French Workers Hold CEO Hostage

For eighteen hours, the CEO of Sony's Division in France understood what its like to not be in control of the business and cut off to the outside world. In modern times, most French workers suffered continuous massive unemployment rather than layoffs. The current worldwide pandemic of economic meltdowns is being felt from the tiniest hamlets to the most gilded ivory towers. In France, strikes and shutdowns are the most common civil disobediences showing displeasure with the government and the captains of industry. This is a new twist boss knapping, kidnapping the ultimate bad news bearing boss, that is happening with greater frequency.

CEO, Serge Foucher, floats in from plush corporate Headquarters in Paris to give very bad news of a full plant shutdown in a month, bid them all a fond adieu with expectations to blithely float back out leading his flock of executives, except this time the doors were barred by 311 irate workers, who in a communal Howard Beal moment, were not going to take it anymore. The terms and conditions of their unilateral surrender of their jobs were unacceptable and Foucher and Roland Bents, the head Human Resources genius, were staying during the negotiations on severances no matter what!

"We hope that this time our voices will be heard," unionist Patrick Achaguer told Reuters news agency.

Mr Foucher's visit to the plant on Thursday was to be his last before its closure, the AFP news agency reports.

Workers, unhappy that their pay-off is less generous than for staff at other closed French Sony plants, decided to strike and barricaded the site to stop the company executives from leaving.

Cheap payouts that decrease benefits and without equality to similar circumstances have sparked protests in the United States at an Illinois window factory. Those workers barricaded themselves in for days. The French workers gave them food and drink, but the dapper management brigade had wrinkles in those suits from sleeping on the floor the next morning. No five star accomodations for the heartless. Trucks were used to block the entrances. The real problem began with a public pronouncement to the Sony workforce from some executive theoretical bubble that they would convert to a green facility making solar panels, except then it was deemed impractical and the plan shelved for the Pontonx-sur-L'Adour plant going from job to no job. Oops.

"Local officials persuaded us to release our bosses and continue with supervisednegotiations at a council building.

"This time we hope they listen to our concerns properly."

The move is the latest clash between unions and management in France, which is being hit by a wave of factory closures and big lay-offs because of the global economic downturn.

Workers at a Continental tyre plant in northern France hurled eggs at managers yesterday to protest against the loss of 1,200 jobs with the closure of the factory by the German car parts group.

Insult to injury was the lack of consideration of those who worked past age of 55. The final decision to be made by Sony management is whether to press charges for thier captivity. Hmmm, could get ugly. After 18 hours, the best the CEO gave was they would reconsider their exit packages for the workers. Hmmm, corporate speak for no comment of what I really think until I am safely ensconced back in my Parisian rarefied arrondisment.




Well, there certainly is a choice - buy less of Sony's products, thereby forcing them to reduce staff more or buy more to ensure those with a job keep it. Except nobody is dicussing the matter civilly in these times. To that end, a wonderful book, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking About Broken Promises, Violated Expectations and Bad Behavior, from expert Kerry Patterson may perform the right rescues.

A Presidential Inauguration For the Ages Begins

 And so, World History begins Anew...

History books will record this day as a watershed filled with tears and a mighty river of emotion that flows

around the world. In these modern times, so will Tivo, DVDs, digital cameras, the internet, social networks and those who have the spirit of the young at heart.  For me, it is seriously o'dark thirty and my oatmeal will be nice and hot as Barack Hussein Obama Jr raises his right hand and swears upon the 16th president's store bought Bible to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.  Pennsylvania Avenue will see 13,000 people march by the Obama First Family including the Tuskegee Airmen who will also have places of honor at the Capitol, marching bands from the Aloha State. 

A friend rang me from the Adams Morgan area yesterday thrilled with the crowds and the genuine caring for their fellow citizen as they stream to all historic points in the nations capitol.  Another made me laugh as the weather has been in the eighties and nineties here in Southern California lately and her family is braving below freezing temps to be witnesses to History. The president-elects license plates will be of specific interest and whether as president will the No taxation without representation make a strong comeback.  The citizen's of the District are eager ti participate as well.

