Thursday, January 29, 2015

That Time Badass Feminist Queen Elizabeth II Gave Saudi Arabia's King a Lesson in Power | Mother Jones

That Time Badass Feminist Queen Elizabeth II Gave Saudi Arabia's King a Lesson in Power | Mother Jones: Great Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is known to have a wicked sense of humor, and some mean driving skills. One day back in 1998, she deployed both spectacularly to punk Saudi Arabia's late King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz. Back then, Abdullah was a Saudi crown prince visiting Balmoral, the vast royal estate in Scotland. The Queen had offered him a tour of the grounds—here's what happened next, according to former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles:

The royal Land Rovers were drawn up in front of the castle. As instructed, the Crown Prince climbed into the front seat of the Land Rover, with his interpreter in the seat behind. To his surprise, the Queen climbed into the driving seat, turned the ignition and drove off. Women are not—yet—allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, and Abdullah was not used to being driven by a woman, let alone a queen. His nervousness only increased as the queen, an Army driver in wartime, accelerated the Land Rover along the narrow Scottish estate roads, talking all the time. Through his interpreter, the Crown Prince implored the Queen to slow down and concentrate on the road ahead.

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Chomsky: Paris attacks show hypocrisy of West s outrage - CNN.com

Chomsky: Paris attacks show hypocrisy of West s outrage - CNN.com:



NATO and American officials defended the attack, Erlanger reported, as an effort to undermine the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon told a briefing in Washington that Serb TV is as much a part of Milosevic s murder machine as his military is, hence a legitimate target of attack. There were no demonstrations or cries of outrage, no chants of We are RTV, no inquiries into the roots of the attack in Christian culture and history. On the contrary, the attack on the press was lauded. The highly regarded U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, then envoy to Yugoslavia, described the successful attack on RTV as an enormously important and, I think, positive development, a sentiment echoed by others.

vintage everyday: Rare and Unseen Color Photographs of America’s Hippie Communes from the 1970s

vintage everyday: Rare and Unseen Color Photographs of America’s Hippie Communes from the 1970s: Their hair and dress, their pioneer spirit, even their Indian teepees evoke the nation’s frontier beginnings. These young people are members of a commune, which they have created for themselves as a new and radical way of living. Scores of these communes are springing up all across the U.S. In the wilderness areas of the West, Southwest, and New England, the new settlers build their own homes–adobe huts, log cabins, geodesic domes–share their money and labor and legislate their own laws and taboos.



https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUACuTWducj9oIjsc8M0F2Db58RePf73aR-HkL_G7Bu_d1rdZStuDdzc1-dKmq9jsQQf8jrCoZp0GBC7WdEp_yTmsw4ess58wdFBUM70u1c14FhlpkTU0uhwqopVZ-Rbo0D65d/s1600/America%E2%80%99s+1970s+Hippie+Communes+(4).jpg

14 African Countries Forced by France to Pay Colonial Tax For the Benefits of Slavery and Colonization | SiliconAfrica.com

14 African Countries Forced by France to Pay Colonial Tax For the Benefits of Slavery and Colonization | SiliconAfrica.com:

When S�kou Tour�of Guinea decided in 1958 to get out of french colonial empire, and opted for the country independence, the french colonial elite in Paris got so furious, and in a historic act of fury the french administration in Guinea destroyed everything in the country which represented what they called the benefits from french colonization.

Three thousand French left the country, taking all their property and destroying anything that which could not be moved: schools, nurseries, public administration buildings were crumbled; cars, books, medicine, research institute instruments, tractors were crushed and sabotaged; horses, cows in the farms were killed, and food in warehouses were burned or poisoned.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Are All Terrorists Muslims? It’s Not Even Close - The Daily Beast

Are All Terrorists Muslims? It’s Not Even Close - The Daily Beast:

here are some statistics for those interested. Let’s start with Europe. Want to guess what percent of the terrorist attacks there were committed by Muslims over the past five years? Wrong. That is, unless you said less than 2 percent.

