These are all the Blogs posted on Friday, 18, 2009.
Friday, 18 December 2009
A Despatch From Keighley
One Yorkshire town, three news items, one common theme.
From The Telegraph, at the bottom of a news item about the family prestige murder of Tulay Goren. Anne Cryer has been commended at this site on a number of previous occasions. Ann Cryer, the Labour MP for Keighley, near Bradford, who has campaigned to raise awareness of honour crimes, said local councils in areas with large ethnic minority populations remain reluctant to confront the problem because it is such a politically sensitive issue.
She said: “It is a real struggle to get this issue out in the open because instead of looking after the human rights of vulnerable young women you get accused of doing down the Asian community.
“One of the difficulties is that you have very large extended families in places like Bradford, which are very influential, and local councillors are afraid of upsetting them because they think they will lose votes. As a result local authorities are reluctant to talk about this issue.
“But I know from experience that for every male vote you might lose for speaking out you will gain a female vote, and I just wish politicians would realise you don’t need to fight shy of this.” First item from The Keighley News
An exhibition to dispel misconceptions about Islamic attitudes towards women has been held in Keighley Library.
Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Women’s Association held the exhibition, which has been touring libraries across Bradford district.
Samina Haque, a volunteer organiser at the association, said: “This is to erase misconceptions and show the true teachings of Islam.
“A lot of people think that women are oppressed in Islam and that we’re not entitled to have things such as the right to an education, the right to divorce or the right to inherit. In fact, Islam is the opposite of this and has given us all these rights since the sixth century. People still have a very negative image of Islam but we’ve had positive feedback from when we held the display in Baildon and Bradford.”
She said the event was meant to inform Muslims as well as non-Muslims, as not everyone practised the religion in the way it was meant to be followed.
Leave aside that Ahmadiyyas are persecuted by other Muslims even in this country they have never renounced jihad. Second item from The Keighley News
A woman motorist was attacked as she sat at traffic lights in Keighley town centre.
The 23-year-old was spat at and punched through the open window of her car and an attempt was made to grab her keys.
Police said they were treating the incident — which happened at about 5pm, on Saturday, in North Street, at its junction with Bow Street — as racially motivated. If you look at the photo in the website it could be the centre of any town. The attackers, a group of Asian men, hurled racial abuse at the woman. A comment from a local man:- not the first time incidents like this as happened.at this traffic light where are the cameras? hopefully the attackers will be caught ( but i doubt it ) compensation for pulling a veil of a muslim womens face is 1000 pounds how much for this lady being punched and spat at.at least it,s treated as racially motivated. are these the same cowards that throw bricks through peoples windscreens up Highfield lane? You see the connection?
On Christmas Day in 1863AD one of the USA’s great poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), composed the following poem entitled ‘Christmas Bells’:
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!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
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!"
As you can plainly read this poem is not just about the promise of Christmas which was at the time being betrayed in that great fratricidal Civil War, but it also came from the heart and says something about Longfellow’s state of mind. Two years prior to writing this he had lost his wife in an accident at their home in which she died from injuries sustained when her clothing caught fire and he himself was badly scarred as he attempted to save her. His trademark beard was grown to cover the painful scars on his face which made shaving a penance.
About a month before penning the words of this poem his son, Lieutenant Charles Appleton Longfellow was severely wounded at the Battle of New Hope Church, VA, during the Mine Run Campaign (late November into early December in 1863AD). The poet’s deep despair and downcast state of mind is plain for all to read in his private journal.
However, the Christmas Carol we all know and love (‘I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day’) didn’t come into being until over a decade later:
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.
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.”
Sometime during or after 1873, John Baptiste Calkin (1827-1905), an English Professor of Music, set the words to one of his own tunes. However, his is not the tune which is most often heard today, that honour goes to a tune composed by Johnny Marks (he of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ fame) sometime in the 1950s.
Now, the poet Longfellow was no slouch when it came to learning and you can plainly see that he used much of the ancient symbolism of Christmas – bells, chanting voices in unbroken song, despair (the ‘for-lorn’ referenced in yesterday’s Part IV of this series of posts on Christmas Carols) changed to hope through the Saviour’s coming and the final stanza’s pealing of the bells ‘more loud and deep’ which is nothing more or less than the ancient ‘magic’ of percussion used long before Christ’s coming in order to summon the divine to ones service – the Divine which isn’t dead nor sleeping, but awaits our call to it (in both senses of that phrase).
