Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:32 am  

Littlejohn writes the occasional humorous article but on te whole his writing is one dimensional, poorly researched fodder.

However he does tap into the the under current of sentiment amongst many in the country. This is an example - poorly written - but many people consider that single mothers use pregnancy as a career choice. In my wife's family there are six yes six single mothers, one has children to three seperate fathers. Let's face it there is no justification for not taking contraception in this day and age.

Next week when he talks about Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed many on here will be suggesting he is a racist as well as biggot a bully and his English isn't upto scratch!!

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:35 am  

JerryChicken wrote:

Hmmmmm, *shakes head*

I think its probably fair to identify that there is a section of society that can only be politely named as "religious nutter" and its this sector that are normally responsible for providing such comments and rather scarily are sometimes responsible for influencing the lawmakers in decisions...

For clarity: I deliberately included some that were not obviously religious – and there were plenty more of both varieties – because I didn't want to suggest that it was just religious nuttiness.

And also, there were people saying: 'Call yourselves Christians? Not in my name', in effect.

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 9:48 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

... However he does tap into the the under current of sentiment amongst many in the country...

"Tap into" or 'fuel'?

Sal Paradise wrote:

... Let's face it there is no justification for not taking contraception in this day and age...

Sounds obvious, but is far from the reality.

There are still plenty of schools where sex 'education' is 'don't do it! It's a mortal sin!' etc. There are still parents who do the same – and many who do nothing at all.

So-called 'abstinence education' and, indeed, the entire religious 'chastity' thing in the US has been seen to be counterproductive, producing more pregnancies and STD diagnoses than where 'abstinence education' is not the mantra of the day.

Research done some years ago by a group of children's charities found that:

• children where the parents were very open about sex were the group that started sexually experimenting with others later than any other group and were most likely to use safe sex/contraception;

• children in families where sex was viewed from a moral/religious perspective were likely to start sexually experimenting with others at a younger age, and were less likely to use safe sex/contraception;

• children in families that simply didn't give a toss (so to speak) were most likely to start experimenting with others sexually the earliest, and the least likely to use safe sex/contraception.

I remember another survey from a year or so ago where some children believed a range of myths like not getting pregnant if you have sex on a copy of the Yellow Pages (and no, I'm not making that up).

Anecdotally, I'd say that the girls I am aware of who have got pregnant as teenagers are all from Catholic families – contraception good, yes?

Or, as is the case of my sister, who got pregnant (bloke told her he'd had the snip), brought up in a family where sex and sin were synonyms.

There's a reason that the Netherlands has such a low rate of teenage pregnancy – and some of it at least is down to very open and proper sex education. We still have let parents withdraw their children from sex education (imagine being able to withdraw a child from maths) and allow entire whole schools to get away with whatever nonsense and superstition they want to spread.

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 10:45 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

...Next week when he talks about Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed many on here will be suggesting he is a racist as well as biggot a bully and his English isn't upto scratch!!

Why wait until then, based on his past oeuvre I already think he's a racist as well as bigot and a bully and his English isn't up to scratch.

But I think you've missed the point here, it's not a generalised comment on the topic, it's a virulent slagging-off targeted at one particular woman and the accusation is that it is chockablock with shamefully invented lies.

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 10:45 am  

Sal Paradise wrote:

Littlejohn writes the occasional humorous article but on te whole his writing is one dimensional, poorly researched fodder.

However he does tap into the the under current of sentiment amongst many in the country. This is an example - poorly written - but many people consider that single mothers use pregnancy as a career choice. In my wife's family there are six yes six single mothers, one has children to three seperate fathers. Let's face it there is no justification for not taking contraception in this day and age.

I'd have said bigoted $hite instead of fodder.

And how much of the "undercurrent" is caused by hysterical DM "reporting" and opinion pieces? The majority of people in this country (and I include myself in many areas) know the square root of feckall about a lot of stuff, yet feel the need to spout complete garbage about issues.

For example, 75000 people have apparently signed the Express's petition about the EU (0.001% of the population) yet it's front page news and means we must leave now. WTF? How many of those 75000 understand what the EU is? How they and their communities benefit? How and why the "bad" EU things happen? I'd guess at 0.001% of that.