From November 4, 2008 Election Night Reaction As U2 Sings - 

It IS A Beautiful Day!

Emancipation Day After Watch Night

For most, today heralds a 2009 bright with promise while still carrying the backpack of burdens from the last year. Seven score and 6 years ago, in a square "Oval Office" in the 1812 torched White House, now known as the Lincoln Bedroom, President Abraham Lincoln retired after a really well attended huddled masses meet and greet to sit down and sign one of this nation's most important documents. His hand swollen from having shaken so many others, he had to pause before putting quill to paper. The witnesses Secretary of State Seward and the office clerk, father and son, were aghast that maybe he had changed his mind like many were urging him to do to not inflame the Unionists or the Confederates. It was a temporary moment designed to let the swelling in his hand subside so his signature would be recorded as strong and firm for posterity on the Emancipation Proclamation. He also used his full first name to mark the formality and solemness the occassion required, the First Watch Night. (Watch Night, the painting is part of the White House Art Collection)

The Emancipation Proclamation
January 1, 1863

By the President of the United States of America:

A Proclamation.

Whereas, on the twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States, containing, among other things, the following, to wit:

"That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.

Famous paintings depict the moment the Words of Freedom being carried forth into slave hovels

nation on Watch Night. It was literally symbolic on all levels. Everybody knew the hour was upon them on New Years Day as President Lincoln made his intent known to friend and foe alike. Lincoln told his Cabinet officers in July of 1862 once he settled on the idea many urged him to wait until the Union won a big victory to increase the power of a document that was in reality quite limited in its scope. It literally looks at slaves as the spoils of war with the victor setting the terms and conditions. (Painting by Henry Louis Stephens 1863)

All of the things that led to the war - the first Constitution and the 3/5ths accounting, the failed Missouri Compromise (1820), the La Amistad Mutiny (1839) one of the worst Supreme Court idiot decisions ever - Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), and the rebellion of abolitionist John Brown (1859). Through it all the Underground Railroad (National Geographic does a tour and puts you as slave making the intense decisions to stay or go on) carried people to safety out of slavery using clever gospel songs, quilts and the homes of complete strangers who Believed in the righteous cause.

Today around the nation, there are services marking the historic event that set in motion the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution that nullified some portions of the racist lawmaking. This year, the advent of impending historic presidential change imbues the ceremonies at midnight with a lot more meaning and four hundred years of reflection. It is not without a full measure of devotion to historical symmetry that Lincoln freed the slaves and it is his bicentennial year of which a biracial president from the land of Lincoln will lead the commemoration.

The Emancipation Proclamation also will be read during Watch Night at the historic Brick Baptist Church on St. Helena Island. Its ceremony will begin around 10:30 p.m. Brick Baptist is the oldest church on St. Helena Island. The church was built by slaves in 1855 for plantation owners, and former slaves assumed control of the building in 1861 after the Battle of Port Royal.

"Watch Night is a way of thanking God and just being thankful because we're alive to see the dawn of another year," said the church's the Rev. Abraham Murray. "I think this year will be a little bit more significant. We're grateful that we have an African-American who will be installed as president, but our hope is in the Lord, so we just thank the Lord for what the Lord has brought us." (President Abraham Lincoln's March 4, 1861 Oath of Office)

The movie Amistad is just over a decade old now and has lost none of its power to provoke shock and thought at what America was into today's new dynamic. A must see DVD. Perfectly priced for a glorious viewing at under $10 for this and the next Watch Night Party.

Happy Emancipation Day!

Shakespeare Robbery Drama

Culturally, 1998 was the year of Potter Magic, Mullets, and presidential monuments to Monica. Shakespeare, aka the Bard, had an admirer who after his death made 750 copies First Folio editions in 1623, with one of the rare surviving editions that wound its way to a bookshelf in England's Durham University in 1998. For centuries, it resided alongside other pedigreed books read by generations of readers. One ostensible modern reader having a terrible winter of discontent, stole seven of the books in 1998, including William Shakespeare's folio, now valued at £15 million pounds or in American dollars, $30 million.

