Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/22/2019

French President Emmanuel “Toy Boy” Macron asked protesters who are on strike against his pension reforms to call a Christmas truce. The strikers refused, and the latest polls say that public support for the strikes has actually risen.

In other news, Pope Francis told Christian high school students not to try to convert people to Christianity.

To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.

Thanks to JD, Reader from Chicago, SS, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Notice to tipsters: Please don’t submit extensive excerpts from articles that have been posted behind a subscription firewall, or are otherwise under copyright protection.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. I check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

USA
» [Watch] Only 98 Turn Out for Biden Town Hall in Iowa; Protester Takes Microphone
» 1 in Every 4 Circuit Court Judges is Now a Trump Appointee
» Alarming Report Reveals Secretive Surveillance State Powered by Your Phone’s Location Services
» Democrats Haven’t Seen a Corrupt Politician They Didn’t Like, Part 2
» FISA Judge Orders FBI to Identify All Cases Involving Lawyer Who Allegedly Altered Carter Page Email
» Mass Shooting in Chicago House Party Leaves 13 Wounded, Where’s the Media Outrage?
» Massive New Epstein Info to be Released Monday
» Muslim Public School Student Takes Off Hijab, Teacher Says She Will Notify Her Parents “Because it’s Your Culture”
» One Nation, Tracked
» Reporters Enraged Over Media Portrayal in ‘Richard Jewell’
» Tucker Carlson Exposes D.C. ‘Conservatives’ For Doing Big Tech’s Bidding
 
Canada
» Watch: Extinction Rebellion Dumps Cow Manure Outside Doug Ford’s Office
 
Europe and the EU
» ‘I’ve Quit the Anglican Church Because of Its Refusal to Stand Up to Political Correctness’: The Queen’s Former Chaplain Gavin Ashenden Speaks Out About His Conversion to Catholicism
» Macron Loses Control in France as Desperate Strike Plea Backfires ‘Most Major Revolt Yet’
» Rapper and BBC Christmas Message Star Stormzy: Britain ‘100 Per Cent’ Racist
» Spain’s Vox Party Under Pressure to Back ‘Spaxit’ After EU Court Ruling
» Sweden Looks to Ban Sale of New Petrol and Diesel Cars in Ten Years
» UK: Flushing Out the Corbynista
» UK: London Bridge Attack: Darryn Frost on Using a Narwhal Tusk to Stop Knifeman
» US Ambassador to Britain Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson Says the UK Will Enter the ‘Roaring Twenties’ After Brexit is Delivered
 
Middle East
» Saudi Arabia Makes US ‘Naughty List’ of Severe Religious Freedom Violators
 
Far East
» Hong Kong Protesters Rally Against China’s Uighur Crackdown
» Hong Kong Braces for Protests Over Christmas Holidays
 
Australia — Pacific
» ‘Christmas Has Been Torn Apart’: Boy, 17, Is Killed During a Wild Brawl on the Streets of Melbourne — as His Mum Collapses and is Rushed to Hospital After Being Told of Her Son’s Death
» Electricity Bills Have Surged by $254 During the Past Decade Even Though Aussies Use Less Power — and Solar Schemes Are to Blame for the Price Hike
 
Immigration
» At the U.S.-Mexican Border, Migrants Give Up Hope of Crossing
» Cyprus Police Bring in Boat With 34 Syrian Migrants Aboard
» Finland: Short Sentence for Migrant Responsible for Six Sex Attacks, Including on a Child
» France: Migrant Teen Arrested in Aeroplane Trying to Fly to Morocco on LSD
» France: Illegal Migrants Win a Million Euros in Discrimination Case
» Italy: Nigerian Mafia Forcing Girls as Young as Twelve Into Prostitution
» Migrants, Police Officers Injured in North Macedonia Crash
» UK: Channel Patrols Should Immediately Return Illegals to France, Say Former Immigration Chiefs
 
Culture Wars
» Happy Chanukah: Merry Christmas… And the Deep Breath Before the Plunge
» Petition Against Netflix ‘Gay Jesus’ Surges Past 2.3 Million Signatures
» Pope Francis Tells Christians Not to Try to Convert Nonbelievers
» University Retaliated Against Instructor by Making Her Teach Women’s Studies: Lawsuit
 

