By Marc Songini

The man who mapped the human genome is now doing a major follow up by creating the components of synthetic life, offering potential biotechnology breakthroughs but also creating worries over the related ethical, safety and religious consequences.

Harvard University molecular geneticist George Church, the founder of the Human Genome Project, has led a research team to create a self-replicating ribosome. While ribosomes were reconstituted 40 years ago, this appears to be the first time it has been done succesfully and synthetically. Exactly where the research will go isn’t certain, however.

“It’s hard to predict these things,” said Church. “It’s pretty pioneering and a little bit out of the box.”

Church, a renowned researcher who led the mapping of the human genome, explained that the ribosome is a building block: It’s found in all cells and works as a protein creator and synthesizer.

“Almost everything depends on protein synthesis,” said Church. That includes antibodies, drugs, small-molecule compounds, structured materials and biofuels. “It is the main component in all living organisms and one of the most complex. Taking it apart and putting it together is a significant milestone,” he said.

“It’s really opening up new vistas,” said Anthony Forster, assistant professor of pharmacology at Nashville-based Vanderbilt University Medical Center and one of Church’s collaborators. This addresses core cellular replication processes and has applications around both DNA and RNA technology, he noted.

However, with this step forward comes a new set of ethical considerations, say experts. “We need to be critically aware of the profound implications of creating synthetic life,” said Karl Giberson, director of the Forum on Faith and Science at Gordon College in Wenham. “I don’t think this is something to be scared of. I don’t think Mother Nature is being violated in some egregious way. But this is an area of science with important ethical considerations, and religious sensibilities and higher priorities need to be on the table, under discussion.”

But having such a concern isn’t a matter of religious zealotry. “We are intruding into areas of nature that transcend us, and we need the ability to make informed and appropriate decisions,” he said.

Church said ethical and safety considerations are already being addressed. The original plan was just to improve protein synthesis. “It’s not our intention to make an artificial bacterium, much less an artificial human. Being able to make a synthetic cell is a by-product.”

Additionally, these self-replicating systems depend on multiple small molecules and very specific lab conditions to be on life support, noted Forster. “It’s not something that’s going to escape or cause danger.”

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“Guanyin (Wade-Giles: kuan-yin) is the bodhisattva associated with compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female. The name Guanyin is short for Guanshi’yin (Wade-Giles: kuan-shih yin) which means ‘Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World’.
“It is generally accepted (in Chinese community) that Guanyin originated as the Sanskrit Avalokite?vara , which is her male form. Commonly known in the West as the Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin is also revered by Chinese Taoists as an Immortal. However, in Taoist mythology, Guan Yin has other origination stories which are not directly related to Avalokite vara.”
…
“Guanyin is the Chinese name for the Bodhisattva Avalokite vara. However, folk traditions in China and other East Asian countries have added many distinctive characteristics and legends. Avalokite vara was originally depicted as Buddha when he was still a prince, and therefore wears chest-revealing clothing and may even sport a moustache. However, in China, Guanyin is usually depicted as a woman. Additionally, some people believe that Guanyin is both man and woman (or perhaps neither).

“In China, Guanyin is usually shown in a white flowing robe and usually wears necklaces of Indian/Chinese royalty. In the right hand is a water jar containing pure water, and the left holds a willow branch. The crown usually depicts the image of Amitabha Buddha, Guan Yin’s spiritual teacher before she became a Bodhisattva.”
…
Guanyin and the Thousand Arms
“One Buddhist legend presents Guan Yin as vowing to never rest until she had freed all sentient beings from samsara, reincarnation. Despite strenuous effort, she realized that still many unhappy beings were yet to be saved. After struggling to comprehend the needs of so many, her head split into eleven pieces. Amitabha Buddha, seeing her plight, gave her eleven heads with which to hear the cries of the suffering. Upon hearing these cries and comprehending them, Avalokitesvara attempted to reach out to all those who needed aid, but found that her two arms shattered into pieces. Once more, Amitabha came to her aid and appointed her a thousand arms with which to aid the many. Many Himalayan versions of the tale include eight arms with which Avalokitesvara skillfully upholds the Dharma, each possessing its own particular implement, while more Chinese-specific versions give varying accounts of this number.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kannon

Thousand-Hand Guan Yin

(Submitted by a reader)

by Hana Shams Ahmed

Standing Up and Standing Out
[Daily Star, March 7, 2008]