Then, book appears, exported to America like the Beatles. The current, latest or hoodwinked black market book buyer or original thief decided that he needed the book's DNA verified. He appreciated that certain Americans are well versed in all things Shakespearean and they can be found in the most unlikely places bearing the name of the bard. The truly valuable, last of the folios remaining in the world was taken in to Washington DC, to the Folger Shakespeare Library to ask a cough, innocent, cough, question of whether it twas the real thing. Librarians asked to keep the treasured folio to run a few tests which included a yelp to the FBI and placing the piece, now evidence, reverentially in essentially a refrigerated room for books to preserve it rather than next to all the drug evidence. An international quest began.

"There was something about it that felt a little off to us," said Garland Scott, director of external relations at the Folger Shakespeare Library, one of the world's leading centers of Shakespearean research.

A 51-year-old man was arrested in the English town of Washington on Thursday and was being questioned Friday.

It could not immediately be determined whether the man in custody is the man who visited the Folger.

A compulsive thief obviously has not followed the historical debasing of the current value of the US dollar, nor the advents in technology or just basic gumshoe principles. The local constables show up to a generic orderly modest home of a middle-aged book dealer in a working class neighborhood in the town of Washington, near Tye with a silver Ferrarri in the driveway, Armani suits in the closet and towering stacks of antique books. Now the book purchaser/dealer/thief claims it was a great buy in Cuba and he is an international businessman. So now the perfect place to insert said thief was not holding his manhood cheap line.

Harold Bloom is a Shakespearean scholar with a penchant for upbraiding the riff raff for not knowing enough about William S nor lauding the intelligentsia for not understanding Shakespeare's influence on the western literary canon. Bloom believes Shakespeare gave people personalities. The erudite and somewhat cranky professor wrote an entire work on the intriguing and imminently debatable topic, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.

Intel Liars Club Gets More Bad Credit

Here it is years after much mud wrestling and partisan parsing is a US Senate Intelligence Committee report baldly stating President Bush & Co-president Cheney oversold, over hyped and overused intelligence to maneuver the USA to invade and occupy Iraq in 2003. Only people with nonworking logic faculties believe Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. And thanks to Scotty McClellan for memorializing in book form the truth of What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception as he left an 1812-style scorched executive mansion in his revelatory wake. It's only because republicans lost control of the US Senate in 2006 that all these years ater is the report being duted off and presented to the public. Most of what's contained in the new credenzaware was held by frightened republicans so as not to taint saint Bush's re-election chances in 2004. This exacerbates the simmering division between the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence chairman, John Rockefeller of West Virginia and the vice chairman, Kit Bond of Missouri of the committee at venal verbal odds.

“The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein,” Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in a statement accompanying the 171-page report.

The committee’s report cited some instances in which public statements by senior administration officials were not supported by the intelligence available at the time, such as suggestions that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda were operating in a kind of partnership, that the Baghdad regime had provided the terrorist network with weapons training, and that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers had met an Iraqi intelligence operative in Prague in 2001.

A second committee report, also made public on Thursday, detailed a series of clandestine meetings between Pentagon officials and Iranian dissidents in Rome and Paris in 2001 and 2003. It accused Steven Hadley, now the national security advisor, and Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy defense secretary, of failing to properly inform the intelligence agencies and the State Department about the meetings.

The biggest underpinning for national security is intelligence. Intelligence should be an depoliticized commodity for the president and national security apparatus's consumption. The biggest users of intelligence is the military. Except in fuzzy bushworld, they distorted the truth to fit the fiction they served up to the world to facilitate a neocon's fantasy of gunboat democracy in Mesopotamia. To further aggravate those lies, the intentional outing of a covert spy was done partially to intimidate others who dared to say they were making the crap up just like an ad agency on 5th Avenue in New York. It went alongside other misuses of intelligence gathering and public distortion of a few facts by the Bush misadministration's strong arming of the big telco companies to turn over information based on their illegal warrantless wiretapping abuses that allow them t collect information on the innocent to use as they saw fit with out benefit of FISA court approved warrants later while running around saying the al qaeda bogeyman was the principal target of the intel gathering. More lies.

