Islamic Pedophilia

For those who would bow to the wishes and jurisdiction of the United Nations, consider this picture. It was selected by UNICEF as the Photo of the Year.

The groom, Mohammed, looks much older than his 40 years. The bride, Ghulam, is still a child; she just turned 11. Photographer Stephanie Sinclair, who took the photo last year in Afghanistan, asked the just-turned 11 year old bride what she felt on the day of her engagement.

“Nothing,” said the girl, according to Sinclair. “I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?”

She’s about to feel what it is like to be raped and treated as a slave. UNICEF is a part of the United Nations that does a lot to feed and care for children around the world. However, they are woefully absent in putting an end to pedophilia in the Islamic world. In fact, putting an end to this practice is not even on their agenda. Just look at their ‘World Fit For Children‘ declaration published Dec. 13, 2007.

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Kul Gautam said . . .

“This short but powerful declaration calls for the pursuit of a common vision to ensure the well-being of all children with a collective sense of urgency.”

Ask that 11 year old girl how she feels now, if she is still alive. The ‘optional protocols’ by member states is all gums, no teeth. No mention of this barbaric practice of selling children to be brides. To wit . . .

3. We reaffirm our commitment to the full implementation of the Declaration and Plan of Action contained in the outcome document of the twenty-seventh special session of the General Assembly on children, entitled “A world fit for children”, recognizing that their implementation and the fulfillment of obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Optional Protocols thereto and other relevant international instruments are mutually reinforcing in protecting the rights and promoting the well-being of all children. In all our actions, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.

The track record of the United Nations in corruption, child abuse, rape, and pedophilia ought to be enough to repulse its members, and reason enough to suggest they move their headquarters to a country that is not offended by their actions, or, in this case, inaction.

Thanks to http://www.phillysonline.com/WordPress/

Oh Zimbawe!

Hatip redstate.com



I Know This Will Come As A Shock . . .But things are just getting worse in Zimbabwe:

For some 10m Zimbabweans, Christmas 2007 will be the worst in memory. As if coping with inflation, ­estimated at more than 40,000 per cent, and shortages of food, fuel, electricity and water were not enough, they cannot draw their money from bank accounts because of a cash shortage engineered by the authorities.

For the past fortnight people have had to queue for hours - even days - at teller machines and banks to try to draw out their cash, amid repeated promises from Gideon Gono, central bank governor, the crisis would be resolved by Christmas.

On Wednesday, Mr Gono announced the issue of three new large-denomination notes, the largest of Z$750,000 ($25 at the official exchange rate or $1.50 at the more realistic parallel rate).

At the same time, he withdrew the previous largest note (Z$200,000) as he believed that 97 per cent of the Z$67,000bn note issue ($13.3m at the parallel rate) was being held by speculators, hoarders, unscrupulous business people and "cash barons".

Businessmen say that because they cannot withdraw cash from the banks, they must buy it in the parallel market at a premium of 30 per cent and more, to pay suppliers and workers.

Read on . . .

The situation is, of course, insane. The rate of inflation in Zimbabwe is so bad as to be utterly and completely mind-boggling. And yet, for whatever reason, the article ends with the following anodyne passage:


Most, if not all, of these problems can be laid at the door of President Robert Mugabe's government. Yet the government has a Teflon-like ability to escape condemnation.

Queues for cash, fuel or bread are remarkably good humoured.

No one can say how long this can go on. Some economists and political analysts say there must be a breaking point, but ask anyone who will win elections in March, and the answer is Robert Mugabe.

Well, gosh. When you think about the way Mugabe rules Zimbabwe, does it really come as any surprise whatsoever that the people who live under his thumb are willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that they maintain their emotional equanimity in spite of all of the miseries that have befallen them thanks to the misrule of the Mugabe government? I mean, when a regime has a reputation for thuggery, it should be expected that most of the citizens who have to live with that regime will try their hardest to ensure that they do not arouse the regime's ire.

