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by Anthony Holden

Culture Club

By Anthony Holden
April 29, 2019
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Culture Club

brunei

Food, dancing, art, music, funny hats. Culture sneaks into our lives in a whole lot of ways. Everyone has their own and anyone who doesn’t accept that is an asshole! Right? 

 

Brunei recently came under fire from the UN when it amended its penal code to include death by stoning for gay sex. This was unsurprising as those blue-helmeted lefty loonies hate that sort of thing. So, in response to stoning being made out to be ‘against human rights laws’, Erywan Yusof, Brunei’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote an open letter to the UN asking for Brunei’s culture to be respected. 

 

Now, say what you will about stoning people, but that’s a good twist. And it raises a question: Are we really as open-minded toward other cultures as we like to think we are? And should we even be? 

 

Brunei is a small, deeply devout Muslim country in south-east Asia. Or, as Dick Cheney would describe it, a gas station. As is usually the case, the origins of culture and religions are intertwined like the tails of a rat-king, and so, too, are their effect. They weave a pattern within which thought, and behaviour are governed. This need not be a bad thing; the concept of social shame can be very useful – it can breed out undesirable behaviour, so we don’t fling our fecal matter at each other like apes. It can also go too far and cause us to embroider red A’s on clothes or throw rocks at people who think differently. It drives people to get 18 kids when they can barely afford to feed two and the planet can scarecly afford to sustain one.

 

For all that culture has given, it is holding us back in many ways. That’s not to say, we should burn it all to the ground, like Rohingya villages were – explained away by culture. Keep the good, the beauty that comes from diversity, but let’s finally rid the world of this bullshit dichotomy that intolerance is culture. Erywan Yusuf is not a Muslim, he is a bigot, but above all he is our Reprobate of the Week. And kid yourselves not that homophobia is a Muslim disease! Any church which bears a cross will offer refuge to any number of good, god-fearing patriots who maintain being gay is a sin. Let’s keep culture to food, dancing, art, music, and funny hats. 

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An Inconvenient Truth: The Women’s World Cup

By Anthony Holden
July 18, 2019
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An Inconvenient Truth: The Women’s World Cup

It’s a topic that was likely to blow over after a couple of days – but it hasn’t. And with increasingly flawed arguments being thrown around by increasingly important people it is time to address this issue. Here is the truth about the 2019 Women’s World Cup.

 

Don’t be mistaken, you didn’t end up in a 1920s cigar shop and as much as being invited to the White House is a punishment these days –  this doesn’t apply to the millions of women who do deserve your offence.

 

‘Equal pay! Equal pay!’ the chants ring through the bleachers as the American Women’s National Team presents their trophy to the fans in New York. It’s been a contentious debate following the team filing a lawsuit for exactly that purpose before the tournament.

 

Argument 1: Women should be paid equally for doing basically the same job

 

This might work in the accounting department, but it is easily identifiable as nonsense in the entertainment industry. ’Basically the same job’ doesn’t exist. Don’t buy it? Get up on a stage, banging around on a guitar, warbling a song you just wrote and try claiming Taylor Swift’s pay check. If no one wants to see you, it isn’t going to happen. But, that doesn’t mean mum and dad won’t be proud of you. 

 

Argument 2: Four World Cup titles to none

 

Direct comparisons between the men’s and women’s game is entirely erroneous and are not in the US national team’s interest. Bearing in mind their loss to an under 15 boys’ side from Dallas, we know that men have a physical advantage to women in contact sports. That wasn’t why they were separated in the first place, but it is why they are now and why manly women are forced to join the men. 

 

So, if Keith tells you women have won fewer world cup titles and would definitely lose against their male counterparts – he should let his missus do the thinking instead. 

 

Argument 3: Fake it ‘til you make it

 

Women have had a tough time in professional sports. Just a few decades ago they would have been banned from competing, insulted, laughed at, and even physically assaulted (see 1967 Boston Marathon) for having the audacity to want to give it a go. 

 

Now those hairy-pitted lefty feminazis are claiming nothing will change if we don’t disproportionately invest in women’s sports. And, they’re absolutely right. Women in sports have been treated poorly since the dawn of running fast, kicking things and jumping far. 

 

It is fair enough to afford them a larger slice of the pie for a change. And that’s exactly what FIFA is doing. The 2018 Men’s World Cup in Russia earned a cool USD 6 bill in revenue, of which competing teams shared USD 400 million (Forbes). It is true that the Women had to make due with sharing USD 30 million in earnings, but the entire tournament only brought in USD 130 million. Some reasonably easy math tells us that the male teams therefore took home 7% of total revenue, whereas the women made out with a whopping 22%.

 

Argument 4 women will never be paid the same unless they’re given the opportunity and funding men receive: 

 

Yes, precisely. 

 

Investing in women’s sports is undoubtedly important, but Cristiano Ronaldo doesn’t make his millions by moaning about his teammates not scoring and coming 9th in a World Cup. $80 shirts made in Bangladesh and $200 tickets for a friendly game is where the money is at.  

 

And to all the wishy-washy good time fans in those New York bleachers chanting about how much you support women’s football: how about supporting women’s football more than once every four years?

 

As for players like Rapinoe and Morgan who paint a picture of starving, persecuted, racial barrier-busting underdogs? The difference between a Rolex and a Patek Philipe isn’t the poverty line, and sooner or later the USSC will realise that investing in the women’s team for winning is worth more than investing three-fold in the men’s team for not qualifying. 

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London’s Finest

By onthefence
October 20, 2019
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London's Finest

The grandson of Kazakhstan’s former leader Nursultan Nazarbayev has been sentenced to 140 hours of community service as well as a £1000 fine by a London court. His crime? Biting a police officer after trying to rob someone’s flat this past June.

 

Aisultan also threatened to jump off the balcony at a Covent Garden hotel two days before while engaging in “debauchery.”

 

While not disputing that biting a police officer is an integral part of most benders, threatening to kill yourself shows it isn’t an obvious path to happiness.

 

Aisultan was denied bail in an earlier court appearance but has been getting treatment for drug addiction to “class A drugs.” Of course, even looking at a plant is illegal in Kazakhstan, but who else is going to consume the country’s expansive supply of opium.

 

Let’s not forget, It’s hard to make a name for yourself when your grand-father is the ex-president of a nation. Let alone when he named the country’s capital city after himself to celebrate closing down a few newspapers and locking up the main opposition.

 

London seems to be the place to show your dictator family what you’re made of.

 

Similarly, after the chair of Azerbaijan’s international bank was sent to prison for embezzling £100 million, his wife could be found in the streets of Knightsbridge.

 

Stealing the equivalent of twenty-seven-thousand annual average salaries from a country whose GDP was halved after the financial crisis is no measly feat. His wife made sure to continue his legacy by spending a total of £31 million on a private jet and another £16 million at Harrods.

 

She was arrested two years later under the Unexplained Wealth Order. After all, how can someone whose logic dictates spending £30,000 on chocolates in one day be sound enough to earn that money in the first place?

 

This was the first time the so-called unexplained wealth order was implemented in the UK. Along with all these anti-biting policies, this could make London seem unattractive to your average psychotic oligarch.

 

Mind you, the 140-hour community service and fine for burglary and biting a police officer is a smaller price to pay than £2500 for ‘persistent littering’. Presumably, the court didn’t want to deter any likeminded individuals from settling in London to keep it afloat after Brexit.

1 Comment
    Charlie says: Reply
    April 30th 2019, 12:32 PM

    It’s none of our business what they do in their country, just like it none of their business what we do in ours. We shoulda never gone into Iraq

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