Democrats have not been proud models of leadership in the congress by autorizing Bush's ill begotten actions in Iraq based on intel lies and then not holding anyone accountable for the resulting Iraq debacle. It needs presidential leadership not hobbled by someone who's approval ratings proudly dwell in and dark dank basement. Intelligence was at the core of the dark arts portfolio that Bush beknighted Darth Cheney with to use as he wished and look how it all turned out. The CIA is in charge of HUMINT or human intelligence agents that bring information to the agency. The Agency remained the last bastion not under Cheney's incompetent control. Cheney was heart attack desperate that the yellow cake Niger stories from the Italian forgeries saying what he needed them to say so as not to be proved part of the superglue web of lies as written about in the jaw dropping book, The Italian Letter.

Bestselling national security author Richard Clarke, brings the truth on intelligence matters into stark relief for the interested reader in Your Government Failed You: Breaking The Cycle of National Security Disasters. Later this year, the film made from his excellent nonfiction historical account in 2004 book will be in movie theatres from no less a personage directing it than Robert Redford. It is Against All Enemies which aptly describes the beginning of oath a president takes to protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies - foreign and domestic.

Indian Soap Operas Outrage Certain Afghans

A culture clash that makes one wonder who has an irony deficiency and needs a freshly bloomed hypocrisy poppy. Indian soap operas are making specific Afghanis (more) nuts with the risque, the raunchy and the pseudo-reality. The spin is that the 5 private TV stations have children foregoing homework and their programs are the height of un-Islamic behavior which forces the government to save people from themselves before they burn in Hell on Earth or something more dire. Hence, banned foreign soap operas, Kum Kum or Life's Test are now all the rage.

Last year, certain Hindu fundamentalist Indians got their knickers stuck in permanent wedgies when Richard Gere did a sweeping public display of affection on the cheek of Bollywood co-star Shilpa Shetty, resulting in charges, apologies and high international melodrama during a press conference on HIV/AIDS. As Afghanistan hastens its return back to the Flintstone Age under Taliban culture crustaceans, it is amazing what happens to be verboten to the high ministers of mendacity versus what great returns certain Afghans make from their cut of selling the world's opiate of choice. Tolo TV is American Idol popular where television is accessible, especially Kabul. In March, during an awards ceremony mixed gender couples danced together on stage sending shivers of horror and the Victorian vapors through the country's über conservatives enough to have them invoke the Ulema Council. This is a group of legal scholars or Supreme Court of the land that arbitrate finality on Sharia law.

The ministry of culture ordered four TV stations to take five Indian soaps off the air by 14 April. Only Noorin TV suspended its soap, Waiting, so the ministry issued another deadline, which ended yesterday.

Ariana TV caved in, ending broadcasts of Kum Kum, a drama about a widow who is wooed by her childhood sweetheart but marries the brother of her late husband. The ministry is threatening legal action against the other networks, which have accused the government of trying to re-Talebanise Afghanistan.

"We think broadcasting Indian serials is in accordance with the law, so we will continue to broadcast them," said Saad Mohseni, the owner of Tolo TV. "Millions of people watch these shows every night."

The soaps have become prime-time favourites as private stations have flourished in the six years since the fall of the hardline Taleban regime, which had banned TV altogether.

(Reuters)

The official government of Afghanistan has set a deadline for compliance from private TV stations in India about the content saturating their airwaves in the form of the Indian version of soap operas. There is an order of magnitude much higher than the Indian soap opera. The Spanish language soap operas or novellas are the best and would not pass the Afghan TV test. The Resident Burqa Police, more commonly known as some emasculated Members of the Afghani parliament, are busy trying to build a coalition to strip personal freedoms from the People who can bear children by pontificating on the merits of banning jeans, long hair, chatting in public with a spouse and makeup with all due deliberate speed.