Meanwhile, the consequences of Zimbabwe's Weimarian inflation levels show up in just about every aspect of national society--including, of course, the education of Zimbabwe's children:


In the car park outside the headmaster's office of one of Bulawayo's most prestigious state secondary schools, the school bus is slowly rusting into obsolescence. In the secretary's office, the printer is idle for lack of paper, ink ribbons and indeed the secretary herself, who along with a quarter of the teaching staff has left recently in search of a living wage.

"We cannot afford petrol. We cannot afford paper, I cannot pay my staff," said the headmaster. He had just returned from the bank with a sack of notes to pay his teachers. Each brick of $Z500 notes, the only ones available, was worth about 20 US cents on the parallel exchange market.

The deputy headmaster took up the story. "The situation is critical. We have 1,600 children and only about 75 members of staff. There is an average of four to five children per textbook - and that is where the textbooks are available."

It's been said before and it is worth saying again: If Robert Mugabe actively sought to wreck Zimbabwe, he could not do a better job than he is doing right now.

Benazir Bhutto is Dead..

Well, the radicals of Islam have striked again. Seems that Osama got a some of his pals to shoot her at a political rally and then blow himself up while taking out a few more innocent people.It'll be interesting to see what the fallout is politically and socially in Pakistan from this cowardly act.

Seems that her supporters have taken to the streets claiming that Musharaff's government was behind the cowardly assassination based on a letter that Mrs. Bhutto wrote to Musharaff wherein she stated that there were members of his government that wanted to kill her.Personally, my money is on Osama. They absolutely can't stomach the idea of a pro-Western woman in a leadership role in an Islamofascist dominated country.

Should African Americans Get Reparations for Slavery?

Naomi Campbell strikes again

Hugo Chavez celebrity cheerleader Naomi Campbell can’t get enough of leftist thug-o-crats. Now she’s playing “investigative journalist” in Cuba–visiting housing projects and whoring for Fidel Castro. Hey, if Sean Penn can do it, why not Naomi? (Hat tip: Power Line)

Supermodel Naomi Campbell, who recently conducted a lengthy magazine interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, on Friday visited a new housing project his country built for Cuban oil refinery workers.Cuban news agency Prensa Latina said the British-born model chatted with a young married couple who will live in one of 100 small, white cookie-cutter houses recently built near the Camilo Cienfuegos refinery. The refinery was renovated with Venezuelan assistance.

Accompanied by Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Alejandro Gonzalez, Campbell posed with the couple after congratulating them on their new home. It was unclear what Campbell was doing in Cuba, but she visited Venezuela in October for an interview with Chavez for an unspecified publication.

Frederick Douglass Republican Club Dinner

These are pictures from a dinner hosted by the "Frederick Douglass Republican Club" an annual dinner put on by a group of African American Republican's in Florida. The keynote speaker was the former Lieutenant Governor of the State of Maryland Michael S. Steele.

Young Black Republicans and the YouTube/CNN Debates

Marcus shares why he is a Republican and what question he would ask the Republican presidential candidates at the YouTube/CNN debate

Artist of the Month "Keyshia Cole"

The artist of the month for HipHopRepublican.com is "Keyshia Cole" a Grammy Award nominated , R&B singer-songwriter, and record producer known for her soulful voice. She released her platinum selling debut album The Way It Is in 2005, and her second album Just Like You in 2007.


From Wikipedia

Cole grew up in Oakland, California. Her mother's drug addiction led to her becoming a foster child adopted by Yvonne Cole at the age of 2. She has said that her music brother, Sean Cole and Tupac Shakur were close friends . Sean Cole raps under the alias "Nutt-So", and recorded several songs with Shakur before his death.[citation needed] Keyshia's first recordings were with MC Hammer at the age of twelve In the early 2000s, she appeared on tracks by San Francisco Bay Area artists including Tony! Toni! Toné!'s D'Wayne Wiggins and San Francisco rapper Messy Marv.

