Mick Hartley

Gnarled of Highgate

Hornbeams (well, I think they're all hornbeams) in Queen's Wood this morning:

 

Medical technology, 1940s

Jan. 11, 1941. "Triboro Hospital for Tuberculosis, Parsons Boulevard, Jamaica, New York. Fluoroscopy room with technician."

[Photo: Shorpy/Gottscho-Schleisner]

Newly built and state-of-the-art in 1941, the Triboro is now threatened with demolition.

Brown and red

In the Olympic Park:

Falling

2015 will mark the beginning of the end for Kim Jong Eun. He will fall as quickly as he rose.  

That's Sohn Gwang Joo's hopeful conclusion, in an interesting piece at the Daily NK. 

Elsewhere, Joshua Stanton writes about "Kim Jong Un’s most vocal academic apologist", Christine Hong, who - in a fine academic tradition following on from Edward Said's "seminal" Orientalism - sees racism as the driving force for US relations with Korea, even attributing racist motives and white privilege to those advocating human rights for North Koreans. Yet, strangely, she has nothing to say when Pyongyang calls President Obama a monkey. Hidden racism as underlying narrative for US imperialist ambitions, oh yes: overt racism that shouts at you in the face and slaps you hard on the bum, nope - nothing there.

It's well worth a read.

The fun of the fair

LIFE photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt at a fair in West Virginia, 1938:

[Photos: Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images]

Houseboats

Lake Oroville, California:

[Photo: Tomas van Houtryve]

One of Time's Top Ten Photos of 2014.

The lake is currently well under full capacity as California suffers a third year of drought.

Already circulating in China

Was all the fuss worth it for North Korea? - whether or not they were the ones behind the Sony hack.

[Photo nicked from here]

Probably not:

North Korea last Thursday launched a taskforce within the State Security Department to prevent Sony Pictures' film about a plot to assassinate leader Kim Jong-un from being smuggled into the North, according to a source.

The regime seems to have now turned its attention to blocking pirated DVDs of the caper "The Interview" from being smuggled into the North after it failed to prevent its release despite a hacking attack and threats against Sony Pictures.

A three-star general in the State Security Department assisted by about a dozen officials has launched a taskforce at the provincial security office in Hyesan, Ryanggang Province, the source said last Friday. 

He told senior security officials, police officers, border guards, and a squadron in charge of cracking down on foreign media content to block the smuggling of the film.

"The regime has started cracking down on the black market, while keeping close watch on smugglers in the border area," the source added. "Officials are visiting homes and checking computers and DVD players."

Meanwhile, the off-the-rack caper starring Seth Rogen has become an unlikely Internet sensation. The film has been illegally downloaded 750,000 times on BitTorrent around the world, press reports said.

This figure shows that the illegal downloads soared in the first 20 hours of Sony's release of the film on some websites on Wednesday and figure will likely grow.

Pirated DVDs are already circulating in China, from where they stand the best chance of being smuggled into the North. 

On Chinese microblogging site Weibo, the film can also be streamed with Chinese subtitles.

It has had more than 500,000 views on file-sharing websites, suggesting millions of Chinese have watched the film.

Judging by online comments some enjoyed it, many were bored, and a few suspected a marketing stunt by Sony for a movie that would otherwise have sunk like a stone.

Hoxton blue

St. John's, Hoxton:

Going viral

The latest hit on Arab social media: How to Stab a Jew.

Offending a Muslim's feelings

Hate speech, and its consequences, in Pakistan (via):

Gunmen in a Punjab village shot dead a member of the Ahmadi religious minority on Saturday, five days after a Muslim leader denounced Ahmadis on a popular television show.

Luqman Ahad Shehzad was shot in the back of the head near Bhiri Shah Rehman village, a small community of Ahmadis in the Gujranwala district, said Saleemud Din, a spokesman of the community.

He is the eleventh person killed for being Ahmadi in Pakistan this year.

In 1984, a Pakistani law declared them non-Muslims and made it possible to jail Ahmadis for “posing as a Muslim” or “offending a Muslim's feelings”.

They are often denounced by Muslim clerics and targeted by violent extremists. Some clerics promise that killing Ahmadis earns the killer a place in heaven and distribute leaflets listing their home addresses.

Just pause a moment to let that sink in.....

On Monday, Muslim leader Syed Arif Shah Owaisi appeared on a popular morning television show hosted by Pakistani host Aamir Liaquat Hussain.

“This enemy is a common enemy and is an enemy of all of Pakistan. And this enemy is the sect of Qadiyani,” Owaisi said, using a derogatory term for Ahmadis.

“They are the ones blaspheming against the holy prophet (pbuh). All us Muslims should recognise that enemy.”

Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan. Scores of people have been lynched after being accused of blasphemy.

Saturday's killing was the second time Hussain's show has hosted religious leaders denouncing Ahmadis. In 2008, he hosted scholars who called for the Ahmadis to be killed. Within a day, two prominent Ahmadis had been shot dead.

What a delightful country.