sparrow chat

My last post dealt with the injustices, at least as seen through these Western eyes, of Sharia law; it’s harshness and lack of humanity. Since writing that article another Muslim/Western crisis has arisen, one I originally determined not to comment on as I had no wish to appear anti-Muslim, but as the Western media seems determined to whip up an anti-Islamic frenzy (at least, in America) I feel the need to instill a little understanding, if not sanity, to the situation.

The event referred to is the imprisonment in Sudan of British school teacher, Gillian Gibbons, for naming an innocent teddy bear, Mohammad.

In truth, however, my subject goes way beyond this single event. In many ways the jailing of Gillian Gibbons results from eighteen Saudi Arabian, and one Egyptian, hijackers committing the acts we now know simply as 9/11. Except, it was not so much from that act, as from the aftermath, that arose the events leading to Mrs Gibbon’s ordeal.

Recently, a blogger friend asked me this question:

“When you are outraged, do the words just flow or do you take time to pick and choose and rewrite?

Many years ago I learned perhaps one of the greatest and most relevant lessons it is possible for we humans to comprehend. It consists of just three words, which if we all adhered to them, would change the world we live in almost overnight.

It is this: “Don’t react; respond.”

Like everyone else, I get outraged at the many heinous crimes afflicting humanity today. Sometimes, I receive comments or emails railing against views I have chosen to express. I have a choice: either to react to those vituperations with similar rhetoric, or to calmly analyze what the protagonist is saying and offer my own measured response.

To answer the blogger friend’s question, when I am outraged I find it better to do nothing until the rage is passed, then I no longer feel the need to react, and I can address the subject with at least a modicum of logic and impartiality.

What has this to do with Gillian Gibbons and 9/11?

In the aftermath of 9/11, the world turned its sympathy and love towards the United States. Had America, in turn, chosen to respond to that sympathetic element, this planet would today be a different place altogether. Instead, under George W Bush, America chose to react to 9/11. We all know the results of that reaction. The aftermath has produced a split in the world between East and West. Muslims view the reaction of America to 9/11 as a holy war against Islam. The incumbent US administration has done nothing to counter that view.

America is known as a powerful nation and Muslims worldwide are frightened and insecure, fearing their religion will be taken away from them by the “Evil Satan” of America.

Let me suggest a possible scenario. First, I would point out that while teddy bears are imprinted in the Western psyche as cuddly, adorable, toys designed to make kids (and the more mature among us) feel secure and loved, this is not the case for Islamic children. Stuffed toys are not part of the Eastern culture. A bear is considered a violent, dangerous, animal in most parts of the Islamic world, so a stuffed one called Mohammad is tantamount to calling the the most holy prophet, violent and dangerous.

Now consider an American schoolteacher, say in Alabama or North Carolina, introducing the class to a pet mouse, and calling it “Jesus Christ”. Would not the strictly Evangelical Christian community raise vociferous objections to such a blasphemy?

I think so.

Don’t misunderstand; the charges against Mrs Gibbons are absurd in any logical person’s assessment. However, we’re not talking logic; this is not about response, it’s all about reaction.

The reaction from the more militant Islamic community in Sudan is based on fear. Fear of America, of the West, and most of all of George W Bush and his reactionary administration.

Most mature Islamic leaders, both in Sudan and throughout the world, condemn the reactionaries demanding Mrs Gibbon’s head on a silver platter, but it’s just another weapon for them to fight with. They know America is far too powerful to be kept at bay, should that nation choose to wage holy war against them. Mrs Gibbons is simply a pawn caught up in a reactionary game. Almost certainly, diplomacy will win the day and she’ll be released soon.

If you stamp hard on the paw of a dog, even a relatively friendly one, the sudden pain will cause it to instinctively try and bite you. It’s a pity that, as human beings, we have not yet evolved beyond the primitive instincts of a dog, and still have not learned that a considered response is superior to an instinctive reaction.

Filed under: Animal instincts

Posted under Sparrow Chat

I am happy to respect the personal beliefs of individuals, provided they keep them to themselves and don’t force them down the throats of others. When a dictatorship masquerading as a “kingdom” uses so-called religious laws to punish victims of violent crime, however, I believe it is time to speak out in protest.

Most will already be aware of the Saudi woman sentenced to flogging for being in a car with a man who was not her husband, even though the assignation resulted in her being gang-raped. Some may try to condone the punishment as a breach of Sharia law.

