A British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting Islam's Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear Muhammad..The naming of the teddy happened months ago and was chosen by the children because it is a common name in the country...Ms Gibbons, who joined the school in August, asked a seven-year-old girl to bring in her teddy bear and asked the class to pick names for it, he said. "They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and Muhammad," Mr Boulos, the school's director said, adding that she then had the children vote on a name. Twenty out of the 23 children chose Muhammad as their favourite name. "This happened in September and the parents did not have a problem with it," he said.
The school has been closed until January for fear of reprisals. Fellow teachers at Khartoum's Unity High School told Reuters news agency they feared for Ms Gibbons' safety after receiving reports that men had started gathering outside the police station where she was being held...The BBC's correspondent Amber Henshaw said Ms Gibbons' punishment could be up to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine.
If, four decades ago, the Vietnamese were "gooks," "dinks," and "slopes," the Iraqis of the American occupation are "hajis," "sand-niggers," and "towel heads." Latent racism abets the dehumanization process, ably assisted by a mainstream media that tends, with honorable exceptions, to accept Pentagon announcements as at least an initial approximation of reality in Iraq.
Whether it was "incidents" involving helicopter strikes in which those on the ground who died were assumed to be enemy and evil, or the wholesale destruction of the city of Fallujah in 2004, or the massacre at Haditha, or a slaughtered wedding party in the western desert of Iraq that was also caught on video tape (Marine Major General James Mattis: "How many people go to the middle of the desert.... to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilization? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive."), or killings at U.S. checkpoints; or even the initial invasion of Iraq itself, we find the same propaganda techniques deployed: Demonize an "enemy"; report only "fighters" being killed; stick to the story despite evidence to the contrary; if under pressure, launch an investigation; if still under pressure, bring only low-level troops up on charges; convict a few of them; sentence them lightly; repeat drill.
Welcome to the jackboot state, not to mention the jackboot campus, anno domini 2007. A doctor gives verbal advice to protect the life of an unconscious man and she duly gets hit with attempted felonies by vindictive campus cops, with the connivance of the University of Michigan. (Her trial starts today)...
From 'Defend Wilkerson':
As the senior medical professional on scene, Dr. Wilkerson took responsibility for the well-being of a middle-aged man who was forced by police to the floor. The man, at least twice, told the two police officers on top of him, "I can't breathe." After he lost consciousness, Dr. Wilkerson exhorted police to get off him and allow her to check his breathing and pulse. Wilkerson later protested when Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel adopted a punitive, potentially dangerous approach and breached ethical medical practices by forcing ammonia into the man's nostrils and face. It was at this time that she was physically assaulted and detained by Ann Arbor police. To this day, Wilkerson still requires physical therapy for the shoulder injury she needlessly suffered at the hands of Officer Warner. Wilkerson was never handcuffed or even required to produce identification because she had committed no crime in advocating for a patient in her care. However, nearly two months after the incident and just seven days after she filed a police brutality complaint, she was charged by the Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie's office, at the request of the UM police, with two attempted felonies—one against Officer Warner and one against the EMS personnel.
I can't be arsed to post on the ludicrous fuss over the Oxford Union and its invitation to David Irving and Nick Griffith except to say that there is something bizarre about protesting that these two men are to be allowed to speak in a debate about...erm...free speech. Best Buy is even counting unused gift cards as a source of revenue: "...in its fiscal 2006 annual report, the retailer Best Buy revealed a $43 million gain from gift cards that were unlikely to be used."
If the way that five former chiefs of the defense staff stood up in the Lords yesterday and condemned the government for its failure to "adequately" fund the armed forces smacked of a campaign being got under way, then you'd most certainly be right. What few of the reports of their speeches has made clear is that all five Lords, Boyce, Guthrie, Craig, Bramall and Inge also share something else in common - all are either patrons or vice-presidents of the recently formed United Kingdom National Defence Association.There's gold in them there wars.
Appearing on Fox News on April 7, 2004, Perle said, “We’re making so much progress with most Iraqis that those who feel threatened by the progress are more devoted and more energetic than ever to try to destroy the progress we’re making.”
