Animal welfare and European bureaucracy impose malnutrition

Animal welfare is usually regarded as a noble concept and a milestone of human civilization. Those living in the insulated reality of the Western world may sincerely believe this. However, my experience as a Bulgarian, i.e. resident of one of the poorest countries in Europe, points otherwise. Animal welfare is a bizarre idea with disastrous consequences, especially for poor people. It is destroying decades of progress concerning human rights and well-being.

Now, as Europeans are preparing for Easter, some are angry at the scarcity and high prices of eggs as a result of the European Union's Welfare of Laying Hens Directive. Egg prices are particularly sky-rocketing in Bulgaria. As a result, "hens get happier while people get unhappier" (in the words of a Bulgarian egg producer quoted by EUBusiness).

To make it clear why, I shall refer to the post Happy Hens and Stupid Minister by well-known Bulgarian blogger Longanlon. The title of the post refers to the Bulgarian agriculture minister Miroslav Naydenov, and it bashes EU bureaucrats and their Bulgarian overzealous followers for elevating hen's happiness to top priority and making consumers and farmers unhappy by forcing on them high egg prices and expensive farming methods, respectively. The post is good, but it is part of the discussion that is a must-read, and I am going to translate it for you.

A commenter asks, "People spend much on junk food, why not pay more for high-quality eggs? If hens are bred in a better way, the nutritive value and the taste of eggs will be different... Why shouldn't eggs be more expensive and of higher quality?"

The blog host replies, "Because for some people priority is not "the high-quality food" but just "the food"... For the poor, eggs used to be the only cheap food of animal origin. I talked to the shop assistant at the corner shop where most customers are modest-income. She said that, after the price of eggs climbed, only I am buying them. She showed me the empty places in egg packages, she had sold only 6 eggs for a week."

(In Bulgaria, when prices go up, shopkeepers begin to sell single items of goods indended to be sold in packages, such as eggs, baby diapers, drug tablets etc. - hence the empty places in the package.)

So you see that the directive banning sale of eggs laid by "unhappy hens" causes harm far beyond interference with a beloved traditional spring festival. It will force many thousands of Bulgarians to restrict their egg consumption, which has been their main source of animal protein. Possibly the champions of animal happiness in the rich countries of "Old Europe" are blissfully unaware that tens of thousands of EU citizens still suffer from protein malnutrition. Someone must inform them of that fact. And if they know it and still think that the welfare of laying hens is more important than welfare (and health) of human beings... - then I fear the problem is very deep and it will not be easy to find a solution to it. At any rate, for the near future humans will continue to be deprived of food in the name of the tentative happiness of laying hens.

The story of my site

Photo: My brother's collection of computers in 2001, when he was studying computer science.




(Warning: long, and not cheerful, post; but still advise you to read it if you create or manage intellectual property and especially if you own a small site.)

When I first started my work as biology teacher, nearly 20 years ago, I was shocked by the poor quality of the textbook our students were forced to use and the absence of suitable teaching materials in Bulgarian. I decided to write a better textbook. Slowly, in the late afternoons and some evenings and weekends, I prepared a collection of biology texts.

At that time (the mid- and late 1990s), I had no idea how I would eventually publish my work. We were only beginning to use the Internet and had no opportunity to contribute to it. As for publishing on paper, it was reserved for people richer and more powerful than me. I was even inclined to recruit some more senior "co-author" one day to help publish the texts. It was another era, possibly escaping not only the experience but even the imagination of younger readers.

I gradually shared with some friends and colleagues the idea of the "textbook" and even some of its content. Among these friends was a young colleague working at another city. I'll call her by her nickname - Tanya. In late 1999, she had to prepare for an exam important for her career and complained that the official textbook was unusable. "Haven't you any more human source?" she asked. I said that some unpublished texts of mine might be what she needed. Then I downloaded my "textbook" on three floppy disks and sent them to Tanya by mail, together with the password needed to open the files.

A day before the exam, which was to take place in Sofia, Tanya called me by phone. She said she was glad that we would meet the next day. She thanked me for the files and said they had been very useful for her to prepare for the exam.

This was the last time I heard Tanya. We were awaiting her the next day but she never came. The car in which she was traveling had a fatal crash on the way to Sofia.

Tanya's death deeply saddened me. Because our last conversation was about my "textbook", I was unable to touch it for two or three months. Then, slowly, I resumed work.

At the beginning of 2003, two important things happened. First, I had a publication as a ghost author - not of parts of the "textbook" but of some other works written specifically for that purpose. And I discovered I had undergone a change of heart. My teaching texts had finally seen the light of day, but I was not at all satisfied. I no longer wanted just to publish my work to be read - at any rate and under anyone's name. At that time, I was pregnant with my first child and I thought that my texts were also my offspring and I didn't want them adopted by other people, no matter what those other people would give me in return or whether I would ever had another chance of publication.