Haji Ahmad Shah Khan Achakzai, an MP in Kandahar province, said the law would boost moral and religious values for Afghan people. "Kabul has seen a wave of liberal, unwelcome influences of late," he said. "There are women dressed immodestly, prostitution can be found openly and even alcohol is available on the market. Our job is to protect the Afghan people from being exposed to this un-Islamic way of life and poor morals."

But more liberal MPs fear the loss of hard-fought freedoms. "I am worried there will be another Taliban era ahead of us. We have fought for many years to gain some freedom here and it is our responsibility not to let this happen again," said Najiba Sharif, deputy minister for women's affairs. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Hizzoner, The Mayor of Kabul, better known around the world as the president of Afghanistan, sides with the overzealous Burqua Inquisitors because an election is coming to an Afghan village near him in 2009. The government apparatus takes direction from the American educated and US backed head of state that is clearly siding with supporting the political regression taking place in Afghanistan.

The wonderfully written and hands on book by Deborah Rodriguez is all about restoring the esteem of women through sharing her gifts with others in Afghanistan. Kabul Beauty School: An American Goes Behind the Veil brings an American up close to Afghanistan. It earned its way as a New York Times bestseller and is deserving of lavish praise. Kiterunner and A Thousand Splendid Suns bring an Afghan point of view in excellent fiction from a doctor from Afghanistan.

Pirates of the Gulf of Aden

(AP Photo/CMA-CGM/ho)

Somali Pirates have none of the renown and cheeky charm of Captain Jack Sparrow. These pirates chose a yacht of French registry in the Gulf of Aden with only 30 crew members aboard. The former crew of the Yacht, The Ponant, are now hostages of a deadly group of pirates that stalk off the horn of Africa for opportunities to waylay vessels. The crew was not scheduled until April 19th to take passengers paying at a minimum $3500 a pop to party or seek solitude from the other 64 passengers among lounges, four decks and a couple of ultra chic restaurants. The cruise ship was to sail its way from Alexandria, Egypt to Valletta, Malta over the course of 10 days .

"As far as we know, no shots have been fired." French military spokesman Christophe Prazuck was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

The company said that the majority of the crew were French nationals.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon later on Friday described the incident as "a blatant act of piracy".

"The defence and foreign ministries are mobilised to act as quickly as possible.

"I hope in the coming minutes or hours to try to win the freedom of these hostages," Mr Fillon said.

Man the battle stations. French officialdom is not even slightly amused, having immediately sounded a piracy alert with enough military personnel and equipment stationed in Djibouti to back up their diplomatic threats. Because of the rampant piracy in this part of the Indian Ocean, US naval ships have stepped up patrols along with French naval forces. In November 2005, the five star US cruise ship, The Seaborn Spirit was attacked by rag tag pirates brandishing and shooting machine guns and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) at the ship. Just this past June, a freighter ship of Danish registry, the Danica White, came under Somali pirate attack and was chased back into home waters by the USS Carter Hall.

The U.S. Navy has led international patrols to try to combat piracy in the region. Last year, the guided missile destroyer USS Porter opened fire to destroy pirate skiffs tied to a Japanese tanker.

Wracked by more than a decade of violence and anarchy, Somalia does not have its own navy, and a transitional government formed in 2004 with U.N. help has struggled to assert control.

The International Maritime Bureau, which tracks piracy, said in its annual report earlier this year that global pirate attacks rose 10 percent in 2007, marking the first increase in three years.

Somalia pirates have about two dozen known piracy acts, in an increase in activity in recent years with the war torn nation unable to trade for goods and services with some nations. The sheer majesty of the ships the Somali pirates attack with their battered little speed boats and a command boat hiding elsewhere giving direction, gives notice that size does not matter to these brazen thieves of the high seas. Only a show of force deters them and that means having patrols in the right are at the right time in The Gulf Of Aden.