[Watch] Only 98 Turn Out for Biden Town Hall in Iowa; Protester Takes Microphone

Joe Biden may be the national frontrunner, but it doesn’t seem as though he’s inspired excitement amongst Iowans, at least according to the photo below of a town hall meeting in Ottumwa, IA, from Des Moines Register reporter Stephen Gruber-Miller.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

1 in Every 4 Circuit Court Judges is Now a Trump Appointee

After three years in office, President Trump has remade the federal judiciary, ensuring a conservative tilt for decades and cementing his legacy no matter the outcome of November’s election.

Trump nominees make up 1 in 4 U.S. circuit court judges. Two of his picks sit on the Supreme Court. And this past week, as the House voted to impeach the president, the Republican-led Senate confirmed an additional 13 district court judges.

In total, Trump has installed 187 judges to the federal bench.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Alarming Report Reveals Secretive Surveillance State Powered by Your Phone’s Location Services

Millions of Americans are walking around with phones that have, unknowingly, created one of the most disturbing and unintentional “surveillance states” to ever exist.

A explosive new opinion piece in the NY Times aims to demonstrate that detailed smartphone tracking is far more ubiquitous than many think, despite the ongoing claims by companies that people’s data is “anonymous”.

Paul Ohm, a law professor and privacy researcher at the Georgetown University Law Center, said that describing location data as anonymous is “a completely false claim that has been debunked in multiple studies.”

He added: “Really precise, longitudinal geolocation information is absolutely impossible to anonymize. D.N.A. is probably the only thing that’s harder to anonymize than precise geolocation information.”

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Democrats Haven’t Seen a Corrupt Politician They Didn’t Like, Part 2

Disbarred attorney, convicted sex offender Democrat Joe Morrissey gets elected to Virginia Senate

Joe Morrissey, a Democrat who was jailed for having sex with his 17-year-old secretary and lost his law license for “episodes of unethical, contumacious, or otherwise inappropriate conduct,” according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, has won a Senate seat in Virginia.

With regard to losing his license to practice law, the court ruled in that case that Morrissey:

On Tuesday, Morrissey was elected to a state senate seat winning close to 64 percent of the vote. Waylin Ross, an Independent who was running against the democratic candidate, got 36 percent of the vote. No Republican was on the ballot for this particular election…

I have heard of voter fraud for many years. Voting machines that won’t let you vote for a Republican candidate. In all the cases I’ve heard about the votes were for Democrats. Only once did I hear about a Republican voting in two different states for a total of one vote. Many states have more voters than people in the states. Colorado had ten counties with over 100% voter turnout. Using publicly available voter data and comparing it to U.S. Census records reveals the ten counties having a total registration ranging between 104 to 140 percent of the respective populations.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

FISA Judge Orders FBI to Identify All Cases Involving Lawyer Who Allegedly Altered Carter Page Email

The judge presiding over the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) ordered the FBI in a secret court filing earlier in December to identify all cases handled by a former FBI lawyer who allegedly altered an email during the investigation of former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

Judge Rosemary Collyer ordered the review Dec. 5, several days before the release of a Justice Department inspector general’s (IG) report that found the FBI made “significant inaccuracies” in applications to surveil Page.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Mass Shooting in Chicago House Party Leaves 13 Wounded, Where’s the Media Outrage?

AP News is reporting that an overnight mass shooting in Chicago’s South Side left 13 people wounded, four are in critical condition on Sunday morning.

Fred L. Waller, chief of the Chicago Police Department’s patrol bureau, said ShotSpotter technology, gunshot detection software operating across the city, detected and recorded the shooting around 12:35 a.m.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Massive New Epstein Info to be Released Monday

The mystery life of Epstein is about to blow wide open!

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Muslim Public School Student Takes Off Hijab, Teacher Says She Will Notify Her Parents “Because it’s Your Culture”

This girl could have been beaten or killed for taking off her hijab, but of course this public school teacher doesn’t know that, as she has been fed a steady diet of fiction and fantasy about Islam being a religion of peace and the hijab being a choice, and she knows that only racist, bigoted “Islamophobes” think otherwise. Women’s rights for Muslim girls and women? Why, what’s the need for that? They don’t suffer any discrimination or harassment!

