Audible Sale and Maggie in the Wild
8 hours ago
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Joy, Hope, Freedom
"To achieve democracy the people should be united. that is very clear. It is a very plain fact," ... "If there is no unity of purpose we shall be unable to achieve anything at all"
Friday, November 12, 2010
Palate Cleanser #131
I want to be there. Click on the image to make it large. Get lost in it.
Image credit: Keith Hulbert and Paul Zarucki
Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) are small flowers which carpet the ground in many woodland areas in Britain in the springtime. The photo was taken in the late afternoon in May. The avenue of trees makes for a pretty scene.
The photo was taken in a patch of woodland called Dockey Wood between Hurst Farm and Ivinghoe Common (see link below to map) located about 1 mile from Ringshall on the north side of the road to Ivinghoe Beacon. It is just in Buckinghamshire.
Principal text © Keith Hulbert and Paul Zarucki
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
My Weird Brain
Snow Geese, New Mexico
Photograph by Ralph Lee Hopkins, National Geographic
This Month in Photo of the Day: Animal Migration Photos
Snow geese in New Mexico’s Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge flock along the Rio Grande.
Sky and Water by M.C. Escher
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Palate Cleanser #130
Hwy 27, Palm Beach County
Off Krome Avenue, Miami-Dade County
Images: Chris Colluras, Sky-Chaser
Monday, November 8, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Sakineh to be Executed Wednesday, November 3?
Mina Ahadi and the International Committee Against Stoning are reporting that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani is to be executed in Tabriz by hanging on Wednesday, November 3rd. Ashtiani, whose sole remaining attorney and adult son were arrested on October 10th along with two German journalists, had been convicted of adultery and flogged 99 times when first interned in 2006 for the crime of adultery. Reportedly, she had confessed to committing adultery with two men after being tortured. She recanted but was tried a second time and convicted again with the sentence of death by stoning. Over the following years two men implicated in her husband's death were convicted but not sentenced to death, while miraculously, in mid-2010 the Iranian regime then declared that Ashtiani had also been convicted of her husband's murder and was to be stoned for his death. They trotted her out on Iranian TV and in an interview got her to say that yes, yes, she was so very guilty and everyone should just stop saying that she shouldn't be treated whatever way the Iran's sharia justice (oxymoron?) decreed. Then Iranian authorities said the case was under review. Then they suspended the stoning sentence. Now they say they'll be quite happy to just hang her.
As The Guardian points out, and as I've discussed on this blog, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced the US for their hypocrisy over our application of the death sentence. Ahmadinejad was right that it was hypocritical for the US to assail Iran's use of the death penalty. The problem is that our being wrong doesn't make him, or his judicial system, right.
Whatever she did, and there are certainly a number of indicators that she did absolutely nothing, her death at the hands of Iran's judicial system will achieve nothing more than to grant an imprimatur to the image of Iran as a country of barbarism and staggering human rights violations.
Is hanging better than stoning? Certainly for the victim. But it completely misses the point, doesn't it?
There is no right way to execute Sakineh.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Palate Cleanser #128
Monarch Butterflies, Mexico
Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic
This Month in Photo of the Day: Animal Migration Photos
Millions of monarch butterflies travel to ancestral winter roosts in Mexico's shrinking mountain fir forests. Surfing winds from southern Canada and the northern U.S., they travel thousands of miles, taking directional cues from the sun.
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