| Police action over TV film 'undermined free speech'
MPs have accused West Midlands Police of seeking to undermine freedom of speech by making a "perverse" complaint about a Channel 4 programme that exposed extremism in a British mosque. Police claimed that the Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque misrepresented the views of Muslim preachers and clerics through misleading editing. The programme featured undercover recordings from speakers alleged to be homophobic, antiSemitic, sexist and condemnatory of nonMuslims. West Midlands Police rejected calls to take action against the preachers for stirring up racial hatred. Instead, they pursued a complaint against the film-makers, accusing them of undermining community relations. But Ofcom, the media watchdog, threw out the police complaints. It found that the programme had "accurately represented the material it had gathered and dealt with the subject matter responsibly and in context".
Column: Undercurrents: For Commercial Development in Oakland, Look Beyond Downtown
Development battle opponents are often depicted as pro-development on one side, anti-development on the other, but that's almost always a mischaracterization. Just as it would be virtually impossible for someone to be in favor of all development, regardless of what that development happens to be, you never run into someone who is against any and all development. The questions for both sides always is: what type of development are we talking about? Where will it be located? And, probably most important, what portions of the community will it benefit? When Jerry Brown was mayor of Oakland, bless his heart, he was wonderfully successful in casting all of the battles over his various development proposals as pro-development/anti-development, charging that anyone who stood in opposition to what he had put on the table was interested in a stagnating, moribund Oakland that would eventually sink back into the Lake Merritt tidepool and estuary marshlands from which it had been wrought.
Tell Me About It: Tell friend rejection didn't hurt
Dear Carolyn: I have been friends for two years with a guy I volunteer with in the community. I told him (in a roundabout way) that I wanted to be more than friends. He then avoids me for almost two weeks and says he's more interested in developing himself as a person. When he told me this, I accepted that he just wanted to be friends. But he seems to avoid me or approach me with kid gloves. Do I let him continue to treat me this way until he sees from my behavior that I'm not devastated by his lack of romantic interest? -- J. Dear J.: He's probably trying to be sensitive to your feelings, by being careful not to "encourage you" or "send the wrong message." But treating your feelings as if they might be contagious "sends the wrong message" of a different sort.
News in brief
Here are a selection of brief news items from this week's paper edition, and possibly a few news briefs that didn't make it in the paper. Salvation Army kicks off '07 campaignThe Salvation Army of La Crosse will kick off its 2007 Christmas fundraising campaign with an event at the center court of Valley View Mall (in front of Macy's) starting at 5 p.m. today (Friday, Nov. 16).Entertainment will be provided by the La Crosse Girlchoir and the Cordiero Woodwind Quintet from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.The Christmas campaign goal for 2007 is $450,000, with $125,000 to be collected in the red kettles at 22 locations in La Crosse and Onalaska.Funds raised during Christmas aid in providing programs and resources to thousands of people in need throughout the year.Volunteer bell ringers can sign up online at bells2ring.org or by calling 782-6126.People can donate to an online kettle at www.onlineredkettle.org.
Monks resume protest against Burma rulers
RANGOON, Burma - More than 100 Buddhist monks marched peacefully yesterday in a northern Burma town noted for its defiance of the country's military rulers, the first large protest since the junta violently crushed a wave of antigovernment demonstrations. The monks marched for nearly an hour in the town of Pakokku, chanting a Buddhist prayer that has come to be associated with the prodemocracy cause. They did not carry signs or shout slogans, but their action was clearly in defiance of the military government, as one monk spelled out in a radio interview. "We are continuing our protest from last month as we have not yet achieved any of the demands we asked for," the monk told the Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norway-based short-wave radio station and website run by dissident journalists.
Tibetans have gained 5cm height in India: Research
IT SEEMS that not only has the Dalai Lama � the Tbetan spiritual leader � gained in stature after he was given asylum in India where he heads a Tibetan government-in-exile. Anthropologists at Kolkata�s Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) say that even ordinary Tibetans born and brought up on Indian soil are taller than the original Tibetan highlanders! New studies show that Tibetan men and women between the ages of 18 and 40 who were raised at low altitudes in India are on an average about 4 to 5cm taller than their counterparts in Chinese-administered Tibet. The path-breaking research was conducted by Ranjan Gupta, head of the ISI�s biological anthropology section, and another scholar, Vikal Tripathy, who probed how Tibetans � the world�s longest-surviving high altitude residents � are adapting to the low altitude environment in India.
Teaching the Science of Life at GCE A/L
An education is not complete without the activities no doubt; but there should be a balance between the curricular and extra - curricular activities. Thankfully the Minister of Education has decreed that some of these activities should be held only during week - ends or during school holidays. Whatever is said and done I still hold the view that the science syllabuses are too long and cannot be completed satisfactorily during the limited time in schools. Some of it is covered as tutorials. I am not surprised at all about the thriving private tuition classes. They stolidly march through the syllabus for they do not have to think about practical work or even feedback in the form of tests. The most striking change in the educational reforms of 1977 - 98 was reducing the four Advanced Levels subjects to three.
Community Meetings
THIS WEEK Archaeological Society of South Carolina, Hilton Head Chapter 7 p.m. Nov. 20, Coastal Discovery Museum, 100 William Hilton Parkway, Hilton Head Island. Martha Zierden, curator of Historical Archaeology since 1981 at the Charleston Museum, will speak. Free and open to the public. Call 943-784-5363. Mulberry Grove Foundation 7 p.m. Nov. 20, Orthopedic Center, 210 E. DeRenne Ave. Individuals interested in preserving the site of the invention of the cotton gin and the reward for winning the American Revolution to Gen. Nathanael Green. Call 238-4275. National Federation of the Blind of Chatham County 2:30-4:30 p.m. Nov. 24, Thomas Francis Williams Court, 1900 Lincoln St.
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