French youth faces court for illegal drone flight A French youth who used a drone to capture impressive aerial footage of the city of Nancy is facing an appearance before the beak on a charge of "endangering the lives of others". Nans Thomas, 18, strapped a GoPro camera to an unspecified vehicle* he bought on the internet to produce a noteworthy video, which quickly became …
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This post has been deleted by its author
@Symon, I take your point, and PC'ness has helped move us away from those generic derogatory terms that were so prevalent.
However, when is enough enough? I agree that people should be educated as to the harm using such terms can have so that if they do use them, you know that they are projecting a personality flaw of their own (as opposed to just repeating what their forebears said in ignorance).
What I object to is the way in which it has become a form of self censorship of language, which in turn is a form of mind control.
I do believe that people have the right not to be persecuted because of their creed/colour/sexual orientation etc., especially when it is aimed at a person based on a stereo-type. However I don't believe people should have the right to not be offended by someone else's views.
Just as an example, if I thought someone was an arsehole and told them so I think that is fair enough. It's based on my personal experience of that person and not on a negative stereo-type. However, if they were black, or gay or whatever, then saying that they were a 'black arsehole', or a' gay arsehole' would not be acceptable.
The problem (in this example) arises when I call someone an arsehole, and because that person happens to be black/gay/whatever there is often a call of racism/homophobia simply because the person I believe to be an arsehole just happens to fall into one of those categories.
It is unfortunate that there is a general lack of subtlety within the realm of public perception and with every step that political correctness takes, we lose a little more. The media is often portrayed as the villian in sensationalising trivial matters, yet surely it is the buying public that is actually at fault. If no-one bought bad-news for example, how long do you think it would take papers to start running good-news stories?
...are the worst sanctimonious arseholes out there. A black friend of mine says people get embaressed and confused when he's in America, because they insist on using the insulting term 'African American' (do the rest of you refer to yourselves as 'european americans' ??)
After a bad breakdown, I recently spent just over a year in a 'community rehabilitation centre' - or whatever the hell they called it - I honestly don't remember. basically, mental home.
I needed the help, and opted to go - everyone else there had been sectioned.
Last halloween, some idiot complained about the Halloween costume that tescos or asda were selling being offensive to people with mental issues. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24278768)
No, what we all found offensive is some nob getting offended on our behalf, making us out to be fragile little helpless wimps with no sense of humour.
It msy shock you, but most people that I've met with mental issues have quite a dark sense of humour on the matter. More importantly, they/we are not blubbering wrecks, but some of the most emotionally strong people out there. That probably comes from dealing with the internal shit 24/7 - everything else is just petty.
So now the situation has been made worse. The stigma they claim to want to lesson has got worse. We are now simply a bunch of blubbering wrecks with no sense of humour that need protecting.
I know "I have a friend that...." is so clichéd, but I did just ask a gay friend of mine, and as expected, he said he would more likely by offended by the second comment - the one attacking the original poster as being homophobic. Surprise surprise, gay people aren't whiny little crybabies either.
The 'Stewart Lee' post above is a fair point to make, I guess, but it's so far to the other extreme as to not be all that relevent to this situation.
Please... common sense and perspective, ok?
Have an upvote.
I'm really surprised and somewhat depressed by how the battle lines are being drawn about this thread.
I mean, the Olympics opened a week ago in a country where people are being beat up, jailed, or worse, for the crime of being a "nancy boy" and where the head of the IOC made a rather lengthy and pointed speech about subject before Vladimir Putin officially opened the games.
Or did I imagine that?
Gay people are being executed in Iran and religious idiots from MY country are going to countries in Africa to pass laws making homosexuality illegal or worse.
Perhaps the editor of this site noticed the byline and discarded it due to the fact that it was obvious to anyone over the age of four!
I mean grow up!
I have (had) the wonderful acquaintance with a friend of the family who when I pointed out that he was a down and out racist idiot (among his many other sterling qualities) rebutted with (after the shock of someone pointing this out to him) that I was being politically correct.
Right..
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words do (and often) kill.
Thank you.
I shall also be looking up this comedian you mentioned.
...
Now the video in question was lovely and I do hope the law dismiss this.