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 4:37 pm  

JerryChicken wrote: This thread needs no other explanation of how that opinion-paper known to all as "The Daily Mail" actually works other than to read the first of these two links ... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2482111/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Ah-Pesto-Meet-poverty-poster-girls.html Yes, we know its Richard Littlejohn, pinnacle of all twattanista's and a self parody of right wing politics so that you wonder if even he believes half of the stuff he writes, but still, some editor at The Mail read his column this week and thought it worthy of publication, it being representative of the readership's own opinions - and what better to get them suitably outraged than a tatoo'ed woman on benefits, nay, a lifestyle choice on benefits and yet daring to speak of things such as "pesto" and "kale" in recipes as if the unemployed do not deserve such foodstuff ? OK, so now read the truth from Jack (female) in fine detail ... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/01/richard-littlejohn-wrong-about-jack-monroe-daily-mail There is more than a smattering of two newspapers having a bitchfight there but the response tells you everything you need to know about the story and everything you need to know about how much research Littlejohn did into the story before he wrote his vile piece and got it published, zero research is the answer. Such a pity he did no research because he missed something that would have REALLY got his faithful lunatics frothing at the mouth, Jack is a lesbian too, that one fact would probably have got his spiteful writing onto the front page. Maybe that's what he meant by 'lifestyle choice'. Clearly that makes it all her fault that her relationship with the father broke down, so her situation was entirely all her own making. He was just being all subtle, like. :where's a smiley with the right hand gesture when you need it?: What would be great is if the Daily Mail were now forced to replace his column with Jack's for 6 months.

JerryChicken wrote: This thread needs no other explanation of how that opinion-paper known to all as "The Daily Mail" actually works other than to read the first of these two links ... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2482111/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Ah-Pesto-Meet-poverty-poster-girls.html Yes, we know its Richard Littlejohn, pinnacle of all twattanista's and a self parody of right wing politics so that you wonder if even he believes half of the stuff he writes, but still, some editor at The Mail read his column this week and thought it worthy of publication, it being representative of the readership's own opinions - and what better to get them suitably outraged than a tatoo'ed woman on benefits, nay, a lifestyle choice on benefits and yet daring to speak of things such as "pesto" and "kale" in recipes as if the unemployed do not deserve such foodstuff ? OK, so now read the truth from Jack (female) in fine detail ... http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/01/richard-littlejohn-wrong-about-jack-monroe-daily-mail There is more than a smattering of two newspapers having a bitchfight there but the response tells you everything you need to know about the story and everything you need to know about how much research Littlejohn did into the story before he wrote his vile piece and got it published, zero research is the answer. Such a pity he did no research because he missed something that would have REALLY got his faithful lunatics frothing at the mouth, Jack is a lesbian too, that one fact would probably have got his spiteful writing onto the front page. Maybe that's what he meant by 'lifestyle choice'. Clearly that makes it all her fault that her relationship with the father broke down, so her situation was entirely all her own making. He was just being all subtle, like. :where's a smiley with the right hand gesture when you need it?: What would be great is if the Daily Mail were now forced to replace his column with Jack's for 6 months.

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 4:41 pm  

Mintball wrote:

"Tap into" or 'fuel'?

Sounds obvious, but is far from the reality.

There are still plenty of schools where sex 'education' is 'don't do it! It's a mortal sin!' etc. There are still parents who do the same – and many who do nothing at all.

So-called 'abstinence education' and, indeed, the entire religious 'chastity' thing in the US has been seen to be counterproductive, producing more pregnancies and STD diagnoses than where 'abstinence education' is not the mantra of the day.

Research done some years ago by a group of children's charities found that:

• children where the parents were very open about sex were the group that started sexually experimenting with others later than any other group and were most likely to use safe sex/contraception;

• children in families where sex was viewed from a moral/religious perspective were likely to start sexually experimenting with others at a younger age, and were less likely to use safe sex/contraception;

• children in families that simply didn't give a toss (so to speak) were most likely to start experimenting with others sexually the earliest, and the least likely to use safe sex/contraception.

I remember another survey from a year or so ago where some children believed a range of myths like not getting pregnant if you have sex on a copy of the Yellow Pages (and no, I'm not making that up).

