I was growing up in Poland in the height of John Paul II cult. I was raised in atheist family and I was getting some tidbits about my grandfathers brother who was sexually assaulted by a priest.
Today it sounds a little bit silly but that SNL performance was the validation I needed to navigate my environment outside my home.
Now I learned a lot about issues in Catholic Church and I understand this stuff better but I’ll be forever grateful for this small gesture of solidarity. Even if it wasn’t directed at me.
It doesn't sound silly at all to me. I was also raised atheistically, but in a fiercely Catholic family in Ireland. I never saw this at the time, but I knew it happened.
To my shame, I thought she was uncool for years after. I think I picked it up from others at the time (I was in a Catholic primary school).
Ironically, even though it was apparently common knowledge amongst my Catholic country- and family-members, it took years for for me to believe that that kind of systematic abuse could have happened.I have dedicated a part of my resources and efforts to eradicate the Catholic church and other radical religions from my country
As slow as it is, society has been making progress. A lot of things that were unthinkable or unsayable in the 90s are in the open now. The arc of history is long but it bends towards justice.
It’s sad we’re still fighting on the LGBTQ front but in general it’s notable largely because justice is winning and these are the dying spasms of a hate movement that is losing state favor and is having to fight for its survival. They’re fighting because if they don’t then LGBTQ people are generally getting their rights protected and normalized.
Scouts is another example of how much the zeitgeist has turned on overt religiousity and bigotry. Even in the 2000s you couldn’t be an openly gay scoutmaster because what if you fucked a kid? And of course the deep religious pagentry/teaching that’s buried in a lot of the scout materials and routines. Just 15 years later that’s a really bad look.
Anyway there are a few rare people who are ahead of the curve on these issues and usually take a punishment for it, but time often proves them right.
She was right, and the Catholic Church and organized religion in general continue to be a plague on humanity. All the good they’ve done in the past few decades is more than undone by the Mexico City policy alone and the immensely negative impact it’s had on half of our population, along with continued assaults on women’s health, LGBTQ rights, etc. It’s just still tremendously impolite to say it but she’s right, this institution is a negative force on society.
As mentioned elsewhere, not standing/reciting the pledge of allegiance is another thing that was a bit controversial in the 90s but I think has just faded away nowadays. Even at sporting events today it feels a bit over the top and the connection to the hyper-militarized US culture and the pipeline to military recruiting is obvious - not a coincidence that flyovers and uniformed personnel are another common sight at sporting events.
There is nothing “progressive” about apostates raving against the belief system they left behind. It demonstrates a lack of maturity, imo. True progressive thought is constructive and positive. Burning scripture, dipping religious symbols in piss, making porn with performers in religious garb, these are all destructive and negative and never a manifestation of progress, enlightenment, or spiritual progress. There is also nothing courageous for someone performing in front of an SNL audience dumping on the Catholic Church and it’s Papa.
I hope Sinead rests in Salaam. And I’d rather remember her for her God given graces, her beauty, her voice and her support for justice for oppressed, than what was clearly an error (certainly according to Islam, even in its “Sufi” modality) on her part.
This take certainly feels like a perspective only someone entrenched in organized religion could put forward. It is far more courageous, progressive, empowering, and inspirational for a victim of abuse to actively identify and oust their abusers than slump into the type of passivity you advocate for here.
There is inherent destructive energy in pinpointing abuse. It’s destructive because these “belief systems” and more general social structures are amazingly, regularly built on top of that abuse. The abuse is a part of it - they go hand-in-hand. It reproduces the power structure of the system. The more people that know, the more the foundational rot is exposed, the more obvious it becomes that the entire thing needs to be torn down.
“Feels” is accurate. That is merely your personal non-rational response to a position you disagree with. You have no insight into my personal condition whatsoever (and you are entirely off the mark in your feelings).
Sinead (RIP), for example, could have simply recited a line from Jesus regarding what awaits those who harm children (it’s in the Gospels) and held up the picture of the du jour Pope and then list the grievances against that institutions in that regard. Now that would have been a powerful, positive, and progressive, without causing division, and far more effective in causing reflection amongst the faithful of that institutions to do the necessary house cleaning.
The issue here, since it was not clear to you, is the way new understanding, new insights, are to be communicated. The goal remains a Humanity that dwells in harmony and peace after all. Correct?
Since Christianity is topical here, let’s see what we can find in Christian lore to help us understand the way of the superior human being when confronting corruption in religion, clergy, and institutions.
There is a well known incident as related to us in the Hadith of Jesus son of Mary. One day “the morality police” of the Pharisee apparently thought they were being clever in shooting two birds with one stone (pun intended). They went to the quarter where prostitutes worked and dragged a woman caught in the act and brought her before that lovely one. This was to discredit him before the Israelites as his progressive and luminous teachings were indeed a threat to their station of power and prestige and control over the people. Jesus did not tear them a new one using words (even though certainly capable of it) nor did he pick up the stone and throw it at them (even though they certainly deserved it).
No. What he did was silently allude to the poor grasp of the people of the actual Law, and then with a simple statement he not only confronted the Pharisees with their own corruption and sinful nature, but also saved a soul from certain death. To their credit, the Pharisees in question were ‘self-reflective’ enough to get the message and leave in peace.
This is how he was inviting people to a superior understanding without alienating them (!) and at the same time clearly establishing the guilt of the standing church and its priests. In fact, this way was so effective that the Sanhedrin decided that they had to get rid of him, intent on murdering him.
I am deeply saddened by her passing. Her performances always featured powerful vocals driven by equally powerful emotion.
But her version of Pink Floyd's "Mother," performed live in Berlin in 1990 with Roger Waters, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, and Garth Hudson, was Sinead at her most
vulnerable and in my opinion, a full expression of her soul.
Trivia: Those recordings of her are mostly from the dress rehearsal the night before. They had power issues during her live performance and she refused to come back onstage after the show to record another take. So the concert-goers didn't get to hear this version.
