At http://www.acommonword.com/, 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals have come together to declare the common ground between Christianity and Islam. Since October 10th, 2007, 3560 visitors have endorsed the site. Today, this same group of Muslims responded with a half page advert in the Sunday Times, to deliver a “Muslim Message of Thanks and of Christmas and New Year Greetings.” This is a very positive gesture in a mad world where differing points of view are normally so polarised.
In 1947, the United Nations approved the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine (originally 1920) into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Arab League rejected the plan, but on May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. We should all remember what US and UK (supported by Australian and Polish) action was taken starting on March 18th 2003, to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. The resulting war has resulted in over 4000 coalition casualties and more than 600,000 Iraqi deaths.
Meanwhile, reported on Xinhua, a Chinese news site: “A year after former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein was executed, his influence is still strongly palpable at his hometown as the country remains polarized in sectarian hatred.” Abdullah Jbara, governor of Salahudin province in northern Iraq, told Xinhua that the role Saddam had played should be viewed in an impartial manner just like any other political figures in the history. “The man had good acts as well as bad ones. So we need to look at his good deeds and make use of them, and at the same time we need to fix the wrongdoing he had committed,” said Jabara, who gained reputation and respect in the province for insisting that Saddam should be buried at his birth place instead of a secret location. This comes after a report in Reuters on 6th December: “Iraq will have to cut food rations in 2008 because of insufficient funds,” Trade Minister Abdul Falah al-Sudany said. So after all that has happened, and using a ration system developed by Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi people now face harsher rationing than was needed when the West imposed trade embargoes on Hussein. Are we proud of the progress we have made?
Also, in a statement posted on the Internet on 29-12-07, Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden accused the United States of having a plot to take control of Iraq’s oil (is this news?). In the statement, bin Laden also accused Washington of seeking to build military bases in Iraq and dominate the region. The United States is making efforts to rebuild a pro-Washington national unity government in Iraq, which is meant “to give the Americans all they wish of Iraq’s oil”, said the statement, urging Iraqis to reject it. bin Laden also made very clear in this statement that a primary concern was the fate of the Palestinian people, and his intention of giving them back their territory between the river Jordan and the Sea.
So, whilst a small group of Muslims make strenuous efforts to bring peace and understanding between Islam and Christian groups, there is a miserable response from the Christian community. Instead, Al-Qaida will continue to gain sympathisers because of historical US and UK action in Palestine and Iraq.
Artist and explorer Sir William Cornwallis Harris led a mission to the Court of Shewa in the Highlands of Ethiopia between 1841 and 1843. Whilst there he recorded in watercolour a unique collection of images for a three volume book about the country (The highlands of Aethiopia - 3 vols., 1844). Some of his illustrations were also used in the Illustrated London News, and were some of the first images the western world saw of that part of Africa, its people and culture. The illustration shown here dates from a earlier hunting expedition into the interior of southern Africa in 1836-7.
A unique insight into the perception of Africa in the 1840’s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cornwallis_Harris
Do we take the law on human rights seriously? It seems that the British legal system is prepared to indulge in petty argument about jurisdiction rather than deliver justice. An Iraqi citizen, who subsequently claimed asylum in the UK in the 1990s returned to Iraq in October 2004, was arrested and has been detained in Basra ever since. He may well be a terrorist, but no charges have been brought against him. In this country, of course, he could be detained for no longer than 28 days under such circumstances. However, in Iraq, it seems, detention can be indefinite. Meanwhile, this case attracts very limited coverage in the press, or even by Amnesty International. Why? Have all you journalists and campaigners gone to sleep for Christmas?