Many of the complexities of our society’s millennia old symbolism is still represented here in a Carol penned in the late nineteenth century of our modern era by a great and well-educated poet of the New World. The fact that the poet’s own despair gave rise to the words somehow, for me, just reinforces the symbolism; and it puts this popular modern Carol firmly into the ancient tradition of our Western world – it’s just another step along the road of our incredibly rich and evolving culture.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) signed on Wednesday a cooperation agreement with NASA to set up the first moon and asteroid research center in the country, Saudi Press Agency reported.
According to the agreement, the Saudi Lunar and Near-Earth Object Science Center will be an affiliate partner to NASA Lunar Science Institute
at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.
"The international interest in lunar science and, more recently, near earth objects led to the establishment of the Saudi Lunar and Near Earth Object Science Center as a focal point for lunar science and near earth objects studies in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Prince Turki Bin Saud Bin
Mohammed al-Saud, the vice president of KACST Research Institutes, said.
The agreement of cooperation comes "within the scope of the memorandum of understanding on science and technology signed between the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States of America last year and later ratified by the cabinet," Prince Turki added.
"NASA's Lunar Science Institute exists to conduct cutting edge lunar science and train the next generation of lunar scientists and explorers... Our international partnerships are critical for meeting these objectives,"deputy director of the institute Greg Schmidt said.
U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Smith, considered the partnership agreement an "important advance" in the U.S. growing program of bilateral science and technology cooperation, affirming that it will help realize President Obama's goal of increasing cooperation on science and technology with the Islamic world.
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If this is about anything more than pretending Saudi Arabia can somehow be a partner in research, in order to extract Saudi money, it's a bad idea. And there should never be any real cooperation with any Muslim country on "science and technology." See A.Q. Khan, allowed to work in two Western labs. See all those Iranians who were taught by other Iranians who received their training in science and technology in the Infidel West, and who are now busily working on nuclear weapons.
Listening to music during CPR training could improve technique
(Research: Effect of listening to Nellie the Elephant during CPR
training on performance of chest compressions by lay people:
randomised crossover trial)
Listening to music during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)
training may help people keep to the recommended compression rate,
according to a study in the Christmas issue published on bmj.com
today.
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is an important lifesaving technique
that can be effectively taught to most people. When initiated by a
bystander one to two minutes before emergency services arrive it
can double survival rates.
Mentally singing the nursery tune Nellie the Elephant is sometimes
recommended during CPR training because of its appropriate rhythm and
tempo to help individuals keep a rate of 100 compressions per minute,
as recommended by UK Resuscitation
Council guidelines.
So a team of researchers from the Universities of Birmingham,
Coventry and Hertfordshire, and the West Midlands Ambulance Service
NHS Trust, set out to test whether this really does help lay people
to improve their CPR performance.
A total of 130 staff and students at Coventry University,
untrained in CPR, were given a brief demonstration on a resuscitation
manikin and had one minute to practise while listening to a metronome.
Participants were then asked to perform three sequences of one
minute of continuous chest compressions accompanied by no music,
repeated choruses of Nellie the Elephant by Little Bear, and That's
the Way (I Like It) by KC and the Sunshine Band via headphones.
Both songs were chosen for their appropriate tempo - 105 beats per
minute (bpm) for Nellie the Elephant and 109 bpm for That's the Way
(I Like It).
Listening to Nellie the Elephant significantly increased the
proportion of participants delivering compression rates at close
to 100 per minute (32%) compared with 12% for no music and 9% for
That's the Way (I Like It).
Unfortunately, it also increased the proportion of compressions
delivered at an inadequate depth.
As current resuscitation guidelines give equal emphasis to correct
compression rate and depth, listening to Nellie the Elephant as a
learning aid during CPR training cannot be recommended, say the
authors.
An earlier pilot study used the Bee Gees song Stayin' Alive.
The BMJ authors suggest that further research is required to
identify music that, when played during CPR training, improves chest
compression performance. Potential tunes include Another One Bites
the Dust by Queen, Quit Playing Games (With my Heart) by the Backstreet Boys, and Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus.
Contact:
Malcolm Woollard, Professor in Pre-hospital and Emergency Care,
Pre-hospital, Emergency and Cardiovascular Care Applied Research
Group, Coventry University,
Truth And Beauty, So Be Sure To Bring Your Tape-Measure
Here is a thoroughly scientific new Truth about Beauty:
Beauty is between eyes, mouth of the beholden
by Karin Zeitvogel Fri Dec 18
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as in the measurements between the eyes, mouth and ears of the woman being observed, US and Canadian researchers have found.
