We had a rather dry spring, and so only last weekend we finally found an opportunity to engage in our annual post-solstice ritual of burning our yuletide tree. After getting two inches (52mm) of rain on Saturday last weekend, Sunday evening was calm and cool and it was pretty safe to torch the bone-dry Frasier fir.
Yesterday, like every day, my daughter on the way home from afterschool told me about her day at school. She was upset because one of her teachers had told her to throw away one of her favorite books, “The Marvelous Land of Oz” because it contains “witchcraft and superstition.” Julia said she felt humiliated and singled out by her teacher, whom she had until then very much respected.
Laura and I were furious about this and Laura went and had a long talk with the principal of the school, who will hopefully read this teacher the riot act. Teachers have no business telling students what not to read. They can assign books and reading, but censoring a perfectly fine chilren’s book is outrageous. The teacher had invited the kids to bring books from at home to read in class, and the children were just reading for themselves, so this was completely out of line.
The issue here is not just one bigot teacher, rather it is that this happened in a public, taxpayer-funded school, and that there is a rather vigorous movement in the US of bigot book-burners, who sow fear and hatred by denouncing many works of popular fiction “evil” because the books discuss the supernatural in non-evangelical tems. Most notably, the book-burners have honed in on the wildly popular Harry Potter series. They denounce the themes of witchcraft and superstition in the books about a young apprentice wizard in a sort-of prep school for wand-wielding wierdos.
So I had to sit my little girl down and explain that no teacher has any business telling her she what she can or can’t read at home. And I also had to explain that sometimes teachers make bad choices and say things they should not say, or do things they should not do. And when that happens she needs to tell her parents or another teacher. And she can always count on us to back her up.
And then I made the point to her that it is quite hypocritical of the Christians to slam any books that contain descriptions of witchcraft and superstition, considering the contents of the “Holy Bible” - talking burning bushes, parting seas, angels, miracles and prophets rising from the grave. Talk about witchcraft and superstition.
[update: I found this website about First Amendment rights for kids.]
The Story is a syndicated radio show produced at WUNC in Chapel Hill. The show is hosted by Dick Gordon, who interviews people who have an interesting story to tell. Today, they aired the segment where Laura and Agbessi get to tell the story of the library in Yikpa, and the impact it had on their lifes.
Click to listen: mp3
The first part of the program is about a photographer - the interview with Laura and Agbessi starts after 32 Minutes.
“Bush moves to counter gas emissions” the headlines read all over the place. He moved?
Bush signed an executive order directing federal agencies to craft regulations that will “cut gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.” He ordered the agencies _ the departments of Transportation, Agriculture and Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency _ to have the rules in place by the end of 2008.
Bush moves to counter gas emissions, WaPo (AP Story), May 15, 2007
The President has been told by the Supreme Court of the United States to do something, an gives his bureaucrats almost 2 years (until he leaves office) to draw up rules. And the media call that a “move” ??? I call that dragging your feet. Not that I am surprised by the PrezMan’s lack of enthusiasm on this issue, but the mainstream media reporting this as a “move” is yet another example of how stupid they are.
The parliamentary elections in Togo have been postponed to August 5. This is probably a good thing because it give the parties in Togo time to prepare, but it also means that the RPT has more time to rig the vote.
Ouagadougou - Togo’s general election will be postponed from June 24 until August 5 due to technical, financial and human resources problems, officials said late Monday.
The Independent Electoral Commission of Togo (Ceni) announced after a meeting in Burkina Faso that a variety of problems had to be overcome before the vote could go ahead.
“Ceni notes that technical, logistical, financial and human constraints have to be dealt with before the electoral process can be properly carried out,” it said in a statement.
Togo’s Election Postponed, The Independent Online, South Africa, May 15, 2007
However, there are big questions whether all will be ready even at the later date. Especially there are serious concerns about the voting machines that apparently will be used. Between training poll workers to operate these machines and alleviating concerns about vote rigging using these machines, the election commission has a tall order to pull off a decent election even on the later date.
The Gulf of Aden separates the Horn of Africa from the Arabian Peninsula. Due to the desperate conditions, politically and economically, in Somalia and in Ethiopia, thousands of people from that region attempt to cross the Gulf of Aden to search for a better life in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Callous human traffickers exploit the desperate situation of their fellow human being, promising a passage across the sea for $40. They cram more than a hundred people in 30-foot wooden vessels and set out for the three-day passage. For three long, hellish days, these people are without drinking water, food or even room to move. They are seasick, cramped and dehydrated. The “crew” keeps their human “cargo” under control by beating them, and throwing anyone over board who as much as opens his mouth. When they get near the Yemeni shore, the refugees are forced to jump in the water and swim to shore. Most can’t swim and are exhausted and so many of these poor souls drown there, right at the shore.
