Month: September 2006

Tolerance: A Two-Way Street

Charles Krauthammer – Tolerance: A Two-Way Street – washingtonpost.com
The fact is that all three monotheistic religions have in their long histories wielded the sword. The Book of Joshua is knee-deep in blood. The real Hanukkah story, so absurdly twinned (by calendric accident) with the Christian festival of peace, is about a savage insurgency and civil war.

Christianity more than matched that lurid history with the Crusades, an ecumenical blood bath that began with the slaughter of Jews in the Rhineland, a kind of preseason warm-up to the featured massacres to come against the Muslims, with the sacking of the capital of Byzantium (the Fourth Crusade) thrown in for good measure.

And Islam, of course, spread with great speed from Arabia across the Mediterranean and into Europe. It was not all benign persuasion. After all, what were Islamic armies doing at Poitiers in 732 and the gates of Vienna in 1683? Tourism?

However, the inconvenient truth is that after centuries of religious wars, Christendom long ago gave it up. It is a simple and undeniable fact that the violent purveyors of monotheistic religion today are self-proclaimed warriors for Islam who shout “God is great” as they slit the throats of infidels — such as those of the flight crews on Sept. 11, 2001 — and are then celebrated as heroes and martyrs.

Conspiracy theorists must face the truth of Mars hill

Conspiracy theorists must face the truth of Mars hill – space – 21 September 2006 – New Scientist Space
New images of the “face” on Mars have been obtained by Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft. They reinforce what scientists thought from the beginning – that the face is just a naturally sculpted hill.

Mission controllers have been trying to get images of the region since 2004 but had been thwarted until recently by dust and haze in the atmosphere. Finally, on 22 July 2006, the team obtained clear images of the region with the HRSC. (Click to Enlarge Picture).

Who Was the Pope’s “Educated Persian”?

Scribal Terror: Who Was the “Educated Persian?”
Since the Papal Brouhaha erupted I have been very interested in identifying the “Educated Persian” with whom Manuel II Palaiologos carried on his famous religious debates. The answer is fascinating.

Manuel’s conversations about Islam therefore took place with an expert in Sharia law in the presence of the sultan. It was Manuel who was in a position of subordination to his Muslim overlords and was at the time a guest of the Qadi.

How interesting indeed, that in the old days of Muslim ascendency, no one offered to cut off the head of the questioning infidel, although they could easily have done so. Instead, his gracious hosts encouraged him to speak his mind and amused themselves by answering his objections and correcting his misconceptions, as they understood them.

The behavior of the Qadi and his Sultan, in my opinion, should be celebrated as one of the high points of Muslim civilization. Has that civilization declined so much in the intervening centuries, that the way debates are settled is now by vitriol and violence instead of by reasoned and dignified discourse?

If it stops plague, will it stop hospital superbugs?

If it stops plague, will it stop hospital superbugs? – health – 20 September 2006 – New Scientist
Disease bugs come equipped with a whole tool kit of tricks for evading our immune system. Now it seems that turning off just one of them can render bubonic plague harmless. A similar approach might lead to vaccines against many pathogens, including antibiotic-resistant hospital superbugs.

Your Musical Tastes Reveal Your Life Chords

Your Musical Tastes Reveal Your Life Chords – Forbes.com
And while the research shows that most people form their lifetime musical preferences between the ages of 16 and 24, none of that is carved in stone, North added.

“Your taste can become more sophisticated as you get older,” he said, “mainly because your brain has heard more music and you are able to process more complicated stuff.”

“Still, you’re not likely to shift from liking Britney Spears to Beethoven,” he added.

In China, Delicately Testing the Taboo on Talking About Sex

In China, Delicately Testing the Taboo on Talking About Sex – washingtonpost.com
In the studios of Capital Life Radio’s No. 1 rated show, “Tonight’s Whisperings,” the co-host leaned in close to the microphone. “Tonight we’re going to talk about love and sex,” Sun Yan said in a deep voice, launching into a text message sent in by a student.

The young listener said that he and his girlfriend had experimented sexually the month before, but “both of us wore underwear.” He wanted to know what to do. “What if she’s pregnant?” he asked. “Will her life be in danger if we have an abortion? Which hospital can guarantee a successful abortion?”

Sun’s co-host, the author and lecturer Wu Ruomei, clasped her hands together. She explained patiently that the girlfriend was unlikely to be pregnant, but she also issued a warning. Experimentation should be avoided, she said, because it could lead to sex, and then “you might be headed for a visit to an abortion doctor.”

The sisters-in-arms of Liberia’s war

The sisters-in-arms of Liberia’s war | csmonitor.com
Some of the fiercest warriors in Liberia wear tube tops and polished fingernails.

In other African conflicts, like Uganda and Congo, women have participated in rebel movements, but usually in supporting roles. They cook, clean, and often sleep with soldiers – not always by choice. But here in Liberia, often out of revenge for husbands slain at the hands of the enemy, women have fought on the front line as part of an elite and feared unit unique on the continent.

Now as a new peace deal tries to take hold here, women like Black Diamond and her troops face the prospect of rejoining society after years of combat. Thanks to Randy for this one.

Faith at War: Reports from the Islamic World

Faith at War: Reports from the Islamic World
Even though there are millions of non-Muslims, mostly Christians and Hindus, who work there, by law practicing their faith is illegal, as is the burying of non-Muslims within the kingdom. And the only non-Muslim cemetery that does exist in Saudi Arabia is a little plot in Jeddah, which predates the Saudi nation. Consequently, this huge industry of shipping cadavers has emerged within the country so as not to defile the holy soil of the kingdom.

In Africa, for example, since 1900, the number of Christians has grown from approximately 9 million to 330 million. In Northern Nigeria, in particular, according to the Nigerian government, this Christian-Muslim conflict has cost 50,000 lives in a three-year period, yet we know nothing about that here. I don’t think we’re simply looking at competition between world views — East versus West, Islam versus Christianity. Again, I think we’re looking at resources in the name of faith, or, rather, politics in the name of faith. These are issues, I would argue, that belong to a larger faith-based great game we’re just beginning to understand