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

One Nation, Tracked

An investigation into the smartphone tracking industry from Times Opinion

Every minute of every day, everywhere on the planet, dozens of companies — largely unregulated, little scrutinized — are logging the movements of tens of millions of people with mobile phones and storing the information in gigantic data files. The Times Privacy Project obtained one such file, by far the largest and most sensitive ever to be reviewed by journalists. It holds more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Each piece of information in this file represents the precise location of a single smartphone over a period of several months in 2016 and 2017. The data was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so. The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Reporters Enraged Over Media Portrayal in ‘Richard Jewell’

Media figures are outraged over the upcoming Clint Eastwood film Richard Jewell, blasting its negative portrayal of the journalists that upended the title character’s life in 1996.

Reviewers and reporters are slamming the film as misogynistic and even “Trumpian,” while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution sent a letter demanding the movie include a disclaimer stating that its portrayal of former police reporter Kathy Scruggs reportedly trading sexual favors for a story on Jewell is false.

Eastwood’s movie, which comes out Friday, portrays federal law enforcement and media as powerful forces that combined to destroy Jewell, the security guard falsely suspected of the 1996 Summer Olympic bombing in Atlanta.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Tucker Carlson Exposes D.C. ‘Conservatives’ For Doing Big Tech’s Bidding

Tucker revealed massive spending by the establishment conservative Koch Foundation to protect big tech in Washington.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Watch: Extinction Rebellion Dumps Cow Manure Outside Doug Ford’s Office

The Hamilton chapter of the growing climate activist movement Extinction Rebellion dumped cow manure outside Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s constituency office on Sunday.

“Extinction Rebellion (XR) has brought the climate emergency to the constituency office of Premier Doug Ford, in response to Ontario’s Auditor General effectively declaring that the Ford Conservatives’ climate action program is a load of crap,” read the start of a press release Extinction Rebellion released on social media along with a video showing two of their members shovelling manure out of a truck bed right outside the entrance of Ford’s Etobicoke North constituency office.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

‘I’ve Quit the Anglican Church Because of Its Refusal to Stand Up to Political Correctness’: The Queen’s Former Chaplain Gavin Ashenden Speaks Out About His Conversion to Catholicism

GAVIN ASHENDEN: Freedom of speech is slowly being eroded; those who refuse to be ‘politically correct’ risk accusations of thought crime and Christians are being unfairly persecuted.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Macron Loses Control in France as Desperate Strike Plea Backfires ‘Most Major Revolt Yet’

French pension protesters have rejected Emmanuel Macron’s desperate plea for a Christmas truce, as the country descends further into chaos. To the surprise of those around Mr Macron, support for the strikes against the French President’s pension reforms have actually increased. Speaking in the Ivory Coast, the French leader pleaded with strikers to “observe a truce out of respect for families and family life” as people try to get home for Christmas.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Rapper and BBC Christmas Message Star Stormzy: Britain ‘100 Per Cent’ Racist

Grime rapper Stormzy, who has been invited to provide a televised Christmas Day message by the BBC, has denounced Britain as “100 per cent” racist, and claimed that Boris Johnson is making it worse.

Stormzy, real name Michael Ebenazer Kwadjo Omari Owuo, told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Britain is “definitely, 100 per cent” racist.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Spain’s Vox Party Under Pressure to Back ‘Spaxit’ After EU Court Ruling

Spain’s far-Right Vox party is under pressure to back a Brexit-style exit from the EU, after the European Court of Justice ruled a jailed Catalan separatist leader should have parliamentary immunity.

Supporters of the populist party called for “Spaxit” on social media since EU judges in Luxembourg ruled Oriol Junqueras, who was sentenced to 13 years for sedition, should be freed.

