Alone in my Sour Plum Tree
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Monday, February 11th, 2008
| Time |
Event |
| 12:21a |
| | 9:04p |
Mullah accidently blows up self, sonsA LANDMINE blew up in the home of a religious cleric in southern Afghanistan, killing the mullah, two of his sons and two other men who had been preparing an attack, police said today.
The cleric's wife was critically wounded in the blast in their compound in the southern province of Helmand late yesterday, and a daughter was hurt, provincial police chief General Mohammad Hussein Andiwal said.
The group was likely associated with the Taliban, he said. The extremist militants are particular active in Helmand province, where they are said to be tied up with opium and heroin traffickers. | | 9:36p |
Has the Archbishop gone bonkers?A few weeks ago, I was chatting to a woman who works in an advocacy role for Muslim women in an area that, quite independently of the Bishop of Rochester, she described as a 'no-go area' for non-Muslims. Her clients were women in the process of being sectioned into mental health units in the NHS. This woman, who for obvious reasons begged not to be identified, told me: 'The men get tired of their wives. Or bored. Or maybe the wife objects to her daughter being forced into a marriage she doesn't want. Or maybe she starts wearing western clothes.There can be many reasons. The women are sent for assessment to a hospital. The GP referring them is Muslim. The psychiatrist assessing them is Muslim and male. I have sat in these assessments where the psychiatrist will not look the woman patient in the eye because she is a woman. Can you imagine! A psychiatrist refusing to look his patient in the eye? The woman speaks little or no English. She is sectioned. She is divorced. There are lots of these women in there, locked up in these hospitals. Why don't you people write about this?'
My interlocuter went very red and almost started to cry. Instead, she began shouting at me. I was a member of the press. 'You must write about this,' she begged.
'I can't,' I said. 'Not unless you become a whistle-blower. Or give me some evidence. Or something.'
She shook her head. 'I can't be identified,' she said. 'I would be killed. And so would the women.'
So there you have it. After weeks of wondering what to do, inspired by the Archbishop, I've taken her word that she is telling the truth, respected her anonymity, and written it anyway. | | 10:01p |
Six Attractions You’ll Never See at Disneyland (unless you already did)Some Disneyland attractions are classics and have been around forever – Dumbo, for instance, has been around almost since the beginning (the park opened on July 17, 1955 and Dumbo followed about a month later). Peter Pan’s Flight has been around since the beginning, and so has the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party (the teacups!) and Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.
Other rides haven’t really stood up to the test of time, unfortunately, and those are the ones we’re going to take a look at. I remember watching the Michael Jackson 3D thing at Epcott. I don't remember much, but I do remember the outside of the attraction and the ending scene where the little flying muppet thing zoomed out over the crowd. That was a much more pleasant experience than one 3D thing where suddenly a witch pops up and does an Emperor Palpatine lightning zap at the crowd. The kids started freaking and I whipped those glasses off my face RFF. I miss 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, though. | | 10:33p |
Will the Olympics athletes mouth off?The issue has erupted hard. It started Sunday when the Daily Mail reported that British Olympic chiefs were planning to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China's politics or human rights record. The deal was: Sign, or face a ban on traveling to Beijing.
The British Olympic Association immediately did a U-turn, saying later Sunday it wouldn’t bar competitors from speaking out during the Aug. 8-24 Summer Games. The Olympic charter requires athletes to refrain from “any kind of demonstration or engaging in any political, religious or racial propaganda at Olympic sites.”
Free speech groups got their dander up immediately, including Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based advocacy group, which said: “This affair is indicative of the lack of courage that characterizes some officials in the Olympic movement nowadays.”
The Olympic committees of Canada, the United States, the Netherlands and Belgium have already publicly said they will not restrict their athletes' freedom of expression. The Australian committee, however, has reportedly asked its representatives not to comment on political issues in China.
Agence France Presse carries a story quoting Beijing Olympics committee spokesman Sun Weide urging athletes to obey the Olympic charter. | | 10:50p |
Saudis clamp down on valentinesReligious police in Saudi Arabia are banning the sale of Valentine's Day gifts including red roses, a local newspaper has reported. The Saudi Gazette quoted shop workers as saying that officials had warned them to remove all red items including flowers and wrapping paper. Black market prices for roses were already rising, the paper said.
Saudi authorities consider Valentine's Day, along with a host of other annual celebrations, as un-Islamic. In addition to the prohibition on celebrating non-Islamic festivals, the authorities consider Valentine's Day as encouraging relations between men and women outside wedlock - punishable by law in the conservative kingdom.
The Saudi Gazette reported that some people placed orders with florists days or weeks before Valentine's Day in anticipation of the ban, which is a regular occurrence.
"Sometimes we deliver the bouquets in the middle of the night or early morning, to avoid suspicion," one florist said.
Others were planning to travel to the more religiously liberal neighbouring countries, Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates, to celebrate. Saudi Arabian authorities impose a strict Islamic code that prevents men and women from mixing. | | 11:18p |
Neil Gaiman: One thing we've decided to do, as a small celebratory birthday thing is, initially for a month, make a book of mine available online, free, gratis and for nothing.
Which book, though...? Ah, that's up to you.Now granted, I've grown a tad tired of Gaiman's stuff (he increasingly feels like a one trick pony, but to be fair, that's one hell of an awesome pony, complete with changing colors, heat seeking missiles and tap shoes), but I think...Coraline. Especially if Sandman isn't up there. | | 11:21p |
Project Chanology / Anonymous vs. Scientology IRL showdown in LASince I first posted about Anonymous Vs. Scientology I've been following it rather closely which you've probably noticed. When the Feb 10th call to action I knew things were getting interesting. Then Newsweek picked up the story and photos started trickling in from other protests around the world this morning. I've been following the coordination efforts and planning to attend the protest today to take photos and see how many people would actually show up. In fact when I posted asking how many people you all thought might be there the response seemed to imply that most people thought no one would really show up. As Mack posted this morning that was pretty far off, and from my count over 300 people were there. I got there a little earlier and stayed later and have a bit of a different take on the whole thing that he did. I also took a ton of photos. All that after the jump. And just as an addendum, hell yes, anonymous, there are chicks on the internet! | | 11:58p |
Thieves steal art masterworks in ZurichURICH (Reuters) - Masked robbers brandishing handguns stole four paintings by 19th Century masters worth $164 million (84 million pounds) from a Zurich museum in Switzerland's biggest art theft, police said on Monday.
The four paintings stolen were Cezanne's The Boy in the Red Vest from 1890, Degas' Viscount Lepic and His Daughters from 1871, Monet's Poppies Near Vetheuil from 1880 and Van Gogh's Blossoming Chestnut Branches from 1890, police said. Just as an addendum, this has to be one of the worst written news articles I've ever read. I had to read it a couple times to figure exactly which paintings had been stolen where. Details of the theft were jumbled in amongst details about the paintings and the different museums. |
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