G7 Summit

Mhmmmm my dear friend Angela posted picture this on her official Instagram yesterday. Which is in itself an example of when a picture tells us more than a thousand words.

The Guardian informs us:

"Donald Trump has left the G7 network of global cooperation in disarray after he pulled the US out of a previously agreed summit communique (my embolding), blaming the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau whom he derided as “dishonest and weak”.

The US president, who arrived at the summit in Canada late and left early to fly to Singapore to prepare for his summit with Kim Jong-un, shocked fellow leaders with a bellicose press conference on Saturday in which he attacked the trade policies of other countries." 

Today Reuters published this.

PARIS (Reuters) - France and Europe are maintaining their support for the Group of Seven communique and anyone departing from the commitments made at the summit would be showing their “incoherence and inconsistency”, a French presidency official told Reuters.

The official was reacting after U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement on Saturday that he was backing out of the G7 communique drawn up at a summit in Canada.

“International cooperation cannot depend on being angry and on sound bites. Let’s be serious,” the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, added.

---

As I've said before, we live in exciting - if not downright scary - times! Then again, simply the thought of Trump, Putin, Xi and Kim in an unholy alliance is terrifying.

Oh What An Amazing Tattoo!

South African reality star Brandon Myers, of the British show "Ex On the Beach", is garnishing a bit of attention on his Instagram and Twitter accounts for his showing his amazing thigh tattoo, even if the tattoo isn't quite finished yet.

I am sure you will all agree it is truly awesome.

And let me tell you straight away, that those of you who ask "What tattoo?" are, without a doubt, real sluts of the absolutely sluttiest kind!

Brandon's favorite emoji is the aubergine 🍆, would you care to guess why?

The Swedish Hijab-Rebellion

A pregnant Muslim woman was recently knocked down on a street in Stockholm and had her headscarf ("hijab") pulled off by the assailant. Following the assault women who wear the veil testified that they are often subjected to name-calling and harassment of the most vile kind, both Islamophobic and misogynistic.

The incident lead to the so called "hijab-rebellion", in which women from all walks of Swedish society, wishing to show solidarity and "normalize" the wearing of hijab, started posting pictures of themselves in veils on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You name it, it was everywhere.

This "rebellion" lead to a counteraction from a combination of strange bedfellows, militant feminists and xenophobic ultranationalists on the far right of the political spectrum. They claim that the hijab is a sign of a patriarchal cultural and religious tradition of male oppression and control of women and is a tool to curtail women's freedom to dress as they chose and to express their sexuality. They also claim that it is counterproductive to integration as it creates barriers against the surrounding majority culture. Some even go so far as to say, that by wearing the veil in a Western culture the women are doing exactly the opposite of what they claim they wish to achieve, i.e not to draw attention to themselves.

Throughout Europe we are also receiving reports that young Muslim women are starting to don the veil for various reasons, some as a political statement or as a protest against the exploitation of female nudity in the Western cultures. There may be even more reasons.

I find myself a bit lost in all the rhetoric. As far as I am concerned the hijab in itself is most definitely a powerful symbol of male oppression and control and of a traditional chastity culture. However, I wouldn't dream of ever trying to regulate what a woman may or may not wear, just as I would not wish to regulate the length of her skirts or infringe on her complete right to her own body and sexuality.

Any woman should be allowed to dress as she chooses, for whatever reason. Just live with it and accept it!

The Swedish Wiener Incident

Lars Ohly, is the former party chairman of the Swedish Left Party (Vänsterpartiet), a socialist and feminist political party in Sweden. He is also a fan and supporter of  the English Premier League football (soccer for you Yanks) club Liverpool FC and a user of Instagram.

Two days ago Ohly proudly put up a picture on Instagram of the new Liverpool tattoo on the calf, of his left leg without thoroughly checking the picture he had taken first. As it turned out the picture happened to show more than he intended. Parts of his... ehmmmm... "junk" was showing in the picture.

The censored version

The picture provoked instant reactions from some of his followers.

Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister congratulated him on Twitter for the fact that he had "finally made his breakthrough in social media after trying so many years".

Håkan Juholt, former party chairman of The Swedish Social Democratic Party, sent a text message to Ohly informing him that he - after seeing the picture - had changed his barbeque plans "from wieners to chicken".

Comedian Al Pitcher wrote: ”I think Lars Ohly showed loads of balls to admit he supports Liverpool”.

Comedian Robin Paulsson wrote: "The Left gained 7 centimetres in the latest opinion polls thanks to Lars Ohly"

You want the uncensored picture I hear you crying, my dear readers. I think I may have spoilt you too much, but I cannot be so cruel as to deny you this small favor.

The uncensored version

Ohly has since removed the picture, but seems to take all the attention he has gotten with lots of humor noting that he has gained many new followers and that his wife has told him that she will have to check all the pictures he uploads in the future.