WESTERN GREAT
SODOMITE CIVILISATION 2014
KATE BATES: “Thinking about culture” 4 July 2014 at 10:27 PM
“I kept this photo and deplore it's destruction. My eyes are seeing deliberate destruction of civilized history. In an effort to distort history, especially ancient history, the Zionists carry out excavations night and day for multiple reasons, not least erasing 1400 years of accepted civilized behavior. They spurn international law and a modicum of diplomacy seems beyond their grasp. The unnamed "THEY" that run the world.”
It
would be sheer intellectual dishonesty (current in western modern imperial times)
not to admit the greatness of classical Western Civilisation. Everywhere I turn, I see greatness in the
West but very sadly also greatness in evil deeds too. Godless, Satanic, sodomite, devilish, diabolical,
perverse, evil, deceitful, warmongering, imperialist, inhuman, paedophilic,
incestuous, despicable, exterminationist, degenerate, enslaving, thieving, plundering,
greedy, vicious, polluting, anti-Semitic, anti Christian, anti-Arab,
anti-Muslim, anti-Islamic, racist, fascist, totalitarian - all those terms and a
lot more are extremely well suited to well describe modern western anti-civilisation,
all what any moral civilisation are not meant to be. Western civilisation also excels in the total
destruction of other civilisations.
BAFS
LAKOTAH PROFESSOR RUSSELL MEANS
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Life or Death: Heat is a Necessity, Not a Luxury
2/11/14
Shared by Kate Bates, Pittsburgh PA.
THE US SIOUX GULAG
HEAT IS A NECESSITY, NOT A LUXURY.
The recent death of Debbie Dogskin, found unresponsive inside her own frozen home on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, hit hard across Indian Country. Many of us face similar circumstances or have relatives who do. Dependent on murderously expensive propane and living in sub-standard housing makes tribal living an act of survival in harsh winter conditions that see temperatures well below zero. Yet very little seems to be happening at the tribal, state, or federal levels to stop our most vulnerable Native citizens from dying in their own homes.
On the same day Dogskin was found dead in her home, my 76-year-old grandmother living in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, made a rare call to my mom, who lives near Omaha. Like many of her generation, asking for help is hard for my grandmother to do. But she was cold and had no other options to pay for the propane that heats her small, decades-old trailer held together with hope and duct tape. My mom and other relatives have often (and without prompting) helped my grandmother with living essentials (and non-essentials). It was no different this time, but the call got my mom and I wondering what exactly the situation was where my grandmother lived.
Like many elders, most of my grandmother’s meager income comes from Social Security, and right now that’s barely covering the cost to heat her home with propane. Before going to my mother she went to a local bank for a loan. Due to her age and income, they offered her a copy00 loan with a $75 fee attached, a flat fee the bank charges on loans up to copy,000. My grandmother said the bank allowed her to borrow against the upcoming Salazar/Cobell settlement funds that may or may not arrive sometime in the next few months. Let’s be clear here, folks: This is predatory lending holding heat hostage for the most at-risk citizens.
But that’s not the worst of it. You’d think copy00 would be plenty to heat a small trailer, but with the sky-high cost of propone these days, copy00 got my grandma about three days worth of heat. Three days. If my heating bill goes above $60 for the month, I freak out and start implementing countermeasures like wearing three layers of sweaters inside and everyone sleeping together in the same room.
The price of propane in the winter is beyond comprehension, especially considering the cleaner, less-expensive options available to most Americans, like natural gas, or incentives to install more efficient-energy heating systems or wood burning stoves.
Many media outlets are reporting propane “shortages,” and while I’m sure that’s part of it, I’m willing to bet it’s more economic politics—import/export issues, shipping regulations, and demand, for instance—than the actual quantity available.
Earlier this week, my grandmother was paying around $3.45 to $3.90 per gallon for propane, up from copy.49 to copy.60 per gallon in December. It takes about 10 gallons per day to heat her two-bedroom trailer. That’s about copy,200 to heat her home for a month. There is something ethically and morally wrong with numbers like that.
The local propane company that serves my grandmother does not set the price of propane and has been generous in allowing her to charge her account. So even with her copy00 loan, my grandmother was still $200 behind on her propane payments. My mom and other relatives have stepped in to help, but what about other tribal members struggling to make ends meet?