Thousands have taken this hellish voyage, and in 2005 alone, the UN estimates that 1,700 lost their lives in this horrifying quest for a better destiny.
A courageous Frenchman, the journalist Daniel Grandclément got on one of these boats and filmed the conditions on board, witnessed the beatings and heard the screams in the night. His documentary was aired in April on French television, but it is also available on the web:
Part One - (narration in French) this documents the conditions on the boat. Not for the faint of heart.
Part Two - (narration in French) this is an eerie, night vision film of the arrival of the refugees on the shore of Yemen. A documentary film team filmed this footage, apparently it was pure coincidence that they were there at the time.
Daniel Grandclément was arrested by Yemeni authorities, and held for five days before being released. The Somalis are allowed to stay in Yemen as refugees. The Ethiopians have to find their way through the Arabian Desert to Saudi Arabia.
Germany’s President Köhler made the right decision. He apparently carefully considered the petition for a pardon for Christian Klar and then decided to deny it. The political right in Germany was all in a huff over the fact that he even as much as considered the request, especially after it became public that he met with Klar. The left was in the awkward position of lending support to a president they usually don’t much care for. Köhler may be an egomaniac and a capitalist pig, but he did establish a new benchmark for the independence of the German presidency from politics.
Klar is a convicted murderer and terrorist. Christian Klar was a member of the German terrorist group Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction) or RAF. In 1982, he was convicted of 9 murders and 11 attempted murders between 1977 and 1981 and he was sentenced to 6 life sentences. German law, however, considers any number of multiple life sentences as a single life sentence. Also, most prisoners have the right to be released on parole after a certain amount of time. In Klar’s case, the court decided that he has to have served at least 26 years, before he has the right to be released on parole. That means Klar might get released from prison in 2009.
Klar has not helped the authorities in any way in clearing up some of the remaining questions about the RAF. He has not publicly shown any signs of a change of position or regret. Clearly, at the time his actions were politically motivated. But the way the RAF dehumanized anyone who represented the state, made them more similar to the “fascists” they said they were fighting against, than the “workers” they said they were fighting for. And the fact that they were helped by the Stalinist regime in East Berlin made them into nothing more than pawns in the Cold War.
The RAF showed no mercy - not even to the drivers and body guards, the regular cops and soldiers, all of whom were just doing their jobs, albeit for what the RAF considered the “wrong side.” It seems to me that the German legal system was fair enough for Klar and his kind. And it seems fair enough that he should serve his sentence like anyone else. He’s lucky he’s a dissident in this Germany. Had he been a dissident in East Germany or the Soviet Union, he would have had no lawyers, and the Stalinist henchmen would have shown no mercy. There, dissidents usually died in the Gulag.
Francophones - faites attention! This is a hillarious story by a Belgian writer, DDL: The Great Satan and the paralyzed man. During a recent visit to Togo, DDL was apparently inspired by a story in the news about an incident between Satan and a pastor who was trying to destroy him (it?). Kagni Alem, a Togolese blogger based in France, posted this story (HT GVO). Here is a excerpt - Satan has arrived and everyone runs away - almost everyone …
Les croyants, donc, décampent au galop, à tire d’aile, comme si on leur avait administré un lavement avec une grosse poire en caoutchouc rouge enfoncée profondément dans l’anus… et qu’on leur avait « injecté » de l’eau savonneuse… ou un liquide à base d’ail, de gingembre et de piment…
Ils abandonnent sur place leur « berger »… tétanisé, gueule grande ouverte comme un canard migrateur qui, suite à une erreur de pilotage ou de navigation, se retrouverait au beau milieu d’un tempête de sable, dans une région désertique du nord du Burkina-Faso… aveugle, aphone, coi, figé, stupéfié, annihilé, décomposé, incapable de bouger et de produire un seul son… et, surtout, de comprendre ce qui lui arrive…
… and the Maibock is in the house! Satisfaction got a keg of Foothills brewery’s newest masterpiece - the Gruffmeister Maibock. It’s a heady eight-percenter with a solid nose and a nice punchline. It won’t keep a head, but who cares?! This is a very drinkable beer - a lot less hoppy than the IPAs from Foothills. First it sneaks up on you, then it grabs you by the throat with its nice firm body, kisses you gently … and then kicks you in the ass. What a beer!
And so … what have you been up to on Mayday?