I was in Berlin a few days before and attended what was the best concert I ever attended, it was a double header, Sinead and Midnight Oil - it was just her and a tape deck and absolutely brilliant
The first time I heard the song -- and saw the video -- to "Nothing Compares 2 U" and the screen is nothing but her face and at one point there are tears, and she blares that unreal voice, I think I stopped breathing.
> honest question: is the "frisson/goosebumps" thing not called ASMR now?
No, ASMR is a completely separate phenomenon, although the term has since been adapted to refer to a general aural aesthetic, rather than the physiological phenomenon it induces in some people.
The Garden State Arts Center, which always starts its shows by playing the anthem, gave in to the singer's demand, fearing that a last-minute cancellation would enrage the audience of 9,000, but prohibited any future appearances by the hit singer.
The second Iraq war started when I was in junior high, that’s when I stopped standing for the pledge and kept it through high school. There was a big discussion about whether students could be reprimanded, but ultimately I think it was decided that refusal was a form of free speech. I was proud of that, and so were my parents.
There was a Jehovah's Witness in our school. And of course he would not participate, leading some of the other kids to want to beat him up. They only gave up after they were threatened by the school and told by their parents that they have to respect other views. That was long ago, when the US valued civility. These days the parents would probably tell their kids to beat him up. The parents might even show them some moves.
The US is astoundingly good at re-litigating, on a local level, things that were “decided long ago.” Florida has now decided that slavery had some upsides for Black people.
Just because it was decided a long time ago doesn't mean school administrators have stopped being petty authoritarians. The school district I was attending at the time tried to push mandatory recital of the pledge every morning and after pushback (nothing in the courts, unfortunately) settled on the absurd policy that you don't have to recite the pledge, but you need to stand, put your hand on your chest, and pretend to recite the pledge. I wish I'd had the insight at the time to do an end-run around my parents and contact the ACLU about it, but oh well.
> I used to refuse to stand for the pledge of allegiance in high school
I almost never participate in saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I took the constitutionally-prescribed oath* in the Navy (I'm a third-generation veteran) and also as a lawyer, and I pigheadedly feel that society doesn't get to keep demanding more and more proof of my patriotism and fidelity, thank you very much — that way lies trouble, as we've seen happen elsewhere.
* To support and defend the Constitution of the United States
My mother - an Australian citizen - went to school in Texas in the 60s and caused a big stir because she wouldn't recite the Pledge of Allegiance (because why would she? She wasn't American).
exactly, I wasn't an American citizen and had no interest in becoming one so standing for the pledge seemed a little bit too much, although I suspect knowing my anti-authoritarian tendencies I might have refused anyway. But at any rate had to be ready to defend myself anyway.
Saw her live in NYC back in 2005 when she was doing roots reggae.
Sly & Robbie was the rhythm section, with Burning Spear on vocals and percussion. Maybe Mikey Chung on guitar?
I was totally surprised at the combination — this Crazy Baldhead amongst Dreads — but one of the best live shows I've been to. Surrounded by reggae icons, she was a boss on that stage.
That was likely due to her collaborations with both Adrian Sherwood/On-U Sound initially, but she was a long time admirer of roots and dubwise. The caribbean influence in UK/Irish pop culture is much stronger than in the US (other than hip hop).
As a fan of Dub Syndicate, I didn't know they collaborated, thanks for this info.
Before seeing her live, I hadn't know a lot about her besides "Nothing Compares 2 U" and of course the SNL controversy... realizing much later she had sung Bob Marley's "War" while wearing red, gold, and green.
Just now thinking about her performance of "Vampire" that night is giving me goosebumps. She was a real one.
I'm an On-U Sound obsessive to some degree (I'm an acquaintance with one of Adrian's sound engineers, and I've met a few of the lads from Tackhead) but man the guy gets around. Just this year were new albums from Horace Andy, African Head Charge and this week Creation Rebel announced their first album in 30+ years.
The more post-punk reissues (e.g. New Age Steppers) is also right up my alley.
But yes, I got the impression early on that Sinead had more than passing familiarity with roots and dub. It just seemed to be always at least at the edges of every album in one way or another. On "Faith + Courage" it was quite prominent.
Isn’t the stereotype (and possibly reality) that Irish women are full of moxie and maybe or maybe not respected for it depending on who cares?
Like she experienced IRA bombings and you’re saying she’s supposed to be intimidated by reggae artists who smoke weed and practice non-violence and/or intimidated by their fans who do so?
One of the most wild, raw and talented woman that graced the music world. Also astonishing beautiful in her prime. Many women singers popular today would look really dull near her.
She was right also when criticized the pope for not doing enough about the abuses of minors in the catholic church (except basically hiding the abusers).
My choice would be Jump in the River, Fire on Babylon, or the fantastic duet Haunted.
Dave Fanning presented Ireland’s only (non-pirate radio) nightly alternative music show championed her early work and introduced me to songs like Troy and Mandinka back in the late 80s. Even though I was a teenage metal-head at the time, I could recognise the raw power and emotion of her music.
If anyone hasn’t seen it, I’d recommend watching Nothing Compares¹, an Irish documentary about her early life up until the early 90s that only came out last year. I was delighted to see it come out and provide some counter-balance to the mainstream narrative. It was also good to see her musical legacy be recognised by being awarded the first ever Choice Music Prize for Irish Classic Album² earlier this year.
This hit me hard. The first of her songs I ever knew, and still my favorite, was "Troy" and I was just thinking of it this morning. Then an hour later someone tweeted that she had died. Probably going to be sad all day.
In the Netherlands this was her most well know song. I was teenager when Troy was a hit on the radio, the video was intriguing. It hits me too, I feel respect for her, though I sometimes had doubts about some ideas she put forward.
