My Other Fellow

My Perfect Birthday Gift

2006-03-08T18:42:00.000-08:00

March 25 marks my birthday and as a gift, I dream of getting a nuke. A cute, cuddly nuke. I promise not to bully my pals with that, just to deter their dirty intimidation tactics and to keep my pride intact.

Forwarding Iran's nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council has incurred a national shame on Iranians. It's just like having your teacher kick you out of the classroom for chitchatting. Now you are standing, unrepentant and enraged, behind the principal's office, waiting for a harsh punishment.

The shame makes you sweat minute by minute. Passing students can't help sneering at your embarrassment. The very naughty boys, who always seem to have a sly way of getting away unpunished, make faces.

Apart from the shame, I am utterly glad, however, that Iran has been finally reported to the big boss. As the Persian saying goes, death once, wailing once. We still have our fate at our own hands: either persist on having peaceful nuclear energy and put up with the possible sanctions and even nuclear bombing, or surrender.

The problem is I can't choose for you and you can't impose your choice on me. For it's unfair and dangerous. As we stay undecided, however, our defenseless nation would be plundered again, by both corrupt rulers and greedy superpowers.

Americans claim Iranians have a right to use nuclear energy, but not under this undemocratic regime. There is a truth and a fallacy.

The truth: the current government of President Ahmadinejad has acted as a rogue student in the international classroom. Others fairly demand a commitment to good manners.

The fallacy: the West never wants Iranians to have nuclear reactors. They wasted billion dollars during the reign of Shah to build the Bushehr power plant. The Russians are now milking the project.

Another fallacy deals with democracy and freedom. Since when democracy is a yardstick for having the right to exploit nuclear technology? A decade after dropping A-bombs on the Japanese, Americans were still forcing their black minority to give their bus seats to the white. It took another decade for black Americans to become legally equal with their white neighbors, though they still suffer from discrimination.

I know one thing for sure: Iran will always remain a sitting duck for resource-guzzling powers unless it is armed with nuclear weapons, just like India and Pakistan. Till then, I want to keep dreaming of getting my perfect birthday gift.

Blaming the British

2006-03-01T15:12:00.000-08:00

It's a fine piece about Iranians' suspicion that everything in their country is materminded by, well, the British.

Watching his fellow countrymen observe the annual Shia Islamic mourning ceremony of Ashura, the disaffected Tehran taxi driver voiced a wish to convert to Christianity that may not have been as sincere as it was incongruous. But whatever his true ecclesiastical leanings, his beliefs about the source of the religious tyranny that so irked him about Iran were real.

"It is England that has imposed these mullahs on us," the cabbie mused, resisting all protestations at the notion's absurdity.

The idea that the Islamic revolution was a plot hatched in Whitehall, and that its spiritual leader, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, was some sort of heavily disguised 007 in the secret service of Her Majesty's government does indeed seem weird. But not to many Iranians.

Suggestions that the convulsive events of 1979, which ushered in the Islamic republic, were manipulated and orchestrated by the British are widely accepted here as a given. It is a belief held, even before his reign was swept to oblivion in a revolutionary tidal wave, by the last shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.

Resentful that the British had deposed his pro-German father during the second world war, the shah commissioned a television drama, My Uncle Napoleon, whose main character's catchphrase was: "The British are behind everything". The shah echoed this mantra during his reign's last desperate days, telling the American ambassador, William Sullivan, that he "detected the hand of the English" behind the street demonstrations raging against him. Sullivan surmised that the teetering monarch had lost his mind and, with it, the will to survive.

But the shah was reflecting a broader mindset. The sun may have long set on British imperial might but in Iran it has been replaced by an enduring mirage of dominance which still shines brightly. If the rest of the world has become accustomed to the American hegemonic age, to Iranians Inglestan still wields the true power, albeit stealthily. Behind events great and small, they are ready to perceive the sleight of a hidden British hand. Belief in the "old coloniser's" diabolic powers unites Iranians in a way matched by no other issue, including the Islamic regime's pursuit of nuclear technology.

The regime's staunchest supporters cling to this belief with equal tenacity. Demonstrations by student Basij (Islamic volunteers) outside the British embassy in Tehran occur with bewildering regularity. The most recent railed against Britain's alleged responsibility for last week's destruction of the Shia shrine in Samarra, Iraq.

More generally, the Iranian authorities blame Britain for a wave of bombings that has killed more than 20 people in the southern city of Ahvaz over the past year.

It can be a bit of a jolt to Britons reconciled to their country's reduced global status to be instructed by Iranians of no particular ideological persuasion to "tell your government to leave us alone". It came as such to no less than Jack Straw. Having invested much energy and political capital cultivating a relationship aimed at breaking the ongoing nuclear imbroglio, the foreign secretary was said to be dumbfounded to discover the standard Iranian belief in his government's almost supernatural powers. He shouldn't have been.

For the all-consuming suspicion of British motives is rooted not simply in outlandish superstition, but in solid historical fact. Iran is hardly the only country where imperial Britain has form, but in few places are the memories - or wounds - so raw.

Top of the Iranian grudge list is the 1953 coup that toppled the nationalist prime minister, Mohammed Mossadeq, and cemented the rule of the shah. The coup was executed largely by the CIA but its genesis lay with the British secret services.

The British had been infuriated by Mossadeq's nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian oil company, a move prompted by widespread anger at its refusal to share a fairer proportion of its profits (vital to Britain's tax revenues) with Iran.

Having taken the matter to the UN security council and lost, Churchill's government persuaded the Eisenhower administration, then paranoid about the spread of communism, that Mossadeq was a dangerous radical who should be toppled. The resulting chicanery destabilised Iranian politics for the next generation and resonates to this day.

But it is just one among many historical grievances. Britain's dubious distinction is to have alienated just about every identifiable group in Iran. During the 19th century, Iran was a pawn in the Great Game played out between Britain and Russia for power and influence in central Asia.

The ruling Qajar dynasty of the time was bullied into a host of humiliating territorial and economic concessions to each side. The abuses continued into the 20th century and extended to interference in Iranian internal politics.

"Historically, people believe Britain engineered the coup which brought to power Reza Khan, who became Reza Shah [the last shah's father]," said Mohammed Hossein Adeli, until recently Iran's ambassador to Britain.

"His ruthless rule made people blame the British for interference in Iranian affairs. Later, the British deposed Reza Shah. As a result the shah's royal family and the elite affiliated to them were alienated. This united the people and the elite, both of whom became very suspicious of the British."

British policy makers should be sobered to learn that the one thing that unites Iranians is us. If, one day, the taxi driver gets his wish and the rule of the mullahs should end, there is no doubt who will get the credit - or the blame.

(Guardian, Robert Tait)

Why Did You Kill Her?

2006-02-23T17:43:00.000-08:00

The fight between religion and freedom of speech is spinning out of control as Iraqis vent their anger at the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

I am unsurprised by the violent reaction to this despicable crime, because the fundamental dispute between Shiites and Sunnis outrageously spawns hatred, nonstop. I am unsurprised, therefore, by the reprisal attacks at Sunni mosques.

As a Shiite, I am shocked, however, at the murder of three Sunni journalists in Samarra. They were covering the bombing in the Askari shrine for the al-Arabiya TV network when they were kidnapped by gunmen. Their bodies were discovered the following day.

Nobody knows who have murdered them, so we can't learn about the killers' motives, but I really like to know why journalists were targeted. Either Shiites slaughtered them to take revenge because the anchorwoman of the team has been so popular in Iraq. Or Sunni insurgents have committed this crime to foment more violence or possibly a civil war.

During the cartoon crisis, we said the freedom of speech must respect religious sanctities to avoid inciting hatred, but what should we do when religious hatred butchers freedom of speech?

Why I Published Those Cartoons

2006-02-19T13:43:00.000-08:00

This is an article by the editor who commisioned the original cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

Childish. Irresponsible. Hate speech. A provocation just for the sake of provocation. A PR stunt. Critics of 12 cartoons of the prophet Muhammad I decided to publish in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten have not minced their words. They say that freedom of expression does not imply an endorsement of insulting people's religious feelings, and besides, they add, the media censor themselves every day. So, please do not teach us a lesson about limitless freedom of speech.

I agree that the freedom to publish things doesn't mean you publish everything. Jyllands-Posten would not publish pornographic images or graphic details of dead bodies; swear words rarely make it into our pages. So we are not fundamentalists in our support for freedom of expression.

But the cartoon story is different.

Those examples have to do with exercising restraint because of ethical standards and taste; call it editing. By contrast, I commissioned the cartoons in response to several incidents of self-censorship in Europe caused by widening fears and feelings of intimidation in dealing with issues related to Islam. And I still believe that this is a topic that we Europeans must confront, challenging moderate Muslims to speak out. The idea wasn't to provoke gratuitously -- and we certainly didn't intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.

At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.

This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of self-censorship. Last September, a Danish children's writer had trouble finding an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad. Three people turned down the job for fear of consequences. The person who finally accepted insisted on anonymity, which in my book is a form of self-censorship. European translators of a critical book about Islam also did not want their names to appear on the book cover beside the name of the author, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who has herself been in hiding.

Around the same time, the Tate gallery in London withdrew an installation by the avant-garde artist John Latham depicting the Koran, Bible and Talmud torn to pieces. The museum explained that it did not want to stir things up after the London bombings. (A few months earlier, to avoid offending Muslims, a museum in Goteborg, Sweden, had removed a painting with a sexual motif and a quotation from the Koran.)

Finally, at the end of September, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen met with a group of imams, one of whom called on the prime minister to interfere with the press in order to get more positive coverage of Islam.

So, over two weeks we witnessed a half-dozen cases of self-censorship, pitting freedom of speech against the fear of confronting issues about Islam. This was a legitimate news story to cover, and Jyllands-Posten decided to do it by adopting the well-known journalistic principle: Show, don't tell. I wrote to members of the association of Danish cartoonists asking them "to draw Muhammad as you see him." We certainly did not ask them to make fun of the prophet. Twelve out of 25 active members responded.

We have a tradition of satire when dealing with the royal family and other public figures, and that was reflected in the cartoons. The cartoonists treated Islam the same way they treat Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions. And by treating Muslims in Denmark as equals they made a point: We are integrating you into the Danish tradition of satire because you are part of our society, not strangers. The cartoons are including, rather than excluding, Muslims.

The cartoons do not in any way demonize or stereotype Muslims. In fact, they differ from one another both in the way they depict the prophet and in whom they target. One cartoon makes fun of Jyllands-Posten, portraying its cultural editors as a bunch of reactionary provocateurs. Another suggests that the children's writer who could not find an illustrator for his book went public just to get cheap publicity. A third puts the head of the anti-immigration Danish People's Party in a lineup, as if she is a suspected criminal.

One cartoon -- depicting the prophet with a bomb in his turban -- has drawn the harshest criticism. Angry voices claim the cartoon is saying that the prophet is a terrorist or that every Muslim is a terrorist. I read it differently: Some individuals have taken the religion of Islam hostage by committing terrorist acts in the name of the prophet. They are the ones who have given the religion a bad name. The cartoon also plays into the fairy tale about Aladdin and the orange that fell into his turban and made his fortune. This suggests that the bomb comes from the outside world and is not an inherent characteristic of the prophet.

On occasion, Jyllands-Posten has refused to print satirical cartoons of Jesus, but not because it applies a double standard. In fact, the same cartoonist who drew the image of Muhammed with a bomb in his turban drew a cartoon with Jesus on the cross having dollar notes in his eyes and another with the star of David attached to a bomb fuse. There were, however, no embassy burnings or death threats when we published those.

Has Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam? It certainly didn't intend to. But what does respect mean? When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy.

This is exactly why Karl Popper, in his seminal work "The Open Society and Its Enemies," insisted that one should not be tolerant with the intolerant. Nowhere do so many religions coexist peacefully as in a democracy where freedom of expression is a fundamental right. In Saudi Arabia, you can get arrested for wearing a cross or having a Bible in your suitcase, while Muslims in secular Denmark can have their own mosques, cemeteries, schools, TV and radio stations.

I acknowledge that some people have been offended by the publication of the cartoons, and Jyllands-Posten has apologized for that. But we cannot apologize for our right to publish material, even offensive material. You cannot edit a newspaper if you are paralyzed by worries about every possible insult.

I am offended by things in the paper every day: transcripts of speeches by Osama bin Laden, photos from Abu Ghraib, people insisting that Israel should be erased from the face of the Earth, people saying the Holocaust never happened. But that does not mean that I would refrain from printing them as long as they fell within the limits of the law and of the newspaper's ethical code. That other editors would make different choices is the essence of pluralism.

As a former correspondent in the Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders. That is what happened to human rights activists and writers such as Andrei Sakharov, Vladimir Bukovsky, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Natan Sharansky, Boris Pasternak. The regime accused them of anti-Soviet propaganda, just as some Muslims are labeling 12 cartoons in a Danish newspaper anti-Islamic.

The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants.

Since the Sept. 30 publication of the cartoons, we have had a constructive debate in Denmark and Europe about freedom of expression, freedom of religion and respect for immigrants and people's beliefs. Never before have so many Danish Muslims participated in a public dialogue -- in town hall meetings, letters to editors, opinion columns and debates on radio and TV. We have had no anti-Muslim riots, no Muslims fleeing the country and no Muslims committing violence. The radical imams who misinformed their counterparts in the Middle East about the situation for Muslims in Denmark have been marginalized. They no longer speak for the Muslim community in Denmark because moderate Muslims have had the courage to speak out against them.

In January, Jyllands-Posten ran three full pages of interviews and photos of moderate Muslims saying no to being represented by the imams. They insist that their faith is compatible with a modern secular democracy. A network of moderate Muslims committed to the constitution has been established, and the anti-immigration People's Party called on its members to differentiate between radical and moderate Muslims, i.e. between Muslims propagating sharia law and Muslims accepting the rule of secular law. The Muslim face of Denmark has changed, and it is becoming clear that this is not a debate between "them" and "us," but between those committed to democracy in Denmark and those who are not.

This is the sort of debate that Jyllands-Posten had hoped to generate when it chose to test the limits of self-censorship by calling on cartoonists to challenge a Muslim taboo. Did we achieve our purpose? Yes and no. Some of the spirited defenses of our freedom of expression have been inspiring. But tragic demonstrations throughout the Middle East and Asia were not what we anticipated, much less desired. Moreover, the newspaper has received 104 registered threats, 10 people have been arrested, cartoonists have been forced into hiding because of threats against their lives and Jyllands-Posten's headquarters have been evacuated several times due to bomb threats. This is hardly a climate for easing self-censorship.

Still, I think the cartoons now have a place in two separate narratives, one in Europe and one in the Middle East. In the words of the Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the integration of Muslims into European societies has been sped up by 300 years due to the cartoons; perhaps we do not need to fight the battle for the Enlightenment all over again in Europe. The narrative in the Middle East is more complex, but that has very little to do with the cartoons.

Flemming Rose is the culture editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
(Washingtonpost.com)

Where to Draw the Line

2006-02-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

I am really enjoying the cartoons war raging around the globe, because it reveals how intellectuals are double-faced and how efforts to reconcile civilizations have failed.

We winced first at the Prophet Mohammad controversy, then the Iranian-backed tournament for anti-Holocaust caricatures, followed by a tit-for-tat competition from Israelis and now a cartoon depicting Iranian footballers as suicide bombers in the upcoming World Cup.

The German newspaper behind the latest provocation claims it just wanted to mock a proposal by the Defense Ministry to deploy soldiers beside police officers to keep security during the one-month football tournament.

Malte Lehming, comment editor at Der Tagesspiegel, has said the caricature was meant for "a German audience". Asked whether it had been unwise to print it, he told the Guardian: "The problem is where you draw the line? Cartoons have to be satirical and mean."

OK, let's be satirical and mean.

Germany is going to host 32 national teams in June, so Germans' hospitality will be roughly tested. They will entertain, alongside Iranians, the American, British and French teams, among others. These nations have killed thousands of German civilians during World War II. They fairly deserve more than Iranians to be on the receiving end of jokes about collective fear of insecurity.

Six decades after the Nazi reign, certain Germans tend to entertain some tarnishing methods favored by the propaganda apparatus of Joseph Goebbels. He is famously quoted as saying that repeating a lie can make people believe it. Why these Germans, too gutless to reveal their true colors, try to dupe their audience that all Muslims are terrorists? So who's mean?

Guys, let's be candid. You, the Western intellectual elite, have failed as much as your Muslim counterparts in bridging the gap between the two giant civilizations. Sometimes you spark an alienating controversy; sometimes your Islamic peers preach hatred. Just like two gangs of spoiled school brats. The result: frustrated grassroots and emboldened rightwing fanatics.

My solution: unfettered and equal freedom of speech for both sides. I know you reject it squarely. Whenever there is a shameful revelation on your part, like the new Abu Ghraib expose, you call for media responsibility and respect for privacy. You are, indeed, cold-bloodedly stifling the freedom.

The problem is not where you draw the line; the problem is you draw the line wherever and whenever you wish.

In Search Of The Real Google

2006-02-14T07:27:00.000-08:00

Time has an insider look at Google, but since you need subscription, I couldn't post the direct link:

It's time to make some big decisions, so the Google guys are slipping on their white lab coats. After eight years in the spotlight running a company that Wall Street values at more than $100 billion, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are still just in their early 30s and, with the stubbornness of youth, perhaps, and the aura of invincibility, keep doing things their way. So the white coats go on when it's time to approve new products. For a few hours, teams of engineers will come forward with their best ideas, hoping to dazzle the most powerful men in Silicon Valley. Google paid crazy money to attract top talent--supercharging the nerd market in the process--and this is the recruits' chance to show the investments were worth it.

