|
|
|---|
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
E.T. phone Rome. Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.
"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.
Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.
Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.
Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.
"Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe," he told a news conference Tuesday. "There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe."
Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues "whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds."
Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican's daily newspaper.
The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.
Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system — including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away.
"If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound," he said.
This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions.
In the interview last year, Funes told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God.
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said in that interview.
"Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom."
Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered "part of creation."
The Roman Catholic Church's relationship with science has come a long way since Galileo was tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant his finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.
Today top clergy, including Funes, openly endorse scientific ideas like the Big Bang theory as a reasonable explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
Earlier this year, the Vatican also sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."
The event snubbed proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher being rather than the undirected process of natural selection behind the evolution of species.
Still, there are divisions on the issues within the Catholic Church and within other religions, with some favoring creationism or intelligent design that could make it difficult to accept the concept of alien life.
Working with scientists to explore fundamental questions that are of interest to religion is in line with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made strengthening the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.
Recent popes have been working to overcome the accusation that the church was hostile to science — a reputation grounded in the Galileo affair.
In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the ruling against the astronomer was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."
The Vatican Museums opened an exhibit last month marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first celestial observations.
Tommaso Maccacaro, president of Italy's national institute of astrophysics, said at the exhibit's Oct. 13 opening that astronomy has had a major impact on the way we perceive ourselves.
"It was astronomical observations that let us understand that Earth (and man) don't have a privileged position or role in the universe," he said. "I ask myself what tools will we use in the next 400 years, and I ask what revolutions of understanding they'll bring about, like resolving the mystery of our apparent cosmic solitude."
The Vatican Observatory has also been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the gap between religion and science. Its scientist-clerics have generated top-notch research and its meteorite collection is considered one of the world's best.
The observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is based in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the hills outside Rome where the pope has his summer residence. It also conducts research at an observatory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.
On the Net:
Vatican Observatory,: http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo
"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.
Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.
Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.
Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.
"Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe," he told a news conference Tuesday. "There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe."
Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues "whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds."
Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican's daily newspaper.
The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.
Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system — including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away.
"If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound," he said.
This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions.
In the interview last year, Funes told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God.
"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said in that interview.
"Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom."
Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered "part of creation."
The Roman Catholic Church's relationship with science has come a long way since Galileo was tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant his finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.
Today top clergy, including Funes, openly endorse scientific ideas like the Big Bang theory as a reasonable explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.
Earlier this year, the Vatican also sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species."
The event snubbed proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher being rather than the undirected process of natural selection behind the evolution of species.
Still, there are divisions on the issues within the Catholic Church and within other religions, with some favoring creationism or intelligent design that could make it difficult to accept the concept of alien life.
Working with scientists to explore fundamental questions that are of interest to religion is in line with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made strengthening the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.
Recent popes have been working to overcome the accusation that the church was hostile to science — a reputation grounded in the Galileo affair.
In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the ruling against the astronomer was an error resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension."
The Vatican Museums opened an exhibit last month marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first celestial observations.
Tommaso Maccacaro, president of Italy's national institute of astrophysics, said at the exhibit's Oct. 13 opening that astronomy has had a major impact on the way we perceive ourselves.
"It was astronomical observations that let us understand that Earth (and man) don't have a privileged position or role in the universe," he said. "I ask myself what tools will we use in the next 400 years, and I ask what revolutions of understanding they'll bring about, like resolving the mystery of our apparent cosmic solitude."
The Vatican Observatory has also been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the gap between religion and science. Its scientist-clerics have generated top-notch research and its meteorite collection is considered one of the world's best.
The observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is based in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the hills outside Rome where the pope has his summer residence. It also conducts research at an observatory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.
On the Net:
Vatican Observatory,: http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo
THIS ELEGANT SPORT IS SOMETHING OUT OF A HEMINGWAY NOVEL. THE CHARACTERS ONE FINDS AT A FRONTON ARE LARGER THAN LIFE!
Jai-alai is one of the world's fastest sports.
When Mexico decides to adopt another country’s sport, they tend to splurge and build the world’s biggest facility to showcase their new passion. They did it with the British game, soccer: the Stadio Azteca is up in the top two on the planet in the number of spectators it can accommodate, and was the largest for some years. (See footnote). After hundreds of years of supporting bullfighting, brought by the Spaniards, they built the mammoth Monumental Plaza de Toros, far bigger than any arena elsewhere in the world, seating around 100,000 screaming aficionados.Then it was the Basques turn, their favourite sports were held on the Fronton Court: Jai-alai, and the others, so the sumptuous Fronton palace was constructed on Mexico City’s Republic Square in 1929, where it began a series of ups and downs until finally failing and closing its doors in 1996.
Jai-alai, the forerunner of the games played on the Fronton, hails from Pais Vasco, the Basque Country, known in their singular and mysterious language as “Euskadi.” The game has won acceptance in most Hispanic countries, as well as the United States, after Americans crossed the border at Tijuana to the Fronton Palace there. (And “Tijuana” means “Auntie Joan” - Tia-Juana - in case anyone was waiting with bated breath for that piece of utterly useless trivia).Jai-alai (trivia booklets ready) means Happy Fiesta in the Basque tongue. The game can trace at least some of its roots back to the mysterious East; and the same roots can be traced back to the Chinese from the games played on a similar ball court by the Aztecs and other pre-Hispanic nations. The game has been modified over the years to the blurringly fast and furious game it is today. Unfortunately, in Mexico and the Americas, it has also acquired a cancer - betting - along the way, which has changed and strangled the sport. This, despite the fact that gaming was what made the sport popular in Mexico and helped to sustain it as various presidents tinkered and interfered, finally watching it fade in the public’s interest.
The modern ball court - the Fronton - is a three walled enclosure, with a floor to ceiling wire mesh net separating the action from the fans. This is because the hard ball, or pelota, travels well in excess of 140 miles per hour and can kill or maim. Despite argument, the three fastest moving balls in any sport, in order, are: golf ball, jai-alai ball and hockey puck, not a ball, but a struck projectile all the same. Number fourth fastest “balls” are on a tom cat with a 5 yard start on a vet aiming to castrate him! (I apologise for that).Games are contested as singles (one against one), or two pairs, much as in tennis. The ball is gathered by the right-handed player in his “cesta,” the curved, wickerwork throwing basket and hurled against the front wall, the “frontis.” (Sorry, PC’s, no lefties in jai-alai). In pair play, the front two men are the “delanteros” and the rear guards the “zaguaros.” The far, or right-hand wall, has a series of marks showing whether the rebound from the front wall is fair or not. The server, as in handball and squash, tries to make the ball return in a manner difficult for his opponent or opponents. Some of the better shots have cute names, like “chic-chac” or “chula.”Players leap like gazelles to trap the pelota in their cesta, using friction to scale the side wall and the wire in front of the fans.99.9 percent of the players of the game come straight from the Basque Country. Rather like bullfighting, which has seen few matadors worth their salt from anywhere outside Hispanic countries, jai-alai has rarely been mastered by non-Basques. When I reported on the game (and collaborated to write a special for the BBC in 1994), there were 20 team members at the Fronton Mexico - all Basques, who could make more money in the New World; I doubt if that is true in 2009.In the bowels of the building in Mexico’s capital, a small but busy cottage industry has grown making the equipment used by the “pelotaris” or players. They are using skills handed down for centuries. Each cesta, or basket, has to be tailor-made for the player. They are woven from tough and durable reeds which have to be imported from Brazil. As they cost $300 apiece back in about 1996, the pelotaris expected to get more than a year’s use from one.The balls are even more of a manufacturing challenge. Martin, who inherited the job from his father - and grandfather before him - listens intently to the “ping” the ball makes as it is carefully bounced on a special concrete slab. He checks the tone against that emitted from a crystal goblet tapped with a glass rod. He says the sound tells him whether the ball will fly and rebound true with the characteristics the players demand. The discards are relegated to a box marked “for practice.” Martin can only manage to complete 100 of the hardy, cork, rubber and leather balls per year. He shakes his head and sighs, “This means we have to import more balls from France that are just not as good and cost much more, about $100 each. I empathized, we had the same problem in the UK with Peugeots. (These comments applied to the last time the facility was open).What jai-alai is really about is gambling. This is considered by lovers of the game to be a great shame. In Mexico back then there was little studying of form. You just chose the player you liked the look of and signalled one of the bookies. They were part of the scene, smartly attired in red blazers and berets. They took your bet and immediately put it against one of the spectators who preferred the other team. If your chappie won, you collected from the window and a commission was charged, which is how the management made its cut.The author of this article is not aware of the current situation with the Fronton Palace in Mexico City, although everything on the Internet points to it still being closed and defunct. Back in the day. Miguel del Rio, a Tijuana businessman, was the entrepreneur who kept things alive. There is no doubt betting was fixed regularly and profits were skimmed off well before the tax man got a look at the profits. All this is common everywhere, but more so in Mexico where the “mordida,” or bite is the bribe that fixes everything.The Palace is (was then) a beautiful if fading, hall of entertainment which has played host to the who’s-who of the country for 100 years. (less those years it was closed on several occasions). Jai-alai is a wonderful spectator sport that has actually featured in several Olympics. The ball has hit several players in the head and killed them; it was once shown breaking a piece of bullet-proof glass (Fact!).I doubt if the Fronton Palace will open again. It would cost to much to refurbish all the expensive decorations on which money was not spared. And there is not the money to bet with the world-wide recession. A great shame, it was a marvellous night out with posh restaurants and bars and the “pock-pock” as the pelotas hit the frontis; the visitors all attired in suits and gowns…an era whose time has past, more’s the pity.