Cole was inspired by her ex-boyfriend's mother to further pursue her career, so she left the Bay Area with a rented car and two hundred dollars after catching her boyfriend cheating.[3] She moved to Los Angeles and within several months of her arrival, had attracted the attention of Interscope president Ron Fair, who in turn recommended her to chairman Jimmy Iovine, for whom she performed an early version of "Love" in June/July 2002. She was signed by then A & R rep Fair in December 2002. Cole started recording her debut album soon after. In 2003 she made her first solo appearance on the Biker Boyz soundtrack with the track "Get Up". In 2004, Cole made another solo appearance on the track "Never", taken from the Barbershop 2: Back in Business soundtrack with rapper Eve. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Cole has been linked romantically to rapper Young Jeezy.

Quote Of The Day

“There aren’t too many people in Parliament who have fronted up a crack dealer. But there was one on our [public housing] estate when I was younger who was terrorising everyone. One day I heard him having a go at an old lady who lived above us. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I ran up there and I have to say there were fisticuffs.” — Shaun Bailey, youth worker and Conservative Party (Britain) candidate for Parliament

Chris Rock - Gun Control

Dr. Alvin Poussaint: "African American Communities Can Be Lifted Up"

Cherry Hill Courier Post (New Jersey) does a Q&A session with the famous psychologist, who recently collaborated with comedian Bill Cosby on "Come On People: On The Path From Victims To Victors," a book aimed at inspiring black people to tackle issues that are destroying some families and communities:

Bill Cosby spent three years holding "call outs" for African Americans across the country to discuss community issues, and some of the participants' comments are in the book. What has kept you and Cosby talking about issues some African Americans appear uncomfortable to deal with in a public forum?

We've had some people say we're airing dirty laundry and that it will reinforce stereotypes some white people hold. But white people who are bigoted will have those opinions anyway. During the call outs, it was very surprising that thousands of people turned out, (they were) middle class, low income, ex-prison inmates, former prostitutes. They spoke about problems our communities face and what they felt had to be done about it. These people are not ashamed to speak out. They're not in denial and they don't believe the problems that face black people are a secret. By not talking about these issues and confronting them, black people will get stuck in the same place.

In the book, you argue that African Americans can and have overcome systemic racism by focusing on what they need to do to achieve and refusing to see themselves as victims. To what extent does a sense of victimization explain the social and economic disparities that exist between African Americans and others?

Black people have been and are victims in a lot of ways. Every year, we can cite something much worse than what happened in Jena, La. But you don't yield to that and quit and give up. If we did do that, we'd never be where we are today. Black people started out poor. They have achieved in professions in every field. They did that while being victimized. What counts is that individuals can overcome barriers and hurdles. We're encouraging people to continue to hold those attitudes and not to succumb to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. We're not denying there is racism. But that doesn't mean you should drop out of high school. A lot of young people do bad things to themselves, then they blame their problems on someone else. If you use crack or become a drug addict, those are choices you're making. We haven't paid enough attention to the self-destructive things we do in our communities. Someone has to speak out strongly against these things. Some people accuse (him and Cosby) of being too harsh. I don't see how (black people) can be harsh enough when we see 14- and 15-year-old black boys and girls lying dead from a bullet wound. Gangsta rap normalizes degrading things. It actually promotes that being a thug is being hip. We shouldn't have been sitting around accepting that stuff.

You seem to be especially reaching out to poor African Americans. Are they listening and what has been the general response?

A lot of people are coming out to (Cosby's) call outs. I think a lot of them know what we're trying to do. Some have gone back to get their GEDs. Some have rejected us out of hand as old fuddy-duddies.

Your book includes self-help strategies on how to parent better, build wealth, create supportive communities and develop positive role models for black youth. To be effective, the strategies would need to be widely adopted by African Americans. How can that be done?

