Indigo Jo Blogs Blog

“Comedy”: the new nasty

The Guardian has dedicated its G2 supplement today to comedy, and the lead feature is about the new tendency towards offensiveness in comedy. This includes jokes about Muslims (we're all queer), Chinese people, Gypsies,...

TMI about Aleppo rape victim?

I’m sure many of you have heard the story of the young girl who suffered terrible injuries in a gang rape in Aleppo last month; you can read the story in English here. There...

US casino funds Israeli settlements

Gambling with peace: how US bingo dollars are funding Israeli settlements — The Guardian Revealing how money raised from a casino frequented mostly by Latinos in California is funding Jewish settlement expansion in the...

Debunking Eurabia myths

Dispelling the Myth of Eurabia — Newsweek.com This is the lead article from the current edition of Newsweek, in which scare stories about Europe being taken over by Muslims by means of immigration and...

What’s the use of Twitter?

Last Wednesday, the Guardian had a feature from “inside Twitter HQ” based on interviews with the founders of the service. The article gave potted histories of the founders, two of whom were formerly involved...

When to use the K word

As long as I’ve been a Muslim, there has always been a division among Muslims as to the use of the word kaafir, the Arabic word for unbeliever. Some, particularly born Muslims from non-English-speaking...

What future for the House of Windsor?

This week’s New Statesman has a lengthy feature on the monarchy, clearly coming out in favour of abolishing it and establishing a republic. Ted Vallance gives a long history of British public hostility and...

Borders to shut London flagship store

I read a short article in the Evening Standard yesterday evening that Borders was to shut its flagship bookshop in Oxford Street; after looking it up I discovered that four other Borders stores are...

Review of “Does God Hate Women?”

Does God Hate Women? is a 178-page tirade by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom, editors of the atheist website Butterflies and Wheels, co-authors of A Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense and both senior editors on...

Ungrateful bloggers! (And credit where it’s due)

Is WordPress A Thankless Community? | Weblog Tools Collection Are you using third-party WordPress plugins and themes without having sent the author a thank-you note or donated money? I have to say that, in...

Don’t tell me what to write

Zaid Shakir recently wrote a reply to some guy who had ridiculed him by calling him a “Muslim rock star” for writing about the death of Michael Jackson when, supposedly, Cynthia McKinney was being...

Soaked in blood indeed

Rahila Gupta, in today’s Guardian, delivers a confused ramble about the issue of “choice” in wearing or not wearing the hijab in the West and in Saudi Arabia and Iran: I believe it is...