that you have five pounds of chocolate to eat...
A university in northwestern China has forbidden Christmas for its students:
A university in
northwestern China has banned Christmas, calling it a "kitsch" foreign
celebration unbefitting of the country's own traditions and making its
students watch propaganda films instead, media said on Thursday.
The state-run Beijing News said that the Modern College of Northwest
University, located in Xian, had strung up banners around the campus
reading "Strive to be outstanding sons and daughters of China, oppose
kitsch Western holidays" and "Resist the expansion of Western culture".
A student told the newspaper that they would be punished if they did
not attend a mandatory three-hour screening of propaganda films, which
other students said included one about Confucius, with teachers standing
guard to stop people leaving.
"There's nothing we can do about it, we can't escape," the student was quoted as saying.
An official microblog belonging to one of the university's Communist
Party's committees posted comments calling for students not to "fawn on
foreigners" and pay more attention to China's holidays, like Spring
Festival.
"In recent years, more and more Chinese have started to attach importance to Western festivals," it wrote.
"In their eyes, the West is more developed than China, and they think
that their holidays are more elegant than ours, even that Western
festivals are very fashionable and China's traditional festivals are old
fashioned."
Christmas is not a traditional
festival in officially atheist China but is growing in popularity,
especially in more metropolitan areas where young people go out to
celebrate, give gifts and decorate their homes.
Yes, if there is anything that will bring red unity, it's banning fun in lieu of stupid propaganda films that will be largely forgotten after the first round of Christmas drinks in someone's dorm room.
You fail, communism!
Speaking of communism and films....
Of course it does:
Russia on Thursday offered sympathy to North Korea amid the Sony hacking
scandal, saying the movie that sparked the dispute was so scandalous
that Pyongyang's anger was "quite understandable."
Pariah dictators have to stick together.
Russia backed and
still backs North Korea. It has, however, very little regard for non-Russians
as history shows:
A
North Korean who tried to bring a drunk Soviet lieutenant to justice
said, “I cannot forgive the Soviet soldier who raped my wife. Many
such perpetrators went unpunished. Though another lieutenant colonel
urged the Soviet military police to punish the perpetrators to maintain
military discipline several times, his words went unheeded, the report
said.
The 25th Primorsky Krai unit commander of the Soviet Far East Army
arrived at Pyongyang Airport on Aug. 26, 1945, and described the Soviet
army as liberators. “Remember fellow Koreans! Your happiness is up to
you. You have achieved freedom and independence. Everything is up to you
now,” he said. The report, however, quoted the commander as
threatening to “hang half of the Koreans” if they rise up against the
Soviet army in protest of their abuses.
The commander held a party with his subordinates for 22 hours in a
row in downtown Haeju on Nov. 16, 1945. A fire broke out and burned
houses, but he said the fire was an act of arson committed by dissidents
and received 300,000 yen as compensation.
The report quoted another Soviet colonel as saying privately, “The
Korean people were enslaved for the past 35 years. It’s okay for them be
enslaved a little longer.
- See more at:
http://freekorea.us/2010/03/10/newly-released-soviet-report-details-atrocities-in-north-korea/#sthash.XhxlhEyv.dpuf
A North Korean who tried to bring a drunk Soviet lieutenant
to justice said, “I cannot forgive the Soviet soldier who raped my wife. Many such perpetrators went unpunished. Though another
lieutenant colonel urged the Soviet military police to punish the perpetrators
to maintain military discipline several times, his words went unheeded, the
report said.
The 25th Primorsky Krai unit commander of the Soviet Far
East Army arrived at Pyongyang Airport on Aug. 26, 1945, and described the
Soviet army as liberators. “Remember fellow Koreans! Your happiness is up to
you. You have achieved freedom and independence. Everything is up to you now,” he said. The report, however, quoted the commander as
threatening to “hang half of the Koreans” if they rise up against the Soviet army in protest of their
abuses.
The commander held a party with his subordinates for 22
hours in a row in downtown Haeju on Nov. 16, 1945. A fire broke out and burned
houses, but he said the fire was an act of arson committed by dissidents and
received 300,000 yen as compensation.
The report quoted another Soviet colonel as saying
privately, “The Korean people were enslaved for the past 35 years. It’s okay
for them be enslaved a little longer.
Just like China:
China also favors the remote-control censorship of American
speech. The editors of The Global Times, for example, believe they have
standing to define the acceptable limits of free speech here:
“No matter how
U.S. society looks at North Korea and Kim Jong-un, Kim is still the leader of
the country. The vicious mocking of Kim is only a result of senseless cultural
arrogance,” the Chinese state-run paper said in an editorial.