The Google guys can be tough sells. Page, a computer geek from Michigan who as a boy idolized inventor Nikola Tesla (you know, the guy who developed AC power), has a Muppet's voice and a rocket scientist's brain. Brin, born in Russia and raised outside Washington, is no less clever but has a mischievous twinkle in his eye. When he drops little asides--"Let's make the little windows actually explode when you close them," he tells a group presenting new desktop software--no one seems certain whether to laugh or start writing the computer code. Both men often rise from the conference-room table to pace or to grab a snack or just to appear bored. In a culture of creativity, there's nothing wrong with keeping people off balance.

A team of four engineers enters the meeting room, each clutching an IBM Think Pad. They have just 20 minutes: a digital clock projected on the wall ticks it down. You don't go before Brin and Page--joined by CEO Eric Schmidt, 51, the Silicon Valley veteran brought in a few years ago to provide adult supervision--until you have your pitch down. And the way Google operates, you don't have your pitch down until you have the numbers to quantify its superiority. The engineers tell Brin and Page that they can generate extra advertising revenue by adding small sponsored links to image-search results, as Google already does with text searches. "We're not making enough money already?" Page asks. Everyone laughs. The share price has soared as high as $475, making Google, in market-cap terms, the biggest media company in the world. (The stock plummeted early this month on earnings that Wall Street didn't like, although it's still far above its 2004 IPO price of $85.) The engineers press on. Their trials predict the tweak would be worth as much as $80 million a year in additional revenue. Brin isn't moved. "I don't see how it enhances the experience of our users," he says. It probably wouldn't hurt it much either. But the Google guys reject the proposal--"Let's not do it," Brin declares, to the engineers' obvious disappointment--leaving the $80 million on the table.

Whether Google gets it right in sessions like that--balancing business opportunities against consumers' trust--is crucial to the company's future. After eight years of incredible growth, it's fair to ask whether Google is due for a stumble. To put it another way, Can Google maintain its success and remain true to the ideals that made it so popular? These are the guys who adopted as their informal corporate motto "Don't be evil." Sure, analysts in recent years have asked frequently whether Google's luck has run out, and yet the company kept thriving. But its vulnerability was plainly evident two weeks ago when jittery investors cashed out en masse after it reported an 82% increase in its fourth-quarter profit (below the market's expectations) and again after Google said it was launching a heavily censored Chinese-language site. Plus Google faces tough competition from big players like Yahoo!, which is making a dramatically different bet on the Internet's future, and Microsoft, which plans to challenge Google in search and advertising. The Google guys are feeling the heat. "I worry about Microsoft," Brin told TIME. "I don't worry about competing with them, but they've stated that they really want to destroy Google. I feel like they've left a lot of companies by the wayside."

To be sure, many Google watchers are still gaga. Safa Rashtchy, a managing director of investment firm Piper Jaffray, says he expects Google shares to reach $600 by the end of this year. But the big bet behind the lofty share price--that Google can keep up its torrid rate of growth--is far from a sure thing. At last week's close of $363 a share, Google's P/E ratio (stock price divided by earnings per share, a measure of expected profits) is a whopping 76. Compared with the average of about 20 for S&P 500 tech stocks, Google, by that yardstick at least, is way overvalued. "People should not assume that Google will succeed at and dominate whatever it pursues," says Scott Kessler of Standard & Poor's Equity Research. "The company has been trying to diversify but hasn't done a great job at monetizing its new offerings."

To gauge Google's ability to weather the storms, TIME spent several days at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. It's a unique experience. Set up in 1998 in a Silicon Valley garage (O.K., that part's familiar), Google inflated with the Internet bubble and then, after everything around it collapsed, kept on inflating. Google's search engine--devised by Brin and Page when they were Ph.D. candidates at Stanford--was better than the rest and, without any marketing, spread by word of mouth from early adopters to, eventually, your grandmother. Search became Google; google became a verb. The world fell in love with the fun, effective, blindingly fast technology and its boy-wizard founders. Ultimately, the company even found a business model--advertising--and last year made a profit of nearly $1.5 billion on revenue of $6.1 billion.

Beyond that quantifiable success, Google has tried to be special, the company that won't give in to the dark side, be it censorship, greed or just plain jerkiness. It's hard to say exactly what "Don't be evil" means, and one could argue that that's the unwritten principle of every respectable corporation. But Brin and Page's ultimate vision--to make nearly all information accessible to everyone all the time--is a tricky thing, given that a lot of us (individuals, corporations, governments) aren't comfortable with a 100% free flow of data. Just last week Google was slammed for a software feature that results in the company's storing users' personal data for up to a month. At times like these, Google keeps that mantra handy--Don't be evil, don't be evil, don't be evil--as a reminder to try to do the right thing in a complex world. Which means turning down $80 million windfalls from time to time. Or telling U.S. prosecutors, as Google did last month, that it won't hand over data on people's Internet use.

That's why Google's decision to launch a censored website in China was so jarring. (See "Google Under the Gun," TIME, Feb. 13, 2006.) Doing a totalitarian government's bidding in blocking the truth in order to make a few extra bucks is practically the definition of evil. Google acknowledges that it's in a tough situation but says it ultimately has to obey local laws. "There's a subtext to 'Don't be evil,' and that is 'Don't be illegal,'" says Vint Cerf, an Internet founding father who now serves as "chief Internet evangelist" at Google. "Overall, having Google there is better than not having Google there." But at what cost? Can Brin and Page live with the idea that Chinese Netizens can't access anything other than the official line on, say, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre and that Google is part of the cover-up?

There's another big question that makes Brin and Page squirm: Does Google have a master plan? To outsiders, it sometimes seems as if the company is investing everywhere, trying to be everything, often giving its products away. A few of the newer pursuits: a proposal to provide free wireless Internet service for San Francisco; an online video store selling TV shows and NBA games; a classified-advertising site; a project to scan every book ever published and make the texts searchable; a free desktop package loaded with software; free instant messaging and online voice communication; a $1 billion investment in America Online. (AOL, like this magazine, is owned by Time Warner.) In the past year or so, Google Inc. has doubled in size to about 6,000 employees to handle all the new work. Even the bullish Rashtchy acknowledges that "Google is a black box for most people."

So what's the plan? World domination? Keep throwing money at everything and see what works? Google isn't making friends along the way, taking on the likes of Microsoft (desktop software), eBay (classified advertising), phone companies (the San Francisco wi-fi plan) and others. Google keeps a confidential list of the 100--yes, 100--top priorities under development. That's a long list, and investors would love to know more about it and what Page, Brin and Schmidt are thinking. But secrecy is part of the culture. Google doesn't even invite analysts in for earnings-guidance sessions, so the resulting surprises can lead to big share-price swings like the recent drop. "We don't generally talk about our strategy ... because it's strategic," says Page. "I would rather have people think we're confused than let our competitors know what we're going to do."

What's certain is that Google will keep looking for new ways to organize and search for information. It will try to make money on most of them, primarily through advertising. It will expand more overseas (Google calculates that two-thirds of the world's Internet population speaks a language other than English), and it will form more global partnerships with content providers. Here are some things Google watchers speculate it is pursuing: new ways to search for (and perhaps buy) music, an online payment service to rival PayPal, some sort of smart phone, a space elevator to transport stuff to the moon. (Don't laugh. Brin and Page can't seem to let go of that last one, at least as an idea to kick around.) To help accomplish its goals, whatever they may be, Google raised $4.2 billion late last year through a second stock offering.

It's part of the Google ethos to pretend, at least, not to care about the share price or let it affect strategy. "We're not a $100 billion company, in my mind. We're just Google," says CEO Schmidt, a soft-spoken former executive of tech firms Novell and Sun Microsystems who seems comfortable with his role as the third Google guy. (That's something like being the fifth Beatle but far more lucrative.) Indeed, inside Google, obsessing about the stock price is almost evil. Marissa Mayer, a vice president, imposes penalties on anyone she catches tracking the latest tick. "If I see someone looking at the share price, they owe the cost of one share," says Mayer. A few have had to pay up, she says. Early last week that could have meant a fine of nearly $400.

Brin and Page set the tone at Google. They are businessmen who didn't go to business school, and they believe that gives them a creative edge. Their standard attire is black T shirt, jeans and sneakers (and white lab coats for special occasions). They are at once playful--they used to take part in the regular roller-hockey games in the Google parking lot--and solemnly idealistic, as when discussing Google's new $1 billion philanthropic arm. Brin and Page are products of Montessori schools and credit the system with developing their individuality and entrepreneurship. They're often accused of being arrogant, but to the extent that they are, it may not be egotism as much as an insistence on doing things their way. (The pair sometimes celebrates big Google milestones by going out to Burger King.) "We've obviously been successful," says Brin. "But there's been a lot of luck."

Success has allowed the Google guys to retain a childlike approach. (It probably helps that although they have girlfriends, each is single.) Page, 33, grew up in Michigan obsessed with inventing things. In college he built a functioning ink-jet printer out of Lego pieces. Page's father was a computer-science professor at Michigan State; his mother taught computer programming. When he isn't working, Page spends his time staying fit (his latest passion is windsurfing) and playing with gadgets, like his new TiVo-type radio device. He's into music (he attended a recent U2 concert in Oakland) but has mostly given up the saxophone he played as a kid. Compared with Brin, Page is probably a deeper thinker and bigger nerd. I saw him preparing his keynote speech for the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas--the geek-world equivalent of the Super Bowl--nearly a month before it took place. (He ended up bringing Robin Williams onstage with him; Williams called Page "Mensa boy" and mocked how he talks: "Larry, do you realize you sound just like Mister Rogers?")

Brin, 32, has also been precocious all his life. Born into a Jewish family in Moscow, Brin fled Russia with his parents amid rising anti-Semitism in the late 1970s and settled in the U.S. Brin's father Michael teaches applied probability and statistics at the University of Maryland; his mother works at NASA. Brin from an early age was fascinated with numbers; his father gave him his first computer, a Commodore 64, when he turned 9. Brin's other love is gymnastics, and he studied flying trapeze at a circus school in San Francisco. He has lately taken up springboard diving. Michael Brin recently visited the West Coast to check in on his son, the billionaire. "Sergey was a good boy," Michael wisecracks, "when he was asleep."

Brin and Page's creation is a company that is quirky and practically shouts it out. The lava lamps and electric scooters that replaced the original Segways at the "Googleplex" headquarters in Mountain View have become iconic. There is also a sand-volleyball court, a pair of heated lap pools and, for some reason, a ball pit with dozens of brightly colored plastic balls, like the one you throw the kids into at Ikea. The dress code? "You have to wear something," says Schmidt. And even he can't explain the (phoneless) London-style phone booth that stands in one hallway--"Who bought that?!" he wonders aloud, sounding like the sole sane person in a loony bin. Above all, there is Google's fetishistic devotion to food; the company serves three excellent meals a day, free, to its staff, at several cafأ©s. In what passes in Mountain View for a crisis, Google has spent months trying to find a successor, or maybe two, to replace departing head chef Charlie Ayers, who once cooked for members of the Grateful Dead. A search committee has been meeting with candidates. We're not talking meat loaf and bug juice. In a recent tryout, the executive chef from an acclaimed area restaurant prepared sugar-pie pumpkin lasagna and cedar spring lamb chops.

What's intriguing is that this slightly goofy, self-indulgent culture has proved so adept at nuts-and-bolts business. Schmidt says he intentionally propagated the perception of Google as a wacky place to allow the company to build up its business under the radar. "With the lava lamps and scooters, everybody thought we were idiots, the last vestiges of the dotcoms," he says. "It worked until it leaked out how well we were doing." Many details didn't become known until Google had to file its financials just before going public in 2004.

Google owes much of its success to the brilliance of Brin and Page, but also to a series of fortunate events. It was Page who, at Stanford in 1996, initiated the academic project that eventually became Google's search engine. Brin, who had met Page at student orientation a year earlier, joined the project early on. Their breakthrough, simply put, was that when their search engine crawled the Web, it did more than just look for word matches; it also tallied and ranked a host of other critical factors like how websites link to one another. That delivered far better results than anything else. Brin and Page meant to name their creation Googol (the mathematical term for the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes), but someone misspelled the word so it stuck as Google. They raised money from prescient professors and venture capitalists, and moved off campus to turn Google into a business. Perhaps their biggest stroke of luck came early on when they tried to license their technology to other search engines, but no one met their price, and they built it up on their own.

The next breakthrough came in 2000, when Google figured out how to make money with its invention. It had lots of users, but almost no one was paying. The holy grail turned out to be advertising, and it's not an exaggeration to say that Google is now essentially an advertising company, given that that's the source of nearly all its revenue. What Google did was master the automation of online advertising, perfecting a model developed by GoTo.com (later renamed Overture and eventually sold to Yahoo!). Here's how the system works. If you're a company selling sneakers, you can bid to have a link to your website appear in the sponsored area whenever someone does a Google search for, say, tennis or Michael Jordan or sneakers or all of those and more. How prominently your ad will be displayed depends on how much you bid and how many people click on your ad. That means you can't just buy your way to the top; your link also has to appeal to users. You pay Google for every click you receive.

Google then had another brainstorm: extend the ad-link idea beyond search queries so that any content site could automatically run ads linked to its text. Google's technology, known as AdSense, can instantly analyze the text of any site and deliver relevant ads to it. Your sneaker company could place ads on tennis-information sites that participate in the Google network. Brin and Page signed up thousands and thousands of clients before their competitors knew what was happening. Now Google plans to apply the model in other media, and it just bought dMarc Broadcasting, whose automated systems connect advertisers with radio stations.

Unlike many competitors in Silicon Valley, Google tends to let engineers run the show. The company is almost allergic to marketing. (Name another $100 billion company that doesn't run TV ads.) Innovation tends to bubble up from those bright young minds. The challenge is keeping them all happy. The free food and laundry and the heavily subsidized massages and haircuts all help, but there also has to be enough creative work to go around. Google came up with a formula to help ensure this. Every employee is meant to divide his or her time in three parts: 70% devoted to Google's core businesses, search and advertising; 20% on pursuits related to the core; and 10% on far-out ideas. The San Francisco wi-fi initiative resulted from someone's 10% time; so did Google Talk, a free system for instant and voice messaging. If Google ever builds that space elevator, it will no doubt be during 10% time.

It may sound like a random split, but Brin, who got his undergraduate degree in mathematics, insists, without much elaboration, that 70-20-10 is scientifically based. One learns not to question his ability to make calculations. At one stage, I ask him to figure out how tall the 8 billion Web pages that Google once said it indexes would be if they were stacked pieces of paper. He quickly comes up with an answer, then keeps crunching numbers in his head as we discuss other issues. Finally, after recalculating his estimate for paper width, he blurts out: "500 miles." I ask Brin whether, as a kid, he used to play with numbers, adding digits, say, in the phone book. "No," he says. "That would be crazy."

To manage all those engineers and their ideas, Google needs gatekeepers. The workhorse is Mayer, 30, a superfast-talking, blond, blue-eyed force of nature who in high school starred on both the debate and the pom-pom teams. Mayer joined Google in 1999 as employee No. 20 and the first female engineer and now manages innovation in the search field. Several times a week, she holds university-style office hours, during which her charges come by with questions about projects in development. Mayer greets them at her desk, which is cluttered with solar-powered bobble heads and other Japanese toys. Depending on the problem, she may serve as editor, designer, coder or friend. At a session a few weeks ago, a procession of earnest young men and women arrived to discuss projects they hoped would win her approval and, eventually, Brin's and Page's. Some were whimsical. (A designer was creating an interface so that Google users searching Christmas would see a candy-cane border around the results.) Others were all business. (A female engineer took in test results that showed ad revenue could increase by tens of millions of dollars if Google simply enlarged the type size for certain sponsored links. Brin and Page will hear that one.) Other proposals were clearly sinking when Mayer invoked her mother, as in, "I'm just not sure my mom would understand this."

The clout of Google's engineers was evident when the company was developing its e-mail system, now known as Gmail. Paul Buchheit, a headstrong engineer who reported to Mayer, was creating the prototype. One night in 2001, he and Mayer discussed applying advertising links to e-mail so that if you opened a message from, say, your brother that included the line, "Mom and I played tennis yesterday," you would see links to firms selling racquets and sneakers. It's all automated; no human would be reading your mail. But, as Mayer puts it, "there's a creepy factor." The two debated until the wee hours of the morning and ultimately decided not to go ahead with the ads. Or so Mayer thought. When she logged on to the e-mail system the next day, the ads were up and running. Buchheit had hacked it together. When Mayer, Brin and Page played around with it (there were only six people using Gmail then), it didn't seem particularly evil. And so another advertising model was born; Gmail linked to ads when it ultimately launched in 2004.