The decision led to Carles Puigdemont, the former president of the Catalan regional government, and Antoni Comin, both of whom are living in self-imposed exile in Belgium, to be accredited as MEPs by the European Parliament,

“Because of EU courts, terrorists and rapists (who have raped women again) were released. Now they are slapping us in the face by making Puigdemont an MEP,” Santiago Abascal, the president of Vox, said.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Sweden Looks to Ban Sale of New Petrol and Diesel Cars in Ten Years

The Swedish government, supported by the Centre Party and the Liberals, have announced they will be looking to ban the sale of new cars that use fossil fuels in the next ten years.

The proposed ban has been met with positive comments from green groups but others, such as those who actually work in the car industry, are highly critical of the proposal, Swedish broadcaster Sveriges Radio reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Flushing Out the Corbynista

The British Conservative Party’s victory at last week’s general election has been described variously as “an earthquake” and “a triumph.” Because the party won it biggest parliamentary majority since the 1980s, the election may look like a triumph for its leader, Prime Minister Boris Johnson. However, if applied to the opposition Labour Party’s performance, the label “earthquake” may also appear to be in order.

A closer examination of the results, additionally, may provide a more nuanced picture or at least a less pixelated one. One key feature commentators have focused on was the massive switch of many traditional Labour-supporting constituencies to the Conservatives. Pundits ask: How did people who had never voted Conservative decide to do so after generations of attachment to socialism?

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: London Bridge Attack: Darryn Frost on Using a Narwhal Tusk to Stop Knifeman

A man has described how he fought off the London Bridge knifeman with a narwhal tusk before pinning him to the ground to help end the attack.

Darryn Frost, 38, was seen in pictures confronting Usman Khan, 28, who was armed with two knives.

The civil servant has spoken of his “deep hurt” at not being able to save Jack Merritt and Saskia Jones who were killed by Khan on 29 November.

Khan, who was wearing a fake suicide vest, was shot dead by police.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

US Ambassador to Britain Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson Says the UK Will Enter the ‘Roaring Twenties’ After Brexit is Delivered

The US ambassador to Britain has said the country will enter the ‘Roaring Twenties’ after Brexit is delivered.

Ambassador Robert ‘Woody’ Johnson — personally appointed to his role by US President Donald Trump — said Brexit was a ‘really amazing opportunity for this country’ as the start of a new decade approaches in just a few days’ time.

‘I’m very optimistic. I’m an American but, even by my standards, this is really an amazing opportunity for this country,’ the 72-year-old told The Sunday Express.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Saudi Arabia Makes US ‘Naughty List’ of Severe Religious Freedom Violators

Despite the attempt to put on an “all as well” and “business as usual” face amid the Saudi Aramco IPO, and now that the world seems to have ‘moved on’ over a year after the Jamal Khashoggi murder, the kingdom has again this year made the State Department’s naughty list of countries considered severe and consistent violators of religious freedom.

On Friday the US State Department designated or re-designated nine as ‘Countries of Particular Concern’ over their tolerance for “violations of religious freedom.” Included is close US ally Saudi Arabia as well as other official allies like Pakistan, but also adversaries like China and Russia, for committing or allowing “systematic, ongoing, [and] egregious violations of religious freedom.”

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Hong Kong Protesters Rally Against China’s Uighur Crackdown

Hong Kong riot police on Sunday forcefully broke up a rally of pro-democracy protesters showing solidarity with China’s oppressed Uighur minority.

Around 1,000 people gathered peacefully near Hong Kong’s Harbourfront, waving Uighur flags and posters in the latest in nearly seven months of protests against China in the semi-autonomous city.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Hong Kong Braces for Protests Over Christmas Holidays

HONG KONG (Reuters) — Hong Kong is gearing up for demonstrations over Christmas week with protesters planning events in districts across the city, including in prime shopping malls, the latest in more than six months of unrest.

This week’s protests follow a weekend of rallies, including one on Sunday, which ended in chaotic clashes between black-clad, masked demonstrators, who kicked and beat police officers, hurling bricks and glass at them. Police retaliated with bursts of pepper spray and one officer pulled out a gun toward a crowd but did not fire, according to Reuters witnesses and Cable Television.