In four experiments aimed at finding "an ideal facial feature arrangement," US and Canadian researchers asked students to compare color photographs of the same woman's face, in which the vertical distance between the eyes and mouth, and horizontal distance between the eyes, had been doctored using Photoshop.
The features -- eyes, mouth, nose, contour and hair -- remained the same and a woman's face was only compared to her own, never to another's.
Students looked at different pictures of the same woman's face laid out side by side and selected the face they found more attractive.
In all four experiments, they chose the faces with specific proportions that the researchers have dubbed the "new golden ratio."
Two of the experiments tested for the ideal distance between the eyes and mouth as compared to total face length, measured from the hairline to the chin. Both came up with 36 percent as the golden ratio for "the maximally attractive face."
The other two experiments measured both the ideal length and width ratios.
They both confirmed 36 percent as the golden ratio for the length of the maximally attractive face, and 46 percent as the ideal width ratio -- where the distance between the eyes is 46 percent of total face width, measured between the inner edges of the ears.
Happily, the 36/46 percent ratios "correspond with those of an average face," the study said, meaning there's no pressing need to get out the measuring tape and calculator or to rush to the plastic surgeon.
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See that girl over there? I call that piece a wonder now, but maybe I'm wrong, maybe my eyesight or the fading light is fooling me. I need to be certain. Say, can I borrow your measuring tape?
And is there a wayu for the muliebrine to fudge those measurements, as in the days of pin-up girls, of Vargas vamps, of Lana Turner (as Johnny Stompanato to his dismay found out) and Jayne Mansfield and the rest of the entertainment world's supermagioratti
There may as yet be no equivalent of falsies fitting for faces (fa;ses are still are put -- or now stay put -- on the obvious places), but there may be other ways to cook the beauty books and improve the looks through some form of deception..Wasn't there a fine Italian hand behind the last Golden Ratio or Rule of Beauty, the hand of the mathematician, Fibonacci, the one responsible for that silly chant that starts:
"One point six one eight
Who should we appreciate?"
Here is the father of bluegrass music, Bill Monroe, and the Bluegrass Boys doing his classic from 1945, "Footprints in the Snow." This video was probably recorded sometime in the early 90's.
What the bloody hell is a "holiday season"? Where has this "Happy Holidays" malarkey come from?
It's brass monkeys out there, yet Americans are apparently stripping off to their swimming trunks (or whatever they call them), grabbing a bucket and spade and sporting a little stick of Blackpool rock. And this abomination is creeping into England. Away with it.
Catherine Ashton, I suspect, has never understood the legal, moral, and historic claims of Israel to those parts of Judea and Samaria (the terms used uninterruptedly in the Western world for more than 2000 years) that the Jordanians, when they seized that territory in 1948-49, carefully renamed as "the West Bank." She may be unaware that the only reason the Arabs have a claim is that of military possessor, or occupier, which claim they lost when they lost the territory in 1967. Israel, on the other hand, does not have a claim that rests solely on being a (temporary) military occupier. Its claim rests on the legislative intent, and the express language, of the League of Nations' Mandate for Palestine.
Perhaps Catherine Ashton has not read the relevant documents including the records of the Mandates Commission. She really ought at least to read, and carefully re-read, the Preamble to the Mandate for Palestine, especially the parts about encouraging "close Jewish settlement" on the land -- the "land" in question including all of the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, that is including what is now so tendentiously known as "the West Bank."
She should supplement this by looking into the most exhaustive study of the legal status of the territories that Israel won in the Six-Day War, written by Professor Julius Stone, an Australian lawyer and a celebrated writer on jurisprudence, hailed by, among others, Dean Roscoe Pound of Harvard Law School. Once she has read and thoroughly assimilated that book's contents, perhaps she will be qualified to speak on the subject and will have learned not to use -- even if the BBC and The Guardian and a great many other places continue to use - that loaded, but most inaccurate Homeric epithet, "occupied" in front of the phrase "West Bank." The territory is, according to the Mandate for Palestine, part of that assigned to the Jewish National Home. That Great Britain, in 1921, even before it had formally assumed its responsibilites as Mandatary authority, unilaterally refused to apply the Mandate' s provisions to fully 78% of the territory originally assigned to the Mandate, that is to all of Eastern Palestine, out to the desert, which became the Emirate of Transjordan and then, in 1946, the Kingdom of Jordan, was outrageous enough. For anyone at all, for say Catherine Ashton, to think that she can get away with applying this word "occupied" to land that was always meant to be part of Israel, is outrageous.
She should be knocked about, and knocked about again, until she learns a little something. It isn't too late. She'd better.
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