Anecdotally, I'd say that the girls I am aware of who have got pregnant as teenagers are all from Catholic families – contraception good, yes?

Or, as is the case of my sister, who got pregnant (bloke told her he'd had the snip), brought up in a family where sex and sin were synonyms.

There's a reason that the Netherlands has such a low rate of teenage pregnancy – and some of it at least is down to very open and proper sex education. We still have let parents withdraw their children from sex education (imagine being able to withdraw a child from maths) and allow entire whole schools to get away with whatever nonsense and superstition they want to spread.

You mean there's been research conducted that has backed up the 'Catholic girls are right nymphos' stereotype?

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 5:54 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Why wait until then, based on his past oeuvre I already think he's a racist as well as bigot and a bully and his English isn't up to scratch.

But I think you've missed the point here, it's not a generalised comment on the topic, it's a virulent slagging-off targeted at one particular woman and the accusation is that it is chockablock with shamefully invented lies.

His English is significantly better than anyone on here by a big distance, he is clever enough to get a national newspaper to pay him big money for the use of said English!!

It depends on whether you actually take every word she says as being without bias? One thing I find strange is she didn't seem to have engaged the fire service in what the opportunities would be if she had a baby until after she had the baby and then complained about the lack of flexibility. Perhaps if she had engaged the fire service prior to pregnancy she maybe would not have got pregnant or she would not have been so surprised at the outcome?

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 6:19 pm  

Sal Paradise wrote:

His English is significantly better than anyone on here by a big distance, he is clever enough to get a national newspaper to pay him big money for the use of said English!!

It depends on whether you actually take every word she says as being without bias? One thing I find strange is she didn't seem to have engaged the fire service in what the opportunities would be if she had a baby until after she had the baby and then complained about the lack of flexibility. Perhaps if she had engaged the fire service prior to pregnancy she maybe would not have got pregnant or she would not have been so surprised at the outcome?

I can understand why you sympathise with Littlejohn, he makes things up too.

Re: The Mail and its odious style of reporting : Tue Nov 05, 2013 6:58 pm  

Mintball wrote:

"Tap into" or 'fuel'?

Sounds obvious, but is far from the reality.

There are still plenty of schools where sex 'education' is 'don't do it! It's a mortal sin!' etc. There are still parents who do the same – and many who do nothing at all.

So-called 'abstinence education' and, indeed, the entire religious 'chastity' thing in the US has been seen to be counterproductive, producing more pregnancies and STD diagnoses than where 'abstinence education' is not the mantra of the day.

Research done some years ago by a group of children's charities found that:

• children where the parents were very open about sex were the group that started sexually experimenting with others later than any other group and were most likely to use safe sex/contraception;

• children in families where sex was viewed from a moral/religious perspective were likely to start sexually experimenting with others at a younger age, and were less likely to use safe sex/contraception;

• children in families that simply didn't give a toss (so to speak) were most likely to start experimenting with others sexually the earliest, and the least likely to use safe sex/contraception.

I remember another survey from a year or so ago where some children believed a range of myths like not getting pregnant if you have sex on a copy of the Yellow Pages (and no, I'm not making that up).

Anecdotally, I'd say that the girls I am aware of who have got pregnant as teenagers are all from Catholic families – contraception good, yes?

Or, as is the case of my sister, who got pregnant (bloke told her he'd had the snip), brought up in a family where sex and sin were synonyms.

There's a reason that the Netherlands has such a low rate of teenage pregnancy – and some of it at least is down to very open and proper sex education. We still have let parents withdraw their children from sex education (imagine being able to withdraw a child from maths) and allow entire whole schools to get away with whatever nonsense and superstition they want to spread.

Is this for real - are you seriously suggesting that the majority of single mothers have had a convent based education or come from strict Religious upbringing? Have you got any data that supports this argument not just a bias think tank with a point to try and prove.

We have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than more religious countries such as Italy, Spain and France how is that?

All children in the country have extensive sexual education as part of the national curriculum there is simply no excuse for getting pregnant. There is the morning after pill if they haven't got enough about them to get a coil fitted, take the pill or even demand the man wears a condom.