Mick Hartley

Constable is racist:

The Fitzwilliam Museum has suggested that paintings of the British countryside evoke dark “nationalist feelings”.

The museum, owned by the University of Cambridge, has undertaken an overhaul of its displays, in a move that its director insisted was not “woke”.

Luke Syson said last week: “I would love to think that there’s a way of telling these larger, more inclusive histories that doesn’t feel as if it requires a push-back from those who try to suggest that any interest at all in [this work is] what would now be called ‘woke’.”

The new signage states that pictures of “rolling English hills” can stir feelings of “pride towards a homeland”.

However, in a gallery displaying a bucolic work by Constable, visitors are informed that “there is a darker side” to the “nationalist feeling” evoked by images of the British countryside.

It states that this national sentiment comes with “the implication that only those with a historical tie to the land have a right to belong”.

It's interesting to wonder how Constable could have avoided the unfortunate racist implications embedded in his work. By not painting at all, I suppose…

From the JC:

Rape can be justified in wartime according to one in four South Africans, a new survey has found.

Nearly half believe that reports of Hamas’s rapes and killings were propaganda, according to the poll commissioned by volunteer group Women’s Action Campaign SA (Wacsa).

The report’s authors criticised the “muted” response to the October 7 atrocities from the South African government, which notoriously decided to take Israel to the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide.

The Wacsa poll surveyed 808 South Africans from a representative sample over one week in February.

Forty per cent of those surveyed said that the reports of Hamas’s atrocities on October 7 were Israeli or Western propaganda, while one quarter (20 per cent) believed that victims “brought it on themselves” by being complicit in Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Over half (56 per cent) had not heard of Hamas…

Wacsa spokesperson, Angie Richardson, said “The survey reveals deeply unsettling attitudes and underscores the critical need for education, dialogue and accountability measures to protect all people from these horrific acts, regardless of gender, race, religion or politics.

“The burden of proof for rape has been raised impossibly high for Israeli women.

“Failing to condemn Hamas’s horrific atrocities and blaming victims simply condones the use of rape and sexual violence as weapons of war,” Richardson said.

“We are encouraged by the recent comment from Minister of International Affairs Naledi Pandor, who told parliamentarians that Hamas must be investigated for war crimes. However, we hope the South African government will pursue this with the same enthusiasm as in its ICJ case against Israel,” said Richardson.

I'm not holding my breath.

More from the strange world of gender-friendly Canada:

A British academic has claimed she was deplatformed by the Canadian government over her views on transgender issues.

Alice Sullivan, a professor of sociology at University College London, was set to give an online talk to staff at the Canadian Department of Justice last week about the problems with prioritising self-described gender data over biological sex, which the Canadian government now does “by default”.

She was abruptly told the International Women’s Day event had been scrapped, with no official reason.

Prof Sullivan said: “After I had sent my slides, I received a phone call from a member of the department saying that she had been told to cancel the event.”

“She was not authorised to give me any explanation but indicated that, of course, we both knew what the reason was… you are not allowed to talk about sex in Canada.”

Not to worry. Those Canadians know what really matters.

A report released in 2018 by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and the Department of Justice said: “Departments and agencies should collect or display gender information by default, unless sex information is specifically needed.”

This would “ensure that the gender of transgender, non-binary and two-spirit individuals is accurately represented”.

Love 'em or hate 'em they're an unavoidable feature of the city, as post-war reconstruction provided an opportunity for new architectural styles to be tried and tested. Some worked: some didn't.

A new book, London Estates: Modernist Council Housing 1946-1981, compares and contrasts.

Why are some London council estates considered notorious, while others are arguably the most desirable places to live in the capital? As the most comprehensive photographic document of the London council estate, this book provides an insight, featuring some 275 estates from every borough and the City.

Some of them feature here:

As part of our Social Housing Revival series, Dezeen asked the creator of the new London Estates book to select the 10 most influential examples of modernist council housing built in the UK capital in the post-war period.

Balfron Tower and Dawson's Heights are among the estates featured in the book, which showcases social housing built in London during a major public construction boom in the decades following the second world war.

Photographer Thaddeus Zupančič, who produced the book, has a long-standing interest in housing estates, which increased when he moved to London.