As Europol, the European Union’s law-enforcement agency, noted in its report released last year, the vast majority of terror attacks in Europe were perpetrated by separatist groups. For example, in 2013, there were 152 terror attacks in Europe. Only two of them were “religiously motivated,” while 84 were predicated upon ethno-nationalist or separatist beliefs.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Teen Bryce Masters In Critical Condition After Police Use Taser On Him: Report

Teen Bryce Masters In Critical Condition After Police Use Taser On Him: Report:



Cellphone video still from the scene. (Photo: Fox4kc.com)

Witnesses to a police stop in Missouri say cops used excessive force when they used a Taser on a 17-year-old boy who is now reportedly in critical condition.

"You could tell the kid was going into convulsions," witness Michelle Baker told Fox4kc.com. "[The cop] turned him over and his head was dangling ... and he had blood coming out."

The teenager has been identified by Kctv5.com as Bryce Masters of Independence.

Friday, January 09, 2015

Serb TV station was legitimate target, says Blair | World news | theguardian.com

Serb TV station was legitimate target, says Blair | World news | theguardian.com: Nato leaders yesterday scrambled to justify the bombing of Serbia's state television station in an attack which killed a number of civilian workers and marked a further widening in the scope of targets now considered legitimate.

The attack on the building in the centre of Belgrade - which contradicted an apparent assurance by Nato this month that only transmitters would be hit - was condemned by international journalists' organisations, representing both employers and unions.

Thursday, January 08, 2015

What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital | Earth. We are one.

What a Shaman Sees in A Mental Hospital | Earth. We are one.:



What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm. “Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Som�. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.

The 160-Year Christian History Behind What's Happening in Ukraine | Christianity Today

The 160-Year Christian History Behind What's Happening in Ukraine | Christianity Today:

In recent days, the Crimean peninsula has been at the heart of what some have described as the greatest international crisis of the 21st century. But this is not the first time the region has been so critical to international affairs. Many educated people have at least heard of the great struggle known as the Crimean War (1853-56), although its causes and events remain mysterious to most non-specialists.

Tuesday, January 06, 2015

Morehead's Musings: IBMR explores "Witchcraft and Mission Studies"

Morehead's Musings: IBMR explores "Witchcraft and Mission Studies":



The January 2015 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Research explores the topic of "Witchcraft and Mission Studies."Essays exploring this topic include:



  • "Putting Witch Accusations on the Missiological Agenda: A Case from Northern Peru by Robert J. Priest 
  • "Beyond the Fence: Confronting Witchcraft Accusations in the Papua New Guinea Highlands" by Philip Gibbs 
  • "Healing Communities: Contextualizing Responses to Witch Accusations" by Steven D. H. Rasmussen, with Hannah Rasmussen 
  • "Toward a Christian Response to Witchcraft in Northern Ghana"by Jon P. Kirby
  • "Witchcraft Accusations and Christianity in Africa" by J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu

Saturday, January 03, 2015

Blogging highlights of 2014

Here are some of the highlights of my blog posts in 2014.

They are not necessarily the most popular, or the most commented-on, but the ones that I think were worth reading, and the ones I would most like to see comments on.

January 2014

February 2014
March 2014 April 2014
May 2014
June 2014

July 2014
August 2014
September 2014
October 2014
November 2014
December 2014
Could there be said to be any outstanding highlights for the whole year?

Probably it is
The clergy with Archbishop Damaskinos after the Divine Liturgy in St Demetrius Church. Deacon Stephen nHayes, Fr Elias Palmos, Archbishop Damaskinos, Fr George Cocotos, Archimandrite Athanasius Akunda

Friday, January 02, 2015

Yugoslavia and the Betrayal of Democracy | Oriental Review

Yugoslavia and the Betrayal of Democracy | Oriental Review:



VanÄ›k asserts that Tito’s Yugoslavia in the wake of the Stalin-Tito split was the closest society in the world to his ideal of a worker-managed economy, and that as a result it was able to provide an example of a highly-efficient, humane and human-scaled economy, sporting near full employment, incredibly high educational standards and a high standard of living, which was the envy of many of the other nations in the region. He notes that the Yugoslav economy was built through a long process of trial-and-error, but that its income growth between 1951 and 1959 was unparalleled anywhere else in the world except Japan.