The perfect embodiment of that pithy phrase "true rebels walk alone". What a hard life, but what an amazing example of not compromising on your principles. Few people have that kind of strength.
To stand in the full blast of a crowd that hates you with that amount of poise, and have a voice that is still capable of song or even coherent speech, just beggars my imagination.
i hope you have found peace. you were a voice crying out in the wilderness and we did to you what we always do to that.
Wow! The thing that surprised me most about this was it’s a Bob Dylan tribute concert? I’m shocked religion still had such a hold on the kind of people attending that type of concert at that point in time. The volume is insane. Incredible strength to be able to stand and take such abuse and continue to perform.
I think it speaks less to people's religious feelings and more towards the rather apolitical and apathetic alternative music culture at the time. If I recall the atmosphere at the time it was less "how dare she say that about the Pope?!" and more "how dare she co-opt the public stage for controversial/'political' speech?!" I also don't recall the outrage at her SNL performance even being particularly or especially by Catholics in particular, though I'm sure it was stronger among them.
The rage around her Pope-photo-tearing photo on SNL I think was about: we're trying to sell/watching a entertainment products here, and now you've just gone and made things intense. They just wanted the dancing bear.
She was an intense personality, an artist, not an entertainer. Maybe getting a billboard #1 single and becoming a sensation was the worst thing that could have happened for her. People just wanted to be entertained -- they wanted the fantastic voice but without the powerful emotions and convictions behind it -- and she didn't want to be a 'product'
I agree it's especially jarring in the context of a Bob Dylan tribute.
> Maybe getting a billboard #1 single and becoming a sensation was the worst thing that could have happened for her.
She said as much herself in her recent memoir: “I feel that having a No. 1 record derailed my career, and my tearing the photo put me back on the right track.”
It's also important to remember how different that era of broadcast TV is from today though. It was far more centralized. Pre-streaming services, obviously, but also less penetration of cable and satellite TV, and so when something made it onto live broadcast television, there was a large audience, and they didn't have as many choices about what to watch, instead.
So to get yourself onto live television in a popular spot, and do what she did was ballsy, and obviously clearly intended to make impact... but you can also see how people who tuned in expecting one thing and got something else could get angry. Which was of course her intent.
> we're trying to sell/watching a entertainment products here, and now you've just gone and made things intense
I know the enlightened viewpoint is that tearing up the pope's photo was brave and progressive, that Sinead was ahead of her time in recognizing the faults of the Catholic church -- but yes, exactly, she absolutely failed to "read the room."
SNL in the early 90s was one of the best eras, but it was also one of its silliest. Hans and Franz, Wayne's World, Farley, Sandler, Spade. There was absolutely no way, at that time, any kind of serious mid-show protest would gain positive attention. She screwed up, no way around it.
I don't claim she wanted positive attention to her music, to sell more records or anything. Likely the opposite, who knows. But when people protest, they do so to bring attention to some cause, that's the point of the protest. As she tore the photo, Sinead said into the mic on live television "fight the real enemy," referring to the church. But it totally backfired, instead of taking her claims seriously, the majority of Catholics rallied behind the church and the very popular pope, and any investigation into the darkside of the church was likely delayed for a decade or more.
> But it totally backfired ... and any investigation into the darkside of the church was likely delayed for a decade or more.
That is completely debunked by the facts and a very bonkers statement. It provided survivors with a sympathetic voice that helped many of them come forward, especially in Ireland. Please get your facts in order before making such an egregious statement.
The audience are terrible, but as a child I would have taken part in that. We identified as a group, with a set of beliefs our parents had chosen for us, and thought anyone that attacked our leader was attacking us.
Years later I grew up and apologised to Sinead O Connor on Twitter for thinking this way. But a lot of people never did grow up, not just Catholics but also people from other conservative religions. People still feel religious ideas are somehow innate, and therefore the criticising religious ideas is wrong. But no idea is innate, people can and do leave and join every religion and every set of spiritual beliefs all the time, so no idea is beyond criticism. A crowd of people booing Sinead O Connor 30 years ago is very similar to people attacking Charlie Hebdo in 2015 and sadly people still make excuses for both.
Similarities: In both cases, people are offended that their religious sensibilities were hurt, and many of them want to lash out angrily against those who offended them. Some of them say that no one should have the right to offend them this way. Some of them try to find a way to retaliate against those who offended them.
Differences: In one case, a dozen people are murdered; in the other case, not.
What I mean is you're taking the smaller thing, the partial similarity in motivation, and making that the main thing. The biggest thing is the immense difference in terms of modality.
In the same way we don't equate people being shouted down in a government house debate with people being mown down in political violence, even though there is a superficial similarity in underlying reason.
I agree with you, and I thought that making the similarities and differences explicit would show that the differences are starker and more significant overall.
The irony of this moment was the song she was about to perform was "I Believe in You". This would have been the most religious song sung that evening by far.
It was brilliant on her part to separate the failed human organization from her beliefs.
This is what happens when you simply shout someone down. You miss the opportunity to better understand them.
The thing about Sinéad is that she was, right until the end, a strong believer in one god and if anything more of a critic of the church due to their betrayal of religious/spiritual/moral principles as hierarchical institutions, rather than their promotion of theistic beliefs.
She always considered herself a theologian, she said at the time of the pope: "Why do we need a pope? Christ doesn't need a representative".
She also later said of converting/"reverting" to Islam:
"The reason why I like Islam is, I can keep Christianity and Judaism, which are two religions which I loved and studied.."
While her speaking out against the church would have resonated with many atheists and agnostics at the time, and even more with today's less religiously dominated Western society - it certainly resonates with me for this reason - I think her own perspective was a little different.
When her debut record came out, "Mandinka" was a staple on college radio, but that album barely got into the radio overall. I never really liked "Nothing Compares 2 U" but really loved quite a lot of that sophomore record otherwise.