Footnote: Brazil's Maracana Stadium held the most people for some years (200,000) but this was reduced when more seats were added to much less. The largest now is Pyongyang's Rungnado May Day Stadium, holding 150,000 fans (it may have held soccer there). This leaves Mexico's Azteca Stadium firmly in second place with room for 126,260 screaming Chilangos (Capital dwellers).
Jai alai (pronounced /ˈhaɪ.əlaɪ/ in English and [ˈxai aˈlai] in Basque) is a variety of Basque Pelota (called Cesta Punta in Spanish). The term is loosely often also applied to the fronton (the open-walled playing area) where the sport is played.
The Basque Government promotes jai alai as "the fastest sport in the world" because of the balls' speed, although Badminton and Golf have actually seen faster speeds on average, and once held the record for world ball speed with a 125g–140g ball covered with goatskin that traveled at 302 km/h (188 mph), performed by José Ramón Areitio at the Newport Jai Alai, Rhode Island, until it was broken by Canadian long drive champion, Jason Zuback on an episode of Sports Science in July 2009 with a golf ball speed of 328 km/h (204 mph).[1]
Jai-alai is one of the world's fastest sports.
When Mexico decides to adopt another country’s sport, they tend to splurge and build the world’s biggest facility to showcase their new passion. They did it with the British game, soccer: the Stadio Azteca is up in the top two on the planet in the number of spectators it can accommodate, and was the largest for some years. (See footnote). After hundreds of years of supporting bullfighting, brought by the Spaniards, they built the mammoth Monumental Plaza de Toros, far bigger than any arena elsewhere in the world, seating around 100,000 screaming aficionados.Then it was the Basques turn, their favourite sports were held on the Fronton Court: Jai-alai, and the others, so the sumptuous Fronton palace was constructed on Mexico City’s Republic Square in 1929, where it began a series of ups and downs until finally failing and closing its doors in 1996.
Jai-alai, the forerunner of the games played on the Fronton, hails from Pais Vasco, the Basque Country, known in their singular and mysterious language as “Euskadi.” The game has won acceptance in most Hispanic countries, as well as the United States, after Americans crossed the border at Tijuana to the Fronton Palace there. (And “Tijuana” means “Auntie Joan” - Tia-Juana - in case anyone was waiting with bated breath for that piece of utterly useless trivia).Jai-alai (trivia booklets ready) means Happy Fiesta in the Basque tongue. The game can trace at least some of its roots back to the mysterious East; and the same roots can be traced back to the Chinese from the games played on a similar ball court by the Aztecs and other pre-Hispanic nations. The game has been modified over the years to the blurringly fast and furious game it is today. Unfortunately, in Mexico and the Americas, it has also acquired a cancer - betting - along the way, which has changed and strangled the sport. This, despite the fact that gaming was what made the sport popular in Mexico and helped to sustain it as various presidents tinkered and interfered, finally watching it fade in the public’s interest.
The modern ball court - the Fronton - is a three walled enclosure, with a floor to ceiling wire mesh net separating the action from the fans. This is because the hard ball, or pelota, travels well in excess of 140 miles per hour and can kill or maim. Despite argument, the three fastest moving balls in any sport, in order, are: golf ball, jai-alai ball and hockey puck, not a ball, but a struck projectile all the same. Number fourth fastest “balls” are on a tom cat with a 5 yard start on a vet aiming to castrate him! (I apologise for that).Games are contested as singles (one against one), or two pairs, much as in tennis. The ball is gathered by the right-handed player in his “cesta,” the curved, wickerwork throwing basket and hurled against the front wall, the “frontis.” (Sorry, PC’s, no lefties in jai-alai). In pair play, the front two men are the “delanteros” and the rear guards the “zaguaros.” The far, or right-hand wall, has a series of marks showing whether the rebound from the front wall is fair or not. The server, as in handball and squash, tries to make the ball return in a manner difficult for his opponent or opponents. Some of the better shots have cute names, like “chic-chac” or “chula.”Players leap like gazelles to trap the pelota in their cesta, using friction to scale the side wall and the wire in front of the fans.99.9 percent of the players of the game come straight from the Basque Country. Rather like bullfighting, which has seen few matadors worth their salt from anywhere outside Hispanic countries, jai-alai has rarely been mastered by non-Basques. When I reported on the game (and collaborated to write a special for the BBC in 1994), there were 20 team members at the Fronton Mexico - all Basques, who could make more money in the New World; I doubt if that is true in 2009.In the bowels of the building in Mexico’s capital, a small but busy cottage industry has grown making the equipment used by the “pelotaris” or players. They are using skills handed down for centuries. Each cesta, or basket, has to be tailor-made for the player. They are woven from tough and durable reeds which have to be imported from Brazil. As they cost $300 apiece back in about 1996, the pelotaris expected to get more than a year’s use from one.The balls are even more of a manufacturing challenge. Martin, who inherited the job from his father - and grandfather before him - listens intently to the “ping” the ball makes as it is carefully bounced on a special concrete slab. He checks the tone against that emitted from a crystal goblet tapped with a glass rod. He says the sound tells him whether the ball will fly and rebound true with the characteristics the players demand. The discards are relegated to a box marked “for practice.” Martin can only manage to complete 100 of the hardy, cork, rubber and leather balls per year. He shakes his head and sighs, “This means we have to import more balls from France that are just not as good and cost much more, about $100 each. I empathized, we had the same problem in the UK with Peugeots. (These comments applied to the last time the facility was open).What jai-alai is really about is gambling. This is considered by lovers of the game to be a great shame. In Mexico back then there was little studying of form. You just chose the player you liked the look of and signalled one of the bookies. They were part of the scene, smartly attired in red blazers and berets. They took your bet and immediately put it against one of the spectators who preferred the other team. If your chappie won, you collected from the window and a commission was charged, which is how the management made its cut.The author of this article is not aware of the current situation with the Fronton Palace in Mexico City, although everything on the Internet points to it still being closed and defunct. Back in the day. Miguel del Rio, a Tijuana businessman, was the entrepreneur who kept things alive. There is no doubt betting was fixed regularly and profits were skimmed off well before the tax man got a look at the profits. All this is common everywhere, but more so in Mexico where the “mordida,” or bite is the bribe that fixes everything.The Palace is (was then) a beautiful if fading, hall of entertainment which has played host to the who’s-who of the country for 100 years. (less those years it was closed on several occasions). Jai-alai is a wonderful spectator sport that has actually featured in several Olympics. The ball has hit several players in the head and killed them; it was once shown breaking a piece of bullet-proof glass (Fact!).I doubt if the Fronton Palace will open again. It would cost to much to refurbish all the expensive decorations on which money was not spared. And there is not the money to bet with the world-wide recession. A great shame, it was a marvellous night out with posh restaurants and bars and the “pock-pock” as the pelotas hit the frontis; the visitors all attired in suits and gowns…an era whose time has past, more’s the pity.
