DogfightAtBankstown

well done

I've been watching a bit of the athletics this week on SBS - the World Championship meet in Osaka. 

A few years ago, I was definitely not a fan of Jana Rawlinson (nee Pittman), and especially not after her hystrionics and hyperventilating in the lead up to and during the Athens Olympics. 

I never wanted to hear about Jana's knee again.

But marriage and a baby and a couple of extra years have matured her. 

Finally.

And despite a troubled preparation (and I don't just mean having a baby 8 months ago), her run in the semi-finals of the 400m hurdles especially was superb. She was looking good - fantastic - and handling herself well.  Ran brilliantly, better than the heats.

So it was hardly surprising to see her win her second world championship, even if a bit sloppily over the final couple of hurdles. The last 10 metres or so was pure grunt.  And she still came out with her second best time ever.

Surprising? Nope. A well-deserved win for someone who finally looked and behaved and performed like a true professional athlete.

Congratulations.  Here's to Beijing.

i'll believe it, when I see it

Which is about as likely as seeing a church in Mecca during my life time.  The end of the religious police:

Saudi Arabia's draconian religious police, part of the country's previously untouchable religious elite, have come under an unprecedented barrage of criticism in recent months. Known as the mutawwa'in, these foot soldiers of the Committee for the Protection of Virtue and Prevention of Vice are tasked with meting out punishment to those they believe transgress their strict interpretation of Islam. Their broad purview, ranging from ensuring modest dress to preventing the illicit mingling of men and women, has made them a much-feared fixture of the kingdom. It should come as no surprise that this group provided inspiration for the Taliban.

But a series of recent reports exposing mutawwa'in abuse is slowly beginning to erode the committee's edifice of impervious power. One victim, Ahmed al-Bulawi, was arrested and killed by committee members for "illegal seclusion" with a woman in his car; it transpired that he was working as the woman's driver. Another victim, Salman al-Huraisi, died after the mutawwa'in brutally beat him while detaining him on suspicion of possessing alcohol.

The public outcry has encouraged others to come forward and protest abuse by the committee. The most prominent case has been that of a 50-year-old Riyadh woman who was kidnapped, along with her daughter, by two committee members who then crashed her car. As a result, three lawsuits have been lodged against the committee, which has never been legally challenged before.

Established as part of the pact between the religious establishment and the House of Saud, the mutawwa'in have symbolised the quid pro quo arrangement of Saudi Arabia - religious sanction in exchange for religious influence. Their special status has protected committee members from criticism and given them virtually unlimited power. Even as recently as 2003, the editor of a prominent Saudi newspaper was fired for daring to challenge the committee.

What's weird is that the article  mentions the satirical blogger The Religious Policeman. I didn't think he was still blogging.  It's the other mutawwai'in everyone wants to quit.

jim davila

Wryly notes:

It looks as though judicial activism might be a problem in the Kenyan court system.

Heh.

the bishop's news from peru

That's the Anglican Bishop of Peru (and crew?) blogging news of ongoing relief efforts after the earthquake.

i have a colleague

Who has Down's Syndrome.

He comes to work every day, on time, on the dot. Always neatly groomed, clothes impeccably pressed. He does his work diligently without getting distracted - yes can use a computer and do simple tasks on spreadsheet. He will sometimes have his lunch in the tea room and chat with one of his colleagues or sometimes go to a nearby cafe to have lunch alone. Sure,  he's not one for crowds but he's part of our team and he earns his wage.  And he goes home to his supported living quarters and has his own social life.

So tell me again:

ITALIAN prosecutors have opened an investigation into a botched selective abortion that the Vatican has described as the result of a "culture of perfection" resembling Nazi eugenics.

The deeply Catholic country was embroiled in a bitter ethical dispute yesterday after it emerged that a surgeon had accidentally terminated a healthy fetus instead of its twin with Down's syndrome.

The operation -- on a 38-year-old woman 18 weeks pregnant -- was performed at the San Paolo hospital in Milan in June but has only now come to light. The fetus with Down's syndrome was subsequently aborted.

The revelation has reignited the debate in Italy over abortion, which was legalised in 1978. The law allows terminations of healthy fetuses up to the 90th day of pregnancy, although abortions can be performed later if there is a risk to the life of the mother or if the fetus is malformed.

Anna Maria Marconi, the gynecologist who carried out the Milan abortion, said the woman, who has not been named, requested the operation after an amniocentesis test.

Professor Marconi said her conscience was clear. The fetuses, which had been identical, had changed positions in the womb between the last scan and the operation, an "act of fate that could not have been foreseen", she said.

The professor was backed by the hospital authorities. The mother, who has a young son, said that her life had been ruined.

"Neither my husband nor I can sleep at night," she told the Corriere della Sera, which first reported the blunder. She said the happiness she and her husband had experienced when they learnt that she was expecting twins had been transformed into heartbreak. Her husband said they were "truly desperate over this terrible mistake" and were consulting family lawyers.

The episode has been seized upon by Catholics campaigning to have the abortion law repealed. L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, said: "No one has the right to suppress another life and take the place of God for any motive whatever." The paper said selective abortion amounted to eugenics, stemming from "a culture of perfection".

The Association of Catholic Doctors said selective abortion was "the fruit of an egoistic culture", while Christian Democrat politician Luca Volonte said the Milan mistake amounted to infanticide.

However, Carlo Flamigni, a leading fertility surgeon and a non-Catholic, argued that repealing the abortion law would be like "closing down all motorways just because now and then someone causes an accident by falling asleep at the wheel".