Garment workers demonstrating for their rights (Photo by Syed Zakir Hossain)
Begum Rokeya’s ‘Sultana’s Dream’ was an early work of fantasy fiction. But if any group of women have come close to achieving that state, it is the 18 lakh garment workers in the 4,500 factories all over the country. In a society where a woman’s first responsibility is always seen as the caretaker of the house and mother to her children, where her career is secondary to her husband’s, it is these garment workers who have at many homes become the sole providers for their families. In many cases, it is the husbands who do the family cooking because of the late work hours wives have at the factories.
But their work is not without its share of troubles. It is an everyday struggle they have to face, and they do so with determination from offensive behaviour at the workplace, to long and tiring repetitive work, lack of recreational facilities, and the constant fight for fair pay and good working conditions. Circumstances like these can make or break a person. One woman who has been fighting these barriers for years is 33-year-old Najma Akhter. Starting out as a shy 11-year-old who had to leave school in 5th grade and join a factory as a helper, she has become one the most vocal garment worker leaders of the time.
…
One of the big problems for women working in the garment industry is the constant harassment faced from outsiders while commuting. From making comments about their bodies to stalking, groups of men make their work travel a daily ordeal. “People harassed us all the time and made awful remarks at us when we walked down the road,” says Najma, “and even when we did protests and marches people would say bad things about us: that we were not good people and that our character was bad.”
Najma has a commitment to the cause of these workers. “Because I am a sufferer I know first-hand the kind of problems they face, that’s why I always try to empower them and I want that more people take such leadership roles from the grassroots level so that they can solve their own problems,” she says, “We have had to overcome a lot of barriers to get where we are today. Now I can talk to the government, to the owners, I can talk to the buyers about the workers’ problems, and can make national and international negotiations. Everyone knows me and I can talk about how this industry can be more efficient, and I feel very proud of that. But I feel more people need to come out and take such roles.”
Najma believes that the garment industry is actually a progressive place for women in Bangladesh. “These women are working and sometimes their husbands cook for them,” she says, “you won’t even find this trend in most educated families. I don’t have to tell my husband where I’m going or when I’m coming home. When I first got married he didn’t like the kind of work that I did, but I suffered a lot to come to this position and I couldn’t go back from there.”
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By Ferdie Bester

I recently had a look at Google Trends and noticed that jobs have now finally overtaken sex as the most searched term in South Africa.
Google trends monitor what people search for on Google in South Africa. This information is displayed over time and provides an insight into current affairs.
In the graph below, the blue line shows the search volume for sex, while the red line reflects the number of searches for jobs.

Link to view: http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex,jobs&ctab=0&geo=za&date=all&sort=0

With all the economic turmoil, it is no wonder that people are concerned and it shows in what they are searching for on Google.
According to Solidarity, a leading trade union, 32 companies were already retrenching about 22 000 employees. They estimate that a further 310 000 jobs are on the line.
We at ClickMaven have noticed that some of our clients’ internet marketing campaigns deliver job seekers enquiries. This illustrates that job seekers are not finding the information they are looking for and then resort to using more traditional communication channels.
I urge employers to leverage the internet to advertise and fill positions; it is very easy to start and is cost-effective. Those with limited internet marketing resources can easily use Jobs.co.za or CareerJunction.
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Nikolas Colton Evans had talked about how much he wanted to have a child, but the 21-year-old died after he was punched and hit his head on the ground in a fight. That would have been the end of it, if it weren’t for his determined mother, a court order and a urologist.

Nikolas Colton Evans had talked about how much he wanted to have a child, but the 21-year-old died after he was punched and hit his head on the ground in a fight. That would have been the end of it, if it weren’t for his determined mother, a court order and a urologist.
Missy Evans has harvested her dead son’s sperm and hopes to find a surrogate and one day raise her son’s child. It’s a decision that ethicists say raises troubling questions; one called the potential offspring a “replacement child.”

Evans isn’t concerned about what others might think. She says she is only doing what her son would have wanted.
“He would love me so much for doing this,” she said.
Austin police say Nikolas Evans was punched during a fight on an Austin street early March 27 and then fell to the ground, striking his head. He died April 5. Police are still trying to identify the person who hit him.

After a doctor told her that nothing more could be done for her son, Missy Evans came up with the idea of harvesting his sperm. She discussed the idea with her ex-husband, her older son and other family members, and said all supported her wish to help a part of Nikolas live on through his future offspring.

She said her son once told her he wanted three sons and had already picked out names. She described Nikolas as an “old soul” interested in filmmaking, politics, music and old movies.

