The British Sikh Police Association says Sikh officers cannot currently do such jobs, as their religion prohibits removing turbans to wear helmets.
But the organisation’s chairman says he now intends to push for more research on suitable ballistic turban material.
Soon the world will have bulletproof turbans.
In case anyone is feeling their courage drain out after all of the dead animals, here is my cat:
This is brown town who is the child of Wish. When Brown Town was this age she had asthma and only ate butter. She is better now. She lives in Egypt.
Update: OMG BROWN TOWN IS FAMOUS!!1 Brown Town has been feature in a piece on Gatoisland.com aptly titled “Hesitation.” I think I’m crying I’m so proud.
It was Eid-al Adha, and blood was good luck. This is the holiday to remember Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son. Just as Ibrahim was about to send the knife down, he heard a voice from heaven telling him to stop.
This is like a modern day Ibrahim, but without the voice. He has been sacrificing sheep all day, and Cairo’s streets are running with blood. If you think he is cruel, you must remember that this is his job. He is a poor man on a rich street, and people have been bringing him sheep all day, and asking him to do the killing. The look in his eye, I think, reveals that all of this killing is not his.
In Islam, there is a specific way of killing an animal. First, you must separate the animal from its friends, so that no one has to see the violence. Next, you must give the animal a bit of water and a bit of food. Then you blindfold the animal. You say a prayer to thank God for the animal, to say “Do not be afraid, because the same force that is taking your life now will one day take my life as well, and that is just the way.”
It is unclear which of these provisions are followed on Eid. Certainly not all of them, and certainly not all the time.
Mr. Khalil Gibran wrote how it is that people must kill animals. He said:
Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it be an act of worship.
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of the forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.
And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
“Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath,
And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.”
In this photo, soon-to-be-monk Nimal is using a stone to teach me how to write my name in Sinhala. We are high above the jungle on one of two giant rocky outcrops in the valley near Anuradhapura. The one we are on contains me and Nimal. The other (visible in the background) is Sigiriya, a massive stone on the top of which are the ruins of an ancient palace. Nimal led the way up the stone, announcing that when he turned 13 he was due to begin his training as a monk. He was excited, he said, but felt that he might suffer in his training as he wasn’t sure if he would get enough food as a monk.
This is similar to the attitude held by Ruwanga, who, seeing a statue of the meditating Buddha when he was ten, told me, “I would like to become a Buddha, but my legs would hurt.”
World’s best song. World’s best song. World’s best song.
This song is full of wisdom:
-It is hard to tel how long you will be in Guinea
-Nevertheless, it is necessary to make music in the strange land
-An All-Star band can consist of as few as two people.
-Despite this, living like a refugee: is not easy.
An idea by Mr. Henry David Thoreau used to be one of my personal mottos. It was “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” This was a good motto because it gave me a handy explanation for why I was unemployed, and why I did not wash my clothing enough.
Since it is nearing time to put my clothes on for work, I am thinking about clothing related quotes from Mr. Henry David Thoreau. Surprisingly enough, there are lots of these.
* Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts
* I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes
* Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new
* Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends
* It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes
I have noticed that Mr. Thoreau has used the word “interesting” in his ideas about clothes. For this reason I am reinstating this word in my vocabulary even though Robin told me that it actually means “boring.”
Drawings based on dreams: Part 1
This was a dream I had one night many moons ago. It started me drawing big eyes, which was my way for some time. It took me many tries to get this right because in the dream all of the parts were moving and very large.
Cyrus invented the name.
I will be honest. Even though I try to be really extremely intelligent, this is one of the only TED videos I sat all the way through. It is about what appears to be an innate sense of fractals in human beings, as evidenced by architectural patterns in African villages. Thought-provoking to say the least. Amazing to say the least.
Here is an article about the world’s loneliest pig. It is interesting and exciting, not only because it reveals that Afghanistan (the entire country) has only one pig, but that pig is now in solitary confinement. I do not know if that is injustice or what, but I at first I didn’t understand how Afghanistan came to have ONE pig. Normally pigs come in groups, right? I mean, who gave birth to the pig if he has always been solo?
Then, later in the article I got some (sad but) interesting new information. The other pigs could have been victims of a very strange war. It seems that during Afghanistan’s civil war, the zoo was a battleground and a hiding place for Afghan fighters, who, among other things, got into a serious argument with a lion.
Marjan, who is the Kabul zoo lion, allegedly ate a soldier who climbed into his cage (naturally). The soldier’s brother responded to the alleged eating by exploding part of Marjan’s face with a hand grenade. This incident was not an example of fair play and made me kind of annoyed. If the soldiers were so unsporting with a lion (who is fierce) just imagine what they would do to a flock of pigs (who are docile).
After more looking, I learned that the pig was a donation to Afghanistan from China. This hilarious fact made me forget how annoyed I was regarding Marjan. I mean, what was China thinking? They are a massive country with loads of resources, art, money, and knowledge and when it comes time for Afghanistan’s birthday what do they give? A single pig? To Muslims? This must be China’s idea of a joke.
I did not take this picture but I wish I did.