Why this is not infanticide?  Would you be prepared to chase a baby in a womb around with a needle to inject pottasium chloride into their heart?  Just because you or someone else decided they had no right to live? Or should someone just run over my colleague instead?

don't take offense, shut the gate

PRIME Minister John Howard is today leading a chorus of condemnation against the decision to include two entries in a prestigious art competition that ridicule the Christian faith.

A statue of the Virgin Mary shrouded by a Muslim burqa and a holographic image of Osama bin Laden that morphs into Jesus Christ when moved on an angle have sparked outrage from politicians and church leaders.

The "artworks" were submitted as entries for the Blake Prize - Australia's top religious art competition.

Yesterday, Mr Howard said the pieces were insulting and lacked any artistic merit.

"The choice of such artwork is gratuitously offensive to the religious beliefs of many Australians," he said.

He was backed by Premier Morris Iemma, who said the inclusion of the artworks was extremely questionable.

"I haven't seen either of these pieces but from what has been described to me, it's a pity they were not stolen instead of the Dutch masterpiece," Mr Iemma said, referring to the recent theft of a painting from the Art Gallery of NSW.

The artworks are the latest in a string of offensive pieces that have infuriated Christians while their creators hide behind the veil of "art".

Ho hum.

I am always in two minds about articles like this, because they usually strike me as both a beat up (it did make front page of the Daily Terror after all; this morning's online version here, 3.00pm online update here) and a dumbing down.

First of all, while as a Christian I thank Messrs Howard, Iemma and Rudd for their concerns, I would like to know who else is part of the chorus Howard is leading.  Have any Christian leaders lodged any complaints? Does someone smell Pell? Or did journalists, as usual, scrounge around for a juicy quote or two to create a story? 

And what, exactly, is the nature of our politicians' concerns? Is it political? Cultural? Religious or moral?

And while on the subject of a story, would News Corp have published pictures of art that was gratuitously offensive to Muslims? You know, like on the front page?

Just what exactly, makes this news?

We are after all, talking about the Blake Prize people:

The Blake Prize for Religious Art is one of the more prestigious art prizes in Australia. For 55 years it has been awarding a prize for works of art that explore the subject of religious awareness and spirituality. In difference to art prizes that are awarded for distinct subject areas such as landscape or portraiture, the Blake has always invited a much more open, personal and idiosyncratic response, so much so that it has earned the criticism, ire and sometimes applause of critics and the public alike. After all, what is religious art?

[...]

The Prize was the brainchild of Richard Morley, a Jewish businessman, and Michael Scott, a Jesuit educationalist, who believed that such a Prize would provide contemporary works of art for the many new churches and synagogues being built in the post war suburban sprawl. While religious authorities were generally taken aback by the modern flavour of these new investigations, it was the artists who most welcomed the Blake as it allowed them to express more personal subject matter; in short, it rewarded innovation and daring. The Prize was named after the mystic artist and writer William Blake who is celebrated for his creative commitments rather than his adherence to any particular dogma.

Surprise is the more characteristic response to each year’s exhibition rather than a confirmation of any traditional iconography. In the search for fresh contemporary expressions of spirituality artists have continued to extend the envelope of the Blake to encompass a wide diversity of religious expression drawing on major religious traditions such as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism, as well as indigenous spirituality. The Blake has fostered this breadth of diversity and celebrated the various rich traditions that make up the landscape of belief in Australia.

If you are used to reading this sort of dribble, you should already be able to decode the double speak: whatever its original intentions, the Blake Prize is now just another front for an activist agenda. 

You can guess the agenda from a mile off: all that is politically correct is true.

And it is somewhat amusing too, to find the author of this introduction, who claims to be a reverend, artist and art historian, nevertheless claiming ignorance about "what is religious art."

Oh wait, this is the Rev. Rod Pattenden, who back in 2000 was appointed Uniting Church chaplain at Macquarie University:

Rod has a background in the arts and social advocacy and is currently working on a PhD at Sydney University in visual culture and contemporary ideas of the spiritual.

I guess that's where he got his postmodern babble and his history.

But back to this so-called news:

Last night, the Uniting Church minister who chairs the Blake Society defended the pieces.

The Reverend Rod Pattenden, who awarded the $15,000 prize to the competition winner in Sydney yesterday, said his mission was to spark debate about spirituality in a world that was "cynical, degraded and in crisis". Mr Pattenden said he did not expect controversy to result from the exhibition at the National Art School Gallery "because the Christian community doesn't look at art a great deal".

No of course not.  All those mosaics, icons, statues, paintings, tapestries, all that stained glass, all those lectionaries and manuscripts, all those textiles, vestments and vessels in monastery and church buildings, not even the buildings themselves - neither art nor works of art.

No art commissioned by Christians, no art by Christians, no art inspired by Christianity in Western civilization.  Our galleries and museums and stately residences are totally bereft of much art for or by Christians. Christians - much less anyone else in the West - have certainly had nothing much to do with art at all, for say...er...two millenia at least.

Maybe one should tell Pattenden to change his reference to "bad art": why for example would any Christian want to see a photograph of a photograph and a photograph of an image superimposed on each other when we have, oh, Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rublev?

But I am sure Rev. Pattenden is just being gratuitously stupid.

As for Bracks' double image of Christ and bin Laden, Mr Pattenden said the artist was questioning "the idea that you can have absolute good and absolute evil. Life's a bit more complicated than that".

Like the gratuitiously stupid artists:  

Queensland artist Priscilla Bracks [the creator of the Jesus/Osama lenticular image] denied she had deliberately set out to be offensive.

"Absolutely not, no, no. I am not interested in being offensive. I am interested in having a discussion and asking questions about how we think about our world and what we accept and what we don't accept," she said.

[...]

Bracks told The Daily Telegraph her double portrait was not meant to compare Jesus with bin Laden, but was a commentary on the way the terror leader was treated in the media.

