Daily Archives: 6/1/2007
Mosque Rigidity
| 6/1/2007 | Posted by Patti under General |
Sadia Zaman, award winning journalist and broadcaster currently Director of In House Productions for Vision TV, has written an interesting piece in the Toronto Star today. We need articles like hers to remind us occasionally that not withstanding the awareness of Muslims which we see on our TV screens, usually via the media, there is a diversity of beliefs and views within their faith.
Not all Muslims believe in generating violence against us ‘infidels’, nor the subjugation of women or a range of other beliefs that are not necessarily in line with western practices. Regardless of their beliefs, it is rather clear that all Muslims have experienced the bias and distrust generated by a few in the wake of 9/11.
In her piece she writes about ‘traditionalists’ within her faith actively imposing their will on others. Her dismay at trying to attend mosque with her family and being forced to be separated by black clad conformist women she “can’t even look in the eye” due to the women’s garb not the writer’s inability.
Human nature being what it is, Zaman is not alone in her struggle to be a practising Muslim in sync with her perceptions of the faith. That struggle crosses religious lines. From my perspective as a Christian I have to struggle with the diversity and conflict between the ‘traditionalists’ aka ‘conservatives’ and the ‘liberals’ or ‘progressives’.
I’m fortunate in that I’m not confronted directly with that conflict in that it intrudes onto my time at worship. My nature being what it is, I suspect I would not take to being bullied by others at worship any more than in any other part of my life.
I empathize with Zaman’s struggle to be a faithful Muslim and to be true to herself. It is a human struggle.
Don’t Expect Spam to Change
| 6/1/2007 | Posted by Patti under General, The Web |
US authorities are busy high fiving themselves over the arrest of Robert Alan Soloway who is reportedly one of the world’s top spammers. A federal grand jury last week returned a 35-count indictment against Soloway, charging him with mail fraud, wire fraud, e-mail fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.
Authorities claim that we’ll notice a decrease in spam traffic arriving at our email inboxes. Don’t hold your breath. While Soloway is a top spammer, even among the top 10 in the world, he’s hardly the majority of spam. Spamhaus, a website which maintains a database of spammers around the world, claims that 80% of the world’s spam is generated by 200 spammers or spam gangs.
Spamhaus publishes a list of the top ten worst countries in the world for generating spam. Topping the list is the United States, currently with 1919 known spam issues. Canada comes ninth on that list with 120 known spam issues. That’s a list we can do with not being on.
Seems to me that while Soloway has grabbed a lot of attention, he is but a drop in the flood of spam arriving in our email. Not to diminish the accomplishment in nailing him. Every time one of them gets nailed and taken out of action it sets precedents to nail others.
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