>If the youth had used his big chopper to spy on his cheating boyfriend in Nancy, then maybe it would be funny and clever.
*snigger*
>I have (had) the wonderful acquaintance with a friend of the family who when I pointed out that he was
> a down and out racist idiot (among his many other sterling qualities) rebutted with (after the shock of
> someone pointing this out to him) that I was being politically correct.
The fact that it's sometimes correct, doesn't render it impossible to be too politically correct.
Yes, we should be mindful of others, and shouldn't spread hate, but no one has a right not to be offended. Certainly no one has a right not to be offended on behalf of someone else.
As long as there's a distinction between an off-the-cuff remark and actually buying into real discrimination, there's no real harm - assuming we're not making those jokes to people who don't understand the distinction (yes, that was a 'think of the children').
I occasionally get called cripple, hop-along and various other things. It's all meant in good humour and it doesn't cause me any offence, other people it might. Frankly I'd rather have a rapport with someone than have them too busy worrying about saying the wrong thing.
Me and my two best mates, long, long ago, used to go across the street to the Chinese Takeaway three or four nights a week. This was before 'Happy Days' had jumped the shark. On account of products associated with, typically, Kashmir, Nepal, Afghanistan, we were very jovial. We tended to identify people by who they looked like. The Takeaway owner was, therefore 'Arnold'. We'd order stuff like 'an Arnold burger', basically because when you're not expecting it, it's funny. As long as you do it deadpan, anyway. We got on great with them. They understood us.
Then one night, about closing time, a crowd came in, including a guy I'd gone to Junior school with - and who we'd met in the pubs regularly. He saw us having fun, addressing the owner as 'Arnold', being surreal, and decided he could do it too, and came out with racist 'ching chong', making slits of his eyes shit. We were appalled.
What it is, is there are levels of conscious awareness; levels of intelligence. Some of us - me and my two mates - and the Takeaway staff - were on a higher one. And you 'look down' at this buffoon who doesn't get the whole picture, who lives in Flatland, and thinks that what is actually humour is insult.
Eh.
So it's suddeny fun to gratuitously mock someone's sexuality when it has absolutely no relevance to the article. No play on words, nothing. Yes, he was a boy, was he from Nancy? We don't know, it's not as if it was even hinted that the youth was gay, yet the OP feels it must have been difficult not to make a homphobic comment.
I'm a dorset boy, I've got a few friends who identify as london lads. If he's from nancy, he's a nancy boy. BTW I'm going on the assumption you aren't gay based on how offended you were by that comment. In my past jobs I have had several bosses who were gay, supervisors who were gay, a colleague who was gay (and had a crush on my) and my best friend is also gay. None of them would have found that remotely offensive. Oh and a gay Parisian who runs a cafe I go to... I know far too many gay people, I think I talk to more gays than I do straights.
It has something to do with the article in as much as the story was about Nancy and the person in question was a boy. The poster simply make a quick comment in a jovial way. It's called humour. Almost everyone (I say almost as you obviously didn't) reading it knew the context in which it was posted and knew the person was simply joking. Therefore, it wasn't interpreted as homophobic as it was certainly not posted in that manner and the intent was clear, which was in no way homophobic. It was simply a cheap, easy laugh to brighten peoples day.
People who read far too much into peoples off the cuff comments are actually doing some very worthwhile causes a lot of harm. Exactly the same can be seen in womens rights and other areas. It's the difference between being literal with words and interpreting them in a more intelligent way, taking context and obvious intent into account.
@AC.
"You said it yourself, a cheap, easy laugh but at who's expense?"
Nobodies expense as it wasn't aimed at anybody!! You're looking to take offence and strangely enough finding things. If you spent less time looking for reasons to be offended and more time just getting on with things and being less sensitive on other people behalf, perhaps there would be less grief in the world.
"The poster simply make a quick comment in a jovial way. It's called humour"
So humour at the expense of someones sexuality. WRONG. hide away in shame, and stop eyeing those tweenage girls whilst you crawl away! Whats that, my comment not authorised because it was not funny to mock your sexuality?
You need to read a dictionary meaning of the word humour, 'cause your reckoning is WAY off.
"People who read far too much into peoples off the cuff comments are actually doing some very worthwhile causes a lot of harm."