She was concerned bin Laden would be unintentionally glorified in years to come.

Describing him as a "common criminal", Ms Bracks made the bizarre assertion that bin Laden - whose whereabouts are unknown - should be extradited and put on trial.

Yes indeed, this is why riots are breaking out over Bracks' hologram, and there would be all sweetness, truth and light if it were, a hologram of Osama and Mohammed.  Right?  Why we don't accept common criminals who steal your wallet or that Osama wants to steal your world. It's all just one big mass of colourless grey.

Or maybe Pattendon is just being gratuitously disingenuous.

Says Luke Sullivan of his Mary with a rosary and burqa:

...his work was not meant to be controversial but provocative.

"It poses the question of what's the future of religion," Sullivan said.

"They (religions) are hegemonic in their nature.

"They can be all-encompassing and powerful."

Says Pattenden:

... the Virgin statue embodied "iconic representations of two different religious traditions".

"He (the artist) is making a comment about gender in a religion dominated by men," Mr Pattenden said.

"I find it unsettling and unfamiliar and I think that's always an opportunity for new insight."

I'm waiting for Sullivan and Pattenden to gain a bit of insight on religions of peace.

As to offense, here's what Rev. Pattenden finds offensive:

Yes, as a result of recent debates in our presbytery, where a motion was passed that there should be no leadership within the life of the Church from gay and lesbian people, whether that's to Ordained Ministry or to passing a plate or doing the flowers, at any level of the Church should not have gay and lesbian people involved. I find that personally offensive and it certainly was received with offence here in this parish in Paddington. We resolved, as a response, that we should go outside the Church and express our support for lesbian and gay people by being involved with a collective of other parishes and groups to sponsor a float in next year's Mardi Gras. That is being received by some people in the Church with profound horror. They don't realise that the Mardi Gras is far more ordinary in its scope and it's about lesbian and gay people becoming visible, about celebrating their lifestyles and their choices in life. We want to have a float that will probably look far more mediocre - there'll be no dancing girls or boys, or whatever people expect - but just a gathering of children, men and women, older people, ministers and lay people who can just march with some common symbol, a T-shirt or some slogan that says we are people who affirm the presence of gay and lesbian people in the Church. We want to see a Church that's inclusive, sympathetic and in fact expresses the whole gamut of human lifestyles.

The whole gamut of human lifestyles? Bit of adultery and some wife swapping OK there for you Rev? Little bit of S&M to spice things up a bit? Bit of gluttony and avarice just to put some icing on the cake?

Oh wait:

I think people make their choice about the way they interpret the Mardi Gras. I mean for anyone who's actually seen it, the majority of floats have to do with local community groups, there are some church groups in there, it's a community celebration. Sure there are floats there that are actually over the top and it's probably quite appropriate they are. I'm not going to make any affirmation or denial or comment on that. All I can say is that I'm very clear about the message we are trying to express and I have no problem being alongside the most crazy group or whatever it is. I mean the church has been used to this for centuries. We march in nuclear concerns, Wik decisions, we march alongside communists, we march alongside weirdos and wonderful people, that's how humanity is, but if I'm misunderstood, nevertheless that's where I want to be.

And in case you missed it, here's who Rev Pattenden doesn't mind offending:

I think the Mardi Gras sends multiple messages. Every single float has a different message, a different celebration and that needs to be respected. I just know why I'm marching, and I'm marching under the banner of celebrating diversity. That is, I'm saying the church ought to be a place, and has to be a place that opens its doors to everyone and to anyone and who affirms the gifts, and particularly of gay and lesbian people. Now I recognise that the church in a sense may find that offensive, but I'm claiming that I have a faith that belongs to the centre, I'm not some crazy, whacko off on the fringe. My faith is about the centre that my god and the sort of faith I have, is about celebrating diversity, that this acclaim for orthodoxy, this is not some fringe idea.

Here's what I, as one Christian, find offensive: men and women like Rev. Pattenden masquerading as ministers of the Christian religion. It has probably never occurred to Rev. Pattenden that one of the reasons his world is "cynical, degraded and in crisis" is because of moral relativists like himself.

Because of imposters like him.

Because you see, Pattenden's Jesus is not the Jesus of Christians, but the carbon-offset Jesus of Western middle-class liberals.  Pattenden's Jesus is Bishop Spong's Jesus, and...

...[t]he function of Spong’s Jesus is thus simply to maintain the social and political status quo. He takes our own most cherished and self-evident Western values, and he provides them with a theological justification. Thus our own values are made absolute and unimpeachable – they are elevated to the status of ideology. Simply put, Spong tells us that political correctness is correct, since even Jesus was politically correct.

Which means, just as Ben Meyer notes about Spong's Jesus: there is nothing radical, or confronting or upsetting about what Pattenden thinks, nor is there anything unsettling or unfamiliar about this art. It is about as comfortable and relaxed as Western middle class political correctness that stands for nothing, and challenges nothing, and is intolerant of anyone and everything that doesn't agree.

After all, you become like what you worship.

To quote Charles Krauthammer, speaking to a different context:

It is not just the restless search for novelty, the artist's Holy Grail. It is weariness with the responsibilities and the nightmares that come with clarity--and the demands that moral certainty make on us as individuals and as a nation.

So again, why is this news? 

After all it's not even art.

It's just more laziness and haziness.
Hate and self-hate. 
Marx and Qutb.
Murder and suicide.

Update: Trust Irf to Islamisize history (and remind us, again, that he has read some William Darlymple)

Try Bet Lehem - house of Bread - Irf - you know, classical Hebrew. Or try that number on any number of archaeologists and Middle Eastern scholars blogging on the net.  And perhaps try the Mary of the Gospels not the Mary of the Koran.  And try remembering that Jesus and Mary were not just Middle Eastern, they were Jews.

