Two elephants lie dead on a track after being hit by a speeding train in Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, eastern India. Two more elephants were gravely injured in the accident, which reportedly happened as a 40-strong herd was crossing the track.
A taster of the documentary, which looks back at the Clash frontman's time in Spain in the 80s. Through music and testimony of those who knew him, Strummer's days in Madrid are documented by filmmaker Nick Hall. Hall also searches for clues to the whereabouts of Strummer's Dodge, abandoned in Madrid when the musician rushed home for the birth of his baby daughter.
European Union foreign ministers have sought to sell their Syria compromise as a success. In reality, Monday's agreement is an abdication of leadership, once again proving that Europe cannot be taken seriously as an actor on the global stage.Continue reading.
To fully understand the European Union's role in the Syrian crisis, a small thought experiment could prove helpful. If you were a party in the civil war in Syria, which of the following actors would you most like to have as an ally? The Russians, who deliver military supplies and demand political influence and a warm-water port in return? The rulers in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who guarantee an endless supply of weapons in exchange for ideological compliance? Or perhaps the Americans, who remain hesitant to become involved but are nonetheless the world's most influential political and economic power?
One thing is clear: The EU would certainly not be at the top of the list. Europe, to be sure, regularly demands written assurances that it's allies are not cooperating with Islamists and terrorists. But as quid pro quo, they don't offer much more than encouraging words. And there is a reason for that. The Europeans can't even agree on a common position.
The agreement that EU foreign ministers finally managed to reach late on Monday night is a compromise in name only. The bloc's 27 member-states were only able to agree on a continuation of the financial and economic sanctions that are currently in place. Such sanctions are the lowest common denominator of the EU's approach to Syria, though. When it comes to the much more important issue of arms shipment, Europe is hopelessly divided.
The Foreign Office has warned Britons to avoid areas where violent protests are ongoing across Turkey, including the centre of Istanbul, where thousands of people thronged Taksim Square.
Like Europe five or six centuries ago, the Middle East today is the scene of shifting alliances among states, political groups, and warring armies, in a struggle for supremacy or hegemony in the area. By contrast, the Ottoman Empire from its establishment in 1453 was a powerful, multinational, multilingual state that lasted until November 1, 1922, when the Turkish monarchy was abolished and a Republic was declared. The Ottoman Caliphate was abolished in March 1924.Continue reading.
In spite of problems, the Ottoman Empire remained intact for four and a half centuries. It ruled using boundaries of administrative divisions: provinces, or vilayets and districts, or sanjaks, Islam sustained the empire, and the sultan, the personification of a family that had ruled for seven centuries, was the protector of Islam.
The Palestinian narrative of victimhood has made the world familiar with the Palestinian concept of the Nakba, the so-called catastrophe, resulting from the displacement of Arabs during and after the 1948-49 war (a war which they started). But from an objective point of view, the real Nakba for Arabs was the end of the Ottoman Empire, which, in spite of political and military problems, had ruled with a strong army and accepted political institutions, and which had created alliances with political and racial groups...
“ ‘Work-life balance’ is one of these terms that tends to get overused,” says Rob Lanoue, a partner with Deloitte’s consulting group in Toronto. “It’s ‘balanced/unbalanced,’ ” chips in colleague Andrew Hamer, a senior consultant.Continue reading.
Lanoue, 43, in an open-collar shirt and sporting a wall clock-size dive watch, exudes a relaxed jock vibe, while Hamer, 29, is more hunky corporate hipster, with a beard, jeans, and checked blazer. They, along with Jonathan Magder, 35, a slender, mellow-voiced manager in Deloitte’s corporate strategy group, are eating breakfast across the street from their office, spearing eggs and discussing how they juggle their careers and families. In its contours, the conversation happens countless times a day among groups of women. This male version also touches on the challenges of getting home for bath time, showing up at recitals, and how all that must be reconciled with driving ambition. The only thing missing is the guilt and self-flagellation, which, if they were women, would be accumulating on the floor in puddles around their feet. You might call them “Alpha Dads,” guys who are as serious about their parenting as they are about making partner. What they illustrate is that men might actually be better at handling women’s issues than women. They don’t believe in “balance.” They believe in getting what they want, even if it’s time to yell at their 5-year-olds from the sidelines of a soccer game on a Wednesday afternoon.