How many more Debbie Dogskins need to die before tribes realize they must act now to make their communities sustainable and energy independent? Forget help from the state or federal government. While the South Dakota Legislature has considered bills to drug test TANF recipients and discriminate against LGBT and two-spirit folks, they have not addressed ways to prevent Native people from dying from the cold. And American citizens—so obsessed with having “America the Beautiful” sung in English—are willfully oblivious to the third-world conditions plaguing their backyards.
Tribes and tribal citizens must step up and take control over their energy sovereignty. Sustainability measures are cost-effective in the long run, from installing wood-burning stoves to equipping homes with solar or wind energy, but the immediate installation costs often deter community leaders and homeowners from building or remodeling their properties into more energy efficient abodes.
But it is possible, especially with a push from tribal leaders. Cobell settlement checks aren’t going to be around to borrow against every winter and declaring a state of emergency on your reservation doesn’t prevent people like Debbie Dogskin from tragically dying inside their own frozen homes.
I have to hope change is coming. Indeed, small but powerful movements are underway to reduce dependence on oil and build sustainable communities on tribal land.
On Cheyenne River, near the town of Swift Bird, a friend of mine and her family are building the Tatanka Wakpala Model Sustainable Community. They’ve built a wildly successful organic garden and their eco-dome is nearly complete. The eco-dome will be powered by renewable energy, like wind and solar power, and wood-burning stoves.
And on the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Henry Red Cloud and his Lakota Solar Enterprises are doing amazing things with green energy, including manufacturing solar air collectors and heating systems while providing tribal members green job training at the Red Cloud Renewable Energy Center. Red Cloud said his company just received funding to install 10 heating systems on Cheyenne River next week.
Combine Tatanka Wakpala and Lakota Solar Enterprises with activist movements like Idle No More and groups protesting the Keystone XL pipeline, and there is great potential for a tribal energy revolution.
What cost the life of my grandmother? Surely she is worth investing in sustainable options. Until then, she and other at-risk families and individuals are left with few options: Keep the heat turned way down in frigid temps, borrow against future Cobell distributions, rely on the kindness of family, or hope you might get a small slice of the $817,000 that tribes across country are receiving from the US Department of Health and Human Services for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.
You may be reading this, hearing about the untimely and tragic death of Debbie Dogskin, or people like my grandmother, and wondering what you can do. If you were inclined to make a financial contribution, I’d caution you to research organizations to which you funnel money. After doing my own research for this piece, it seems clear to me that donations and assistance programs helping folks buy propane to heat their homes only exacerbate and continue the issues faced by tribal members year after year.
Instead, let’s end our tribal dependence on propane and fund projects like Tatanka Wakpala or Lakota Solar Enterprises, which has a Global Giving online campaign to help expand the capacity of its green jobs training center. Projects and businesses like these are the future of tribal sovereignty and survival.
Or please consider donating to the Heat the Rez campaign from the Last Real Indians, which hopes to convert 20 tribal homes into renewable energy users.
Taté Walker is an enrolled member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. She is a freelance writer and blogs at WalkerWrackSpurt.wordpress.com.
Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/11/life-or-death-heat-necessity-not-luxury
In 2013 the Original American Natives (the Indigenous People of America) have still not found themselves an authentic identity and are still calling themselves INDIANS, the name given to them by their exterminators!
Mon Dec 09, 2013 at 01:38 PM PST
This is the racist crap Indians have to put up with because Dan Snyder is a stubborn wretch
This racist sign was snapped Sunday morning outside a Sonic restaurant
in Kansas City and tweeted before the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the
Washington [Redacted] in an embarrassing 45-10 rout Sunday.
The sentiment of the human who put up that sign is illustrative of
the pervasive attitude toward us Indians. Every time something like this
happens, it's a reminder that while certain racial slurs have been
abandoned, in public at least, others are still handed out with no
consideration whatsoever of the pain they cause.
To its credit, the corporate office of the Sonic fast-food chain responded with a straightforward, no-hedging apology, a rare thing these days:
To its credit, the corporate office of the Sonic fast-food chain responded with a straightforward, no-hedging apology, a rare thing these days:
Patrick Lenow, vice president of public relations at Sonic, told NBC News that the sign was created by an employee who is "known for creative use of his signs," but that this sign was done "in poor taste." "The remarks posted on this message board were wrong, offensive and unacceptable," Lenow said in a statement. "In a misguided effort to support his football team an independent franchise owner allowed passion to override good judgment. The owner has reinforced with his employees the boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable. On behalf of the franchise owner and our entire brand we apologize for the offensive remarks."For more on the history of American Indians and their fight against ignorance in sports, please read below the fold.
