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“>He also suggested that parts of the Quran, such as the story of Noah's Ark, might not be literally true and criticised practices including the marriage of young girls in some Muslim societies.

Three years in prison for suggesting that the story of Noah's Ark may not be literally true? It does seem a little harsh.

Islam is Algeria's religion of state. The law imposes a fine or prison sentence on "anyone who offends the Prophet or denigrates the dogmatic precepts of Islam, whether it be by writings, drawings, a statement or another means".

"Dogmatic precepts" is about right.

Speaking to AFP news agency after being released on bail, Mr Djabelkhir said: "The fight for freedom of conscience is non-negotiable. It is a fight which must continue."…

He recently told AFP that "the traditional readings [of the Quran] no longer meet the expectations, needs and questions of modern man".

A brave man.

Roger Boyes in the Times, on the increasing tensions between Israel and Iran, and the unfortunate "boy-scoutish" naivete of the new US administration:

Perhaps the most dangerous factor in the mix is the hubris of a US administration that has yet to accept that 2021 is not 2015. It craves an Obamian restoration, a return to what it sees as the golden age of diplomacy. Ben Rhodes, Obama’s former deputy national security adviser, said this week: “If Biden is able to exit Afghanistan, end US participation in the Yemen war and return to the Iran deal it could be a transformative year in terms of ending the post-9/11 era and restoring diplomacy as the principal means of engagement.”

It was a liberal cry from the heart but also described the hub of the problem. Exiting Afghanistan will mean handing Kabul to the Taliban and almost certainly the crushing of women’s rights, a comeback for public floggings and a safe haven yet again for jihadists. And there is something boy-scoutish about his belief that returning to the Iran deal, the lifting of sanctions, will lead to a situation where Tehran abandons its aggressive attempts to dominate the region. As for “ending the post-9/11 era”, what that will mean in practice is inviting Russia and China to fill the gaps left by American retreat.

It is rash to assume that any Iranian government, any future supreme leader, will abandon the dream of nuclear weapons. Tackling that threat demands realism rather than bluster about transformative policy-making. And as far as Israel is concerned it means making clear, with its extraordinary clandestine campaign of derring-do, that Iran will pay a huge cumulative price for its sprint towards the bomb.

Meanwhile, in further boy-scoutish news, the UN has just elected Iran to a four year term on its Commission on the Status of Women, an organization that claims to be the global champion for gender equality.

More Marion Post Walcott:

April 1939. "Front of hardware store. Enterprise, Alabama."

January 1939. "Migratory packinghouse workers' camp near Canal Point, Florida."

January 1939. "Migratory packinghouse worker's child playing 'school' near Canal Point, Florida."

April 1939. "Old plantation home. Greene County, Georgia."

April 1939. "A whirling plough used by United States Sugar Corporation in soft powdery muck to prepare soil for planting sugarcane. Near Pahokee, Florida."

April 1939. "One of Miami's streets showing varied small shops, signs, and tourist bureaus. Miami Beach, Florida."

June 1939. "Daughter of Frederick Oliver, tenant purchase client, sewing in living room of new home. Summerton, South Carolina."
[Photos: Shorpy/Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration]

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[Photos © Ted Lau]

Lau says that he was inspired to visit North Korea by the work of German photographer Andreas Gursky, who visited the country in 2007 to view and photograph the Arirang Festival. Here's what I wrote when I visited the Gursky exhibition at the Hayward in 2018:

Then there are the images from North Korea's Arirang Festival – that exercise in de-indivualisation and totalitarian mass control on a huge scale, from the regime with the worst record on human rights on the planet. It's somehow not surprising that Gursky was drawn to this grotesque spectacle. He's said that he's not interested in the individual, and here he gets a chance to prove it….

You can read about his 2007 trip, The Axis of Evil: Traveling to North Korea with Andreas Gursky, here. 

“I never claim the picture is a depiction of reality,” says Gursky. “It’s always a combination of invention and reality, an interpretation of reality. The impressions in your head get mixed up after one and a half hours of Arirang. A picture is not good because its subject is good, but because something has been made discernible, something that gives the picture direction. But I never give up the link to the documentary aspect of it.” What happens when North Korea’s stage direction collides with Andreas Gursky’s? Maybe the product of two negative integers is positive this time around, resulting in the most authentic depiction that can be made of North Korean reality today.

Hmm. He's so caught up in his self-regarding philosophy that he doesn't see what's right in front of him. Does he think his great skill and vision is sufficient to neutralise the stench of fascist spectacle on show here? The resulting pictures are, I'm sure, images that Gursky's North Korean minders would have been very happy with. Read the piece in full to see how they went out of their way to help the great man capture the full Arirang spectacle. And Gursky clearly considers these images to be successful. There are two Pyongyang pictures in what's billed as a retrospective show.

Are we in Leni Riefenstahl territory? Maybe that's too strong. But it does leave, for me, a bad taste in the mouth.

Glen Campbell shows off his guitar skills with Willie Nelson and band, New York, 1984:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7emJpn8oUhk&w=550&h=309]

Or some time later in front of a crowd of Country greats, including Willie again and Chet Atkins.

Campbell started out a session musician, notably with the Wrecking Crew. Here he is in 1963, stealing the show with his playing and dancing.

The song was written by John Hartford – here from 1977. Nice vocal and all, but I just don't quite appreciate banjo as sole accompanying instrument. Here are the two of them, Glen and John, in a duet.

