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The home internet got restored on Monday. I have been happily over-indulging in the big backlog of material I missed in the almost-two-weeks I was disconnected. My "Hiptop Slide" phone went above and beyond the call of duty, it was my main connection to the web for two weeks and stopped me going completely withdrawal-crazy.
^_^
In other news, here's the sort of news we keep not hearing:
Muslims refuse to bury militants
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7758651.stm
Indian Muslims say they do not want the gunmen killed by the security forces during the attacks in Mumbai to be buried in Muslim graveyards.
Community leaders believe the militants cannot be called Muslims because they went against the teachings of Islam and killed innocent civilians.
One leader said the militants had "defamed" the religion.
Now...it's easy to criticize this as "too little, too late" but it's a important step in my opinion. It's a mass rebuke of terrorism. It's also not the first such majority rejection of terrorism from Islamic/Muslim populations.
I'd prefer it if that were more widely circulated, which would be a very effective deterrent. It's a bit hard for a homicide bomber to think "I am doing this for Islam and for my people" when their people are telling them how much it is an atrocity to them and their religion.
Which brings up the point that we (in the 'west') keep hearing about the radicals from the mainstream media, and keep hearing about the latest atrocity from the mainstream media...we get some fear whipped into us, for ratings, then our attention is directed to the next disaster (and away from all the other people saying they oppose what happened).
For example the political protests in Thailand. The mainstream news is full of how Australians are trapped by the protectors occupying the airport(s) in Bangkok. If we are to believe our local mainstream news outlets, only Australians travel in and out of Thailand and only Australians are affected by protests there. In reality people of many nationalities have been affected, but not only that there is an outcry from large swathes of Thailand's population (in particular the tourism industry) saying it is wrong to stop people coming and going, and it's doing incalculable harm to Thailand's economy and reputation.
There is always a story behind the news, and too often it is not told.
Here's a random lolcat:
more animals
And I couldn't sleep, from about midnight onwards, and got up around 4am.
...so, in other words, I was away for two weeks and it's still business as usual in the world.
^_^
^_^
In other news, here's the sort of news we keep not hearing:
Muslims refuse to bury militants
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7758651.stm
Indian Muslims say they do not want the gunmen killed by the security forces during the attacks in Mumbai to be buried in Muslim graveyards.
Community leaders believe the militants cannot be called Muslims because they went against the teachings of Islam and killed innocent civilians.
One leader said the militants had "defamed" the religion.
Now...it's easy to criticize this as "too little, too late" but it's a important step in my opinion. It's a mass rebuke of terrorism. It's also not the first such majority rejection of terrorism from Islamic/Muslim populations.
I'd prefer it if that were more widely circulated, which would be a very effective deterrent. It's a bit hard for a homicide bomber to think "I am doing this for Islam and for my people" when their people are telling them how much it is an atrocity to them and their religion.
Which brings up the point that we (in the 'west') keep hearing about the radicals from the mainstream media, and keep hearing about the latest atrocity from the mainstream media...we get some fear whipped into us, for ratings, then our attention is directed to the next disaster (and away from all the other people saying they oppose what happened).
For example the political protests in Thailand. The mainstream news is full of how Australians are trapped by the protectors occupying the airport(s) in Bangkok. If we are to believe our local mainstream news outlets, only Australians travel in and out of Thailand and only Australians are affected by protests there. In reality people of many nationalities have been affected, but not only that there is an outcry from large swathes of Thailand's population (in particular the tourism industry) saying it is wrong to stop people coming and going, and it's doing incalculable harm to Thailand's economy and reputation.
There is always a story behind the news, and too often it is not told.
Here's a random lolcat:
more animals
And I couldn't sleep, from about midnight onwards, and got up around 4am.
...so, in other words, I was away for two weeks and it's still business as usual in the world.
^_^
