World: The Archbishop of Canterbury is drawing heat from across Britain after he said in a speech that he “backed the introduction of sharia law in Britain and argued that adopting some aspects of it seemed ‘unavoidable’,” The Guardian reports. “If what we want socially is a pattern of relations in which a plurality of diverse and overlapping affiliations work for a common good, and in which groups of serious and profound conviction are not systematically faced with the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty, it seems unavoidable,” Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, said Thursday night.
Analysis: Want to get paranoid? Here’s an interesting analysis by Richard Sauder, Ph.D., regarding the nine (by his count) cut Internet cables that lead into the Middle East.
Arts: Amy Winehouse, she of beehive fab and disdain for rehab, has been denied a visa into the United States for the Grammy Awards, Bloomberg.com reports. No explanation was given, but I’d lay bets it had something to do with that little crackhead video of hers. What a shame. She’s got so much talent!
Life: Different mothers, same sperm-donor fathers. That’s what two siblings in Portland share. According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the two met through the Donor Sibling Registry. What’s scary is that according to the registry’s creator Wendy Kramer, “nobody keeps track. There’s no regulation.” Why not? One man is reported to have “fathered” 66 children. If they don’t know they’re related, couldn’t these siblings intermarry by accident? This situation is in desperate need of national legislation.
Journalism: On Jan. 18, I wrote a post called 5 ways to kill a newspaper. Thursday in Editor & Publisher is a related story about plans by The Capital Times of Madison, Wisc., to end the daily publication of its newspaper in April and replace it with a 24/7 Web site and twice-weekly tabloid. America, this is the coming trend. Get ready to kiss your daily newspapers goodbye.
♣ Nation/world news tally in my local paper today: 1¾ pages
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