Friday, November 22, 2002

Do You Think That, In Practice, Nurturing Is Basically Good or Bad? 7:16:22 PM     What do you think? ()

How Cool is This? Snow, or at least a thirty percent chance of it, has appeared in the local forecast for the first time this season. As Chris would say, w00t! 7:13:20 PM     What do you think? ()

Is Miss World Sin? Things are getting ugly in Nigeria again: Mobs of Christian youths retaliated against Muslims on Friday in the third day of riots triggered by a newspaper article suggesting Islam's founding prophet would have approved of the Miss World beauty pageant. Street demonstrations began Wednesday with the burning of an office of ThisDay newspaper in Kaduna after the Lagos-based daily published an article questioning Muslim groups that have condemned the Miss World pageant, to be held Dec. 7 in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. Muslim groups say the pageant promotes sexual promiscuity and indecency. "What would (the prophet) Muhammad think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them (the contestants)," Isioma Daniel wrote in Saturday's article. Young men shouting "Allahu Akhbar," or "God is great," ignited makeshift street barricades made of tires and garbage, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city. Others were heard chanting, "Down with beauty" and "Miss World is sin." Islamic fundamentalist groups have for several months warned of protests against the Miss World pageant, prompting organizers to postpone the finale until after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The pageant has also drawn protests from other parts of the world. There's an awful lot here, from the sacred versus the profane to the physical versus the spiritual, and of course, Muslim versus Christian. While I don't think any of this is worth dying (or even breaking a nail) over, I must admit to being drawn to the "Down with beauty" slogan, at least in this context (as opposed to Keats's higher notion of beauty). 8:07:03 AM     What do you think? ()

© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist. Last update: 11/2/03; 10:31:16 AM.

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