What's wrong with David Brooks?

A column about Hannukah from the NYT. From the comments:

David Brooks, the Jew, is as interesting to read as David Brooks, the Conservative, or David Brooks, the Pragmatist.

Cat Scan to the Past!

This economist piece shows how technology is helping to reintegrate little pieces of the world's OLDEST bible. Money quote:

Through a number of odd historical circumstances, the constituent parts of the world’s oldest manuscript of the Bible—usually dated to the mid-fourth century—are located in four different places. They are the British Library in London, the University Library in Leipzig, the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg and the ancient monastery of St Catherine’s on the slopes of Mount Sinai, the Bible’s original home.

But as of this month, the manuscript has been “reunited” in cyberspace, thanks to a joint effort by the four institutions. The monastery agreed to collaborate only after making clear that by doing so it was not compromising its claim to be the moral owner of the whole text, known as the Codex Sinaiticus; all sides agreed to investigate the recent history of the text more deeply. So now anybody can read a more or less intact manuscript, complete with selected translation and commentary, on a website (www.codexsinaiticus.org) which has already proved hugely popular—and hence is a little slow.

Some time back, the WSJ featured some of the new research being done super important sources for history. Here is the multimedia and the article.

What's most fascinating is how some scholars are using MRI technology to digitally unravel scriptural scrolls that have shrunk and withered like an old cigar. How much knowledge of history is beyond our ability to reconstruct it? How much can we revive?

Tax on Religious Minorities in Pakistan

It's been in the news quite a bit recently: religious minority groups, the most conspicuous of which are Sikhs, must pay jizya, or poll tax. Some have compared it to a Mafia-style protection payment.

Interesting thing is, though, the parallel governments in Pakistan. People ask is Pakistan going to break up? My question is, did it already?

"Minorities in Orakzai and Khyber were warned by some militant groups to become Muslims or leave the area. This was a real threat," Singh said.

"They're running a parallel government. Hindu and Sikh families did not feel safe, in Orakzai, in Bara and in Tirah. We preferred to migrate, at least here we can breathe in peace and feel safe," he said.

Anyways, Sikhs in Pakistan is a fascinating topic, how cool would it be for someone to do more research on it.

You can't keep a good sage down

A couple of years ago, the economist had a great article about a Confucian comeback in contemporary China.

Apparently, despite tradition's ideological differences with Communism, there are just some things about that are too hot NOT to co-opt.

Join the Taliban!

According to the AJE, the Taliban has recently issued a code of conduct ("Rules for Mujahadin in Afghanistan") to regulate and centralize their authority. This is so interesting, it blows my mind.

Why this? Why now? Of what is the Taliban anxious?