“The biggest
motive for Sony Pictures may be the box office, by putting out a sensational
story. However, if the movie really was shown on a large scale, it would
further upset the already troubled U.S.-North Korea ties,” it said. [Yonhap]
The editors of The Global Times can go fuck themselves.
They’re the first ones to whine about “interference” in China’s “internal
affairs” when civilized nations protest that China’s tyrants gun down students,
jail dissidents, persecute Tibetans, or send North Korean kids to death camps.
It takes some chutzpah for a gang of toadies for stultifying,
culture-strangling despots to lecture a free society with a legitimate
government about what kinds of speech it should allow.
The blinkered thinking of states with self-important tyrants is a thing to behold.
Also:
If we turn the debate around, and look at some evidence that the
North Koreans might NOT be behind the Sony hack, the picture looks
significantly clearer.
1. First of all, there is the fact that the
attackers only brought up the anti-North Korean bias of “The Interview”
after the media did—the film was never mentioned by the hackers right
at the start of their campaign. In fact, it was only after a few people
started speculating in the media that this and the communication from
North Korea “might be linked” that suddenly it did get linked. My view
is that the attackers saw this as an opportunity for “lulz”, and a way
to misdirect everyone. (And wouldn’t you know it? The hackers are now
saying it’s okay for Sony to release the movie, after all.) If everyone believes it’s a nation state, then the criminal investigation will likely die. It’s the perfect smokescreen.
2.
The hackers dumped the data. Would a state with a keen understanding of
the power of propaganda be so willing to just throw away such a trove
of information? The mass dump suggests that whoever did this, their
primary motivation was to embarrass Sony Pictures. They wanted to
humiliate the company, pure and simple.
There goes that story.
The plight of Christians in the seed-ground of Christianity:
This year, there would be no big holiday parties at Our Lady of
Salvation, a local landmark topped by a towering cross that's visible
for miles. Christians are leaving Iraq, the population down from more
than 1 million a decade ago to about 350,000, many of them displaced.
In the north, Islamic State fighters have forced thousands to flee.
In Baghdad, where the security situation is still so tenuous that
priests worried that celebrations could provoke an attack. Last
Christmas, three bombings targeted Christians, including a Roman
Catholic church, and killed 38 people.
Shortly before the 6 p.m.
Christmas Eve service, the children and their families filed out of the
school past concrete barriers topped with barbed wire and into the
packed church for several hours of singing and prayer, the highlight of
their day, hoping the strangers they met meant them no harm.
"The guards and blocks can't do anything if something is about to happen," the Rev. Nabil Yako said.
**
Millions of Christians around the world began Christmas celebrations Wednesday, with worshippers in the Middle East marking the occasion
after a violence-plagued year that brought suffering to many. ...
Even in the Palestinian territories, Christmas will be a deliberately
low-key affair after a July-August war with Israel which left nearly
2,200 Gazans dead and the tiny enclave in ruins in the third such
conflict in six years. ...
In Baghdad, Chaldean Patriarch
Louis Sako said about 150,000 Christians had been displaced by an
offensive spearheaded by the Islamic State group, which has targeted
Christians and other minorities, with dozens leaving Iraq each day.
Iraq's displaced Christians "still live in a tragic situation and
there are no quick solutions for them," Sako told AFP, saying that
particularly this Christmas, they needed reassurances that they "are not
left alone and not forgotten".
In Syria, Christians in the war-torn city of Homs were enjoying their
first Christmas in three years in the Hamidiyeh neighbourhood, with a
brightly coloured tree and a manger made from rubble set up in the
middle of the ruins.
"Our joy is indescribable," said Taghrid Naanaa while picking out
tree decorations at a shop in the district, which the Syrian army
recaptured from rebel fighters this year.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani,
in a Christmas message to the Pope published on his official website,
called for cooperation to "spread peace, security and well-being in the
world".
(sigh)
This happens every year:
In October, Jeffrey Tayler wrote in Salon
that the Qur’an “backs up jihad, suicide attacks (“martyrdom”),
beheadings, even taking captive women as sex slaves.” This was singular
for Salon, which usually whitewashes the truth about Islam and jihad and
excoriates those who expose it as “racists” and “bigots,” but now it is
clear why Tayler was able to get away with it: he is supremely hostile
to Christianity. Here, he gives a characteristic Salon Christmas
greeting: Jesus likely never existed, but Muhammad’s existence is well
established.
So, even the Talmud, Tacitus and Josephus were lying?
It fries some people that a Jewish carpenter existed, hence the ridiculous denial that He did.
Get over it, people.
(
Kamsahamnida to
all and to
all a good night.)