Those off the cuff remarks are the type which highlight the commenter as being very very immature and so stupid as not being able to see such. Back to the playground!
The humour of the joke derives from the fact that at first glance it looks like it could be homophobic but in reality is not. It's a classic bait and switch joke. 'We called him a nancyboy... because he is a boy and from Nancy.'
Initially we are repulsed by what we have been conditioned to accept is a derogatory remark for a gay man, only to then realise that any inferences about sexuality are a result of our own prejudices and are not actually inherent in what is being said.
As someone whose sexuality would cop the "nancy boy" jibe I find this a storm in a teacup.
1. If you are a nancy boy, this wont be the worse thing said about you. Toughen up you going to need it.
2. If you are a Nancy boy, your city looks beautiful in the drone video.
3. This is The Register where it is a pre-requisite for every article to take a swipe using irreverant language. It also happens to be one of the last sites capable of reporting the pitfalls of political correctness. BTW dont change - i need my daily dose of irreverance.
4. Why do you feel that being tagged as gay is so insulting? Do you still suffer from internal homophobia, it took me a while to recognise my own homophobia.
5. It was a very obvious omission, for the Reg not to use a Nancy boy bi line. I appreciate David 63 effort "Nancy boy windmills chopper in cam outrage".
As Oscar Wilde is alleged to have said "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
Enough of these boys from Nancy, I am off to move a bundle of faggots in the garden and then rest my feet on my poof and relax. later I will be partying with gay abandon.
Nope, pure 100% isolated word-play held in context it was intended. At least that's how I and I believe 95% of this forum saw it. I bet if you asked every one on this forum what they thought the second they read the OP comment, most would have simply said they had absolutely no mental image, I certainly didn't, most simply saw an isolated phrase held in an isolated context.
NomNomNom, It would be so easy to claim it was a troll but it wasn't, it was genuine disgust. As mark 63 and I said earlier there needs to be some play on words to justify such a comment. If the young lad had been gay then Nancy boy would have been a suitable double entendre to employ however as one of my critics has been so stupid to point out it was nothing more than a cheap and easy laugh.
AC is a bit like the feminists who campaign for equality, who want Page 3 to be removed from papers yet at the same time refuse to say a thing about diet coke adverts. Do you comment on the Pink Times and berate those who call straight people 'breeders'? Do you attend mosque and confront Imam's who refer to non-Muslims as Kuffars?
Did you even consider the sexual orientation of the OP when you called them a homophobe?
Nancy Boy. an effeminate man; what gay men were called back in the days when gay meant happy.
Maybe AC can find something offensive with the definition of the phrase at the time. No sexual connotation at all ;)
I mean if George Orwell can use it, so can the OP
Boy, Nancy looks spectacular from the air.....
The Rhein is fine, but Nancy is fancy....
Lighten up folks, the real issue here is some talented but obviously underinformed kid is going before the beak to "pay" for his video efforts...privacy versus art (again....). Probably the only winner here will be the tax(ing) authorities.
Odd, there are surveillance (ooh, seems to be a French word) cameras everywhere, but we're not permitted to take pics or vids of many things....ahhh....progress....
Though I fully understand the need to regulate UAV activity in populated areas, that is some really beautiful footage, demonstrating considerable talent.
Hope he is sentenced to...
- complete a UAV operator's licence, including flight application processes.
- community service producing several hours of (this time appropriately authorised) quality footage for the city of Nancy.
Not likely. This is Napoleonic law we are talking about here. Creative sentencing as practiced by some judges in common law countries is not on the books (pun intended). The criminal code specifies exactly what the offence is, exactly what the minimum and maximum terms are and the accompanying rulebook specifies exactly how you move from the lower to the upper sentencing bound.
Though that difference is now being blurred. Various acts of Parliament (or Congress in the USA) which instigate mandatory sentencing guidelines have removed the traditional common law judge discretion. They are eroding the key (if not only) value of common law - the ability of the judge to say "this is an idiocy, I am establishing a precedent and I will judge it as follows". So as an end result we get the worst of both worlds - the strict rulebook of the Napoleonic law and the natural bias to serve the "powers that be" of common law in one nice shrink wrap package.
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