Last weekend Mark Steyn received the Free Press Society’s 2010 Sappho Award awarded to an opinion leader who has shown remarkable courage and persistence in his defence of free speech.

The conversation about extreme Islam and extreme responses to Islam by modern liberal democracies has been since 9-11 an important touchstone for many other issues like immigration, individual and collective rights, same sex marriage, equality under the law, and even oil dependency.

At the centre of Steyn's thesis is that countries that do not protect the right of people to think and act how they please according to the rule of law or punish people even when they think and act as they please within the rule of law cease to be liberal remembering that in Canada you can get charged with offending people.

This sets up the Pope's visit to the United Kingdom quite nicely. Also articles on a Canadian public health response to dementia, an earth shattering shift in Chinese food production, the problem with global imbalances, China's migrant urban class, teaching Mandarin to Indian school children, and a warning that central banks have created inflation -- if you look in the right place.

The award. Thanks to David of London for sending this in.

There is a price to be paid if you want to describe the world as you see it. Every speaker at the Free Press Society’s conference on Humour, Satire and Free Speech, that took place in Copenhagen on 9/11 2010, could testify to that.  http://www.internationalfreepresssociety.org/2010/09/humour-conference-it-takes-children-drunkards-and-death-defying-artists-to-get-the-truth/

Mark Steyn's excellent rant on multiculturalism and cultural relativism. Yes Virginia, better that Canada (and the United States) was colonised by the United Kingdom.

'Multiculturalism and its impact on democratic society' panel from "The Collapse Of Europe?"   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdEGJb5W5ks

Related.

(ed's note: gets quite good from 20th minute) The 'Conversations with History' series: Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes writer/critic Mark Steyn, the 2007 Nimitz Lecturer at Berkeley. Focusing on his new book, "America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It," they discuss Europe and America's relations with the Islamic world.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K375rwCgTSs 

Britain's wild west press, popular agnostic writers, and historic animosity to the Catholic Church has made the state visit by the Pope a fascinating 21st cultural mirror.

What do we see.

Well for starters, despite the savage commentary, we have not had riots by Catholics outraged at having their sensibilities bruised.

The question we would ask here is, cultural relativism being the pig we are poking today, without the Protestant Reformation, given that in the year 2010 the Catholic Church still forbids birth control and female leadership, would the United Kingdom and its offspring the United States have played the dominant role in the world system for 200 plus years?

Roger Cohen answers.

A side benefit of a British education used to be learning the mnemonics helpful for sifting through events on this blustery island since 1066. One ditty lists all the kings and queens, ending with the catchy “Ned, George, Ned, George, at whose death came a second Elizabeth.”   http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/opinion/17iht-edcohen.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&nl=opinion&emc=tyb1

Can liberal Britain survive as secular?

We're not used to Germans coming here to talk about the war, so many people have jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion about Pope Benedict's attack on atheist extremism.   http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/sep/16/pope-benedict-xvi-secularism

Unusually secular Britain.

FROM my office window high up in St James's, I can see the processional route down which Pope Benedict XVI will soon pass, on his state visit to Britain.   http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2010/09/pope_visits_britain

Liberty is religious freedom argues Christopher Cladwell. (ed's note: like women wearing a burqa, or refusing to allow shira law or using public money to fund separate schools).

As Pope Benedict XVI was celebrating mass in Glasgow on Thursday, urging Scottish Catholics to “put aside what is worthless and learn of your own dignity as children of God”, various intellectuals and media personalities were massing in England to resist him on his progress south.   http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cc5b494a-c287-11df-956e-00144feab49a.html

The Globe and Mail's seven part solution to dementia without any comment on how it is going to be paid for or what other countries are doing.

Interesting that they did not advocate for assisted death.

Our health system is woefully unprepared for the oncoming crisis. So today, The Globe and Mail presents a seven-point plan to grapple with it.  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/dementia/why-canada-needs-a-national-strategy-on-dementia/article1712700/

I'm hungry.

Is China's structural food shortage about to have the impact on food prices that American imported oil dependency in the early seventies had on oil?

What caused the 1973 spike in oil prices? The Opec embargo?  http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/09/17/345981/china-1789-and-potash/

 

Good article in the Wall Street Journal making the case that focusing on the renminbi as the cause of trade imbalances is looking at the problem upside down. Instead, China needs monetary reform and inflation.

A bipartisan swarm pounded Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Capitol Hill yesterday for not doing enough to stop China's supposed money mischief. The sessions made clear that pressure is building to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese goods if the yuan doesn't appreciate in value. While it's true that China's monetary policy is causing problems, the yuan is the wrong target and protectionism is the wrong tool to get Beijing to cooperate.   http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703743504575493120916038074.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

And this article in the Economist makes the case that if China is not to fall into a Japanese structural dead end that it requires broad economic reform that reduces its trade surplus.

GILLIAN TETT tells a story about the Japanese experience with currency appreciation.  http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/09/chinas_currency_2

Chinese migrant workers would probably agree.

At the beginning of September, a Beijing criminal court announced a decision that called attention to the difficult and sometimes tragic circumstances of millions of migrant workers in China who have left their countryside homes to work for low wages under deplorable circumstances in the cities.   http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/sep/14/booming-china-migrant-misery/

Related.

The Last Train Home  http://zeitgeistfilms.com/lasttrainhome/ 

 

India to teach Mandarin in its schools.

The move to include Mandarin in the CBSE curriculum is welcome.  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Know-Thy-Neighbour/articleshow/6567147.cms

Doug Noland of the Prudent Bear on the consequences of competitive monetisation. Gold and some commodities are telling us, inflation is here.

Scroll down to: Competitive Monetisation: Ireland’s 10-year government yields jumped 48 bps this week to 6.29%, with the spread to German bunds jumping to a record 386 bps.  Portugal’s yields rose 31 bps to 6.07%, the high since near the peak of the Greek crisis back in early May.  The European debt crisis remains unresolved.  Yet this week the euro gained 2.9% against the dollar and 5.0% against the yen. http://www.prudentbear.com/index.php/creditbubblebulletinview?art_id=10436