Together, Lanoue, Hamer, and Magder run a group called Deloitte Dads, which aims to help working fathers. “New dads can be their own worst enemies,” Magder says. “The biggest thing for sure is time management.” One of his friends at another company tried to take a longer-than-average paternity leave after his first child was born, only to be told by his bosses that they were surprised he wanted to do it—surely his wife would be home, no? His friend wimped out on taking extra time off. For that reason, these guys believe, it’s important for them to live what they preach as much as possible. Magder’s wife doesn’t work, which may afford him a little more breathing room, but both Lanoue and Hamer are married to full-time professionals. None of them have illusions of achieving perfect harmony.
Lanoue, who became partner in 2010, has two children in school full time, a 5-year-old and a 9-year-old, and he estimates that he works one day a week out of his basement office at home, partly to spend more time with them. He manages this, he says, by “being proactive with my calendar, weeks out,” planning his schedule meticulously, moving in-person meetings to conference calls when he needs to and being blunt and in-your-face about it. Even when he’s in the office, he sometimes has to leave at 3:30 p.m. to drive his son to his hockey games, a fact he broadcasts to help dispel the stink that can trail people when they sneak out early. “Everyone knows my routine when I’m not there,” he says. “Between 3:30 p.m. and 7 p.m., I’m available by e-mail. If there’s anything I have to review, it’s well into the evening.” In other words: It’ll get done, but on his time.
Hamer has a 2-year-old who goes to day care and a 12-week-old who’s currently not sleeping—he sports the dark eye-circles to prove it—and at the moment his assignment takes him out of town three nights most weeks to work at a client’s office. “For me,” he says, “flexibility is more about being able to take part in morning routines and not having to worry about the commute.” Magder has three children, ages 6, 4, and 2. He tries to be home at least two or three times a week for dinner and bedtime. Sometimes it’s tough, he says, recalling one period when he was working 80 or 90 hours every week and was desperately short on sleep. But, “most people understand that if I leave for the day, I’m just changing my [work] location.” Magder and his colleagues sound in many ways like typical MBA guys, only they’re applying the principles of efficient management to the task of parenting...
THE story of Catherine Englebrecht of Richmond, Texas, should put to rest any suggestion that the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups was simply the work of overzealous or confused low-level staffers in Cincinnati. It's a story that should give the willies to any American, regardless of political bent.Continue reading.
Engelbrecht and her husband own a small manufacturing business. Through the years, Engelbrecht developed an interest in public policy. She acted on it by forming two groups, called True the Vote and King Street Patriots. The former seeks to ensure the integrity of elections by, among other things, working to clear voting rolls of people who have died.
In July 2010, Engelbrecht sought tax-exempt status from the IRS — and her world started to get turned upside down because, as Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan put it, “The U.S. government came down on her with full force.”
In December of that year, the FBI came to her home to ask about a person who had attended a King Street Patriots function. The following month, in January 2011, the FBI asked more questions and the IRS audited her business tax returns. The FBI came knocking again in May 2011, about King Street Patriots.
One month later, Engelbrecht's personal tax returns were audited and the FBI visited again. Questions about True the Vote came in October 2011, with another FBI inquiry a month later — and again one month after that. In February 2012, the IRS came with another round of questions about True the Vote, and questions about King Street Patriots.
Engelbrecht's business has a license to make firearms, but doesn't. In February 2012, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms did an unscheduled audit of the business. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration did the same in July 2012. Additional IRS questions about True the Vote followed in November 2012, and again in March of this year. In April, ATF conducted a second audit.
Engelbrecht says she and the feds had never crossed paths before her filing for tax-exempt status. “These people, they are just regular Americans,” her attorney, former Oklahoman Cleta Mitchell, told Noonan. “They try to get dead people off voter rolls; you would think that they are serial killers.”
Engelbrecht is fighting back with a lawsuit against the IRS. Brava! Meantime, she still hasn't received the exemptions she sought three years ago.
I would say to Blankenhorn that what matters about marriage is the children. He fails to mention where the children fit into a gay marriage that has either two men or two women living together.After all is said and done, this is the core argument that leftists can never rebut. All they can say is that it doesn't matter, that people have a so-called "human" right to marry whomever they want. Screw the children. It's all about the homosexual narcissists themselves.
How does a child keep his or her head on straight when there is either no father or no mother? How does a female child living with two women learn the love and protection that only a man can provide? How does a male child living with two men learn the love and softness that only a woman can contribute?
How does the child, living in a lopsided environment, understand that a woman has her role in the marriage and that the man has his role in the marriage? It cannot be duplicated by two men or two women being married partners.
Lori Graham
Los Angeles
