Armaggedon in different traditions–and can “Operation Straight Up” make troops ‘rapture ready’

NPR has been running a series about end times religious thought, or “eschatology” from the perspectives of different religious traditions.

Particularly interesting was the Iranian belief in the messianic return of the 12th Imam as a precursor to Armageddon and how Christian thought regards this appearance of the “Mahdi” as the “anti-Christ”.

Another interesting detail: the Pentagon’s “Operation Straight Up”, which attempted to provide the American troops in Iraq with proselytizing material advocating a rapture type religion from the Left Behind book series–before publicity killed the deal. Troops were set to receive religious “taken up” materials in Arabic and a “left behind” type video game whose object is to kill non-born-again civilians.

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Jordanians Talk about Child Labor

Child labor continues to be a topic of interest in Jordan, probably discussed over tea, if I know my Jordanians. Here is the latest talk from the Jordan Times 8-23-07:

Society holds conference on child labour, education

IRBID (Petra) – The Family and Childhood Protection Society on Saturday organised a conference to discuss the relation between child labour and school dropouts. HRH Princess Sana Asem inaugurated the one-day event, where participants reviewed prospective solutions to address such a phenomenon. The society’s president, Kathem Kfeiri, said child labour is on the rise, noting that a total of 5,000 cases were detected in 1997, but the number had increased to 7,000 despite efforts exerted in this regard. Head of the Women’s Cultural Forum Fayza Zu’bi presented a paper on the significance of providing welfare for children and establishing cooperation between the school and the family. At the end of the conference, Princess Sana presented certificates of appreciation to those who contributed to child-related projects.

I notice three things:

1) Child labor is increasing. We don’t know what industry this is in or if it is across industries, but I have started to notice t-shirts with a “Made in Jordan” label here. Could it be the garment industry? At the same time there is a movement in the west for “fair trade” products.

2) The topic has a royal patron, which in Jordan can really help call attention to an issue. Princess Sana Asem, born 1960, has a B.A. in English literature and translation. She is married to Prince Asem bin Al Nayef, born in 1948, the son of Prince Nayef bin Abdullah I (a younger son of Abdullah I of Jordan) and Princess Mihrimah Sultan (grand-daughter of Sultan Mohammad Rashad of Turkey). One of the prince’s daughters by a previous marriage, Noor, is married to Prince Hamzah bin al Hussein.

3) One of the prospective solutions considered is “establishing cooperation between the school and the family”. Doesn’t that sound a lot like the PTA? I always wondered why Jordan doesn’t have any Parent Teacher Association.

Iranian Barbershops closed by religious police: Can the unibrow be far behind?

Religious police have closed some 20 barbershops in Iran as a part of a crackdown on “bad hijab” or unIslamic clothing. On the forbidden list are makeup, tattoos, hairstyles with gel where the hair stands up, and plucking eyebrows for men.

Plucking eyebrows?

I saw a barber who knew how to do this in the north of Jordan. A friend of mine had a rather wolfish look–widow’s peak, eyebrows growing close together and a huge Arab mustache. I walked around with his sister while he went in for maintenance. The eyebrow plucking he was adamant must be done with a string. The string is held between the barbers two hands and dragged across the skin. As it is dragged across the skin the thread twists. The hairs get caught in the string and are plucked. After my friend emerged from the barber, I realized he had a unibrow and needed frequent attention to keep from looking Neanderthal.

The hair-plucking trick with the string is common and women do it too. One day I went with my Iraqi neighbor to find a beauty salon with reasonably priced haircuts. We ended up paying around four dollars each. I didn’t know what I wanted, so the stylist said “I will give you a Versace cut” and it was pretty good too. My friend knew in detail what she wanted layered and so forth and her haircut was more of a process. At the end, the stylist pointed out some courser facial hair on her temples, a new price was negotiated, and out came the string, deftly rolled across her forehead. I couldn’t see a difference but she was enormously satisfied with her appearance.

After my friends’ experience with plucking hair, I started becoming more aware of the appearance of Arab men on the street. A surprising number of them look like they might have unibrows that are kept separated into distinct eyebrows only by a barber’s frequent attention.