Footnote: Brazil's Maracana Stadium held the most people for some years (200,000) but this was reduced when more seats were added to much less. The largest now is Pyongyang's Rungnado May Day Stadium, holding 150,000 fans (it may have held soccer there). This leaves Mexico's Azteca Stadium firmly in second place with room for 126,260 screaming Chilangos (Capital dwellers).
Jai alai (pronounced /ˈhaɪ.əlaɪ/ in English and [ˈxai aˈlai] in Basque) is a variety of Basque Pelota (called Cesta Punta in Spanish). The term is loosely often also applied to the fronton (the open-walled playing area) where the sport is played.
The Basque Government promotes jai alai as "the fastest sport in the world" because of the balls' speed, although Badminton and Golf have actually seen faster speeds on average, and once held the record for world ball speed with a 125g–140g ball covered with goatskin that traveled at 302 km/h (188 mph), performed by José Ramón Areitio at the Newport Jai Alai, Rhode Island, until it was broken by Canadian long drive champion, Jason Zuback on an episode of Sports Science in July 2009 with a golf ball speed of 328 km/h (204 mph).[1]
The court (or cancha) for jai alai consists of 3 walls (front, back, and left), and the floor between them in play. If the ball (called a "pelota") touches the floor outside these walls, it is considered out of bounds. Similarly, there is also a border on the lower 3 ft (about 1 m) of the front wall that is also out of bounds. The ceiling on the court is usually very high, so the ball has a more predictable path. The court is divided by 14 parallel lines going horizontally across the court, with line 1 closest to the front wall and line 14 the back wall. In doubles, each team consists of a frontcourt player and a backcourt player. The game begins when the frontcourt player of the first team serves the ball to the second team. The winner of each point stays on the court to meet the next team in rotation. Losers go to the end of the line to await another turn on the court. The first team to score 7 points (or 9 in Superfecta games) wins. The next highest scores are awarded "place" (second) and "show" (third) positions, respectively. Playoffs decide tied scores.
A jai alai game is played in round robin format, usually between eight teams of two players each or eight single players. The first team to score 7 or 9 points wins the game. Two of the eight teams are in the court for each point. The server on one team must bounce the ball behind the serving line, then with the cesta "basket" hurl it towards the front wall so it bounces from there to between lines 4 and 7 on the floor. The ball is then in play. The ball used in Jai Alai consists of metal strands tightly wound together and then wrapped in goat skin.
Teams alternate catching the ball in their cesta and throwing it "in one fluid motion" without holding or juggling it. The ball must be caught either on the fly or after bouncing once on the floor. A team scores a point if an opposing player:
fails to serve so the ball bounces between lines 4 and 7 on the floor
fails to catch the ball on the fly or after one bounce
holds or juggles the ball
hurls the ball out of bounds
interferes with a player attempting to catch and hurl the ball
The team scoring a point remains in the court and the opposing team rotates off the court to the end of the list of opponents. Points usually double after the first round of play, once each team has played at least one point.
The players frequently attempt a "chula" shot, where the ball is played off the front wall very high, then reaches the bottom of the back wall by the end of its arc. The bounce off the bottom of the back wall can be very low, and the ball is very difficult to return in this situation.
Since there is no wall on the right side, all jai alai players must play right-handed (wear the cesta on their right hand).[2]
A jai alai game is played in round robin format, usually between eight teams of two players each or eight single players. The first team to score 7 or 9 points wins the game. Two of the eight teams are in the court for each point. The server on one team must bounce the ball behind the serving line, then with the cesta "basket" hurl it towards the front wall so it bounces from there to between lines 4 and 7 on the floor. The ball is then in play. The ball used in Jai Alai consists of metal strands tightly wound together and then wrapped in goat skin.
Teams alternate catching the ball in their cesta and throwing it "in one fluid motion" without holding or juggling it. The ball must be caught either on the fly or after bouncing once on the floor. A team scores a point if an opposing player:
fails to serve so the ball bounces between lines 4 and 7 on the floor
fails to catch the ball on the fly or after one bounce
holds or juggles the ball
hurls the ball out of bounds
interferes with a player attempting to catch and hurl the ball
The team scoring a point remains in the court and the opposing team rotates off the court to the end of the list of opponents. Points usually double after the first round of play, once each team has played at least one point.
The players frequently attempt a "chula" shot, where the ball is played off the front wall very high, then reaches the bottom of the back wall by the end of its arc. The bounce off the bottom of the back wall can be very low, and the ball is very difficult to return in this situation.
Since there is no wall on the right side, all jai alai players must play right-handed (wear the cesta on their right hand).[2]
In the United States, jai alai enjoyed some popularity as a gambling alternative to horse racing, greyhound racing, and harness racing, and remains popular in Florida, where the game is used as a basis for parimutuel gambling at five frontons throughout the state: Dania Beach, Miami, Ocala, Fort Pierce, and Hamilton County. A fronton in Orlando no longer offers live jai alai and is scheduled to close in late 2009. The first jai alai fronton in the United States was located at the site of Hialeah Race Course near Miami (1924). The fronton was relocated to its present site in Miami near Miami International Airport. Year round jai alai operations include Miami Jai Alai (the biggest in the world with a record audience of 15,502 people in 27 December 1975) and Dania Jai Alai. Seasonal facilities are: Fort Pierce Jai Alai, Ocala Jai Alai and Hamilton Jai Alai. The Tampa Jai Alai operated for many years before closing in the late 1990s. Inactive jai alai permits are located: Tampa, Daytona Beach, West Palm Beach, and Quincy. One Florida fronton was converted from jai alai to greyhound racing in Melbourne.
By contrast, jai alai's popularity in the north-eastern and western United States waned as other gambling options became available. Frontons in the Connecticut towns of Hartford and Milford permanently closed, while the fronton in Bridgeport was converted to a greyhound race track. A fronton in Newport, Rhode Island has been converted to a video lottery terminal facility. Jai alai enjoyed a brief and popular stint in Las Vegas, Nevada with the opening of a fronton at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino; however, by the early 1980s the fronton was losing money and was closed by MGM Grand owner Kirk Kerkorian. The MGM Grand in Reno also showcased jai alai for a very short period (1978–1980).
In an effort to prevent the closure of frontons in Florida, the Florida State Legislature passed HB 1059, a bill that changed the rules regarding the operation and wagering of poker in a Pari-Mutuel facility such as a jai alai fronton and a greyhound and horseracing track. The bill became law on August 6, 2003.
The International Jai Alai Player Association-UAW Local 8868 is the recognized bargaining agent for jai alai players in most Florida frontons. The union had also represented jai alai players and fronton employees in Connecticut until its three frontons permanently closed, and in Rhode Island where at the behest of the gaming regulators, the Rhode Island Legislature abolished the playing of live jai alai in favor of video lottery terminals. It is a very popular sport within the Latin American countries, and the Philippine Islands due to its hispanic influence, although it has been banned due to illegal gambling.