To keep innovating, Google has to outwit and outspend the likes of Yahoo! and Microsoft for the best young brains. Even though few of Google's insta-millionaires have cashed in their stock options and quit since the 2004 IPO, Google is on a hiring binge, adding about 100 people a week. It applies quirky tests of talent. Google once put up a billboard on Route 101, the heavily trafficked artery that links the Valley to San Francisco, that said, in its entirety:

(first 10-digit prime found in consecutive digits of e).com

No Google logo, no recruiting pitch. Just the equation. The curious who solved it (yep, it's 7427466391.com typed the answer into their browsers and went to that Web page, which offered another, harder problem (don't ask) that finally led to an invitation to interview at Google. The company also has inserted the "Google Labs Aptitude Test" in geeky publications like Linux Journal. It poses 21 questions, ranging from absurdly complex mathematical equations to poetic queries like "What is the most beautiful math equation ever derived?"

When Google hires someone, it generally isn't for a specific job. The idea is to bring in talent that can be slotted wherever there's a need. A new Googler might be placed on a team developing search applications for mobile phones and, when that project is done, help write code for, say, a video-search prototype. Chikai Ohazama runs the team developing Google Earth, the company's mesmerizing satellite-imagery application. Ohazama, a software engineer, was a co-founder of Keyhole, the firm that developed the technology, which Google acquired two years ago. On a recent afternoon he sits with his team in a conference room brainstorming new applications. Google Earth has to be seen to be appreciated: it seamlessly brings together images of the globe taken from above. You can zoom in to see your house or pull back for a broad view of the city or the country or the world. Google is trying to figure out how to make money from the free service, and for now it is throwing engineers at the problem. It's similar to Google's origins: first perfect the technology, then figure out the business plan. Ohazama gets reports from a series of team members: a woman has figured out how to superimpose U.S. hiking trails on the images. Another is adding in ferry routes. A third reports he's struggling to get data on the terrain in Connecticut. Despite some glitches, Ohazama urges the team to press on: "It's fine to make mistakes for now," he says, "until the point where we have to turn it on."

As Google rushes forward, it's reasonable to ask whether it is making the right bets on the Internet's future. For one thing, Google has tempted Microsoft into battle by developing new Web-based software and exploring partnerships that could challenge the Seattle giant's desktop dominance. But it's Yahoo!--which has a significantly different vision--that could most threaten Google. At stake is the future of search. For Google, it is all about harnessing the vast power of the Internet to get results as quickly and accurately as possible. (Google maintains tens of thousands of servers to store all those cached Web pages it searches.)

But what if in the future, search were to become more personal, more local? We might turn more to our friends, neighbors and even strangers for opinions, recipes, travel tips and so on. That, more or less, is what Yahoo!'s bet is about. Yahoo! figures we won't be satisfied with a fat data-crunching search engine like Google's. Yahoo! is focusing instead on "social search," in which everyday Internet users pool their knowledge to create alternative systems of content that deliver more relevant results--which, of course, can be monetized.

"Yahoo! is all about the people," says Caterina Fake, co-founder of the wildly successful photo-sharing site Flickr, which Yahoo! purchased last year. Flickr symbolizes the Yahoo! approach. Its collection of tens of millions of photos is all user generated and user cataloged. Participants themselves "tag" the pictures by typing in keywords that let others search the photos. Yahoo! last year also acquired del.icio.us, a social-bookmarking website that lets users share their favorite sites, music and other findings--allowing others to effectively look over their shoulders to find interesting stuff. "We're applying the wisdom of the crowds to find information," says Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo!'s head of search technology. "It's collaborative."

Google has one other big challenge: itself. Are 100 "top priorities" too many to keep track of? Or has Google created a system that can handle it all? So far, it has managed to innovate fast enough to justify all the hiring and, arguably, even the sky-high share price. And along the way, a lot of people have become very rich. (Brin and Page are probably worth about $10 billion apiece.) But the annals of Wall Street are littered with tales of brilliant founders who created successful companies, then branched into too many areas, only to see it all come crumbling down or, just as bad, to see new guys in suits come in to run things. Schmidt's guiding hand and the 70-20-10 system are supposed to ensure that that won't happen. Brin and Page also brought in Bill Campbell, the chairman of Intuit, as a trusted management adviser.

Yet Google may also have to adapt to its new identity. It's hard to stay quirky and beloved when you're the $100 billion gorilla in the room, especially if you make unsavory deals with Beijing. And that wasn't Google's first p.r. hit. A reporter for tech-news website CNET last year set out to discover how much personal data she could find about CEO Schmidt by googling him. She uncovered his net worth, street address, whom he had invited to a political fund raiser--and put it all online. Google went ballistic, declaring it would boycott CNET for a year. After intense criticism, it dropped the ban.

Ultimately, Google's business proposition is about trust. It retains loads of our data--what we search for, what we say in our Gmails--so we need to know it won't be evil with them. That's why Google declined that U.S. government request. That's also why, unlike Yahoo!, Google doesn't want to create its own content in any significant way. Once you do that, Brin and Page reason, people will start to wonder about the search results, whether they are skewed to help Google's bottom line. And once people wonder about that, the whole model--of this innovative, seemingly trustworthy company--is compromised. Do the Google guys pay attention to what people think? You bet. During our interview, Brin pops out to look for the December copy of Wired. In 2004 the magazine had put him and Page on the cover with the adoring line GOOGLEMANIA! The recent cover, by contrast, includes the line GOOGLEPHOBIA: WHO'S AFRAID OF SERGEY? (WHO ISN'T?), touting an article about the enemies Google is making as it expands. Brin picks up the issue and shakes his head in dismay. "I find it surprising," he says. But that's what happens when you're No. 1, even if you're trying to be the good guy.

With reporting by Laura A. Locke / San Francisco

Cartoons War

2006-02-13T17:43:00.000-08:00

I found this fine article in the Economist. It says f ree speech should override religious sensitivities and it is not just the property of the West.

“I DISAGREE with what you say and even if you are threatened with death I will not defend very strongly your right to say it.” That, with apologies to Voltaire, seems to have been the initial pathetic response of some western governments to the republication by many European newspapers of several cartoons of Muhammad first published in a Danish newspaper in September. When the republished cartoons stirred Muslim violence across the world, Britain and America took fright. It was “unacceptable” to incite religious hatred by publishing such pictures, said America's State Department. Jack Straw, Britain's foreign secretary, called their publication unnecessary, insensitive, disrespectful and wrong.

Really? There is no question that these cartoons are offensive to many Muslims. They offend against a convention in Islam that the Prophet should not be depicted. And they offend because they can be read as equating Islam with terrorism: one cartoon has Muhammad with a bomb for his headgear.

It is not a good idea for newspapers to insult people's religious or any other beliefs just for the sake of it. But that is and should be their own decision, not a decision for governments, clerics or other self-appointed arbiters of taste and responsibility. In a free country people should be free to publish whatever they want within the limits set by law.

No country permits completely free speech. Typically, it is limited by prohibitions against libel, defamation, obscenity, judicial or parliamentary privilege and what have you. In seven European countries it is illegal to say that Hitler did not murder millions of Jews. Britain still has a pretty dormant blasphemy law (the Christian God only) on its statute books. Drawing the line requires fine judgements by both lawmakers and juries. Britain, for example, has just jailed a notorious imam, Abu Hamza of London's Finsbury Park mosque, for using language a jury construed as solicitation to murder. Last week, however, another British jury acquitted Nick Griffin, a notorious bigot who calls Islam “vicious and wicked”, on charges of stirring racial hatred.

Drawing the line

In this newspaper's view, the fewer constraints that are placed on free speech the better. Limits designed to protect people (from libel and murder, for example) are easier to justify than those that aim in some way to control thinking (such as laws on blasphemy, obscenity and Holocaust-denial). Denying the Holocaust should certainly not be outlawed: far better to let those who deny well-documented facts expose themselves to ridicule than pose as martyrs. But the Muhammad cartoons were lawful in all the European countries where they were published. And when western newspapers lawfully publish words or pictures that cause offence—be they ever so unnecessary, insensitive or disrespectful—western governments should think very carefully before denouncing them.

Freedom of expression, including the freedom to poke fun at religion, is not just a hard-won human right but the defining freedom of liberal societies. When such a freedom comes under threat of violence, the job of governments should be to defend it without reservation. To their credit, many politicians in continental Europe have done just that. France's interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, said rather magnificently that he preferred “an excess of caricature to an excess of censorship”—though President Jacques Chirac later spoiled the effect by condemning the cartoons as a “manifest provocation”.

Shouldn't the right to free speech be tempered by a sense of responsibility? Of course. Most people do not go about insulting their fellows just because they have a right to. The media ought to show special sensitivity when the things they say might stir up hatred or hurt the feelings of vulnerable minorities. But sensitivity cannot always ordain silence. Protecting free expression will often require hurting the feelings of individuals or groups, even if this damages social harmony. The Muhammad cartoons may be such a case.

In Britain and America, few newspapers feel that their freedoms are at risk. But on the European mainland, some of the papers that published the cartoons say they did so precisely because their right to publish was being called into question. In the Netherlands two years ago a film maker was murdered for daring to criticise Islam. Danish journalists have received death threats. In a climate in which political correctness has morphed into fear of physical attack, showing solidarity may well be the responsible thing for a free press to do. And the decision, of course, must lie with the press, not governments.

It's good to talk

It is no coincidence that the feeblest response to the outpouring of Muslim rage has come from Britain and America. Having sent their armies rampaging into the Muslim heartland, planting their flags in Afghanistan and Iraq and putting Saddam Hussein on trial, George Bush and Tony Blair have some making up to do with Muslims. Long before making a drama out of the Danish cartoons, a great many Muslims had come to equate the war on terrorism with a war against Islam. This is an equation Osama bin Laden and other enemies of the West would like very much to encourage and exploit. In circumstances in which embassies are being torched, isn't denouncing the cartoons the least the West can do to show its respect for Islam, and to stave off a much-feared clash of civilisations?

No. There are many things western countries could usefully say and do to ease relations with Islam, but shutting up their own newspapers is not one of them. People who feel that they are not free to give voice to their worries about terrorism, globalisation or the encroachment of new cultures or religions will not love their neighbours any better. If anything, the opposite is the case: people need to let off steam. And freedom of expression, remember, is not just a pillar of western democracy, as sacred in its own way as Muhammad is to pious Muslims. It is also a freedom that millions of Muslims have come to enjoy or to aspire to themselves. Ultimately, spreading and strengthening it may be one of the best hopes for avoiding the incomprehension that can lead civilisations into conflict.

Our Kind of Punishment

2006-02-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

What's the most striking image of Mahatma Gandhi in your mind? Close your eyes and try to see him.

Most likely you can see him calmly sitting at his spinning wheel. That timeless image is engraved in our mental photo bank, but what's its enduring secret?

His posture is peaceful and reassuring, utterly detached from his surrounding. Nothing can disturb his tranquility, but we all know how that enfeebled Indian leader managed to lead his nation to independence in 1947. Gandhi advocated civil disobedience and non-violence.

That's why we can never imagine him in a hostile pose. The same could be said about Nelson Mandela or any other liberation leader in the history, including the Prophet Mohammad.

Like him or dislike him, it's almost impossible for you to dispute Mohammad's well-documented hatred for violence. He preached a faith that at least literally means peace, no matter how it is misrepresented and misinterpreted by his power-thirsty followers.

In some countries, the protests against the insulting Danish cartoons have turned hysterically violent, with some fatalities reported in Afghanistan and Somalia. They did not lose their lives in vain, hopefully, but I wonder if the prophet would have condoned torching and looting buildings belonging to guests.

The publication and the ensuing protests have raised unsettling questions: Was the whole issue a bait designed to prove a null hypothesis that Muslims, moderate and/or fanatic, are intrinsically violent? What's the line between justified anger and irrational rage? Would the next big war be fought on resources, as experts foresee, or among religions? How can we define and safeguard local values in an increasingly globalized world? How others can respect those values without fear of submission? And who can set possible punishments for trespassers?

"A strange thing, our kind of punishment! It does not cleanse the offender, it is no expiation: on the contrary, it defiles more than the offense itself," says the German thinker Nietzsche.

Any knee-jerk protest would besmirch only Islam by uniting its hardline opponents and undermining its moderate followers.

Ironically, Gandhi became a victim of hatred and vengeance. How hopeless. His legacy of tolerance can never be victimized. How hopeful.

Challenge My Taboos Respectfully

2006-02-01T19:38:00.000-08:00

The brain behind caricaturing Prophet Mohammad might have wished to awaken Muslims, especially those living in secular European states, to a reality befitting our modernist era. The intended reality is simply manipulated.

Religion, like love and beauty, seems to us quite irrational. It differs from science because we, keen on objective evidence, are incapable of testing all relevant parameters.

This doesn't permit us to handle the irrational with matching irrationality, though. In other words, trying to put out a raging fire with petrol would be painfully self-defeating.

When most Muslims condemn terrorist acts of their co-religionists, their call for recognizing Islam as a pacifist religion by Westerners is, sometimes with tentative reasons, overlooked. Stereotyping is the last thing a multicultural society can afford to keep its coherence intact.

Sociologists advise us to avoid pigeonholing members of a race or religion by promoting a composite identity kit, one featuring a mixture of secular and patriotic allegiances. The best formula to achieve a frictionless collective identity is, thus, mutual respect.

Both Muslims and non-Muslims claim the other part fails to show enough respect towards its founding values. The key is tolerance.

Europeans say they have a right to freedom of speech and even to "blaspheme" and Muslims, traditionally conservative, must be understandingly tolerant.

I embrace the belief that in an open society, nobody is above the law and nothing is exempt from critique. "If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your life doubt, as far as possible, all things," says the great thinker Rene Descartes.
I can't embrace the belief that in an open society, you are allowed to doubt things selectively and hypocritically.

In nine European countries, a shred of doubt about the Nazi Holocaust of Jews can easily put the suspect behind the bars. British PM Tony Blair last week called Iran's plans to hold a so-called academic conference on the topic as "ridiculous and stupid."
Sound minds condone neither Mr. Blair's blind reasoning nor Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's branding Holocaust a "myth."

Challenging taboos is admirable since it serves the human race, but please do it respectfully. And without grudge.

What makes a jape great?

2006-01-18T16:06:00.000-08:00

AS A pupil at a minor English boarding school, one of the rituals your correspondent dreaded most was morning chapel: 600 boys and a dozen berobed “masters” crammed into a cold, dim chamber for ten minutes of dreary hymns and prayers. Until, that is, one morning, the solemn atmosphere was shattered by an unforgettable act of comic bravado. Seconds after the headmaster—known as the Head Horse on account of his equine features—took his seat, a giant white sheet rolled down over the arched entrance. On it was a caricature of a grinning horse wearing a mortar-board. Lord, how we laughed.

The perpetrators' identities did not stay secret for long—what schoolboy could resist boasting of such a jape? The rolled-up sheet had been held in place by thread that was tied to the switch for the headmaster's reading light so tautly that when he turned it on, the thread snapped and the caricature was unfurled. The Head Horse had been forced to humiliate himself. Even he had to admit it was ingenious.

Abbie Hoffman, a 1960s radical-cum-trickster, said most pranks fell into one of three categories: “good” pranks were amusingly satirical, “bad” ones gratuitously vindictive, and “neutral” ones surreal and soft on the victim (if there was one). An example of the first is the time Mr Hoffman and his fellow “Yippies” showered the floor of the New York Stock Exchange with dollar bills in 1967, thereby managing to stop the tickertape for six minutes while traders scrambled to pick up the notes. For a taste of the second, go to any college fraternity initiation. Examples of the third are many and delicious. A master of the art in the early 20th century was Horace de Vere Cole, an inveterate British prankster. Cole bore a striking resemblance to the then leader of the Labour Party, Ramsay MacDonald, and one of his favourite japes was to appear at Labour rallies posing as MacDonald, stride on stage to rapturous applause, and denounce everything the party stood for.

Priceless or puerile? There's the rub, for one man's brilliant prank is another's mindless stunt. Most would agree that the best pranks offer more than just deception, mischievousness or ridicule, and that much of the genre dished up on television now—the mutant progeny of shows like “Candid Camera”—falls well short of the mark. But what is that special ingredient? Elaborateness or simplicity? Satirical bite or surrealism? Irony or bluntness? Even dictionaries seem unsure how to define “prank” (orig. unk.): it is, by turns, a malicious trick, a conjuring act performed to deceive or surprise, a mischievous frolic, and more.

Homeric humour

If the prank is one of the more elusive arrows in the comedic quiver, it is also one of the oldest. The Homeric world is full of them. Hermes, for instance, was “full of tricks—a bringer of dreams”. He played his first when only a day old, stealing a herd of cattle belonging to his brother, Apollo, and driving them into a cave backwards to suggest that they had left instead of entered. So beguiling were his tricks that Zeus “laughed out loud to see his mischievous child”.

Pranks were a feature of ancient seasonal festivals. During Saturnalia, a Roman winter celebration, participants would dance, drink and play jokes on each other; slaves pretended to rule their masters, and a mock king, the Lord of Misrule, reigned for a day. Later, court jesters took advantage of a similar inversion of roles, playing tricks on kings and courtiers. Medieval magicians and tricksters had their own bible, the 14th century “Secretum Philosophorum” (which taught, for instance, how to turn water into wine by soaking pieces of bread in dark wine, drying them in the sun, and dropping them into the jug when no one was looking).

The best pranks have always blurred the lines between legality and illegality, good and bad taste, right and wrong conduct. Festivals like Saturnalia appeared to undermine the social order, but paradoxically helped to reaffirm it, by allowing people to act out their frustrations in a harmless way. The nearest thing to this today is April Fool's Day—“the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year,” as Mark Twain gently put it—though the best April 1st jokes tend to be media hoaxes, rather than traditional pranks. A classic of the genre is a 1957 BBC “documentary” on Swiss spaghetti farmers. Many British viewers asked where they could buy pasta trees.