To turn things around, there must be more collaboration between social services, civic organizations, parents. In upstate New York, social agencies, families, the criminal justice system are forming a task force to see how their services can be used to support each other's goals. We've got groups such as the 100 Black Men going out to mentor youth. We have the Girls and Boys Clubs to help get young people on the right track. There's no one way to address all the issues. We need a lot of players -- churches, black males, anyone who wants to take this on. It's not one initiative that will do it. Forming a synergy will make a difference and maybe inspire some people to take a different tack.

Any further thoughts about the book?

We're saying, care for yourself and have faith in yourself. Be constructive and love your community and have a spirit of wanting to help each other. Move forward, and take the high road."

Clarence Thomas - The Virtues of Debate

More Blacks Lean Toward Obama

Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Illinois) rising poll numbers among white voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are having an unexpected ripple effect: Some black voters are switching their allegiance from Sen. Hillary Clinton (D- new York) and lining up behind him too

The evidence of movement is most clear in South Carolina, site of the first Democratic primary where black votes figure to make a significant impact. There, four polls now show the liberal Illinois Democrat with a lead among black voters for the January 26, 2008 vote. As a result, the race in South Carolina has tightened, with some polls calling it a dead heat. A Rasmussen poll completed last week among South Carolina voters shows Sen. Obama now attracting 51% of the African-American vote, compared with 27% for Sen. Clinton. A month ago, the candidates were tied among South Carolina black voters. Along with other polls, Rasmussen shows the two candidates essentially tied among all South Carolina voters.

A Pew Research poll completed late last month shows Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama virtually tied among black voters nationwide; two months ago Sen. Clinton held a 12-point advantage. But an ABC News/Washington Post poll this week shows Sen. Clinton still with a commanding lead among African-Americans nationwide.

Some analysts say Sen. Clinton may do well because many of her black supporters are women and senior citizens who typically turn out for primaries in high numbers. "Hillary's voters are likely to vote," says Ron Lester, a Democratic pollster who has done extensive work polling African-Americans in the South. "That is going to help her hold her own."

The black vote is likely to be crucial in the cascade of primaries that follow Iowa and New Hampshire next year. Blacks make up almost half of Democratic primary voters in South Carolina and Georgia, one third in Virginia and a quarter in Tennessee. They also make up a fifth of Democratic primary voters in New York and 15% in Delaware and Ohio.

A big factor behind the rise in black support for Sen. Obama in South Carolina appears to be his popularity among white voters, though he is also expanding his outreach to black voters, and many of his views, especially his opposition to the Iraq war and support of social programs, resonate strongly with them. "A lot of African-Americans in the South have questions about whether a black candidate can be elected president," says David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which studies black issues. "Picking someone who is going to have a good chance to win is very much on their minds. If Obama shows he can win and that white voters can vote for him, there will be a lot of African-Americans who will be lining up to support him."

Black Republican 08" -Dr. Marion D. Thorpe

Every election year this blog highlights minority candidates who are running for office as Republicans and this year is no exception. The first campaign comes to us from the state of Florida where a qualified African-American Republican is running for Congressional District 23 on November 4, 2008.

The candidate is a father a medical doctor and is running on such topics as education reform,economic empowerment and community development.

The Congressional District 23 (FL) he is running in has more square footage than Rhode Island and includes the following five counties: Palm Beach, Broward, Hendry, St. Lucie, Martin. The present and former bastions of sugar production such as Belle Glade, Clewiston, Pahokee, and South Bay are in this district as well as the more urban areas of West Palm Beach, and Delray Beach.

By and large, the people who live and work in this district are perpetually subjected to diminishing job opportunities, a sub-par educational system, sub-standard Health Care, increasing crime, and a general sense of bleakness. Categorically, the people of Florida’s 23rd Congressional District are much less concerned with Party labels and national politics; but rather, they are looking for a good, honest person who can deliver them from their present ills. The Thorpe ‘08 candidacy represents the dawning of a new day throughout Florida’s 23rd Congressional District.

Please show your support!

Click Here to Donate. Want to become a member of the THORPE ’08 Team?

You can Sign up right now.



http://marionthorpe.com/thorpe_for_congress_in_2008_ and


http://www.myspace.com/marionthorpe you will see that we have much in common.