Personally, I condemn it out of hand as a breach of common humanity.

The greatest problem facing this world today is a surfeit of dictatorial powermongers using any means at their disposal to wreak havoc on the weak and unprotected. Such is the case with the Saudi Arabian regime, whose tyrant king is kissed by American presidents and banqueted by British royalty.

The latest twist in this gruesome saga is an admission by the woman, no doubt under torture, that she was having an affair with the man she met, and because she dared to seek an appeal her sentence was cruelly increased.

A Saudi “justice” minister stated the woman had, “confessed to doing what God has forbidden.”

It may well serve the purpose of such powerful and wealthy degenerates to propagate the idea of a “God” so disgustingly cruel and malicious it can applaud the application of its rules in this manner, but here is one individual who spits with contempt on such ideas.

The Christian “God” has been equally perverted by its so-called adherents into a crazed, merciless, abomination with no regard for decency or humanity. The purpose of this perversion? To bestow power and control on those who strip the minds of susceptible individuals and fill them with fear and degradation.

This world is rife with cruel manipulation and populace control, from the very wealthiest monarchs to the local priests and pastors, imams and clerics. Their religion is a warped black shadow hiding the truth behind all great religions.

That truth is: LOVE.

Love is missing from the minds of these people. Where is the love and concern for the Saudi victim of that most terrible act of aggression against a woman?

Without Love there is no religion. Without Love there is no humanity.

Jesus said: “Love ye one another as I have loved you.”

According to a hadith, Muhammad once said: “A true believer is one with whom others feel secure. One who returns love for hatred.”

One who returns love for hatred.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, where is the LOVE FOR HUMANITY in your darkly self-righteous, religious heart?

Filed under: False gods

Posted under Sparrow Chat

In his book, “The Informant”, Kurt Eichenwald reveals the extent of corruption rife in US industry, and at one industrial giant in particular, the Archer Daniel Midland Corporation of Decatur, Illinois. That corruption spills over into pollution. Eichenwald notes early on in his book how the stench from ADM fails to bother Decatur residents:

“Locals often joked it was just the smell of money being made.”

Five days of each week I drive past the filthiest, vilest, most stinking, particulate pollution I have encountered since the days of 1950′s Britain; days when factory chimneys belched forth their unchecked poisonous cocktails that directly resulted in dense, choking, smog killing thousands of people every winter.

Thankfully, British governments took action and forced industry to clean up its act. Now, strict pollution laws with efficient Environmental Health Departments to police them means most Brits can breathe clean, mostly unpolluted, air wherever they live in the country.

Heartland America is like 1950′s Britain.

There is a difference, however. In the US the government isn’t on the side of the people, as were the British governments of the fifties and sixties, it’s a tool of industry. The so-called Environmental Protection Agency is a farce, a pussy cat with no teeth.

Back in 1950′s Britain, the problem was local. Today, it is global. While much of the particulate pollution has gone from mainland Britain, gaseous emissions – the earth-warming gases of carbon dioxide, methane, and others, remain to some degree.

At the beginning of the 21st century, a protocol to the international Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed in principle, and entered into force in 2005. That preliminary agreement became well known as the Kyoto Protocol.

To date, 176 parties have ratified Kyoto. Two major exceptions are the US and Australia.

With a recent change of government in the latter continent it seems likely Australia will be on board quite soon. Indeed, Kevin Rudd, the new Australian prime minister, campaigned on signing up to Kyoto.

Once again, it seems, the United States under George W Bush is to be isolated. (Some will argue Canada is also not a signatory to Kyoto, but that is untrue. Canada signed, but for complex political reasons mainly involving its economic partnerships with the US, is faltering after a change of government).

It’s become fashionable within the United States to criticize the Kyoto Protocol as ineffective. George W Bush began this trend early in his presidency as an underhand means of defending his lack of any positive environmental policy. One would expect this type of reaction from such an intellectual midget, but sadly, Bush’s views have permeated through to many of the pseudo-intellectual liberal elite of this nation who, while condemning Bush’s policies, trash Kyoto as ineffective.

Kyoto may not be the complete answer to global warming, but I get a little tired of ‘Kyoto bashing’. Bush & Co have done enough of it, without supposedly saner individuals jumping on the bandwagon. Kyoto is a commitment. It may not be a particularly binding commitment but it’s a start. It’s better than no commitment, and the US, at a federal level, has made no commitment whatever to combat global warming. While everyone sits around intellectually debating what’s right and what’s wrong, the planet is blowing up in our faces.