Update 2: Bingo. Just what I expected. Muslims are offended. Thanks to Fairfax:

But Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Ikebal Patel said the statue was "not at all offensive", because both the Virgin Mary and Jesus were revered figures in Islam.

"So [Mary wearing a burqa is] no different to how our mothers and sisters are expected to be modest in their dressing," he said.

But Mr Patel said he was affronted by the image of bin Laden's face blending into that of Jesus, who is deemed a prophet in Islam.

"You have a revered prophet of Islam being equated to somebody like Osama bin Laden.

"Also in Islam, we don't have any paintings or drawings depicting any of our prophets, so I find it quite offensive."

Jesus was no prophet of Islam Patel. He's not the Issa myth of Islam.

And note both Forsyth's and Pell's slap downs.  Especially Pell's. Heh.

Update 3: There's a delicious irony in the way that the person of Jesus exposes and even subverts everyone's agenda in this story: politicians, media left and right, artists, activists, clerics, Muslims...

you could

Run a 24 hour news station, and fill each hour with a drip feed of dreck. Top of the news hour, every hour, would be the dreck in the U.S.

You could. Except it would make you sick.

A follow-up on Ted Haggard, former "megachurch"^[1] pastor and former head of the  National Association of Evangelicals, husband, and father of five, man with a predilection for gay escorts and crystal meth.

Really, you can't make this up: it wasn't just Moses in de Nile.

[1] meg·a·church (mĕg'ə-chûrch') n. shop front for fund-raising and money-laundering business.  tr. v., irregular fleece (flēs) fleeced, fleec·ing, fleec·es.

some self promotion

By The Australian this morning:

JOHN Howard says things about Kevin Rudd that George W.Bush would never even think of saying about his Democratic opponents, says American conservative academic and pollster Frank Luntz.

You mean, because American Presidents talk with their hands?

In fact, Mr Luntz finds the Prime Minister's rhetoric so aggressive, he rates him as a world leader for invective.

"He is using the most blunt terminology that I have ever seen a leader use," Mr Luntz told The Australian yesterday. "Howard is almost Nixonian."

Is this why Liberal Senator George Brandis called him "a lying rodent," instead of  "the lying rodent"?

Mr Howard was a polariser in his language and while it worked with lesser opponents such as Kim Beazley, Simon Crean and Mark Latham, Mr Luntz said it was harder to see the strategy succeeding against the Opposition Leader.

Polariser? As in wedge politics?

"What Rudd has tried to do is bear-hug Howard on so many issues: 'We agree in principle but I'll do it better'."

You mean like a fork in the road?

"He is absolutely blurring the lines so that it becomes a choice of personality rather than a choice of policy. Rudd is the Bill Clinton of Australian politics."

I'm not touching that.

While careful not to prejudge what his research will show, Mr Luntz felt Mr Howard was finding it difficult to get Mr Rudd's measure.

Like Rudd is messing with Howard's head?

He said it was too late for Mr Howard to reinvent himself, "which is why I believe he is going after Rudd as personally and directly as he is".

With a pole or two.

"The question is not what you think of John Howard. He is trying to make (a vote for Labor) an unsafe vote."

The paradox is that Australians don't take their politics as seriously as Americans or Europeans. Our leader, it seems, does not reflect the temperament of the nation.

You mean like he's out of touch with the masses?

Yet he is the second-longest-serving prime minister in history. Mr Howard still enjoys, after 11 1/2 years in office, a robust approval rating when compared with his American counterpart.

Mr Bush has only 32 per cent of voters satisfied with the job he is doing, compared with 63 per cent who are dissatisfied. Mr Howard, by contrast, is near break-even, with 43 per cent in favour and 45 per cent opposed, according to the latest Newspoll.

You mean, Aussies are apathetic about politics?

Mr Luntz observed that Australians worried more about interest rates, and were less exposed to the shock of the September 11 terror attacks than voters in Britain.

Is that because we're hocked to the hilt?

"Interest rates are so important here; in America, we don't follow them. An interest rate rise in the States is on the front page of the business section. An interest rate rise here is on the front page of the newspaper."

Because we're hocked to the hilt. You know, because we've never had it so good?

Mr Luntz worked on successful Republican election campaigns in the 1990s. And his polling technique was credited with helping David Cameron win the leadership of the British Conservatives in 2005.

Which is why The Government Gazette The Australian is co-sponsoring Luntz's show: clearly, no one reads it anymore.

still on the subject of cartoons

This one was spiked by several U.S. newspapers because of...hmm...which group elicits such solicitude again?

You know, the one with no sense of humour?

no, no, not an engineer

INTPs are logical, individualistic, reserved, and very curious individuals. They focus on ideas, theories and the explanation of how things work. They are especially adept at discussions and debate. They have the ability to focus intently on a subject. They appreciate and respect intelligence in others.

I don't care how things work. As long as they do what they are supposed to do. And I preferred Cervelan to Avon and prefer wisdom to intelligence.

"likes solitude, not revealing, unemotional, rule breaker, avoidant, familiar with the darkside, skeptical, acts without consulting others"

Well, maybe I am familiar with the darkside.  Given the time at which I am posting this.

But to prove that I do consult with others, what's your personality type?

And what should mine be?

i got news a few hours ago

A young cousin of mine holidaying in Greece is trapped by the fires.  She's on the west coast of the Pelopponese.  Road closures, people fleeing mountain villages, chaotic, crowded, but otherwise OK.  It's just like being in a tumble dryer set to high and the dryer is full of ash.