Quote of the Day

"Those who are looking forward to a second Clinton administration should remember what they say about movies -- the sequel is seldom as good as the original. And the original Clinton administration was not all that great."

- Thomas Sowell

Oprah Winfrey Speaks

Oprah Winfrey yesterday brought her considerable celebrity buzz out on the campaign trail and hit hard at African Americans, even bringing back the late Rev. Martin Luther King at one point.

"Dr. King dreamed a dream. But we don't have to just dream the dream anymore," Ms. Winfrey said. "We get to vote that dream into reality."In her 17-minute speech in front of about 30,000 people at the University of South Carolina's football stadium, Ms. Winfrey also blasted critics who have said that Sen. Barack Obama does not have enough experience.


"There are those who say it's not his time, that he should wait his turn," she said. "Think about where you'd be in your life if you'd waited when people told you to."Referring to the state's Democratic primary date, she said, "South Carolina — January 26th is your moment." She capped off her three-state tour last night at a stop in Manchester, New Hampshire.According to the Los Angeles Times, the rally in South Carolina was the biggest one ever for Sen. Obama's presidential bid. They also appealed directly to the mostly black crowd, peppering their speeches with "y'all" and "you folks.

" They made several references to church attendance, beauty parlors and God, quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and played up Ms. Winfrey's Southern roots and that fact that Mrs. Obama's family came out of South Carolina.A McClatchy-MSNBC poll released yesterday has the liberal Illinois Democrat in a statistical tie for the lead with Sen. Hillary Clinton in South Carolina. The liberal New York Democrat had 28% and Sen. Obama 25% among likely Democratic primary voters, which is within the poll's margin of error.


A key factor has been a swing to Sen. Obama among black voters - who comprise half of South Carolina's Democrats - whom the poll showed support Sen. Obama 37% versus 21% for Sen. Clinton.However, a recent poll of black South Carolinians conducted for Winthrop University and South Carolina's public TV and radio network found that 35% intended to vote for Sen. Obama, 31% for Sen. Clinton and 3% for Sen. John Edwards (who was born in South Carolina). The poll was noteworthy for the 33% of black women who said they were undecided.

Hatip to Bookerising for this latest post

Fareed Zakaria Interviews Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Iran Bans "Imperalist" Hip Hop

Iranian Rap Music against the Islamic Republic

TEHRAN: Iran on Thursday said that it planned to launch a crackdown on rap music, complaining that the words used by hip-hop artists were "obscene," the state IRNA news agency reported. "There is nothing wrong with this type of music in itself," the official who evaluates music for the Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, Mohammad Dashtgoli, was quoted as saying.

"But due to the use of obscene words by its singers this music has been categorized as illegal," he said.

"In coordination with the police, illegal studios producing this type of music will be sealed and the singers in this genre will be confronted," he said.

Dashtgoli said a large number of illegal rap artists have been already identified.

The Islamic Republic's hard-line officials have repeatedly complained about a "cultural invasion" by "decadent" Western music, which they believe diminishes Islamic values.

The ministry official expressed his frustration that rap artists were finding low-cost ways to publish their music on the Internet. "We should find a solution for this," he said.

Rap music has become increasingly popular among young urban males in Tehran, with explicit lyrics exploring social, political and sexual themes.

Producing albums and holding concerts in Iran requires official permission from the authorities and, needless to say, rap music is an underground phenomenon in the Islamic Republic.

Nevertheless, rap albums are widely available on the black market with artists drawing inspiration from the Persian-language rap of the Iranian diaspora based in Los Angeles.

Iran is currently in the midst of its most severe moral crackdown in years, which has seen thousands of women warned for slack dressing, several bootleg music stores shut and mixed-sex parties raided.

