Minto Park

ON CENSORSHIP

May 15, 2012 | Author: admin

By Salman Rushdie

No writer ever really wants to talk about censorship. Writers want to talk about creation, and censorship is anti-creation, negative energy, uncreation, the bringing into being of non-being, or, to use Tom Stoppard’s description of death, “the absence of presence.” Censorship is the thing that stops you doing what you want to do, and what writers want to talk about is what they do, not what stops them doing it. And writers want to talk about how much they get paid, and they want to gossip about other writers and how much they get paid, and they want to complain about critics and publishers, and gripe about politicians, and they want to talk about what they love, the writers they love, the stories and even sentences that have meant something to them, and, finally, they want to talk about their own ideas and their own stories. Their things. The British humorist Paul Jennings, in his brilliant essay on Resistentialism, a spoof of Existentialism, proposed that the world was divided into two categories, “Thing” and “No-Thing,” and suggested that between these two is waged a never-ending war. If writing is Thing, then censorship is No-Thing, and, as King Lear told Cordelia, “Nothing will came of nothing,” or, as Mr. Jennings would have revised Shakespeare, “No-Thing will come of No-Thing. Think again.”

Consider, if you will, the air. Here it is, all around us, plentiful, freely available, and broadly breathable. And yes, I know, Read more »

Can Physics & Philosophy Get Along

May 15, 2012 | Author: Dexter

Gary Gutting, professor of philosophy, writes in the New York Times (here):

Physicists have been giving philosophers a hard time lately. Stephen Hawking claimed in a speech last year that philosophy is “dead” because philosophers haven’t kept up with science. More recently, Lawrence Krauss, in his book, “A Universe From Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing,” has insisted that “philosophy and theology are incapable of addressing by themselves the truly fundamental questions that perplex us about our existence.” David Albert, a distinguished philosopher of science, dismissively reviewed Krauss’s book: “all there is to say about this [Krauss’s claim that the universe may have come from nothing], as far as I can see, is that Krauss is dead wrong and his religious and philosophical critics are absolutely right.” Krauss — ignoring Albert’s Ph.D. in theoretical physics — retorted in an interview that Albert is a “moronic philosopher.” (Krauss somewhat moderates his views in a recent Scientific American article.)

I’d like to see if I can raise the level of the discussion a bit. Despite some nasty asides, Krauss doesn’t deny that philosophers may have something to contribute to our understanding of “fundamental questions” (his “by themselves” in the above quotation is a typical qualification). Read more »

Z. A. Bhutto, Akbar Bugti & Cuban Cigars

May 11, 2012 | Author: Dexter

Manto: Curator of a hollowed conscience

May 9, 2012 | Author: Dexter

If there is a birthday present Pakistanis and Indians can jointly give Manto, it is to admit the reality of the problems he spelt out in his writings on partition – Ayesha Jalal writes about Saadat Hasan Manto in the Herald.

Saadat Hasan Manto, whose birth centenary is being celebrated in Pakistan and India today, once remarked that any attempt to fathom the murderous hatred that erupted with such devastating effect at the time of the British retreat from the subcontinent had to begin with an exploration of human nature itself.

For the master of the Urdu short story this was not a value judgment. Read more »

Talat Hussain & the journalists travelling with “convicted” PM

May 8, 2012 | Author: Dexter

Almost two weeks after being convicted of contempt of court a defiant Prime Minister of Pakistan, Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani is going on an official visit to United Kingdom tomorrow with 80 people including 21 journalists.

The journalists, some whom have been asking for his resignation in their talk shows and editorial comments, represent both electronic and print media. They are: Jabran Peshimam, Shakeel Anjum, Tanveer Qaiser Shahid, Saleh Zaafir, Jamshaid Rizwani, Khalique Kiyani, Arif Nizami, Rameeza Nizami, Umar Mujeeb Shami, PJ Mir, Khalid Qayyum, Imtinan Shahid, Farooq Faisal Khan, Salim Safi, Mujahid Bralvi, Khushnood Ali Khan, Jabbar Khattak, Rauf Klasra, Sardar Khan Niyazi, Fareeha Idrees & Asma Chaudhry.

Some of them are having second thoughts. Read more »

Let us become — proudly — bayghairat

May 7, 2012 | Author: Dexter

By Pervez Hoodbhoy in Express Tribune

Pakistan’s current and aspiring political leaders can rarely give a public speech these days without invoking ghairat (honour) in some shape or form. Rather than present plans for reducing unemployment or providing electricity, they talk about shame and honour. The ultimate insult ‘bayghairat’ (without honour) is sometimes hurled onto an opponent. Adrenalin levels shoot even higher when they speak of America and “breaking the chains of slavery”. The more morally and intellectually bankrupt a leader, the louder he thunders about qaumi ghairat (national honour).

