A March 23 NYT editorial on the Abdul Rahman case:

What's the point of the United States' propping up the government of Afghanistan if it's not even going to pretend to respect basic human rights? President Bush himself said it was "deeply troubling" that an Afghan man is facing the death penalty for converting from Islam to Christianity.

In fact, the case is more than deeply troubling; it's barbaric, and we were glad that Mr. Bush promised yesterday to press for religious freedom in Afghanistan. The Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, was arrested two weeks ago. His parents reported him to the police for converting to Christianity 16 years earlier while working for a Christian aid organization in Peshawar, Pakistan. He was hauled before a judge, where he said he had no regrets. "If he doesn't revert back to Islam, he's going to receive the death penalty, according to the law," an Afghan Supreme Court judge told Agence France-Presse.

And maybe Afghanistan should also return to stoning women to death for adultery? The United States, Britain and every other country helping the Afghan government should take a hard look at its legal institutions. Muslim leaders would also do well to condemn this strongly; those who continue to hold the teachings of Islam hostage to intolerance do grievous harm to their religion.

There appears to be a move afoot to declare Mr. Rahman mentally incompetent as a way to avoid the mess. That would be a cheap trick because the law would remain on the books. Afghanistan is not the only American ally that enforces cruel religious laws. But this is a country that was liberated from the Taliban by American troops and whose tenuous peace is enforced by those troops. If Afghanistan wants to return to the Taliban days, it can do so without the help of the United States.

I'm interested in hearing peoples' opinions on this.

You know the kind of pencil I'm talking about: The one you stick in either a manual, hand-cranked sharpener or in an automatic one, rather than using a pen or mechanical pencil.

Why do I want to know?

<with faux innocence>Oh, no reason. No reason at all.</faux innocence>

Overheard on a Dundas St. streetcar, a conversation between a 20-something gal knitting her way through the ride, her toothy, non-knitting gal pal and their male buddy -- all dressed in what I would consider the uniforms of 20-something hipsters who live in that zone west of Bathurst between Queen and College (for fun, describe that style of dress in the comments area if you think you know it):

K - This is Toronto: We go out for pupusas.

NK - I said we were going out to hear soca, and they didn't know what it was! Tee-hee!

MB - So-Cal. Ha, ha, ha (clearly impressed with own wit).

K - The only people who listen to talk radio are middle-aged men from East York -- not that there's anything wrong with being a middle-aged man from East York*.

* I wonder if the last line was for my benefit (I felt eyes), although I don't live in East York or listen to talk radio. But maybe I look like I do. If so, then the shame is mine to bear.

M - I have a meeting with the producer of Zed TV next week.

NK- Oh yeah? Could you tell him about us?

So if the producer of Zed TV is reading this, somewhere out there in TTC Land, there's two, pupusa-eatin', soca-listenin', talk-radio-disdainin', presumably inner-T.0. gals who would just love a chance to do their "hipper than thou" routine for you on late-night public television.

Well, at least two. My instincts tell me there might be more where those came from. :)

Four top politicians in Vermont -- the state's governor, both federal senators and a congressman -- have called for the reinstatement of former AP Vermont bureau chief Christopher Graff and an explanation of why he was fired in the first place.

Editors in the state also want an explanation, and Graf offered a few words on a public TV show he hosts. (H/Ts to Morgan W. Brown)

According to a March 24 NYT story, the judge in the case of an Afghan Muslim charged with converting to Christianity isn't particularly concerned with international opinion. Abdul Rahman isn't necessarily out of the woods when it comes to facing the death penalty.

While Venezuela is seeing its fair share of high-profile visitors these days, some less luminous folk also want to be there for what they see as a changing point in history.

How Russians rebelled against the punishment handed out to an ordinary guy, who, through no fault of his own, was involved in the fatal car crash of a big shot.

The blurb from an NYT story about training the Iraqi army:

U.S. troops are trying to train Iraqi security forces to battle the Sunni-led insurgency without resorting to abductions, torture and murder.

