As the pumpkin season approaches, and ghouls, goblins and witches don their cloaks ready to scare the "living daylights" (you thought I was going to say "shit" didn't you?) out of you, one of Nanny's chums has decided to put his foot down about the whole nasty little business of Halloween.The Bishop of Bolton, the Right Rev David Gillett, is asking Britain's retailers to stock alternatives to traditional Halloween merchandise.
Why?
In his view they are helping to create a "climate of fear".
Actually I rather thought that it was the media, aided and abetted by Nanny, that had created a real climate of fear over Muslim extremism, terrorists, obesity, global warming and bird flu etc.
Seems that I was wrong!
Anyhoo, the Right Rev David Gillett said that shops were helping to promote a "dark and negative" side of the festival.
He said:
"I share the view of many Christians
that large retailers are increasingly keen to commercialise
Halloween celebrations
in a way that pressurises parents to purchase goods
that promote the dark, negative side of Halloween
and could encourage antisocial behaviour.
I am worried that Halloween has the potential to trivialise the realities of evil in the world."
What about the far more damaging rampant consumerism and excess indulgence of Christmas then?
The bishop seems to forget that all Christian festivals are in fact linked and timed to coincide with our pagan past, a ham fisted way of trying to make us forget our past in fact.
Now we know why the Church of England is becoming an irrelevance.
I can not make any comments about the Muslim extremism, terrorists, obesity and the global warming, but I can assure you, that the Bird Flu virus is very, very REAL and is currently growing at more than twice of the rate of the last year.
ReplyDeleteIt may not be a "Pandemic" as yet but there is an increasing possibility of it actually mutating in to a human virus. That would be a major threat to all of us every where.
There have been 146 deaths related to the Bird Flu virus to date, that we know of.
The last human fatalities resulting from the Bird Flu virus, were announced yesterday!
We expect more such announcements shortly.
The point is that this is a BIRD virus and is not supposed to be killing humans!
So you see, I do hope that this scares the living day lights out of us all and that the powers that be, are taking this global threat to us seriously enough, to try and prepare for the worst case scenario.
I am sure that every one hopes that this virus does turn out to be nothing more than a "a lot of the hype".
It would be very foolish to not assume a worst case scenario though.
I would recommend that you look up some serious and focused sources of news, regarding the bird flu virus.
We have today added the "Nanny Bans Halloween" entry of your blog, to The-Best-Bird-Flu-Blogs section of our site, in order to be able to provide a balance against those with an opposing view.
The-Best-Bird-Flu-Blogs-Team.
www.birdflubreakingnews.com
ken said "our pagan past".
ReplyDeleteI see no evidence that it is past!
As for the very tenuous excuse of a link for the bird flu terrorisers on the previous post I have a solution for that problems as well - one any French readers would surely approve of.
Just shoot the things as they migrate or in their wintering and nesting territories. That should reduce the perceived risk somewhat.
Of course for those countries where parts of the population as in the habit of living with their poultry some further changes may be required but around the home if food requirements demand that poultry be retained. However one would think that thos emost exposed could probably work out the risk they feel and respond accordingly on a local basis.
Then again for those who feel that the global population is already too high, especially in the booming asian area, and wish to see a reduction in both people numbers and allegedly 'polluting' CO2 emissions, bird flu, if it eve manages to take off, could be just the anserw to both problems.
One man's nightmare is another's dream.