Besides her debut, her album "Faith and Courage" is still a major highlight.
She was a tortured soul that could transcend herself through amazing talent, but she suffered throughout her life; this was compounded by being a public figure with very little fear and no compunction of speaking her mind. She is finally at peace, however sad it may be to hear.
Announcing her conversion, she said, "This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian's journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant."
That sort of phrasing is almost to be expected, no? This might just be a cynical atheist's interpretation of Abrahamic religions, but Islam seems to be loosely doing the same thing to Christianity that Christianity did to Judaism, i.e. it purports to be the next theological evolution and therefore all practioniers of {current_religion} should rationally convert and download the latest religious firmware.
I was going to make a joke about how it's a shame they stopped inventing Abrahamic religions, but then I remembered the Mormons! I would like to suggest that Mormonism is the true natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian's journey. At least until someone creates a new Abrahamic religion to succeed it.
> I would like to suggest that Mormonism is the true natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian's journey. At least until someone creates a new Abrahamic religion to succeed it.
Both the Bahai and Rastafari are newer Abrahamic faiths than Mormonism; also, to the extent that Mormonism post-dates but does not build on Islam, it would not succeed it in a framework where building on the previous “conclusion” makes you the new one, so either the Rastafari by novelty or the Druze (or maybe Bahai, because I think they build, non-exclusively, on the Druze) by building on Islam have a better claim in the proposed framework than the Mormons to be the current “conclusion” if one assumes that Islam, by building on prior Abrahamic faiths, was at one point the “conclusion”.
I'm not sure I'd agree, depending on if the intelligent theologian needs to have decent literary taste - the Book of Mormon is an annoying slog.
But as for a new one, given the central premise of the Book of Mormon it is obvious that Jesus must also have appeared and preached to the aborigines in Australia shortly after his death to give them the chance of salvation as well. Perhaps a psychedelic novella about Jesus and the Dreamtime.
> This might just be a cynical atheist's interpretation of Abrahamic religions
There is only one abrahamic religion - judaism. Judaism confers eternal salvation and israel to the descendants of abraham. People forget that judaism is an ethnicity first and religion second. Hence why you can be an atheist jew. The convenant between god and abraham and his descendant is what makes a religion abrahamic.
'On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates...' Genesis 15.
Christianity is a non-abrahamic religion as the covenant is between christ and all of humanity. Hence why anyone can become a christian. Similarly with islam as anyone can become a muslim.
No. I'm correct. From your link: 'The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions centered around the worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch,[1][2] is extensively mentioned throughout the Abrahamic religious scriptures of the Quran, and the Hebrew and Christian Bibles.'
As I said, only judaism worships the god of abraham. As I showed, the god of abraham said ONLY the descendants of abraham are his 'chosen people' and hence only the descendants of abraham are able to attain salvation.
Christians worship the god of christ, not the god of abraham because the god of christ allows non-descendants of abraham ( 99.999% of all christians around the world ) to be saved. The same logic applies to islam.
In other words, if christians worship the god of abraham, then it would mean christians believe they are going to hell while jews go to heaven. Does that sound like christianity to you? I grew up christian and that doesn't sound like the christianity I grew up with. Christians believe jews forsaked god and jews are destined for hell. That's why god sent christ to form a new convenant with all humanity. Hence the new testament vs the old testament.
The abrahamic religion nonsense is a political creation like judeo-christian. It's self-contradictory nonsense invented purely to advance a political agenda.
> It's self-contradictory nonsense invented purely to advance a political agenda.
No, it's not. It's meant to describe three major modern religions with common roots in the ancient near east. These religions have much in common both historically and theologically. The relationship is similar to that of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.
Yes it is. It's a modern invention created for political reasons.
> It's meant to describe three major modern religions with common roots in the ancient near east.
Then why not call it Adamic religions. All three religions begin with adam. That's a better description than abrahamic as abrahamic religion only describes judaism. As I clearly explained. Judaism fundamentally starts with abraham because god formed the first convenant with abraham establishing a jewish people. Abraham doesn't matter at all to christianity as christ negates the covenant between god and abraham.
> These religions have much in common both historically and theologically.
Are you kidding me? Christians and Jews have been attacking each other for thousands of years. Not only are they not common historically and theologically, they directly contradict each other. Judaism believes that jesus is a false prophet rotting in 'hell'. Christianity believes Jesus is God. Judaism believes worshipping christ is a form of idolatry ( one of the worst crimes ). Christians believes in the deification of christ. Judaism allows for usury to gentiles. Christianity is against all usury. Judaism believes in 'an eye for an eye'. Christianity believes in 'turn the other cheek'. Judaism believes god ordains their king ( no separation of church and state ). Christianity believes in 'render unto caesar what is caesar's and render onto god what is god's'.
'Historically, some Jewish writers and scholars have considered Jesus as the most damaging "false prophet"'
Judaism has historically believed Jesus as the worst thing to have ever happened in history. Christianity believes Jesus to be the best thing to have ever happened. What commonality? Just because christian bibles include the old testament with the new testament? Many christian bibles only contain the new testament.
If these religions had anything fundamentally in common, we'd only have one religion. Judaism and christianity theologically contradict each other.
While I provide detailed answers describing biblical and historical facts, all my detractors do is reply with petty nonsense like 'theologicians disagree'. Who cares?
> The relationship is similar to that of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.
No it is not. Those religions are actually related to each other but nobody calls them 'buddhaic religions' as it would not be an apt description of those three religions. As I said, there is only one abrahamic religion - judaism.
I'm not going to argue with you. You can choose to believe that you're correct but your definition does not align with the established definition of the term. I'm not even religious so I don't have a horse in this race.
She lost her son of 17 years only 5 months ago. With no additional details, I know where my mind goes.