For decades, the National Congress of American Indians, the National
Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media, the American Indian Movement,
the Oneida Nation, and other Indians of various tribes have sought with
considerable success to get high school, college, and professional team
mascots, caricatures, and nicknames that denigrate Native Americans
changed. Now, the biggest holdouts with the worst examples of these are
the Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo, who is to many Indians what Little
Black Sambo is to African Americans, and the Washington Redskins, which
might just as well be the Washington "Niggers," "Chinks," "Spics,"
"Kikes" or "Ragheads."
But, despite growing opposition to the name, owner Dan Snyder continues to claim the name is all about respect and he will "never" change it.
As a consequence, the American Indian Movement issued a manifesto on Oct. 16 threatening a class-action suit against the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins if they don't change. An excerpt from the manifesto:
But, despite growing opposition to the name, owner Dan Snyder continues to claim the name is all about respect and he will "never" change it.
As a consequence, the American Indian Movement issued a manifesto on Oct. 16 threatening a class-action suit against the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins if they don't change. An excerpt from the manifesto:
It is illegal in the United States to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, physical difference or gender preference. We, the Indigenous People of America, are victims of discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin and institutional ignorance. While many indigenous people choose to live their lives with pride and independence from the negative influences of institutional racism, it remains necessary to assert our equal rights as citizens of the United States through education and legal action. The name for the Washington DC football team is a racial slur, an illegal form of hate speech and discrimination, that damages a protected class of people by denying us respect and equality: in the workplace, at government funded facilities and contractors, at public gatherings, over regulated airwaves, and in corporations producing electronic and print content. The “R” word has no place in a country of equals. No similar denigrating term for other protected classes of people would be tolerated, and we would not accept any such denigration of anyone. Yet, sports organizations, media organizations and many fans have inherited and perpetrated an immunity to the racism embedded in derogatory indigenous sports names and mascots, and the damage they do to the freedom of anyone to live their lives without experiencing prejudice or ridicule.The disparagement of Indians like that on the Sonic marquee will continue as long as teams have racist names and caricatures. Apparently, the only way that team owners will acknowledge the racist nature of these slurs, is to hurt them in the wallet. So far, nobody has figured a way out of doing that. Perhaps, instead of focusing on Washington and Cleveland, pressure should be put on other NFL and MLB teams to refuse to play those two until they make the changes.
The argument or rationalization that indigenous sports mascots and racist names filled with fan tradition should somehow be immune from the laws of the land that protect people from discrimination hardly matches the damage to the heritage and traditions of indigenous people perpetrated by the mascots, by the names, and by centuries of desecration and injustice that continue to this day.
All Indigenous Mascots manufactured for professional and school sports teams by and for non-indigenous people are unwelcome caricatures that do not represent the religion, culture, beliefs and rich history of native people.
Moreover, there is overwhelming evidence from impartial academic research that unwelcome indigenous mascots and stereotypes and caricatures damage indigenous children, damage indigenous futures, and damage the perception of all protected classes.
Originally posted to Meteor Blades on Mon Dec 09, 2013 at 01:38 PM PST.
Also republished by Barriers and Bridges, Native American Netroots, and Daily Kos.
Tags
AP Photo/Rapid City Journal, Kristina Barker
Madonna
Pappan hugs her 4-year-old daughter Charlie Pappan before speaking at a
press conference at the Adobe Eco Hotel in Rapid City, South Dakota on
Thursday, March 21, 2013. Pappan, a resident of Pennington County and
member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, had her two children stripped from her
custody in a hearing that lasted less than 60 seconds.
UN Will Hear About Lakota Child Foster Care Crisis
8/8/14
The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has included South Dakota’s
persistent and alleged illegal seizure of Lakota children in a report it
is scheduled to present to the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland in
August.
The United Nations will convene the 85th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination from August 11-29, at which the ACLU will present an update on the United States’ compliance issues with human rights provisions as set forth by the U.N.
In a section of the report entitled “Lack of Due Process in American Indian Child Custody Proceedings in South Dakota,” published on July 9, 2014, the ACLU details how statistics relating to the rate at which Lakota children are removed from their families when compared to non-Native counterparts “reflect intentional and unintentional racism, consistent with practices that have been condoned for decades in much of the United States.”
