The Iconoclast

From the Daily Mail and the Sunday Times. There is speculation as to why Sir David Amess, a backbench MP whose interests were his own constituency and certain charities should have been the target for Ali Harbi Ali, the son of a former media spokesman for the Prime Minister of Somalia. His family live ...Read More...

Urantia Book, Paper 2, part 1: 1. The Infinity of God 2:1.1 (33.4) “Touching the Infinite, we cannot find him out. The divine footsteps are not known.” “His understanding is infinite and his greatness is unsearchable.” The blinding light of the Father’s presence is such that to his lowly creatures ...Read More...

From The Telegraph and the Guardian Counter-terror police are leading the investigation into the attack. In a statement on Friday night, the Metropolitan Police said the investigation has "revealed a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism".   ... the Metropolitan police said the senior ...Read More...

From the Telegraph and The Times Police have arrested a 25-year-old Somalian man on suspicion of murdering the Conservative MP Sir David Amess, who was stabbed multiple times at his constituency surgery. Essex Police said a 25-year-old man had been arrested, and officers were not looking for anybody ...Read More...

We (me, friends, family) have been following this all afternoon, Leigh on Sea near Southend (East London's nearest seaside) being relatively local to me and the home of several friends.  He had been an MP for constituencies (they change borders and names every few years) in South Essex for nearly 40 ...Read More...

Reported in Murcia Today and The Olive Press According to those newspapers websites Spanish National Police, working with Europol, in an initiative named Operation ARBAC, swooped on the homes of the five suspects and seized amunition and instruments for forging documents.  During the operation ...Read More...

by Lev Tsitrin Leo Tolstoy Somehow, the recent NER post, "Sally Rooney refuses to allow new novel to be published in Hebrew over views on Israeli-Palestinian conflict"  left a nagging feeling in my mind that there was more to it than just a display of wilful ignorance that is rooted in antisemitism. ...Read More...

OSLO, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The man suspected of killing five people in a bow-and-arrow attack in Norway had converted to Islam and police had been worried over signs of his radicalisation, regional police chief Ole Bredrup Saeverud told a news conference on Thursday. A 37-year-old Danish citizen is ...Read More...

From the Norwegian edition of The Local. This was all unfolding yesterday evening. According to Norwegian Public broadcaster NRK the police do not rule out terror.  A 37-year-old Danish national has been charged over the killing of five people in a bow and arrow attack in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg, ...Read More...

by Reg Green Nicholas, 27 years ago, on the lower slopes of the Matterhorn in Switzerland, a few days before he was shot by two minor Mafia figures on the Naples to Sicily autostrada who mistook our car for one delivering jewelry. Like many other high school kids I writhed my way through a few ...Read More...

by Richard Kostelanetz  I remember the Austrian-born film director Billy Wilder introducing his American-educated collaborator, I. A. L. Diamond, as his “translator” especially skilled at “telling me which preposition to use.” The truth is that the wrong preposition in English can be revealing, ...Read More...

by Michael Curtis Kathleen Stock Person who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusions. The cancel culture continues in academia and in general society, though rejoinder is becoming more pronounced, and lack of sensible behavior and speech is all too evident.  Identity affiliation increasingly ...Read More...

by Phyllis Chesler  Pauline is sitting alone, I am sitting with Merle Hoffman. My generation is going, going, gone. Pauline must be the 150th feminist friend and colleague who is no longer here on earth. She was a great trouble-maker as well as a first-rate academic sociologist, researcher, ...Read More...

From the Telegraph and the Times. Sally Rooney is a young irish novelist and this new book is her third. I had never heard of her until last year when a previous book was made into a TV series. All three of Rooney's novels have been showered with praise by critics for her minimalist writing style ...Read More...

by Phyllis Chesler Our romance is over, the dream has died. I just saw the new Bond movie. To me, it was an unending series of special effects and video game dramas, full of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  No one was believable and thus, nothing made much sense. I could not empathize with ...Read More...