This time-tested formula has worked wherever a people have been dispirited and dejected. For example, Hitler’s meteoric rise to power, culminating in the most destructive war of history, came from appealing to the collective ghairat of the German nation and to the alleged cowardice and corruption of its rulers. Read more »

A song about meeting Mr. Miandad

May 6, 2012 | Author: Dexter

Few days ago I came across a strange & an interesting song posted by a friend on Facebook. Strange because it was not about someone’s girlfriend but about Pakistan cricket legend Javed Miandad and interesting because it was not by any Pakistani. Here is the song:

So after some research this is what I found: The song is by an Irish pop group Duckworth Lewis Method, formed by Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy and Thomas Walsh of Pugwash. The Duckworth Lewis Method is also the title of the group’s only album, which was released on 3 July 2009, a few days before the start of the 2009 Ashes series. Read more »

The greatest nation on earth

April 29, 2012 | Author: Confucius

By Aakar Patel

Blacks, or African Americans as they are called, form less than 13 per cent of the United States’ population. And yet the American president is a black man. Barack Obama defeated the white Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, and then the white war hero John McCain for the presidency. Obama (whose first name Barack is the root word for mubarak), won not because of his fellow blacks, but because of whites.

Mormons, a religious minority that some Christians think are heretics, are less than two per cent of the United States’ population. And yet Republicans have chosen Mormon Mitt Romney to represent them in this year’s general election against Obama. Romney beat a Protestant (Ron Paul), a Catholic (Rick Santorum) and a Protestant-turned-Catholic (Newt Gingrich) to win the nomination. His toughest challenge did not come from a Protestant, who are by far the largest religious group in America. In fact other than Obama and John Kennedy (who was Read more »

Interpreting Shariah Law Across The Centuries

April 17, 2012 | Author: Confucius

Following is a transcript of the interview by Terry Gross (host of NPR’s Fresh Air) of Sadakat Kadri. Sadakat Kadri is an English barrister, a Muslim by birth and a historian. His first book, The Trial, was an extensive survey of the Western criminal judicial system, detailing more than 4,000 years of courtroom antics. In his new book, Heaven on Earth, Kadri turns his sights east, to centuries of Shariah law. You can read the transcript below or click on the link at the bottom to listen to the interview.

April 16, 2012 - TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. There’s a movement in America to ban Shariah law, Islamic law. More than 10 states have introduced bills or passed laws intended to ban it. But what exactly is Shariah law? My guest Sadakat Kadri tries to answer that in his new book “Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari’a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia to the Streets of the Modern Muslim World.”

As part of his research, he traveled to South Asia, Iran Read more »

UNSINKABLE: Why we can’t let go of the Titanic?

April 15, 2012 | Author: Confucius

by Daniel Mendelsohn

One historian has claimed, “The three most written-about subjects of all time are Jesus, the Civil War, and the Titanic.”

In the early nineteen-seventies, my Uncle Walter, who wasn’t a “real” uncle but had a better intuition about my hobbies and interests than some of my blood relatives did, gave me a thrilling gift: membership in the Titanic Enthusiasts of America. I was only twelve, but already hooked. The magnificence, the pathos, the enthralling chivalry—Benjamin Guggenheim putting on white tie and tails so he could drown “like a gentleman”—and the shaming cowardice, the awful mistakes, the tantalizing “what if”s: for me, there was no better story. I had read whatever books the local public library offered, and had spent some of my allowance on a copy of Walter Lord’s indispensable “A Night to Remember.” To this incipient collection Uncle Walter added the precious gift of a biography of the man who designed the ship. It has always been among the first books I pack when I move.

A little later, when I was in my midteens, I toiled for a while on a novel about two fourteen-year-old boys, one a Long Islander like myself, the other a British aristocrat, who meet during the doomed maiden voyage. Needless to say, their budding friendship was sundered by the disaster. Read more »

The God Debate: Christopher Hitchens v.s William Lane Craig

April 11, 2012 | Author: Confucius

Christopher Hitchens debates William L Craig at Biola University. Whatever your personal belief, it is really worth watching. According to the university’s website, “Biola University is a private Christian university located in Southern California. For over 100 years, Biola — a community where all faculty, staff and students are professing Christians — has been committed to biblically centered education, intentional spiritual development and vocational preparation” Enjoy

How Simple Ideas Lead To Scientific Discoveries

April 5, 2012 | Author: Confucius

Pakistan-The Road to Shangri-La

April 1, 2012 | Author: Confucius

David Adams crosses the high mountains of Northern Pakistan in search of Shangri-La, immortalized by James Hilton in his classic novel Lost Horizons in Adams’ “Journeys to the Ends of the Earth”

A moment of glory: 1992 Cricket World Cup

March 25, 2012 | Author: Confucius

A rare proud moment in Pakistan’s history. Watch and LISTEN to this diverse group of people expressing their emotions about probably the happiest time in recent memory. It was a team effort. Yet, it would not be partisan to say that it was Imran Khan who truly led the eleven unruly (both in sports and otherwise) Pakistanis to glory.