That it's August, the peak holiday month in Greece for both foreign tourists and Greeks, is both a blessing and a curse. Most of the villages outside major regional and city areas are empty save for a few elderly during winter, with families and tourists beefing up the numbers during summer.  The death toll has therefore been high but on the other hand, many others have also have had access to transport with which to escape.

This is, I think, about the fourth set of fires to strike Greece this year.

No doubt the worst.

Overwhelming.

Source

Local reports indicate fire fighters are finding plenty of evidence of incendiary devices along many of the fire fronts.

You'd really want to find the bastards.

Update: Yep. And expect this to also impact on upcoming elections

Update 2: Continuing.

  Forest fires are common during Greece's hot, dry summers - but nothing has   approached the scale of the past three days. Arson is often suspected,   mostly to clear land for development. No construction is allowed in Greece   in areas designated as forest land, and fires could be set to circumvent the   law by disputing the status of the area.

sacred cows

There have been a number of reports about Malaysia's Internal Security Authority imposing a one-month suspension on  Makkal Osai, a Tamil-language newspaper, after it published a "provocative" or "offensive" or "shameful" picture of Jesus Christ.

The Star described the picture as “Jesus Christ holding a cigarette in one hand and a canned drink (which looked like beer) in the other with a quote – ‘If a person repents his mistakes, heaven awaits him’.”   

Makkal Osai issued a front page apology on Thursday - and apparently apologised again and one report indicated "Christian leaders" had accepted the apology.  But the paper still got suspended.

Apparently a rival paper also carried the same image, downloaded from the internet, on August 23, but to date I am not aware of any action against it.

And I am still not sure what was offensive about the cartoon so as to warrant apology much less suspension.

Was it because he was smoking a particular brand of cigarettes?

Source

What if he were drinking Muslim's favourite type of beer?

Source

Was it because there were no virgins promised and someone didn't want to let on as to who was responsible for the shortage?

In fact, the only reports I can find of any actual complaint is one (but was it a complaint or in response to a request for comment?) from the Catholic Archbishop of Kuala Lumpur indicating the picture was of the sacred heart of Jesus.

"It is very sacred to Catholics. As such, this caricature of Jesus is a desecration and therefore hurtful to the religious sentiments of Catholics."

Fair enough (I can't find an online copy of the cartoon). However the Archbishop was satisfied with the paper's apology and somewhat "perplexed and bemused" by the suspension which he thought was high-handed.

There are also reports of a complaint from the (Hindu?) president of the Malaysian Consultative Council of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and Sikhism who "urged the authorities to take action against the paper for hurting the feelings of the Christian community in the country" - although this report indicated even he, too, thought a "warning" would have been sufficient.

And further indications of demands for the paper to be closed down from the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) which may or may not be the same as other reports of a four page submission from MIC Youth.  MIC is an ethnic Tamil political party in the governing coalition, most of whose members are Hindu.  Makkal Osai has been very critical of MIC  The MIC in turn, owns Tamil Nesan which seems to be getting a free ride.

Which makes me ask, even amidst Malaysia's complex political, ethnic and religious landscape, why are most reports ignoring the elephant in the room?

mateship

Now has an official federal government definition.

Just in time for tomorrow's morning news.

Nothing's sacred anymore.

harvest is over

I first came across the name Paula White via a commenter.  She's an American televangelist who spouts the usual message: send me money.

She also turned up as a lunch partner to another choice lady: Aunty Darlene.

And it seems Google god has spat out her name again: Paula, who is also a wife number two, is divorcing husband number two.

Why is this news? 

Well like most of these shysters, Paula and Randy White are also the founders of their own business church, one with the obligatory stupid name: Without Walls International Church.   In Tampa , Florida.   

Randy and Paula White built their multi-million dollar evangelical empire by offering what they called "the perfect church, for those who aren't." That message catapulted Paula White to international stardom as a televangelist and author. Her husband has been less high profile, mostly leading the church at home.

The couple shares a $2 million dollar home on Bayshore Boulevard, along with a private jet. Some say the pastors have been spending more time apart as they buy property and pursue ministries elsewhere. Paula White owns a Trump Towers condo in New York City and a home in San Antonio. Randy White is reportedly leasing property in  Malibu.

"The scripture says the love of money is the root of all evil, and you have to evaluate your priorities," Pastor Lott says. "And without us knowing what their priorities are, I would hope they'd be on the Kingdom."

But with their lavish lifestyle on display, critics say what the Whites were preaching was a message of prosperity at the expense of humility and family values.

Now with its leadership split, the church faces its own test of survival.

That would make the business church part of the divorce settlement.

What I want to know though, is whether the business church is profitable enough to be part of a custody dispute or just gets to pay court costs and praise God for not having to pay alimony until death does them part.

Hmm, 2006 combined income from Without Walls and Paula White Ministries at $39m.  Girl in New York, boy looking for business opportunity on West Coast.

My money is on the business folding  congregation being told that after 18 years, they've been milked dry and they should be all grown up enough to pay their own way in life.

the battle for re-incarnation

All hail the twenty-first century:

In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."

Of course it's about politics, and the Dalai Lama is happy to play:

At 72, the Dalai Lama, who has lived in India since 1959, is beginning to plan his succession, saying that he refuses to be reborn in Tibet so long as it's under Chinese control. Assuming he's able to master the feat of controlling his rebirth, as Dalai Lamas supposedly have for the last 600 years, the situation is shaping up in which there could be two Dalai Lamas: one picked by the Chinese government, the other by Buddhist monks. "It will be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it's quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others."

Non Tibetans need not apply.

i've said it before

One of the best things about Richard Dawkins' books is that they elicit some of the best smack down book reviews.

But it seems Dawkins is not the only one who attracts that honour. It  also extends to another of most recent batch of militant atheists' tomes.

