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Europe’s Muslims have remained largely silent in the face of terrorist attacks that have killed 254 people in Madrid, London and Amsterdam. Europeans want to know why.

Why have so few of them publicly condemned the train and bus bombings in Madrid and London? Why have so few spoken out against the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, killed because his work was considered an insult to Islam?

Talk to Europe’s mainstream Muslims privately, however, and it turns out they have a lot to say.

Seek them out in the neighborhoods where they live and work — in the outdoor markets and butcher shops that sell halal meat, in the book stores that display literature on Islam and the West, in the boutiques that promote Islamic dress codes, in the Turkish restaurants and smoky Tunisian teahouses, in their schools and youth clubs — and they denounce, the vast majority unequivocally, attacks against civilians in both Europe and the United States.

“Van Gogh was a crazy man, but no one has the right to kill anyone who says bad things about the Quran,” said Mohammed Azahaf, a 23-year-old student who runs a youth center in Amsterdam. “If you kill one, it’s like killing the whole of mankind,” he said, quoting a line from the Muslim holy book.

Why, then, the public silence?

For some of the more than five dozen Muslims interviewed for this story in Amsterdam, Paris and London, it’s a sense of shame, or even guilt, that innocents have been killed in the name of Islam; they say those feelings make them seek to be “invisible.” For those lucky enough to have jobs, there is little time to protest or even write letters to newspapers. For others, there is fear of being branded anti-Islam in their communities.

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But there is another reason for the silence — one that for many overrides all others.

Why, many Muslims ask, should they have to speak out against, or apologize for, actions of radicals who do not represent them — people they do not even regard as true Muslims?

Many find the very idea of being asked or expected to denounce such acts “extremely offensive and insulting,” said Khurshid Drabu, a senior member of the Muslim Council of Britain.

“I’m British,” said Tuhina Ahmed, 24, a British-born Muslim in London whose family came from Gujarat in India. “I could have been blown up as well.” Why, she asked, should she have to make a public statement to prove her objection to terrorism?

To many, the pressure to denounce acts of terror smacks of President Bush’s warning that ‘you are either with us or against us.’

“People and politicians say where are the Muslim people, why aren’t they on the streets defending themselves? They say we should go into the streets and condemn what happened so they see us as good Muslims,” said Karima Ramani, a 20-year-old Dutch born to an Algerian father and Moroccan mother. “I don’t feel it’s my duty. I’m not responsible for the death of Van Gogh.”

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German police rescued an American soccer fan lost in Hanover and unable to find his hotel again after helplessly wandering around the city for more than six hours after a match, federal police said Friday.

The 25-year-old Boston man had checked into his hotel in the afternoon before going to see a match between Poland and Costa Rica but could not remember his hotel’s name, its address or anything else about it, police spokesman Holger Jureczko said.

“He came into the police station at 3 a.m. and asked for help,” Jureczko said.

“The only thing he could remember was paying 10 euros for a taxi ride to the city center and that he went past a park and a Mercedes dealer. There are a lot of Mercedes dealers in Hanover but we were able to find the one in the vicinity of a park.”

Police took the American to the area that matched his vague description in the city of 500,000 and spent an hour driving up and down streets in that quarter until he recognized his hotel just before dawn Wednesday.

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He arrived in southern Iraq in the autumn of 2003, six months after the invasion, and spent more than a year as local governor, overseeing the local “rebuilding�? of the community. The dissonance between the aspirations of his bosses in Baghdad and the situation on the ground is staggering. When he could not even leave his compound as it was under siege from mortar attack, he was sent memos ordering him to set up “gender awareness workshops�? in remote marshland villages. Vacuum-packed $1m “bricks�? arrived so fast that he ran out of ideas about how to spend them. While his region drowned in blood, he was drowning in memos laden with “David Brent jargon�? or ordering him to seek out three rival glaziers to gain quotes to replace a window.

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The Walt Disney Co., which had denied permission to grieving British parents to put Winnie the Pooh on their child’s gravestone, has had a change of heart.