“My son wanted to graduate from college. He wanted to have children. And someone took that away from him,” said Evans, 42, of Bedford, located between Dallas and Fort Worth.
Evans had to go to court to get permission to harvest his sperm. On Tuesday, a Travis County probate judge granted her wish – ordering the county Medical Examiner’s Office to keep her son’s body chilled to at least 39.2 degrees and allow access so an expert could take the specimen.

Evans’ attorney Mark Mueller said no one opposed the plan.
An Austin urologist volunteered her services and collected testicular tissue from the body Wednesday night. Missy Evans said she’s been told much of the sperm is viable and is making plans for it to be stored.
Decisions such as Evans’ must be made quickly, and allow little time for a grieving person to reflect on the choice, one ethicist said.
Using the sperm brings up more issues.

“That child’s biological father will be dead. The mother may be an egg donor, anonymous or gestational surrogate,” said Tom Mayo, director of Southern Methodist University’s Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility.

“This is a tough way for a kid to come into the world. As the details emerge and the child learns more about their origins, I just wonder what the impact will be on a replacement child,” Mayo said.
He said the desire to replace a deceased child is a classic scenario that, in this case, took a nontraditional turn.
“The underlying desire would be very strong, even if she wouldn’t describe it that way,” he said.
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By The Point

The Point is in a bit of a funk. I just can’t seem to shake the urge to pepper my sentences with expletives and throw heavy objects at my computer screen whenever the letters J and Z follow each other in quick succession. Or, for that matter, the letters N, P and A.
I tried applying reason. It failed. I burnt an effigy. It left me feeling momentarily vindicated, but scorched fingertips quickly dulled my enthusiasm. Finally, I turned to the stars. For what else could explain the inexplicable?

Horoscope.com’s Monday prediction for Aries was fairly illuminating: “It’s a deceptively quiet start to a rather hectic week, so use this day to prepare. Think ahead; clear your in-tray; address any backlog; attend to the details, rather than leaving them for another day. The more you do now, the more you’ll reduce the possibility of feeling time-pressured!”

No, I’m not an Aries. But Jacob Zuma (#%*# there goes my screen) is.
THE ZUMIVERSE
In the beginning was the word; and the word was with Zuma; and the word was Zuma. Any suggestions to the contrary are part of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy.

The Gospel according to Vavi: “They were conniving… and I feel Zuma, as well as millions of workers who felt there was something untoward in the matter, have been vindicated.
The Gospel according to Phosa: “We have always said Zuma is innocent, and today it was the NPA who said it. We say to the NPA: at last you have seen the light, you have finally seen the truth. Those in the media who have been prosecuting him every day should hang their heads in shame.”

The Word of Zuma: “I do not regard myself as being above the law and no public person should be above scrutiny. In the last eight years, I did not use my position to interfere with the due course of the law… and I always presented myself in court whenever needed.
“There is no cloud. There has (sic) been allegations against me and the State has not been able to put up the case. I have not been found guilty in a court of law.”

Footnotes of a philistine: (posture check) head still surprisingly upright; definition of ‘vindicated’ — (1) to clear somebody of blame, guilt, suspicion or doubt (2) to show that somebody or something is justified or correct.

ZUMAGGEDON
Those not quite buying into the Word of Zuma (yes, the counter-revolutionaries and those hanging their heads in shame) are predicting the end of the world as we know it. Justice sacrificed on technicalities; rampant corruption; and politicians who are accountable to no one… so, just more of the same, really.
“This decision is a blow to our democracy that will be felt for years to come. The NPA, in this act, has undermined the Constitution and impoverished our judicial system, thus exposing the people of South Africa to future miscarriages of justice.” — Cope.

“It’s a shameful day in our country’s history. People must brace themselves, our justice system is crumbling. To remedy this situation the voters need to express their disgust at the polls.” — Bantu Holomisa.

“It is shocking and outrageous that the ANC’s in-fighting and power struggle has landed us in this trouble. What is even worse is the fact that it has been done with millions of rands of taxpayers’ money.” — Pieter Mulder.

“Zuma must take note that the truth is that the NPA dropped charges in spite of its assertion a few weeks ago that I had ‘a winnable case’ and also in spite of the Louis Harmse judgment, which stated that ‘a prosecution is not wrongful merely because it is brought for an improper purpose.” — Patricia de Lille.

There’s more… but it all follows pretty much the same formula.

ZUMACRACY
Between the ANC’s rewriting of history and the opposition’s declarations of righteous indignation, the week has not been entirely devoid of irony.
From Pastor Ray McCauley: “We all have a duty not to erode the integrity of the institution even when some may not agree with its decision.”