Some of the best April Fool's stunts are those that send up national characteristics. To prove the point that Germans who break even minor rules struggle with their guilt, a few years back a newspaper in Tübingen announced a new experiment by the traffic authorities. Local drivers who had knowingly exceeded the speed limit in recent days were to turn themselves in, pay a fine and take lessons in safe driving. More than 60 sinners obliged.

Sportive students

For the most impressively elaborate pranks, however, go to a university campus. Take thousands of bright young things with too much time on their hands, itching to achieve, amuse and misbehave, and splendid acts of delinquency will follow.

The best colleges strive to out-prank one another. Students at Yale scored a big victory during last year's football match against Harvard when they passed out pieces of paper to thousands of fans on the Harvard side of the stadium. The fans were told that, when held up, the bits would spell “Go Harvard”. In fact they spelled something else (see photo that opened this article).

At Harvard's neighbour, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “hacks”, as the MIT crowd calls them, are more serious. So serious, in fact, that in 2003 the institute's best hacks were assembled in a 178-page book, “Nightwork”. The pranks at MIT tend to be feats of engineering. They are positively encouraged, because they teach students to work in teams, solve complex problems and, sometimes, get a message across. Mr Peterson's book includes an 11-point code for pranksters: leave no damage, do not steal, do not drop things off a building without a ground crew, and so on. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, at least, student pranks have become an establishment activity.

But the scene of what many consider the best-ever engineering prank was that other academic Cambridge, in England, where, one morning in 1958, the town awoke to see an Austin Seven van on top of the Senate House building. After weeks of preparation, a group of mechanical-sciences undergraduates had pushed the van, wheelbarrow-like, minus its doors and back wheels, into place, then hoisted it using a derrick of five 24-foot scaffolding poles, 250 feet of steel wire, 200 feet of hemp rope, pulley blocks and hooks, planks, and even sacking to protect the building. Once the vehicle had been dragged to the top of the sloping roof, the doors and wheels were re-fitted.

The world's media rightly applauded the prank. It was breathtakingly ambitious, requiring both brains and brawn in prodigious quantities; the planning was meticulous (the dozen or so students involved were split into sub-teams, including one comprising two pretty females to distract curious passers-by); and it created a spectacularly surreal sight that could be seen across town. The perpetrators were particularly pleased that what took them under three hours to do took the Civil Defence Force four days to undo. The dean of the college from which the prank was launched sent the ringleader a case of champagne.

While students generally prank for fun or pride, another breed does it for political ends. Anti-corporate pranking took off in the 1960s, as giant corporations began to be feared as much as nuclear weapons. Hoffman's Yippies blazed the trail, engaging in playful political theatre against big business as well as politicians. Their modern-day heirs are the likes of RTMARK and the Yes Men. RTMARK is a sort of online brokerage bringing together “investors” who give time and money for anti-corporate stunts. The Yes Men fancy themselves as satirical guerrillas. A favoured tactic is to pose as spokesmen for big companies: one Yes Man infiltrated a banking conference, at which he unveiled an “Acceptable Risk Calculator” that helped companies to work out the point at which deaths linked to their products began cutting into their profits. Several delegates asked for more information.

Another popular target of such groups is the media. To many, the master media-hoaxer is Alan Abel, who over the years has passed himself off as Howard Hughes, faked his own death (the New York Times published an obituary) and, when Idi Amin was on the run from Uganda, lured the press into covering a wedding ceremony in which the former dictator apparently married an American woman to secure citizenship. Mr Abel's tip: strut your stuff on Sundays, when the gullible, junior reporters are on duty.

To some, pranking is a bit like drugs—good fun when you're young, but not something respectable adults do. Mr Abel, now in his 70s, belongs to a rare breed that considers it a lifetime's work. That his like are rare is perhaps for the best. When serious grown-ups try their hand at pranks, the result is often ham-fisted.

Corporate bosses are a case in point. In the go-go 1990s, larks became de rigueur in the executive suite. There has been less of this since boom turned to bust, though at a few firms, such as Sun Microsystems, “pranking the boss” is still ingrained. “It encourages employees to be innovative,” a Sun spokeswoman earnestly explains. Occasionally, a big corporation gets it just right. In 1996, Taco Bell Corporation of America announced it had bought the Liberty Bell from the federal government and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Cue outrage across the country.

These days, the medium of choice for many tricksters is the internet. Spoof websites and bogus e-mails proliferate, and a cottage industry offers downloadable prank phone calls and the like. While the web has democratised the art, it has diluted it. Most of the stuff is crude—the online equivalent of the whoopee cushion. The Prank Institute, an online community “dedicated to the pranking sciences”, has logged tens of thousands of decidedly variable quality. A glorious exception is the site that offers “bonsai kittens”, reared in small jars, which outrages animal-lovers.

The Economist

Women on Top

2006-01-17T17:41:00.000-08:00

This was both a crowning and a promising week for women. Two of them celebrated their victory over a celebrity ex-footballer and a billionaire to become President in Liberia and Chile.

What sweetens the success is their power to crush pessimism and discrimination in our male-dominated world, their power to entertain democracy in nations notorious with deep-rooted dictatorship and civil war, and their power to raise kids as single exiled moms.

We have to wait and see whether they can translate their maternal instincts to leadership skills and whether they can keep their performance unblemished, unlike former Pakistan's Prime Minister and current Philippine's President.

There is one thing certain, however. Female leaders can act as role models for other girls, especially in the poor countries, to aim higher and break the glass ceiling.

After winning her first Golden Globe award for her influential TV series "Commander In Chief" this week, Geena Davis told the audience a story of a little girl who tugged at her dress on the red carpet and said, "Because of you, I want to be president someday."

Believe me, it's always great to have women on top.

Inspired to Write

2006-01-11T19:02:00.000-08:00

I found this story inspiring:

Every November, thousands of young South Africans troop to school to be tested on what they have learned in 12 years of education, then spend the next month waiting fearfully for the results. These are the dreaded "matrics," a brace of examinations that determine not only whether one graduates from high school, but whether one's future lies in a university, a technical college or a too-quick trip into South Africa's crowded job market.

Phillip Chauke took his matrics in November and, like everyone else, spent all December in a state of apprehension. Otherwise, however, Mr. Chauke is not at all like everyone else. For one thing, he is 84 years old, not 17. For another, his journey toward matriculation is not so much about the future as the past.

Mr. Chauke was a father to five children and an activist for racial justice, an African National Congress delegate at the approval of this nation's historic Freedom Charter in 1960. But for almost all his life, he was also functionally illiterate, his education halted at the sixth grade, in 1953, with the assistance of South Africa's apartheid police.

His is a cautionary tale about how cruelly history has hobbled the aspirations of this region's people, and how very difficult it is for them to play catch-up.

Mr. Chauke's minimal education was no shame. Even now, the United Nations' educational organization Unesco says, 4 in 10 African adults - 136 million people - cannot read or write. Twenty-one African nations have illiteracy rates higher than 50 percent; 13 of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

In that respect, Phillip Chauke is unusual only in that he has done something about his lack of education. Born in 1921 in what is now southern Zimbabwe, he lived too far from any school to learn to read or write, and moved to Johannesburg at age 18 with no education at all. When his first employer refused to pay him for three months, he was unable to protest, he said, "because I was unable to express myself" either in written Tsongo, his native language, or in Afrikaans or English, both foreign tongues to him.

In his second job, as a gardener, his employer's children persuaded their parents to send Mr. Chauke to night school. Over the next 13 years, in on-and-off night classes after two jobs, he advanced to the brink of a sixth-grade degree.

In August 1953, with examinations two months away, Mr. Chauke went to his 8 p.m. class in downtown Johannesburg only to find the door blocked by a dozen or more police officers. "The apartheid law was strict now," he said, "and we were no longer allowed to be seen in town at night." He and a fellow classmate found a school in a black township, reachable by train, where the classes ended before nightfall.

That November, he took and passed his graduation exam in a Johannesburg technical school. White, Indian and mixed-race students occupied the examination room. Mr. Chauke and other blacks sat at desks pushed out of the room, in the school's hallway.

In 1960, after he and several hundred other African National Congress members approved the Freedom Charter in Soweto's Kliptown neighborhood, Mr. Chauke found himself a marked man, followed by government agents, his house under surveillance. He and his family left for Zimbabwe, where he found work in a Bulawayo clothing factory, and he did not return until Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in 1991.

He did not abandon schooling - in Zimbabwe, he took correspondence courses in accounting and English - but Mr. Chauke was not seized with the idea of completing his matriculation until 1999, when he resumed studies with the aim of passing grade eight. In 2001, he went back to night school with a vengeance, five days a week, doing his homework in the corrugated-roof garage of his Diepkloof apartment in the evenings so as to not wake his wife, Margaret.

In November, Mr. Chauke finally wrote his matrics, in a big hall with other, much younger students. In late December, South Africa's education minister flew him and Margaret to Cape Town for a ceremony honoring students who pass the annual ordeal.

It would be nice to report that Mr. Chauke passed, too. He almost did. "I've got economics, I've got English, I've got my own language, Tsongo, and I've got history," he said. But his results in mathematics and accounting, he said sadly, were "very poor, very poor."

So Mr. Chauke intends to try again next November. He hopes to enroll this month in an intensive course for the two subjects he needs to complete matriculation. That assumes that he can find the 3,400 rand, or $540, that he needs to pay his fees by this month's end, no easy feat for an old retiree on a slim pension.

One might reasonably ask why an 84-year-old believes he needs to pass his matrics. Mr. Chauke's answer lay in his garage - two slim paperbacks, "Writing the Short Story" and "Novel Writing," laid atop a stack of papers next to his homework table.

"I want to write books about the life of Africans," he said. "About the way we were treated during those colonial years. Because I am one who lived during a very wasted time, and people can learn from me.

"When you matriculate, or when you have a B.A., they recognize that this book has been written by a person who has matured," he said. "It always gives dignity when you read a book by a man who has such a standard of education."

The Newyork Times (A Man Who Has Passed Many Tests Vies With One More)

The Secret Life of Stories

2006-01-06T18:18:00.000-08:00

Dead. That was what the Chicago Tribune’s City News service was found to be as the New Year dawned. It had operated as an agency service since 1890, but, as Julian Borger reported from Washington on Monday, the Tribune, which has owned it since 1999, had grown tired of sharing its best stories with its competitors. Many celebrated writers learned their trade there. "It taught me how to tell a story," the writer Kurt Vonnegut, who worked for it in the 1940s, told the Associated Press. "You learned about good reporting and bad reporting," the celebrated investigative journalist Seymour Hersh recalled.

But the kind of rigorous, even brutal, training in which the City News specialized did not work for everyone. It did not work for the great American humorist James Thurber, who found himself subjected to just such a regime when, after a spell as a Tribune correspondent first in Paris and then in Nice, he joined the New York Evening Post. His editors kept sending his copy back demanding snappier intros (the term in the newspaper trade for the opening sentence of a story) until one day something snapped. No doubt knowing his days were numbered, he handed in a fresh version of something the desk had rejected.

"Dead." it began. "That was what the man was when the police found him in an area way last night." He didn’t last long after that: he went to work for the New Yorker, where he was able to write the kind of gentle reflective openings that ease the reader seductively into a piece. We ought to be grateful for that. Had his editors on the Post had their way with him, he might never have gone on to publish The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, or My Life and Hard Times, or such stories, for children to dream through and for adults to read as parables, as The Thirteen Clocks ("we all have flaws," said the cold duke, "and mine is being wicked"), The White Deer and the Wonderful O.

Most readers have a collection of favorite opening sentences from great novels: the fog in Bleak House, the clocks in George Orwell’s 1984 striking 13, Jane Austen’s truth, universally acknowledged, or perhaps Rose Macaulay in the Towers of Trebizond: "’Take my camel, dear,’ said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from the animal on her return from High Mass." "All you have to do is to write one true sentence, and then go on from there," Ernest Hemingway wrote, and took his own advice when he began The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber with an opening sentence that defies you not to read on. "It was now lunch time and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened."

And yet there are many fine books by great writers that begin quite ineptly. Bleak House has the fog, and A Tale of Two Cities the best of times, but who would not flinch from the start of Barnaby Rudge? Even Mansfield Park falls short of perfection.

The most famous dud introduction, which is so bad that there’s now an annual contest to devise something even worse, comes in a novel by Bulwer-Lytton: "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents - except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." No copy editor would sanction that now. Yet it didn’t do Bulwer-Lytton much harm. His books, most of them nowadays quite unreadable, sold mightily, in the manner of Jeffrey Archer’s today.

But where a sharp introduction really matters - and here James Thurber’s masters at the Evening Post were quite right - is in newspapers, where a stale, flat, unprofitable first sentence more or less guarantees that the rest of the article is not going to be read. In a world where so many thousands of words clamor daily for our attention, this is also a useful guide in choosing what to read and what to discard.

That death-dealing formula: "Am I alone in believing/resenting/being driven into a state of puce-faced apoplexy by ... " is rarely found nowadays except in letters to editors. But one still finds in certain columns reliable warnings of dross to come. "I have a confession to make" is one such tiresome formula. "I don’t know about you, but ..." is another. "Call me a flibbertigibbet/ fantasist/old curmudgeon ..." is a pretty reliable third. Call me an old curmudgeon, but that is where I stop reading.

By David Mckie, The Guardian

My Blind Conscience

2006-01-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

Today one of my best friends reminded me that January 4 marks the birthday anniversary of Louis Braille, a French man who assisted his fellow blind peers to "see" a more tangible world.

You are surely too bored to hear how great a man Braille is, so is anyone who has felt iron-willed to improve their life against all odds. Not to be a dead fish in the rapid river we all inhabit.

Hyperlinks save both you and me from parroting what has been overstated since our school days. Questions can defamiliarize what we know, however. Are you strong enough to tackle a possible blindness? Or what has been your contribution to the life of the blind, apart from patronizingly dropping a few coins in their hat or pocket?

My own naked answers: a)-no, b)-shameful. It is safe to guess that most of you share my reply to the first question. I prefer to avoid speculating about your answers to the second one, though.

Why shameful? During university years, I befriended several students who had lost their eyes during the 8-year war Iraq imposed on Iran. Most had lost the chance of seeing 18 candles flicker on their birthday cakes.

Soon I became their sub teacher, explaining lessons missed in the class, reading textbooks aloud andhelping with research. The more I got popular among the visually challenged, the more sneer I got from the visually perfect.

That reaction failed to erode my determination to assist my needy classmates, but what did rust my willpower were, well, financial needs. I had got a job where the more I produced, the more I pocketed.

Those of you who have done student jobs must know how irresistible the temptation to make money is. It always is, of course, but in university days it is quite unique, immaterialistic. You relish your financial independence as a big dream realized. You get more spending power to buy coveted books, desk tops and CDs. Then you begin to yearn for more, just like desiring for more sex after enjoying the loss of your virginity.

These were excuses for my scrupulous conscience, whose eyes were gradually gouged by banknotes, no longer seeing my friends' big sacrifice for our land. My blind heros sensed the change. They have sharp senses, believe me. Even offered to pay me, but I thought it was inappropriate for me to charge them.

So I left them, ruining a vital bridge between their isolated islands and our mainland. They managed to graduate somehow. Now after a decade, I still wonder if it is easier for us to live with blind eyes or with a blind conscience.

I'm a Literary Whore

2006-01-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

The idea is provocative, are you a literary slut? Do you read whatever comes across your way? Take time to read this comic piece about a reading whore:

Tomorrow I am going to start my detox. This, though, won't involve giving up booze, steaming vegetables or running round the park crossly at dawn, but something altogether more difficult. I have pledged instead to refine my reading habits, turning myself from a greedy omnivore who snuffles around dustbins looking for left-overs when she's not even hungry, into an aesthetic and disciplined reader who snacks only on the best quality, high-fibre fare. Over the next 12 months I am resolved to effect a personal transformation from a dumpling of a print consumer who crams herself with anything she can get her hands on, into a discerning connoisseur with sharp literary cheekbones and not a spare ounce of fat. Ladies and Gentleman, I am, finally, going to learn to say "no".
Being a book slut means feeling compelled to gulp down anything that comes your way. Great if you happen to have Proust by your bedside or Macaulay crammed! into your handbag, but not so wonderful if you find yourself stuck on a bus with nothing to read. It is then that great waves of existential terror start to lap at the corners of your consciousness, turning your mouth dry and your fingers thick and tingly. There's nothing for it but to dash into the nearest newsagent and grab armfuls of distraction to carry away to a park bench and consume in a kind of frenzy of sensation until you have numbed yourself into something approaching calm.

But the problem with print addiction is that, unlike bulimia, there is no option of sicking the unwanted material back up 30 minutes later. It is for that reason that the book slut's brain becomes bloated with the kind of useless and vaguely uncomfortable information that it was never particularly keen on acquiring in the first place.

I, for instance, have a Heat habit, which keeps me pacified and vaguely tranquil for a couple of hours every Tuesday evening. But the unfortunate result! is that my mind is now stuffed with subjects that mean little to me. Despite wishing otherwise, I frequently go to sleep worrying whether Jennifer Anniston and Vince Vaughan are actually a couple, if Nadine Coyle from Girls Aloud is losing too much weight and how much cosmetic surgery Teri Hatcher has really had. And the awful thing is that there's no point complaining about the dreadful hangover the next morning. I brought this disgusting after-taste on myself.