The report further asserts that the Indian Child Welfare Act, passed in 1978 by Congress with the aim of stemming the problems of Indian children being removed from families and extended families within their tribes, has severe limitations. One of these limitations is the lack of a regular and comprehensive review by any federal agency to ensure state compliance with statutory requirements.
“Individual states are already required to report on a variety of measures regarding children in their care, but not on issues specific to ICWA compliance or the indigenous children under state care,” the report states.
Additionally, the funding apparatus for tribal child welfare programs and officers hired to ensure ICWA provisions are being followed are cobbled together from different federal agencies and child welfare programs, leading to oversight confusion, the report states. A lack of funding for oversight and implementation is also listed as a limitation to the law in its current form.
The ACLU filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota (Case No.: Civ - 135020JLV) in March 2013 against various South Dakota state officials involved in the removal of Indian children from their homes under state child custody laws.
The suit—filed on behalf of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe—alleges state officials violated the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution along with ICWA provisions routinely, which routinely resulted in the wrongful removal of scores of Lakota children on an annual basis.
Madonna Pappan, a resident of Pennington County and member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, had her two children stripped from her custody in a hearing that lasted less than 60 seconds, according to the complaint. Court officials refused Madonna Pappan and her husband access to the petition filed against them and continue to grapple with the psychological effects the trauma has had on her children.
The Lakota People’s Law Project (LPLP) has been working on foster care issues relative to the Native American children of South Dakota since 2005, partnering with tribes and leaders in South Dakota.
An average of 742 Native American children are removed from their homes in South Dakota on an annual basis, according to the United States Children’s Bureau’s “Child Welfare Outcomes: Reports to Congress.” When controlling for the factor of poverty, South Dakota still ranks third in the nation for the highest number of children taken into custody by the Department of Social Services, according to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform’s “2010 NCCPR Rate of Removal Index.”
While Native American children constitute 13.5 percent of the child population in South Dakota, they comprise 54 percent of the youth foster care population, according to the Child Welfare Outcomes compiled by the Children’s Bureau. South Dakota has allegedly continued to ignore stipulations in ICWA that mandate placement of Native American children in Native American homes, placing about 87 percent of Native children in non-Native homes, according to data provided by the South Dakota DSS to LPLP in an email in 2011.
The ACLU will present the child foster care issue as one of seven major issues that continue to confront the United States as it attempts to comply with the major human rights treaty monitored by the U.N., according to the report.
The other issues include Racial Profiling, Racial Disparities in Sentencing, Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Capital Punishment System, The Right to Vote, Discriminatory Treatment of Guest Workers and Undocumented Workers and Predatory Lending and the Foreclosure Crisis.
“The fact that the ACLU saw fit to include the child foster care crisis affecting the Lakota Nation in South Dakota effectively demonstrates the importance of remedying this egregious situation by allowing the tribes to have authority over their children,” said Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney with LPLP. “The United States can not continue to forward itself on the international stage as an authority on human rights and a bastion of freedom when it has such reprehensible racism festering in its own backyard.”
The United Nations definition of genocide as set forth in Article 2 of the General Assembly Resolution 269, includes the following provision: “forcibly transferring children of one group to another group.”
The Lakota People’s Law Project is also funding several Lakota professionals to work on this campaign, and is launching an on-line petition campaign to pressure the Federal Departments to make the South Dakota tribes a priority for funding allocations.
The Lakota People’s Law Project’s activities have included funding and supporting Native experts to provide technical assistance to the tribes on family and child welfare issues. The project combines public interest law, research, education, and organizing into a unique model for advocacy and social reform.
The Lakota People’s Law Project is sponsored by the non-profit Romero Institute based in Santa Cruz, California. The Institute is named after slain human rights advocate Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. The Institute seeks to identify and dismantle structural sources of injustice and threats to the survival of our human family. See below for a message from Chase Iron Eyes, counsel for the Lakota People's Law Project:
The United Nations will convene the 85th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination from August 11-29, at which the ACLU will present an update on the United States’ compliance issues with human rights provisions as set forth by the U.N.
In a section of the report entitled “Lack of Due Process in American Indian Child Custody Proceedings in South Dakota,” published on July 9, 2014, the ACLU details how statistics relating to the rate at which Lakota children are removed from their families when compared to non-Native counterparts “reflect intentional and unintentional racism, consistent with practices that have been condoned for decades in much of the United States.”
The report further asserts that the Indian Child Welfare Act, passed in 1978 by Congress with the aim of stemming the problems of Indian children being removed from families and extended families within their tribes, has severe limitations. One of these limitations is the lack of a regular and comprehensive review by any federal agency to ensure state compliance with statutory requirements.