I am picturing the new Iran, without barbered eyebrows. A chorus line of Iranian men comes on stage in the Monty Python tradition looking like they might be ready to burst into a chorus of Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! As they turn, you can see they each have a unibrow and look exactly like Bert as in Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.

Of course there is only one song that goes with Bert’s unibrow. The line of husky Iranian men bursts into a chorus of “Rubber ducky, you’re the one…”

National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq summary declassified

The intelligence community has declassified the summary of a longer National Intelligence Estimate report on Iraq. Here is a link to the text of the ten-page report. Here is a link to Sourcewatch.org which provides more links to analysis. Here is a link to the previous report from February 2007.

Turkey’s presidential campaign rhetoric heats up

Turkey’s prime minister, Tayyip Erdogan, is under fire from the press and other non-governmental institutions in Turkey’s latest battle over the candidacy of Abdullah Gul for the presidency. While the secular nature of the state of Turkey is guaranteed by the constitution, Gul is a former Islamist. Even worse, his wife wears an Islamic headscarf.

“The people who say that [Gul is not my president], must renounce their citizenship,” Prime Minister Erdogan said on television Monday, a reference to columnist Bekir Coskun of the nation’s largest daily newspaper, Hurriyet.

In an August 15 column Coskun had written that Gul would “not be my president”. “From now on no one can speak of a secular state… political Islam has taken another step forward.”

On Wednesday Erdogan’s critics started weighing in.

Leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Deniz Baykal:

“It is clear that tolerance, democratic thought and a sense of law does not lie behind these comments. How can the prime minister tell a respected journalist to leave Turkey?”

Radikal newspaper columnist Murat Yetkin:

Erdogan’s comments echoed those of far-right groups who in the past had used to say about Turkey “love it or leave it”.

Sedat Ergin, a columnist at leading liberal daily Milliyet:

“Prime Minister Erdogan showed the understanding of an autocratic leader. In the next statement, he may even send dissenting writers into exile.”

Turkey’s president is elected by the legislature. The first two rounds of voting were on 27 April and 6 May, where the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) was unable to get a two-thirds majority for Gul, after millions marched in public demonstrations for secularism. An election returned the AKP to power with a larger majority, and Gul was once again selected as the candidate.

The first round of voting on August 20 failed to elect Gul and a second round was scheduled for August 24.

Gul is expected to be elected on August 28 when only a simple majority of the legislature will be required. Unless, of course, the military steps in to prevent an Islamist government as they did in 1997.

Banned in Turkey: religious extremist demonstrates control of Turkish courts by banning WordPress.com

Hot diggety dog. I’m banned in Turkey.

Okay, everyone else with a wordpress.com blog is banned in Turkey too.

Apparently this is all the doing of a Moslem creationist and holocaust-denier named Adnan Oktar who is the author of the books written under the pen name Harun Yahya. As far as I can tell, Oktar has been accused in the Turkish courts of sodomy, sex with minors, blackmail, bribing public officials, carrying on defamation campaigns against a political rival and a movie star who refused to have sex with him, and oh yeah, illegal possession of guns. He is the named author of a huge array of books that one would think impossible for only one person to write, including a very expensive-looking anti-Darwin tome filled with glossy photos that infringe an a number of copyrights. The books are being given away in European countries.

Somehow Adnan Oktar (or Harun Yahya) also has enough hidden clout to get a Turkish court to issue an order banning all WordPress.com blogs from the country.

No one seems to be able to trace Oktar’s financial backing.

Email registration site protects your real email address from spam

I have just discovered a site for hiding your email address.

http://spam.la/

It’s supposed to be used for throwaway site registrations to prevent sites from getting your email address and sending you a lot of spam, but it looks like people are using it for adult sites too. An Email send to anyaddress@spam.la is supposed to be publicly accessible so if you register for something you (or anyone else) can go to the site a few seconds later to read the email or retrieve a password. The recipient does not see your Email address because you don’t give it out.