Eugene McCarraher reviews Christopher Hitchens': God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

The title?

This Book Is Not Good

But the reviewer is brilliant:

Henri de Lubac once named this era the drama of atheist humanism, but even Nietzsche suspected that it might be prefiguring an endless middle-class farce. Animated by the bourgeois-utopian prospect of comfort and longevity, science and technology would, Nietzche feared, enable a new character ideal: “the Last Man.” Disdainful of all that has gone before them, the Last Men mistake their cynicism for knowledge and wisdom. “They are clever and know all that has happened,” so “there is no end to their derision.” With all great causes defeated or reviled, they endow the banality of their private lives with the meaning they’ve withdrawn from larger concerns, indulging “their little pleasures for the day, and their little pleasures for the night.”

Consider the relevance of this prediction today, when popular culture abounds with playboy philosophers like HBO’s Bill Maher, opining on the stupidity of religious faith, or loutish retreads like Roseanne Barr, yelling that “religion fucking blows!” (I’m guessing that’s her translation of écrasez l’infâme.) Writers, meanwhile, hawk unabashed atheism to niche audiences in the briskly humming market of irreligion-Daniel Dennett or Peter Singer to academic readers, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins to the masses.

The new militancy of secularism stems from some obvious sources: Islamic radicalism abroad and conservative evangelicalism at home, along with religious interventions in debates about abortion, gay marriage, “intelligent design,” and global warming. But the boom in unbelief has other bases. Today’s atheism pays extravagant homage to idols dear to the professional and managerial ranks. Science as truth; the technological mastery of nature; credentialed expertise as the only credible form of learning; efficiency and profit as the sole ends of economic and political life: these shibboleths comprise the mental universe of the Western middle classes. Colored by an incoherent blend of Darwinism and environmentalism, a bland infatuation with science and technology is the bourgeois halo around instrumental reason, and nothing in the new secularism of Dawkins, Harris et al. serves to exorcise that enchantment. While Hitchens likes to bask in the grand tradition of atheism (he throws out allusions to every great skeptic from Lucretius to Bertrand Russell), his ill-tempered tract rarely ventures outside the boundaries of the suburban moral imagination, even as it manages to flatter a corporate executive’s every conceit.

And he gets better.  Before finishing with this glowing commendation as to why you should read this book:

In any case, what we get from Hitchens in the end isn’t “culture” but a gooey compound of boosterish bromides and liberal nationalism. Like so many disappointed radicals, Hitchens has elsewhere declared capitalism the only remaining revolutionary force, and for all his bad-boy press, he is a stalwart guardian of the bourgeois virtues, harrumphing like a sullen Rotarian at Christ’s injunction to “take no thought for the morrow.” Such gospel nonsense, Hitchens tells us, implies that “things like thrift, innovation, family life, and so forth are a sheer waste of time.” This former Trotskyite turns out to be a metropolitan burgher at heart, as well as a technological visionary, rhapsodizing over “undreamed-of vistas,” “unfettered scientific inquiry,” and the accessibility of scientific knowledge to “masses of people by easy electronic means”-all of which will “revolutionize our concepts of research and development.” It’s a Brave New World, brought to you by Merck. Cue the studio orchestra.

Hidden inside the inflated prose of Hitchens’s PR flackery is a conceit common among the educated classes: namely, that the demise of religion would usher in a new age of fearless, democratic cerebration in which each of us would “think on one’s own.” Hitchens’s paean celebrates a secular moral imagination sketched in terms of professional and managerial expertise. Defining the good life for us all in word and image, the business and technical intelligentsia comprise a cultural elite, a rival clerisy whose rhetoric of Science, Progress, and Enlightenment can mystify as effectively as did the bell, book, and candle of the priesthood. In particular, our modern notion of “Progress” has the most beguiling account of an eschatology that never ends.

Hitchens insists that he and his secular allies “do not require any priests, or hierarchy above them,” that they “need no machinery of reinforcement,” and that “sacrifices and ceremonies are abhorrent to us.” In case he hasn’t noticed, the corporate elite has constructed the hierarchy, along with a machinery of reinforcement it shares with the nation-state. And Hitchens’s uplifting predictions about the God-less future are most savagely belied by the catastrophe in Iraq, where the bogus distinction between religious and secular violence can be seen in all its ideological duplicity. While pointing to the sanguinary unreason of “fundamentalists,” the war’s advocates have offered up the lives of thousands in sacrifice to a future of Market and Democracy. An Iraqi killed by a U.S. Marine is just as dead as if she were dispatched by a jihadist. Both Hitchens and the jihadist would contend that her death is part of a larger struggle between the forces of light and darkness. To a Christian, she’s a victim of libido dominandi, whatever the discursive camouflage; to Hitchens, she’s the collateral damage of enlightenment.

So enough about the sweetness and light that await us when the gods are finally dead. The war in Iraq, like the history of the twentieth century, demonstrates that secular values provide no inoculation against credulity, madness, and butchery. Conferring a sacral aura on the market and the nation-state, secularism is a parody of religion, and its acolytes can no longer lay claim to the patent on reason and enlightenment. Blinded by the radiance of imperial righteousness, and willing to bless carnage in the most dubious of crusades, Hitchens no longer merits our attention or respect, especially on matters regarding the good life and the just city. If you doubt me, read this book.

Not.

(via Inhabitatio Dei)

i'd probably use another f word

To describe this.

kevin .07

Rudd goes on the turps with a man whose idea of a night on the town is to drink your weight in alcohol and it's such an international incident (all fifteen minutes of it) that it gets reported four years later. 

Perhaps because Australia's representative at the U.N. happens to be the Foreign Minister.

