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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jan 11, 2013 AT 02:35 IST
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Edited At: Jan 11, 2013 02:35 IST
File Photo
Amanda Holpuch reports in the Guardian: Evangelical Christian group helps sue California school over yoga classes:
A group of California parents are campaigning for the withdrawal of school yoga classes, believing the activity promotes Hinduism.
In an effort to promote student health, a school district in Encinitas incorporated the yoga classes into its wellness curriculum this week. But a vocal minority of parents, spurred on by an evangelical Christian group, are calling for the program to be dropped.
The parents are backed by the National Center for Law & Policy, a Christian civil liberties organization that advocates for religious causes. The NCLP, a non-profit group, said it is considering suing the school because it claims yoga is inherently religious.
Read on at the Guardian
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jan 11, 2013 AT 02:35 IST, Edited At: Jan 11, 2013 02:35 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Nov 07, 2012 AT 23:06 IST
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Edited At: Nov 07, 2012 23:06 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Nov 07, 2012 AT 23:06 IST, Edited At: Nov 07, 2012 23:06 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Sep 07, 2012 AT 11:58 IST
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Edited At: Sep 07, 2012 11:58 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Sep 07, 2012 AT 11:58 IST, Edited At: Sep 07, 2012 11:58 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Aug 06, 2012 AT 23:58 IST
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Edited At: Aug 08, 2012 04:01 IST
ERICA GOODE and SERGE F. KOVALESKI in the NYT: Wisconsin Killer Fed and Was Fueled by Hate-Driven Music:
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Mr. Page had come to the center’s attention a decade ago because of his affiliation with rock bands known for lyrics that push far past the boundaries of tolerance.
“The music that comes from these bands is incredibly violent, and it talks about murdering Jews, black people, gay people and a whole host of other enemies,” Mr. Potok said. He added that in 2000, Mr. Page tried to buy unspecified goods from the National Alliance, which Mr. Potok described as a neo-Nazi organization that at the time was one of the country’s best organized and best financed hate groups.
But Mr. Potok said the center had not passed any information about Mr. Page to law enforcement.
“We were not looking at this guy as anything special until today,” he said. “He was one of thousands. We were just keeping an eye on him.”
Although little known among music fans, a steady subculture of racist and anti-Semitic rock bands has existed on the margins of punk and heavy metal in Europe and the United States since at least the 1970s. Hate groups sometimes use some of the bands and their record labels for fund-raising and recruiting, according to the law center and the Anti-Defamation League. Read on at the NYT
Some of the reactions on Twitter: 
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Aug 06, 2012 AT 23:58 IST, Edited At: Aug 08, 2012 04:01 IST
POSTED BY Omar
ON Aug 07, 2012 AT 20:55 IST
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Edited At: Aug 07, 2012 22:37 IST
I went to the memorial service and vigil at the Brookfield WI Gurdwara tonight. Several hundred people showed up. Naturally most of the Sikhs in the area were there, but so were many Hindus (very large number of Punjabi Hindus per my friend Dr Sood), several Muslims (including representatives of the Islamic center), church groups and community people.
Governor Scott Walker was there, as was the Lt Governor, the US attorney, the Mayor and other local politicians. Very strong show of support from the political leadership of Wisconsin (another set of politicians was at a separate memorial in Oak Creek).
The service was dignified. The Sikh speakers were very good and kept it short (no one droned on and on, the discipline was surprisingly good for a South Asian group). Only one stated that shooter may not have known who Sikhs are (perhaps hinting that the killer may have thought he was shooting Muslims, but this was not baldly stated). My feeling was that more people are beginning to think that this was a racist of the "White Aryan Resistance" type and they hate all outsiders, whether Sikh or Muslim or Hindu or Jewish or whatever. Though human nature being what it is, I do expect that many Sikhs will continue to believe that they would not have been targeted if they didnt look like Muslims to ignorant rednecks.
The general theme was "we are Sikh, we are American, we are proud". Presented with dignity, not overdone or off-key. One Sikh presented a capsule history of Sikhs in America. Another thanked the political leadership of the state and the community for this great and quick show of support. Politicians reciprocated with fulsome praise of the Sikhs, multiple apologies (Salala-stung Pakistanis may be jealous of how many times the word "sorry" was used by the US attorney and the governor) and insistence that this is not acceptable in "our America"... All of which did not seem forced or formulaic. I happened to stand next to governor Walker at one point and shook his hand and said "thank you for coming". He stopped and said with feeling that it was the least he could do. He seemed sincere saying it..(I can hear some people thinking "you naive sod"..but hey, I am just reporting what I felt)
There was a candle-light vigil and then langar was served.
