Culture
Friday 2 June 2023
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“Stand-up comedy is known as having a lot of satire, where a lot of people or events are joked about; however, these jokes must have limits, even in the US, the home of stand-up comedy. At the Academy Awards ceremony in 2022, when Will Smith heard stand-up comedian Chris Rock mock his wife's hair loss, Smith was so irritated that he went up on stage and slapped Rock in the face.”
The Will Smith-Chris Rock incident was personal and resolved without state involvement. That is drastically different from the consequences for Chinese comedian Li Haoshi, arrested and facing criminal charges due to the state censorship. -
“We relied not just on the Russian-speaking population there [in Ukraine] – the whole country is Russian-speaking, as a matter of fact.”
One-third to one-half of Ukrainians speak Russian at home, and about 9.9%-19% consider Russian their native language. -
“This is one nation that came out of the Kyiv Baptismal font, but a very large nation.”
The religious leader, an ally of President Vladimir Putin, echoes Kremlin claims that Ukraine is not really a separate country from Russia. -
"Adolf (Hitler) would be proud of you (Prime Minister of Estonia). Without you, it would be much more difficult to prove the dehumanization of the collective West. Estonia for Estonians, right?"
The Estonian government has set up Estonian language courses for refugees from Ukraine as part of an aid program that includes housing, employment, health insurance, and the right to study. -
“Russian advertisement depicts Putin as Santa Claus, using magic to save a child from having gay dads, wearing pink and LGBT indoctrination. Russia believes the proxy war against NATO is necessary to preserve Christian values and fight satanism which controls the West.”
Source: Twitter, December 27, 2022The post glorifies Russia’s legalized criminalization of, and discrimination against, LGBTQ+ people. -
"The so-called [U.N.] assessment is orchestrated and produced by the U.S. and some Western forces and is completely illegal, null and void.
The long-delayed U.N. report catalogued evidence of dehumanizing abuse against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities. -
“In fact, there are questions for Sokhnut from the point of view of compliance with Russian law, and there is no need to politicize this situation and project this situation onto the entire complex of Russian-Israeli relations.”
Moscow is moving to shutter the Jewish Agency for Israel, which serves the Jewish diaspora in Russia. -
“…[W]hen he (the 14th Dalai Lama) was abroad, he took the liberty of declaring a child as the reincarnation of the Panchen Erdeni … to carry out anti-China separatist political hype to the detriment of religious rituals…”
The Dalai Lama has the authority to choose the reincarnated Panchen Lama. Beijing has repeatedly violated and manipulated the rituals of Tibetan Buddhism. -
“Russian muftis expressed support for the special operation in Ukraine and called it a forced preventive defensive measure, ‘based on the Holy Quran’.”
Russia’s war in Ukraine is neither ‘preventative’ nor ‘defensive.’ The Kremlin first invaded in 2014 and launched an all-out attack on February 24, 2022. -
“440 of the personnel of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are women who play a key role in political, legal, international, and cultural areas.”
Source: Iran Press news agency, January 25, 2022Iran has no female ambassadors. The majority of women serving in Iran’s foreign ministry are tasked with low-level clerical and office assistant positions. -
“U.S. residents: China is doing a great job in equitable [wealth] distribution.”
The jury is still out on whether China will manage to narrow its massive divide in wealth equality. -
"Melting statues to create modern art is a sign America hates its own history & no different from ISIS destroying Palmyra."
Removing U.S. monuments to an era of slavery and racism is nothing like Islamic State’s senseless destruction at the ancient world heritage site in Syria.