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"Charles Darwin claimed that the first man descended from apes, and this theory pleased the Jews, who have spread it around. Why? They are malicious. Who did Allah transform into apes? The Jews. Being descendants of apes has become the Jews' badge of shame. Since Charles Darwin said that the first man had originated in a group of apes, no one could be described as more despicable than the other. If you say that our [Jewish] ancestors were transformed into apes and pigs – well, Charles Darwin says that the first man was created through an evolutionary link or a genetic mutation of apes. So what is the origin of all of us? Apes!

"The [Jews] have spread this theory. The problem is that many nations around the world have come to believe Charles Darwin's theory. The Jews used their money to make universities and institutions teach this theory. They organized symposiums and debates.

"People who were ultimately persuaded by Charles Darwin's theory that the first man originated from apes have entered the realm of sexual promiscuity. When did sexual promiscuity appear in Europe? Right from the start? If you go back 150-200 years, you see that [women] in Europe wore the hijab. There are documents online that show… There is a photograph of London 110 years ago and all the women wear the hijab – and they did not wear just one hijab. More like two or three.

"How has European society come to believe in the culture of nudity? Once they came to believe that the first man originated in apes, they said: 'what's the point? Why should we marry a woman without being able to divorce her? What do we need the church for? Why can't we live like our forefathers the apes and just have sex in public?'

I don't know if this is significant or not, but it does seem to be the case that these crackpot antisemitic rants now seem to come almost exclusively from the Shi'ite side of the house. Does this reflect the shifting Middle East allegiances, as Sunni regimes increasingly come to deal with Israel – eg the Abraham Accords – while Iran and its proxies head the other way?

At Richmond Park's Isabella Plantation:

a test, we are allowed to get pronouns wrong, and would you think it OK to be annoyed with someone who wanted to be referred to as Black and not coloured or Negro?

We all want equality, don’t we? We should all have equal respect, equal pay, equal rights. That’s what feminism is all about, and what every civil rights struggle has been about. But rights aren’t like cake; someone else getting some doesn’t mean you have any less. Maybe we all need to examine our phobias and see if some of them are more about our fear of the unknown, and consider if we are allowing that to dictate opinions we might otherwise baulk at.

But when it comes to trans rights – or rather, trans demands – they are like cake, as  a number of commenters are only too happy to point out:

• ‘But rights aren’t like cake; someone getting some doesn’t mean you have any less.’ Transwomen playing in women’s sports have an unfair advantage over women and in some sports increase the risks to women of injury. World Rugby research has shown that the risks of injury to women increase by 20% – 30% if tackled by a transwoman. The advantages of a male physique are not removed by transitioning. Women have a right to single sex sport. This isn’t the only area that is impacted – transwomen being placed in female prison estate, women’s refuges etc. This piece essentially boils down to ‘be nice’ without understanding the real issues that women face.
• Struggling to find a reason why I, a woman, needs a man to tell me my concerns about trans rights taking precedence over women's rights are indeed fears I need to address. My rights as a woman have been long fought for and for the sake of my daughter and granddaughters I will never give up on that.
• It's always lovely when a chap pops up to tell silly women they've been doing feminism wrong. Decades of academic feminist texts and women's activism and what we should be doing is to be nice and do as we are told. No, feminism is not about "equality" (that would be egalitarianism) and it's certainly not about centring men. It is about women – our needs and protections. It may shock you, but we don't care about how people dress or what they call themselves as long as our rights are respected. Women are afraid of men who seek to violate boundaries. That isn't a "phobia" or irrational, and it certainly, sadly, is not "fear of the unknown". The notion that women are ignorant to fear male violence when 1 in 4 is a victim of sexual assault and 1 in 10 a victim of rape is incredibly distasteful. 98% of violent crime is committed by men and this doesn't change with identity. Naturally, not all men, but you will forgive us if we regard with suspicion those fully intact males who demand entry to places where women are especially vulnerable. Women are entitled by law to services and spaces. If Alan, like many others, wish to remove our rights (because this cake analogy doesn't work when women are being told we aren't allowed even crumbs!), he needs to be honest. He appears to have zero concern for women's well evidenced concerns. He seems to see us as little more than support humans. This is sexist gaslighting and I'm pretty appalled it was published.

om frequent citywide lockdowns and orders to self-quarantine at home. 

In addition to regular North Korean citizens, the Chinese police have even caught North Korean border guards in the act of crossing the border for economic reasons. In the past, border guards made a living by taking bribes from civilians in return for turning a blind eye to illegal smuggling, border crossing, and trade. However, after the authorities began enforcing the border blockade, their primary source of income quickly dried up. Additionally, some soldiers are reportedly suffering from starvation due to the failure of the authorities to provide enough food supplies.

They have gone to extraordinary lengths to keep out the virus – installing concrete barriers and high-voltage wires along the border with China. Partly no doubt there's an awareness that the North Korean health system is no state to deal with this kind of pandemic, but there is an undeniable element of paranoia about the whole business: the virus is seen as something foreign, something alien, a threat to the socialist purity of the country under the sacred Mount Paektu bloodline. They've deliberately linked the spread of the virus to the spread of foreign influence, and reported with glee on the pandemic suffering of the decadent South Koreans.

Meanwhile, of course, it's the ordinary North Koreans who suffer.

Marion Post Wolcott – April 1939. "Mosquito Crossing, near Greensboro. Greene County, Georgia."

[Photo: Shorpy/Marion Post Wolcott for the Farm Security Administration]