Edit: whatever article I read said 5 months ago, but that appears to have been written some time ago. Plenty of articles stating that Shane died in Jan/2022:
> I’ve decided to follow my son. There is no point living without him. Everything I touch, I ruin. I only stayed for him. And now he’s gone,” she wrote on an unverified Twitter account linked to her official account.
> Shane died in January 2022. A week later, following a series of tweets in which she indicated that she was going to kill herself, O'Connor was hospitalised.
She's announced she was going to do it before and to be fair she's always had more than her fair share of mental troubles, sadly. As someone who is also cursed with those I know how hard that can be and I didn't even lose a child.
Withholding the cause is what leads to speculation and I don't think it's a bad guess in this case.
Personally I think it's better if they just announced it because believe it or not something like this can also lead to good things. Because it can make people think, realise these things happen and notice the signs in people around them.
And say what you want about her, but nobody ever said she was one for wavering. In everything she did she committed to and knew all about owning consequences.
If she was suicidal, and she had the track record, she was well able to have follow through on this also.
Whatever you believe, just for her sake, I genuinely hope she's now reunited with her son to get some peace.
There would have been no speculation if the family had stated an uncontroversial cause of death. Instead they "requested privacy", which means it was likely something people would have judged her for.
She'll be missed. As a youngster growing up in Ireland she not only gave a voice to all of us who wanted to reject the influence of the church, which had only become more entrenched throughout the conflict, but also to the women of this island who had been previously silenced for centuries.
If anyone is interested more in feminist voices from the conflict in Ireland I can highly recommend the 1981 film Maeve. The idea of women being a "third side" in the whole conflict who had never been given voice was incredibly eye opening to me as a man moving into my 30s and changed my perspective not only on Irish history but entire history of Europe and the Middle East.
Anything covering Magdalene laundries or other catholic institutions in Ireland are pretty relevant too. She did spend a bunch of her childhood in one.
What a legend. It's hard to overstate how much pushback and shit was thrown at her when she ripped up a picture of the Pope on SNL in 1992 to protest church child abuse. It's also hard to overstate how incredibly prescient and correct she was in her outrage. Catholic church child sex abuse didn't really enter the national debate until a decade later.
I always had immense respect for her decision to shave her head when told by music execs to "sex it up." She was gorgeous but she was a singer. She wanted to be hired for her singing.
Being a pretty young woman shouldn't be such a ridiculous hardship. And I kind of wonder how much that radicalized her and how that factors into her conversion to Islam.
And tragically, I don't remember this ever being reported in the US at the time.
She was largely portrayed as a vapid attention-seeker and it was as if the head-shaving was just like... one of her "wild and crazy" acts.
Now, this was the mid-80s. Media was so much more centralized. I was a kid, and all you really had was the news bites that were served to you.
Theoretically some enterprising kid/person could have really researched her, but out of the zillions of things I could have been doing at the time I wasn't aware of any reason to think more deeply about her.
As an adult I did so and man, that was a strong woman. The "You're Wrong About" episode about her is a wonderful place to start.
And, yet, some guy on some talk show said about her something like "It's kind of arrogant. If she didn't look like Audrey Hepburn, she wouldn't have done it (shaved her head). It's a form of bragging: Look how beautiful I am!"
It’s interesting, I remember people mildly freaking out about it as well. But I also remembered them freaking out even more about the bald lady in Star Trek TMP in 1980.
As a kid each event was a bit startling for a moment and then I got used to the idea quickly. I learned at a young age that old people freaked out a lot about things that didn’t matter. Coincidentally it was also the era of Boy George, Motley Crue, and endless things for parents to have fits about.
By the time SOC took off I could hardly bother to be bothered about her hair.
It was reported, but... it was the 80s. Essentially, nothing was on-demand. If something was reported but you didn't catch the news that day... you missed it.
Perhaps that was her reasoning, but it turned out to be a highly marketable look which would not have worked for someone without such a beautiful, feminine facial structure.
What I respect her for is having the balls to make a political statement about Catholic child abuse when the topic was far, far outside the Overton window. That was a career sacrifice, and years later she turned out to be right.
I'd discovered MacColl hearing a song of hers on a college radio station whilst road-tripping, and promptly failed to correctly remember the lyrics for years. Eventually got them right ("England Two, Columbia Nil"), and found the artist ... only to learn she'd died, likely shortly before I'd heard that song.
Then discovered I'd known her all along through the Pogue's "Fairytale of New York", a/k/a The Only Honest Christmas Carol Evar, which I'd first heard well over a decade earlier.
If you're a Simple Minds fan, Sinead sang a very moving verse or two with Jim Kerr in a rendition of Belfast Child at the Night of the Proms (Antwerp, Belgium, 2008):
I'm not a big fan of the whole, "you couldn't do that today", but you sure couldn't do that today. I think you weren't supposed to do it then either which made it subversive comedy.
>That's just because the mores of society have changed.
And the huge amounts of research that shined the light on the Catholic church's culture of preying and assaulting children and then covering it up.
It took quite a heroic effort to bring the Catholic church's crimes to light and she was speaking about something the media wasn't comfortable or willing to report on.
It's not hard to understand. I remember when it happened, and I remember thinking "publicity stunt". I wouldn't hold that against her--that's show business. Sometimes you eat the nipple and sometimes the nipple eats you.
It's hard not to laugh whenever people talk about "cancel culture" being a new phenomenon. The amount of hate she received for merely bringing up the horrible actions the catholic church committed was absurd.
Virtually everyone who complains about it. The complains are almost always about how sensitive people are today, how blazing saddles couldn't be made today or whatever non-sense they use to rage farm. Its almost always framed as a today problem.
When you look at historic examples of cancel culture its almost absurd at how tame their offenses were. Dixie Chicks are another example that come to mind where critical but not controversial statements are made and it ruined people's careers.
McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s.
Untold Black American artists, authors, and creatives who fled to Europe: Nina Simone, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, Augusta Savage, Romare Bearden, Jessie Fauset, and Richard Wright just off the top of my head.