Kyoto was never more than a baseline to build from, a show of willingness to participate. Industrialized nations who refuse to sign it put greed and power above saving possibly billions of lives.

The cry goes out, “Why should we suffer while China continues to pollute and will soon overtake America as the biggest polluter on the planet?”

Stop blaming China. China hasn’t caused the problem, and European governments were cutting environmental pollution, albeit for less global reasons, when the phrase hadn’t even been invented in the States. What the US needs is a government with teeth. One that legislates to force motor manufacturers to produce cleaner, more economical cars (French cars of two liter capacity regularly return over 60 mpg, and out-perform their US counterparts) and corporates to clean up their filthy polluting industries. Then, and only then, can they a) begin to pressure China, and b) criticize the Kyoto Protocol.

Much is being made of the individual’s contribution towards saving the planet. Industry makes more profits from producing products that help us be “greener”. Yet industry is doing little to put its own house in order, and compared to industry the individual’s efforts are a drop in the ocean, particularly when many of the “greener” products are produced by factories continuing to pollute.

The US has no federal legislation governing the emission of carbon dioxide by industry at this time. The EPA lists six major pollutants covered by the 1990 Clean Air Act, but CO2 is not among them, and even though emissions of the six pollutants are supposedly limited, industry disregards the legislation with impunity.

American isolationism doesn’t work anymore. We are now a global community facing a global threat that requires global solutions. The Kyoto Protocol was an attempt to make that happen. Nation’s are struggling to meet the demands of Kyoto and the situation is aggravated by a US determined to sabotage it in the short-term interest of capital gain.

Meanwhile, for five days each week I continue to drive past the filthiest, vilest, most stinking, particulate pollution I have encountered since the days of 1950′s Britain. It emanates from the Archer Daniel Midland Corporation and its (now) subsidiary, Tate & Lyle. In 2002, apparently the last year of available figures, the Political Economy Research Institute compiled its list of top 100 US polluters. The Archer Daniel Midland Corporation was ranked tenth, above the Dow Chemical Company.

Of course, in our town – a ‘company town’ – nobody objects, nobody complains.

It is, after all, “just the smell of money being made.”

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Is it to be the miracle that lifts Ford out of the red? Plenty are clamoring to purchase Ford’s 2007 Mustang Shelby 500 – the ’500′ designates the horsepower of this latest sports leviathan from the US motor company – but is it all it’s cracked up to be?

No, not according to the British TV car magazine, “Top Gear”, who tested the vehicle back in August and found, firstly, it was lacking horsepower – the car only delivered 447 – and, secondly, the handling was downright atrocious.

To quote one reviewer:

“Ford say this car has a live rear axle, which basically means it is a whacking great girder with a wheel at each end.”

While the Shelby 500 may be fast in a straight line, put it in any situation where it has to go around corners and it has the handling performance of a drunken elephant on roller skates.

But, “Hang on!” I hear you cry, “Sparrow Chat has never been a motoring blog. What’s it all about?”

Quite simply, the Mustang Shelby 500 is the epitome of everything that is wrong with the US automobile industry today.

For years we’ve been hearing of GM’s decline from No 1; Chevrolet’s gradual demise into the abyss of rusting hulks, and Ford laying off so many workers they may soon be down to one man working in his own garage – part time.

Toyota and Honda are sweeping the board in America while US car company executives scratch their heads and look more and more bemused. But they still insist on turning out huge six and eight liter monstrosities that would be laughed off the road in Europe.

European and Asian manufacturers like Renault, Citroen, and Volkswagen have been churning out small, turbo-diesel engines in their family saloons for fifteen or more years now. Engines that would blow the socks off a Ford Taurus or Chevy Malibu, even though they’re diesel-fueled and only half the capacity. My wife’s Honda Civic has a 1.6 liter engine that beats my 2.5 liter Pontiac away from every light.

Why? Better build quality; better engineering, and more priority on R & D than on lining US investors pockets.

For years, Americans have been tricked into believing US vehicles were superior to the European, or even Japanese models. Meanwhile, crazy DOT and EPA regulations made it uneconomical for foreign motor companies to compete dollar for dollar with home-produced brands in the US marketplace.

All that is likely to change given the high cost of fuel; even the new bio-gas and bio-diesel isn’t going to be cheap. How long then before the American consumer realizes a two-liter family saloon car is capable of returning a better performance than the 3.5 – 4 liters they’ve been used to, and with gas returns in excess of forty miles per gallon, and diesel consumptions of over fifty?