Although the sport is in decline in America, the first public amateur jai-alai facility was built in the United States in 2008, in St. Petersburg, Florida, with the assistance of the city of St. Petersburg.
There is a plan in the works to bring another Jai Alai fronton back to the city of Hartford, Connecticut in the year 2012.
In addition to the amateur court in St. Petersburg, The American Jai-Alai Foundation whose president Victor Valcarce was a pelotari at Dania Jai-Alai (MAGO #86) and was considered the best "pelota de goma" player in the world, sponsors (in North Miami Beach, Florida) the only indoor air conditioned cancha, (once owned by World Jai-Alai as a school which produced the greatest American pelotari "JOEY" #37) that is still open with free lessons from some of the sport's best.
By contrast, jai alai's popularity in the north-eastern and western United States waned as other gambling options became available. Frontons in the Connecticut towns of Hartford and Milford permanently closed, while the fronton in Bridgeport was converted to a greyhound race track. A fronton in Newport, Rhode Island has been converted to a video lottery terminal facility. Jai alai enjoyed a brief and popular stint in Las Vegas, Nevada with the opening of a fronton at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino; however, by the early 1980s the fronton was losing money and was closed by MGM Grand owner Kirk Kerkorian. The MGM Grand in Reno also showcased jai alai for a very short period (1978–1980).
In an effort to prevent the closure of frontons in Florida, the Florida State Legislature passed HB 1059, a bill that changed the rules regarding the operation and wagering of poker in a Pari-Mutuel facility such as a jai alai fronton and a greyhound and horseracing track. The bill became law on August 6, 2003.
The International Jai Alai Player Association-UAW Local 8868 is the recognized bargaining agent for jai alai players in most Florida frontons. The union had also represented jai alai players and fronton employees in Connecticut until its three frontons permanently closed, and in Rhode Island where at the behest of the gaming regulators, the Rhode Island Legislature abolished the playing of live jai alai in favor of video lottery terminals. It is a very popular sport within the Latin American countries, and the Philippine Islands due to its hispanic influence, although it has been banned due to illegal gambling.
Although the sport is in decline in America, the first public amateur jai-alai facility was built in the United States in 2008, in St. Petersburg, Florida, with the assistance of the city of St. Petersburg.
There is a plan in the works to bring another Jai Alai fronton back to the city of Hartford, Connecticut in the year 2012.
In addition to the amateur court in St. Petersburg, The American Jai-Alai Foundation whose president Victor Valcarce was a pelotari at Dania Jai-Alai (MAGO #86) and was considered the best "pelota de goma" player in the world, sponsors (in North Miami Beach, Florida) the only indoor air conditioned cancha, (once owned by World Jai-Alai as a school which produced the greatest American pelotari "JOEY" #37) that is still open with free lessons from some of the sport's best.
The sport can be dangerous, as the ball travels at high velocities. It has lead to injuries that caused players to retire and some cases death.
Dania Jai Alai, Poker, Ponies & Jai Alai, Dania Beach, Florida
Fort Pierce Jai Alai, Fort Pierce, Florida
Hamilton Jai Alai and Poker, Jasper, Florida
Miami Jai Alai, Miami, Florida
Ocala Poker & Jai Alai, Orange Lake, Florida
Orlando Jai Alai, Fern Park, Florida
"The History of basque Pelota in the Americas" by Carmelo Urza
(http://www.jaialai.info/)
Fort Pierce Jai Alai, Fort Pierce, Florida
Hamilton Jai Alai and Poker, Jasper, Florida
Miami Jai Alai, Miami, Florida
Ocala Poker & Jai Alai, Orange Lake, Florida
Orlando Jai Alai, Fern Park, Florida
"The History of basque Pelota in the Americas" by Carmelo Urza
(http://www.jaialai.info/)
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Even State Workers Are Not Safe In Their Own Offices!
LANSING, Mich. -- Michigan caseworkers who deal with food stamps and other aid programs say they have never been so overwhelmed -- or so worried about their safety. Some clients have begun taking their anger out on the very people who are offering help. One frustrated client hurled a piece of concrete through the window of a welfare agency. Another threw her car keys at a worker before being escorted away. The dismal economy has caused record demand for food assistance and public health care, forcing impoverished clients to wait hours for help in crowded office buildings. To make matters worse, a troublesome new computer system is also causing delays. The state says it is short 700 full-time field workers. It will be tough to bring in reinforcements given Michigan's budget problems.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/21519624/detail.html
BLACK UNEMPLOYMENT IN SOME AREAS IN EXCESS OF 50%
The unemployment rate for blacks is a whopping 15.7 percent and 13.1 percent for Latinos compared to 9.5 percent for whites.
When the unemployment rate hit a 26-year high of 10.2 percent in October, it captured national attention, but little has been said about the racial disparities among job seekers.
The unemployment rate for blacks is a whopping 15.7 percent and 13.1 percent for Latinos compared to 9.5 percent for whites.
When the recession started two years ago, the black unemployment rate was 8.9 percent compared to the national rate of 4.9 percent.
Influential black leaders have now begun pressuring President Obama, the country's first black president, to take action, saying they want him "to move forward" because in some communities, the male black unemployment rate hit 50 percent.
"Our country needs to move to create new jobs," Hilary Shelton, senior vice president of the NAACP, told Fox News.
A rising jobless rate in minority communities could pose a serious problem for Obama if voter enthusiasm begins to wane among these groups whose support helped sweep him into power last year.
Even though Obama is two months shy of his first year in office, some minority leaders have maintained support for his economic policies, including his $787 billion stimulus package and the jobs summit planned for next month.
"The administration has taken the steps to make sure that we can solidify our economy," Shelton said, adding that Obama "inherited eight years of bad economic planning and has stepped into an initiative in which we find our country losing jobs at an astronomical rate."
When Obama was asked in June to address the issue of higher unemployment rates among blacks, he said, "The best thing that I can do for the African-American community or the Latino community or the Asian community, whatever community, is to get the economy as a whole moving. If I don't do that then I'm not going to be able to help anybody. So that's priority number one."
Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Employment Policy at the Hudson Institute, attributed the difference in jobless rates mostly to the fact that unskilled work is typically the first to vanish in a recession.
"The biggest job losses are in the manufacturing, construction sector and a disproportionately high percentage of minorities are employed in construction," she said.
Furchtgott-Roth said Obama should make a special effort to help unskilled workers.
"I think we should of course be helping the economy as a whole but we should also be focusing on unskilled workers because they're having the hardest time finding jobs," she said.
Last week, Obama announced a December jobs summit aimed at synching job growth with the stimulus package. Obama said the White House forum will gather CEOs, small business owners, economists, financial experts and representatives from labor unions and nonprofit groups "to talk about how we can work together to create jobs and get this economy moving again."
Shelton said the idea behind the jobs summit that Obama is to build coordination to create new jobs.
"We need the kind of coordination that not only comes from the White House and Congress, but also from both the public and private sectors of our society. If we are going to create sustainable, long range living wage jobs, we all have to work together to do it."
Shelton said a smart comprehensive approach is needed to break the back of the recession.