The problem they have, of course, is not that cancel culture exists. It's that the center of force of "cancellation" went from the right to the left. The thing they used to great effect against queer people, anti-religious people, etc, is now being directed at them. It sucks being on the other side.
I personally think that things are too "hot" right now, but nobody should pretend this is a modern problem.
Fwiw I think of cancel culture as a concern when it happens to the everyday professor, presenter and so on. But you are correct, product and celebrity protests for cultural statements are nothing new.
Even if you strongly agree with her criticism of the pope, the way that she expressed that criticism -- by deceiving everyone on SNL to pull off her stunt -- certainly branded her as a loose cannon in the industry. Unpredictability might entertain audiences, but it's a huge liability from an entertainment industry perspective.
And arguably, her antics greatly overshadowed the message she was trying to get across. How many people even realized what she was criticizing? So it ended up pissing off a lot of people without actually being effective in drawing attention to the issue she wanted to raise awareness toward.
Elvis Costello lied to SNL as well, and then produced one of the best musical performances on that show, _ever_.
Elvis was protesting corporate control and homogeneity. Sinead was protesting institutions that enabled evil. Who cares if some suits were made uncomfortable.
In 1977: "The ultimate act of punk defiance that got Elvis Costello banned from 'Saturday Night Live'"
Costello, his label and the show’s producers, had agreed prior to the show that they would perform their catchy single ‘Less Than Zero’, a track which was written about disgraced British politician Oswald Mosley who, at the time, was the former leader of the British Union of Fascists. However, as the lights of the famous studio glared down upon him, Costello wouldn’t miss his opportunity. While it certainly was considered the band’s biggest opportunity commercial to date, Costello put a stop to the performance mid-intro, yelling: “Stop! Stop!” in the direction of his band. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” he said before adding: “But there’s no reason to do this song here”.
Instead, Costello and his band rolled into a performance of the song ‘Radio Radio’ which, controversially, includes lyrics that criticised the commercialisation of the airwaves in both television and radio as well as pointed the finger at corporate-controlled broadcasting. Costello had certainly made his statement clear and in the middle of one of the most hostile environments....
I remember reading an article in which Costello was evidently offended by some of the comedians being jerks - Bill Murray figures in - but reading this https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/elvis-costello-recalls-... it seems more like 'protesting corporate control' as you wrote.
Your HN account is probably older than many of those kids the church covered up the abuse of. But sure, she's the asshole for making you think about it.
Arguably her protest was the pebble that started the avalanche of investigations of the catholic church that resulted in abuses coming to light and the Pope apologizing in 2005.
The 27 Club is an informal list consisting mostly of popular musicians, artists, actors, and other celebrities who died at age 27.
Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all died at the age of 27 between 1969 and 1971. At the time, the coincidence gave rise to some comment, but it was not until Kurt Cobain's 1994 suicide, at age 27, that the idea of a "27 Club" began to catch on in public perception.
"the poor woman's fit of pique" -- are you defending the Catholic church's history of rampant child abuse, or do you think there is perhaps a less dismissive and condescending way to phrase this?
She wasn't complaining about child abuse (by anyone) onstage at SNL.
She ripped up a photo of a pope, who...hadn't abused any children. It was a cheap and safe provocation, and she got the response she wanted.
The existence of valid and necessary criticisms of Church conduct doesn't oblige me or anyone to match each of them to some dinky justification for (in this case) performative juvenile attention-seeking.
I could be less condescending and dismissive, but that would require me to pretend that a pretty basic taunt was some kind of deep commmentary. IOW, taking the piss.
Covering for whom? He didn't believe the accusations against McCarrick, and Bernard Law was never charged criminally for enabling Geoghan (though he should've been).
I know a single abused child is a child too much, but the bad reputation the Church gets is excessive. They probably have a better track record than any other institution.
> The Catholic Church has 100x less abuse than public schools, and yet schools don't have this negative reputation...the bad reputation the Church gets is excessive. They probably have a better track record than any other institution.
When children are exposed to Catholic churches for the same amount of time that they are exposed to the public school system and in equal numbers, and when some central authority of the public school system starts actively hiding any evidence of known sexual abuse from authorities and the public, and once the public school system starts silencing victims with threats or hush money, and after the public school system spends decade after decade quietly relocating known child-abusing teachers to new schools, one after another after another, so that the pedo will have a constant supply of new child victims every few years then I might agree that public schools deserve the same horrible reputation that the Catholic Church has more than earned for itself.
Until then, maybe you can stop pretending that the situation at public schools and the situation with Catholic churches are even remotely the same thing and that "any other institution is probably worse". There is no evidence to support that theory of yours, no matter how much you might wish it were true.
Downplaying the evils of the Catholic Church doesn't help their victims, and doesn't help the church either. You have to be able to look clearly at something broken if you want to be able to fix it. Pretending that the problem isn't that bad is the behavior of an enabler.
right I remember seeing that Joe Pesci thing and thinking man, I'd like to kick that guy's ass, but I guess that's almost as wrong as him saying he'd like to physically assault a woman on TV to applause.
I always liked the way she sang "I'll Tell Me Ma." Most versions I've heard are upbeat. Hers sounded like she was an onlooker, not a participant - the kid no one would play with.
I thought it a bit odd the link below[1] appeared on the front page of Reddit a fortnight ago. The news today reported she had also lost her son a short while ago. Perhaps someone knew something was up. I liked her song, nothing compares to you, fantastic voice.
on Twitter in November 2018. She wrote: "What I'm about to say is something so racist I never thought my soul could ever feel it. But truly I never wanna spend time with white people again (if that's what non-muslims are called). Not for one moment, for any reason. They are disgusting."