Second, something very weird happened with a textbook written by some senior teachers. After they had given their draft chapters to the textbook editor, he showed me one of the manuscripts written by a lady I'll designate only as L. By chance, this editor was among the people who not only knew about my work but had even briefly seen the files. Imagine my surprise when I recognized, in abbreviated form, the early versions of some of my teaching texts.

It wasn't rocket science to reconstruct what had happened. Tanya had apparently either printed my files or stored them in her office computer as copies not protected by password. After her death, L., who worked at the same facility, discovered these files and naturally attributed them to Tanya. And when L. was invited to contribute to the new textbook, she decided to make use of what she had found and so to take the credit without doing too much hard work.

I explained the situation to the editor. L. soon came to Sofia, perhaps called by him. He left us two in a room to "clarify the situation". It was a very unpleasant conversation, both for me and for L., who thought she had robbed "just" a dead author and was nastily surprised to confront a living author. Though at one point she confessed to have used as sources texts found among Tanya's things, she fiercely denied any wrongdoing. She insisted only researchers who had made important discoveries could claim copyright, but not other people explaining their discoveries in educational texts. (An interesting concept, wasn't it? And in such a case, why on Earth would her name appear on the cover of the damned textbook?)

Finally, the editor told L. to somewhat change the chapters so that they would no longer be quite identical to my texts. She did this - of course, the changes were all distortions diminishing the quality of the original. Meanwhile, I decided I had had enough and I would take measures to prevent the same from happening on a larger scale.

The Internet was expanding and becoming more accessible for mere mortals like me. I wanted to publish my "textbook" online and I asked my brother George for advice how to do it best. He had emigrated to the USA five years earlier. At first, he had started work at a car repair shop, then taught himself computer science and later "officially" studied it at the Suffolk County Community College. His teachers liked him so much that when the IT department needed another programmer, they invited him. He was very happy with his new job; his American dream was coming true.

George told me that every employee of his college had the right and opportunity to upload his "personal" pages with whatever content he wished, provided it did not violate any law or rule. He said, "Just send to me your texts and figures by e-mail and I'll prepare the pages in no time." And he did. He then kept fulfilling every petty wish of mine of the type "Please put one Enter after this figure and make the font of that paragraph one point smaller". He just refused to be mentioned as Webmaster.

This way, for some time my educational pages were hosted on the Suffolk Country Community College's Web site. The URL was a mile long, but at least it ended with the suitable edu extension. I guess the faculty members are unaware to this day of the help provided by their College to a university in a little-known European country.

In late 2005, however, there were troubles with the College site. As my brother said, some absent-minded (to say the least) employee had by mistake uploaded to the Web personal data of other people. As a result, all employees' pages were closed down with the promise to be reloaded later after case-by-case examination. George said that what we needed was my own site with my own domain name. I suggested to use the opportunity for free pages given by some providers, but he said he would not allow stupid banners to flash across the top of my pages. "Just choose a domain name, and I'll register it and do the rest," he insisted. I chose my name, mayamarkova.com, to be the domain name.

Things went smoothly and happily until 2010, when my brother died.

He had managed the site and paid for it all by himself and had not bothered me with the practical aspects of this work. After all, he had planned to continue doing it for me for a long time - why not, he was in good health and nobody expected anything to happen to him. Now, I remembered I had once received an e-mail from the host-registrar company. I looked at the print, just to find out which company it was (I didn't yet know that this could be easily done by the so-called Whois search.) It was Hostgool Hosting, Inc.

I e-mailed Hostgool, telling them to contact me for everything about the site. They asked me to login. When I explained what had happened and why I did not even know the username and password, they told me to send them a scan of my brother's credit card.

I was initially unwilling to disturb my sister in-law with such a request, but how could I allow my site created by my brother - our common deed - perish? So I asked her for help. She was very kind and sent me the scan the next day. I forwarded it to Hostgool and they gave me a username and a password.

However, I wanted to transfer the site to a Bulgarian provider. I contacted a guy at one such company and he said they would manage the transfer with Hostgool. Soon after that, however, he called me and said, "Please e-mail Hostgool yourself, because they don't answer my e-mails. To transfer the domain name, Hostgool must give us a code called EPP authorization key."

After days of bombarding Hostgool with messages using every contact route available, I finally received the following message:

"Hello Maya,
Regarding transfers, you must contact from the registration e-mail (the sam e-mail used in the first registration) and by the person who's register the domain so we can give the transfer steps reqired to do the transfers.
Have a nice day
Warm Regards,
Hostgool.com Support"

I reminded them that doing what they suggested was impossible, and asked whether this was really what they meant. The answer was:

"...You can not transfere a domain not registered by yourself and nobody can transfer a domain registerd by you there is no way makes somebody to transfer a domain registerd by another one
Thank you for understanding
Warm Regards,
Hostgool.com Support"

(Original spelling and grammar is preserved.)
I complained to my new Web guru about this and he said what I actually already knew from my Web searches - that registrars (i.e. companies that register domain names) are obliged to give the EPP authorization key if their customer wishes to transfer to another registrar, but they are unwilling to do it because they lose money when you leave them, and there is very little you can do to them in case they refuse. So he bought for me another, similar domain - mayamarkov.com, and uploaded my site there. I tried to look at the things in the most positive way possible and offered candy to some friends to celebrate my brand new domain. However, I am still very angry at Hostgool (may they go bankrupt) and still miss my first domain, the one my brother registered for me (it has been sold to some gamblers and now redirects to their page).