"If we invest our money into infrastructure development, it means we are fixing our bridges and creating jobs. It means we are repairing our schools and creating jobs and the economic underpinnings to sustain those schools.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/11/18/job-hunt-minorities-urge-obama-tackle-jobless-rate-communities/?test=latestnews#/politics/president/ci.Job+Hunt%3A+Minorities+Urge+Obama+to+Tackle+Jobless+Rate+in+Their+Communities.opinionPrintWHILE BLACK LEADERS PLEAD FOR JOBS, OBAMA AND HIS CRONIES GIVE OUT HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS IN "CORPORATE WELFARE" TO THE RICHEST IN SOCIETY! WE ARE NOW REDUCED TO BEGGING FOR WORK THAT PAYS MINIMUM WAGE WHILE CORPORATE AMERICA OUTSOURCES MANUFACTURING TO THE THIRD WORLD WHERE THE WORKERS ARE PAID PENNIES AND LIVE ON FISHHEAD SOUP AND RICE! AMERICA THE GIANT IS GRAVELY WOUNDED YET THE "PEOPLES" REPRESENTATIVES IN CONGRESS AND THE WHITEHOUSE DO NOTHING!
WHERE WILL ALL THIS LEAD TO?
WELFARE RIOTS...,
GANG WARFARE...,
CIVIL UNREST...,
MARTIAL LAW!?
WE HAVE AN UNDERCLASS THAT IS PAID TO DO NOTHING!
WE HAVE AN UPPERCLASS THAT I8 PAID TO DO NOTHING!
SEE THIS VIDEO:
http://www.markfiore.com/animation/looting.html
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
It’s one of those forwarded e-mails that propagates at the speed of gossip on crack: “You gotta see this.” “Impressive.” “What do you make of her?” The link takes you to the video of a woman saying things about Islam, on al Jazeera, as you’d never expect to hear them on the Qatar-based satellite channel.
Throwing Flames on the "Clash of Civilizations"
She speaks in a voice as impassioned and rhythmic as Malcolm X’s at his best: “The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras,” the woman says. “It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship....”
The woman is Wafa Sultan. Until her 15 minutes of flaming Islam on Feb. 21, she was an unheard-of psychiatrist living in a Los Angeles suburb, a 47-year-old Syrian expatriate who, as a medical student at a Syrian university in 1979, watched as Muslim Brotherhood gunmen barged into her classroom and shot her professor: “They shot hundreds of bullets into him shouting ‘God is Great,’” she told The New York Times. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god.”
Religion as Unreason
Some of us Catholics, as I’m sure some of us Protestants, Jews and Shintoists, have had the same reaction, with or without the unhappy benefit of watching fanaticism in action before our eyes. Baptism by blood or fire isn’t the only prerequisites for a conversion to reason. History’s morgues are rich enough to supply unending evidence that every religion at one point or another — the Torah’s many Koran-like commandments to commit unspeakable acts against one’s children or against women and children in enemy cities among them — has produced its armies of madmen scorching earth in gods’ names.
So Wafa Sultan wasn’t onto something original in her Feb. 21 segment on al-Jazeera. She was just applying it to Islam, which happens to be the religion currently boasting the greater proportion of theocrats, tyrants and armies-of-one bomb squads.
Wafa Sultan, American Idol
That didn’t stop her from becoming America’s idol, especially among conservatives and evangelicals looking to the West as good and Islam as evil. (Her al-Jazeera clip was downloaded 1 million times by March 2006.)
They quote Wafa Sultan’s attractive, if historically gimpy, phrases: “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy.”
All Religions Have Their Terrorists
Not to start playing that silly game of comparative terrors, but Sultan must’ve not checked the latest State Department designations of terrorist organizations. It includes Israel’s Kahane Chai, whose members have murdered Arab civilians, including in mosques. Sultan must’ve also missed news of the ethnic war between the Buddhist-Sinhalese majority and the Hindi Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, where more than 60,000 people have been killed since the mid-1980s.
To put it more bluntly--as Martin Amis does in "The Second Plane" (Knopf, 2008)--"All religions, unsurprisingly, have their terrorists: Christian, Jewish, Hindu, even Buddhist. But we're not hearing from those religions. We are hearing from Islam."
"Islam's Ann Coulter"
The more serious problem with Sultan, however, is how she has taken her fame — based on some necessary observations about present-day Islam — and turned it into a sword that sees Islam and the Koran as exclusively evil, backward, repressive. “In a world far too often dominated by politicians imbued with religious fundamentalism of all flavors — Jewish, Christian, Muslim — we need the thoughtfulness, self-awareness and subtlety that comes from progressive religious expression,” Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein wrote in the Los Angeles Times after attending a fund-raiser for Israel and hearing Sultan, a guest speaker, score applause by bashing Islam as if she were Pat Robertson in drag (Robertson considers Islam “violent at its core.”
“We have that in Judaism, in Christianity — and in Islam, right in our backyard,” Stein wrote. “If only Sultan, applauded in many quarters yet miscast as a voice of reason and reform in Islam, were paying attention.” Stein’s piece was entitled “Islam’s Ann Coulter.”
That about sums up Wafa Sultan if she chooses to inflame the belligerence of America’s Islam-bashers rather than enlighten their glass houses’ dim blurbs — and her own.
Throwing Flames on the "Clash of Civilizations"
She speaks in a voice as impassioned and rhythmic as Malcolm X’s at his best: “The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras,” the woman says. “It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship....”
The woman is Wafa Sultan. Until her 15 minutes of flaming Islam on Feb. 21, she was an unheard-of psychiatrist living in a Los Angeles suburb, a 47-year-old Syrian expatriate who, as a medical student at a Syrian university in 1979, watched as Muslim Brotherhood gunmen barged into her classroom and shot her professor: “They shot hundreds of bullets into him shouting ‘God is Great,’” she told The New York Times. “At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god.”
Religion as Unreason
Some of us Catholics, as I’m sure some of us Protestants, Jews and Shintoists, have had the same reaction, with or without the unhappy benefit of watching fanaticism in action before our eyes. Baptism by blood or fire isn’t the only prerequisites for a conversion to reason. History’s morgues are rich enough to supply unending evidence that every religion at one point or another — the Torah’s many Koran-like commandments to commit unspeakable acts against one’s children or against women and children in enemy cities among them — has produced its armies of madmen scorching earth in gods’ names.
So Wafa Sultan wasn’t onto something original in her Feb. 21 segment on al-Jazeera. She was just applying it to Islam, which happens to be the religion currently boasting the greater proportion of theocrats, tyrants and armies-of-one bomb squads.
Wafa Sultan, American Idol
That didn’t stop her from becoming America’s idol, especially among conservatives and evangelicals looking to the West as good and Islam as evil. (Her al-Jazeera clip was downloaded 1 million times by March 2006.)
They quote Wafa Sultan’s attractive, if historically gimpy, phrases: “We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. The Muslims have turned three Buddha statues into rubble. We have not seen a single Buddhist burn down a Mosque, kill a Muslim, or burn down an embassy.”
All Religions Have Their Terrorists
Not to start playing that silly game of comparative terrors, but Sultan must’ve not checked the latest State Department designations of terrorist organizations. It includes Israel’s Kahane Chai, whose members have murdered Arab civilians, including in mosques. Sultan must’ve also missed news of the ethnic war between the Buddhist-Sinhalese majority and the Hindi Tamil minority in Sri Lanka, where more than 60,000 people have been killed since the mid-1980s.
To put it more bluntly--as Martin Amis does in "The Second Plane" (Knopf, 2008)--"All religions, unsurprisingly, have their terrorists: Christian, Jewish, Hindu, even Buddhist. But we're not hearing from those religions. We are hearing from Islam."
"Islam's Ann Coulter"
The more serious problem with Sultan, however, is how she has taken her fame — based on some necessary observations about present-day Islam — and turned it into a sword that sees Islam and the Koran as exclusively evil, backward, repressive. “In a world far too often dominated by politicians imbued with religious fundamentalism of all flavors — Jewish, Christian, Muslim — we need the thoughtfulness, self-awareness and subtlety that comes from progressive religious expression,” Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein wrote in the Los Angeles Times after attending a fund-raiser for Israel and hearing Sultan, a guest speaker, score applause by bashing Islam as if she were Pat Robertson in drag (Robertson considers Islam “violent at its core.”