Last month, Russia paid excessive tributes and ransoms to Somali pirates for the release of their crew and vessels. It means no boat no matter how big or from a country with nukes, navies or knowledge is immune to the thievery of modern pirates.

From Klaus Hympendahl comes the book, Pirates Aboard: Forty Cases of Piracy today and What Blue Water Cruisers cand Do About It. The ancient practice of piracy in its 21st century form is just as disturbing, no matter where in the world the piracy is taking place.

The United States of Torture

John Yoo has much to be despised for, but the history books are yet to be written cataloging the US's sweeping powers on who could be outside US law, remain a citizen and torture the Hell out of whom they chose. Bybee is the signatory name on the March 14, 2003 doc, but the 81 page memo magically appeared the day after his exit from the DOJ from Yoo. The first drafts of history are replete with the twisted sadistic thinking of someone who is teaching Berkeley law students today while giving the Torturer-in-Chief sweeping powers to launch those tactics against people suspected - not proven - to be Enemies of the American state.

Former aides to John Ashcroft say the then-attorney general privately dubbed Yoo "Dr. Yes" for being so closely aligned with lawyers at the White House.

From one misbegotten masochistic memo, we have senior Bush bums in the administration acting as if they had a Divine legalistic right to torture, based on their personal game of being judge, jury and torturer - that accidentally executed a few folks, guilty or not. The Rule of Law was captured and taken to Guantanamo Bay never to be seen again by Americans until the grumpy clown that is the US head of State, is out of office.

Mr. Yoo’s memorandum is the latest document to illuminate the legal foundation that Bush administration lawyers used after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to give the White House broad powers to capture, detain and interrogate suspects around the globe.

Some legal scholars said Tuesday that they were amazed at the scope of the memorandum.

“This is a monument to executive supremacy and the imperial presidency,” said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School and the Washington College of Law at American University. “It’s also a road map for the Pentagon for fending off any prosecutions.”

The memorandum gave the military broad latitude to use harsh interrogation methods. It reasoned that federal laws prohibiting assault were not applicable to military interrogators dealing with members of Al Qaeda because of White House authority during wartime. It also argued that many American and international laws would not apply to interrogations overseas.

“Even if an interrogation method arguably were to violate a criminal statute, the Justice Department could not bring a prosecution because the statute would be unconstitutional as applied in this context,” it reads.

Bottom line is John Yoo and all of the people that used that legal abomination of a memo as a thin sheet of coverup for their nefarious activities, became what they sought to protect Americans from, terrorists. In order to become a More Perfect Union, a nation cannot turn into what it despises and holds in contempt. It took over nine months before the Department of Defense legal beagles thought to rescind the memo - not the practices. The Bush administration used bad karma, mental midget judo, and how-low-can-you-go legal limbo to justify its squalid behavior as being more Noble than the terrorist activity being hatched by a stupendously wealthy terrorist with a turban, salt and pepper beard, hiding out in a first century cave in Tora Bora that was never apprehended for his self-righteous schemes and ponzi Death crimes against the world's people either.

This (mis)administration still cannot speak clearly with one united voice about keeping to the decades old Geneva Conventions, nor define torture without a long drawn out explanation about how the US does not torture but reserves the right to use certain "enhanced" interrogation techniques against enemy combatants who have no habeas corpus rights because the US said so. Logically, if US trained Iraqis captured an American and cut off their fingers without going through the benefit of the Rule of law, its in the same nebulous ballpark.

While the military has banned the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods considered by some rights advocates to be torture, the U.S. Intelligence community has not. Bush authorized the CIA to use waterboarding after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 but has repeatedly insisted that the United States does not torture prisoners.

The loss of humanity within the folks who pen or follow these anti-freedom legal screeds that inhabited this malevolent administration muck below the River Styx to places deep in a murky underworld to guide their actions, will have lasting ramifications, known as blowback, for US international relationships. How does the US in its wheezing asthmatic moral condition advocate from a position of authority for Human Rights elsewhere, when the Monopoly House is full of mold, mildew and rotting legal memos collecting 200 prisoners and jumps straight into penthouse Hell?