“Individual states are already required to report on a variety of measures regarding children in their care, but not on issues specific to ICWA compliance or the indigenous children under state care,” the report states.
Additionally, the funding apparatus for tribal child welfare programs and officers hired to ensure ICWA provisions are being followed are cobbled together from different federal agencies and child welfare programs, leading to oversight confusion, the report states. A lack of funding for oversight and implementation is also listed as a limitation to the law in its current form.
The ACLU filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota (Case No.: Civ - 135020JLV) in March 2013 against various South Dakota state officials involved in the removal of Indian children from their homes under state child custody laws.
The suit—filed on behalf of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Rosebud Sioux Tribe—alleges state officials violated the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution along with ICWA provisions routinely, which routinely resulted in the wrongful removal of scores of Lakota children on an annual basis.
Madonna Pappan, a resident of Pennington County and member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, had her two children stripped from her custody in a hearing that lasted less than 60 seconds, according to the complaint. Court officials refused Madonna Pappan and her husband access to the petition filed against them and continue to grapple with the psychological effects the trauma has had on her children.
The Lakota People’s Law Project (LPLP) has been working on foster care issues relative to the Native American children of South Dakota since 2005, partnering with tribes and leaders in South Dakota.
An average of 742 Native American children are removed from their homes in South Dakota on an annual basis, according to the United States Children’s Bureau’s “Child Welfare Outcomes: Reports to Congress.” When controlling for the factor of poverty, South Dakota still ranks third in the nation for the highest number of children taken into custody by the Department of Social Services, according to the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform’s “2010 NCCPR Rate of Removal Index.”
While Native American children constitute 13.5 percent of the child population in South Dakota, they comprise 54 percent of the youth foster care population, according to the Child Welfare Outcomes compiled by the Children’s Bureau. South Dakota has allegedly continued to ignore stipulations in ICWA that mandate placement of Native American children in Native American homes, placing about 87 percent of Native children in non-Native homes, according to data provided by the South Dakota DSS to LPLP in an email in 2011.
The ACLU will present the child foster care issue as one of seven major issues that continue to confront the United States as it attempts to comply with the major human rights treaty monitored by the U.N., according to the report.
The other issues include Racial Profiling, Racial Disparities in Sentencing, Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Capital Punishment System, The Right to Vote, Discriminatory Treatment of Guest Workers and Undocumented Workers and Predatory Lending and the Foreclosure Crisis.
“The fact that the ACLU saw fit to include the child foster care crisis affecting the Lakota Nation in South Dakota effectively demonstrates the importance of remedying this egregious situation by allowing the tribes to have authority over their children,” said Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney with LPLP. “The United States can not continue to forward itself on the international stage as an authority on human rights and a bastion of freedom when it has such reprehensible racism festering in its own backyard.”
The United Nations definition of genocide as set forth in Article 2 of the General Assembly Resolution 269, includes the following provision: “forcibly transferring children of one group to another group.”
The Lakota People’s Law Project is also funding several Lakota professionals to work on this campaign, and is launching an on-line petition campaign to pressure the Federal Departments to make the South Dakota tribes a priority for funding allocations.
The Lakota People’s Law Project’s activities have included funding and supporting Native experts to provide technical assistance to the tribes on family and child welfare issues. The project combines public interest law, research, education, and organizing into a unique model for advocacy and social reform.
The Lakota People’s Law Project is sponsored by the non-profit Romero Institute based in Santa Cruz, California. The Institute is named after slain human rights advocate Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador. The Institute seeks to identify and dismantle structural sources of injustice and threats to the survival of our human family. See below for a message from Chase Iron Eyes, counsel for the Lakota People's Law Project:
Video of Bring the Lakota Children Home - Chase Iron Eyes
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Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/08/08/un-will-hear-about-lakota-child-foster-care-crisis-156282 WESTERN SHIT CIVILISATION
E3 Harelbeke organisers' long history of cheeky - and 'sexist' - blunders
Organisers of Belgian race make monumental gaffe with latest outrageous promotional poster.
Branded by its detractors as anything from 'tacky' to 'offensive', 'unfunny' to 'sexist', the offending poster shows a gust of wind catching the hem of a podium girl's dress to reveal a derriere clad in a blue pair of knickers emblazoned with the E3 Harelbeke logo.