Conservatives have applauded the crackdown but some moderates have questioned the value of the drive at a time when Iran's economic problems are hitting the poor hard. - AFP

Iranian Hip Hop







From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The first group to release an Iranian Rap album was the Los Angeles based group Sandy in the early 1990s. However we can't say who was the first persian rapper, since today every one of them claims to be the first one. The first underground rapper with lyrics and beats worthy of attention was Deev, who introduced soft hip-hop to an Iranians audience, with his political track, "Dasta Bala". Hich-Kas who wrote about life from Tehran (021 area code - e.g "Khoda Pashoo"). Eventually female rappers started to emerge, with Salome (Rapper) known as the first female rapper in Iran. and few others like Pani(rapper) and 2khtar.

There is no real data about who really started Persian Rap, but it’s the talent of many who've contributed to bring it into the mainstream.


History

With the introduction of satellite television in Iran in the early 1990s and world wide recognition of hip hop and its American artists such as 2pac, NWA and Eminem and hiphop found an explosive following among the Iranian youth (mostly born after the Islamic Revolution of 1979).

They started paying attention to the beats and rhythmic lyrics present in hip hop and eventually turned to creating this genre of music in Persian. Soon they turned from rap enthusiasts to poets and rap producers, bringing to light how they saw life as Iranians and what they wanted from the world. They used it as a means of self expression, creating such artists as Daad, Feroo , Deev, Zed Bazi, Hich Kas, Pishro, who each added their own flavor to Iranian hip hop.( a.k.a: Rap Farsi, Rap Fars). Feroo[1] was interested in music since he was a teenager the entered the world of music by learning traditional Iranian music.

The musical instrument which he learns to play first was Santoor after one year he quit learning Santoor and this time he started learning the guitar. After a while he understood that even guitar could not fit the enthusiasm he had for music. Therefore he quite guitar, as well. After two year of the mergence of Persian Rap in Iran FEROO in 2000 decided to try his chance by singing in Rap style. The issued his first understood album in 2002 after he got familiar which the “seven” group.


Information and Media



One of the main ways for Iranian rappers to get their music across the world and out to the Iranian community is with the use of internet. There are many well known Iranian rap websites, such as Persian Hip Hop, Raplarzeh, 021 Music, Bia2Rap and many many more which use the farsi language on their websites.

In addition, Onloq.com, a Hip Hop video social network partly run by Persian-American MC, J. Shah, has been very supportive of the Iranian Hip Hop movement, and has reached out to numbers of Iranian rappers and currently rotates the Hich Kas "Tirippe e Ma" video. The Breakdown TV a show created and transmitted by Onloq even named that video one of the Top 6 of 2006

"Shoe tossing (or shoe flinging)"

How many times have you entered a bad neighborhood and noticed shoes dangling from electrical wires? Have you ever asked how any one could do such a things and what the purpose of it was? If so you are not alone I myself thought like many people that it was gang related. Wikipedia the free online encyclopedia has some interesting facts on this international phenomenon.

According to Wiki Shoe flinging or "shoe flinging" is the American and Canadian practice of throwing shoes whose shoelaces have been tied together so that they hang from overhead wires such as power lines or telephone cables. The shoes are tied together by their laces, and the assembly is apparently then thrown at the wires as a sort of bolas. This practice plays a widespread, though mysterious, role in adolescent folklore in the United States. Shoe flinging has also been reported in Australia, Sweden, France and Norway.

Shoe flinging occurs throughout the United States, in rural as well as in urban areas. Usually, the shoes flung at the wires are sneakers; elsewhere, especially in rural areas, many different varieties of shoes, including leather shoes and boots, also are thrown.

A number of sinister explanations have been proposed as to why this is done. Some say that shoes hanging from the wires advertise a local crack house where crack cocaine is used and sold (in which case the shoes are sometimes referred to as "Crack Tennies"). It can also relate to a place where Heroin is sold to symbolize the fact that once you take Heroin you can never 'leave': a reference to the addictive nature of the drug. Others claim that the shoes so thrown commemorate a gang-related murder, or the death of a gang member, or as a way of marking gang turf.[1]

A newsletter from the mayor of Los Angeles, California cites fears of many Los Angeles residents that "these shoes indicate sites at which drugs are sold or worse yet, gang turf," and that city and utility employees had launched a program to remove the shoes.[2] These explanations have the ring of urban legend to them, especially since the practice also occurs along relatively remote stretches of rural highways that are unlikely scenes for gang murders or crack houses.