Protests planned throughout the week include evening demonstrations in five malls on Christmas eve. A countdown rally is also planned near the city’s harbor front in the bustling Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

‘Christmas Has Been Torn Apart’: Boy, 17, Is Killed During a Wild Brawl on the Streets of Melbourne — as His Mum Collapses and is Rushed to Hospital After Being Told of Her Son’s Death

Aguer Akech Lual died at the scene of the fight near the Keilor Plains railway station on Regan Street in St Albans, north-west of Melbourne, in the early hours of Sunday morning.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

Electricity Bills Have Surged by $254 During the Past Decade Even Though Aussies Use Less Power — and Solar Schemes Are to Blame for the Price Hike

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has blamed solar panel schemes for pushing up electricity prices — even though average consumption has fallen.

           — Hat tip: SS [Return to headlines]
 

At the U.S.-Mexican Border, Migrants Give Up Hope of Crossing

Frustrated, many are giving up and clearing out.

           — Hat tip: JD [Return to headlines]
 

Cyprus Police Bring in Boat With 34 Syrian Migrants Aboard

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus police officers rescued 34 Syrian migrants Sunday after spotting their boat off the Mediterranean island nation’s northwestern coast.

A police patrol vessel was dispatched to escort the boat to a harbor. Police said the boat had set sail from Alanya, Turkey.

The migrants were all male and included a 17-year-old. All 34 were taken to a migrant reception center outside the Cypriot capital of Nicosia.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Finland: Short Sentence for Migrant Responsible for Six Sex Attacks, Including on a Child

A 27-year-old migrant man was given a short five-year term by a Finnish court for sex attacks against six victims, including an underage girl.

The migrant, who has previously claimed to be from Afghanistan and spoke Farsi, carried out the sex attacks in the city of Tampere and Ylöjärvi earlier this year between April and August.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

France: Migrant Teen Arrested in Aeroplane Trying to Fly to Morocco on LSD

A 16-year-old illegal Moroccan migrant who was arrested at Orly airport in the cockpit of an aeroplane by police as he was on LSD and claiming he wanted to fly the plane to Morocco now faces trial.

The Moroccan teen was arrested in June of this year after being found in the cockpit of an Airbus A321 belonging to the airline Vueling while high on LSD and now faces trial for attempting to steal the aircraft, Le Parisien reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

France: Illegal Migrants Win a Million Euros in Discrimination Case

A group of 25 illegal Malian migrants have won over a million euros after taking their employer to court for “systematic racial discrimination”.

The 25 migrant men were employed by subcontractor MT Bat Immeubles at a construction site on the Avenue de Breteuil in Paris. Despite being illegally employed, they were able to sue their employer for discrimination, landing the first win in such a case in French legal history, Le Parisien reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Italy: Nigerian Mafia Forcing Girls as Young as Twelve Into Prostitution

According to testimony from a teen girl who escaped sexual slavery at the hands of the Nigerian mafia in Italy, the organised crime syndicate has forced girls as young as twelve to become prostitutes.

The testimony comes from a 15-year-old Nigerian girl who told prosecutors in the city of Bologna that she had been sold to the mafia by her father in Nigeria and smuggled illegally into Italy through the Mediterranean migrant route, Il Giornale reports.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Migrants, Police Officers Injured in North Macedonia Crash

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — Police in North Macedonia said Sunday that two migrants and two police officers were injured when a people smuggler’s car smashed into a police jeep.

Police said the collision happened on Saturday when the police jeep tried to stop the car carrying 10 migrants from Afghanistan near a toll both at the central Macedonian town of Veles.

The injured migrants and policemen were taken to the hospital in Veles. Health authorities said all four sustained slight injuries.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

UK: Channel Patrols Should Immediately Return Illegals to France, Say Former Immigration Chiefs

Two former heads of British immigration agencies have said that British cutters should patrol French territorial waters in the English Channel and return illegal aliens to France before they get anywhere near Great Britain.

Observing that the current system of picking up boat migrants in British waters and ferrying them to the mainland is not deterring illegal immigration, Peter Higgins, a former directorof Immigration Services, said: “If Border force cutters are to continue to be deployed, is it not logical that they should operate in French waters, and having made an interception immediately return individuals to France?”