“We have that in Judaism, in Christianity — and in Islam, right in our backyard,” Stein wrote. “If only Sultan, applauded in many quarters yet miscast as a voice of reason and reform in Islam, were paying attention.” Stein’s piece was entitled “Islam’s Ann Coulter.”
That about sums up Wafa Sultan if she chooses to inflame the belligerence of America’s Islam-bashers rather than enlighten their glass houses’ dim blurbs — and her own.
Suggested Reading
Return of Repression in Afghanistan
The Verdict on Al Jazeera
The Muhammad Cartoons Controversy
Return of Repression in Afghanistan
The Verdict on Al Jazeera
The Muhammad Cartoons Controversy
Related Articles
Jihad in the West - Muslim Attitudes Toward Others
The Five Pillars of Islam - Shahada - Salat - Zakat - Sawm, or Fasting - Ha...
Islam's Holy Days: Muslim Holidays & Holy Days Define What's Im...
What is Islam? In Islam, Peace is Based on Submission & Surrender to God - ...
Religion in Bangladesh - Religion and Society
Jihad in the West - Muslim Attitudes Toward Others
The Five Pillars of Islam - Shahada - Salat - Zakat - Sawm, or Fasting - Ha...
Islam's Holy Days: Muslim Holidays & Holy Days Define What's Im...
What is Islam? In Islam, Peace is Based on Submission & Surrender to God - ...
Religion in Bangladesh - Religion and Society
FOR MORE ON WAFA SULTAN TRY THESE LINKS:
EXCELLENT ARTICLE HERE:
ALSO;
THANK YOU PIERRE.
IMPORTANT WEBSITE:
Denmark to pay immigrants £12,000 to go home if they 'can't or won't' assimilate.
Denmark is boosting cash incentives to entice immigrants to return to their homelands if they 'can't or won't' assimilate into society.
The offer now on the table is close to £12,000 for every person who takes up the offer to leave.
Critics of the measure say it sends the wrong message to foreigners but the centre-right government in Copenhagen is forging ahead with the plan.
The financial carrot is ten times more than that previously offered under a scheme which as been law since 1997.
The offer now on the table is close to £12,000 for every person who takes up the offer to leave.
Critics of the measure say it sends the wrong message to foreigners but the centre-right government in Copenhagen is forging ahead with the plan.
The financial carrot is ten times more than that previously offered under a scheme which as been law since 1997.
'We thought it was important to substantially increase this aid so that immigrants who want to return home because they are not able to adapt to Danish society have a strong financial basis to start a new life,' said foreign affairs spokesman Soeren Espersen of the far-right Danish People's Party.
The offer is aimed at immigrants and refugees who 'cannot or do not want to integrate into Danish society,' said the head of the DPP's parliamentary group, Kristian Tuelesen Dahl.
The centre-right minority government reached an agreement on the financial incentive with the far-right DPP as part of its 2010 budget negotiations.
In addition, 20 million kroner will be set aside for city councils in charge of integrating immigrants to 'motivate' foreigners to return to their homelands.
Opposition parties are shocked by the news, and fear it sends the message 'that foreigners are not welcome in Denmark'.
Since 1997, around 2,524 immigrants have voluntarily repatriated to their home countries, according to Denmark's refugee, immigrant and integration ministry.
Most of them were from the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Somalia and Turkey.
Immigrants account for about 7.3 per cent of Denmark's population of 5.5 million.
The offer is aimed at immigrants and refugees who 'cannot or do not want to integrate into Danish society,' said the head of the DPP's parliamentary group, Kristian Tuelesen Dahl.
The centre-right minority government reached an agreement on the financial incentive with the far-right DPP as part of its 2010 budget negotiations.
In addition, 20 million kroner will be set aside for city councils in charge of integrating immigrants to 'motivate' foreigners to return to their homelands.
Opposition parties are shocked by the news, and fear it sends the message 'that foreigners are not welcome in Denmark'.
Since 1997, around 2,524 immigrants have voluntarily repatriated to their home countries, according to Denmark's refugee, immigrant and integration ministry.
Most of them were from the former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Somalia and Turkey.
Immigrants account for about 7.3 per cent of Denmark's population of 5.5 million.
BRINGING FOREIGNERS INTO A COUNTRY FOR THE SAKE OF "DIVERSITY" & "MULTICULTURALISM" IS A BIG MISTAKE! THE US HAS "DIVERSITY VISAS" WHICH IS TURNING THIS COUNTRY INTO AN UNMANAGEABLE AMALGAMATION OF DISSIMILAR ETHNIC, CULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS. THE CHAOS AND DAMAGED CAUSED BY THE "LIBTARDS" WHO THINK THIS UP AND IMPLEMENT THESE POLICIES SAY WE HAVE TO BE "TOLERANT" OF NEWLY INTRODUCED CULTURES! THE COST TO SOCIAL SERVICES AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IS STAGGERING AS WE TAKE IN THE LEGAL AND ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WHO REFUSE TO ASSIMILATE!
Something Rotten in Denmark?by Daniel Pipes and Lars HedegaardNew York PostAugust 27, 2002
A Muslim group in Denmark announced a few days ago that a $30,000 bounty would be paid for the murder of several prominent Danish Jews, a threat that garnered wide international notice. Less well known is that this is just one problem associated with Denmark's approximately 200,000 Muslim immigrants. The key issue is that many of them show little desire to fit into their adopted country.For years, Danes lauded multiculturalism and insisted they had no problem with the Muslim customs - until one day they found that they did. Some major issues:* Living on the dole: Third-world immigrants - most of them Muslims from countries such as Turkey, Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Iraq - constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.* Engaging in crime: Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes.* Self-imposed isolation: Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane.* Importing unacceptable customs: Forced marriages - promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death - are one problem.Another is threats to kill Muslims who convert out of Islam. One Kurdish convert to Christianity, who went public to explain why she had changed religion, felt the need to hide her face and conceal her identity, fearing for her life.* Fomenting anti-Semitism: Muslim violence threatens Denmark's approximately 6,000 Jews, who increasingly depend on police protection. Jewish parents were told by one school principal that she could not guarantee their children's safety and were advised to attend another institution. Anti-Israel marches have turned into anti-Jewish riots. One organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, openly calls on Muslims to "kill all Jews . . . wherever you find them."* Seeking Islamic law: Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark's Muslim population grows large enough - a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim.Other Europeans (such as the late Pim Fortuyn in Holland) have also grown alarmed about these issues, but Danes were the first to make them the basis for a change in government.In a momentous election last November, a center-right coalition came to power that - for the first time since 1929 - excluded the socialists. The right broke its 72-year losing streak and won a solid parliamentary majority by promising to handle immigration issues, the electorate's first concern, differently from the socialists.The next nine months did witness some fine-tuning of procedures: Immigrants now must live seven years in Denmark (rather than three) to become permanent residents. Most non-refugees no longer can collect welfare checks immediately on entering the country. No one can bring into the country an intended spouse under the age of 24. And the state prosecutor is considering a ban on Hizb-ut-Tahrir for its death threats against Jews.These minor adjustments prompted howls internationally - with European and U.N. reports condemning Denmark for racism and "Islamophobia," the Washington Post reporting that Muslim immigrants "face habitual discrimination," and a London Guardian headline announcing that "Copenhagen Flirts with Fascism."In reality, however, the new government barely addressed the existing problems. Nor did it prevent new ones, such as the death threats against Jews or a recent Islamic edict calling on Muslims to drive Danes out of the Norrebro quarter of Copenhagen.The authorities remain indulgent. The military mulls permitting Muslim soldiers in Denmark's volunteer International Brigade to opt out of actions they don't agree with - a privilege granted to members of no other faith. Mohammed Omar Bakri, the self-proclaimed London-based "eyes, ears and mouth" of Osama bin Laden, won permission to set up a branch of his organization, Al-Muhajiroun.Contrary to media reports, the real news from Denmark is not flirting with fascism but getting mired in inertia. A government elected specifically to deal with a set of problems has made minimal headway. Its reluctance has potentially profound implications for the West as a whole.