Of course this isn't the only kind of reading I do. The whole point about being a literary whore is that you love all kinds of texts equally, refusing to play favourites and treating them all with the same kind of intense but ultimately casual affection. Thus, gearing up for the new university term, my last few weeks have been spent on Plutarch's Roman Lives (which I can still just about manage in the Latin translation), Mrs Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bronte and Julian Barnes' Flaubert's Parrot.

But the fact that this relatively taxing material has been interspersed wi! th Robbie Williams' Feel and Paul Burrell's A Royal Duty , not to mention Jordan and Peter's year in pictures in OK, may account for the fact that I find it impossible to treat even "serious" books with the kind of material respect they deserve. Far from protecting each text with a plastic cover - and, honestly, I do have friends who do this - I treat my books like trash. Perhaps it's a kind of complicated self-loathing - I don't quite respect my reading habits so I like to punish the books themselves - but I have an awful habit of losing dust jackets, dropping them in the bath, and using them to prop up the aerial on my TV set.

They are also, I find, just the thing for wedging doors open, using as an emergency beach pillow, and stopping great piles of paper drifting away in a draft.
Then, too, there is my shameful habit of defacing books with scribbles and doodles. I'm not talking here about the neat and considered marginalia of the true scholar, the sort of thing ! that comprises an elegant and essential commentary on the original wor k that keeps PhD students enthralled for centuries to come. I mean, instead, the kind of scrawled comments that constitute a kind of short-hand conversation with oneself that can never be recaptured, even a couple of days later. Who do I think I am writing to or for? Certainly not Posterity, which would surely find it hard to get much sense out of angry jabs along the lines of "oh Gawd!" "yeah, but . . ." "oh p-u-l-e-a-s-e" and just plain "!?!".

So, ladies and gentleman, from tomorrow I am resolved to clean up my act. There will be no more lurking around newsagents on a Tuesday afternoon "just to see" what the cover lines are on the new edition of Heat. There will be no reading a couple of chapters of a pulpy showbiz biography "to cleanse my palate" in between slugs of Suetonius. There will be no scrawling asterisks alongside a particular paragraph and then being unable to recall 24 hours later just why I thought it mattered. There will be no more insane 10-hour read! ing binges in which I force down every kind of print within sight and then go to bed jittery and bug-eyed.

Instead I will snack on high-quality produce, about whose provenance I am absolutely sure. If something comes with a slick pink cover or a ghost writer's credit along the lines of "as told to . . .", I will cast it behind me. My mind will be filled only with the best of everything - the finest fiction, the most scholarly biography, the cleverest translations. I will be monogamous, prudent, chaste. I will, though, be only half the reader - and therefore writer - I once was.

Kathryn Hughes , The Guardian
Original title: Purge or purgatory?: Kathryn Hughes decides to ditch her bad reading habits

Hardwired for Religion?

2006-01-02T17:49:00.000-08:00

This fine piece is worth reading and pondering:

Religion, apparently banished from the world by reason, now threatens us with a global war. We can throw up our hands in horror, or we can throw them up in prayer; but it might be more useful to try and understand why this has happened, and what are the features of religion that make it so strong and so resilient, even in technologically advanced countries. To do this, we need science humble enough to recognise that the first and biggest problem is that religion does not exist.

There is no more a thing called religion that can be studied than there is a thing called life. In particular, there is no definition that will encompass religion and exclude everything that is not religion. The chief reason why people can never say that religion is "really" anything else is that it isn't, really, anything to start with. There is another reason: the most popular atheist myths about religion are just demonstrably false.

There is the theory that religion is a device for giving us what we cannot have, whether it be freedom from death, or other forms of existential anxiety: that it is, essentially, a giant apparatus of wish-fulfilment. Yet plenty of religion has existed without belief in the afterlife, and certainly without any belief in any afterlife that would be better than what we have now. There is no afterlife in the Old Testament and no one could regard the Greek afterlife - as a twittering grey shade, yearning for blood to drink - as anything other than a horrible fate which would come to everyone, irrespective of their merits. Such a view depends on an extraordinarily narrow and parochial view of what religions are: monotheistic, literate, with priests and leaders, and, best of all, sacrifices.

This looks very like a 19th-century Protestant's idea of Roman Catholicism. It doesn't look like any of the religions or spiritual practices of the hunter-gatherer tribes from which we evolved; and, while I suppose that the Pope might feel that human history was all a dress rehearsal for the emergence of the Vatican, it seems an odd claim for atheists to make. There's a theory that seems to get away from this and finds the lowest common denominator of religion in spiritual impulses, which can in turn be regarded as something that goes on in the brain, perhaps a malfunction in a temporal lobe, so that the beatific vision could be induced by a man with a kind of hairdressers' helmet hooked up to an MRI machine in a lab in Montreal.

The simple observation that disproves this is that almost all religious revivals start in devout societies where people have kept their faith without any spiritual experiences, while night shelters of any large city are full of people who talk to God all the time, out loud, and hear his voice answering very clearly. Some arguments are more sophisticated. The French anthropologist Pascal Boyer thinks that the problem of explaining religious belief is essentially the problem of explaining superstition.

If we knew why people believe in things that aren't there, we would have solved it. Boyer started his career as an anthropologist among the Fang of Cameroon. Among other things, they believe that any man of exceptional power or vigour has an invisible organ in his stomach, the evur, which can, when necessary, leave his body and fly by night to suck the blood of rivals. He had been trained in Cambridge by Jack Goody, an anthropologist who believed in human nature. He thought that the ways that cultures persist must reflect the ways that our minds work. It is a very curious feature of religions that they tend to stay stable: the same stories are passed down for generations pretty much unchanged.

So what is it that makes some stories easier to tell, and transmit to your children, than others? Among the Fang, he came to believe that myths, like language, flourish because of the way that our minds have evolved. No one has to explain all the features of a religious belief for it to spread and be repeated, any more than children need written and explicit grammars to speak grammatically. In fact, in some respects the anthropologists' codifications of mythology are just as misleading a guide to the ways that people actually believe as a travellers' phrase book is to the way that we actually speak.

But there is a huge difference, in Boyer's account, between the brain structures involved in language and those that determine which myths are memorable. The language areas have, presumably, been selected because they are good at language. You can talk about genes "for" language; but there aren't any genes "for" the experience of God. The features of our brains that determine which religions make intuitive sense need not have been selected at all. Superstition, and spiritual experience, could be simply side effects of the ways that our minds work towards more important ends. However, it is not just agency that we naturally ascribe to gods or spirits.

They don't just do things. We also believe that they have ideas and beliefs about the world, and this is a generalisation of a faculty that social animals need. They need to assume that the animals around them have minds and purposes as well as appetites. In particular, if we are to be successful users of language we have to be able to estimate what other people know about the world, and what they don't know. Otherwise, we can neither sympathise nor lie successfully. We can't even tell when other people are lying to us.

The most important of these is the tendency to see purpose in the world. This operates far below the level of conscious apprehension. If we see something moving, we think it's alive. It's obvious that this is going to be highly developed in all animals, since, in general, it is the bits of the world which are alive that they need to pay attention to if they want to eat or to avoid being eaten. Just as obviously, we see a lot more life than there really is in the world: that is why even the crudest video games immediately make sense.

It is probably not a coincidence that so many visions come from the desert places. The sheer blank lifelessness of the surroundings may well provoke us into seeing pure agency where there is nothing. The ability to understand the workings of other's minds seems quite fundamental to any belief in Gods or spirits. To this extent, any novelist has to have the equipment of a theologian. He must be able to know what his characters are thinking; but also what each character knows and believes about the other characters' motives and, finally, what the reader believes about it all. This is three or four layers of understanding: not just that other people have ideas about the world, but they have ideas about each other's view of the world.

In War and Peace, when the vile Hélène is tricking Pierre Bezukhov into marriage, we readers have to know many things to understand what's going on: we have to know that she knows some of what she's doing, that her mother knows more but conceals this from her daughter, that Pierre knows less, that his friends know more but feel they can't tell him - and Tolstoy himself must have understood our understandings of all this, and manipulated them, without showing any strain at all. Without that very sophisticated theory of mind the plot makes no sense. It lacks, as we say, realism.

What relevance has War and Peace to the Fang belief in mobile, invisible organs of the stomach? The answer is that supernatural beings, even supernatural organs, also have a theory of mind: they have beliefs about what we believe. This is not to say that they know everything, nor even that they can't be fooled: Jehovah, walking in the Garden of Eden in the first version of the Genesis story, is a good example of a supernatural agent whom Adam could hope to fool. But all divinities have ways of finding out the sort of information that gives then an edge: the stuff we would like to conceal. In Boyer's theory, the divinities we believe in are better poker players than we are.

There's some perverse evidence for this in the fact that the Gods of believers are not omniscient in the way that the God of philosophers is, and interesting experiments have been conducted to prove this. For instance, if you ask whether God knows if you steal a bar of chocolate from a refrigerator in an empty room, of course He does. But does He know whether the chocolate bar was on the left or the right of the shelf? Here people hesitate a long time.

Logically, the questions seem quite equivalent: if God sees you lifting the chocolate bar, then he sees where on the shelf you lifted it from. But if omniscience is about detecting guilt and not about detecting facts, then the details of the crime don't matter. And this is what children's intuitions tend to show. Believers in religion frequently argue that morality proceeds from religious belief: Boyer points out that moral sentiments perfectly well exist and flourish in societies that have more or less abandoned religion, such as those of Scandinavia. "Moral intuitions don't come out of moral codes. They develop very early in children, who understand that moral questions are about co-operation, and about constructing coalitions.

Even four-year-olds have a good grasp of the distinction between moral rules and social convention. The difference is that a social convention is not violated if there was no explicit convention, but moral rules can be broken even if no one told you not to break them. Four-year-olds have the intuition that there are circumstances in which it is wrong to do certain things even when they have not explicitly been stated."

It may be that people are naturally moral; it may be that they are naturally supernaturalists. But there need be no relation of cause and effect. The faculties that make supernatural belief natural may well have been shaped for other purposes, just as my nose was not shaped to rest my spectacles on. Yet, without a nose on which to rest my spectacles, I would have a hard time writing. Supernaturalism, once established, might have arisen as an accident, yet still have effects, in combinations with other things, which are themselves evolutionarily significant, and which would tend to fix it in the population.

Others have tried to rescue the idea of religion by claiming that it describes group behaviour. This can be done with some subtlety. The theoretical biologist David Sloan Wilson argues that religious behaviour persists because it links human beings into coherent and successful groups which can then evolve in competition with other groups.

It is certainly the case that societies tend to understand their own ordering in religious terms, rather than looking squarely at the power relations involved. If you want to enforce absolute rules of behaviour, which will always be followed, these need some kind of irrational force that overrides simple reason and Wilson analyses a number of religious rules in terms of their social effects, from a hunter-gatherer tribe in the Malaysian rain forest, which ensures that food is always shared out on egalitarian principles, to the written constitution of Calvin's Geneva, which established a set of tremendously effective totalitarian theocracies. These, too, had a measurable effect on the survival of the group.

In purely demographic terms, the Puritan emigration of English Calvinists to New England was phenomenally successful: the 21,000 English settlers who arrived between 1629 and 1640 had produced 16 million descendants by 1988 and this can't be understood without reference to their religious beliefs. It was their understanding of the Bible which led them to emigrate, and which later determined their practice of universal marriage and their horror of contraception.

The Bible, too, justified their slaughter of the existing population. It is an important part of Wilson's argument that he's concerned with the effects of religious emotion and not how it feels. To take an analogy from sex, it's obvious that the biological purpose of lust is to make babies. We have the emotion because babies are its ultimate result. But the immediate desire is not for babies at all, and in many societies the most powerful argument against sexual intercourse is precisely the thought that babies might come of it. So it may be that the sacred has a biological purpose because one of its effects is to hold groups together.

But that wouldn't mean that we want group coherence, consciously or unconsciously. What people want is a common experience of the sacred, which explains why God remains a more popular object of veneration than the United Nations. Yet even when the theory is this large, there doesn't seem to be anything distinctively religious about it, or else football fans would be religious - they too are driven by an irrational common purpose that binds them together and leads them towards self-sacrifice; few religious mortifications could be worse than the discomfort and boredom of watching a football match and then listening to people talking about it afterwards.

But Nick Hornby and the late Pope John Paul II are not equally religious, even if both of them were, or are, depending on whether the Pope is right, football fans. One might try to combine these two theories of religion into a single whole, arguing that religious belief should appear to science like a complex number which cannot exist without two parts that we call real and imaginary. Science, when it studies religion must take into account both its sociological functions and its psychological ones; and to understand how these two work together on each other. Any particular religion must be specified with reference to both.

This is true but I don't think it goes far enough. The range of human societies and their effects on the psychologies of their members, is just too great for there to be any single form of social organisation, and thus any single thing called religion, which is found in all of them. Technological revolutions, like agriculture, and writing, fundamentally change the nature of religious beliefs. So does trade. The shaman drinking reindeer piss to bring back a vision for his tribe is not performing the same functions as a Jesuit missionary at the court of a Chinese emperor in the 16th century. They aren't doing different versions of religion.

They are doing entirely different things. Neither is more or less religious than the other. Not to believe in religion is in some ways a more radical step than not believing in God, but it might get us out of rather more difficulties; and it still lets even atheists say, with a clear conscience, Merry Christmas.

The Guardian, Andrew Brown: Are we hardwired for religion, or is it just a psychological and social need?

Kenyan Prisoners Turn Saints

2005-12-31T18:40:00.000-08:00

Tens of thousands of prisoners in Kenya plan to skip their meal on Sunday to raise money for fellow Kenyans affected by food shortages.

Prisoners in jails across the country are hoping that by diverting funds for their meal to the charity Food Aid, it will help the starving.

Some 2.4 million people are threatened by severe drought across Kenya.

Inmates were moved by television images of malnourished children and thought it was a "small gesture", said officials.

'Brothers'

"We were very surprised when the prisoners came up with the decision and we thought at first it was a joke. But it is quite a good gesture," said John Isaac Odongo, the commandant of Kenya's prison staff training college.

"Prisons have changed and we can afford to give our brothers some of our food rations without getting affected," said Simon Ole Sakrop, a death row inmate.

Up to 50,000 prisoners signed up to take part, in an action co-ordinated by the Kenyan Red Cross Society.

TFood shortages caused by poor rains, are estimated to have claimed the lives of around 30 people, although there are no official figures.

Neighbouring Ethiopia and Somalia also face desperate shortages of food.

Mr Odongo said that officials had yet to determine how much money would be saved in the country's 93 prisons, but the sum would be handed over to humanitarian groups.

The drought has prompted a recent appeal from President Mwai Kibaki for $100m in help.
On 24 December he announced that his government would hand out about $40m.

The Meteorological Department has said the drought could last until March, when the rainy season is due.

Year's List

2005-12-30T17:18:00.000-08:00

I read this article in The Times and thought it might spur you to make your own list. Come on!

THE YEAR'S END is a time for reflection, for an accounting, a reckoning. It is a time for measuring our achievements against our hopes and expectations, as well as those of others. It's a time for hope and a time for resolve.

But above all it is a time for lists. Best lists. Worst lists. Up lists. Down lists. In lists. Out lists. Lists of new year's resolutions. Lists of lists.

The list, in its purest form, offers a simple, cardinal assessment of the year past. Properly executed, it can capture the Zeitgeist. The list can become an instant document of social history, an insight into the transient values and mores of modern times. But most important of all, the list is an opportunity for unimaginative columnists to fill valuable space in a newspaper when there's no real news happening.

So here's mine. It's fairly unusual, I think, if not unique. But what matters is that it's mine. It's a list of words that entered popular discourse in 2005.

Katrina

When some bored meteorologist picked the name of his cousin's girlfriend's mother as the moniker for the eleventh tropical storm of the Caribbean season this summer he had no idea what he had wrought. The word would come to denote not just a storm, a natural disaster, but a human tragedy, a political event and more, much more. It became a signifier of ineptitude, gross mismanagement, arrogance on an Olympian scale. For the rest of the world, it became a synonym for everything that was wrong with America, from its callous, disdainful President to its irresponsible ignorance of global warming to its racially and economically divided rotten heart.

It would be, in some of the more flowery journalism, a caesura, a dividing line in the Bush presidency; even, perhaps, in American history itself, a time when America beat its breast at the evils of its own society and embraced wonderful European-style socialism. In Europe, of course, natural disasters never happen.

Well, maybe not. But I should say that, in what must rank as one of the cruellest and least expected pieces of verbal collateral damage of all time, the choice and circumstances it captured rendered it impossible for anyone, ever again, to play a song by the 1980s band Katrina and the Waves. School discos will never be the same.

Rendition

Talking of rendering, this one must rank as euphemism of the year. According to the dictionary it means making someone or something over to someone else. But in 2005 it became notorious as the term used by the US to describe what it does when it hands over suspected terrorist suspects and other enemies to third countries that are rather less scrupulous about human rights than we are.

The term used was in fact extraordinary rendition, which sounds even better, almost sacramental. "He was given extraordinary rendition last night" conjures up an image of a dying man being blessed by a priest with chrism and oil of catechumens. In fact it means he was strapped into a cargo plane and was heading for a long and animated conversation with some of the more imaginative members of the Saudi secret police.