> Later that month, O'Connor stated that her remarks were made in an attempt to force Twitter to close down her account.[99] In September 2019, she apologised for the remarks, saying "They were not true at the time and they are not true now. I was triggered as a result of Islamophobia dumped on me. I apologize for hurt caused. That was one of many crazy tweets lord knows."
It's a shitty thing to write but she's also someone who had very openly struggled with poor mental health for basically all of her life. I've a hard time holding something as thoughtless - in a very literal sense - as that against her.
Sorry to hear this. Recently watched a video interview with her, wearing a hijab, she'd moved into Islam, said she was wearing it though she didn't have to (age), and then that she was mostly into Sufism. (2:05 of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je8Mh7Bc2hI
I have known about her since Nothing Compares 2 U, but not known that much else about her career since then. I thought she was kind of a one hit wonder, as talented as she were she never got another hit close to as successful as that one. Do you think this is an unfair description?
Her goal was not to collect hits, and the one was a fluke that surprised everyone involved. Up to each person to decide how important that is to them, I suppose.
Can you please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar? You've been doing it repeatedly lately, unfortunately, and we're trying for something different here.
I realize that the GP could be interpreted as a provocation in that direction but it doesn't have to be taken that way or responded to in this way.
There are a number of flagged comments which don't deserve it. And as long as there is no outlet for objecting to poor flagging decisions, I'll use the comments section to call attention to it.
If we are going to have a discussion about a performer unafraid of controversy and who struggled with mental and spiritual concerns publicly, a robust conversation should be allowed.
The flagged comments I'm aware of are either taking the thread into flamewar, and/or on generic tangents. Those are correct uses of flags. If there's something I've missed about this, I'm happy to take a look, but I'd need a specific link.
"Robust" can mean a lot of things. HN's intended purpose is curious conversation. If we allow the predictably-outraged type of thread here, it will quickly take over discussion of most stories. If that happens, it will quickly destroy the forum. This is not a small risk—it's the biggest one. It would be foolish not to take it seriously, and we work hard to prevent it.
Ironically, that sometimes leads to the perception that the forum is fine, so why not allow a few robust fires to burn here and there? The answer is that the forum is not fine. It's at constant risk of burning to a crisp [1], and our primary responsibility is to stave that off [2], to the extent that we can.
That said, if there's truly high-quality conversation going on in any of these flagged subthreads, I'd like to see it. My experience in general is that flamewar doesn't go along with high-quality conversation at all. It's extremely exciting, of course—but from an intellectual-curiosity point of view, inert and boring, as anything predictable is [3].
My comment was flagged, even though I was trying to provide context to explain why she experienced such a strong reaction to her SNL stunt. The parent comment and many supportive sibling comments remain unflagged, which leaves the impression that I was downvoted and flagged simply because people didn't like a more critical viewpoint, not because the comment lacked substance or was intended to inflame.
Unfortunately there are some topics that would be genuinely interesting to discuss, but which the HN community just doesn't handle well.
IMHO the best approach is to just try to spot those threads early, and maybe find other forums to discuss them [1].
[1] Finding suitable forums is left as an exercise to the reader. Maybe it requires in-person discussion with people who will assume each other's best intentions.
As always, know I understand the work you do and that a healthy online community requires a heavy hand sometimes.
I suppose my argument is that there is more room for personal criticisms, negatives comments and unsubstantiated opinion in a thread discussing a public figure's life than a more technical/abstract topic.
Thanks for the kind reply. We're not trying to shut down those things—only the predictable/indignant/flamey stuff. Is there a flagged post that you think is the former but not the latter?
RIP. She was an incredible women, with an astounding musical talent. Always bold and outspoken, her live shredding of the Pope's photo to protest the immorality of the Catholic church was both beautiful and iconic. It's a shame she turned to Islam in her later years, but she was clearly a troubled soul. I hope her passing was peaceful.
I remember being outraged at her tearing up John Paul II’s picture. The media in the U.S. did a great job of hiding why she did it. I was not outraged at her when I found out her justified reasons for doing so. That was the first time I became consciously aware that news is a business and that that business thrives when it generates outrage. I no longer fall victim to this.
She’s far more the saint than that bastard John Paul II.
EDIT: Ironic this is flagged. I’m proud of this actually. I feel a slight kinship with Sinead now. In honor of her death would that we all, in our own way, tear to shreds the image of John Paul II!
You started a religious flamewar and then poured fuel into it in multiple places. That's why your comment is flagged. Please don't post like that here.
Your comment was just fine in the first paragraph and broke the site guidelines with the second paragraph—not because we care what you think about popes, but because such swipes predictably lead to internet dreckfests and we're simply trying to have a forum that doesn't suck. At least to the extent possible.
I’ve been on this site since the beginning. I change usernames periodically. I understand the desire to avoid flame wars.
Here’s a sincere question. If I called Charles Manson a bastard would that be flamebait? Are we at the point that calling out the objectively verified despicable acts of a person is flamebait?
It wasn’t a swipe at the man. Sinead suffered a lot for ripping his image apart. She has died now. It is appropriate to point out she did not deserve the reaction and that the protector of her abusers did deserve to have his image shredded.
It’s always ok to call out those who abuse or protect abusers. I care not that my post got flagged. I’m glad of it. I feel a tiny bit like Sinead. Even after all that is known about John Paul 2 people still can’t face reality about the man.
We obviously don’t agree. I’ll stop posting about this and just read all responses.
"That bastard John Paul II" was obvious flamebait—of course it was a swipe. You're broadcasting to thousands of people when you post here. Did you really think some people wouldn't react? Is it a high-quality conversation about Sinead O'Connor to have people yell at each other about popes?
> It’s always ok to call out those who abuse or protect abusers. I care not that my post got flagged. I’m glad of it. I feel a tiny bit like Sinead
We're trying to avoid online callout/shaming culture on this site. It reliably leads to poor-quality discussion. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&type=comment&dateRange=a... Generally, the state of high indignation (and its correlate, high moral justification) isn't congruent with the intended spirit of conversation here.