A sad 36 hours in the area.
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POSTED BY Omar
ON Aug 07, 2012 AT 20:55 IST, Edited At: Aug 07, 2012 22:37 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Apr 29, 2012 AT 23:59 IST
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Edited At: Apr 29, 2012 23:59 IST
US President did the usual annual stand-up comedy at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Washington Hilton Hotel
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Apr 29, 2012 AT 23:59 IST, Edited At: Apr 29, 2012 23:59 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jan 12, 2012 AT 22:57 IST
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Edited At: Jan 12, 2012 21:57 IST
Hamilton Nolan reacts to the video of US Marines urinating on three Taliban corpses in Afghanistan, which has been widely condemned across the spectrum in the US establishment, at Gawker:
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Jan 12, 2012 AT 22:57 IST, Edited At: Jan 12, 2012 21:57 IST
POSTED BY Buzz
ON Sep 15, 2011 AT 01:31 IST
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Edited At: Sep 15, 2011 01:31 IST
Some USD 150,000 is apparently what it cost for this ad that appeared in the WSJ on Sept 11:
Image courtesy TheLongWarJournal which, quoting the TOI, went on to say:
Pakistan has placed an advertisement in the US media to reach out to America on 9/11. "Which country can do more for your peace", asks the advertisement in the Wall Street Journal . "Since 2001, a nation of 180 million has been fighting for the future of the world's 7 billion."
Dawn reported that Islamabad had initially given this advertisement to The New York Times but they refused to carry it. The ad says that since Sept 11, 2001, 21,672 Pakistani civilians have lost their lives. The army also has lost 2,795 soldiers. The country has lost $68 billion. The ad noted that despite sacrifices the country was still engaged in "the war for world peace". "Can any other country do so? Only Pakistan," it maintained.
It was not clear whether the ad was carried in other U.S. publications. Pakistan’s government also tried to place it in the New York Times. The Times asked for “more clarity in the ad about who was placing it,” according to a spokeswoman for the newspaper. The Times did not hear back from the government and so has not yet run the ad, she said.
The ad as printed in the Journal carries a line at the bottom in small font saying “Government of Pakistan” next to a web address for the government. A spokeswoman for the Journal declined to comment.
Pakistan's excellent Cafe Pyala blog put it in perspective by pointing out:
Well, our sources inform us that the problem about the source of the ad arose because neither the Pakistan Embassy in Washington nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) nor the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MoI&B) were the sources of the ad. In fact, our sources confirm that none of these three Pakistani government entities was even consulted about the ad. In fact, the ad, designed by the Pakistani advertising agency Midas, was placed directly from the Prime Minister's Secretariat.
But what does it say about the Pakistani State if its organs feel they need to bypass each other to get a point across that, ostensibly, all of them should be agreed upon? What does it say about how policies are made and implemented?
Then again, we might also point out that the US$150,000 apparently spent on running the ad in the WSJ could have been better utiltized for things with a currently slightly higher priority than a PR exercise.
Meanwhile, in India, Parody ads are already doing the rounds. Here is one via pragmatic_d asking whether the NYT would have run this one instead:
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POSTED BY Buzz
ON Sep 15, 2011 AT 01:31 IST, Edited At: Sep 15, 2011 01:31 IST
POSTED BY Sundeep
ON May 05, 2011 AT 02:57 IST
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Edited At: May 05, 2011 02:57 IST
This is familiar territory for India. And the killing of Osama bin Laden has only revived the old debate: If others -- in the past, largely Israel -- can do it, why can't India use the coveted covert option, targeting those known terrorists in Pakistan who are responsible for terror attacks in India?
The Economist has a fine blog on the subject. It also persuasively quotes Ilya Somin, a professor of law at George Mason University on the morality of targeted killings who thinks that
In my view, targeting terrorist leaders is not only defensible, but actually more ethical than going after rank and file terrorists or trying to combat terrorism through purely defensive security measures. The rank and file have far less culpability for terrorist attacks than do their leaders, and killing them is less likely to impair terrorist operations. Purely defensive measures, meanwhile, often impose substantial costs on innocent people and may imperil civil liberties. Despite the possibility of collateral damage inflicted on civilians whom the terrorist leaders use as human shields, targeted assassination of terrorist leaders is less likely to harm innocents than most other strategies for combating terror and more likely to disrupt future terrorist operations.
That does not prove that it should be the only strategy we use, but it does mean that we should reject condemnations of it as somehow immoral.
