The News This Week

NORTH AFRICA'S TERRIBLE WEEK

Just when the world was horrified by the earthquake in Morocco the death toll was far exceeded by the flooding in Libya.

From the rock music era Crosby Stills Nash and Young did a song about Marrakech, "The Marrakech Express". European travelers often treat Morocco as an extension of Europe. It is a Moslem country but not extremely strict about alcohol and partying.

In the 1960s a branch of the Hippie Trail led to Marrakech. It probably didn't do much to help the world to get along with the west. Imagine a conservative village and then a bunch of Hippies in a Volkswagen bus pulls up and asks "Hey man, where's the drug scene around here"?

The eastern and western hemispheres were split apart by continuous volcanic activity along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The Atlas Mountains, where the earthquake took place, was actually once part of the Appalachians. We saw this recently in "Remembering The Australia Sequence", July 2023.

I decided that Libya is not covered well enough by Google Street View to do a visit there. But this is Derna, where the flooding is centered, from Google Earth.

REMEMBERING MANGOSUTHU BUTHELEZI

The leader of the Zulu tribe in South Africa died this week. His great grandfather led the Zulu to victory against imperial Britain in 1879. This was an evolutionary wakeup call for Britain. The book "On The Origin of Species" was published twenty years earlier, in 1859. 

By the time of the battle at Isandlwana evolutionary theory was becoming more popular and belief in God was decreasing. This unexpected defeat was a wakeup call that Britain was allowed to rule a great empire because it followed the Word of God. But if it wasn't going to follow God anymore then it wasn't going have an empire anymore.

By the way I am a native of Britain and the last thing I want it to be is an imperial power, although I am glad to have the Commonwealth. I want Britain to be more like Sweden.

The Zulu political party was called Inkatha, and was founded by Mangosuthu Buthelezi. It was a rival of the African National Congress, led by Nelson Mandela. After majority rule was achieved only the personality and wisdom of Mandela prevented civil war. 

Mangosuthu Buthelezi led the Zulu homeland that was one of the several South African "homelands" in the 1970s, that no one outside South Africa took seriously. Has anyone ever used "Bophuthatswana" as a password?

THE IMMIGRANT POPULATION OF FRANCE

France and it's Moslem population was in the news again this week. Not so long ago it was about an uprising in the banlieus, suburban housing projects, over the shooting to death of an Arab teenager by French police. This time it was about the ban on the headdress worn by conservative Moslem women in schools.

But neighboring countries like Britain and Germany have a lot of Moslems too but do not seem to have the same kind of difficulty with it's immigrant population. There is a simple explanation and it involves the religious background of the European countries.

The countries with a more Catholic background, such as France, have more of a "fit in" mentality. Some people in France claim that the migrants, although from former French colonies, have not "integrated" into French society.

In countries with a Protestant background there isn't such a "fit in" mentality. Catholicism meant everyone belonging to one church while Protestantism meant that anyone can start their own church, and this pattern continues into secular society. In countries with a more Protestant background the required "fitting in" is usually limited to obeying the law and trying to learn the language.

THE CAMPAIGN FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS 

Women keep campaigning for equality with men. Be careful what you wish for because this is what it would be like. I am going to use the word "several" because the figures are different in various places.

Your life expectancy would decrease by several years.

Since about 60% of college students are female your chances of attending college would decrease by one-third.

In almost any high school level class ranking the top third is almost all girls and the bottom third is almost all boys, and boys are much more likely to drop out. Girls are not smarter than boys, it's just that it's an environment that girls see as supportive but boys see as alienating.

Your chances of dying by suicide would multiply several times.

Your chances of dying because of drugs or alcohol would multiply several times.

Your chances of being in prison would multiply by a factor of about ten.

Your chances of being homeless would multiply by a factor of about ten.

Your chances of being injured or killed at work would greatly increase.

If a male and a female of similar social status are murdered in separate cases, the police will almost always put more effort into solving the murder of the female. 

If a male and a female are convicted of the same crime, the male will almost always be sentenced to a longer prison term.

Women can be sure that they are already far more than equal. With few exceptions anything bad that can happen to a person is more likely to happen to a male than to a female.

THE SUMMER OF SMOKE AND FIRE 

In North America and Europe this has been the summer of smoke and fire. Over here the sky was often shrouded by smoke from wildfires in Canada. 

A dinosaur is a term for something that is obsolete, or that fell by the wayside by failing to adapt to changing times. But maybe dinosaurs weren't so bad after all. They did rule the world for a hundred million years before their time had passed. 

The way humans are going maybe we shouldn't be so smug. We are much more intelligent than dinosaurs were. We are so intelligent that we don't need an asteroid impact to wipe us out, we can destroy the planet ourselves.

INDIA'S POSSIBLE NAME CHANGE 

India's other name is "Bharat" and there is discussion of the name being officially changed to that. In south Asia the name of countries being changed is the rule, rather than the exception. Iraq, Pakistan and, Bangladesh are new countries so it doesn't apply to them. But Persia changed it's name to Iran, Siam to Thailand and, Burma to Myanmar.

THE PRISON ESCAPE OF DANELO CAVALCANTE 

The Brazilian national escaped from prison near Philadelphia. There were two walls close together and he escaped by putting his feet on one wall and his hands on the other wall and "walking" upward. He was captured after two weeks but how many people can "walk" upward like that?