Chess on 9/11

It was a grim day for first responders, but I didn't want a sad picture. So here are happy NYPD officers.

It’s that time of year when you talk about where you were when…

Which I haven’t done before because it seems a distasteful online version of shroud waving, unless you actually were there, like BBC journalist Stephen Evans who happened to be inside the World Trade Center when the planes struck, or you really helped, or – of course – it hit close to home – like with this young man who lost his Belfast-born father.

But somebody asked me to write something and perhaps once every ten years is acceptable. So…

There I was sitting in a radio studio in Bush House in London. I was editing a radio show called Newshour which goes out on the BBC World Service (reputed audience of 157 million

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Things you don’t expect to see in Harlem

So I was wandering through Harlem (New York) when I saw this sign. I did a double take. Checked my surroundings. Re-checked. Yup, still in Harlem.

No – the letters on the sign haven’t been mischievously rearranged

A beautiful Hazara boy, some lateral thinking and Anita Tijoux

15-year-old Hazara boy Ali Aqa, Bamiyan, Afghanistan. (From Steve McCurry's blog.)

Hazara candy factory, Kabul, Afghanistan. (From Steve McCurry's blog.)

The Taliban’s favourite victims – the Hazara. You may remember them. They had some huge statues at Bamiyan. Steve McCurry has taken some striking photographs in Afghanistan. The two pics here are from his post Blood and Smoke of the Hazarajat.

He has other alarming photographs of war and death  – including an arresting image of a dead Afghan solider floating in water – which is at the bottom of this post.

It’s gruesome, so don’t scroll below the item about Anita Tijoux if you’re feeling squeamish. In fact, let me know if you think it’s too much, and I’ll remove it. Meanwhile more thought-provoking stuff on Afghanistan here.

And… This is clever.

Absurdist pranksters subvert anti-Gay demonstrators with a bit of lateral thinking. (From the Laughing Squid.)

Rather than try to out-shout, out-bluster or out-threaten the opposition, these guys just let themselves get a bit carried away with their placards.

(They’d have been welcome at our own demonstration recently.)

Other placards they introduced to the San Francisco protest by Westboro Baptist Church had messages such as:

• God Hates Flags
• Build Prisons on the Moon
• Silly Hats Only
• I Was Promised Donuts
• God Hates Signs

It’s all good. More details at the Laughing Squid site. If only more demonstrations were more like this. (Apart from the homophobia, naturally.) It makes our save-the-village-bus efforts seem boringly predictable.

Anita Tijoux

Anita Tijoux

She’s a Chilean-French hip hop MC. I noticed her on the always interesting Exodus blog, where you can listen to “Partir de cero” (“From Scratch”) from her album 1977. Go on, give it a go. Mexican singer  Julieta Venegas is there too.

And now… The gruesome photo is below.

Same as the top two, it’s from photographer Steve McCurry. His details are here. Again, let me know if you thinks it’s too strong to have on without having to click on a link.

Dead Afghan Soldier, Jalalabad, Afghanistan, 1992. (From Steve McCurry's blog.)