Electronic Scribblings

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A Teddy Bear called Mohammed

Please note: I am going to use a word here that may offend. I am doing it quite deliberatly knowing that it is an offensive term for many people and a term I would not lightly use in general circumstances. Oh, and this post is excluded from the public search thingy. 

Gillian Gibbons, a 54-year-old teaqcher in Sudan has been jailed for 15 days, and will be deported after serving it, for insulting Islam after allowing her pupils to name a teddy bear Mohammed. She escaped conviction on a more serious charge of inciting hatred, for which she could have faced 40 lashes or six months in prison

My thoughts?

She is in a country with different laws, Shira laws, which she should obey. She was obviously ignorant of how strictly the rules about insulting Muohammed were interpreted in Sudan, and is paying the price.

Now to put it in perspective, I live in the UK. Primarily white technically Christian and terribly PC.

antiques

If a teacher came to the UK and allowed the children in her care to name a teddybear Nigger there would be quite a lot of offense taken by parents, even if the children chose the name. There would be Serious Words and Tears before Bedtime. Possibly even risking charges on under Race Hatred laws ~ particularly if the teddy was the one in the picture!

Equally said teacher might be actually ignorant of the social and cultural history to the word. Might aNot Know that it was a HUGE No-No to use it and to allow small children to consider that this word acceptable under any circumstances. Even if said kiddies thought it was a cute name for a fluffy lovely huggable bear. Said teacher would Face Consequences.

OK: Think about it. were you offended by the Name I was giving my story bear? Probably. Maybe consider that I should not have used the Word even to illustrate my point, that as a white woman I had no right to even admit the word exists, or that I could use it under any cirucmstances let alone actually spell it out without using N- or N****r o even consider that is a step Too Far. That is the point. We (And I think most of my readers are UK, USA or Australia) consider it wrong to use.

UK law does not allow for physical punishment. And a racist word is not quite the same, although there could be confusion in the minds of small children, especially if they live in a community where it is OK to use between black friends etc. especially given a tendancy for it to be used in Music, or for some activists to try to reclaim it for themselves. Mohammed is a perfectly good name for a boy, but many many Muslims think it is grossly disrespectful to use for an object, or even a pet.

But then we go further: the Sky story that inspired this post: A Sudan sect has now used this as some sort of Evil Westerners Getting Away with Insults to Our Religion and has roused the population to scream for Gillian's death.

*sigh*  I would dispare but at least they do quote a voice of moderation & reason:

Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he was "appalled" at the decision. He said: "This is a disgraceful decision and defies common sense.There was clearly no intention on the part of the teacher to deliberately insult the Islamic faith."

Hey ho. Back to work I go. Really shouldn't get contentious issues into my brain at work.

Make sure Christmas doesn't crack your computer

BBC have an article about hackers using poisoned websearches to trick people to visiting malicious websites ~ believed to be chinese websites / russian crime group.

Oh fun.

The booby-trapped websites came up in search results for search terms such as "Christmas gifts" and "hospice".

Windows users falling for the trick risked having their machine hijacked and personal information plundered.

The criminals poisoned search results using thousands of domains set up to convince search index software they were serious sources of information.

Hackers hijack web search results

Random information

Thursday 29-Nov is 10p listing day on eBay ~IF~ you offer PayPal as a
payment method. (Yes, I have an eBay account, no I almost never use it!)

Staff at the UK's biggest mobile phone retailer, Carphone Warehouse, have
been caught misleading customers about Apple's popular iPhone handset.
~ or rather, suggesting that they need insurance that they don't. bad
carphone warehouse. No bikkit.

The Vault, a new gallery at London's Natural History Museum, will showcase a
collection of gems, crystals, metals and meteorites from around the world.
~ I want these!!! all of them!!! but not as much as Hubbie does *grin*
Must go visit (also need to go see the Terracotta army!)

Are you getting enough? ~ Sleep that is. A new report about modern
sleep habits and how they are making us more sleep deprived than ever
before. There is also a "major new exhibition on sleep at the Wellcome
Collection in London."

I love one of the comments on that article "There is no rest for the wicked
ones, but what have I done?" - Eddie, Edinburgh

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Overhead

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Taken only moments ago as I walked back to my office carrying my lunch. The phenomenon is called Iridescant clouds and I read about this courtesy of Astronomy Picture of the Day only a few hours ago. Mine is more like a simple rainbow, but in the clouds overhead. And no rain at all.

Heathrow consultation

length 14 weeks from 22 Nov 07 to 27 Feb 08 ~ we have just got our leaflet, being really quite close. There are also a number of exhibitions around the area. Go to www.dft.gov.uk/heathrowconsultation

Mango prefers Selfridges

Bags that is. Still no home internet so mobloging. I an glee I can but it is a pain in the fingers and I don't have a return key so on paragraphs :( I remain grateful I have what I do.

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I <3 chindogu!!! =^.^=

"In fact, Japan produces so many unusual inventions that it even has a word for them: chindogu, or "queer tools." The term was popularized by Kenji Kawakami, whose hundreds of intentionally impractical and humorous inventions have won him international attention as Japan's answer to Rube Goldberg.

His creations, which he calls "unuseless," include a roll of toilet paper attached to the head for easy reach in hay fever season, and tiny mops for a cat's feet that polish the floor as the cat prowls."

Perhaps it would have been better to compare him to Heath Robinson?

Japan's answers to crime

And thank you to cream_horn (on Livejournal) for finding this, and he in turn thanks Mr. Mines.

without internet

we have swapped internet provider from BT to BE. However they have swapped the line over but we do not have the (promised) welcome pack. So no easy spod for me. Oh woe. Mobspodding is the way to in for now.

LOLCats @ icanhascheezburger.com

moar funny pictures

I do find this funny, but .... sad.