Britain’s religious hatred bill was at least watered down – chiefly through government incompetence – to at least insist on the necessity of intent to do harm. But it is still a bad piece of legislation.

While races should be protected from vilification – being an innate thing no one can change (although an entirely artificial construct, but that’s another post) – no idea should be safe from the most robust of challenges. (And while of course a religious group should be protected from direct incitement to violence, that is already covered by other laws. Should I decide to try to provoke attacks on, say, people wearing black jeans, that is illegal, as would be targetting a religious group).

Some in Europe at least realise this:

Daily newspapers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands featured 12 cartoons, which have caused a firestorm in the Islamic world.
Editors expressed a wish to show solidarity with the Editor of the Jyllands-Posten in Denmark, whose cartoons triggered violent protests in Gaza, a boycott of Danish goods across the Arab world and death threats against the newspaper’s senior staff. The paper’s offices had to be evacuated last night after the second bomb threat in two days.
… France Soir covered its front with Buddha, the Christian and Jewish deities and the Prophet all sitting on a cloud. The Christian God says: ““Don’Â’t complain Muhammad, all of us have been caricatured.”
Shortly after the paper appeared, however, its managing editor, Jacques Lefranc, was sacked. Raymond Lakah, the paper’s owner, issued a public apology …
French … ministers defended France Soir’s freedom to publish what it wanted. After a Cabinet meeting with President Chirac, Jean-Francois Cope, a minister and government spokesman, said: “France is attached to the freedom of expression””, but adding that respect should always be shown for the beliefs of others.

So which British paper is going to print the cartoons?

If you were to step out of your time machine into the Athenian fifth-century theatre, what you would experience is not what you see at the Barbican Pit in the Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices production of Metamorphoses & Elektra. While the scientists are working on the machinery, however, this evening is probably as close as you can get to the sensation – the music, the words, and the confrontation of a wholly foreign world – that a time machine journey would produce.

Gardzienice’s is a theatre aethetic of bodies, and sounds. (Luckily, since few in the audience can have mastered both the ancient Greek and Polish that is mixed in with the occasional English explanation.) The company works with the fragmentary remains of ancient Greek songs (a little of the musical notation survives), then has taken in influences from tours to remote parts of eastern Europe, New Mexico, South Korea and Norway, searching for the elemental in culture and humanity.

This is then reduced and shaped to a carefully rehearsed anarchy, to the point where a group of women in white robes, whirling around the stage to a simple but compulsive rhythm (Sufi mystics by another name), are crying like eerily accurate angry seagulls. Or the Author stands in his cloaks of character masks, defenceless and undefended as they are ripped away. READ MORE

Anyone got a magic cure? After four weeks of apparently being perfectly happy to be left, Champ has suddenly developed severe separation anxiety. Not only is he clawing the door to shreds; he’s whining, and howling, for at least 40 minutes after being left. (I’ve left a tape running a couple of times, so I would know what was going on.)

The radio is left on for him for company; I kept him fairly hungry today and left him with a stuffed Kong (with peanut butter) and a pig’s ear (neither of which were touched); I just don’t know what to do – I can’t just drop everything, although I am going to have to cancel tomorrow morning’s squash game. But equally I can’t inflict that on the neighbours.

I’m going to try to find a dog sitter – someone retired ideally who is always at home, but it is not going to be easy.

Valium ….? (At least for me.)

You might have noticed that since I put up a post with “single woman” in the headline, Google Adverts have been going mad on the dating sites. There’s social conditioning for you …
Apologies.

The highly observant will notice a run of “new” listings on my blogroll under history, and those of photographic memory will know this means the new History Carnival, No XXIV is now up on The Elfin Ethicist.

It is another fine crop, of monumental form, so do go and check it out. There is an explanation of why alternatives to AD/BC dating are not “political correctness gone mad”, “Ma Hoyt” offering a personal take on what history means, and that Chinese “ancient?” map controversy. (Which has been dominating Asia-L for a very, very long time.) And much, much more …

Browsing around the blogs that are new to me, I’ve also learnt what Mucosne habes means. Hint: it is on a Latin list talking about nose-picking. (Which reminds me of the Museum-L list, which has recently been discussing hats for horses (not for riders, but the straw ones seen in tourist photos). But are they really historical?

And this is a suitable point to note that the next History Carnival will be HERE, on February 15. I’ll be particularly biased towards posts about women’s history – I’m planning a whole section celebrating exciting women of history, so even if you’d not define yourself a “history blogger”, I’d invite you to reflect on a woman of the past who inspired you. Tell us about what she did, how she did it, and why you find it inspiring … or something like that!

But all other topics, controversies and debates will be most welcome. Nominations should be sent to natalieben[at]journ[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk. There’s also a submission form here. I’ll take them up to the 14th, but if you come across, or make, a great post, why not send it earlier? (It will make my life easier …)

The pressure to be “feminine” still hits hard on teenage girls in the West, but generally in the East it is far, far worse. I noticed when I lived in Thailand how high women’s voices generally were – and yet listen to old recordings and Western women used to speak at a similar pitch, showing how much this is influenced by social norms rather than any sort of biological effect.

And now it is getting worse: women in China are having voice-alteration surgery in the hope that speaking with a higher pitch will impress male interviewers.

Traditionally, a great deal of store is set by a woman’s voice in China, with the perfect female pitch identified as a high, sweet falsetto. As a result, those with deep voices feel stigmatised.
… In one procedure, tiny titanium plates are inserted between two muscles in the throat, causing the vocal cord to stretch, which raises the pitch. Alternatively, an incision can be made in the vocal cord, or part of it can be burnt away with a laser. The resulting scarring stiffens the cord, again raising the pitch.

And you have to wonder what other damage it is likely to do long term.

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Britain is generally pretty good at protecting its historic heritage, but it seems not the Thornborough Henges in Yorkshire, a huge 5,000-year-old site threatened by gravel quarrying. There’s a petition if you’d like to support it.

When you think of how much more information archaeology can extract today from sites, compared to 50 years ago, imagine how much more will be possible in the future. But not, of course, if sites have been ground up and enclosed in the concrete of a car park.

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Heavily pregnant women are being transported around Britain for long hours in what amounts to a metal broom cupboard, without padding, or seat belts. Something the “pro-life” people really should worry about …

A source within Styal prison in Cheshire said a 27-year-old inmate had spent four hours in a van the day before her baby was due. She expected to be taken to court in Liverpool by taxi and complained when told she would travel in a prison van. She was then offered a thin cushion.
The trip from Styal to Liverpool should have taken less than an hour but lasted two and half hours because the vehicle had to drop off other prisoners. The prisoner was allowed one toilet break. After an hour-long court hearing, she made a 90-minute journey back to Styal.