All this is nothing new. Let me make a personal comparison from twenty years ago. In 1987, Toyota was manufacturing a small, two-seater, sports car with a 1.6 liter, aluminum, twin-overhead cam, gas-fueled engine positioned behind the interior seats. They called it the MR2. It was capable of 115+ mph, cruised at around 5,500 rpm at seventy mph, and took your breath away. I know, because I owned one.

Development of the MR2 began in the 70′s, but was delayed and eventually given the green light in 1980. The first production model rolled off the lines in 1984.

On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, Pontiac was also developing a mid-engined, two-seater, sports car – the Fiero. Their first production vehicle also appeared in 1984. The one advantage of the Fiero over the MR2 was its plastic body. While Pontiac copied much of their design from the MR2, the mechanics were a total disaster. Toyota built a new 1.6 liter power unit specifically for the MR2; Pontiac used the old “Iron Duke”, a four cylinder, 2.5 liter, cast-iron mammoth from the 1970′s that barely returns thirty miles per gallon and was used in the Grumman USPS delivery vehicle from 1986. At it’s best it only managed around 85hp, compared to the 122hp of the much smaller MR2 power unit.

Toyota’s vehicle could accelerate from 0 – 60 mph in eight seconds. The Fiero? Well, I suppose it got there eventually.

I now own a 1987 Pontiac Fiero, so I’m well able to compare these two vehicles. As is often the case, the foreign car was just so much better than its American counterpart.

In fairness to Pontiac, they did produce a V6, 2.8 liter GT version of the Fiero, which is the vehicle most often seen in photographs today, but fuel economy was way down on the 32 mpg stated, as was the bragged 40 mpg for the “Iron Duke”. My Fiero, (38,000 miles) returns no more than 34mpg on the interstate, driven lightly.

The US motor industry’s obsession with huge, gas-guzzling, monsters will be its undoing. The premise: if you want to go faster build it bigger, is no longer the case. It can only be a matter of time before European manufacturers gain a US foothold. Volkswagen sales in this country are already rising steadily. Unless Ford, Chevrolet, and GM stop lining their own, and investor’s, pockets for a while and invest heavily in research and development to catch up with their European and Asian rivals, it will take more than the fancy looks of the ungainly Ford Mustang Shelby 500 to prevent them from sinking further and further into the motor manufacturing sunset.

Filed under: Rusting away

Posted under Sparrow Chat

Matt Frei, the BBC’s new man in America, has noticed the lack of Iraq news once permeating the US media. In his latest report, he notes the reduction in murder and mayhem in that country, or at least, the drop in news coverage of such events.

Frei puts it all down to the “surge”, that influx of US military might into Baghdad of an additional 30,000 or so troops. He’s probably right. Swamp any city with sufficient armor and you’ll get a reduction in enemy action. That’s exactly what the “surge”was all about.

The main BBC news headline tonight (Frei is the anchor) showed scenes of Iraqis returning from exile to the new ‘peace and tranquility’ of the Baghdad suburbs. In fairness, the report highlighted most Iraqis as returning from Syria, a country that is refusing to renew visas for Iraqi refugees, forcing them to return to their home country.

By contrast, NBC led with the rise in political fortunes of Mike Huckabee, ex-governor of Arkansas and Republican hopeful for presidential nomination. Huckabee, it seems, is preferred by Iowa evangelicals to that multi-divorcee and gun control freak (God have mercy on his soul!) Rudi Guiliani, or the cult follower from Utah (Damn him to Hell!) Mitt Romney.

Iraq, it seems, no longer exists for the US media or the White House.

America is holding its breath; afraid to pronounce judgment, even whisper the possibility of any improvement in that arena of unmitigated disasters long ago proven the stumbling block of a great nation, and the further undoing of a US president always unfit for public service.

Baghdad is certainly quieter. Iraqis generally had no love for al Qaeda, and some Sunni insurgents have been prepared to temporarily join forces with the US military to drive them out. Equally certain is the knowledge that both Sunnis and Shias are keen to see the Americans leave Iraq. It begs the question of how they will react when the Americans don’t go.

For, of course, the US is going nowhere. There may well be a troop reduction next year, it is an election year after all, but a substantial military and political presence will remain in Iraq permanently. Of that, as Gilbert & Sullivan’s Don Alhambra sang in the Gondoliers, “…..there is no manner of doubt, no probable, possible shadow of doubt, no possible doubt whatever.”