Integrity? What integrity?
“Our president has always respected the laws of this country. When he was recalled to go to court, he did so,” said Paul Mashatile. “We urge the NPA that if they want to earn our respect, they must do the right thing… let them drop the charges tomorrow.”

Erm… I’m pretty sure there was a threat in there somewhere. Somewhere between ‘if they want to earn our respect’ (who wouldn’t?) and ‘drop the charges’.

And, at a Zuma liberation celebration, ANC spokesperson Mcebisi Jonas declared triumphantly: “The people of the Eastern Cape are elated at this decision. There is excitement across the province. This decision goes very far in ensuring we have a hold of the rule of law.”
A strong hold. A firm hold. A stranglehold.

Finally, a word from the man of the moment: “My legal team was excellent. Maybe I will explain in future why I chose them to represent me. (I can hazard a guess…) I will explain when I write my book one day.”

What did I tell you? The Word of Zuma. Incidentally, it just so happens to be Mosholozi’s birthday on Sunday. Yes, that’s Easter Sunday. Try to appreciate the irony…

The Point’s monitor has been rendered useless by an angry pot plant. Feel free to share quotes from the week (which are totally and utterly unrelated to JZ) below…
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by Levi Bridges

In Colombia, many indigenous people inhabit officially designated resguardos, or reserves, in highland areas where insufficient space fails to fulfill the agricultural needs of an increasing population. The lives of the indigenous Nasa are further complicated because they live in Colombia’s Cauca Department, a violent area where fighting between the army, the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and right-wing paramilitary groups often leaves indigenous people caught in the crossfire. Together, violence and malnutrition caused by the land deficit have resulted in numerous Nasa deaths. Like many indigenous peoples in Latin America, the contemporary problems within the Nasa community began centuries ago. During the Spanish conquest, European settlers claimed flatter lowlands better suited to agriculture for themselves. Hundreds of years later, indigenous groups from Mexico to Bolivia barely eke out a subsistence living cultivating crops on the steep hillsides their ancestors were forced to inhabit. Such is the plight of the Nasa.
On December 16, 1991, the sun barely penetrated the clouds in the highlands of Cauca. More than 50 Nasa had gathered to discuss a land dispute on the El Nilo ranch. Years earlier, a previous landowner had permitted some Nasa to live and cultivate crops on unused portions of the land, but when the estate was sold, the new owners sought to expel them. As the daylight faded, and the owners had still not arrived, some returned home, while others gathered around small fires to share a hot plate of food.

Suddenly, the still quiet of dusk was broken by the intrusion of approaching vehicles. Without warning, gunshots and screams signaled the beginning of the supposedly nonviolent meeting which the Nasa had waited for all day. “The shots came from far away,” recalled Caroline Corpus de Dicuè in a court testimony just days later. “We could not see who was firing because it was already dark … another group nearby were boiling beans … they were the ones who were killed. We were … running uphill towards our house … later they burned our house and clothes … they burned the belongings of all the Nasa living in El Nilo.” On the following morning, the blood of twenty Nasa—men, women and children—stained the green grass.
Today, many believe that drug traffickers purchased the El Nilo estate and, with the compliance of local police, orchestrated the 1991 massacre that left behind eight widows and 40 orphans. Despite warnings from armed groups and local authorities that they could be risking their lives by remaining in El Nilo, the Nasa who inhabited the ranch sought to resolve the matter through a legal agreement between themselves, the new landowners, and the Colombian Institute of Agrarian Reform. Because of these prior admonishments, many Nasa now refer to the El Nilo massacre as Another Chronicle of a Death Foretold, a play on words of the novella written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia’s Nobel Laureate of Literature.
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By Robert Weissman and James Donahue

Wall Street has no one but itself to blame for the current financial crisis. Investment banks, hedge funds and commercial banks made reckless bets using borrowed money. They created and trafficked in exotic investment vehicles that even top Wall Street executives — not to mention firm directors — did not understand. They hid risky investments in off-balance-sheet vehicles or capitalized on their legal status to cloak investments altogether. They engaged in unconscionable predatory lending that offered huge profits for a time, but led to dire consequences when the loans proved unpayable. And they created, maintained and justified a housing bubble, the popping of which has thrown the United States and the world into a deep recession, resulted in a foreclosure epidemic ripping apart communities across the country, and caused the financial crisis itself.
…
This article documents 10 specific deregulatory steps (including failures to regulate and failures to enforce existing regulations) that enabled Wall Street to crash the financial system. Wall Street didn’t obtain these regulatory abeyances based on the force of its arguments. At every step, critics warned of the dangers of further deregulation. Their evidence-based claims could not offset the political and economic muscle of Wall Street. The financial sector showered campaign contributions on politicians from both parties, invested heavily in a legion of lobbyists [see “By the Numbers” on page 12], paid academics and think tanks to justify their preferred policy positions, and cultivated a pliant media — especially a cheerleading business media complex.

