Finding the real Puritans

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(This article first appeared on Drinkuary.)

A few days back, a friend of mine linked me to an article on “Christian anger over booze filled advent calendars. Now, the person in question isn’t normally in the habit of reading the Daily Mail, so not quite sure how it caught their attention, but they thought it would be nice for me to have “some real Puritans to get [my] teeth into”. So with such a challenge I of course had to take a look at the article. In a completely unsurprising turn of events, the article is almost completely manufactured puff piece. Mr. Schofield talked about buying some boozy advent calendars, The Mail then lists many people you can buy such things from, and then phones up some Christian groups to get their response. These groups are what my friend obviously considered to be “real Puritans”. Sadly for anyone expecting them to be either angry or puritanical – their response could universally be summed up as;
“Advent is a time of preparation for Christmas not feasting and these calendars are a bit silly and a distraction from the religious meaning of the season. ”
No calls for the calendars to be banned. No demands for them to be subject to punitive tax. No demands for legislation to make sure people don’t have too many advent calendars. No demands that Mr. Schofield recant his heresy and wear sackcloth and ashes. Not even dire warnings of hellfire and damnation for those that partake of boozy frivolity. Really just
“Boozey advent calendars are missing the point and not really in the spirit of Advent.”
On the other hand; the likes of Alcohol Concern, Cancer research and the other usual suspects, do demand higher taxes to punish everyone on the grounds of a few problem drinkers. Do demand that alcohol be restricted via additional legislation. Do call for alcohol to be available in ever weaker amounts and from increasingly restricted outlets. Do demand that they be given ever more or our money to chastise us for daring to enjoy a drink and do try to sell us indulgences if we want to enjoy a drink with friends.

So, when it comes to identifying who the real Puritans are I’m quite comfortable that I know who we need to get our teeth into.

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Greenpeace vandalism follow up

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Join Greenpeace vandalise the world Since Greenpeaces wanton vandalism of the Nazca lines the increasing coverage and anger has forced even apologists like the Guardian have back tracked. Greenpeace have apologised sort of, they aren’t sorry that they’ve damaged the Nazca lines but that they’ve caused “offence” and “came across as careless and crass.”. So whilst the Peruvian Government is intending to press charges and wants the names of all of the Greenpeace activists involved, Greenpeace have said that they’re “cooperating with the Peruvian authorities and seeking to clarify what took place.”. Obviously not cooperating to the extent of handing over any names, and I’m not quite sure how you “explain what really happened” when you’ve filmed yourself:

  • Illegally entering a world heritage site
  • Trampling over the site in normal shoes, rather than the required special protective shoes
  • Damaging the area around one of the most iconic lines whilst laying out cloth letters
  • Leaving the area with the surface far from pristine, with marks left my the footprints of 20 vandals, their rucksacks and the letters laid out on the ground

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Greenpeace enviromental vandals

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Nazca after Greenpeace I’ve written about Greenpeace before and it’s safe to say I’m not their greatest fan. However their latest self serving publicity stunt is a whole new level of stupid even for them. To “send a message” to the world leaders that they aren’t doing enough to tackle “climate change” they decided it would be a jolly wheeze to vandalize the Nasca lines a UNESCO world heritage site and a very delicate environment. The Guardian has a excellent bit of excuse making for this bunch of vandals, who decide to have 20 people carrying large rucksacks climb up onto the site in the dark wearing normal shoes to lay out a huge banner. According to Peru this week Greenpeace say that no damage was done as the banner didn’t touch the lines themselves. Which to put things in terms Greenpeace idiots can understand is a bit like saying “we didn’t damage the river, we just clear felled the flood plain”. Even on the sympathetic Guardian video you can see that they left marks where they walked and even more where they left their bags.

In the picture above ( via Reddit the lines of the removed text are very clear on the plain as is the scuffed up area where the bags were left. The damage done even before the banner was removed is obvious in this picture where the Greenpeace hooligans are still on the site.
Greenpeace vandals

That it was Greenpeace that caused the damage and where they left the bags carrying that banner and all the stones they used to weigh it down can be quite clearly seen in this footage from EuroNews:

Despite this apologists are claiming that the damage was done by other people, even though Greenpeace say they removed the banner, or that a 4×4 must have come along because the damage is more obvious in some photo’s than others – which is kind of how the whole Nazca line things work they’re quite sensitive to angle. The existence of some other party coming along latter and causing the damage is invented entirely out of whole cloth by these apologists. Removing things almost always causes more damage than putting them in place, and just try removing a tea towel from a try of sand without disturbing the sand, no matter how closely you put it down.

Hopefully Peru will prosecute though that won’t repair the damage done to an environment where “a footprint is going to last hundreds or thousands of years”. Even if this imagined third party did remove the banner and for reasons best known to themselves Greenpeace haven’t mentioned that they left the banner there for someone else to clean up:
This is an area so sensitive that no-one gets to visit it without special permission, which Greenpeace didn’t have.
This is an area so sensitive you have to wear special shoes, which Greenpeace didn’t.
Putting down the banner and dumping their bags containing the banner and specially brought in stone damaged the area even before they left.

So not content with endangering themselves or other people for a publicity stunt the vandals at Greenpeace have willfully and irreparably damaged a unique and fragile environment for a few column inches about renewable energies. If the environment has friends like this it really doesn’t need enemies.

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