Intelligent design

This too sounds harmless, the kind of phrase you might use to describe Sven Goran Eriksson's enterprising use of the back four in the World Cup qualifiers. But it too became a sobriquet that connoted America's general backwardness and awfulness in 2005.

It is the pseudoscientific theory that says nature is so complex that it couldn't simply have evolved but must be the work of some superior mind or being (that's where it parts company with Eriksson, by the way). Its proponents, mostly evangelical Christians, wanted it to be taught in state schools alongside the more conventional scientific theory of evolution.

It swept America briefly in 2005, as school districts in the darker parts of the interior rejected Darwinism and embraced the light. But it won't last. 2005 was probably the high point of ID. Americans are, despite the caricatures, perfectly intelligent.

Non! Nee!

The words resoundingly uttered by the voters of France and the Netherlands in response to the question from the European Union: "Do you want more of us, in your face, for ever and ever?"

The word, in any language, had struggled for centuries to break free from its negative connotations, but thanks to the referendums this year it became an expression of liberty, the rallying cry of peoples yearning to breathe free from bureaucratic oppression. Of course, we know better now. Thanks to my new European Commission-English Dictionary, I now understand that the words actually mean "Yes! A thousand times yes!"

Sensitivity chip

Jennifer Aniston uttered this neologism when describing her former husband, Brad Pitt, from whom she split this year. The marriage had been impossible, she said, because he didn't have one. What she meant was that he was thoughtless and selfish, unsolicitous of her feelings, uncaring, brusque and self-absorbed. What she meant by this, I think, was that he was a man.

iPod

All right, I know this isn't 2005-specific but it qualifies for this list because it became so universal this year. And furthermore, in 2005 it became so much more than a brand name for an electronic device. Sociologists will talk for ever now of the iPod generation, solipsistic, introverted, used to demanding and getting their own, customised version of everything. Combine this with a society made up of people whose sensitivity chips have been removed and you are headed for serious trouble.

But finally, a more uplifting note:

Santo Subito

When I first saw these words on banners held aloft by mourners at the funeral of Pope John Paul II, I was puzzled. "Who the hell was St Subito?" I wondered. The patron saint of table football? A religious icon you prayed to when you were in a real hurry?

It turned out of course that it meant "St Immediately", meaning the late, great Pope should be canonised expeditiously, without having to go through the usual time-consuming procedures. I suspect they'll be granted their wish. Subito.

Gerard Baker

Sore Throat and God

2005-12-29T06:31:00.000-08:00

Does a sore throat prove God is nonexistent? I do believe in God, but liked this comic column and its dream. Charlie Brooker is a columnist in the Guardian, each time supposing about something, thus looking at our daily concerns differently. The article is rated, so if you are yet to become an adult, please wait till you become 18.

If you're looking for proof that God doesn't exist, don't bother investigating the big stuff, like earthquakes or famines or the tsunami. Start small. Right now I've got a sore throat and as far as I'm concerned that's evidence enough.

The constant awareness is the worst part. Usually I walk around blissfully ignorant of my throat. I never think: "Ooh, aren't I lucky to have a throat?" or anything like that. But right now I'm obsessed with it. It's like the early days of a love affair, when the other person is all you can think about, except here the "other person" is played by my own throat, and there's no sex involved because that would be impossible and probably just make it even more sore.

I'm also extremely conscious of just how often I must nonchalantly swallow saliva in an average day without even realising, because suddenly it hurts like hell each time it happens. Every few minutes it feels like I'm trying to squeeze a splintered cupboard door down my neck - yet I can't stop doing it. It's humiliating.

Even sleep brings no respite: I wake spluttering in the middle of the night, feeling like a cat's just clawed through my gullet, trailing furballs in its wake. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.

In summary: a mere sore throat is proof enough that there is no God - or that if there is, he doesn't give a toss about human suffering. In which case why bother worshipping him? That's like fellating someone who intermittently stubs fags out on your head for no good reason. And we all know how unsatisfying that can be.

Still, perhaps I'm wrong and perhaps there is a God. Perhaps he's reading this right now, on the toilet in heaven. In which case, perhaps he'd like to do something to prove his existence. Once he's washed his hands.

Yes, perhaps Mister so-called "God" could create a highly infectious disease that was both non-fatal and fun. And by "fun", I mean something that generates symptoms that feel nice instead of nasty. How about an illness that induces the sensation of sliding into a warm bath? Or the satisfaction of having just finished a really good novel. Or one that spends an entire week gently but firmly bringing you to a thundering orgasmic finale.

Wouldn't it be great? You'd jump for joy at the first symptom. If a doctor gravely ushered you into his office and said you were infected, you'd end up kissing him. If the virus was transmitted via saliva, he'd kiss you back (and if it was sexually transmitted, he'd lock the door, take his phone off the hook, and bang you round the room like a dirty little doctor-loving bitch. Ain't that right? Say it, ho: say you love doctors. Mmmm. This be some prime medicinal lovin', right here. I be taking your temperature real good. Uh. Uhhh! Uhhhhhhh!).

Yes, that's how great the world of sickness and disease could be. But it isn't, because God's being an arsehole about it. If you're the sort of person who prays every night, ask him to stop dicking around, yeah?

I mean I'd do it myself, but my throat's too sore.

Charlie Brooker, Guardian

Quotes on Christmas

2005-12-27T17:00:00.000-08:00

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year."
Charles Dickens

"Christmas began in the heart of God. It is complete only when it reaches the heart of man."
Anonymous

"Peace on earth will come to stay, when we live Christmas every day."
Helen Rice

"One of the nice things about Christmas is that you can make people forget the past with a present."
Anonymous

"Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas."
Calvin Coolidge

"When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow, we hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago, and etched on vacant places are half-forgotten faces of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know."
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A Streetcar Named Disobedience

2005-12-25T18:52:00.000-08:00

Grumpy, rude and stubborn: this is a character sketch of Iranian capital's public bus drivers. They have always been so, at least from a passenger's seat. On Dec 25, 2005, many added another upsetting adjective to their identity kit: disobedient.

Most people ignored the drivers' threat to go on a strike. These sullen workers would never keep their buses snoring for an extra minute, people and officials thought. Drivers are supposedly boss just inside their bus and humble citizens outside.

Tehran bus driver have traditionally handpicked one easy target for unleashing daily frustration: a lame-duck passenger. As a rule of thumb, no sane commuter disputes navigational skills of the captain nor begs for early landing. To brazenly challenge him, one should have a thick skin and slick tongue to parry the flying insults in the packed bus.

Now by making good on their threat to stop working on a date not marked as Christmas Day in the Islamic Republic, the madcap captains have widened their target choice. Also they inconveniently yet boldly wrote a piece of history: the very first strike during the President Ahmadinejad's tenure.

His fellow conservatives have denied the bus drivers claims that their wages are doggedly kept unchanged for three years in a country whose official inflation rate is over 15 percent. It seems the arrest on Thursday of a handful of strike leaders has merely emboldened the drivers and other workers in the state-run bus company.

Their strike, for sure, would remain an isolated incident, but with deep echoes. It would stitch up a chain of sporadic acts of civil disobedience by Iranian disgruntled teachers, nurses and workers.

"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue," Oscar Wilde says in The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891). "It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion."

The Irish author believes rebellious activists, like striking bus drivers, can bulldoze a road towards democracy.

"Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community, and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them," he says. "That is the reason why agitators are so absolutely necessary. Without them, in our incomplete state, there would be no advance towards civilization."

Nowadays labeling someone an agitator connotes a rather anarchistic tone, but the Iranian bus drivers are unlikely to mind. It commands more respect for grumpy heroes.

Christmas Bells

2005-12-25T12:05:00.000-08:00

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till, ringing, singing on its way

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The Carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;

‘There is no peace on earth,’

I said; ‘For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘

God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men!’

Longfellow Henry Wadsworth

Mullahs versus the Bloggers

2005-12-24T15:42:00.000-08:00

THE MUSIC OF Eric Clapton was banned in Iran this week. Broadcasters were ordered to cease playing “decadent” western songs and stick to “fine Iranian music”. Not content with denying the Holocaust, Israel’s right to exist, and advertising hoardings featuring David Beckham, Iran’s hardline President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has now denied his people the chance to listen to Layla — cruel and unusual punishment indeed.

But if Iran, under the repressive rule of the ultraconservatives, is silencing the sound of Western pop, in another area of its culture, a wild cacophony of voices has erupted. The blogosphere is exploding. In Iran there are now more than 100,000 active blogs or weblogs, individual online diaries covering every conceivable subject, from pets to politics. Farsi is the 28th most spoken language in the world, but it now ties with French as the second most used language in the blogosphere. This is the place Iranians call “Weblogistan”: a land of noisy and irreverent free speech.

The collision between these two sides of Iran — hardline versus online — represents the latest, and most important, battle over freedom of speech. The outcome will dictate not only the shape of Iran, but also the future of the internet as a political tool, heralding a new species of protest that is entirely irrepressible.

The growth in Iranian blogging is part of a worldwide surge. In 1999, there were some 50 bloggers on the web; in January there were about 5.4 million; today, according to the blog search engine Technorati, there are more than 23 million.

There are reasons why Iran should be especially fertile ground for blogging. More than 90 per cent of the country is literate, and 70 per cent of the country’s citizens are under 30. Computer ownership is relatively high and internet cafés abound. The first Iranian blog was born in November 2001, when Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian journalist, posted instructions on how to build a simple weblog in under ten minutes. As Nasrin Alavi (a pseudonym) demonstrates in her new book, We Are Iran: the Persian Blogs, these diary sites cover the gamut: angry, sad, humorous and brave. Like all blogs they can also be self-indulgent, inaccurate, inarticulate and boring. Internet usage is growing faster in Iran than anywhere in the Muslim Middle East, and there are now more blogs in Farsi than in German, Italian, Spanish, Russian or Chinese. Apparently, since the rise of the blogs, graffiti have almost entirely vanished from the walls of Tehran’s public toilets.

With almost all Iran’s reformist newspapers closed down and many editors imprisoned, blogs offer an opportunity for dissent, discussion and dissemination of ideas that is not available in any other forum. There is wistful yearning in many Iranian blogs, and a persistent vein of anger: “I keep a weblog so that I can breath in this suffocating air,” writes one blogger. “I write so as not be lost in despair.” Blogs by Muslim women are particularly moving in their bitter portrayal of life behind the veil.

The Iranian State has done its utmost to smother the nascent Iranian blogosphere. In 2003 the Government began to take direct action against bloggers — more than 20 have been arrested, on charges ranging from “morality violations” to insulting leaders of the Islamic Republic. One blogger was sentenced to 14 years in prison for “spying and aiding foreign counter-revolutionaries”; in October, Omid Sheikhan was sentenced to a year’s jail and 124 lashes for a weblog featuring satirical political cartoons.

The regime has also reportedly brought in powerful software programs to filter the net and block access to provocative blogs. But the Government remains profoundly alarmed by a tool it cannot control. Ayatollah Hashemi Shahroudi, the head of the Iranian judiciary, recently described the internet as a “Trojan Horse carrying enemy soldiers in its belly”. Many of Iran’s religious leaders recall how an earlier revolution was fuelled by new technology, when cassette tapes and videotapes of sermons by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were smuggled into the country, undermining the Shah and hastening his downfall.

Decentralised, informal and versatile, blogs offer a potential for secrecy, anonymity and evasion unthinkable in a hierarchical, paper-based information system. A blogger may be arrested, but once his words are out there and replicable, they are effectively immortal and invulnerable. The bloggers have proved so wily and hard to censor that the Government has even considered removing Iran from the internet entirely, by creating a national intranet that would seal off Iranians from the contaminating freedom of the world wide web.

If the Iranian Government succeeds in crushing the blogs, other intolerant regimes will take heart; but if the Iranian blogosphere continues to expand, nascent networks of free thought will follow elsewhere. Already US policymakers are exploring ways of nurturing home-grown Arabic language blogs in the Middle East to spread democratic ideals and increase pressure for change.

It is less the political content of the blogs that terrifies Iran’s Government than the mere existence of this space outside its control, where Iranians are free to say whatever they wish to one another. Here in Weblogistan they can tell jokes, flirt, mock their leaders and share music files, unencumbered by mullahs’ fiats or state decrees.

For a reader from the West, the blogs offer a vision of Iran, far from the chanting crowds, hidden women and ranting mullahs of popular imagery. As much as President Ahmadinejad may seek to turn back the clock and battle “Westoxification”, at the blog level this is a modern country. “My blog is a blank page,” writes one young Iranian blogger. “Sometimes I stretch out on this page in the nude . . . now and again I hide behind it. Occasionally I dance on it.” That may not sound like a call to arms, but in a country where the music is dying it may be the harbinger of revolution.

Ben Macintyre, The Times

Media-Shy Khatami Becomes Blogger

2005-12-23T18:53:00.000-08:00

It's always dangerous to trust a politician, even when he is no longer in the office, since his murky intentions are less predictable than a haphazard dance of oceanic fish.

Iran's ex-president Mohammad Khatami is no exception. In his latest attempt to cast his media-shy image away, he has accepted his fans' invitation to join the booming bonanza of Iranian blogoshphere, affectionately termed Weblogistan.

But what are his motives, and agenda?

The introvert and overcautious former president sheds no light in his maiden post in khatamionline.com. "The yearning and struggle for truth and the longing and battle for freedom make up the blueprint of human beings," pens Mr. Khatami, who won two landslide victories in 1997 and 2001 on promises of promoting political and social liberties.

His consequent power struggle with inflexible conservatives, though, proved that, much to his voters' chagrin, he is merely a man of charisma, hardly a shrewd media-savvy leader.

Instead of harnessing enormous popular support, Mr. Khatami sullenly witnessed how hardliners dictated their dominance with a massive shut down of reformist newspapers and blogs.

The latter medium turned out to be more resilient, partly because it is less labor-intensive and more cost-efficient. There are other reasons, of course.

"Decentralized, informal and versatile, blogs offer a potential for secrecy, anonymity and evasion unthinkable in a hierarchical, paper-based information system." says Ben Macintyre, in a column in the British newspaper, The Times. "A blogger may be arrested, but once his words are out there and replicable, they are effectively immortal and invulnerable.”

Have the same lures tempted Mr. Khatami to outrank his former deputy Mohammad Ali Abtahi as the most high-profile blogger in Iran's blogoshphere? Would the sartorially-conscious cleric adopt a blunt tone in his fancifully titled blog, The Man with the Chocolate Robe? Or would he keep spitting out veiled criticism at diehard conservatives?

Most viewers of his newborn blog, for now, are thrilled that Mr. Khatami has joined their outcast community of 'cacophony of voices," to quote Ben Macintyre of The Times.

Some reactions to his soft-core opening post are quite blunt, however. "Mr. Khatami, I beg you to put aside this diction. Believe me, here you'd better be a blogger than a former president, otherwise your blog would reek of nasty old days, which would just lead to worse days," warns a blogger nicknamed Maryam Mirza.

Others are too frustrated to warmly greet the new net citizen. "In the real world, you failed to promote the cause of your desperate people and the poor youth," writes Sadaf. "In the virtual world, you could hopefully appreciate how regretful Iranian people are for misplacing their trust in your promises."

Having risked the big gamble of joining the growing voice of bloggers, Mr. Khatami has hinted he is willing to alter his tone. If so, the former president would be welcome to act as a conductor for the cacophonous bloggers, orchestrating their rumbling into an ear-piercing choir of freedom fighters.

Crooning with the old lullaby monotone would further alienate him. His advisors have, undoubtedly, warned him the waters of this ocean of blogs are highly shark-infested.

'American Military Might is a Myth'

2005-12-22T19:18:00.000-08:00

This is a fine article, which I don't necessarily agree with. Excerpts:

A year can be a short time in politics. Surprisingly short, if you compare the stories dominating the media and party conversations this week with those of a year ago.

Then, as now, gallows humor about the frightening incompetence of the Bush Administration, especially in Iraq, was fashionable.

With poetic justice, the biggest loser of 2005 has turned out to be the previous year's most undeserving winner—Mr. Bush. Largely because of the sheer incompetence of the US occupation of the Iraq, confirmed by the even greater incompetence displayed after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Bush's incomprehensible popularity and mysterious power over American voters have vanished in a puff of smoke, like the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz.

The rapid decay of the Bush presidency can have broad significance, for it could inspire a profound reassessment of America's global hegemony and its role in the world. After 9/11, and especially after easy invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, America has been widely believed to dominate the world because of its unchallengeable military power. But this year's events in Iraq and Washington have shown this assessment to be simply wrong.

America's military power, at least in the hands of Mr. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, has turned out to be, as in Vietnam, a paper tiger. Yet America is more globally dominant than ever before. The explanation of this paradox lies in America's economic performance, which has been as spectacularly successful and as skillfully managed this year as the military operations have bungled. The US has again had the fastest-growing advanced economy in the world. And this 20-year winning streak is bound to continue as long as Europe entrusts its economic management to institutions even more incompetent than the Pentagon under Mr. Rumsfeld.

In other words, the saying that "the business of America is business" has never been more true. More than ever before, it is the success of the US economy, and the associated strength of its higher education system, rather than anything to do with armed might, that assures America's cultural dominance, even in such pathologically introverted societies as Iran, Saudi Arabia and China.