"I was always interested in housing estates, first in my native Slovenia and then, on my travels around Europe, also in Vienna, Berlin and Paris," he told Dezeen.

London Estates: Modernist Council Housing 1946-1981, described by publisher Fuel as "the most comprehensive photographic document of council housing schemes in the capital", features both famous and lesser-known housing estates all over London. "After I moved to London, I started discovering even more exciting council estates – mostly modernist, some brutalist, usually post-war," he added. "I find their vital contribution to the social and architectural fabric of the capital truly fascinating."

Wells House, Spa Green Estate, Islington (1949)

Blackstone House, Churchill Gardens Estate, Pimlico (1957)

Sulkin House, Greenways Estate, Bethnal Green (1958)

Pauline House and Spring Walk, Chicksand Estate, Whitechapel (1963)

Glenkerry House, Carradale House, and Balfron Tower, Brownfield Estate, Poplar (1968-75)

Fairchild House and Henry Wise House, Lillington Gardens Estate, Pimlico (1967)

Dawson's Heights, Dulwich (1972)

Central Hill Estate, Crystal Palace Hill (1967-75)

Dunboyne Road Estate, Camden (1977)

17a and 17b Longton Avenue, Sydenham (1980)

Binsey Walk estate, Thamesmead
[Photos: Thaddeus Zupančič]

Worth knowing. There can, says Ahmad Musa Jibril, be no permanent treaty between Muslims and infidels: they're just temporary, until the Muslims are strong enough to break them. Because the only possible future is one in which Muslims are supreme, and Islam is triumphant. 

Michigan Islamic scholar Ahmad Musa Jibril discussed the “ruling on normalization treaties” in the first of a series of lectures posted on March 11, 2024 on Shaykh Ahmad Musa Jibril on X (formerly known as Twitter) in honor of the month of Ramadan. In the lecture he said that there can be no permanent treaties between Muslims and the infidels and that when the Muslims grow strong and feel it is beneficial, then they must inform the enemy that “this treaty has come to an end.” He said that the Prophet Muhammad “dismissed” the treaty of Hudaybiyyah, once it was merely rumored that the Jewish tribe had killed one of his Companions. Jibril continued: “It was war until the death of every last one of them.” He said that the purpose of normalization with Israel is to “Judaize” the minds of the Muslims. The lecture was also posted on other social media accounts associated with Ahmad Musa Jibril. Ahmad Musa Jibril served six and a half years in prison for conspiracy, fraud, money laundering, and possession of firearms and ammunition. He is considered to be the inspiration for several Jihad attacks and initiatives in the West.

Janice Turner – One day, we’ll look back on era of puberty blockers with horror:

In 2017 I interviewed Bernadette Wren, then head of psychology at the Tavistock Gids clinic, and asked what effect puberty blocking drugs have on the adolescent brain. Looking highly uncomfortable, she replied that the evidence so far was only anecdotal but that the clinic would study its patients “well into their adult lives so that we can see”.

Even back then, before whistleblowers had exposed the rush to medically transition children, it was alarming to hear that heavy-duty GnRH agonists such as triptorelin — used to treat advanced prostate cancer and “chemically castrate” sex offenders — were being prescribed to arrest puberty in hundreds of children as young as 11.

Moreover, they were being used “off-label” before any clinical trials. And the long-term study Wren promised never materialised: Gids (the Gender Identity Development Service) routinely lost touch with patients, and the 44 it did follow reported little long-term mental health improvement.

This shocking chapter in medical history, where the ideological objectives of trans rights campaigners trumped the welfare of disturbed children, is coming to an end worldwide….

Yet the question remains: how was this ever allowed to happen? For years, puberty blockers were cheerily billed as a mere “pause button”. In 2014, Dr Polly Carmichael, the last head of Gids before the Cass review ordered its closure, went on CBBC in a show called I Am Leo, saying of blockers: “The good thing is, if you stop the injections, it’s like pressing ‘start’ and the body carries on developing as it would if you hadn’t started.”

The BBC permitted her to make this unevidenced claim to an impressionable audience of six to 12-year-olds. Imagine hearing this as a developing girl, freaked out by your new breasts and periods. No wonder Gids referrals subsequently rocketed….