A Muslim group in Denmark announced a few days ago that a $30,000 bounty would be paid for the murder of several prominent Danish Jews, a threat that garnered wide international notice. Less well known is that this is just one problem associated with Denmark's approximately 200,000 Muslim immigrants. The key issue is that many of them show little desire to fit into their adopted country.For years, Danes lauded multiculturalism and insisted they had no problem with the Muslim customs - until one day they found that they did. Some major issues:* Living on the dole: Third-world immigrants - most of them Muslims from countries such as Turkey, Somalia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Iraq - constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.* Engaging in crime: Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes.* Self-imposed isolation: Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane.* Importing unacceptable customs: Forced marriages - promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death - are one problem.Another is threats to kill Muslims who convert out of Islam. One Kurdish convert to Christianity, who went public to explain why she had changed religion, felt the need to hide her face and conceal her identity, fearing for her life.* Fomenting anti-Semitism: Muslim violence threatens Denmark's approximately 6,000 Jews, who increasingly depend on police protection. Jewish parents were told by one school principal that she could not guarantee their children's safety and were advised to attend another institution. Anti-Israel marches have turned into anti-Jewish riots. One organization, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, openly calls on Muslims to "kill all Jews . . . wherever you find them."* Seeking Islamic law: Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark's Muslim population grows large enough - a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim.Other Europeans (such as the late Pim Fortuyn in Holland) have also grown alarmed about these issues, but Danes were the first to make them the basis for a change in government.In a momentous election last November, a center-right coalition came to power that - for the first time since 1929 - excluded the socialists. The right broke its 72-year losing streak and won a solid parliamentary majority by promising to handle immigration issues, the electorate's first concern, differently from the socialists.The next nine months did witness some fine-tuning of procedures: Immigrants now must live seven years in Denmark (rather than three) to become permanent residents. Most non-refugees no longer can collect welfare checks immediately on entering the country. No one can bring into the country an intended spouse under the age of 24. And the state prosecutor is considering a ban on Hizb-ut-Tahrir for its death threats against Jews.These minor adjustments prompted howls internationally - with European and U.N. reports condemning Denmark for racism and "Islamophobia," the Washington Post reporting that Muslim immigrants "face habitual discrimination," and a London Guardian headline announcing that "Copenhagen Flirts with Fascism."In reality, however, the new government barely addressed the existing problems. Nor did it prevent new ones, such as the death threats against Jews or a recent Islamic edict calling on Muslims to drive Danes out of the Norrebro quarter of Copenhagen.The authorities remain indulgent. The military mulls permitting Muslim soldiers in Denmark's volunteer International Brigade to opt out of actions they don't agree with - a privilege granted to members of no other faith. Mohammed Omar Bakri, the self-proclaimed London-based "eyes, ears and mouth" of Osama bin Laden, won permission to set up a branch of his organization, Al-Muhajiroun.Contrary to media reports, the real news from Denmark is not flirting with fascism but getting mired in inertia. A government elected specifically to deal with a set of problems has made minimal headway. Its reluctance has potentially profound implications for the West as a whole.
Why we all must continue to republish the Danish Cartoons with no apologies
Update by Lewis Loflin
Muslims are at it again in Denmark. "Danish newspapers republish Prophet cartoon" (Feb 13, 2008) according to Reuters. To quote, "The newspapers said they were republishing the drawing (above) in protest over a plot to murder the cartoonist." These pictures included the Prophet with a bomb in his turban -- drew attacks from Danish Islamists. "A Danish citizen of Moroccan descent and two Tunisians were arrested on Tuesday for planning to murder 73-year-old Kurt Westergaard, a cartoonist at Jyllands-Posten, the Danish paper that originally published the drawings in September 2005."
15 large and small Danish daily newspapers and a Swedish daily reprinted Westergaard's cartoon of Mohammad with a bomb in his turban in order to show freedom of speech is the law in the West, not evil Shari ah fascism. Muslims make up 3% of Denmark. Even the left-leaning Politiken reprinted the cartoon, and "called the murder plot an attack on Denmark's democratic culture." Perhaps the left is getting the message.
But Reuters continues, "Danish Muslim groups criticized the move as divisive, but said it regarded the issue as a local one on this occasion. "We believe this is very foolish and does not help building the bridges we need," said Mostafa Chendid, an imam at the Islamic Faith Community, a religious Muslim organization at the center of the first cartoon controversy. It will make our young people feel more isolated," he told Reuters. "The printing of the cartoon is an insult to our intellectual capacity."
This Islamist group in 2005 helped organize via Saudi Arabia the waves of rioting and murder over the cartoons. "It's the same picture, so it's ... just a republication of what was published before," Chendid said. "In the beginning it was pure provocation to Muslims. It's two different situations." In other words it backfired and they are backing off this time. To quote Reuters, "The group said it had no plans to travel or export this problem abroad." See what standing up to Islamists can accomplish?
The cartoons were also reprinted in French and German papers. This includes Franch Soir and they "said it had published the cartoons to show that "religious dogma" had no place in a secular society...Yes, we have the right to caricature God." They ran a front page cartoon of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods floating on a cloud. And the paper said it had decided to republish them "because no religious dogma can impose itself on a democratic and secular society...(the cartoons)... has done nothing to maintain balance and mutual limits in democracy, respect of religious beliefs and freedom of expression." Die Welt and the Berliner Zeitung also reprinted some of the cartoons.
In summery we must reject all aspects of Muslim culture and Shari'ah Law that conflicts with individual liberty and western democracy. We must end this pandering to Islam and treat them as adults, holding them responsible for their actions. If Muslims want to live in the west and enjoy the prosperity and freedom that's impossible under their primitive and barbaric cultures, they will conform or get the hell out.
Something Rotten in Denmark
Salute the Danish Flag
Theo van Gogh and "Education By Murder" in Holland
Cartoons and Islamic Imperialism
The Clash to End All Clashes? Making sense of the cartoon jihad
Click here to download all 12 cartoons.
Denmark Is Unlikely Front in Islam-West Culture War
Dane Defends Press Freedom as Muslims Protest Cartoons
More European Papers Print Cartoons of Muhammad, Fueling Dispute With Muslims
PRINT FREE OR DIE
Submission is all in your dhimmitude
Update by Lewis Loflin
Muslims are at it again in Denmark. "Danish newspapers republish Prophet cartoon" (Feb 13, 2008) according to Reuters. To quote, "The newspapers said they were republishing the drawing (above) in protest over a plot to murder the cartoonist." These pictures included the Prophet with a bomb in his turban -- drew attacks from Danish Islamists. "A Danish citizen of Moroccan descent and two Tunisians were arrested on Tuesday for planning to murder 73-year-old Kurt Westergaard, a cartoonist at Jyllands-Posten, the Danish paper that originally published the drawings in September 2005."
15 large and small Danish daily newspapers and a Swedish daily reprinted Westergaard's cartoon of Mohammad with a bomb in his turban in order to show freedom of speech is the law in the West, not evil Shari ah fascism. Muslims make up 3% of Denmark. Even the left-leaning Politiken reprinted the cartoon, and "called the murder plot an attack on Denmark's democratic culture." Perhaps the left is getting the message.
