Stephanie has some thoughts on Reap Paden. Who? I don’t know, really, except that he’s a friend of Justin Vacula’s. I saw a comment by him, or a mention of his podcast, or something, during the short period in which I was attempting to get Vacula to correct his misrepresentation of me on his podcast. (So many guys, so many podcasts.) That was all. I had no opinion on him until last Saturday, when someone pointed out a shouty podcast he’d just done and I listened to a bit of it. Man, it was shouty all right. He spent the first several minutes shouting at Stephanie louder and louder and louder and LOUDER. Calling her a fucking bitch over and over again. Not much substance, just louder and louder fucking bitch. [Read more…]

I heard a long report on BBC World about Malala Yusufzai a couple of hours ago, including a big chunk of an interview with her. On top of everything else, she’s fluent in English. I looked for it via Google and thought I’d found it but was surprised at how cheery the reporter sounded – then I belatedly looked at the date: it was last January. She starts reading from the diary she wrote for the BBC at 1:25 in.

The report I heard today interviewed the New York Times reporter Adam Ellick, who got to know her in 2009. He posted a photo to Twitter. The other guy is her father.

 Nighat Dad tweeted pictures of herself with Malala. [Read more…]

Charlie Fuqua, a Republican candidate for the Arkansas House of Representatives, wrote a book called (frighteningly) God’s Law. It’s not a satire; he really thinks there is such a thing and that he knows about it. One item of god’s law is that rebellious children should be subject to the death penalty.

The Huffington Post quotes from the book via The Arkansas Times.

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. [Read more…]

I’m finding a lot of commentary and some (possible) news about Malala Yousafzai on Twitter (via #Malala).

The important item is a new update on her condition.

Doctors at the Saidu Sharif Medical Complex said that Malala was out of danger after the bullet penetrated her skull but missed her brain.

“A bullet struck her head, but the brain is safe,” said Dr Taj Mohammed.

“She is out of danger,” he added.

Dr Laal Noor, from the same hospital, confirmed that the bullet broke her skull but missed her brain.

“The bullet struck her skull and came out on the other side and hit her shoulder,” he told AFP.

The same item includes more evil shit from the Taliban.

SWAT: The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) which attacked National Award Peace winner Malala Yousafzai on Tuesday have said that they will target her again if she survives because she was a “secular-minded lady”.

A TTP spokesperson told The Express Tribune that this was a warning for all youngsters who were involved in similar activites and added that they will be targeted if they do not stop.

…

Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said his group was behind the shooting.

“She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol,” Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas,” he said.

One item claims that Imran Khan says it’s about the drones.

According to Imran Khan, Pakistani Taliban’s violence is a reaction to drone attacks. Was #Malala a drone pilot?

God hates women and schoolgirls.

 

A 14-year-old schoolgirl in the Swat valley in Pakistan has been shot in the head. The Taliban says it did it. Malala Yousafzai is also a campaigner for girls’ education. She was attacked on her way home from school in Mingora. She’s reported to be out of danger.

Ehsanullah Ehsan told BBC Urdu that they attacked her because she was anti-Taliban and secular, adding that she would not be spared.

Clear and to the point. [Read more…]

Hey look, Salman Rushdie is on C-Span live right now. Well actually not right now, the woman who co-owns Politics and Prose is on right now, introducing him. Melody was on before that.

Now Robert Siegel is talking.

So watch and listen!

I’ll live-blog it, that’s what.

Paraphrase: It’s very difficult to write about duration. It was like the pampas, as Borges described it. You can’t take a picture of it, because it looks like a field. You can only get a sense of it by traveling in it, and then it just goes on and on, and it’s always the same, and it goes on and on, and it’s always the same, and it goes on and on.

The fatwa was like that.

One of the greatest things about the history of literature is that writers have always taken on ogres. When Mandelstam wrote about Stalin he knew who he was. When Lorca wrote about Franco he knew who he was. Writers have always stood up to tyrants.

The Satanic Verses wasn’t primarily a novel about Islam. It was primarily about migration.

I have less religion than you could inscribe on a chewed-off fingernail. [applause]

After he signed the absurd statement of religious faith, he felt like throwing up. “At that point, I just thought the hell with it. No more appeasement, no more apology. Fuck it.”

Out of that moment – it was an awful moment – he became the person he is, the person who could say what he says.

It was Christmas Eve 1990. Weirdly enough, I remember it. I was horrified that he’d made a “statement of faith.”

We can’t live in a world where what we can say is determined by violence.

[On the bounty] No one’s ever taken this old gentleman seriously, even in Iran, because he doesn’t have the money.

That’s one of the problems with Iran is that even the liberals are assholes.

What you need when you write for children: you need lots of jump.

It’s strange coming to Washington with Christopher not here.

We invented this game of titles that didn’t quite make it. A Farewell to Weapons. Toby Dick. aka Moby Prick. Blueberry Finn.

They weren’t close friends until the fatwa. They became close friends because he wanted it that way.

Update: this item is from 1996. [hides scarlet face]

There’s an Alabama State Senator (Republican) running for Congress, who says slavery was a good thing for the people who were slaves.

Mr. Davidson referred to Leviticus 25:44 — “You may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you” — and quoted I Timothy 6:1 as saying slaves should “regard their own masters as worthy of all honor.” [Read more…]

Taslima has a chilling little graphic…