1. The Repeal of Glass-Steagall and the Rise of the Culture of Recklessness
…
2. Hiding Liabilities: Off-Balance Sheet Accounting
…
3. The Executive Branch Rejects Financial Derivative Regulation
…
4. Congress Blocks Financial Derivative Regulation
…
5. The SEC’s Voluntary Regulation Regime
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6. No Predatory Lending Enforcement
…
7. Federal Preemption of State Regulation and Consumer Protection Laws
…
8. Escaping Accountability: Assignee Liability
…
9. Merger Mania
…
10. Rampant Conflicts of Interest: Credit Ratings Firms’ Failure
…

Robert Weissman is editor of Multinational Monitor. James Donahue is an attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based Essential Action. This article is based on a February report, available in full with citationns at www.wallstreetwatch.org, published by the Consumer Education Foundation and Essential Information, the parent organization of Multinational Monitor. Harvey Rosenfield, Jennifer Wedekind, Marcia Carroll, Peter Maybarduk, Tom Bollier and Paulo Barbone assisted with writing and research.

By the Numbers:
Throwing Money at the Political Process
How did Wall Street manage over the decades to achieve such an across-the-board rollback of existing regulations, suspension of new regulation and abeyance of regulatory enforcement?
There were many factors, but surely a leading explanation was the extraordinary amount of money that financial firms invested in political influence purchasing.
The financial sector spent more than $5 billion on federal campaign contributions and lobbying in the United States over the last decade. That number comes from a Multinational Monitor analysis of campaign donation and lobbying disclosure statements. The Monitor analysis draws on campaign donation and lobbying spending tallies prepared by the Center for Responsive Politics, as well as lobby disclosure statements filed with the Congress.

The entire financial sector (finance, insurance, real estate) drowned political candidates in campaign contributions, spending more than $1.725 billion in federal elections from 1998-2008. Primarily reflecting the balance of power over the decade, about 55 percent went to Republicans and 45 percent to Democrats. Democrats took just more than half of the financial sector’s 2008 election cycle contributions.
The industry spent even more — topping $3.3 billion — on officially registered lobbyists during the same period. This total certainly underestimates by a considerable amount what the industry spent to influence policymaking. U.S. reporting rules require that lobby firms and individual lobbyists disclose how much they have been paid for lobbying activity, but lobbying activity is defined to include direct contacts with key government officials, or work in preparation for meeting with key government officials. Public relations efforts and various kinds of indirect lobbying are not covered by the reporting rules.

During the 10-year period, commercial banks spent more than $154 million on campaign contributions, while investing $363 million in officially registered lobbying. Accounting firms spent $68 million on campaign contributions and $115 million on lobbying; hedge funds spent $32 million on campaign contributions (about half in the 2008 election cycle); and $16 million on lobbying; insurance companies donated more than $218 million and spent more than $1.1 billion on lobbying; private equity firms contributed $56 million to federal candidates and spent $33 million on lobbying; securities firms invested more than $504 million in campaign contributions, and an additional $576 million in lobbying.

Individual firms spent tens of millions of dollars each. During the 10-year period, Goldman Sachs spent more than $45 million on political influence buying; Merrill Lynch spent more than $67 million; Citigroup spent more than $100 million; Bank of America devoted more than $38 million; and JPMorgan Chase invested more than $59 million. Accounting giants Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, KPMG and Pricewaterhouse spent, respectively, $31 million, $36 million, $26 million and $54 million.

The number of people working to advance the financial sector’s political objectives is startling. In 2007, the financial sector employed a staggering 2,996 separate lobbyists, more than five for each Member of Congress. The securities/investment industry alone had 1,023 lobbyists on their payroll.
A great many of those lobbyists entered and exited through the revolving door connecting the lobbying world with government. Surveying only 20 leading firms in the financial sector (none from the insurance industry), we found that 142 industry lobbyists during the period 1998-2008 had formerly worked as “covered officials” in the government. “Covered officials” are top officials in the executive branch (most political appointees, from members of the cabinet to directors of bureaus embedded in agencies), Members of Congress and congressional staff.