But Reuters continues, "Danish Muslim groups criticized the move as divisive, but said it regarded the issue as a local one on this occasion. "We believe this is very foolish and does not help building the bridges we need," said Mostafa Chendid, an imam at the Islamic Faith Community, a religious Muslim organization at the center of the first cartoon controversy. It will make our young people feel more isolated," he told Reuters. "The printing of the cartoon is an insult to our intellectual capacity."
This Islamist group in 2005 helped organize via Saudi Arabia the waves of rioting and murder over the cartoons. "It's the same picture, so it's ... just a republication of what was published before," Chendid said. "In the beginning it was pure provocation to Muslims. It's two different situations." In other words it backfired and they are backing off this time. To quote Reuters, "The group said it had no plans to travel or export this problem abroad." See what standing up to Islamists can accomplish?
The cartoons were also reprinted in French and German papers. This includes Franch Soir and they "said it had published the cartoons to show that "religious dogma" had no place in a secular society...Yes, we have the right to caricature God." They ran a front page cartoon of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods floating on a cloud. And the paper said it had decided to republish them "because no religious dogma can impose itself on a democratic and secular society...(the cartoons)... has done nothing to maintain balance and mutual limits in democracy, respect of religious beliefs and freedom of expression." Die Welt and the Berliner Zeitung also reprinted some of the cartoons.
In summery we must reject all aspects of Muslim culture and Shari'ah Law that conflicts with individual liberty and western democracy. We must end this pandering to Islam and treat them as adults, holding them responsible for their actions. If Muslims want to live in the west and enjoy the prosperity and freedom that's impossible under their primitive and barbaric cultures, they will conform or get the hell out.
Something Rotten in Denmark
Salute the Danish Flag
Theo van Gogh and "Education By Murder" in Holland
Cartoons and Islamic Imperialism
The Clash to End All Clashes? Making sense of the cartoon jihad
Click here to download all 12 cartoons.
Denmark Is Unlikely Front in Islam-West Culture War
Dane Defends Press Freedom as Muslims Protest Cartoons
More European Papers Print Cartoons of Muhammad, Fueling Dispute With Muslims
PRINT FREE OR DIE
Submission is all in your dhimmitude
DENMARK'S MUSLIMS:
In 1978-9 I was living and studying in Denmark. But in 1978 - even in Copenhagen, one didn't see Muslim immigrants.The Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic, went out of its way to protect each of its citizens. It was proud of its new brand of socialist liberalism, one in development since the conservatives had lost power in 1929 - a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time.The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boasted low crime rates, devotion to the environment, a superior ed u cational system and a history of humanitarianism. Denmark was also most generous in its immigration policies - it offered the best welcome in Europe to the new immigrant: generous welfare payments from first arrival plus additional perks in transportation, housing and education. It was determined to set a world example for inclusiveness and multiculturalism How could it have predicted that one day in 2005 a series of political cartoons in a newspaper would spark violence that would leave dozens dead in the streets - all because its commitment to multiculturalism would come back to bite? By the 1990's the growing urban Muslim population was obvious - and its unwillingness to integrate into Danish society was obvious. Years of immigrants had settled into Muslim-exclusive enclaves. As the Muslim leadership became more vocal about what they considered the decadence of Denmark's liberal way of life, the Danes - once so welcoming - began to feel slighted. Many Danes had begun to see Islam as incompatible with their long-standing values: belief in personal liberty and free speech, in equality for women, in tolerance for other ethnic groups and a deep pride in Danish heritage and history.The New York Post in 2002 ran an article by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard, in which they forecasted accurately that the growing immigrant problem in Denmark would explode. In the article they reported: 'Muslim immigrants constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.' 'Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes. ''Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population. A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane.' 'Forced marriages - promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death - are one problem'. 'Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark's Muslim population grows large enough - a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim.' It is easy to understand why a growing number of Danes would feel that Muslim immigrants show little respect for Danish values and laws. An example is the phenomenon common to other European countries and the US: some Muslims in Denmark who opted to leave the Muslim faith have been murdered in the name of Islam, while others hide in fe ar f or their lives. Jews are also threatened and harassed openly by Muslim leaders in Denmark, a country where once Christian citizens worked to smuggle out nearly all of their 7,000 Jews by night to Sweden - before the Nazis could invade. I think of my Danish friend Elsa - who, as a teenager, had dreaded crossing the street to the bakery every morning under the eyes of occupying Nazi soldiers - and I wonder what she would say today. In 2001, Denmark elected the most conservative government in some 70 years - one that had some decidedly non-generous ideas about liberal, unfettered immigration. Today Denmark has the strictest immigration policies in Europe. (Its effort to protect itself has been met with accusations of 'racism' by liberal media across Europe - even as other governments struggle to right the social problems wrought by years of too-lax immigration.) If you wish to become Danish, you must attend three years of language classes. You must pass a test on Denmark's history, culture and a Danish language test. You must live in Denmark for 7 years before applying for citizenship. You must demonstrate an intent to work and have a job waiting. If you wish to bring a spouse into Denmark, you must both be over 24 years of age and you won't find it so easy any more to move your friends and family to Denmark with you. You will not be allowed to build a mosque in Copenhagen. Although your children have a choice of some 30 Arabic culture and language schools in Denmark, they will be strongly encouraged to assimilate to Danish society in ways that past immigrants weren't. In 2006, the Danish minister for employment, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, spoke publicly of the burden of Muslim immigrants on the Danish welfare system, and it was horrifying. The government's welfare committee had calculated that, if immigration from Third World countries were blocked, 75 percent of the cuts needed to sustain the huge welfare system in coming decades would be unnecessary. In other words, the welfare system as it existed was being exploited by immigrants to the point of eventually bankrupting the government. 'We are simply forced to adopt a new policy on immigration.'The calculations of the welfare committee are terrifying and show how unsuccessful the integration of immigrants has been up to now,' he said. A large thorn in the side of Denmark 's imams is the Minister of Immigration and Integration, Rikke Hvilshoj. She makes no bones about the new policy toward immigration. 'The number of foreigners coming to the country makes a difference' Hvilshoj says. 'There is an inverse correlation between how many come here and how well we can receive the foreigners that come.' And on Muslim immigrants needing to demonstrate a willingness to blend in, 'In my view, Denmark should be a country with room for different cultures and religions. Some values, however, are more important than others. We refuse to question democracy, equal rights and freedom of speech.'Hvilshoj has paid a price for her show of backbone. Perhaps to test her resolve, the leading radical imam in Denmark , Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, demanded that the government pay blood money to the family of a Muslim who was murdered in a suburb of Copenhagen, stating that the family's thirst for revenge could be thwarted for money. When Hvilshoj dismissed his demand, he argued that in Muslim culture the payment of retribution money was common, to which Hvilshoj replied that what is done in a Muslim country is not necessarily what is done in Denmark. The Muslim reply came soon after: her house was torched while she, her husband and children slept. All managed to escape unharmed, but she and her family were moved to a secret lo cation and she and other ministers were assigned bodyguards for the first time - in a country where such murderous violence was once so scarce. Her government has slid to the right and her borders have tightened. Many believe that what happens in the next decade will determine whether Denmark survives as a bastion of good living, humane thinking and social responsibility, or whether it becomes a nation at civil war with supporters of Sharia law. Meanwhile, Americans clamor for stricter immigration policies, and demand an end to state welfare programs that allow many immigrants to live on the public dole. We, in America, look at the enclaves of Muslims and Illegal Hispanics amongst us, and see those who enter our shores too easily, dare live on our taxes, yet refuse to embrace our culture, respect our traditions, participate in our legal system, obey our laws, speak our language or appreciate our history. We would do well to look to Denmark and say a prayer for her future and for our own.
FOR MORE ON DENMARK'S IMMIGRATION PROBLEM SEE THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE:
WE ARE DEALING WITH RELIGIOUS NUTS - IT'S THAT SIMPLE!!!
This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