In the Office of Legal Council, OLC, there was someone who disagreed with the memo from Hell. Bush's US tax payer paid lackeys/torture, two time failed Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld & five deferments from military service Dick Cheney oversaw the application of the John Yoo memo into formal US policy and brooked no interference. No senior people were ever indicted in Abu Gharib or the secret US renditions that picked up innocents that were sent to nations where America outsourced its torture. Read all about the legal wars in side the ironic Department of Justice in Jack Goldsmith's book, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration.

Modern Canterbury Tales With Sharia Laws

Archbishop of Canterbury, Highest Anglican of The Church of England, made the case for Britain to accept incorporating Sharia Law as the future. Shocking to some, mind bending to others, Dr. Rowan Williams, the 104th person since 597 to hold the "The Most Reverend Father in God, Forenames, by Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of All England and Metropolitan" job, decided to speak his mind, minus reservations, about the state of British religious legal doctrine to Anglicans around the globe. The Archbishop declared Sharia laws were much like off key music in a church, inevitable - his actual word was "unavoidable".

Dr. Williams' speech to England's Royal Courts of Justice also caused tremors in Australia where emphatic denouncements commenced immediately. It causes brain bruises to imagine the Archbishop sharing what implementing Sharia law means to Her Majesty over some righteous scones and chamomile tea.

Dr Rowan Williams said the UK had to "face up to the fact" some citizens did not relate to the British legal system.

He said adopting parts of Islamic Sharia law could help social cohesion.

For example, Muslims could choose to have marital disputes or financial matters dealt with in a Sharia court.

From Number 10 Downing Street, where the Never-ending Global War on Terror™ ® (Bush patent pending) is being waged in tandem with the USA, Prime Minister Gordon Brown rushed to say no, just no, to the Archbishop's serious musing aloud to the BBC's Radio 4 about the citizenry being subjected to necessary changes in legal practice from its Magna Carta underpinnings to embrace Sharia law in certain circumstances. In fairness, the Archbishop sought ways to integrate modern societal demographic changes and differing religious traditions from another major Faith, Islam, into British society and its legal community.



With rhetoric equal in height to the spires of the centuries old Canterbury, he notes other accommodations made in Britain while denouncing some of the odious interpretations of Sharia Law practiced by Muslim extremists like Afghanistan's Taliban. Prudence in politically presenting his point was missing in action as his thoughtful remarks caught everyone off guard as the speech became quickly condensed into the standard sound byte, squeezing the life out of his meaning and derailing insights into his interpretation of the humanistic nature of the Sharia system.

The archbishop compared allowing Muslims to take carefully defined issues to their own religious courts to the established practice among Orthodox Jews here of referring religious disputes to rabbinical courts.

Roman Catholics might also benefit from what he called “plural jurisdiction” in matters affecting religious conscience, he said. He noted that the Church of England, formally headed by the monarch, also has its own ecclesiastical courts.

“Nobody in their right mind,” the archbishop told the BBC, “would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that sometimes appears to be associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states — the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well.”

But equally, he said, “I don’t think we should instantly spring to the conclusion that the whole of that world of jurisprudence and practice is somehow monstrously incompatible with human rights simply because it doesn’t immediately fit with how we understand it.”

The tarring and feathering of the Oxford scholar is gathering steam as his point becomes lost in a larger more toxic political context. The how of what he expressed just drowned the what so the debate becomes about him and his views, rather than which groups for which rationales get a tolerance exemption.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the first Canterbury Tales montage of 14th century Middle as a diverse English swearing tourists on a pilgrimage telling each other stories about life and all of its travails. Fast forward to today with a vantage point of history, England's high priest shared his thoughts on Islam and its version of the rule of law and how it should be applied. Islamic Law: The Sharia from Muhammad's Time to the Present gives a or one perspective from Hunt Janin & Andre Kahlmeyer.