America owes its global hegemony to the "soft power" that European politicians boast about but are unable to harness, mainly because of Europe's incompetent economic management. Meanwhile, the "hard" military power beloved of braggart neoconservatives turns out to be largely an illusion—and one that America cannot sustain on its own. This paradox is, to me, the most interesting lesson of 2005.

Anatolie Kaletsky

Published in The Times, Thursday Dec 22, 2005 The main title: The truely historic discovery of 2005: American military might is a myth

Perspective

2005-12-21T18:43:00.000-08:00

They passed like strangers,
without a word or gesture,
her off to the store,
him heading for the car.

Perhaps startled
or distracted,
or forgetting
that for a short while
they'd been in love forever.

Still, there's no guarantee
that it was them.
Maybe yes from a distance,
but not close up.

I watched them from the window
and those who observe from above
are often mistaken.

She vanished behind the glass door.
He got in behind the wheels
and took off.
As if nothing had happened,
if it had.

And I, sure for just a moment
that I'd seen it,
strive to convince you, O Readers,
that it was sad.

Poem by Wislawa Szymborska
(Translated, from the Polish, by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)
The New Yorker, Dec 26, 2005-Jan 2, 2006 issue.

Drink Fresh Snow

2005-12-20T16:17:00.000-08:00

Today I read a fine article on how much we are estranged with nature. Excerpts:

We human beings have a remarkable capacity to shrug our shoulders in the face of the extraordinary. We usually ignore it to deal with our own lives, because we have "somewhere to get to".

We in the developed world live in a bubble society that fatally disjoins us from nature , leaving us spiritually and emotionally impoverished and intellectually ill-equipped to gauge the global effects of our behavior. No other society in history has lived so cocooned from the routine vagaries of climate and weather.

Up to 93 percent of Westerners' lives are now lived indoors. Research suggests that 99 percent of Americans spend less than one day in a life time in conscious sensory contact with nature. Out of 1440 minutes in a day, Britons average just one minute in the countryside or seaside.

Living inside the bubble, seeing only reflections of ourselves, is it any wonder we lose sight of the world outside? How can we escape the bubble? Don't bank on Katrina teaching a lesson.

We need to connect with nature before it connects, terminally, with us. Get a relationship with a tree. Make tea from wild nettles. Watch a pile of leaves when winter wind hits it. Drink fresh snow. And then translate the insights we gain back into the bubble world and its sleeping citizenry. Agitate, arouse, enthuse.

And above all, communicate one simple message. Having "somewhere to get to" just won't do any more.

David Nicholson-Lord, former environment editor in The Independent on Sunday. Published in Adbusters , Jan-Feb 2006 issue .

Me, Books and 2005

2005-12-19T18:41:00.000-08:00

This year I was lucky enough to stumble on some tasty books. Lucky because I managed to wedge a few book-reading hours into my weekly timetable.

I favor non-fiction, partly because my job as a journalist grapples with harsh, head-banging realities. The problem gets worse when I have to jigsaw bits and pieces of the global non-fiction and retell them, with more or less graphic imageries, to grab audiences' attention.

It's a desperate struggle to be a reality-absorber 24/7. "All reality, and none fiction, makes life such a boring thing," Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dali said.

Another Latin-flavored master, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has been my main supplier of fiction in 2005. TheColombian Nobel Prize winner used to be a reporter, too. He is, indeed, the only author to entice me into buying three titles of his works: Living to Tell the Tale , Love in the Time of Cholera , and One Hundred Years of Solitude .

In my homeland, Iran, books are dirt-cheap because they are, well, pirated. The Copyright law is less sacred, you know. In my adoptive country, Britain, books are exponentially pricey, even more expensive than in the States. A simple currency conversion reveals book-seller unashamedly rip buyers off here.

So what is my trick to read books cheaply? I frequent a very cozy branch of Borders in Oxford Street, central London. The poor joint acts as my library. I read Memories of My Melancholy Whores , a great uncharacteristically short novel by Marquez, in a few visits.

I do buy books, like tonight when I paid about $15 for a thin science book, The Last Word 2 . It raises and answers some appealing questions, such as: Why roosters crow in the morning? What generates the energy that makes thin, white supermarket bags so noisy? And, the chocolate chips in a biscuit do not appear to melt when cooked in the oven at 150 C, but melt when left in the sun. Why?

Links to sites that have short-listed top books of 2005:

Best Books Of The Year from San Francisco Chronicle (12/19)

Best Science Fiction, Fantasy And Horror from St. Louis Post-Dispatch (12/18)

100 Noteworthy Books from Kansas City Star (12/18)

Raleigh Best Books from News & Observer (12/18)

10 Favorite Books from Entertainment Weekly -- Stephen King (12/18)

Books Of The Year from The Independent (12/18)

Favorite Books from Rocky Mountain News (12/15)
Best Books from Blogcritics (12/15)

The Year In Books from Slate.com (12/15)

25 Favorite Books from Village Voice (12/14)

25 Best from Kirkus Review (12/14)

Best Children's Books from Kirkus Review (12/14)

Top Fiction Books from Mercury News (12/13)

Seven Great Books You May Have Missed from Time (12/13)

Books Of The Year from Washingoton Post (Jonathan Yardley) (12/12)

Books Of The Year from The Economist (12/12)

Top 10 Literary Works from About.com (12/11)

Not The Best Of The Year from CNN.com (12/11)

Best Fiction from Daily Telegraph (12/11)

Top 10 Books from Seattle Times (12/10)

Book Of The Year Awards from Ottakar's (12/08)

10 Best Books from New York Times Books Review (12/04)

Favorite Nonfiction from L.A. Times (12/04)

Favorite Fiction from L.A. Times (12/04)

Best Nonfiction from Christian Science Monitor (12/03)

Best Fiction from Christian Science Monitor (12/03)

World Fantasy Awards from World Fantasy Convention (12/02)

15 Favorite Travel Books from Longitude Books (12/02)

Dagger Awards from Crime Writers' Association (12/02)

Ten Best Works Of Literature from About.com (11/28)

Favourite Books Of The Year from The Guardian (11/27)

100 Notable Books from New York Times (11/25)

Best Children's Books from Publishers Weekly (11/25)

Best Of 2005 -- Editor's Picks from Amazon.com (11/09)

Best Of 2005 -- Customer's Picks from Amazon.com (11/09)

Best Of 2005 from Metacritic (11/05)

Booker Prize from Man Booker Prize (11/05)

Books Of The Year from National Book Awards (11/05)

The Top Word Lists for 2005

2005-12-17T18:18:00.000-08:00

Refugee, Outside the Mainstream, and (Acts of) God were selected as leading the Top Word, Phrase and Name Lists of 2005 released earlier today by the Global Language Monitor in its annual worldwide survey. The Global Language Monitor (GLM) publishes Year 2005 lists regarding: The Top Words, Top Phrases, Top Names, Global Youth Speak, as well as the Top Word Spoken on the Planet.

"2005 was the year we saw a convergence of a number sometimes contradictory language trends: the major global media became more pervasive yet actually less persuasive; the language spoken by the youth of the world is converging at an ever increasing rate; and the Political Correctness movement become a truly global phenomenon," said Paul JJ Payack, President of The Global Language Monitor (GLM).

The year has been a vibrant one for language, rife with examples that have been nominated by the GLM’s Language Police, volunteer language observers from the world over.

The Top Ten Words of 2005:

1. Refugee: Though the word was considered politically incorrect in the US, 'refugees' were often considered the lucky ones in streaming away from a series of global catastrophes unmatched in recent memory.
2. Tsunami: From the Japanese tsu nami for 'harbor wave', few recognized the word before disaster struck on Christmas Day, 2004, but the word subsequently flooded with unprecedented (and sustained) media coverage.
3. Poppa/Papa/Pope: (Italian, Portuguese, English, many others). The death of beloved Pope John Paul II kept the words on the lips of the faithful around the world.
4. Chinglish: The new second language of China from the Chinglish formation: CHINese + EngLISH.
5. H5N1: A looming global pandemic that could dwarf the Boubonic Plague of the Middle Ages (and AIDS) boggles the comtemporary imagination.
6. Recaille: A quick trip around the Romance languages (French jargon, scum; Spanish, rabble or swine; Italian, worthless dregs) illustrates the full freight of the word used to describe youthful French rioters of North African and Muslim descent.
7. Katrina: Name will become synonymous with natural forces responsible for the total and utter descruction of a city.
8. Wiki: Internet buzzword (from the Hawai'ian wiki wiki for 'quick, quick') that describes collaboration software where anyone can contribute to the on-going effort.
9. SMS: Short Message Service. The world's youth sent over a trillion text messages in 2005. Currently being texted are full-length novels, news, private messages and everything in between.
10. Insurgent: Politically neutral term used to describe enemy combatants..

Last year the Top Ten Words words were incivility, Red States/Blue States, and Blogosphere.

The Top Ten Phrases of 2005:

1. Out of the Mainstream: Used to describe the ideology of any political opponent.
2. Bird Flu/Avian Flu: the H5N1 strain of Flu that resembles that of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic where 60 million died.

3. Politically Correct: Emerges as a worldwide phenomenon.

4. North/South Divide In the US it might be Red States and Blue States but globally the 'haves' and 'have nots' are divided by a geographical if not psychological boundary.

5. Purple Thumb: The badge of honor worn by Iraqi voters proving that they voted in their ground-breaking elections.

6. Climate Change: Or Global Warming. No matter what your political persuasion, the fact remains that New York City was under 5,000 feet of ice some 20,000 years ago.

7. String Theory: The idea that the universe is actually constructed of 11-dimensional, pulsating planes of existence.

8. The Golden Quatrilateral: India's new superhighway system that links the key cities of the Subcontinent.

9. Jumping the Couch. Apparently losing complete emotional control; made popular by the escapades of Tom Cruise on the Oprah television show.
10. Deferred success: The idea introduced in the UK that there is no such thing as failure, only deferred success.

Last year the Top Phrases were Red States/Blue States, Moral Values, and Two Americas.

The Top Ten Names of 2005:

1. (Acts of) God: The world watches helplessly as a superpower is humbled as one of its great cities is laid asunder (Hurricane Katrina).

2. Tsunami snuffs out nearly 300,000 lives, and an earthquake takes another 200,000 (Kashmir). A Higher Power, indeed.

3. Katrina: Greek (katharos) for 'pure'. Before the hurricane, the name was borne by two saints, Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, and three of Henry VIII's wives.

4. John Paul II. The death of beloved Pope John Paul II kept his name on the lips of the faithful around the world.

5. Wen Jiabao: Premier of the People's Republic of China since March 2003; leading perhaps the largest economic transformation in history.

6. Saddham Hussein: Should re-read Karl Marx: the first time is history, the second is but farce.

7. Dubya: Every more 'weeble-like': Dubya wobbles but he won't fall down.

8. Oprah: Now a global phenomenon with an ever-expanding media (and charitable) empire.

9. Shakira: the Columbian songstress is captivating ever wider circles.

10. John Roberts: New Chief Justice of the American Supreme Court.

11. Mahmud Ahmadi-nejad: President of Iran since August 2005; he has recently suggest that the Jewish Homeland be moved to Europe.

Last year the Top Names were Dubya Rove (W. and Karl Rove), Mel (Gibson) (Michael) Moore, and Saddam Hussein.

The Top Ten Global YouthSpeak Words:

1. Crunk: A Southern variation of hip hop music; also meaning fun or amped.
2. Mang: Variation of man, as in "S'up, mang?"
3. A'ight: All Right, "That girl is nice, she's a'ight"
4. Mad: A lot; "She has mad money"
5. Props: Cheers, as in "He gets mad props!"
6. Bizznizzle: This term for" business" is part of the Snoop Dogg/Sean John-inspired lexicon, as in "None of your bizznizzle!'
7. Fully: In Australia an intensive. as in 'fully sick'.)
8. Fundoo: In India, Hindi for cool
9. Brill! From the UK, the shortened form of brilliant!
10. "s'up": Another in an apparently endless number of Whazzup? permutations.

Southern California YouthSpeak Bonus: Morphing any single syllable word into 3, 4 or even 5 syllables.

Last year the Top YouthSpeak terms were: Word, Peace (or Peace out), and Proper.

The Most Frequently Spoken Word on the Planet: O.K.

The Number of Words in the English Language: 961,958 (estimate 3:44 pm Pacific 11 Dec 2005)

March of the Indomitable, 2

2005-12-15T18:08:00.000-08:00

Three months, and a few blizzards, later, the female penguin lays a cherished egg. It's the most pleasant moment of the year for the couple.

Lifting her white plume to reveal the little gem, the would-be mom bashfully gives a triumphant glance at the expectant dad, who admires the feat with a proud nod. They are joyfully speechless.

The joy is short-lived, though. The couples are starving. Their last meal was in the ocean three months ago. One third of their weight has gone.

In an exemplary show of courtesy and sacrifice, male Emperors volunteer to incubate the egg. I doubt any man would or could do it, given that he has to wade on his soles and keep the unborn kid on his feet to protect it from the frigid, at least for the next couple of months.

No nest can keep any egg warm enough when it is minus 15 degrees. No plant, besides, grows in that barren land of ice and wind and darkness. The penguins have to be resourceful. Their feet would double as an insulated floor and their lowered plume would act as a roof for half a year.

Before the female penguins dash back to the ocean, they have to transfer the egg from their own feet to those of their mates. It is one of the saddest moments of March of the Penguins.

Any misstep or clumsiness can turn the celebration into an early mourning. Couples face each other, just inches apart. They have ten seconds. The freeze is lurking to kidnap. The female opens her feet. The egg rolls toward the male. His feet secure it. His ruffled belly nails it down. The mom looks anxious. The dad gives the egg a jerk. It slips down. Quick! Another try!

Most have enough experience, but some are naïve or unlucky. Their penalty is cruelly unfair: one year of sorrow and jealousy.

(End of part 2)

The Myth Buster Courts Controversy

2005-12-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

Is the Nazi Holocaust a myth? To Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, yes.

He is persistently turning the massacre of European Jews in World War II into a national interests issue for Iranians. This is the second time in less than a week that he strikes the same unsettling cord. Many world leaders have now scornfully branded Mr. Ahmadinejad a Holocaust denier, the most notorious label patented in our modern civilization.

I agree the Holocaust is a historical fact. I also agree with C. P. Scott, an ex-editor of the Guardian, saying: "Comment is free, but facts are sacred."

God is holy, but many of us readily question His existence, don't we? Jew lobbies, therefore, have made the massacre untouchably and irrationally sacred.

I just read that Mel Gibson, director of The Passion of The Christ, has decided to produce a TV serial on a Jewish girl's suffering during the Holocaust, simply because Mr. Gibson's dad, like Mr. Ahmadinejad, is a Holocaust denier or, more technically, an apologist.

Mr. Gibson Junior, a Catholic, is not alone. Hollywood rarely has the guts to portray a Jew as a crook, though films are supposed to be a faint representation of the real world. While people of other faiths have to shoulder the bad-guy role, Jews always star as wise and heroic protagonists. Simply inform Variety you intend to make a film on the tragedy of Jewry and your Oscar nod, even win, is set in stone.

Copy-cat

Amid Iranian president's quarrel over history, one harsh fact annoys me: his words are simple and powerful, his intentions vague, and the feedbacks harmful.

"They have created a myth today that they call the massacre of Jews and they consider it a principle above God, religions and the prophets," he said. (Watch the film here)

There is no complex word or notion in this judgment. He is emulating his mentor Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, about whom Harvey Morris, a veteran Reuters journalist used to say:

"He doesn't waste his time on serious theological stuff we wouldn't understand; just goes to the point and gives us our bloody headlines."

So does Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has described his victory in the June presidential race the Third Revolution of the Islamic Republic. Ayatollah Khomeini led the first uprising in 1979 and celebrated the second one after firebrand students loyal to him stormed the US embassy in Tehran a few months later.

Many believe Mr. Ahmadinejad's plain and familiar words, addressing many burning troubles of Iranian voters, provided a stark contrast to the stuffy and pompous diction of his rivals, thus helping him sweep to power. Some even claim if a wooden stick rivaled Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and chanted the same militant slogans, it would have won. Just God knows whether the stick or the current winner would have served Iranians better.

After his victory, the conservative president has repeatedly tried to cut a mystic figure, most famously when he alleged a "shield of light" engulfed him during his speech in the UN Assembly in September. His theocrat mentor was humble enough to keep his divine experiences personal.

The copycat boy, thus, is taking a long shot, not to become the next leader, but someone more revered. A pseudo-saint, or loftier, perhaps.

But why? I really have no idea; he might be able to quench his innate thirst for immortality, posthumously of course. Or perhaps he is pursuing a less philosophical quest, one for "domestic consumption." His supporters surely need mental fodder to forget their joyless lives and lost identities, but mark my words, this little fellow is more canny and ambitious than what his shabby clothes betray.

Stone-thrower

Mr. Ahmadinejad is, however, ignorant of the damaging impact of these anti-Holocaust remarks on his ambitions, the smallest of which is winning a second term in office.

The gathering condemnation of his latest speech inevitably emboldens Israelis to deliver on their promise to bomb Iranian nuclear plants. Getting nuclear technology is becoming an obsession for many Iranians, who feel it would give their national pride a steroid shot.