Disney had warned that a stonemason would be in breach of copyright if he included the bear’s image along with “bear of very little brain,” on the gravestone, The Telegraph reported. The parents had sought approval from Disney, but were rejected.

Stonemason Aaron Clarke said he was outraged.

“Disney make billions of pounds every year from children but they won’t let a family put a picture on a stillborn baby’s headstone,” he said. “It is ridiculous. The family are upset enough as it is.”

The company reversed course Thursday and allowed the parents to use the image. A Disney spokesman told the Telegraph the company is in continual communication with the family.

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.
“Pooh!” he whispered.
“Yes, Piglet?”
“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

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The post just below this one made me scavenge YouTube for more footage by Jim Henson. It’s almost impossible to pick just a few, the man truly was one of the greatest contrinutions to culture in the 20th century.

If you’ve got some spare time, check out these:
Read the rest of this entry »

1973 was a great year to be a kid and watch Sesame Street…

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For years, old recordings have piled up in the archives at Verve Records, including beloved jazz tracks that had no market big enough to justify pressing new discs. But thanks to the Internet, music lovers are rediscovering iconic titles like Ella Fitzgerald’s “Sunshine of Your Love” and Quincy Jones’s “Body Heat” — rekindling enough popular demand to prompt Verve to reissue them through a project called Verve Vault.

“The demand for music has never been as big as it is today. We get all kinds of questions from customers worldwide, looking for a track name or an album, or asking, ‘Why haven’t you put that out yet?’ ” said Jon Vanhala, vice president of new media and strategic marketing at Verve. So far, about 2,700 albums have been brought back through the Vault, with more than 5,000 scheduled to follow.

Because the Internet has changed how people discover and share music, the rules of marketing it and the hierarchy of who determines what’s hot have also changed. As radio-music listenership declines, the industry finds itself spending more time courting a broader field of tastemakers who, through Web sites, are popularizing songs that never get radio play. The primary tool in this transition is the playlist — a sequence of tracks posted on blogs or shared on music purchase sites such as iTunes.

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To Whom It May Concern:

Adult Resignation
To Whom It May Concern:

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult.

I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of a 6 year old again.

I want to go to McDonald’s and think that it’s a four star restaurant.
I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make ripples with rocks.
I want to think M&Ms are better than money, because you can eat them.
I want to play kickball during recess and paint with watercolors in art.
I want to lie under a big Oak tree and run a lemonade stand with my friends on a hot summers day.
I want to return to a time when life was simple.
When all you knew were colors, addition tables and simple nursery rhymes. But that didn’t bother you, because you didn’t know what you didn’t know and you didn’t care.
When all you knew was to be happy because you didn’t know all the things that should make you worried and upset.
I want to think that the world is fair. That everyone in it is honest and good.
I want to believe that anything is possible.
Somewhere in my youth…I matured and I learned too much.

I learned of nuclear weapons, war, prejudice, starvation and abused children.
I learned of lies, unhappy marriages, suffering, illness, pain and death.
I learned of a world where men left their families to go and fight for our country, and returned only to end up living on the streets… begging for their next meal.
I learned of a world where children knew how to kill…and did.

What happened to the time when we thought that everyone would live because we didn’t grasp the concept of death?
When we thought the worst thing in the world was if someone took the jump rope from you or picked you last for kickball?

I want to be oblivious to the complexity of life and be overly excited by little things once again. I want to return to the days when reading was fun and music was clean. When television was used to report the news or for family entertainment and not to promote sex, violence and deceit.

I remember being naive and thinking that everyone was happy because I was.
I would walk on the beach and only think of the sand between my toes and the prettiest seashell I could find.
I would spend my afternoon climbing trees and riding my bike.

I didn’t worry about time, bills or where I was going to find the money to fix my car.
I used to wonder what I was going to do or be when I grew up, not worry about what I’ll do if this doesn’t work out.

I want to live simple again.
I don’t want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, doctor bills, gossip, illness and loss of loved ones.
I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind and making angels in the snow.

I want to be 6 again.

And if you want to discuss this further, you’ll have to catch me first, cause “Tag! You’re it!”