Nothing evidences the revolving door — or Wall Street’s direct influence over policymaking — more than the stream of Goldman Sachs expatriates who left the Wall Street goliath, spun through the revolving door, and emerged to hold top regulatory positions. Topping the list, of course, are former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson, both of whom had served as chair of the investment bank Goldman Sachs before entering government.
— R.W.
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After Obama’s First Peace Crusade

By Patrick Cockburn

The start of the Iraq war in 2003 marked a crucial break between the US and almost all the states of the region. “None of Iraq’s neighbors, absolutely none, were pleased by the American occupation of Iraq,” says the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari. Long-term US allies like Turkey astonished the White House by refusing to allow US troops to use its territory to invade Iraq.

Barack Obama, who made his first official visit to the country on Tuesday, is now trying to disengage from Iraq without appearing to scuttle or leave anarchy behind.

He is trying to win back old allies, and, as he made clear in a speech in Ankara on Monday, to end the confrontation between the US and Islam which was president Bush’s legacy.

It is not easy for Mr Obama to reverse the tide of anti-Americanism or bring to an end the wars which Mr Bush began. For all the Iraqi government’s claim that life is returning to normal in Baghdad the last few days have seen a crescendo of violence. The day before the President arrived, six bombs exploded in different parts of Baghdad, killing 37 people.

And as much as Mr Obama would like to treat the Iraq war as ancient history, the US is still struggling to extricate itself. The very fact that the Democratic President had to arrive in Iraq by surprise for security reasons, as George Bush and Tony Blair invariably did, shows that the conflict is refusing to go away.

The Iraqi Prime Minister and President remain holed up in the Green Zone most of the time. The American President could not fly into the Green Zone by helicopter because of bad weather but the airport road is still unsafe and Baghdad remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world. The Iraqi political landscape too was permanently altered by the US invasion and it will be difficult to create a stable Iraqi state which does not depend on the US. Opinion polls in Iraq show that most Iraqis believe that it is the US and not their own government which is in control of their country.

One change which is to Mr Obama’s advantage is that the American media have largely stopped reporting the conflict because they no longer have the money to do so and a majority of Americans think the war was won. But the danger for the President is that if there is a fresh explosion in Iraq, he may be blamed for throwing away a victory that was won by his predecessor.

The rhetoric with which the US conducts its diplomacy is easier to change than facts on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. Mr Obama’s speech to the Turkish parliament in Ankara was a carefully judged bid to reassure the Muslim world that the US is not at war with Islam.
Everything he said was in sharp contrast to George Bush’s bellicose threats post 9/11 about launching a “crusade” and to the rhetoric of neo-conservatives attacking “Islamo-fascism” or claiming that there was a “clash of civilizations.”

The leaders of states with Muslim majorities appreciate the different tone of US pronouncements, but wonder how far Mr Obama will be able to introduce real change.

Turkish students at a meeting with Mr Obama in Istanbul voiced scepticism that American actions in future would be much different from what they were under Mr Bush. Reasonably enough, Mr Obama replied that he should be given time and “moving the ship of state is a slow process.” But he also cited the US withdrawal from Iraq as a sign that he would match actions to words.

Istanbul, on the boundaries of Europe and Asia, is a good place for the US leader to display a more conciliatory attitude towards Islam. The city is filled with grandiose monuments to Christianity and Islam, though religious tolerance was more in evidence under the Ottoman empire than since the foundation of the modern Turkish state in 1923. Mr Obama paid visits to the great Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia and was shown the splendors of the Blue Mosque by turbaned clerics.
But the women students wearing short skirts and without headscarves asking Mr Obama questions in fluent English give a misleading impression of the balance between the secular and the religious in modern-day Turkey.

The reality is that secularism is dying away in Turkey’s rural hinterland and is on the retreat even in Istanbul itself. Butchers selling pork are few compared to 20 years ago. Obtaining alcohol is quietly being made more difficult, except for foreign tourists, by high taxes on wine and expensive liquor licenses for restaurants.

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The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

The Short and Simple Story of the Credit Crisis.

The goal of giving form to a complex situation like the credit crisis is to quickly supply the essence of the situation to those unfamiliar and uninitiated. This project was completed as part of my thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

For more on my broader thesis work exploring the use of new media to make sense of a increasingly complex world, visit jonathanjarvis.com.

© Copyright 2009 Jonathan Jarvis
(Submitted by a reader)