Morgan W. Brown, a visitor to this blog from the beautiful state of Vermont, kindly pointed me to a column in Seven Days, the state's alternative web weekly, about the firing of long-time AP Vermont bureau chief Christopher Graff on Monday.

The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, La Presse, the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Radio Canada, the Victoria Times-Colonist and the Vancouver Sun are all nominees for the Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service.

Details here.

Yep, the Lincoln Group did nothing wrong by trying to surreptitiously plant positive stories in the Iraqi media -- by, uh, paying those outlets.

An update on Abdul Rahman: The Afghan authorities are saying he's talking crazy (saying stuff like "Praise Jesus," no doubt :) ), and if he's crazy, they can't kill him for turning Christian.

I suspect President Hamid Karzai and his team are praying to their God that some type of face-saving solution emerges from this horrible mess.

Here's the NYT story, in which Dubya says he is "deeply troubled" by the case.

This CTV.ca News story has some stuff from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

This was another interesting nugget:

Two Afghan journalists were sentenced to death for blasphemy three years ago but they fled and sought asylum abroad.

Christopher Graff, 52, is looking for work after a 27-year career with the Associated Press. He was the wire service's chief correspondent in Vermont until Monday, when he was told he no longer had a job. There are some theories as to why he got whacked.

NYT film critic Manohla Dargis talks about the New Directors/New Films festival taking place in New York over the next 12 days. An excerpt:

Now in its 35th year, the pocket-size New Directors/New Films festival serves New York cinephiles looking to take a trip around the cinema world — from Iceland to India and Ireland — in 12 days. This year's selection, which gets off to a strong start tonight with Ryan Fleck's drama "Half Nelson," allows you to catch sneak previews (about half of the features have distribution) and discover more rarefied works that may never make it to a theater near you — like the mesmerizing 162-minute German documentary "Into Great Silence," about Carthusian monks living in enveloping quiet in the French Alps, which shows next week.

New Directors makes no attempt to be all things to all people; there are no juggling clowns and dancing bears, just 32 dramas and documentaries, short form and long, for thinking adults. A joint venture of the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Department of Film and Media at the Museum of Modern Art, the event is invariably eclectic and determinedly inclusive. There are films about Filipino kids on the verge of sexual awakening and Mexican outsiders on the brink of an entirely different kind of epiphany. While personal expression sometimes seems to matter more than production values, the embrace of world cinema remains the festival's most significant virtue, particularly given the unfavorable climate for foreign-language film distribution.

U.S. President George W. Bush took a question from UPI's Helen Thomas on Tuesday -- the first time in more than three years.

She was on him about Iraq. Democracy Now! has a transcript, and you can see some video at Crooks and Liars.

C&L also has video from a Wednesday appearance by Thomas on CNN's The Situation Room.

Abdul Rahman converted to Christianity 16 years ago. He has been charged with rejecting Islam and faces possible execution under Sharia law.

The U.S., Canada, Italy and Germany have been somewhat muted in expressing their concerns for his fate.

This NYT story looks at how Vanity Fair, largely regarded in some circles a a high-end National Enquirer, has actually been doing some serious journalism in recent times.

Kevin Phillips, author of American Theocracy (I blogged about it earlier), talks with Democracy Now! about how oil drove the Iraq war, but how biblical prophecy may have been used to sell it to some of Dubya's constituency.

Rising on the dot-com tide, seeing its classified revenues gutted by websites like monster.com and craigslist, the San Jose Mercury News is being sold by new owner McLatchy Newspapers. The M-N's story is an interesting one.

The NYT reports on how the Huffington Post came to make a post with George Clooney's words, and apparently approved by George Clooney's people, but not actually written by Clooney -- much to the annoyance of Clooney himself.