Any delays, as well as possible sanctions on the national soccer team to compete in the upcoming World Cup in the land of the Holocaust, would unleash Iranians' frustration at enduring three decades of the theocracy.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is also provoking non-Muslims to question founding tenents of Islam such as Shiite belief in Imam Mahdi, a promised messiah who has been awaiting God's permission "to reveal himself after 1200 years of living incognita and to promote peace and justice."

Mr. President, the next time you pick up a stone to throw at your enemies' houses, first check if your own is made of glass. If so, drop the stone and reach for an olive branch.

March of the Indomitable, 1

2005-12-12T18:46:00.000-08:00

If human lovers had to choose an animal for reincarnation, I would rarely go for an Emperor penguin.

I must be nuts, you argue. Penguins are cute and cuddly, especially ever since Madagascar cajoled us to buy a Disney-stuffed one to befriend our teddy bears. That hilarious animation depicted penguins as adventurous creatures, tunneling out of a New York zoo and hijacking a ship to Antarctica.

Those "keep-waving-boys" never reached their ancestral land, instead decided to bask in that sun-kissed African paradise. Wise choice, believe me.

March of the Penguins, a just-screened-in-Uk documentary by French director Luc Jacquet, can reveal if they had reached Antarctica, what fate would have been awaiting the playful Emperors.

These species of penguins are one of the most daring, and foolish, lovers ever smooched on our planet.

Each March, their overpowering instinct propels them on a breeding pilgrim performed for millennia. They leap from cozy and lavish oceans and land, belly-first, on an icy continent, so extreme and inhospitable that no other animal ventures there.

They heave their well-fed plump bodies along with their small feet, for 110 km, to reach their mating mecca. Scientists still puzzle over how penguins' compass guides them to that feature-less bleak destination.

Upon arrival, they greet other caravans, shuffling and crawling in a long single file. A frenzied search for a fit mate starts at once. It's a race against time.

Females usually outnumber male Emperors in this lustful fair; thus the suppliers must be slick marketers and agile wrestlers. Coveted males are monogamous for just one year, after which couples kiss goodbye forever. That short breeding period is, however, hauntingly unforgettable.

They do it Doggie, by the way.

(End of Part 1)

Internet Redefining Politics

2005-12-11T18:40:00.000-08:00

Online campaigning is transforming US politics and empowering individual voters dwarfed by the might of the print and broadcast media, the author of a major new Internet use survey said.

The online revolution could even allow a third-party candidate to break the two-party Republican/Democrat monopoly of US politics, said Jeffrey Cole, who penned the major University of Southern California (USC) study.

"The Internet will forever change the course and nature of American politics," Cole said.
"The Internet is no longer a marginal force in American politics -- it is quickly becoming the central force in empowering voters," Cole said.

Cole said at an advance briefing on the survey results for congressional staffers that 40 percent of Internet users now believe going online can give people more political power.

Internet campaigning was largely credited for the insurgent political campaign of former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, who rode a wave of online fundraising and lobbying ahead of the 2004 political nominating season.

Though Dean's surprising campaign eventually folded, as John Kerry surged to the Democratic nomination, his challenge is seen by many US political observers as a watershed for the Internet's role in US politics.

Cole suggested, in the briefing to staffers from both major parties in the US Capitol, that the rising role of the Internet may "see the first successful rise of a third party candidate for 150 years."

Study results also track the most popular uses of the internet : this year's study shows that email is the top task conducted online, followed by general surfing, reading news, shopping and seeking entertainment news.

Agene France-Presse

Make Love and Peace

2005-12-10T18:36:00.000-08:00

The choice between love and fear is made every moment in our hearts and minds.

That is where the peace process begins. Without peace within, peace in the world is an empty wish. Like love, peace is extended.

It cannot be brought from the world to the heart. It must be brought from each heart to another, and thus to all mankind.

--Paul Ferrini

Mahmoud the Menace

2005-12-08T18:32:00.000-08:00

Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad today repeated his recent call for erasing Israel from the map and thus sparked another international uproar.

Lots of people, me included, feel Israeli government commits unspeakable crimes against Palestinian civilians, now and then. We have every right to express our protest and mobilize a global movement to stop the oppression, all through peaceful means.

Mr. Ahmadinejad's irrational cow-boyish language, unluckily, undermines and smears such efforts. In the Wild West, villain cowboys bullied others only when they were confident of their brinkmanship and ammunition. (See A Cowboy's Guide to Life post in this blog.)

They would have shut up and galloped away when fearful of being outgunned. Unless drunk.

Israel has allegedly over 200 nuclear warheads and never overtly menaces its Arab neighbors. The covert stockpile acts as deterrence, a mental shield against possible attacks of former foes.

Iran officially has none. Suppose it has bought a couple of nukes from the booming black market in the former Soviet states.

Now imagine the ill-fated C-130 was carrying, instead of journalists, an A-bomb to wipe Israel out.

Our Fine Hours

2005-12-07T18:02:00.000-08:00

The fall of Saddam Hussein has been one of the few fine hours for us Iranians in the past three decades.

My colleagues and I were all glued to the TV in that April afternoon in 2003, when a US military vehicle, assisted by newly freed Iraqis, was tugging down the dictator's towering sculpture in Baghdad.

When a soldier draped the Stars and Stripes around the statue's face, I didn't wish it were an Iranian flag. The outcome was far more pleasant. We managed, for the first time, to imagine our evil tormentor faceless.

Saddam's capture inside a "fox hole" was even orgasmic to us. You surely remember when the doctor was fussily inspecting his unkempt hair for lice. That scene is, undoubtedly, engraved in our collective memory.

The ensuing outrage of Arab newspapers made us all more confident that our nightmare is over.

After two years, the ex-dictator is yet to face the death penalty he fully deserves and the war has become a bloody mess for the US-led coalition.

Tonight I was watching the pre-recorded acceptance speech of Nobel literature laureate, Harold Pinter.

"Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable," he said. (Read his complete speech here.)

Mr. Pinter might have a point about the big lie of war-mongers, those who had directly supported Saddam in his 8-year war against Iran, but in this particular case, I back the liars for punctuating our national misery with a couple of fine hours.

God Embraces Freedom of Speech

2005-12-07T16:24:00.000-08:00

The newly perished Iranian journalists are going to work on a heavenly project designed to "grant more freedom to the dead and to urge the living to die sooner", God's press office confirmed today.

During the past two weeks, a popular poet, a graphics maestro, and over 60 journalists, photographers and cameramen have passed away in Iran, either in death-bed or in a tragic flight, making the Iranian calendar month of Azar the most heart-rending one for the country's cultural circles in recent history.

As if that were not enough, a veteran radio presenter was announced dead today.Gossip-mongers are already whispering that something big, really big, is happening up there. By "up there", they mean the Land of the Dead.

A God's press officer revealed it is true. The Almighty has "gracefully" decided to embrace some political openness to "pamper the dead".

The following is my short talk with a coarse-sounding male heavenly press officer (HPO), in its entirety, including the off-the-records:

HPO: God's Press Office. May I help you?

RezBiz: Hello, sir.

HPO: Hello, son.

RezBiz: I am inquiring about alleged drastic changes up there, in terms of culture and media. It seems you are aggressively recruiting new media staff. Have you launched a cultural revolution?

HPO: The Almighty has decreed us to initiate a grand pampering project on granting more freedom of speech to the dead and to urge the living to die sooner to enjoy the unrivalled liberty. We are going to allow them to have more access to new heavenly media such as blogs and forums. They can also use a top-notch search engine, named Gabriel.

RezBiz: So they wouldn't miss Google, but what are His motives? Has there been any revolt, or pressure, to gain more freedoms?

HPO: [devilishly chuckling] Who in the hell can mess with the Creator, son!? It is just out of His infinite grace. But I can tell you, off the record of course, there has been a slight uneasiness among the disconsolate guys here, claiming they used to have more freedom to question God's mysterious ways down on the Earth.

RezBiz: Do you confirm stories alleging some of the dead had been plotting to escape? There are reports of some even managing to leap out of their graves.

HPO: You are welcome to take a trip and check it by yourself. There is no way to stow away. Besides, people must be nuts to desire that disaster-plagued planet. That's why we invited the Iranian TV doc-makers and journalists to come here and help our marketing campaign team so that the living could get more assurances, beside those already promised in our Holy Books, that life is wonderful up here.

RezBiz: I thought God is powerful enough to kill every breathing creature at a stroke.

HPO: Watch your mouth! He is the most compassionate and merciful, thus prefers people to volunteer for their demise.

RezBiz: Do you have any sponsors for your campaign?

HPO: The whole wealth in the nature and the cosmos belongs to the Almighty Corporation and he accepts no sponsors or partners. Period.

RezBiz: When will the campaign kick off?

HPO: The newly recruited journalists will have one week of induction to marvel at different luxuries and sceneries of the Heaven. Then they are supposed to present a blueprint of their media campaign. The Committee of Idea-assessing Angels (CIA) would then evaluate its merits.

RezaBiz: What would happen if the draft is rejected?

HPO: New journalists would be hired and these will be dumped.

RezBiz: Great! Down to the Earth?

HPO: Don't try to make a fool of yourself.

RezBiz: Well, that's it. Can I ask you a favor?

HPO: By all glorified means.

Rezbiz: Can you arrange an exclusive interview for me with God, please?

HPO: Sure, just give me your train or flight number.

Cats Shed Crocodile Tears in Mice Tragedy

2005-12-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

Journalists and politicians are engaged in an endless cat-and-mouse pursuit. Their habtiat determines who incarnates which animal.

In democratic societies, where people are not only spectators but also umpires, politicians are, well, mice. Ask anyone grilled by the BBC's Jeremy Paxman. In oppressive socities, they morph into savage cats, stalking and clawing apart journalists.

The humanoid cats even misname these nosy media rodents as rats. A misnomer zoologically, they say, but not politically.

So when dozens of journalists are chopped and charred after their faulty plane clips and sets ablaze itself and a building in a housing complex south of the Iranian capital, Tehran, the outpour of condolences from feline politicians is intriguing.

Opportunity Poachers

Iranian politicians have made a dirty habit of it in recent years. They patiently hang around for predictably happy occasions to effuse with empathy. Simply remember their rotten congratulatory messages whenever the national soccer team snatch the golden ticket to the World Cup finals.

Disasters are more welcome. Why? Simple: Tragic and momentous. Quakes and plane crashes, now normalcy in Iran due to its frequency, lower our collective pain threshold. We are shell-shocked and defenseless and pathetic.

Add some high-caliber journalists to our cause for mourning and you surely launch a mouth-watering feast for patronizing politicians.

Let's turn the table on them, however.

God's Servants

As I am publishing this post, about 10 hours after the plane incident, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is yet to fax his condolences. He was also irresponsibly late after the Bam quake 2 years ago this month. Too busy with divine invocation?

Ultra-conservatives such as Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Shahroudi and President Ahmadinejad began their messages with devoting their "heart-felt" commiserations to Imam Mahdi, a living saint for the Shiite laity, and then to Ayatollah Khamenei.

As a self-styled populist president, Mr. Ahmadinejad has missed a great opportunity to help "God's Servants" by mulishly continuing his trip to Saudi Arabia instead of returning home promptly to personally manage the disaster. He decided to pass the buck to his grumpy executive deputy, whose clumsiness was highlighted by a Majlis no-confidence vote after being nominated for the Oil Ministry in August.

Former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami, meanwhile, daringly counted themselves not indebted to the leader, so made the public the exclusive receiving end of their woeful letters.

Mostafa Moein, a moderate hopeful who lost the June presidential polls simply for ignoring the underdogs, implicitly licked his wounds. He expressed particular condolences to the "noble inhabitants of south Tehran," where the fatal crash killed over 20 on the ground.

If Mr. Moein had fared better in polls in that impoverished high-turn-out area, analysts argue, he would have boosted his chances of winning on a lofty ticket of democracy and human rights. Is he planning for a political comeback?

His ex-rival Mohammad Ghalibaf also dropped any reference to the leader. He clearly still feels stabbed in the back by the supreme leader's Mafiosi henchmen, a pain not even alleviated with the self-defeating honor of being handpicked as the mayor of a metropolitan choked by smug.

Living Suspicion

Tragedies have a messianic power to unite a nation widely fragmented. Americans rallied round a besieged Jimmy Carter after the hostage crisis in Tehran in 1979. Iranian politicians-cum-cats are painfully slow to grasp the potential.

Take Ezatollah Zarghami, a former hostage taker, as an instance. As the head of state-run TV, he has lost over 30 media workers in one of the most fatal accidents for journalists. But in his condolences, he just singled out his own staff, as if other journalists deserved the fiery flight.

His message merely reflects the suspicion with which Iranian politicians have looked down upon independent journalists.

The cat-and-mouse game will sadly last, forever.

It's Doomsday, Babe!

2005-12-05T17:33:00.000-08:00

"They broke his arms, his legs, and they shot at his feet. People who were arrested were taken to prison and most of them were killed there. The scene was frightening. Even women with babies were arrested. It was not Thursday. It was doomsday."

This is not a gruesome scene from a bloodcurdling novel on Armageddon, but what Ahmed Hassan Mohammad told a five-judge court chairing the trial of Iraq's ex-dictator Saddam Hussein.

Mr. Mohammad had witnessed how Iraqi security forces mauled and "minced" to death 148 men, women and toddlers after a botched assassination attempt on the former leader's life in 1982 in a Shiite village, north of Baghdad.

His sullen account of that gloomy day surely enraged Saddam in the dock. He furiously yelled a tempting headline: "I am not afraid of execution."

Does it really mean he is not a coward? Or is he?

Once I read a memorable quote from William Shakespeare, "Cowards die many times before their death, the valiant, though, die once."

Even if Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has pledged not to sign his ex-archenemy's death penalty, the dictator surely can feel determined hands clawing his shackles up from a dark and cold grave to pull him down.

The other day I was reading a book entitled Dropping a Pink Elephant by the former BBC presenter Bill McFarlan. The author argues a person who says, "I didn't have sexual relationship with that woman," can never, ever, convince people he is an innocent lamb, unfairly accused of sleazy misconduct and perjury as the leader of the world's sole superpower.

I also bet the disgruntled tyrant was cursing his former ruthless troops for not slitting the throat of this would-be witness, just like his ill-fated fellow villagers. It is, indeed, an intrinsic illusion of despots to assume that suffocating witnesses would bury the truth, leaving no chance for its resurrection.

These mighty rulers always underestimate peoples' inborn thirst to unearth and savor the truth. Their hollow belief that they can control even their endgame always leaves them disillusioned.

I am afraid those trying to put a "dirty dozen" ceiling on the charges against Saddam are just falling in the same fatal trap.

Their true motive for ignoring his other crimes against humanity, such as butchering Iranian people, is a hair-raising fear. They are afraid of being unmasked as ex-accomplices. After all, could a smart rank-and-file officer in the Ba'ath party jump so fast on the power bandwagon and stay put despite two self-initiated wars against it neighbors, all alone?

The defense team is expected to argue that Saddam executed a bunch of rebels and bandits bent on killing the leader of a sovereign country. The handiest counter-argument is: "Do sham referendums churn out genuinely representitive rulers?"

As the prosecutors try to refute the justification of Saddam's flamboyant lawyers, including former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, one question would keep my mind itching.

How can trampled people around the globe, especially in the tyrant-brimming Middle East, find a legitimate and sterile way to get ride of their necrophile leaders, scheduling their next meeting for the doomsday?

A Cowboy's Guide to Life

2005-12-04T17:13:00.000-08:00

* Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.
* The best sermons are lived, not preached.
* Your fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.
* If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with ya.
* Life ain't about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.
* It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.
* Keep skunks and politicians and lawyers at a distance.
* Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
* Words that soak into your ears are whispered ... not yelled.
* Meanness don't jest happen overnight.
* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.
* Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.
* Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.
* It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.
* You cannot unsay a cruel word.
* Every path has a few puddles.
* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
* Don't judge folks by their relatives.
* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.
* Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none.
* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
* It's better to be a has-been than a never-was.
* The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm. The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller.
* If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.
* If it don't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably ain't.
* Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.
* The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with looks at you in the mirror every mornin'.
* If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.
* Don't worry about bitin' off more 'n you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger'n you think.
* Only cows know why they stampede.
* Always drink upstream from the herd.
* Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.
* Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.
* Remember . Don't squat with your spurs on

My Other Fellow

My Perfect Birthday Gift

Blaming the British

Why Did You Kill Her?

Why I Published Those Cartoons

Where to Draw the Line

In Search Of The Real Google

Cartoons War

Our Kind of Punishment

Challenge My Taboos Respectfully

What makes a jape great?

Women on Top

Inspired to Write

The Secret Life of Stories

My Blind Conscience

I'm a Literary Whore

Hardwired for Religion?

Kenyan Prisoners Turn Saints

Year's List

Sore Throat and God

Quotes on Christmas

A Streetcar Named Disobedience

Christmas Bells

Mullahs versus the Bloggers

Media-Shy Khatami Becomes Blogger

'American Military Might is a Myth'

Perspective

Drink Fresh Snow

Me, Books and 2005

Top Global Media Stories for 2005

The Top Word Lists for 2005

March of the Indomitable, 2

The Myth Buster Courts Controversy

March of the Indomitable, 1

Internet Redefining Politics

Make Love and Peace

Mahmoud the Menace

Our Fine Hours

God Embraces Freedom of Speech

Cats Shed Crocodile Tears in Mice Tragedy

It's Doomsday, Babe!

A Cowboy's Guide to Life