So everyone’s fighting about Gaelic again. Provoked by a minor story about a Gaelic dictionary MSM and alt-media pundits are flying at each other with daggers over a language spoken by almost nobody on Earth and on which the government spends a few measly and irrelevant pennies, trying to turn it into a proxy war over politics and the constitution and fascism and genocide and goodness knows what else.
We’ve covered the political nonsense around the issue numerous times on this site, and we’re not about to do so again here. This, as befits the Soapbox section, is a purely personal view, which will doubtless attract more furious shrieking from the sort of people who long ago lost the ability to listen to a counterpoint – or indeed tolerate the mere concept of one – let alone consider it or debate it without abuse.
But hey ho. After a while you just learn to tune that stuff out, so let’s go.
We could all do with some cheering up at the moment, so it’s with great pleasure that we can announce fantastic news for Scotland – the ancient plague of sectarianism has finally been defeated once and for all!
At least, we assume it MUST have been, because this week the Scottish Parliament is set to give its final assent – thanks to Labour, the Tories, the Liberal Democrats and the all-important Scottish Greens – to abolishing the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act, against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the Scottish population.
And as we can plainly observe from events yesterday, they would only be doing that if sectarianism was no longer a problem and it was safe to send out an encouraging message to the bigots that their worldview is now acceptable in Scotland again.
We’re a bit annoyed about this, because we were going to give the Absolute Fanny Of The Week award to Anas Sarwar every week as a joke, but now it seems we can’t.
So that’s a professional journalist who’s studied the Offensive Behaviour (Football) Act, or OBFA, so intently and diligently that he keeps calling it “OBAF” instead. But that’s not the stupidest of it.
An alert reader this weekend linked us to a 1963 speech by the famed American civil rights and racial equality campaigner Malcolm X.
We’d never heard of it before, which is probably to our shame, but as we read it we were overcome by an inexplicable sense of incredible familiarity.
We present it to you below for your interest, without further comment or editing, but we’ve included a few pictures just to break up the block of text.
As if we hadn’t had enough controversy this week, it’s time to tackle the big issues.
The Scottish Sun’s been running stories for the last couple of days about the heresy that’s shortly going to be committed against Scotland’s most legendary iconic brand.
In our latest Panelbase poll, as usual we took the opportunity to ask various social-attitudes questions as well as political ones, and some which span both categories. One of the most controversial posts ever on Wings addressed the subject of Gaelic, and having given everyone two-and-a-bit years to calm the hell down we thought we’d see what the Scottish electorate thought.
That’s a pretty tight call. Let’s have a wee delve in the data depths.
Alongside whisky, Irn-Bru is arguably THE iconic branded product of Scotland but now 120 years of history have just been casually crapped on and thrown aside in the name of the nanny state and corporate greed (aspartame is dirt-cheap compared to sugar, and Barr – having ruined Tizer, Red Kola and its other drinks the same way years ago – also wants to avoid the UK government’s sugar tax taking a bite out of its profits).
Let’s just shut down Holyrood, rebrand as North Britain and be done with it.
twathater on The thickness of blood: “Geoff if these arsewipes continue with their disciplinary procedure on Friday and SP’s lawyers are forced to go to court…” Feb 17, 17:15
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “I’ve tried everything FIoD. £50 says the problem lies in Bath. Karma for the leccy thieves ” Feb 17, 14:55
The Flying Iron of Doom on The thickness of blood: “Any update on the server problem? Anyone?” Feb 17, 14:04
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: ““Apparently we have free speech and live in a democracy” I’m free to call you an eejit and vote out…” Feb 17, 12:07
James Gardner on The thickness of blood: “https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crusades” Feb 17, 11:48
James Gardner on The thickness of blood: “Looks like Sandie can take them to the cleaners for harassment………..” Feb 17, 11:43
Marie on The thickness of blood: “She’s possibly been shadow banned by some entity intent on destroying free speech. Apparently we have free speech and live…” Feb 17, 11:11
Andrew scott on The thickness of blood: “Dr whatever is a BLOKE no gender certificate why was a bloke in a frock allowed-to go into the ladies…” Feb 17, 09:35
diabloandco on The thickness of blood: “Biology is no longer a hard and fast science in Scotland even in medical circles – utterly beyond belief and…” Feb 17, 09:30
The Flying Iron of Doom on Seeding the briar patch: “Is the site still useable on smartphones and tablets?” Feb 17, 08:51
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “MSM reporting that a gentleman reputed to be the world’s first openly gay imam, has been shot dead in South…” Feb 17, 08:47
Caledonia on The thickness of blood: “Why has the community notes disappeared from steve north tweet” Feb 17, 08:47
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “Thanks for posting that link, Geoff. It’s a disgraceful tale of madness, petty venom and open mis-use of taxpayer’s resources…” Feb 17, 08:35
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “Please clarify for us, gregor. Is it Him who’s been speaking to you, or just you that’s been speaking to…” Feb 17, 08:11
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “Is Rev Stu trying to tell us something? The state of this site mirrors the state of Scotland under the…” Feb 17, 08:00
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Geoff Anderson on The thickness of blood: “Now they are going to sack Sandie for “misgendering” https://archive.ph/XmNMj” Feb 16, 20:42
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gregor on The thickness of blood: ““For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness…” Feb 16, 19:18
Dan on Off-topic: “Test Site is still fucked and auto-downloading exe. file when trying to navigate the site. Multiple people commenting on the…” Feb 16, 18:11
twathater on The thickness of blood: “Rev I made 4 or 5 comments yesterday on my tablet and laptop which haven’t appeared , I also just…” Feb 16, 17:51
George Ferguson on The thickness of blood: “Stu we have serious issue with this executable attachment. I have very expensive anti-malware software. I can’t do anything to…” Feb 16, 17:51
Hatey McHateface on For Mridul And Sandy: ““Jist say naw tae nonsense” Looks like somebody was listening. And acted Geri first victim tae. Awww.” Feb 16, 17:50
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George Ferguson on The thickness of blood: “This executable file attachment is very persistent. I keep clearing everything but it pops up on each attempt to post.…” Feb 16, 16:35
Caledonia on The thickness of blood: “How did steve north get the community notes removed under his post of trans woman are woman” Feb 16, 16:08
Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: “Site is well and truly f**cked ATM. Usual form is to say a big boy did it, then ran away.…” Feb 16, 15:28
doddsotheglen on The thickness of blood: “yes this happened to me I did nothing , is it a virus?” Feb 16, 15:16
Confused on The thickness of blood: “sort out this website FFS you click a link if tried to download an exe supportclient but if you click…” Feb 16, 15:15