It's one thing I hate about this site. You can't tell "the truth as you know it," and instead have to pretend to be "curious." I'm generally curious, so it's not a difficult requirement most days.
Well, guess what? Some things are actually bad-and it's obvious—and we are experienced enough to know it. Child abuse would fall into that category. After confirmation, no "curiosity" is needed in that instance.
(I understand the angle about conversation deteriorating quickly, and am still here, right? But damn I hate it when we can't state obvious truth because it is not "polite." )
This type of trolley-problem questioning doesn't work for getting a clearer picture of HN moderation. HN is not a letter-of-the-law kind of place. There's no comprehensive doctrine covering all cases, and it would be foolish of us to try to make one.
Calling Hitler a bastard here is online callout/shaming culture. It's a swipe against Hitler's character. It's not curious discussion to discuss Hitler that way.
Not to mention that only a few short decades ago homosexuals had to meticulously hide their sexuality and any of their relationships for fear of getting fired simply because of who they were (and, before that, imprisoned!). And countless other examples. Anyone who believes "cancel culture" is a recent development is breathtakingly ignorant.
That's a fair point. There's arguably an inflection point where media became "mass" media that's hard to pin down but somewhere in the late 1980's-early 1990's where 24 hour news and the internet were in their infancy. I'm sure there's a smart thesis here that a media expert could make ;)
As a child, I thought the Pope and the church helped poor people and practiced showing people how to be good to each other by following the ten commandments. When Sinead O Connor ripped up the picture of the Pope on SNL I remember asking why.
Someone said the reason was because she was crazy. They were lying to me.
Sinead O'Connor was drawing attention to child sexual abuse when nobody else was.
> She’s far more the saint than that bastard John Paul II.
I don't know about JP2's involvement in child sexual abuse (not doubting you, just saying I don't know *) but Ratzinger / Benedict absolutely deliberately prevented investigation into, and facilitated (by moving rapist priests into new parishes), child sexual abuse.
Years later I apologized to O'Connor on Twitter and she took it with grace.
* Update: some research showed the Vatican, under JP2, opposed extensions of the statutes of limitations in sex abuse cases.
Ratzinger / Benedict absolutely deliberately prevented investigation into, and facilitated (by moving rapist priests into new parishes), child sexual abuse.
Dan I don't think that comment was designed to be religious flamebait. It may seem like sectarianism if you're not Catholic so I understand feeling this way, but the people who are the most angry about Catholic priests raping children are people that grew up Catholic like myself.
Ie, this isn't attacking anyone on the basis of their religion.
I'd probably say the comment could be improved by adding a link to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Pope_John_Paul_II instead of 'that bastard' but criticism of people that facilitate child abuse is quite reasonable and very separate from attacking members of a particular religion.
That’s the reason I called it out as respectfully as I could. I was hoping OP would edit the comment given the rest of it is valid and gets the same point across.
I don't know what "vibes" means but it's not a concept that enters my mind while moderating this place. If you want to understand the real principle by which we moderate HN, something like "prioritize curiosity over indignation" would be closer to the mark.
> actual real child sexual abuse is a much bigger problem
Of course. It's far more important than anything that goes on on an internet message board like HN. But you might be under a misconception of what HN is for, if you think we should let it be inundated by high-indignation, high-repetition threads about the most important things in the world. That would make it something like a current affairs or general news site, which is not the game we're trying to play here. In fact it's the main game we're trying not to play, as the guidelines try to make clear: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Those comments are from 12 days ago and there's a simple reason why they weren't moderated at the time: we didn't see them. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
In honor of Sinead’s death it seems appropriate to tear to shreds the image of John Paul II. You are on the wrong side, morally speaking, in this Dang.
It's simply the practical question of what type of site HN is trying to be. We want curious conversation, not people bashing each other, which is what flamebait leads to.
Commenters who get too sure of their moral positions tend to do a lot of this. I'm not saying the moral positions are wrong (I probably agree a lot of the time, certainly Sinead did a courageous thing, etc. etc.). But the quality of discussion this leads to is predictably poor, evokes worse from others, and tends to go straight to the bottom of the internet barrel. We're trying to not get sucked completely into that muck here—a difficult task to even partly achieve, so we need everyone's help.
I mostly like the moderation on this site, but I think you're missing the mark on this one.
The man - and the institution - facilitated and covered up the abuse and rape of countless children. Calling him a bastard seems pretty small potatoes for you to start clutching your pearls over.
One has to distinguish the importance of a topic from the quality of internet conversation about it. We moderate for the latter, not the former. Most important topics, including most atrocities, don't make HN's front page, and most things that do make the front page are neither important nor an atrocity.
People tend to respond to activating topics with intense pre-existing feelings. That's understandable—I'm not criticizing it and it would be futile to try to change it. But it does not make for curious conversation, which is what HN is for: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Curious conversation is about learning new things, changing one's orientation, and so on. That's one reason why the best HN threads tend to have a whimsical aspect—when a topic isn't high-stakes and one doesn't have a pre-existing position about it, curiosity is the natural state. Not so much otherwise.
I think his last sentence doesn't go far enough - I'm not sure how far I'd need to go to describe someone who covered up systemic child abuse on a global scale
Same in Ireland, some high profile cases were prosecuted- but not the majority, and nothing happened the nuns - especially the evil that ran the mother and baby homes. 300+ babies discarded in a septic tank.
Thank you. No mention of prosecutions in that article. Perhaps many of the people who were in charge are no longer alive, but perhaps some still there. There's no mention of it that I see.
Today it sounds a little bit silly but that SNL performance was the validation I needed to navigate my environment outside my home.
Now I learned a lot about issues in Catholic Church and I understand this stuff better but I’ll be forever grateful for this small gesture of solidarity. Even if it wasn’t directed at me.