Hilal Abdul-Razzaq Ali Al-Jedda, 50 year old father of 6 and holder of dual British and Iraqi nationality has been held prisoner in Iraq since being arrested on October 10th 2004 by US forces and handed over to the British forces. He complains that his detention infringes his rights under article 5(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. These claims were rejected by the Queen’s Bench Divisional Court and also by the Court of Appeal; both courts “delivered lengthy and careful judgments, commensurate with the importance and difficulty of the issues then raised”
On December 29th to 31 October the House of Lords had a hearing of his case based on a new question: “the attributability in international law of the conduct of which the appellant complains.” (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ ldjudgmt/jd071212/jedda-1.htm). So is Al-Jedda subject to UN or British law? The judgement was made by the House of Lords on 12th December. After thirty nine paragraphs, covering the history of who had jurisdiction over whom during both the course of the Iraq war and the period following it, we finally hear: “There is in my opinion only one way in which they can be reconciled: by ruling that the UK may lawfully, where it is necessary for imperative reasons of security, exercise the power to detain authorised by UNSCR 1546 and successive resolutions, but must ensure that the detainee’s rights under article 5 are not infringed to any greater extent than is inherent in such detention. I would resolve the second issue in this sense.
Furthermore, a third issue arises: “whether English common law or Iraqi law applies to the appellant’s detention.” Apparently, after further deliberation “The appellant’s claim in tort is governed by the law of Iraq”
In other words, the British acting in Iraq can make up their own laws, not the same as those exercised within Britain, and when it is convenient, they can claim that it is nothing to do with them, in any case, since Iraq is now in charge of their own country.
Jackie Ballard, Chief Executive of Royal National Institute of Deaf and Hard of Hearing People (RNID) is advocating allowing deaf parents to screen their embryos to select a deaf child over those with normal hearing. Genetic screening for “designer babies” is an area evoking considerable controversy, but this concept turns the debate on its head. Until now, the debate has been on the ethics of selecting good characteristics for your child, reminiscent of creating a master race, eugenics and Nazism. Ballard was formerly director general of RSPCA for 3 years, a Liberal Democrat MP and originally a social worker, is advocating deliberately designing a baby with a disability.
This has arisen from the debate on a clause in the Human Tissue and Embryos Bill, which is passing through the House of Lords, and would make it illegal for parents undergoing embryo screening to choose an embryo with an abnormality if healthy embryos exist. Prof. Ulrike Zeshan of UCLan, Preston has said “If the intent of the bill is to prevent human suffering, then deafness does not fall under its remit. Deafness constitutes a linguistic/cultural minority and adds to our diversity. Our society chooses to say that deaf people are disabled, but left-handed people are not. Why? This is an arbitrary choice. Research has shown that there are societies where deafness is regarded as an equally viable option, not a disability.”
A spokesman said: “While the RNID believes in the individual’s right to choose, we would not actively encourage the selection of deaf embryos over hearing ones for implantation when both are available.”
So how exactly are you going to explain to your child that they are deaf because you selected them over an embryo that most likely would have normal hearing? To me this clarifies the rights of parents over choosing the genetic make-up of their children. They should not have such rights. Parents do not own their childern, who are in any case in their care for less than 20 years. The more difficult question is “should anyone have the right to design a baby?”
Story so far: New web site provided by my son (who develops commercial web sites with a major UK ISP). So no problem there!
Actually, yes. I used Word to compose my content. It’s Microsoft, so natually it uses Microsoft font. However: the new ” server is in iso-8859-1 so your site is telling the browser one thing and the server something else, which is where the question marks are coming from”
There are 65 .html files to change and if I edit any of them with Word, the settings are changed back.
OK, so try to convert to FrontPage 2003 and use that to sort the problem; it can’t be that difficult to learn! Actually, Yes. When I run it I can’t import the existing site either from a disk copy or from the live site. Most HTML insists on still being default edit in Word (see Windows Explorer screen shot above), even though I asked for FrontPage to be my HTML editor on installation. Manually setting .HTML and .HTM file types to edit in Front Page has resulted in a mixture. Open a file within FrontPage and it opens it in Word. Not really getting anywhere here.
Now FrontPage won’t even allow me to create a new web site, either on disk or at the remote site - it always says the folder in inaccessible.
Oh, and every time I start FrontPage I get the message “Can’t load Speech Recognition Files” - What!
Written in the second person from Able, nobleman, to his lover Morgan (maybe wife, but like a sister in childhood), Banks has succeeded in his unique approach to yet another confounding topic - that of loyalty.
Able and Morgan are overrun in a time of war, forced to return to their castle by a group, presumable representing the new occupation, led by “the Lieutenant”, female leader of a disorderly band of soldiers.
Abe fights with his loyalties to so many things: these are the enemy, but he is unable to fight back; they slowly but systematically consume his wine and food and destroy the family art treasures, but he is powerless to stop them; the Lieutenant takes Morgan as her lover, but he cannot react for fear of what they will do to him. Inevitably, he is destroyed; as it happens as a result of a practical joke by the band of soldiers.
The total ambiguity of place or time (it could be anywhere in the western world over the last 70 years) adds power to the point. However much we may imagine that we would defend what is of value to us, the reality maybe somewhat different given the circumstance of war. The grandiose setting perhaps plays on that hackneyed phrase: “an Englishman’s home is his castle” This novel questions the loyalty and strength of all of us.
http://www.spikemagazine.com/1298banks.php
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/6422/rev0342.html
I have been going to drawing workshops at Kettles Yard in cambridge on Saturday mornings (every fortnight during term). One of the tutors/leaders (Barry Phipps) got me going with Cubism . I had not appreciated what this was all about before. Picasso and others saw the emergence of photography and were looking for how art could transcend anything that photography could offer. In cubism you depict your subject from more that one point of view. This drawing is crayon on paper about A3 size. Another lesson: be bold and fill the paper!
I’m off to India again next week. Four different companies in three locations (Pune, Bangalore and Mysore). At each company we have an 8 hour meeting, although running under Indian time, it could well be more. These companies (Danaher GDCs) are the very best that India has to offer, so my expectations are high that we can find a low cost region contractor that will suit our needs.
In particular, I’m looking forward to the drive from Bangalore to Mysore and back, in rush hour and about 3-4 hours each way.
27-12-07: We have been working with our chosen supplier for 6 months now. We’ve sacked both the developers and only kept the test engineer. We have, once again, been very disappointed with the quality. The attraction of employing engineers at a quarter the cost in the UK is outweighed, I’m afraid, by the poor performance of these engineers. Sad, but this approach is not going to work for us
My wife suggested we put a picture up in the lounge to remember our trip to
One thing that amazed me when we were inside St. Peter’s was the poor organization. Here we were, at the head quarters of one of the largest and richest organizations in the world, people were attending the main mass on a Sunday. But old and crippled women were sitting on the cold hard stone floor in order to be at the mass because no adequate seating was provided. Isn’t St Peter’s designed to hold masses? Well, no. It seems tourists are more important.
Set in post world war two Britain, the style and content of this novel betray little of Ishiguro’s culture and background. Ishiguro was born in 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan, but immigrated to England when he was five. Although his first two novels deal with characters in Japan following world war two, in “Remains of the Day” he turns to the quintessential English culture of the landed gentry and the demise of a way of life epitomised by the central character Stevens, a butler.
The story is one of regret. Stevens devoted his life to Lord Darlington of Darlington Hall and within his own world was proud of this achievement. His devotion, however, prevented him pursuing happiness. The story tracks Stevens’ trip to visit Miss Kenton, a former housekeeper at Darlington Hall. Much to Stevens’ consternation, Miss Kenton reveals that her life “may have turned out better” had she married Stevens. Their mutual love is never explicit, however.
Lord Darlington was an appeaser to Hitler and arranged and hosted dinner parties between the German and British heads of state to allow a forum for mutual understanding. We must remember that, at the time, appeasement was the popular stance, and it was Churchill who stood largely alone in advocating war with Germany. However, Stevens’ regrets extend to his being part of a view which later was regarded as at least mildly treacherous.
In this wonderfully understated novel, the reader is left to interpret what is at the back of Stevens’ mind. He never states his regrets explicitly nor discusses the meaning of regret. By the end of the novel, it is of course far too late to change what has happened. Stevens has devoted his life to someone of now questionable morals (Lord Darlington) and missed the opportunity of happiness with Miss Kenton. All that remains is for him to perfect his skills at bantering with his new employer, Mr Farraday.
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/remains/