Or perhaps because he was on a taxpayer funded trip. 

Next up: Kevin attends footy match in 2001 where streaker dashes across field.

old news

But still worth posting:

In excavations carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority in Tiberias impressive and unique finds were uncovered that shed light on the history of the ancient city. The excavations were conducted over the course of the last three months at the request of Mekorot, as part of a project that involves the installation of a sewage pipeline and the transfer of the waste water treatment facility from Tiberias to the southern part of the Sea of Galilee.

The finds that were exposed date from the founding of Tiberias in the first century CE until the eleventh century, when the city was abandoned due to an earthquake, wars and dire economic and security conditions. In the lower part of the city, a Byzantine church (from the fourth-fifth centuries CE) was exposed that is paved with magnificent polychrome mosaics decorated with geometric patterns and crosses.

Three dedicatory inscriptions written in ancient Greek are incorporated in the mosaics. In one of the inscriptions, which were deciphered by Dr. Leah Di Signi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is the line: "Our Lord, protect the soul of your servant…" [Our Lord=Jesus]

One of the mosaics is adorned with a medallion in which there is a large cross flanked by the letters alpha and omega, which are one of the monograms for Jesus (alpha to omega meaning from A to Z in Greek).

The church’s remains were discovered adjacent to ancient public buildings among them a basilica, bathhouse, streets and shops that were exposed at the site in the past. Dr. Moshe Hartal and Edna Amos, the directors of the excavation on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, stated that this is the most ancient church to be uncovered in Tiberias and the only one that has been found in the center of the city.

According to Dr. Hartal, from the year 427 CE the Church issued a decree prohibiting the placement of crosses in mosaic floors in order to prevent them from being stepped on. "The presence of so many crosses in the floors of the church that was exposed here thus confirms the church dates to the period prior to the ban," he said.

In addition, the remains of a Jewish neighborhood that dates to the tenth-eleventh centuries were discovered in the excavations. These remains extend up to the foot of the cliff in the high part of the city, in an area that was probably residential in nature. "The discovery of the remains of the church in the middle of the ancient city, like that of the Jewish neighborhood and the magnificent city that existed in Tiberias more than one thousand years ago, greatly contributes to our understanding of the town planning, its scope and it structures," archaeologists on behalf of the Antiquities Authority said. The discovery of the church in the heart of the Jewish quarter disproves the theory that the Jews prevented the Christians from establishing prayer halls in the middle of the city," they added.

in malaysia

That most liberal of Muslim nations, Islam's war on everything continues:

Over a drink of green coconut at what used to be called the Passionate Love Beach until his Islamist party came to power and scrapped the name, state minister Takiyuddin Hassan outlines the victories in the war on sin.

To the south, in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, celebrations are starting for Malaysia’s 50th year as an independent state. Its proud achievements are modern universities, a buoyant economy and a respected place in the world as a moderate Islamic nation.

Mr Hassan’s party boasts a different set of achievements: banning mini-skirts, chastising unmarried couples and renaming Kota Bharu’s favourite beauty spot. They also closed down nightclubs, banned nearly all bars except a few Chinese restaurants, where no Muslims are allowed, and refused to let a proposed cinema open unless there were separate sections for men and women.

In a sign of their clout, the American pop diva Gwen Stefani has agreed to wear traditional costumes in her Malaysian concert next week after conservative Muslim youths protested at the “indecent dressing and obscenity” of her skin-baring act. An Islamic opposition party demanded that her show next Tuesday should be cancelled.

[...]

Every state has a religious department with Saudi-style moral enforcers and nowhere are they more active than in Kota Bharu, a city of mosques along a muddy river that bustles during the day but falls silent at nightfall.

Unmarried couples found sharing hotel rooms are hunted down by the enforcers. Couples caught sitting too close together on park benches are fined 2,000 ringgit (£285) in the city’s shariah court under a provision called khalwat ” loosely translated as “close proximity”. Couples have been forced into marriage after being caught together and moral enforcers sometimes pick on foreigners.

NonMuslims as well as Malays also sometimes fall foul of the enforcers in Kuala Lumpur and elsewhere and there are claims that instead of being paragons of Islamic virtue the enforcers are prone to bribery and have recruited vigilantes into their ranks.

In Kota Bharu the enforcers declined to speak to The Times. Mr Hassan explained: “They are worried about being made to look like fools. It could damage the image of Islam if their work is portrayed in the wrong light.”

Nurhayati Kaprawi, of Sisters in Islam, a group that has spoken out against khalwat and the enforcers, said that many of their raids followed anonymous tip-offs. She said that they frequently terrorised people by barging into homes in the middle of the night.

Ms Kaprawi said: “They say they want to implement Islam but the truth is they are really smearing Islam. If they are not stopped they really could become like the Taleban.”

Kelantan was always much more conservative when I was last in Malaysia some years ago, but even a foreigner like me could still mix relatively easily; whatever their ethnic, cultural or religous background, Malaysians' natural curiosity and friendliness would see to that, despite the presence of the religious police who were not shy about using their batons.

Somehow I suspect things would be noticeably different now.

shiraz maher

How I escaped Islamism.  Of the Hizb ut-Tahrir variety:

Hizb was a large family in many ways: a group offering social support, comradeship, a sense of purpose and validation. At 21, it was intoxicating to me.

I embraced my new Islamist identity and family with eagerness. Islamism transcends cultural norms, so it not only prompted me to reject my British identity but also my ethnic South Asian background. I was neither eastern, nor western; I was a Muslim, a part of the global ummah, where identity is defined through the fraternity of faith.

