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6. mars 2005
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It's been an obvious paradox that Muslims in the Middle East have been catching the democracy fever, while the most outspoken Muslims living in democratic societies in the west apparently were eager to undermine it. Maybe the moderate majority are now finding their voices and dare to speak up against the extremists:
Inayat Bunglawala had just finished his talk on "Islamophobia and the Media" at the London Muslim Center when a man stood and berated him. "Where is your beard and your thobe?" Mr. Bunglawala said the man shouted, referring to the long garment worn by some Muslim men. "How dare you come to the mosque without them. How dare you preach about the new Koran."
Then something unusual happened on that day in January, said Mr. Bunglawala and others who were there. The several Islamic militants in the room were chased outside by the crowd, and a fistfight broke out. The militants, followers of Abu Abdullah, a firebrand imam, quickly retreated. "These jihadis are like schoolhouse bullies," said Mr. Bunglawala, the communications director for the Muslim Council of Britain, the country's largest Muslim organization. "We sense a feeling of enough is enough now."
If the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks plunged the Islamic population in Britain and elsewhere into a state of alarm and dread, then the Iraq war and its aftermath have had an unforeseen consequence here: they have helped galvanize and embolden a core group of mainstream British Muslims to find its voice and make demands. [...]
In another bold move last year, Iqbal Sacranie, the leader of the Muslim Council of Britain, sent a letter to every mosque in Britain asking imams to urge worshipers to cooperate with the police in the fight against terrorism and to watch for militants. The letter, considered a watershed, was mostly well received and established a clear dividing line with militants.
"An attack on Britain is an attack on us - we live here," said Lord Ahmed, underscoring what he said was the attitude of most mainstream Muslims. "An attack on this Parliament is an attack on me. An attack on London is an attack on my friends and family. If this is my home, I have to look after it."
Wished we heard that more often. Hopefully they may have learned this lesson: If you let others speak for you, don't complain if outsiders think they actually do speak for you.
8:08:46 PM 
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For all the scorn I've heaped on the BBC in this blog (e.g. here and here), I have to say I love listenig to its World News radio. I just heard BBC's Geneva correspondent Imogen Foulkes tell about her ordeal when she was visited by a hygiene inspector just before moving house. Having cleaned the house to solid British standards, she nevertheless suffered humiliation.
But, a few years on, I have become more used to Swiss hygiene standards so, when it came to moving house, I knew I was expected to leave my old home immaculate.
Sure enough, I got a letter saying the hygiene inspector would be there at 10 o'clock on a Monday morning.
He arrived, punctual to the nanosecond - a dapper little man in a maroon jacket and beautifully pressed trousers.
His name was Herr Schweizer - or Mr Swiss in English - and he had even brought a spare pair of shoes to wear inside the house.
I should have recognised the warning signs when I noticed that Herr Schweizer, who was no taller than me, somehow managed to look down at me over the top of his glasses.
Needless to say, he found lots to complain about. But she got her revenge by writing a very funny column. And the house was clean:
A week later, the house is clean, my muscles ache and my hands are sore from cleaning fluids.
But I'm happy, because I know that should a pair of heart surgeons move into my old house, they need never go to the hospital - they can perform operations in my kitchen, and store their instruments in my fuse box.
5:20:13 PM
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Scientists say they have found a bipedal hominid in the Afar region of Ethiopia that is four million years old, considerably older than "Lucy."
But the as yet unnamed fossil found in February at a new site called Mille in Afar region of Ethiopia, might be a far earlier brother or sister.
Researchers believe it could provide valuable clues to the phases of human evolution before her.
"This is the world's oldest biped," said Bruce Latimer of the national history museum in Ohio, who made the discovery with his Ethiopian colleague Yohannes Haile-Selassie.
"It will revolutionise the way we see human evolution."
Researchers at the site say they have found a complete tibia from the lower part of the leg, parts of the thighbone or femur, ribs, vertebrae, a collarbone, pelvis and a complete shoulder blade.
They say the find is significant because, due to the structure of the ankle bone, the individual almost certainly walked upright like modern mankind.
"This skeleton helps us to understand what happened in the joints, how walking upright occurred, what we never had before," Mr Latimer said.
The find, one of a series of hominid fossils which are still being unearthed, still holds many mysteries, he added.
"It is already clear that the individual was larger than Lucy, it has longer legs than Lucy [...] but it is older which is strange."
It promises to be another eventful year in paleontology.
"Lucy," or Australopithecus afarensis, was approximately 3.2Myo.
TalkOrigins a good page with an overview of prominent hominids. It may well need to be updated now.
1:18:22 PM
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The New York Public Library (NYPL) has put online a massive Digital Library, including art, propaganda, maps, magazines, photographs, etc.
That should help us mass away some idle hours on a lazy Sunday.
PS: Original map of battle plans from the War of Independence. Wow.
3:08:39 AM
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This is indeed a novel idea in the global warming debate:
Ancient man saved the world from a new Ice Age. That is the startling conclusion of climate researchers who say man-made global warming is not a modern phenomenon and has been going on for thousands of years.
Prehistoric farmers who slashed down trees and laid out the first rice paddies and wheatfields triggered major alterations to levels of greenhouse gases such as methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, they say.
As a result, global temperatures - which were slowly falling around 8,000 years ago - began to rise. 'Current temperatures would be well on the way toward typical glacial temperatures, had it not been for the greenhouse gas contributions from early farming practices,' says Professor William Ruddiman of Virginia University.
In that case: thank you to all pre-historic farmers. Good thing the greenpeace of those days didn't prevail.
2:54:48 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.04.2005; 01:56:59.
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