The race for the US Presidency is proving a timely diversion from the awkward, unanswered questions about Iraq. While Baghdad is quiet, turmoil still continues to reign elsewhere. Sunni and Shia, when not separated by American-built concrete walls, continue to kill each other with mundane regularity. Al Qaeda is still active outside Baghdad, and for a realistic insight into the problems occurring on a daily basis there is no finer website than “Iraq Today”.

The BBC’s Matt Frei may see hope in the returning refugees from Syria; George W Bush and his media supporters may wish the squabbling politicians preparing for Iowa continue to distract their compliant populace, but the stark truth is that Iraqis are still dying in large numbers, whether from bombs, revenge killings, or just inadequate essential services.

The day must surely come when Iraqis, both Sunni and Shia, will realize their country is to be permanently occupied by US Christian forces. On that day, it is likely the worm will turn with a vengeance, just as it did against the British in 1920.

For those who still doubt, read Robert Fisk’s June 2004 article in the Independent, entitled simply, “Iraq, 1917″.

As George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Read Matt Frei’s article on Iraq HERE.

Filed under: Forlorn hopes

Posted under Sparrow Chat

“First [the Dodo] marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the exact shape doesn’t matter,’ it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no `One, two, three, and away,’ but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out `The race is over!’ and they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, `But who has won?’ ~ Description of a Caucus Race from Alice in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll.

Brian Williams, anchor for the NBC Nightly News, announced yesterday the official race for the White House would begin in forty-three days with the Iowa Caucus.

It leaves one wondering where he has been for the last few years.

If memory serves correctly, the Caucus Race devised in Carroll’s book, “Alice in Wonderland” was a tortuous affair without official end, until everyone finally decided they’d had enough, and a winner was eventually chosen apparently at random.

While there are, no doubt, those who at least make pretense of understanding the American way of choosing their nation’s next leader, to those outside this inner political sanctum of doubtful knowledge the whole thing makes “Alice’s” Caucus Race appear remarkably logical by comparison. In fact, the tortuously meandering path of the US presidential election closely resembles this Wonderland jaunt.

The race was suggested as a way to dry-off a number of very wet creatures. Is their anything wetter than a US politician slavering over the White House and pawing at unwary voters?

The process certainly seems to drag on without end, and the final outcome appears to bear little relation to all that preceded it.

Primaries, secondaries, CBS polls, MSNBC polls, straw polls, debates for Republicans, debates for Democrats (for God’s sake don’t let them get together, there’ll be a bloodbath!), the spending of billions and billions of dollars, huge luxury buses hurtling round the country, thousands of hangers-on supporting their man (or woman), endless TV debates by pseudo-experts with as much idea of the political outcome as had Alice’s Dodo………..

And all for what? So once again a glitzy, pearl-teethed, dumbass can make a total mess of the world for another four years, or longer.

Check out the history and it’s obvious there has never, ever been a good president of the USA. Every one has cocked up the job one way or another. Sure, some have managed to do a bit better than others, but overall their credibility ratings have been decidedly lackluster, and frequently downright appalling. Even the one perhaps remembered with greatest fondness, Abraham Lincoln, could hardly be described as lily-white, given that in 1862 he ordered the largest mass execution – of 38 innocent Santee Dakota Sioux – in American history.

Lincoln also suspended Habeus Corpus and arrested thousands of US citizens, including journalists. There is also evidence he was a racist and hated blacks, despite being feted for abolishing slavery. Probably, he would be less well remembered had someone not assassinated him in 1865. America remembers its assassinated presidents with obliging affection. The far-from-perfect JFK is another fine example.

The US political system is probably one of the most flawed on the planet. It falls only slightly short of downright military dictatorship. Instead, it balances precariously between that and a rough pretense at democracy, with the latter conveniently cast aside whenever US policy requires a more direct approach, as amply demonstrated by the present incumbent.

Indeed, just as the birds and small creatures of the Caucus Race crept quietly away at the mention of Alice’s favorite cat, it would seem Lady Democracy is also slipping silently into the American political basement, as Congress cedes more and more of its power to one very dubious human being in the highest office on the planet.

How long, one wonders, before a newly-elected appears at the presidential inauguration dressed in the attire of the Queen of Hearts, while occasionally screaming, “Off with his HEAD!”

Filed under: Curiouser and curiouser

Posted under Sparrow Chat