Islamists insist this identity is not racist because Islam welcomes people of all colours, ethnicities and backgrounds. That was true, but our world view was still horribly bipolar. We didn’t distinguish on the basis of colour, but on creed. The world was simply divided into believers and nonbelievers. It was a reality that came back to haunt me last month when I realised that Bilal Abdullah and Kafeel Ahmed, the two men linked with the alleged plot to attack London and Glasgow, were among my closest friends when I studied at Cambridge University.

There are no surprises here.  Or in the comments to the article.

Update: And as usual, here comes their propaganda on YouTube.  And Pallywood continues its productions.

self promoter dishes self promoters

Now Richard Dawkins has really picked a fight.

uncle joe and his bag of red-taped lemons

When it comes to the fairer and simpler industrial relations laws called Workchoices, I don't know what's funnier:

The fairer or the simpler.

I'm flexible though.

*sigh*

Phillip Adams, Natasha Stott-Despoja, Antony Loewenstein and Kerry Nettle I understand - they are loopy after all - but I would have thought John Quiggin had more sense.

Clearly not.

Update: John Quiggin informs me in the comments that he did not sign this petition and has asked organizers to remove his name.  Someone is being more than mischievous.

profiteering

That Angus & Robertson is struggling for margin does not surprise me. It amazes me that the message has not become clear to your "management": there are only so many costs you can cut, there is only so much destiny you can put in the hands of a computer system, there are only so many sweetheart deals you can do with large suppliers. After that, in order to prosper one actually has to know one's product and have an appropriately staffed buying department. Most importantly, one has to train sales people of competence. You will never beat the DDSs at their cost cutting game, you will only prosper by putting "books" back into Angus & Robertson. And it would seem to me paramount to stop blaming suppliers for your misfortunes, trying ever harder to squeeze them to death, and actually focus on your core incompetencies in order to redress them.

Tower Books' Michael Rakusin responds to Angus and Robertson Books' Charlie Rimmer after the latter's letter demanding A&R be paid by suppliers for stocking, er, books.

Via Helen, who has other delicious commentary and links for a Friday Feast of Schadenfreude - coming to you here early on a Saturday morning.

when the earth trembles

In Peru, the town of Pisco has been virtually destroyed and tens of thousands along the Peruvian coast are homeless. With an earthquake of such force, I am bracing myself to hear of thousands dead and injured.  Of the 500 and more reported dead so far, some 200 died while they were attending a service at the San Clemente Catholic church and the 18th century mud brick building collapsed.  President Alan Garcia has declared three days of national mourning and Peru's prime minister has called for aid.  "We need everything...even coffins."

In the U.S., a "mountain bump" has killed three rescue workers attempting to reach six miners trapped by a cave-in over a week ago in Utah.

it's the daily mail

It's London:

Parents are sending children to school in stab-proof uniforms to guard against knife crime, it has emerged.

They are paying a firm which makes body armour to line blazers and jumpers with a stab-resistant material called Kevlar.

The precautions are aimed at protecting pupils from knife attacks as street crime spills over into schools.

A wave of stabbings involving teenagers includes the killing of promising footballer Kiyan Prince, who was knifed just yards from his school gates in north London.

Kevlar is a synthetic fibre that can be spun into fabric five times stronger than steel and is used in armoured vests worn by British troops in Iraq.

Essex-based firm BladeRunner produces clothing lined with the material for police and security guards.

But inquiries from parents have now prompted it to modfify school uniforms.

Barry Samms, one of the firm's directors, said the company initially produced stab-proof hooded tops that were bought by teenagers.

It was then asked by parents about the possibility of strengthening school uniforms with Kevlar.

The firm now offers to line blazers and jumpers with the material if pupils send in their uniforms.

It's about six students so far.

But that it's six, says society is sick, somewhere.

skate life

Skateboard inspired.

(via Winter Sleep)

selling uranium to india

It's
(a) royalties from the (foreign) miners
(b) another Japan-India-US-Australia ts.U.N.ami
(c) well we did agree to sell it to China
(d) Pakistan, Iran
(e) Russia and Kazakhstan 

the evolution of alphabets

A visual presentation of the evolution of the Latin character set.

i guess

Because it wasn't a bank, he thought he could dispense with the branches.

Although being a liquor store, a brown paper bag would have been...er...much more effective for concealment.

Meet the duct-tape bandit:

No doubt a few cents short of a dollar.

god with no name

Late last year, a Swedish hotel guest named Stefan Jansson grew upset when he found a Bible in his room. He fired off an email to the hotel chain, saying the presence of the Christian scriptures was "boring and stupefying." This spring, the Scandic chain, Scandinavia's biggest, ordered the New Testaments removed.

In a country where barely 3% of the population goes to church each week, the affair seemed just another step in Christian Europe's long march toward secularism. Then something odd happened: A national furor erupted. A conservative bishop announced a boycott. A leftist radical who became a devout Christian and talk-show host denounced the biblical purge in newspaper columns and on television. A young evangelical Christian organized an electronic letter-writing campaign, asking Scandic: Why are you removing Bibles but not pay-porn on your TVs?

Scandic, which had started keeping its Bibles behind the front desk, put the New Testament back in guest rooms.

"Sweden is not as secular as we thought," says Christer Sturmark, head of Sweden's Humanist Association, a noisy assembly of nonbelievers to which the Bible-protesting hotel guest belongs.

After decades of secularization, religion in Europe has slowed its slide toward what had seemed inevitable oblivion. There are even nascent signs of a modest comeback. Most church pews are still empty. But belief in heaven, hell and concepts such as the soul has risen in parts of Europe, especially among the young, according to surveys. Religion, once a dead issue, now figures prominently in public discourse.

"In Europe, God is (not) dead", wrote Andrew Higgins in the Wall Street Journal last month.   

Perhaps not dead fo