- Laura Rosen Cohen: The $100,000 anti-Jewish teenage graffiti hate crusade. Or not
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The ‘organized’ Jewish community of Canada, in two separate incidents, has once again demonstrated it has little understanding of average Canadians. In the past week, its two leading, undemocratically elected advocacy organizations have demonstrated yet again an appalling zeal for censorship and a familiar, and emasculated response to issues with real public policy implications for both Jews and non-Jews in Canada alike.
Last week, according to a story in the Jewish Tribune, the parents of a Grade 6 student in Richmond, B.C. complained about a lesson plan that included a current events article that portrayed Hamas as a "militant Islamic group," rather than a terrorist organization, as defined by the Canadian government. A news story from Richmond quotes a representative of the Canadian Jewish Congress as saying “it is risky trying to teach 11-year-old kids about Middle East politics because it is so complex and polarized." He agrees with teaching children about current events, but says "don't start with the most complex." And that is the beginning and end of the CJC’s involvement in the issue.
- Chris Selley: Middle school confidential
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Full Comment readers all remember Alfie Patten, I assume. He's the four-foot-tall, high-pitched-voiced 13-year-old from the south of England who ostensibly fathered a child with a 15-year-old girlfriend. There ensued a worldwide media sensation. Politicians from the Children's Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition to the Prime Minister himself were various shades of concerned, shocked and appalled. They already knew British teenagers bred like rabbits, of course, but my God, he's so... uh, short! 'Orrible, it was!
Had the story appeared in, say, The Times, I'd have doubted it on account of young Alfie generally looking and sounding like a nine-year-old, the fact there was no mention of a paternity test, and the parade of other young men proudly claiming to have taken their turns in this young lady's bed. But on top of everything else, the story appeared in The Sun. Now, Rupert Murdoch's red-top is very good at what it does, but slavishly adhering to good journalistic practice and, shall we say, the truth, is not the thing that it does. Indeed, in The Sun, "The Truth" can mean pretty much exactly the opposite of what the dictionary tells you. Ask a Liverpool supporter.
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