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Nazis at work ... in Israel HITLER and Himmler both must be happy in heaven or hell — wherever they are — for they still have dedicated followers who practice their blood-curdling art with enviable efficiency. Last Sunday, an Israeli bulldozer ran over.....		Is politics a profession? AN affectionate father asked his teenage son about his career plans. The son, having volunteered as a social worker with a semi-political organization for sometime, announced that he wanted to take up politics as the...
Fashionably late ISN’T it hard to believe that a little word like ‘People’ covers humans of all ages, the past, present and future? It also includes the people of all age groups from newborn babies to youth to middle-ageless to seniors and beyond. It also applies to all genders....		A lady comes as the German consul-general SHE is the only lady consul-general in the city now, following the departure sometime ago of Nasima Hyder of Bangladesh for higher appointment in Dhaka. Beginning with Mary Kennedy of the...
An exercise in futility DR RODEE taught political science at the University of Southern California and he drummed into us that democracy was more than a political system, it was a way of life. It...		Changing times HOW life changes! Still, the sun continues to rise, searing and blinding; the moon glistens in the charred night and the weather remains unchanged, too, hot the whole year round. So...
Media matters: outriders overheard THE following conversation was accidentally overheard near London’s Piccadilly Circus one evening. A pressing crowd moved at a leisurely pace. The cherubic Cupid, with his bow and arrow drawn, was taking blind aim at the passersby and the colourful neons were flickering to life. Luckily, the sky was not overcast...		Banned, yet thriving! YOU can tell his trade by his appearance. Deep red lips, darkish brown hands and clothes that are stained as if they were abstract art. Abdul Ghaffar has been selling paan...
Rain, rain, come again A PAINTING engraved on the walls of an ancient Jain temple constructed on the slopes of Karoonjhar hills in Thar desert shows a vulture swirling over a dancing peacock. The natives believe that the peacock in the painting...		London calling COMING out of Heathrow Airport and driving towards the city, I was welcomed by the same peaceful, cool and green environment which had been there several years ago on my previous...
Speaking German LEARNING new languages heralds new vistas of knowledge and understanding. Some people learn them for fun, some have interest, some just like to show off and some just have no choice...		An enigma called woman IF you are an advocate of woman’s lib; do not try it at home. The slogan sounds supreme and sublime, but factually surfeit and strychnine. Before marriage, I was an ardent...
A match made in heaven A SOLEMN and simple occasion like a marriage has unfortunately created several serious social problems for us. It is no doubt a desirable thing, besides being a religious obligation as far...		The debacle and its causes ON March 24, 1843, exactly 160 years back, Sindh saw a historical change. Power changed hands from the Baloch Talpurs to English colonialists. Changes of a similar kind have occurred in the recorded history of the human race. But this was a simple one, with a wide range....
Mir Anis and Spenser MIR Babar Ali Anis is a master of descriptive poetry, so much so that he can be compared with one of the best descriptive poets of the world. Spenser, in English poetry, is a suitable counterpart for this contrast. It so seemed that the poet of the 16th-century England was reborn in 19th-century Lucknow....		Religious debates THERE are two types of religions: one believing in conversion and universalisation of its faith, preaching and winning over disciples from other religions; the other, not believing in conversion, but adhering...
Yagana rediscovered MUSHFIQ Khwaja has done a great job. He has managed to pull out a poetic genius from the oblivion where he had been pushed by his hostile contemporaries. They saw to...		World Cup finals WHEN the inaugural cricket World Cup was staged in 1975, One-Day International cricket was barely four years old. Back then, the shortened version of the game was regarded as a hugely inferior form of cricket when compared to....
Let’s hope for a worthy final THE final is just hours away as you read these lines, and it is pointless to say anything about that. At the time of writing, however, what is hours away is the second semi-final between India and Kenya. So I don’t even have the name of the two finalists...		Football fever PAKISTAN’S football team would participate in the pre-qualifying rounds of Asian Football Championship in Singapore amid hopes to qualify the Asian Championship for the first time as their rivals would be Macao and Singapore. If Pakistan achieves victory in these matches, they would reach into the next and final round for the...
The Partition of India and the prospects of Pakistan: Unknown articles-III SPATE’S article, The Partition of India and the Prospects of Pakistan, referred to in the beginning of the series, was published in the January 1948 issue of The Geographical Review (Volume XXXVIII). The editors reproduced...		Scary video games IT IS difficult to imagine events more horrendous than young people deliberately killing each other. As human beings, we have difficulty accepting such senseless occurrences. The horror of such a happening,...
Minibus and me THOSE of you who travel within Karachi via public transport must have come across a creature that has been ruining the lives of many, known as the minibus. Before I go...		The patriot THIS is in response to the article The patriot by Zulfiqar Haider Ali, published on March 9, 2003. I am amazed to read the opinion of the writer who, like many others, chose the easy way out although he claimed to be a patriot.....
Restaurant rows FOR every couple feeding each other breadsticks, there’s almost certainly one bickering across a barricade of menus. But what benefit can there be in dragging conflicts into the public arena?...		Newsmaker ONE of the biggest blows to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his coalition with the US to wage war on Iraq came early last week with the resignation of Robin Cook, who was the leader of the House of Commons....