This repellent experiment — in which girls who like trucks or little boys who dress as princesses, and who invariably grow up to be gay, are corralled inexorably down a road towards life-changing treatments — belongs in the book of medical disgraces. As do the cheerleaders who raised money for Mermaids and those who persecuted whistleblowers or damned journalists asking questions as transphobic.

In 50 years, chemically freezing the puberty of healthy children with troubled minds will be regarded with the same horrified fascination as lobotomies — which, never forget, won the Portuguese neurologist Antonio Egas Moniz the 1949 Nobel prize.

Next up, the private clinics. From the Times:

Ministers are under pressure to make it illegal for private clinics to give puberty blockers to children, amid fears online doctors could exploit an NHS ban on the drugs.

On Tuesday NHS England issued landmark clinical guidelines saying puberty blockers should no longer be prescribed to under-16s wanting to change gender, due to a lack of evidence they are safe or effective.

However, a loophole means they can still be issued by private providers, and campaigners warned that children and parents could migrate from the NHS to online clinics running a “Wild West operation”.

On Friday members of the House of Commons will debate the issue, at a reading of a private members’ bill introduced by Liz Truss, the former prime minister.

The bill would make it illegal for any healthcare provider — whether NHS or private, in any part of the UK — to prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children….

Dr Michael Biggs, a sociologist and board member of Sex Matters, who was the first external researcher to discover the Gids trial of puberty blockers said: “The NHS has finally recognised that there is no evidence to support puberty blockers.

“As a matter of urgency, private clinics must be stopped from exploiting vulnerable children and adolescents. If this does not happen, those clinics will continue to provide these drugs, which were never licensed to treat gender dysphoria, on demand.”

Bev Jackson, co-founder of LGB Alliance, said that allowing online clinics to keep prescribing puberty blockers would “make a mockery” of the NHS guidelines.

She said: “If these drugs cannot be provided on the NHS they should not be obtainable anywhere, particularly not by rogue private clinics operating largely online. We call on the prime minister to support the Health and Equality Acts (Amendment) Bill on Friday that would make these drugs unlawful. Hundreds of vulnerable young people have already been harmed. Rishi Sunak can ensure that no more children join their ranks.

“We have to close this loophole. If not, then everybody who is convinced they need these drugs will try to get them somewhere else.”

Faye McGinty, of Women’s Rights Network, said puberty blockers “locked children into a lifetime of medicalisation”, adding: “If it’s not appropriate for the NHS to prescribe puberty blockers then it’s certainly not right for private providers, some of which are located overseas in order to evade controls, to do so.

“There are many side-effects and the treatment remains off-label in the UK for children with gender distress. It can’t be right that private clinics continue to expose children to harmful interventions that are not proven to be in their best interests.”

 Aerial photos in Vietnam from Trung Dong:

[Images © Trung Dong]

On Instagram.

From the latest Private Eye (no. 1619):

Victoria Smith (again)  – NHS puberty blocker ruling will save lives:

Halting the development of children who wish to be the opposite sex is insane. It’s so insane that you could be forgiven for thinking there’s something about it you must have missed. Do bodies and time no longer function in the way that you, and billions of other humans, have always known them to? Are panic-stricken nine-year-olds world experts on gender as a social construct?

When you think back to your schooldays, were your peers dropping like flies due to the absence of life-saving gender affirming care? It’s either that, or the entire concept of puberty suppression — one that has been supported by countless adults and institutions that ought to know better — is ludicrous….

It is staggering to realise just how flimsy the evidence in favour of all this was. Experiments have been conducted on the bodies of children due to the political cowardice of adults. Humans cannot change sex. We cannot go through any other puberty than the one our body is destined to go through. This is what makes us adults. It is obscene that so many have lied to children, and by doing so put them at risk of so much long-term damage.

Right now, social media is awash with ideologues insisting that children will die because of this decision. On the contrary: lives will be saved, and it will be due to the work of campaigners who kept naming the madness even when told they had no right to speak.

They will not be thanked for it; far more likely is that they will be blamed for stoking a culture war which made due diligence impossible. Anyone who lies to children about their own bodies will have no difficulty lying about the part they played in this scandal. Still, some part of them will know: it was always insane.