BECAUSE I CANNOT DRAW CARTOONS




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NESRINE MALIK AND THE UNSUNG VIRTUES OF HYPOCRISY

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As I write this a 27 year old woman, Mariam Ibrahim, has just had a baby in a Sudanese prison, ‘the condition of the mother and baby is not known as Ibrahim's lawyer and her husband, a US citizen, had been denied access to her. Omdurman women's prison has a basic clinic, where the child is thought to have been born. Ibrahim has been shackled since being imprisoned.’ [1]   Mariam also has an 18 month old child who is also being held in prison with her. The ‘crime’ for which she is imprisoned is apostasy, for which she has received the death sentence. She has also been sentenced to 100 lashes, for the additional crime of having sex with her Christian husband. Although she has been a lifelong Christian her father was a Muslim, Sudanese sharia law forbids women to marry outside the Muslim faith, men needless to say can do as they please in these matters. Mariam Ibrahim and her husband.  Nineteen countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries...
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INHERIT THE WIND

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  American Ignorance Watching one of my favourite films again, Inherit the Wind, - there are two versions, the first featuring Spencer Tracey, the second Jack Lemon in the lead role. The film is based on the Scopes ‘monkey trial’ of 1926, in which the teaching of Charles Darwin was prosecuted   in a small American community.   Without going further into the mechanics of the film the gist of the plot   is the triumph of intelligence over bigotry and ignorance. Watching the film these days no longer has the same impact on me, for at present the laughable bigotry of the Scopes trial reigns triumphant in Trumpian America. The US secretary of defence, Pete Hegseth, - incidentally a man so riddled with sin, original or otherwise, from adultery to sexual bullying and violence, he could challenge Trump himself in the moral bankruptcy stakes, - now openly promotes a pastor who opposes women’s enfranchisement and holds that women must be subservient to men, always. There role ...
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INTERVIEW WITH TOM VAGUE

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Tom Vague At the top end of All Saints Road there is a refuge, an enclave in which a local Bohemian culture retains a foothold, this is the Book & kitchen , a café/bookshop with adjoining terrace. Here the bustle of the nearby market gives way to conversation, conversation in the presence of images of the recent, and not so recent, past. The past of an area that has contributed so much to the life and culture of the city. I was there to meet local historian Mr Tom Vague a man intimately familiar with so much of this history. What Tom doesn’t know about the recent history of the area probably is not worth knowing. With Tom’s energy and effort Colville Community Forum, supported by City Living Local Life, recently held a gathering at The Book and Kitchen to celebrate this rich history. February 16 6-9 Pm, with Film Screening and Readings Exhibition February 16-26 2016. Featuring 30 Classic Westway Photographs and Posters. This represents one of a number of initiatives of t...
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