Other, less sinister explanations also have been ventured. Some claim that shoes are flung to commemorate the end of a school year, or a forthcoming marriage as part of a rite of passage. It has been suggested that the custom may have originated with members of the military, who are said to have thrown military boots, often painted orange or some other conspicuous color, at overhead wires as a part of a rite of passage upon completing basic training or on leaving the service. Others claim that the shoes are stolen from other people and tossed over the wires as a sort of bullying, or as a practical joke played on drunkards. Others simply say that shoe flinging is a way to get rid of shoes that are no longer wanted, are uncomfortable, or don't fit. It may also be another manifestation of the human instinct to leave their mark on, and decorate, their surroundings.

In the motion picture Wag the Dog, a spin doctor flings shoes into trees as a part of a campaign to call attention to a fictional war hero named Sergeant William Schumann, who was given the nickname "The Old Shoe." In another motion picture, Like Mike, a character is struck by lightning in an attempt to retrieve shoes from a power line, and improbably acquires superpowers as a result.

In fact, shoe flinging is unwise and may cause utility outages. Some people have been killed by electrocution while trying to remove shoes from power lines. Utilities have asked the public to call them instead of trying to remove the shoes themselves.

In some neighborhoods, shoes tied together and hanging from power lines or tree branches signify that someone has died. The shoes belong to the dead person. The reason they are hanging, legend has it, is that when the dead person's spirit returns, it will walk that high above the ground, that much closer to heaven.

Activists in Zimbabwe Suffer Arrests, Beatings

The southern African nation of Zimbabwe is suffering from massive inflation, rampant poverty, and a 90 percent unemployment rate. But when people try to speak out against the situation and the current government under President Robert Mugabe, they say they are subjected to harassment, arrest and even beatings. A reporter for VOA, who must remain anonymous for security reasons, filed this undercover report from Bulawayo.

Ali, Atheism And Islam

"Although she has the credibility of a witness as well as the moral standing of a victim, Hirsi Ali remains a bystander civilian in the great war of our times, whose broadest front is in the global South. That is, she proclaims herself to be an atheist.

Millions of Muslims reportedly convert to Christianity each year, mainly in Africa. Islam is stagnant in Asia while tens of millions become Christian. Yet all the Muslim apostates whose voices we hear are atheists - not only Hirsi Ali, but also Salman Rushdie, the celebrated author of The Satanic Verses, the Syrian poet Adonis, and the pseudonymous Ibn Warraq, author of Why I am not a Muslim and several compendia of Koranic criticism. Why do Muslim apostates gravitate towards atheism?

That is not true of other religions. Many Jewish converts achieved prominence in 20th-century Christianity - for example, the recently deceased Cardinal Danielou of Paris, the martyred Carmelite nun Edith Stein (now canonized), and the great Protestant theologian Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy.

But the name of no prominent Muslim convert to Christianity (much less to Judaism) comes to mind. It is easy to change what we think, but very hard to change how we think. Contrary to superficial impressions, Islam is much closer in character to atheism than to Christianity or Judaism."Spengler continues: "The implication that the West will crush Islam by force [as Ms. Hirsi Ali desires] borders on the absurd. Western armies, to be sure, could make short work of the military forces of any Muslim country, but what would they do then?


