Dr_Evil_Mouse

I can't believe I just discovered that in a golf thread of all things (I must have been bored - golf just doesn't work for me).

Hey, Paisley!

I have to say, the Tommy from Hull, on the second night, is absolutely killer. The band had definitely hit their stride.

That's priceless .

Here's a good start - 2007 List . I think there are others, but I suck at using the search feature here. Or maybe it's getting late and I'm tired.

You kidding, Schwa? Sounds like a smokin' show (the H-S-F gets great press especially), and that was just the nudge I needed to get me going with an etree account (thanks as always, Brad!).

and I'm pretty damn sure that the Dancin' to open the 2nd set in this show is FAR tighter than the famed 5-8-77 version.

Download it here.

Wainn. Can't get there from here; can't find a torrent of it anywhere, either. Suggestions?

What they said ^ . Hopefully it's still in full swing.

Damn - wish it could be a little bit more east of TO.

Sisters Euclid at Hugh's Room, Dec. 6

I can't stand him on Letterman, but damn is he talented and he's had a really cool life. If you haven't already, check out his biography. It's really interesting.

Ditto. Plus he has such a great little bit in Spinal Tap .

This should be interesting - tickets sold out faster than for any other event before at Roy Thomson, apparently.

Debate: Blair vs. Hitchens on Religion

Julia was among the first people I met out of this whole crew, back in the Gypsy Co-op days, and I remember how her vibrancy and love of life made such a deep impression from the start. There's no imagining this kind of loss, nor how you've been able to hold up. The love of your friends is there for you; draw deep from that well.

What a guy. I read a great article in Canadian Geographic recently on ragtime in Montreal through the 1920s, and what a hard time the musicians had - mainly because the RC church was coming down on them so hard. Cheers to the pioneers!

The benefits thing would be bound to be really, really complex, along with lots of other legal issues, but isn't life already pretty complex to begin with?

I find it funny that church and state never really had anything to do with marriage until early modernity, when they jumped in and claimed authority over it (which church has finally been getting elbowed out of). Polyamory works for some people, and there's no legal red tape around that - though I imagine the people that want the legal recognition or sanctification for it, in terms of polygamy, have their reasons.

Islam (and some kinds of African Christianity) makes an interesting test case. The stated rule there is that a man can only take on more than one wife is he is able and sworn to protect them all equally (and yes, this only works in one direction). No doubt this is very rarely the case. A secular legal apparatus around that might stand a better chance of ensuring that kind of protection.

I'm confused by that. Please explain.

But in the meantime - this is what freaks me out today:

BBC's Panorama claims Islamic schools teach anti-semitism and homophobia

[i'll gloss over the fact that Arabs are also Semites.]

Haroon Siddique

The Guardian, Monday 22 November 2010

BBC's Panorama claims Islamic schools teach antisemitism and homophobia

Thousands of British schoolchildren are being taught Saudi national curriculum, according to programme

Children in Islamic schools are being taught antisemitic and homophobic views from textbooks, the BBC's Panorama will claim tonight.

A textbook used in some weekend schools reportedly asks children to list the "reprehensible" qualities of Jews, according to the programme.

It claims to have found 5,000 Muslim schoolchildren being taught that some Jews are transformed into pigs and apes and that the penalty for gay sex is execution. Some textbooks are said to teach the correct way to chop off the hands and feet of thieves. A spokesman for the programme said the pupils, aged six to 18, attend a network of more than 40 weekend schools across the country which teach the Saudi national curriculum to Muslim children.

One book for children as young as six is said to ask them what happens to someone who dies who is not a believer in Islam – the correct answer is "hellfire".

Investigators claim to have also found a text for pupils aged 15 which reads: "For thieves their hands will be cut off for a first offence, and their foot for a subsequent offence."

British Schools Muslim Rules, which will be aired tonight on BBC One at 8.30pm, says other texts for the pupils are said to claim that Zionists want to establish world domination for Jews, a spokesman said.

Michael Gove, the education secretary, told Panorama: "Saudi Arabia is a sovereign country. I have no desire or wish to intervene in the decisions that the Saudi government makes in its own education system. But I'm clear that we cannot have antisemitic material of any kind being used in English schools."

At present, part-time weekend schools are not inspected by Ofsted but Gove said the educations standards watchdog would be reporting shortly on how to ensure part-time provision is better registered and inspected in the future.

In a written response to the findings, the Saudi ambassador to the UK said the teachings were not endorsed by the Saudi embassy.

Shortest. Read. Ever.

Bump!

Dang - there are a lot of songs I'd love to hear you do again.

I'll be hosting the Sunday open-stage at the Branch in Kemptville, 3-6. Bring an appetite - they do an amazing buffet (the chef has been profiled on CBC and elsewhere).

The Branch

(The website's a little behind - the Gram Parsons open-stage was a couple of weeks ago).

Booche, I'm looking at you...

I was really glad to see this had been done. The chapter in Sacks' book is brilliant. At one point they nearly lost him because he'd found his way into a New Age movement that treated him like some kind of super-enlightened being, because his inability to create new memories left him in a totally blissed-out state - all the while his tumour was growing and slowly killing him. I can't wait to catch the movie.

Isn't facebook enough?

Only if you want it to continue to kill this website.

) .

To be fair, I first saw that it was your birthday over there. Met you here first, though .

Happy bday!

Since no one else is asking me to sing these days, it sounds alright to me.

If I weren't cursed for getting gigs, you know I'd be all over this .

Wow.

Happy belated, Myrna!