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Happy Chanukah: Merry Christmas… And the Deep Breath Before the Plunge

I grew up in a secular household. My mother, a Sabra ,celebrated a few Jewish holidays and I knew we were a Jewish household… but looking back it was often a rote thing. My father, a Unitarian/Universalist (so, borderline non-believer) would put up a tree. I learned Christmas songs, loved opening my presents… regularly got sick on Christmas stocking candies until I learned the wisdom of pacing myself… the whole nine yards. And I learned an important lesson after begging and pleading for a particular toy — based on a glitzy ad — but it didn’t work as advertised; my lesson was that ads often do not reflect reality.

After I became an atheist in my late teens I fell out of love with Christmas and became a Scrooge. I hated Christmas songs. I would, on occasion, snarl Bah humbug! at people wishing me Merry Christmas. They’d laugh until they grasped I was serious.

So now, as I’ve written, my faith has returned and with a vengeance. Obviously, though, I live in a majority-Christian country (at least as of now — the Leftists/globalists are working hard to change that, and my efforts are aimed at stopping them) … so the local radio stations are wall to wall Christmas songs. And I actually enjoy some of them now, especially the older ones. Limited doses, but still… enjoyable. I still change the channel when they start with Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer. Gag me with a pitchfork…

[Return to headlines]
 

Petition Against Netflix ‘Gay Jesus’ Surges Past 2.3 Million Signatures

A petition against the Netflix Christmas special featuring a gay Jesus and pot-smoking Virgin Mary has now passed 2.3 million signatures, as Christians vent their outrage against the film.

Launched just three weeks ago, the change.org online petition to “ban the Christmas movie” titled The First Temptation of Christ has steadily accumulated support, largely in Brazil, where the film was created. Similar petitions have been launched in other languages.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

Pope Francis Tells Christians Not to Try to Convert Nonbelievers

ROME — Pope Francis told Christian high school students this weekend they should respect people of other faiths and not attempt to convert them to Christianity, insisting “we are not living in the times of the crusades.”

Asked by one of the students Friday how a Christian should treat people of other faiths or no faith, the pope said that “we are all the same, all children of God” and that true disciples of Jesus do not proselytize.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

University Retaliated Against Instructor by Making Her Teach Women’s Studies: Lawsuit

Its diversity efforts ‘rely heavily on symbolism’

Apparently we aren’t the only ones who question the value of women’s and gender studies.

A jury is considering whether the University of Michigan discriminated and retaliated against Asian-American husband-and-wife faculty who were trying to expose “discrimination and inequity” in their department, MLive reports.

One of the allegations: The university took away lecturer Emily Lawsin’s American culture classes and forced her to teach women’s studies as retaliation when it extended her contract for five years. The university initially didn’t renew her contract last year.

           — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago [Return to headlines]
 

8 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 12/22/2019

  1. “Petition Against Netflix ‘Gay Jesus’ Surges Past 2.3 Million Signatures” since the movie’s in Portugese I wonder if it’s a probe to see how devote these traditional bastians of Christianity are. Seeing the outrage I’d say it’s pretty good so far.

    • I got the petition ( I get emails from a variety of sources), and replied saying I don’t believe anyone has the right to censor what another adult may see; that way lies fascism. Haven’t had a reply yet.

  2. Walking to eat here in Bonn and just stumbled across the Beethoven haus

    Literally no idea he was from here. Brings it full circle from when I was in Austria several years ago and saw Mozart’s house in Salzburg

    • I was there six years ago; did you know the violinist and impressario Johann Salomon, who brought Haydn to London in the 1790s, and whom Beethoven admired, was born in the same house 25 years earlier?

      If you’re still there, and have time, have a look at the Jesuit church a couple of doors down; it’s quite plain compared with most Catholic churches of the late Baroque. Beethoven was educated by the Jesuits, so would have known it.

    • Both composers were privileged white cis-male members of the patriarchy who to this day continue to oppress women and vulnerable communities of color by having composed complex music of mathematical precision, making it inaccessible to the aformentioned oppressed groups who as everyone knows are mathematically and logically challenged.

  3. In Budapest a few months ago. One plain angry old wild Muslim madman with his box of veggies blocking the pavement. A perfect
    reminder to all passers.

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