The arguments have been well-thrashed out in the past and the Economist blog sums it up pithily:
As Hobbes taught, if private reason is authoritative—if each is left to judge for herself what is right—we are left with a chaos of conflicting claims. In that case it seems that "justice" boils down to Thrasymachus' slogan: "Justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger".
And then the blog provides an answer to the celebrity legal eagle Alan Dershowitz who wondered why "those who have opposed the very concept of targeted killings should be railing against the killing of Osama Bin Laden" which merits quoting in extenso:
The silence of the usual critics of "illegal", "extrajudicial", targeted killing in the wake of America's killing of Osama bin Laden might reflect hypocrisy, sure. But this can be tough to distinguish from resignation to the fact that Mr Obama didn't submit his case for executing Mr bin Laden to some global civil authority because there isn't one and he didn't have to—because America's the biggest kid on the block and, ultimately, what America says goes. And, if it comes down to it, Britain, France, Italy, Russia and other powerful governments hope America will indulge their own kill-squad adventures with similar approving silences. Of course, if some aggrieved faction in the future seeks retribution through the targeted killing of one of these countries' leaders, that will be raw vengeance, that will be terrorism, that will be an international crime, because, like it or not, that's how it works.
And that perhaps also answers the question posed right at the very beginning of this blog.
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POSTED BY Sundeep
ON May 05, 2011 AT 02:57 IST, Edited At: May 05, 2011 02:57 IST
POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Mar 02, 2011 AT 23:59 IST
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Edited At: Mar 02, 2011 23:59 IST
Salman Rushdie speaks at Emory University where he is a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence:
Rushed transcript:
One thing I would like to say about the question of religious fundamentalism is that I think we live in an extraordinary moment and I think it might just be worth saying a little bit about what's going on in the Arab world right now. Because, I think, at its most optimistic (I know what is happening in Libya is terrible and there may be a lot more bloodshed before it is done) but it feels to me that this could be the moment at which the Islamic world moves beyond Islamism, moves beyond the politics of religion.
Because if you look at what is happening in every single one of these countries, this is not a religious war: nobody is talking about Islam. In Tunisia or Egypt or Yemen or Jordon or Libya or Bahrain or wherever else it is happening... nobody has said that it is an Islamic revolution. It's actually rather an old fashioned revolution. It's about wanting a better economic life for their wife and their children and wanting more personal liberty. It is about democracy, freedom and jobs. And so it seems to me that this could be the moment at which these states which have been crippled by tyrants and religious fanatics begin to be able to reinvent themselves as modern states.
And, you know, the West talks a great deal about freedom. Here are people trying to get their freedom. You know, they are not being given it by American tanks, they are really getting it for themselves. And I really hope we can support it, instead of worrying about the Muslim Brotherhood or this or that fanatic or bogeyman who is going to rise up to do terrible things. What we see is across the world people asking for freedom, fighting for it and are prepared to give up their lives for it.
The religious fundamentalism thing is interesting because, you know, the Al Qaeda was born in the torture chambers of Mubarak. Ayman al-Zawahiri is Egyptian. He has spent the last 30 years demanding the fall of Mubarak, demanding an Islamic uprising to overthrow the Egyptian despot. Have we heard from Ayman al-Zawahiri? Haven't heard a peep out of him. This is the revolution he has been asking for 30 years and it happens and he's got nothing to say because it is not his revolution. This not a religious revolution, it is a secular revolution. And so he is a disappointed man. The tyrant he wanted to overthrow is overthrown, and he's not happy.
And I think actually what this is showing a whole generation of Muslim youth is that Al Qaeda is bankrupt. You don't have to go down the path of terrorism. You don't have to strap suicide belts on and kill people and kidnap people and terrorise people. You can get a better life for yourselves like this, you know by the exercise ... Who would have thought that Mubarak, overthrown by People Power. Qaddafi almost toppled by People Power. Across the world, these crown-heads quaking in their boots, because the people have lost their fears.
After that who needs terrorism? You don't need terrorism. People have discovered that they have the power to change their lives. And I think this could be -- I mean, what I experienced was one moment of Islamic radicalism, you know.. This could be the moment as important as the fall of communism--the moment at which these countries begin to construct modern states. And I think it will be difficult and I am not denying the difficulties of the problems but I think it is an extraordinary moment.
Copyright: Emory University
Hat tip for link to Salil Tripathi on twitter
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POSTED BY Sundeep
ON Mar 02, 2011 AT 23:59 IST, Edited At: Mar 02, 2011 23:59 IST
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