The Salon blurb: Using bogus health facts to scare women about the "dangers" of contraception, a fledgling movement fights for a culture in which sex = procreation

Democracy Now! talks to Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent of the New York Times, and Gen. Bernard Trainor, USMC (ret.), co-authors of a new book called Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.

In addition, Gordon gets a grilling over his pre-war reporting on WMDs.

This Media Guardian article (reg. req'd) looks at how companies are trying to curry favour with blogs, seeing them as a way to earn grassroots cred. But the article also claims that with consumers now helping to shape brand perception online, companies have to join the conversation.

If you're up on this stuff, you can probably skip this article, but if you're not, it's a good primer.

I speak of the ad where the guy is about to go to sleep, but first says goodnight -- to virtually every major office stereotype in existence.

"Good night, guy who likes to come into my office and gab for hours" (a big grin, a "click!" noise, and the pointed index finger of recognition from the guy).

"Good night, new guy -- Dan or Jason, or whatever your name is" ("It's ... Jason," squeaks out the nervous kid sitting scrunched up on the floor).

"Good night, flirty girl from Receivables" (She wriggles and smiles seductively).

"Good night, IT guy, who's never around when I need him" (Hair in pony tail, a PDA in one hand and a cellphone in the other, he nods back, looking harried but cool).

"Good night, overly cheerful HR lady" (hesitates, then big, nervous laugh).

"Good night, nobody-knows-exactly-what-you-do guy" (he's briefly visible in the bathroom, appearing awkward, paranoid and possibly a bit hostile, before disappearing into what is likely the bathtub).

All those characters are perfectly cast and, considering it's a 30-second commercial, they nail their parts.

Amazingly, I couldn't find the commercial on the Holiday Inn website (which, of course, shouldn't be taken as definitive proof that it isn't there). Nor could I find it on Youtube or IFilm (anybody got a link?).

And while it approaches the TV commercial equivalent of literature for what it says about office personalities, the ad content may well overshadow the brand message rather than reinforce it, which is not a good thing.

I had to watch it several times before the fact it was a Holiday Inn commercial stuck with me (but again, maybe that's just me).

As always, I welcome the thoughts of anyone who trips over this post and has an opinion on the thoughts contained therein.

Addendum (Jan. 13, 2007)

A kind soul sent me an actual QuickTime Movie of the ad. (thanks, Naomi!)

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld defends the invasion of Iraq in a Washington Post commentary. Today is the third anniversary of that invasion.

This short NYT piece by contributing writer James Traub looks at why the world doesn't feel more peaceful, given the evidence that the number of violent conflicts appears to be dropping.

NYT public editor Byron Calame looks back at a January 2004 decision at the paper to create a beat to cover the conservative movement in the United States.

It has me wondering whether we need a Muslim beat in Canada.

This NYT article looks at whether it would be better to accept the notion Iran will have nuclear weapons someday -- only that later is preferrable to sooner. The answer depends on whether we're truly into a second nuclear age or not.

A South Park show that mocked Tom Cruise got yanked from the Comedy Central line-up Wednesday, with some suggestions that it was pressure by Cruise, a noted Scientologist, that led to the move. South Park's creators are not happy.

Here's a link to a Youtube.com search results page where you can see some of the offending videos.

Akbar Ganji, jailed in 2001 after writing articles linking senior Iranian officials to the murder of dissidents, has been released.

Kevin Phillips, one of the better minds writing on American politics, has just released American Theocracy, which looks at not just the influence of the U.S. religious right on the Bush administration, but a whole range of factors that point to looming American decline.

At least part of the case has been withdrawn against Zhao Yan, who works for the NYT in China as a researcher. Zhao has been imprisoned for the past 18 months on charges of fraud ...   more »

Ali Shalal Qaissi -- who has the image of a wired, hooded man on his business cards -- now admits he isn't the guy in the photo (score one for Salon).

Belarus has an "election" looming, and neo-Stalinist President Alexander Lukashenko is putting the screws on what little independent media exists.