Grayson Perry - If loyalists want to remain loyal to Britain they’ve got to move on too

A banner by Grayson Perry, in the mould of an Orange Lodge standard, following a visit to British loyalists in Belfast 

The cross-dressing potter and artist Grayson Perry said during a 2014 trip to Northern Ireland:

"[Loyalism is] rooted in a vision of Britain that perhaps doesn’t completely gel with the modern 21st century idea of Britain we have nowadays."

And continued:

"If they want to remain loyal to it they’ve got to move on too and it’s all about embracing what Britain stands for today as much as what Britain stood for in the 1950s."

My previous posts on loyalism can be read here. Previous Tumblr notes on loyalism here. 

Andrew Sullivan and the conscience clause

My illustrated tribute to Andrew Sullivan I drew for the Huffington Post.

Paul Givan, theo-unionism and the ecumenical religious right regard gay people as the greatest threat to religion.

Our Patron Saint: Patrick

By Isaac Cruikshank, 'Saint Patrick's Day in the Morning'.

Glenn Bradley is a writer and a member of the Board of Interaction. He wrote on EamonnMalle.com about Saint Patrick, explaining that Ireland's Patron Saint is a figure for unity, not division. Saint Patrick is for everyone, "Catholic, Protestant, Dissenter, Republican, Unionist, Nationalist, White, Black, Asian - it doesn’t matter." Here's Glenn's essay republished in full:

James Joyce on Home Rule

James Joyce by Ronald Searle

In an earlier post I looked at a 25 year old Joyce who wrote about 'The Last Fenian' John O'Leary. In the same year, 1907, he wrote, ‘Home Rule Comes of Age’. "From a hasty study of the history of Home Rule," Joyce made two deductions, one:

"The first is this: the most powerful weapons that England can use against Ireland are no longer those of Conservatism, but those of Liberalism and Vaticanism. Conservatism, though it may be tyrannical, is a frankly and openly inimical doctrine. Its position is logical; it does not want a rival island to arise near Great Britain, or Irish factories to create competition for those in England, or tobacco and wine again to be exported from Ireland, or the great ports along the Irish coast to become enemy naval bases under a native government or a foreign protectorate. Its position is logical, as is that of the Irish separatists which contradicts it point by point. It takes little intelligence to understand that Gladstone has done Ireland greater damage than Disraeli did, and that the most fervid enemy of the Irish Catholics is the head of English Vaticanism, the Duke of Norfolk."

The greatest writers work with the same 26 letters, good writing is just putting one word after another

Philip Roth by Zach Trenholm

Writing is putting one letter after another letter; one word after another; one sentence after another. As Margaret Atwood said:

"A word after a word after a word is power."

Christopher Hitchens - "Islamic fundamentalism is not created by American democracy"

Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie

Christopher Hitchens wrote in 2001 in The Nation magazine, 'Against Rationalization', a counter to Chomsky and the Left, who, in response to 9/11, suggested that the attacks against America were the causal effect of American action in the Middle East. He said:

"I know already that the people of Palestine and Iraq are victims of a depraved and callous Western statecraft."

For Christopher Hitchens, islamic grievance long pre-dates the Blair-Bush intervention. He said: