Jim Goad: Planet Islam

For the past 1000 years, the Muslim world has given us almost nothing in the way of math or science. It has, however, given us a slave trade that predated the Atlantic slave trade by seven centuries and shackled nearly twice as many black Africans as the Europeans did – a fact that continues to get lost on black Americans who cozy up to Islam.

Yahoo! News: Afghan Girls Fall Ill After Apparent Gas Poisoning

About 40 schoolgirls became ill and were taken to hospital after a suspected gas poisoning in the Afghan capital Wednesday, another apparent attack by hardline Islamists opposed to female education.

SSC Times: Alshabaab Cuts Tongue

The Mother of Ahmed Ali Shuuke has told the media that her son receives all food through injection and according to her statement he gets fed using the needles often used for injecting Camel herds. [includes photograph of a man with his tongue cut out.]

New York Times: In Bold Display, Taliban Order Stoning Deaths

The Taliban on Sunday ordered their first public executions by stoning since their fall from power nine years ago, killing a young couple who had eloped, according to Afghan officials and a witness.

BBC: Taliban ‘Kill Adulterous Afghan Couple’ in Marketplace

Two witnesses from Mullah Quli told the BBC that the Taliban asked the villagers to attend the stoning through an announcement on loudspeakers in the mosque.

Reuters: Iran Stoning Case Lawyer in Turkey, Seeking Asylum

The lawyer who defended a woman sentenced to death by stoning in Iran is in Istanbul and has applied for asylum in a third country, a source at the United Nations’ refugee agency said Thursday.

canada.com: Muslim Women’s Group Opposes Addition of Honour Killings to Criminal Code

The Canadian Council of Muslim Women opposes the addition of “honour killings” to the Criminal Code on the grounds “murder is murder” and a special category could stigmatize new immigrants and some ethnic or religious groups.

Middle East Quarterly: Worldwide Trends in Honor Killings

Although Sikhs and Hindus do sometimes commit such murders, honor killings, both worldwide and in the West, are mainly Muslim-on-Muslim crimes. In this study, worldwide, 91 percent of perpetrators were Muslims. In North America, most killers (84 percent) were Muslims, with only a few Sikhs and even fewer Hindus perpetrating honor killings; in Europe, Muslims comprised an even larger majority at 96 percent while Sikhs were a tiny percentage. In Muslim countries, obviously almost all the perpetrators were Muslims. With only two exceptions, the victims were all members of the same religious group as their murderers.

All articles continue at links. Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and etc. Cutting out a man’s tongue is in compliance with Islam. Stoning those accused of adultery is in compliance with Islam. Honor killings are in compliance with Islam.  These evils co-exist with Islam, and I’ll venture a guess they are related.  Perhaps the secularization and reform of Islam will cause a reduction in these evils.  Pending the complete withering away of Islam under the twin suns of reason and scorn, I’d like to give that a try.

Sometimes people scowl at me when I talk about religions like Islam or Christianity withering away to nothing.  But the evidence is on my side.  All religions die out, given enough time.  If we learn from our mistakes (if) then religion itself may also wither away, given enough time.  If.

The above does not reflect the intention of OVO, and in fact stands opposite to it. The above is provided to feed the presuppositions of those who will not actually read this issue of OVO. Any review of this issue that quotes the words above is likely to have been written by someone who never read beyond them to learn what OVO actually states. This issue of OVO has a purpose, but the likelihood that it will be misrepresented is great enough that a clear statement of what the purpose is not is in order.

OVO does not advocate the criminalization of Christianity. Existing criminal law suffices to address what is harmful, and law is among the least appropriate means of addressing what is merely mistaken. Christians deserve equal sanction by the law, and voluntary and informed activities among consenting adults (including religion) should not be outlawed.
OVO does not advocate the murder of Christians except in self-defense. Because of the potential for legal error, capital punishment is immoral in all cases. War and murder are immoral in all cases except in self-defense. Except in self-defense, it is always immoral to kill (including killing Christians).

OVO does not advocate the replacement of the Christian God with another God, a Goddess, a pantheon of deities, nature worship, or similar substitution. OVO does not advocate worship, be it of the Christian God or any other. To any reader who uses OVO to build up their own superstition: your faith is equally contemptible.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it does not understand it. Many years research went into this issue, and along the way misunderstandings about Christianity (whether in its favor or against it) were abandoned. OVO criticizes Christianity not because it does not understand it, but because it is worthy of criticism.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because the editor had a traumatic experience with Christianity. The editor had a generally positive experience with Christianity while growing up and has Christian friends today. It is a silent admission of defeat that Christians use this psychological, secular explanation for why someone might criticize their superstition. The editor came to reject Christianity the old fashioned way: by reading the Bible.

OVO is not critical of Christianity because the editor is possessed by Satan, demons or evil spirits. Such ghosts have never existed.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it is a socialist publication. OVO is not a socialist publication.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because Christianity is false. Christianity is false, but that is not in itself sufficient reason to advocate that it wither away. There are many non-fiction books, films, plays, poems and recordings that are also false but serve to inspire humanity. But these false stories do not claim to be true, are not taught to impressionable children as true, and are not used to support legislation that meddles in the affairs of non-Christians. No one is arguing that the epics of Homer be taught as history; no one is legislating that Aesop’s fables be posted in courtrooms. These stories, though false, serve to inspire those who seek them out and are rightly preserved. It is the secular power of Christianity that is the problem, not merely its falsehood. Christianity does not attempt to identify and lessen its falsehoods: it revels in them as ‘tests of faith.’ Christianity is holding back science and art, culture and philosophy, tools that actually can and actually have improved humanity’s lot in an indifferent Universe.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because it is a good religion perverted to bad ends. It is much more the case that a few good people (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, perhaps) have perverted the bad religion of Christianity to good ends. All the good done in the name of Christianity could and does occur through entirely secular means. What remains distinctly Christian if such duplication of labor is removed? Threats of eternal damnation, denial of the pleasures and wonders of this short life, confusion and deception. When Christianity has supported individual rights it has done so only after a ‘revelation’ that (a) goes against its own history and (b) miraculously is in harmony with contemporary public opinion. For example, many Christians opposed slavery in the United States; but many more supported slavery and did so for much longer. Even today the Bible contains many passages supporting slavery and not one passage condemning it. Christianity is a slave religion, a misogynist religion, a queer-killing religion, a nonsense religion, but good people keep twisting their bad faith to good ends. Wouldn’t it be better to just do good deeds without wasted efforts to placate an invisible monster that lives in the sky?

OVO does not criticize Christianity to criticize individual Christians. It is often the case that an attack on a person’s unconsidered beliefs is perceived as an attack on their person. If a person’s beliefs are profoundly unconsidered, to merely state that one holds differing beliefs is perceived as an attack. For example, Christians who see other superstitions get equal time in the eyes of the law sometimes complain that their freedom of religion is under attack. Those who hold considered beliefs are secure when challenged and (hopefully) willing to admit error. Those who hold unconsidered beliefs, who repeat what they have been told without deliberation, are more likely to confuse who they are with what they believe. Christianity, like all religions, encourages strong belief but also encourages a lack of consideration. Posturing, bullying and stubbornness are substitutes for consideration of belief among most Christians.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because its claims contradict the evidence of our senses, science, history, archeology, astronomy, mathematics, common sense and the like. It is true that Christianity is incompatible with all of these, but science progresses by way of challenges to all our claims. If Christianity challenges the evidence of our senses, all the better: let the challenges be considered and considered again. If the Bible contradicts science, science can be tested to see if the Bible has a better explanation for reality. Where the Bible holds true, the Bible holds true. Where the Bible is found to be false, it should either be re-written or re-classified as folk tales. Resolving contradictions between the Bible and the evidence of our senses can be of value to us all, and so the contradictions between the Bible and the evidence of our senses are not in themselves why the Bible should be criticized. Internal contradictions in the Bible, and holding on to falsehood when falsehood has been identified, are worthy of the greatest of criticisms.

OVO does not criticize Christianity as an argument for atheism. The editor is preparing an argument for atheism that is distinct from this argument against Christianity.

OVO does not criticize Christianity because Jesus Christ was a good person whose followers have gone astray, or because we do not have the secret teachings of Jesus, or because Jesus was a complex person with both good and bad qualities. Jesus never existed.

In 1991, the editor published A Call to Heresy on a BBS in Knoxville, Tennessee USA. The document found its way onto BBS’ around the world as well as other formats, including an Internet domain in Hong Kong and a CD-ROM of public domain texts published by Palm Computers. Various editions of the text can be found on the Internet today. Some of the research done for that text has found a new home here in OVO 16 AntiChrist.

OVO criticizes the Bible. Some Christians say that it is an error to overly attend to what the Bible says, and one should rely on the Bible as inspiration rather than fact. But the Bible itself makes claims of perfection, and so taking it at its word in claims of perfection are as justified as any other perspective; perhaps more justified than some ‘inspired’ interpretations. If any interpretation of the Bible is as good as any other, then Christians in no way can distance themselves from the worst among them. Having failed to amend the contradictions, atrocities and absurdities in the Bible with over two thousand years to do so, it is reasonable to conclude that the Bible is considered factual among Christians. Some Christians (called Dominionists or Fundamentalists or Conservatives or the Christian Right) are explicit in their claim that the Bible is factual, while the rest hold it to be factual but requiring ‘interpretation’ (often by way of asking the reader to simply ignore parts of the Bible).

But this issue of OVO does not limit itself to criticisms of the Bible. The Roman Catholic Church claims a history pre-dating the Bible. Martin Luther, founder of Protestant Christianity, wrote inspired texts. The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints and the Watchtower Society claim to have Christian revelations in modern times. All of these Christians are well deserving of criticism and contempt.

There are a set number of responses offered by Christians when confronted with their own beliefs. The first and most common is to be told that these Bible verses have been taken out of context. It is claimed that the verses surrounding these quotes give them a meaning other than their apparent meaning. If this is the case it will be easy to demonstrate; full citations for each quote are given throughout. The reader is encouraged to read the Bible. There is no more sure path to rejecting Christianity than understanding it. Some claim that the contexts of the times change how we should understand the Bible. But does the Bible say it is relevant only until the time of Job (the last time God speaks directly to humanity), or does it claim to be relevant to all times? Some claim that one translation of the Bible offers a more accurate account than another, but existing fragmentary early Christian texts contain their own contradictions, atrocities and absurdities.

The second common reply made by Christians when confronted with their own beliefs is that the Bible, God, Jesus and the rest are not to be understood by reason in the way math or science is. Christianity is to be understood by faith, by the heart, by the spirit, by the soul. Therefore any apparent contradictions, atrocities or absurdities should be ignored because those are all ‘reason’ and not ‘faith.’ But there is no ‘alternative to reason’ as faith is said to be. One can hope, one can wish, one can pretend and ignore, one can scream or run away or kill one’s critics, but none of these are alternatives to reason. Even if there were an alternative to reason, how is the ‘feeling’ that Christianity is true (and all other religions false) different from the ‘feeling’ that Islam is true (and all other religions are false)? Why is it that Christian ‘feelings’ are so regional – does God not inspire such ‘feelings’ everywhere equally? Why don’t children have that ‘feeling’ until an adult tells them to say they do, and why do adults spend so much effort making sure that ‘feeling’ is planted in children?

All religions claim to be the only true religion. Even the ecumenical religions claim to be the only true religion, by claiming that the non-ecumenical religions are false. But since all religions contradict each other at most only one can be the only true religion. Since all religions by definition put themselves outside what can be demonstrated as true, it would be unjust to establish any religion as secular law because the likelihood of error would be too great. Suppose Mithrism became the law of the United States when actually it was Ah Pook that was the real living God? Those countries that have a legal assumption of atheism serve freedom the most. At times this has been the case in the United States, where OVO originates. Christianity threatens the legal presupposition of atheism in the USA, necessitating this issue of OVO. Christianity is the superstition behind the US support of Israel, the war in Iraq, lack of access to Plan B and a vaccine for two strains of cancer-causing HPV, the removal of science from public education, the ongoing imprisonment of the West Memphis Three (among others), blue laws, laws forbidding atheists from holding elected office and more. Reform from within should occur in Christianity. Civil discourse should occur between Christians and non-Christians. But should Christianity elect to ignore the opportunities of positive reinforcement, let it learn the sting of negative reinforcement. OVO is not reforming Christianity from within, nor is it a civil discourse. It is an attack – using only Christianity’s own beliefs as weapons. When Mithrism or the faithful of Ah Pook establish their superstition as law in the USA, they will be equally worthy of criticism. Readers in countries where Islam or Judaism are the majority superstition are encouraged to make similar efforts.

This issue of OVO advocates the withering away of Christianity through reason and scorn. Reason alone withers Christianity to a hostile party guest that has long overstayed his welcome; scorn provide us with laughter and satisfaction as we show him to the door. Perhaps reason alone, or reason and compassion, might be a more noble endeavor. But any belief that cannot withstand a little mockery is perhaps not worth holding in the first place.

Subject religious organizations to the same requirements as secular non-profit organizations: demonstrate they perform a quantifiable public good to receive tax-exempt status. Do not donate any funds, labor or resources to Christian organizations: there are secular equivalents to any Christian organization for those who seek to aid others. Do not vote for politicians who make their Christianity a part of their platform. Oppose ‘faith based’ funding and theocratic laws. Learn more about Christianity than the Christians themselves. Confront Christians with their own claims and history.

OVO is fortunate to originate in the United States, where Christianity and other superstitions may be legally practiced and criticized. The United Kingdom, Holland, Sweden, Italy, Turkey, Norway, Canada and other countries forbid criticism of religion as a form of ‘hate crime,’ while China, North Korea and other countries forbid religion as a form of ‘thought crime.’ In the United States religion may be both practiced and criticized – for now. If Christianity continues to become the state religion of the United States, this may not be the case much longer.

OVO is a tool kit to disabuse the reader of Christianity.

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

Getting the table was not difficult: I submitted the same paperwork that the religious groups on campus submit every other week of the year and my request was approved right away. I only asked for an hour a day for four days, due to other school obligations. Most religious groups have their tables out all day for weeks on end.

I spent about $40 printing some pamphlets I made. My pamphlets consisted of quotes from religious sources such as the Christian Bible and the Quran. The idea was that direct quotes from the source presented without comment would speak louder than any criticism I could offer. The quotes were gathered according to themes such as science, women, prophecies, etc. I also requested literature from atheist groups and several generously answered my request: Campus Freethought Alliance, Center for Inquiry, Council for Secular Humanism, and United States Atheists. I decided to keep the effort ‘ecumenical’ in that I wasn’t there representing any particular organization. By the end of the week I learned that the professionally published literature is taken more readily than the home-made photocopies, and that everyone loves stickers. I decorated a second-hand tablecloth with the word ATHEIST in large, black letters – no missing this table, no missing what this table was about (or so I hoped). PCC specifically forbids collecting personal information on campus, so I didn’t have a sign-up sheet as the Campus Freethought Alliance suggests. Nor did I primarily promote humanism rather than critique religion, as the CFA suggets. For this first effort on campus I want it to be clear that religion itself, not just particular groups or people or claims, was not exempt from criticism. I also set up a simple Web page for those who wanted to get or share more information.

Many people had questions about the atheist table. Some wanted to know if there was an official atheist club on campus, and what the club did. I said that there was not school-sponsored club because I knew that some students wouldn’t feel comfortable if their student activities fee went toward such a club. PCC offers up to $500 per group per year. There are at least five or six religious clubs on campus at all times, and no limit to the number of clubs that could exist. Two people said ‘but the Christian groups don’t hesitate in taking my money.’ I said that was a decision that PCC and the Christian groups made, and suggested they take it up with PCC and the Christians if they disapproved. I said many times that while there was no club, we did have a Web page and that I hoped in the future to either bring in or be a guest speaker on atheism, religion, church/state issues, and the like.

Some who stopped by the table had questions not about what I was offering but what I wasn’t offering. Why not have a separation of church and state table instead of an atheist table? Why aren’t there any pamphlets on creationism versus evolution? Why are there only pamphlets about Christianity and Islam, and not other religions? The general answer was that there was only so much I could do on this first attempt at an atheist table but all of these issues had relevant links and information at the Web site.

Some people had philosophical questions such as why we are here, where the first life came from, what happens when we die, whether or not there was a spiritual world, and ‘how do you live’ (which seemed to mean how can an atheist have ethics and a joy in living while remaining unconvinced by claims of God or an afterlife). I replied that I have read several theories as to how the earliest life appeared on Earth but I don’t consider myself versed enough in science to have a deep understanding of the subject, so I didn’t know for sure how life first formed. But I said it is more likely that there is a natural explanation than a supernatural one. Regarding ‘how I live’ I said I was not convinced by claims that there was an afterlife or a spiritual world or God. I said people can have the purpose they give themselves, and that can be its own reward. I have worked at a homeless shelter and as an American Sign Language interpreter for many years. I’ve taken classes on how to teach children with learning disabilities and how to be a better counselor. I am a member of Amnesty International and donate to charitable organizations. That’s some of ‘how I live’ without God.

A few people offered their unsolicited analysis about why I was hosting an atheist table. They said I must have had a bad experience with religion, or I must have never read the Bible, or I must have never really read the Bible, or I must have never had someone explain the Bible to me in just the right way. I replied that I had an entirely positive religious experience growing up, and that part of my religious upbringing was being encouraged to read the Bible. I started reading it as a child, and I have read from it ever since. The more I read, the more problems I find. Is it possible that the right explanation from the right explainer will make it all true again? It is possible, but I think it is very unlikely this will happen. Some claim atheism is obviously false because it claims to have ‘all the answers,’ but I suggest it is religion that has a one-size-fits-all answer (‘God did it’) and it is atheism that keeps asking questions.

People asked me what atheism was. I gave two answers: that atheism is what is left over when the claims of religion are found to be false, and that atheism is a rejection of the supernatural. The former explains why atheism is not ‘just another religion,’ the later explains what atheism is against. It might have been less confrontational to have a secular humanist table instead of an atheist table, but I confess I enjoyed tweaking the noses of the religious on campus. The worst I can say about them is I don’t believe their claims. Their holy books say I should be put to death (the Christians have Deuteronomy 13:6-10, the Muslims have Quran 2:191). I think they can stand a little confrontation.

I managed to distribute nearly all of the literature I had, but the experience wasn’t only one of being a teacher. I also learned from the experience. I learned there was a uniformity in how non-Christians perceived Christians: without exception, non-Christians spoke of Christians as liars and bullies. I was asked seven times if I was ‘serious,’ if I was really an atheist. I was asked this more than anything else. The reason why people asked if I was ‘serious’ was they thought the table was a trick by Christian. Five times I was asked if any Christians had harassed me yet. Christians are clearly are not viewed favorably on campus outside of their own circle. Non-Christians see Christians as people prone to misrepresent themselves to ‘win souls’ and to abuse those who disagree with them. I hope Christians reading this do not use this as evidence they are a persecuted group; being disliked is not evidence of being put down, and there may be entirely valid reasons for their being disliked. If anyone reading this who is not a Christian has thought in the past they were alone in mistrusting Christians, that they are in a critical minority, they might like to know that instead they are the majority. But it is a majority that has been deceived and bullied into silence.

The dislike and mistrust for Christians on campus was one thing I learned from hosting an atheist table. Another thing was how clearly divided Christians are in their behavior based on gender. Of those who identified themselves as Christians, wore Christian jewelry or carried Christian Bibles, the men and the women acted entirely differently. The Christian women both asked questions and gave answers. They spoke and listened to me and to other people at the table. The Christian men, however, were angry and condescending. I was told by the Christian men I ‘must live an empty life,’ that I ‘didn’t know what I was talking about,’ that I ‘should read the Bible before I quote from it,’ and more. Men also tended to exhibit a ‘rant and run’ behavior – they would bark out a comment or a judgment, sometimes in the middle of my listening to someone else, then literally run away. Sticking around to hear anything I had to say in reply was not in the cards for these Christian men. It was a man who asked the confusing question ‘Why are you pointing out all the things that are wrong in the Bible that are true anyway?’ It was a man who said that asking Christians to defend their claims, as I did in my pamphlets, was saying Christians are stupid. If the bad reputation of Christians is based in experience, I suggest it is Christian men and not Christian women who are to blame. No other categorization of Christians, such as age or ethnicity, was apparent.

A few Christians of both genders came to the table more than one day. And both a male and a female Christian gave the same reply to what turned out to be the most popular pamphlet I offered (see below). Regarding the fact that Jesus said that He would return and the world would end ‘soon’ (a ‘soon’ that came and went two thousand years ago), they said that a day to God was like a thousand years and a thousand years was like a day. Although one Christian mistakenly said this was a quote from Psalms, I found the quote in 2 Peter 3:8. The unknown author of 2 Peter references the letter of Jude, which was written around 80-100 CE. Thus the 1=1000 claim could only have been made after Jesus was already one or more generations late. In fact, the main point of 2 Peter Chapter 3 is to answer those who were asking, all the way back then, why Jesus hadn’t returned in their lifetimes as He had promised He would. People were asking if Jesus had lied (or been a lie) two thousand years ago. People are still asking today. But some aren’t asking anything: they just accept that when you put God into the picture, you don’t have to mean what you say or say what you mean. Jesus promised (thirty times or more!) to return within the lifetime of those who saw Him; He didn’t, but His followers claim He said that, He never lied, He is coming back, and somehow at the same time He is coming back two thousand years ago. Might all this confusion contribute to the perception that Christians are liars?

Based on conversations, repeat visits, and other signs of apparent interest it seems that my pamphlet questioning Christian prophecy was the most popular. It is possible that the topics presented in the pamphlets I offered were not the main reason people selected some and not others. Perhaps they picked up what was closest to them, or what was the most colorful. For whatever reason, here are the topics covered and how many of each pamphlet were taken:

Thirty Failed Prophecies: 28
The Bible Condones Slavery and Racism: 20
Women in the Bible: 16
Antisemitism in the Bible: 14
Papal-sanctioned Child Abuse: 10
Antisemitism from Martin Luther: 9
Fantastic Claims of Islam: 9
God Hates Homosexuality: 8
The Bible on the Origins of Life: 8
The Bible on the Origins of the Earth: 6

Only one person mentioned Islam at all (saying he had seen a table for an Islamic group before). Although there is no small Islamic presence on campus, no Muslim identified themselves to me, sought to understand what I was doing or challenge my claims. Nor was any other religion defended during this week. Instructors at PCC seemed to neither entirely avoid from nor come to the table: a few did each. It was only the Christians and those who have been cowed by the Christians who engaged me.

Some of those who came to the table were sympathetic but had concerns with atheism. One said ‘I understand the importance of the separation of church and state, but when they start banning Christmas in public grade school that’s going too far.’ I suggested that because not all religious holidays enjoy the same investment of tax dollars that celebrating Christmas was an instance of government establishment of religion and thus a violation of the First Amendment. One person said they liked what I was doing but ‘most people think atheism means evil’ (Devilishly, I said that’s why I did it). Another said I was just pushing my faith on other people: I reminded him that he came up to me and started the conversation, and that disbelieving the claims of religion was not a matter of faith.

A small number of people looked at the Web page. For all of four hours, there was a freethinker on campus that people could ask questions to and hear answers from. But what I value most out of the experience was the words of encouragement I got from the non-Christian majority who stopped by. Most of them appeared concerned about being seen talking to me but they each quietly said something nice. ‘Thank you for doing this!’ ‘I’m always trying to explain these things and it’s hard, can I take two pamphlets?’ ‘It’s good to see everyone get a chance, not just the religious groups.’ ‘I look forward to discussion with you.’ ‘This is great, I’m a recovering Catholic.’ ‘My boyfriend is an atheist.’ ‘This is interesting!’ Three people gave me the ‘thumbs up.’ And my favorite vote of confidence: ‘Good on you!’

(from OVO 16 ANTICHRIST January 2006)

2.
The level of technological development in any given society is the primary measurement of its state of intellectual amplitude. The result of technological advancement is axiomatically the production of free time, that is, time available to an expanding array of choices rather than to an expanding array of necessities. Freed from necessity, a society can invent forward, project a wide field of ideals determined by curiosity and exploration rather than inventing backwards within a narrow field determined by irritants. Up to now, invention has concerned itself with the creation of objects in space. In a free-time society, invention will emphasize organizational schemata for information throughput. The impetus will be to design frames of reference unfettered by ideology. Human culture will then consist of the interplay between various interpretive frameworks developed by their adherents in a spirit of problem solving.

3.
Technology is inherently democratizing. The popularization of technophobia will be increasingly perceived to be against the best interests of humanity. In dense information fields fear is dissipated when full attention can be applied to success in problem solving. Technology supplies the tools for amplifying intelligence to every citizen. The economics of mass production dissolves hierarchies of privilege. Technology is the sharing of created wealth, not the concentration of exploited wealth. Technology requires an educated work force in the production end. Under feudalism, divisions of labor were decided upon by tradition, birthright, wealth, privilege, etc., and resulted in caste system boundaries that tended to freeze the evolution of intelligence, hence the tendency of all pre-capitalist societies to collapse. Chattle control of technology is now an historic futility. The genie is out of the bottle. Human knowledge has passed the threshold where it may now self-amplify at a geometrically accelerating rate rather than at the pre-electronic, pre-TV linear rate.

4.
Imaging technology is the present organizing principle of social forms for two reasons: (a) information density – “a picture is worth a thousand words” really means that a picture oriented society has more accuracy of detail about its phase states. It can better predict the outcome of its policy decisions. This makes for stable social evolution. (b) image plasticity – a wider variety of imaginary constructs can be brought the 3-D world and tested for reality. Individual imaging prototyping, ie fantasizing, becomes less bound to subjective personality loops and better able to engage problem-solving efficiencies within the measurable realm of the externally perceived universals. It is time to place computational phenomena into the visual cortex of the brain. Over half the brain’s neurons are used to process and understand visual input. Its visual input data channel has a bandwidth estimated to be about 2 gigabits per second.

5.
Imaging screen plasticity allows for alternative functions of the same instrument. With the addition of touch screen, data glove or other “hot screen” technology, it can multi-function as memory, gauge display, media interface, and process controller. This is a powerful form of throughput amplification. Any tool that can lessen boundary pile-up and discontinuities between phases or objects is more efficient. A carpenter’s hammer can either drive or pull nails without retooling. The human mind is very good at alternating or simultaneous functions. It can walk and chew gum; it can both perceive and conceive. The imaging screen tool best reflects our capacities to both view and visualize and will probably be the first component of an artificial intelligence array that exceeds the primary limiting factor of human individual sentience – our built-in focus outward from a binocular being point singularity. An A.I. setup with multi-points of view, many eyed, will accelerate the next revolution in applied knowledge.

6.
Screens will be used to modulate other screens. Within a large bank of info feedback screens, any shift in paradigms introduced by the data or operator will cause a kaleidoscopic cascade of phase and intensity determinants to spread out across the screen like a living mosaic. Observations of changes in the rates as well as the shapes of patterns will awaken dormant potentials, such as our visual sense of acceleration pattern. Consequently, many of our biological sensoria will receive an impetus to make themselves available to a human-made environment of mental evolution. Interacting with images will become direct and immediate: in resonate proximity to internal visual imagining. This is an important development because it couples process of imagination to the real world where their function-ability is made apparent. By visually representing and revealing the interconnectivity of events within a phase and, by extension, of all phases within our universe, technology becomes the most humanitarian of all human endeavors.

7.
Multi-screen image display arrays are key to solving the problem of information overload. There is not too much information, there is too little cognitive ability to handle it. The synthetic capabilities of the visual cortex (mass-free mental imaging, thought pictures) coupled to the synthetic potential of our matter-composed universe (molecular Lego kit) provides us with a very large number of invention activated problem solving avenues. Actually we are over-engineered for survival. Meeting the necessities of biological survival is a piece of cake, an amoeba can do it. But systems propelled by discomfort are limited in that they focus backwards upon point-causal determinants (see #2). These systems are automatic not autonomous. Systems attracted by pleasure are area-focused rather than point-focused. They exercise forward acting (future oriented) area causal apperception over a range of possibilities. The implication of choice requires a modeling system which allows the comparative consideration of options in an autonomous manner. This modeling system should borrow as much as it can from the dimension of simultaneity in order to hold several or many choices up against each other for comparison. For this reason it is ideally multi-screen with zoom in / out potential at all foci and peripherally inclusive as well.

8.
Various studies on the nature and effect of television upon culture have been made, their results and attendant opinions published. None, however, have taken into account a hitherto unknown potential of the video medium, that of multi-screen viewing. When television is discussed it is always within the parameter of a single screen, much like cinema. Marshal Mcluhan first hypothesized an important characteristic of technological advance – the tendency for the previous technology to dictate the form its subsequent evolution. For example, the first automobiles placed the engine in front, where the horses went. They called it the horseless carriage. This is a shock reducing social mechanism which serves to validate the past in its form while incorporating a new utility. So it is with television. We have a medium imprisoned within the form of its predecessor, cinema / theater. It has been captive to cinema’s physical form up to this point (ie a single screen) and theater content (the presentation of dramatic emotional suspense). Television is ideally suited to multi-screen arrays. Furthermore, being electronic and portable, its content is ideally suited to instantaneous update and real time look-in on relevant events. The ability for the viewer to switch through channels, to view within the autonomous framework of the domicile environment and to utilize the autonomous potentials of VCR and camcorder is lessening the power of “theatrics” in political and economic life – the popular anti-charisma of General Schwartzkopf is instructive.

9.
Multi-screen arrays imply more than one point of view which is the basis for dimensionality. We perceive time from the standpoint of a succession of temporal points of view. We perceive space from a binocular point of view, the conceptual fusion of which gives us 3-D.  Multiple points of view is a very powerful attribute of full awareness and, moreover, is the primary means by which awareness amplifies itself.  Putting oneself in the other person’s shoes, for example, is a key to successful communication and the generation of understanding. Having the flexibility to adopt many points of view during the analysis of a situation is the creative way to avoid traps in cognition.  Multi-screen arrays are tailor made for collaborative problem solving via teleconference hookups.  We can map out facets of a situation like a cubist painting and come upon a more complete picture. Completing our picture of the universe is the name of the game.

10.
Problem solving is very simple given enough information. The facts usually sort themselves out into necessity fields and mental effort is potentially freed up to pursue more and more pleasure of creativity. This is art. We are going to have to learn how to operate with freedom of choice within an incredibly dense global information matrix. The densest personal info matrix is the visual one. The human retina is capable of differentiating about 2 million color hues and intensities and probably a larger number of shapes, spatial attitudes, distances and motions. We mainly use only a small portion of the visual field at any one time, a pencil thin cone of maximum attention, and we see as we read, in a scanning manner. This leaves the peripheral visual field almost unused, merely a cue-up function; like hearing – an attention director. Expansion of peripheral apperception is desirable because it allows a wider field of view for the simultaneous comparative gauging of visual info which will, in turn, amplify that same potential within the memory and projective areas of the mind. In short, we can make parallel processing abilities accessible to consciousness. One can get a taste of this ability by setting two TV sets side by side, tuning in two different stations with audio up on both and concentrating on getting the gist of both programs simultaneously. Within ten minutes you should be catching on.

11.
High definition TV (HDTV) should be perceived by the media aware public as more than an embellishment upon the world of entertainment. 1,120 scan line resolution will transform our perceptual field and its resultant social appetites much as photo-journalism via Life and Look magazines helped to transform America from agrarianism to industrialism. HDTV viewed upon a living room TV set will make such superficial genre as game shows, soap operas, sitcoms and allied exercises in inanity naked to our faculties of analysis and skepticism. Nature does not represent itself to us in low definition. We do that.  The lower the definition, the more the optical phenomena take on the properties of undifferentiated peripheral visual field object, to cue-up our attention to more detailed, information dense appraisal.  Low definition communication leaves us in a state of mystery to one degree or another, which is not a fulfilling process.  HDTV plays directly to the central retina, where the blanks get filled in.  If the TV program content is a mismatch with the detailed configurative capability of the retina, the viewer will change channels to program content which does that capability justice.  With HDTV, video as a single-screen artifact reaches its maximum point of exploitation. It is suitable for nothing less than a documentary approach at all times. Low definition sectarian ideology is incapable of instantaneous update and will be perceived as a retrograde, obstructing methodology of patterning.  The viewer will be freed from any frame of reference which locks interpretation into pre-orchestrated categories. Fields of knowledge will become wide angle, making apparent the interconnectivity of event flux and causality. Equirement will supplant style. The demand for precision in all bio-necessity aspects of life will dictate a form-follows-function structuralist aesthetic.

12.
The compact handicam allows us to look in on areas of human discovery as they occur without the mitigation of commentary or editing or political top spin. exploration, laboratory and field research, global conferences, classroom lectures, etc. could be tuned in to for personal enjoyment and university credit. The key is “real-time”. CSPAN is the most important network currently in existence. Emergency situations already benefit to a degree from this technology, particularly in the medical field where difficult procedures are accessible to world wide expertise while in progress. The recent events in China were covered in large measure by students with smuggled handicams. We are witness to events as they unfold. abuses of police or government procedures captured by a palm-corder, cannot be denied without the peril of full discovery and blown cabals. Video testimony and video documents are being recognized as legally true. The drama is reality itself.

13.
McLuhan’s prediction of the electronic global village is no joke. We are beginning to see into the lives of our global neighbors on an intimate scale, independent from the force feeding of stereotypes via ideological and governmental channels. The most important network program to date is America’s Funniest Home Videos. The most important broadcast area of the world was Eastern Europe. Real life is far more transformative and entertaining than entertainment, it touches us more deeply, and bonds us together at the level of reality. Truth is manifold viewpoint, manifold verification.

14.
We no longer have the option to select whether or not we perceive an event, but only where to place it within our frame of reference, what importance to give it. In an era of remote telecast, nothing remains remote, everything is right in front of our face. Your hand-held channel selector is a marvelous anti-gravity device. You don‘t have to get up to change the channel, consequently you don’t tend to get trapped inside mass inertia systems. The tendency, then, is to not pattern your mental life after mass / inertia systems. The remote channel selector is democracy’s most powerful weapon. Truth is never boring.

15.
The digitizing of media via digital signal processing is an exciting prospect from the standpoint that this will help in standardizing electronic communication languages. The more we appreciate that phenomena can be subdivided into smaller and smaller constituent particles, the more we perceive those particles responding to field interactions. This is how we can get to the ideal from the real. Image and recording quality will no longer be a function of equipment cost. There will be absolutely no point to operating giant media entertainment networks. With fiber optics and degeneration-proof image and sound recording, every human is a news wire service, like ham radio operators during a local emergency. Fiber optics already carry in-house video teleconferencing capability within many corporate office complexes. When the band width problem is solved, either by fiber optics or a rediscovery of Tesla standing wave technology, the wires will be humming with so much communication flux that new visual shorthand languages will spring up out of necessity. That will be interesting.

16.
Up to now, what we call communication is really sound wave communication carried out in a relatively dense atmosphere at very slow speeds within a linear sequential framework. Light travels 100,000 times faster than sound. This is the speed of vision. The visual field is also simultaneous. You can recognize many objects at a single glance. The advantages of incorporating a visual language into everyday affairs is readily apparent. The nature of that language is totally wide open. It could be any mix of graphic symbol, color cues, positional cues, motion cues, 3-D display, audio intermix, you name it.

l7.
Nikola Tesla, in his later years, claimed to have invented a process whereby mental images could be transferred to an imaging screen. His absolute mastery over the theory and application of EMF is a matter of historic fact. We use his AC current, polyphase motors, radio, transformers, etc. on a daily basis. The military has taken the threat of Soviet deployment of Tesla-based EMF weapons very seriously; it was the impulse to develop the SDI program. We should make the attempt to understand EMF phenomena as Tesla did; the vacuum being no vacuum at all, rather a seething sea of electrostatic potential, a stressed vacuum.

18.
The leading edge of media research is currently to be found in the field of aircraft cockpit instrumentation display. Whenever you have two systems in relative motion, the requirements for rapid information updating rise exponentially as a function of the increase in velocity. Necessity dictates accuracy, ie, a high volume of data, a dense data flux. These lessons can be applied to everyday life where the velocity and instability factors are less than in flight systems, but the simultaneity factors are greater. Information throughput density is the constant in either case. In education, students could fly themselves through a knowledge landscape at their own learning velocity. Information density is conceptually akin to object velocity. The more of it that pours through your visual perceptual field, the faster you are going, even though you may be physically at rest. This is why “couch potatoes” are actually rocket sled pilots traveling at warp speed.

l9.
What we presently enjoy as technological progress has been, up to this point, essentially a spin-off from military R & D. National destiny has heretofore required the motive of threat to unify and drive science. With the easing of cold war tensions, technology can be harnessed more directly to global human needs, but the motive of discovery must be powerful enough to supplant the motive of threat. Space exploration is vital as a replacement ‘science driver’ because only in that realm is the crucial factor of power vs. weight, ie, miniaturization, the primary factor.

20.
“Television has served as an internal communications system. Lawmakers can be working in their offices and keep one eye on the television screen to check the progress of debate on the house or senate floor” (story in the San Francisco Chronicle April 4, 1989). Government officials must absolutely be elected and appointed on a basis of technological literacy first and foremost. Even that won’t stop the capitol buildings from becoming ceremonial halls and museums.

21.
Tele-synthetic reality – virtual space imaging and allied tactile-referent systems – may prove to be a very big let down in any practical sense. It will intrinsically apply most easily to remote control of robotics, and a simulation trainer for certain kinds of athletics. Its over magnification of the subjective will tend to move it into the area of expensive escapist entertainment and even porn. However, certain of its spin-off developments are showing potential. Two forms of goggle-type display technology have recently been made available which will have consequences beyond their immediate markets. The first goggle display places heads up data overlayed upon the normal visual panorama. The prototypes do not have head movement tracking and directional capabilities, but can superimpose any word or symbol code upon the real world. No reason why one couldn’t read the paper while driving the car, for example; simply a matter of depth of field awareness. The other goggle technology projects any video signal directly in front of the eyes, but blanks out real world image. This British invention is designed as a substitute for regular television viewing with stereo earphones and goggle display in an integral unit. The remarkable potential in these videophonic goggles is that they will effectively cause the reintegration of the imaginative processes of cognition away from the subjective and towards the objective, real world. Such close-up projection will, in fact, substitute external objective content and relations for internal subjective imagination. Daydreaming will have a powerful impetus to relate directly to reality, rather than being a form of personal escapism. Documentary visual uptake will immerse the viewer within the docu-world and further accelerate the citizen’s potential to participate in world affairs beyond the mere possession of opinion.

22.
In the recent discussions about the most strategic of our nation’s industries, electronic design automation (EDA) has received undeserved neglect. EDA is nothing less than the computers ability to design itself into a more efficient form – it is the computer design of computer components, and is an absolutely crucial technology. The amazing fertility of electronic technology is constantly shrinking the “shelf life” of new products, now down to under a year. Rapid obsolescence has brought EDA into its own as a method for accelerating the design phase of new products through prototype testing. The implications of EDA, however, are far deeper. EDA is laying the practical foundations for artificial intelligence capabilities; in particular, the ability of a piece of hardware or program to educate itself about a task and then improve its performance on that.

23.
Computer aided design, animation and engineering will integrate within the entertainment industry and will eventually replace sets, actors, locations, cameras: everything, in fact, that we call “Hollywood.” Photorealistic animation will burst out of its “special effects” containment to take over the entire production. Feature-length entertainment will be produced start to finish by a handful of men and women in an editing suite at a hundredth the cost. Photorealistic animation will be as detailed as modern cinematography with the advantage of absolute creative freedom. The division between “amateur” and “professional”, “B” grade and studio, “artistic” and “kitsch” will be dissolved by the power of the animation hardware and programs themselves.

24.
Given proper in / out and control interface, any electronic circuitry can be made to function in the form of a software program. Any digitizable signal can be softwared through a computer to make the computer function in any way, as audio, video or radio gear, electronic testing and diagnostic gear, electronic gauge and monitoring gear.

25.
More international bodies will convene to work out interface standards for information technology than will meet to promote world peace, and will be more successful at both tasks.

26.
The economics of surplus, first-generation obsolete gear will remove overheated overhead costs from still viable technologies and promote vigorous experimentation and “re-prototyping” into new and unusual functions. This area should not be overlooked for its potential to provide breakthrough “off the shelf’ type applications and conceptual flanking movements, particularly in the area of parallel processing which may prove to be effectively applied in the absence of fast processor speeds.

27.
Up to this point most futurist projections have been hampered by either a simple minded “gee whiz” approach or an overly cautious approach philosophically opposed to technology per se. In absolutely no example of popularized futurology have authors exhibited an understanding of the process of mind that results in efficient applied human invention. This outlook robs us of a great sense of security about the intelligence of our forebears well as a sense of confidence in our ability to educate ourselves out of any problem that these three dimensions of existence present, eventually even that of mortality. Without a cultural optimism based on the real and tangible and beneficial accomplishments of the best minds of our kind, we hobble and retard human progress to a great cost of unnecessary pain. It is a shame that the names and stories of the great inventors are not an universal part of our folk culture and that the power of their method is kept from us.

28.
“Ninety-nine percent of humanity does not know that we have the option to ‘make it’ on the planet and in the universe. We do. It can only be accomplished, however, through a design science initiative and technological revolution” – R. Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path 1981.

(from OVO 12 SCIENCE November 1991)

Gen Mohiudin Ghori said his soldiers had seen Taliban fighters placing women and children on the roofs of buildings and firing from behind them.

Mahmood Delkhasteh: Rapists in Iran’s Regime

Sexual assault against men and women is being systematically used in Iran in an attempt to stifle opposition.

Pajamas Media: What Did You Say About Muhammad?!

Which is more likely to elicit an irate Muslim response: 1) public cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, or 2) public proclamations that Muhammad was a bisexual, sometime transvestite and necrophile, who enjoyed sucking on the tongues of children, commanded a woman to “breastfeed” an adult man, and advised believers to drink his urine for salutary health?

BBC: Somali Ban on ‘Christian’ Bells

Islamist militants al-Shabab have banned teachers using bells to signal the end of class in the town of Jowhar, 90km (56 miles) north of Mogadishu. Al-Shabab said the bells sounded too much like Christian church bells. This comes after last week’s order by the Hizbul-Islam group that radios stop playing music because it is un-Islamic.

Washington Post: Somali Islamist Rebels Ban English, Science Lessons

Somalia’s hardline Islamists have banned English and science studies in schools in the southern Afmadow town after the education centers there ignored the rebels’ call for fighters, residents and teachers say.

Paul Canning: US and UK Failing to Take Iraq’s Gay Progrom Seriously

Both countries deny any Iraqi state involvement in anti-gay militias, but LGBT supporters suggest otherwise.

Jaxon Van Derbeken: 3 held in alleged anti-gay BB shooting in S.F.

Three cousins from Hayward have been charged in San Francisco with a hate crime and assault for allegedly firing a BB rifle at the face of a man they believed was gay, an attack the men videotaped, authorities said Wednesday. Mohammad Habibzada, Shafiq Hashemi and Sayed Bassam, all 24, are scheduled to be arraigned today in San Francisco Superior Court. They are free on $50,000 bond apiece.

SF Appeal: Hayward Men Out On Bail After Admitting They Came To SF To Shoot Gay Folks

Three Hayward men are scheduled to be arraigned on assault and hate crime charges in San Francisco next week for allegedly shooting a man they thought was gay with a BB gun. The Feb. 26 incident took place at about 10 p.m. outside a Mission District bar at 16th and Guerrero streets, according to police. The 27-year-old San Francisco man had just come out of the bar when he was shot once in the cheek by suspects in a nearby car, which then drove off, police spokesman Officer Samson Chan said. [...] According to Chan, they allegedly admitted to the crime. “The suspects did make a confession, basically stating that they came to San Francisco to target gay people,” he said.

Dustin Gardiner: Dad Accused in ‘Honor Killing’ Will Not Face Death Penalty

Because they seek “some level of assurance that there is no appearance that a Christian is seeking to execute a Muslim for racial, political, religious or cultural beliefs [in Arizona].”

Weekly Blitz: Women Detained for Not Wearing Veil in Bangladesh

Golam Minhaz, an inspector with Detective Branch of Bangladesh Police at Rangpur district detained 19 women in various areas in the city for ‘not wearing veils’.

The Observers: Runaway Wives Sentenced to Public Flogging by Warlord

In some Afghan provinces, warlords still reign supreme. Under their authority, the treatment of women is bleakly reminiscent of Taliban rule; as this video of a woman being whipped in public goes to show.

New York Times: Afghan Child Brides Escape Marriage, But Not Lashes

What in most countries would be considered a criminal offense is in many parts of Afghanistan a cultural norm, one which the government has been either unable or unwilling to challenge effectively.

CNN.com: 3 Women Caned in Malaysia for Adultery

Malaysian authorities have caned three Muslim women under Islamic law for acts of adultery. The canings are a punishment that persists across Malaysian society since the British colonial era of the 19th century.

BBC: Forced Marriages Awareness Tour

The first UK roadshow aiming to stop South Asian youngsters being forced into marriages abroad is due to get under way.

Ayesha Nasir: I Should Have Read My Islamic Marriage Contract

Why do Pakistani women agree to marriage contracts without scrutinizing them first and making sure they won’t be sorry later?

Bint al-Sultan: Ending the Culture of FGM

Like many girls in Sudan, I suffered genital mutilation – but with education, attitudes are beginning to change.

Mail Online: Postal Voting System is a Farce that Shames Democracy

Almost all the worst instances of fraud since 2000 have arisen in places with large concentrations of Asian voters, such as Blackburn, Oldham and Tower Hamlets. In the Birmingham local elections of 2004, six Muslim men stole thousands of ballot papers and marked them for Labour candidates. The Election Commissioner, Richard Mawrey QC, said at their trial that the contest ‘would have disgraced a banana republic’.

Mail Online: Innocent Couple Killed After Their House Was Fire-Bombed in ‘Bungled Honour Killing’

An innocent couple died in a house fire at the hands of assailants who got the wrong address in a botched honour killing, a court heard today. Abdullah Mohammed, 41, and his wife, Aysha Mohammed, 39, were overcome by smoke and fumes after an accelerant was poured through their letterbox and set alight. Their killers were ordered by another man to avenge his family’s honour but instead of firebombing 135 London Road in Blackburn, Lancashire, they started the blaze at 175 London Road.

BBC: Irish ‘Plot to Kill Cartoonist’

Seven people have been arrested in the Irish Republic over an alleged plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for depicting the Prophet Muhammad, police say. The four men and three women are all Muslim, according to media reports, though a police statement did not confirm this.

Mail Online: ‘Follow the Islamic Way to Save the World,’ Charles Urges Environmentalists

In an hour-long speech, the heir to the throne argued that man’s destruction of the world was contrary to the scriptures of all religions – but particularly those of Islam.

All articles continue at links. Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] and etc.  In the mainstream media there is a general rule.  You can call them Islamist militants, a group, Islamist rebels, hardline Islamists, rebels, men, Hayward men, suspects, warlords, Afghans, Asians, South Asian youngsters, Pakistani women, assailants, Irish, dads, Malaysian authorities, people – just make sure to call them anything but what they call themselves.  And what they call themselves is Muslims.  Because if you call a Muslim a Muslim, if you name Islam as Islam, then you are going to have a harder time reconciling what Muslims do on the one hand and what you might want them to do on the other.  You might want them to maintain their cuisine and language, add a bit of color to the workplace, but otherwise cotton to Western notions such as ‘don’t set women on fire’ or ‘if you don’t like a comic then don’t look at it.’  That’s what you might want Muslims to do, but that’s not what they’re doing.  If a Muslim does something good, or if they are talking about your idea of a Muslim instead of a real Muslim, then the mainstream media will use the words Muslims use to describe themselves.  Perhaps I am painting with a broad brush, confusing a vocal minority for a more passive minority.  Fair enough.  As that passive majority stops sheltering the vocal minority, as they cut them out like a tumor, then so will I grant my full apology.  Until then, the Muslim world can consider itself to be made up of ‘good Germans.’

The college population has grown a lot while its mean IQ has risen a bit. Most bright people were not going to college in 1930 (or earlier) – waiting on the bench, so to speak, until the game opened up to them. By 1990, the noncollege population, drained of many bright youngsters, had shifted downward in IQ. While the college population grew, the gap between college and noncollege populations therefore also grew. The largest change, however, has been the huge increase in the intelligence of the average student in the top dozen universities, up a standard deviation and a half from where the Ivies and the Seven Sisters were in 1930. One may see other features in the figure evidently less supportive of cognitive partitioning. Our picture suggests that for every person within the ranks of college graduates, there is another among those without a college degree who has just as high an IQ – or at least almost. And as for the graduates of the dozen top schools, while it is true that their mean IQ is extremely high (designated by the +2.7 [standard deviation]s to which the line points), they are such a small proportion of the nation’s population that they do not even register visually on this graph, and they too are apparently out-numbered by people with similar IQs who do not graduate from those colleges, or do not graduate from college at all. Is there anything to be concerned about? How much partitioning has really occurred?

Perhaps a few examples will illustrate. Think of your twelve closest friends or colleagues. For most readers of this book, a large majority will be college graduates. Does it surprise you to learn that the odds of having even half of them be college graduates are only six in a thousand, if people were randomly paired off? Many of you will not think it odd that half or more of the dozen have advanced degrees. But the odds against finding such a result among a randomly chosen group of twelve Americans are actually more than a million to one. Are any of the dozen a graduate of Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Cal Tech, MIT, Duke, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, University of Chicago, or Brown? The chance that even one is a graduate of those twelve schools is one in a thousand. The chance of finding two among that group is one in fifty thousand. The chance of finding four or more is less than one in a billion.

Most readers of this book – this may be said because we know a great deal about the statistical tendencies of people who read a book like this – are in preposterously unlikely groups, and this reflects the degree of partitioning that has already occurred. [...]

The point of the exercise in thinking about your dozen closest friends and colleagues is to encourage you to detach yourself momentarily from the way the world looks to you from day to day and contemplate how extraordinarily different your circle of friends and acquaintances is from what would be the norm in a perfectly fluid society. This profound isolation from other parts of the IQ distribution probably dulls our awareness of how unrepresentative our circle actually is. [...]  When people live in encapsulated worlds, it becomes difficult for them, even with the best of intentions, to grasp the realities of worlds with which they have little experience but over which they also have great influence, both public and private.

“Join us for our 11th Annual Valentine’s Invitational! Dozens of artists contribute Valentine themed artwork to benefit a local non-profit. This year’s recipient in the Special Education PTA of Portland (SEPTAP).”

I have been making collages (of the paper, scissors and glue variety) since around 1978.  A few have been published in books, a very few have been given to friends, but never have I offered one for sale – until now.  An original collage by myself will have the honor of being included in this show.  I encourage anyone in the Portland area to attend.  Bid early and often to support this most worthy cause. On exhibit the month of February 2010.

Thursday, 4 February 2010, 6PM – 9PM

Reading Frenzy
921 SW Oak St.
Portland OR 97205

(503) 274-1449

BBC News, Danish Police Shoot Intruder at Cartoonist’s Home:

The man had entered Mr [Kurt] Westergaard’s house armed with a knife and axe and had shouted in broken English that he wanted to kill him. Mr Westergaard ran to a specially designed panic room where he raised the alarm.

KR News, Charity cartoon rejected over terror fears:

TV2’s morning lifestyle programme Go’morgen Danmark was the latest in a long line of those trying to help the victims of the Haitian earthquake. The show organised an auction through auctioneers, Lauritz.com, and asked well known politicians and personalities to donate personal items for the charity fundraiser. A signed copy of Bill Clinton’s book dedicated to the head of the Social Democrats, concert and sports events tickets and a porcelain doll owned by Pia Kjærsgaard, head of the Danish People’s Party, are already listed in the auction. However, when cartoonist Kurt Westergaard – forever to be associated with the Mohammed cartoons and terror threats – was asked to submit a new drawing for the auction, the auctioneers refused to accept it. According to Mette Jessen of Lauritz, the decision was taken because of the latest attempt on Westergaard’s life when an alleged assassin broke into his house on New Year’s Day. ‘We must recognise that the terror threat is still of such a character that we can’t predict the consequences of a sale. We value the safety of our employees quite highly, which is why an eventual risk assessment was used in our consideration,’ she said. Westergaard was disappointed in Lauritz’s decision, saying it was just another example of how his name creates fear. ‘The drawing was in no way controversial, but it seems my name is. I’m sorry for the fear it causes people. When even my hairdresser, who is Muslim, told me with sadness that she didn’t dare keep me on as a customer for fear of reprisals, then there’s reason to be sad about this development,’ he said.

VOA News, Death of Gay Activist Brings Turkey’s Attitude Toward Gays Into Focus:

For 26-year-old Ahmet Yildiz, the choice to live openly as a gay man in Turkey proved deadly. Prosecutors say his father, charged with allegedly killing his son in what is being dubbed as the first gay honor killing, traveled more than 900 kilometers from his hometown to shoot his son in an old neighborhood of Istanbul.

FOXNews.com, Saudi Teen Sentenced to 90 Lashes for Cell Phone in School:

Saudi Arabia is the world’s leading country in the use of torture-by-flogging, and religious police keep a close watch over public behavior.

RFI, Playwright Petrol Attack Handed to Terrorist Police:

The 45-year-old was attacked on Tuesday night outside the theatre in Paris where her play is showing. Two men insulted her in Arabic and poured petrol over her. They then threw a cigarette at her, which failed to ignite.

MetaFilter, Malaysian Churches Attacked Over “Allah”:

Malaysian Catholic newspaper Herald was recently involved in a major lawsuit against the Malaysian government, stating that their constitutional rights were violated when they were stripped of their license to publish in East Malaysian indigenous language Kadazandusun. The ruling was overturned, amidst support by state ministers and protests by the Government, the Islamic Opposition party, and Muslim activists – some of whom have spent the past week attacking churches and convents through firebombs, Molotov cocktails, paint, and bricks thrown at glass.

MetaFilter, The Women of Afghanistan:

87 percent are illiterate. 44 years is their average life expectancy. 70 to 80 percent face forced marriages.

Sam Harris, Liberals Have More to Fear than Cheney (circa 30 January 2008):

Liberals need to realize that there are people in the Muslim world far scarier than Dick Cheney.

NYPOST.com, Art Therapy for Terrorists:

“There is no criteria for evaluation,” John Horgan, a Department of Homeland Security consultant, told the New York Post.

Times Online, Iranian Dancer Afshin Ghaffarian Describes Ordeal at the Hands of Basij:

Ghaffarian is a dancer – an activity banned by Iran’s Islamic rulers and punishable by long prison terms. “If he had known that he would have beaten me even harder,” Ghaffarian said.

Robert Scheer, Bush’s Faustian Deal with the Taliban (22 May 2001 via archive.org):

Enslave your girls and women, harbor anti-U.S. terrorists, destroy every vestige of civilization in your homeland, and the Bush administration will embrace you. All that matters is that you line up as an ally in the drug war, the only international cause that this nation still takes seriously. That’s the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today.

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] and etc.  “They’re making the last film… “

The Nation: Woman sold in public auction in Pakistan – for $3,200
A 20-year-old girl was auctioned at village Badani Bhutto of Taluka Kashmore in consideration of Rs2,70,000 on Saturday. Azizan, daughter of late Allah Bux Bhutto, was divorced on the allegation of Karo-kari [roughly, adultery] some time back. She is stated to be mother of two children and was residing with her brother who held the open auction for her ‘sale’ at village Badani Bhutto.

BBC: Pakistan court orders ears and noses to be cut off
A Pakistani court has ordered that two men have their ears and noses cut off, as punishment for doing the same to a woman who refused to marry one of them.

Mail Online: Muslim police chef defeated in ‘bacon roll’ tribunal faces £75,000 legal bill
Mr Khoja, 62, lost his claim in May after a police employee told an employment tribunal how she saw Mr Khoja eat bacon rolls and sausages.

Mail Online: Islamic militants stone man to death for adultery in Somalia as villagers are forced to watch
Mohamed Ibrahim appeals to Islamic militants not to carry out the execution as he is buried in the ground as his villagers are forced to watch.

BBC: Uganda bans female genital mutilation
Anyone convicted of the practice, which involves cutting off a girl’s clitoris, will face 10 years in jail, or a life sentence if a victim dies.

Spiegel Online: Al-Qaida Kills Eight Times More Muslims Than Non-Muslims
Between 2004 and 2008, for example, al-Qaida claimed responsibility for 313 attacks, resulting in the deaths of 3,010 people. And even though these attacks include terrorist incidents in the West — in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 — only 12 percent of those killed (371 deaths) were Westerners.

ABC News: Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh
A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country’s royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails. A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim’s arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man’s wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV.

BBC: Swiss minaret ban ‘security risk’
“Provocation risks triggering other provocation and risks inflaming extremism.”

Death By 1000 Papercuts: How Easy to Build a Christian Church in Muslim Countries?
These countries are the largest in the Muslim world.

New York Times: Muslim Prayers Fuel Spiritual Rebuilding Project by Ground Zero
“We want to push back against the extremists.”

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] and etc.  There are photographs of Mohamed Ibrahim being stoned to death at the above link.  Go ahead, take a look.  Islam is the religion of peace, and there is no compulsion under the religion of Islam.  You just need to level-up your cultural sensitivity to their sacred traditions.  Respect their diversity.  Sure, men get tortured and stoned to death and have parts of their faces cut off, all with the cooperation and enthusiastic participation of the Islamic government.  And yes, women have their genitals mutilated and are sold as slaves.  But just because these people are different doesn’t mean we should fear or hate them.  We need to walk a mile in their shoes before we can judge them.  For heaven’s sake don’t provoke them – provocation risks triggering other provocation and risks inflaming extremism.  See, it’s our fault!  It takes a signature from the President of Egypt to build a Christian church in Egypt.  No Christian churches are allowed in Saudi Arabia at all.  Turkey and Algeria forbid existing Christian churches to be repaired and often order that they be torn down.  Indonesia allows Christian churches to exist providing no worship services occur there on Sundays.  Pakistan Christians generally meet in private homes.  No wonder Muslims are angry that the Swiss have banned the construction of new mosques in their country.  Whether it’s eating pork or building places of worship, Islam is a ‘do as I say not as I do’ sort of superstition.

My opinion counts for little, but here it is.  I’m encouraged by the Muslims described in the last link, those pushing back against their fellow Muslims.  I’m for the free exercise of religion and I’m for secular government. Christianity survived secularization and Islam can survive it as well.  If it cannot or will not, Islam deserves to die out.  Does it seem impossible that a religion could die out, particularly a globe-spanning religion like Islam?  Then spend a little time walking around in the graveyard of the gods to get a little perspective.  Every religion dies out given time.  And a little bit of a shove.

A 16-year-old Christian girl from southern Sudan said Friday she was lashed 50 times for wearing a skirt deemed indecent by authorities in the north who enforce a strict version of Islamic law. Silva Kashif said she was arrested by a plain-clothed policeman in a Khartoum market last week for wearing a skirt beneath the knee. She was convicted of offending public morality and received 50 lashes in the courtroom. “I was treated like a criminal,” Kashif said in a telephone interview. “I am confused what to wear. The trousers were an issue. My skirt was beneath the knee. What more can I do? I am Christian. My tribe and my customs permit me to dress like this.”

Foreign Policy, The Militarization of Sex:

Hezbollah liberated South Lebanon from Israeli occupation, expanded the Shiite community’s political power within the country, and has provided social services, such as health care and education, to its constituency since the 1980s. Today, it is also working to fulfill the sexual needs of its supporters, though a practice known as mutaa marriage. Mutaa is a form of “temporary marriage” only acceptable within Shiite communities, one that allows couples to have religiously sanctioned sex for a limited period of time, without any commitments, and without the obligatory involvement of religious figures. In conservative Muslim societies known for their strict sense of propriety, mutaa offers an escape clause. The contract is very simple. The woman says: “I marry myself to you for [a specific period of time] and for [a specified dowry]” and the man says: “I accept.” The period can range between one hour and a year, and is subject to renewal. A Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man, but a Muslim man can temporarily marry a Muslim, Christian, or Jewish woman, as long as she is a divorcée or a widow. However, those interviewed for this article confirmed that Hezbollah-the “Party of God”-has allowed the practice to spread to virgins or girls who have never married before, as long as the permission of her guardian (father or paternal grandfather) is obtained. [...] Zahra, a fully veiled 25 year-old Shiite woman who is completing her master’s degree in English literature, comes from a family of Hezbollah supporters and party members, and has been a lifelong Hezbollah member herself. She explained that she practices temporary marriage because it is a religious duty.”I take good care of myself, and make sure I look perfect every time I go into a mutaa marriage because I should please my husband, temporary or not,” she said. “It is my religious duty to do so. God allowed this kind of marriage for a reason, and I never question God’s wishes.”  Zahra is divorced and believes that Islam has acknowledged sexual desires for both males and females, which is why temporary marriage is permissible. “It is also a religious duty to fulfill your sexual desires,” she insisted, noting that temporary marriages with women whose husbands had been killed fighting Israel were especially encouraged. “[T]hose who satisfy widows of martyrs have more reward in heaven,” she said.

Christopher Hitchens, The “war on terrorism” didn’t cause the Fort Hood shootings:

The terrorists do not pause before deliberately blowing up the mosques and religious processions of those whose Muslim beliefs they deem insufficiently devout. Most of those now being tortured and raped and executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran are Muslim. All the women being scarred with acid and threatened with murder for the crime of going to school in Pakistan are Muslim.

Jim Verhulst and Emilio Morenatti, Terrorism that’s personal:

Schoolgirls whom the Taliban in Afghanistan sprayed with acid simply for going to class. [photo essay.]

Ashley Hayes, Expert Study on Extremism Might Have Prevented Fort Hood Shootings:

Shannen Rossmiller is angry that the study she worked with the Pentagon to create – unclassified at its inception – is now under wraps. She told CNN she is concerned political correctness trumped the study.

All articles continue at links.  Part of a series that never ends… [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] and etc. “The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected.” – H. L. Mencken, American Mercury March, 1930.