The final part of the marketing jigsaw comes in the form of a cyclist's be-gloved hand stretching out to pinch the girl's backside - a clear reference to the lamentable actions of Peter Sagan on the Tour of Flanders podium in 2013. "Who will squeeze in Harelbeke?" runs the caption.
It's
a promotional gamble which has seen the organisers receive a fierce
backlash, and now the posters have had to be pulled as a result.
[ORGANISERS FORCED TO PULL 'SEXUALLY INTIMIDATING' POSTER]With Flanders winner Fabian Cancellara being kissed on the cheek by podium girl Maja Leye, Sagan was photographed pinching her bottom while smiling like an excitable school boy. If you don't remember the scene, here's a little reminder...
Well, it turned out that Sagan had a bit of a track history - not just in finishing second, but in treating women like objects (or objects like women, were you to look at things through his eyes or - let's be honest - the eyes of any professional race that still favours the addition of scantily clad ladies to spice things up on the podium).
For just over a week before finishing second to Cancellara in Oudenaarde, Sagan had found himself in exactly the same position on the E3 Harelbeke podium - and was caught on camera making a 'bum patting' gesture towards one of the girls giving Spartacus a hug.
Although
Sagan's antics caused widespread indignation - so much so that the
Slovakian was forced to make a grovelling online video apology for his
wandering hands - the organisers of E3 have clearly thought they could
dig up the demons of a sorry episode everyone hoped was dead and buried.
Sandwiched
between Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders, it's fair to say that
the punchy one-day Belgian classic has a bit of a bum deal when it comes
to its place in the calendar.
But does that give the race the right to make such a monumental gaffe?
It's not as if it's the first time E3 has provoked outrage: over the years its organisers have unashamedly sought to drum up publicity with posters that are clearly designed to irk with a smirk.
In 2011, the race's official poster had a naked women lying suggestively on the grass while black silhouettes of cyclists climbed over her Cat.1 buttocks and up her back towards her shoulders.
In
response to the inevitable criticism, E3 organisers had their tongue
firmly placed in cheek when they came up with their poster for the 2012
edition of the race, which replaced a Page 3-style model with a
66-year-old granny dressed in pink beneath the (not wholly inoffensive)
caption, "Germaine is ready. Who dares wins in Harelbeke?".
Well,
Tom Boonen dared to set up an encounter with Germaine (real name
Paulette Van Neste) and the pair duly came together on the podium amid
guffaws, both real and virtual.A year later, and the organisers had seemed to find the right balance. The 2013 poster showed three kids pedalling over the cobbles on wooden tricycles - one in Boonen's Belgian national champions jersey, one sporting Fabian Cancellara's Leopard-Trek top and the third boasting the rainbow jersey of Philippe Gilbert. The caption: "Winning E3 Harelbeke is no child's play."
Funnily enough, there doesn't seem to be any old tweets kicking around with a copy of this poster - probably because no one was up in arms about its lack of sexism or general creepiness. Even the children don't look like they were either harmed or exploited (although I dare say they got paid less than any of the scantily clad women on E3's books, past or present).
Returning to Sagan and his role in inspiring the latest controversial E3 poster. It could be argued that the former Cannondale rider - who now turns out for that bastion of decency, Oleg Tinkov - inadvertantly did feminism a favour in 2013 by switching the attention on the absurdity of the podium girl's lingering place in modern day cycling.
But the 2015 E3 Harelbeke poster does seem to make light of that, turning back the clock with a snigger, which is probably why so many people find it offensive, dated and crass. Indeed, while E3's other posters are just a bit smutty and suggestive, this one actually seems to advocate an action which, let's not forget, is tantamount to sexual harassment.
Only last year, UCI President Brian Cookson was quick to condemn a seemingly suggestive and revealing Colombian women's team kit, claiming it was "unacceptable by any standards of decency".
Forget that in that case the kit was actually designed by one of the team's female riders; perhaps it's time for Cookson to break his silence and clamp down on such misogyny and sexism from those who organise WorldTour races - however playful. Who knows - we may then even see an E3 Harelbeke women's race one day.
Perhaps
the saddest thing of all was that here we have a week when Chris Froome
and Alberto Contador went head to head for the first time in the
season, with the British rider coming out on top by just two seconds in
an absolutely thrilling battle in Andalusia, and we're talking about a
sexist promotional advert for a race a whole month away, channelling on a
ship that we thought sailed two years ago.
Felix Lowe - @saddleblaze
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