Would they order Muslims to abandon their spiritual life in favor of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, the heroes of Hirsi Ali? The West cannot stop Muslims from burning in effigy the editors of a Danish newspaper in their own countries. Secular liberalism, the official ideology of almost all the nations of Western Europe, offers hedonism, sexual license, anomie, demoralization and gradual depopulation. Muslims do not want this. In Africa, Christian missionaries go to Muslims and offer them God's love and the hope of eternal life. But I am aware of no Christian missionaries active in the Muslim banlieue (outskirts) of the Paris suburbs or the Turkish quarters of Berlin. By contrast, there is indeed a war with Islam, and it is being won in parts of the world where Christians wage it on spiritual grounds. No Christian army has had to march in its support. Europe, meanwhile, is losing ground to Islam because it declines to fight. Hirsi Ali, to be sure, sympathizes with Judaism and Christianity, and allows that the two sister religions might be instrumental in countering Islam - but only because they are compatible with secular liberalism.....The pressing question is why Muslim apostates cling to the secular liberalism that has failed so thoroughly in Western Europe.


The trouble is that old habits of mind die slowly. That is not only true of Muslims. The sort of Eastern European Jews who hailed the false messiahs of the 17th century, for example, were attracted to the messianism of Karl Marx. Marxist intellectuals found it easy to convert to the so-called neo-Thomism colored by the Enlightenment rationalism of Francisco Suarez. Bolshevik brawlers in Germany in the 1930s often crossed the line from Red to Brown. And Muslims find it easier to be atheists than to be Christians or Jews."And more: "On the contrary, the absolute transcendence of Allah in the physical world is the cognate of his despotic character as a spiritual ruler, who demands submission and service from his creatures.

The Judeo-Christian God loves his creatures and as an act of love makes them free. Humankind only can be free if nature is rational, that is, if God places self-appointed limits on his own sphere of action. In a world ordered by natural law, humankind through its faculty of reason can learn these laws and act freely. In the alternative case, the absolute freedom of Allah crowds out all human freedom of action, leaving nothing but the tyranny of caprice and fate. The empty and arbitrary world of atheism is far closer to the Muslim universe than the Biblical world, in which God orders the world out of love for humankind, so that we may in freedom return the love that our creator bears for us. Atheism is an alternative to Islam closer to Muslim habits of mind than the love-centered world of Judaism and Christianity.

Hirsi Ali has my unqualified admiration. The courage which guided her journey from Somalia to the Netherlands still prompts her to warn of the dangers before the West at great risk to her own life. I have a similar admiration for Orhan Pamuk, now in virtual exile from his native Turkey, and Rushdie, who remains in danger of a Muslim death warrant, and other Muslim apostates who refuse to be intimidated. Courage, Winston Churchill said, is the first of the virtues, for without it, one does not have the opportunity to exercise the others. Yet it is not the only virtue, and I hope that Hirsi Ali's journey takes her further, beyond atheism."

"Forty Acres and a Gap in Wealth"

In a NYT op-ed, Henry Louis Gates write about "Forty Acres and a Gap in Wealth"

I have been studying the family trees of 20 successful African-Americans, people in fields ranging from entertainment and sports (Oprah Winfrey, the track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee) to space travel and medicine (the astronaut Mae Jemison and Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon).

And I've seen an astonishing pattern: 15 of the 20 descend from at least one line of former slaves who managed to obtain property by 1920 — a time when only 25 percent of all African-American families owned property.

(HT: Social Science Statistics Blog)

No? Hugo

The New York Times is reporting that the people voters of Venezuela defeated a proposed overhaul to the constitution which had it been passed would have given President Hugo Chávez sweeping new powers.





Report from Caracas Chronicles: “Quico says: Multiple sources inside CNE now confirm it. Chávez’s constitutional reform proposal has been defeated at the polls. An official announcement is imminent.”


Update: Delays, delays, delays.


Daniel at Venezuela News and Views:

Translation: I tried to pull the wool over my citizens eyes and failed.

~The thing about communist dictators is that they don't give up power easily. Chavez will find some way to legitimize his continuing reign, or just say "hell with it" and decide to stay without a vote.The news says he lost. The next couple of days should be interesting. A recount will show he actually won, of course. Or, declare it a null and void election since it was manipulated by the CIA. He will try to work around the vote. Elections in a communist state are for show anyway.