The Apostate Temptation By Mark Silk on June 25, 2010 (from http://www.spiritual-politics.org ) On June 29, 1106, a Jewish intellectual named Moses Sephardi had himself baptized into the Catholic church in Huesca, Spain. Taking the name Peter Alfonsi, he went on to achieve fame throughout Christian Europe as an astronomer and author. In his Dialogues against the Jews, he presents his present self arguing against his former self in the most important anti-Jewish polemic of its era. Just as Peter Abelard (at just the same time) established the Western model of the Parisian celebrity philosopher, so Peter Alfonsi established the … Continue reading Sexy Apostates or Simple Twits?

History is Powerful Why the Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters By Frederick Clarkson The Public Eye Magazine The notion that America was founded as a Christian nation is a central animating element of the ideology of the Christian Right. It touches every aspect of life and culture in this, one of the most successful and powerful political movements in American history. The idea that America’s supposed Christian identity has somehow been wrongly taken, and must somehow be restored, permeates the psychology and vision of the entire movement. No understanding of the Christian Right is remotely adequate without … Continue reading Christian Right Distorts History and Why it Matters to all of us

Why ‘Toy Story 3’ plays with men’s emotions Across America, Toy Story 3 is moving grown men to tears.Tom Teodorczuk wonders what all the fuss is about By Tom Teodorczuk telegraph.co.uk Toy Story 3: ‘We have come to love and care about Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toys’ The scene is surreal even by the standards of New York, where characters are located on every street corner. In the midst of a stampede of children exiting a Manhattan cinema as the credits roll on Toy Story 3, grown men stagger out of the auditorium wiping tears from behind … Continue reading Toy Story 3 is messing guys up!

by Faria Syed Vinod Masani, owner of the boat Kasab hijacked suggested that he be hanged at national monument, Dehliâ��s India Gate. PHOTO: AFP According to an AFP report two Pakistanis are to be executed for drug smuggling in Yemen. Their  trial began in December last year and is likely to end in front of a firing squad.  Ajmal Kasab, bad guy extraordinaire, is another Pakistani waiting for justice through death. He has appealed the  sentence. Mujahid Abdullah, Abdul Hai and Saleem Zaman, three men found guilty of involvement in an attack on a police check-post in Mianwali that claimed the lives eight … Continue reading Would you kill a killer?

By Syed Talat Hussain The writer is executive director news and current affairs at Aaj TV (syed.talat@tribune.com.pk). If someone with no sense of geography and national politics had landed in Pakistan the day after Stanley McChrystal lost his job he would have surely thought that perhaps a Pakistani general, and not US and Nato forces commander in Afghanistan, had been sacked for insubordination. Such deep interest among the top decision-makers in Islamabad about the sorry fate of the man leading counter-insurgency in Afghanistan goes far beyond a legitimate anxiety about the impact of his removal on the nature and direction … Continue reading McChrystalisation of national policy

By Fawad Shah Around 20 would-be militants have left Karachi for training KARACHI: “Congratulations, your son has embraced Shahdat” the parents of a young militant were told by an unknown caller about a month ago. They are the parents of a young man, Ejaz, who was killed in Nakhtaroghar area of Orakzai agency when security forces shelled a training camp there. They had received confirmation about their son’s death from none other than the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The couple, who lives in Gulshan-e-Iqbal, said that they received a call from an unknown person. “We did not tell him to become … Continue reading All aboard the militants’ train

Dawn Editorial Along with the religiosity spewed by many television channels, school books have helped create regressive mindsets that the madressahs approve of. If the religious schools have had a smaller impact it is not because they are more tolerant but because their relatively low enrolment rate limits their reach. – Photo by AP. Editorial Fake degrees Fake degrees A report by the Brookings Institution has belatedly discovered what academics in Pakistan have been saying for over a decade. It is now being pointed out that the public school system in the country stokes militancy in Pakistan more than anything else. … Continue reading Militant education

By Huma Yusuf dawn.com Ethnic Uzbek women react near a polling station during a referendum in the city of Osh, June 27, 2010. Kyrgyzstan’s interim leader voted on Sunday in Osh, epicentre of a wave of ethnic bloodshed, in a referendum likely to pave the way for the creation of Central Asia’s first parliamentary democracy. – Photo by Reuters. The recent violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, which left 2,000 people dead and led to the displacement of over 100,000 others, entailed clashes between the region’s two main ethnic groups, the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. But the dust has barely settled on the … Continue reading Militancy in check?

Smokers’ Corner: The punishing verdict By Nadeem F. Paracha dawn.com According to the said survey 89 per cent Pakistanis say they think of themselves first as Pakistanis, rather than as members of their ethnic groups; yet the country is always standing on the edge of ethnic, sectarian and inter-sectarian strife. We like to call ourselves moderate Muslims, yet our thinking is clouded by fantasies of a violent religious order emerging from artificially induced memories of some glorious mythical past of a Utopia. Good news: Only 10 per cent Pakistanis recently surveyed by a leading US research group have any liking … Continue reading The punishing verdict

 Movies that scare for life: Viewers left with fears for years Scared for life: Many women are uncomfortable in the shower because of this scene in the film Psycho Terrifying films can leave viewers with life-long fears, says an academic. Professor Joanne Cantor questioned hundreds of adults and found that women who have seen Psycho are often frightened to go into the shower, while the threat-laden soundtrack of Jaws can make men tremble. It, the 1986 film based on a Stephen King novel, shows a clown attacking children in the bathroom, after coming in through the toilet or shower … Continue reading Movies that scare