I wished to continue my work on teaching materials, but I have not been very creative at recent time. I have added to the site a page in memory of my brother in English and in Bulgarian, but little more. Of course I am very busy, but this is hardly the sole reason. It seems that the loss not only devastated me emotionally but also had a lasting impact on my productivity. I cannot even memorize the steps in creating or editing a Web page. Every time, I have to start from A and B all over again, painfully remembering why I am doing this in the first place. Though there is also a bittersweet feeling that I am coming closer to my brother by entering his world and making awkward steps in what used to be his realm.

What lessons could be drawn from my site's story? First (as my uncle pointed out back in 2003), avoid showing unpublished work to other people. If the manuscript is not yet ready for publication, keep it in a safe place; and if it is ready, publish it for everyone to see. An unpublished text shown to selected people is in a limbo of which an unscrupulous person can take advantage.

Second, if you are publishing online, think well how to manage it. If your work can be arranged as a blog, think of the big providers such as Google (Blogger) and Wordpress. They host blogs for free and have never (so far) betrayed me. Everybody knows the warning against the "free lunch" but, in my experience, the free lunch (unlike the cheap lunch) has been quite OK. See e.g. this site for kids' songs arranged as a Wordpress blog.

If, however, you prefer (or have to) set up your own site and buy a domain, be careful whom you choose as host and registrar. Do not opt for a company bragging mainly about the low prices it offers. Sometimes these low prices can cost you too much. You may be forced either to submit to your registrar's blackmail and stay chained to it forever, or leave your domain name behind as I did. If I were using my site for business, I would lose much money from the domain name change; and even owners of non-commercial sites suffer when they are disconnected from their readers. So try to find a respectable company. See what other people have said about its services; after I got into trouble with Hostgool, I found - too late! - that other customers had complained from it (e.g. here and here). Check whether the company gives a valid street address, phone number and names of contact people. Did you mention that the above cited e-mails were signed "Hostgool.com support team"? I think that, despite today's magic of doing business online, a company with an office in your city is to be preferred. If you feel discontent, you can at least appear there in person and make a nice offline scandal.

Last, we all who contribute to the Web must think about the future. What's the use of noble incentives like Project Gutenberg aiming to make our heritage available online, if nobody cares for works created today? Why are those who publish online, and those who read online, so careless? We entrust the fruits of our minds to small sites dependent on yearly payments, and as soon as the subscription expires (e.g. because of the author's death), the site is doomed to disappear. We need a new type of charities - digital heritage foundations, to take over and host pages of contemporary authors who cannot care for their work themselves anymore. In the meantime, it will be wise if every individual author makes some provisions about his own personal site.

Casey Anthony already having followers

Undated photo of Zinah Jennings, copied from AP's report (original source: Richard County Jail).

Let me first copy an Associated Press report from today:

"SC police: Mother won't tell them where son is

by Meg Kinnard
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — It's unknown how long investigators would have gone without any information on a missing 18-month-old South Carolina boy if his mother hadn't crashed her car Christmas Eve.
Twenty-two-year-old Zinah Jennings and her son, Amir, were reported missing by the boy's grandmother, who hadn't seen either of them since Thanksgiving.
The mother didn't turn up until police responding to the single-vehicle accident learned she was listed as a missing person.
She's now in jail, charged with lying to authorities about where the boy is, prompting a search by local, state and federal authorities spanning the Carolinas, Georgia and beyond.
Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott says Jennings immediately began giving conflicting statements about where the boy was."

This disappearance of a toddler, unreported by the single mother, finally reported by the grandmother, after which the mother started endless lying, immediately brings to mind an earlier similar case - of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony. After Caylee's skeletal remains were found in a swamp, jurors let themselves be persuaded by defence that her mother Casey Anthony was not guilty of murder, manslaughter and child abuse.

At the Frontpage Magazine's symposium on Casey Anthony verdict last year, blogger Rob Taylor was furious: "The idea of “solid proof” is a myth. A child is dead and her mother avoided reporting her disappearance, then tried to frame someone else. Before juries were populated with armchair forensics experts this would have been an open and shut case... The disregard many people have for the victim, for Justice in the philosophical sense and for the truth is what troubles me here. The legal system worked – Anthony had a fair trial in front of a jury of her peers. That doesn’t mean Justice has been served. Caylee Anthony was thrown out like garbage, found with duct tape on her remains. We all know why people duct tape the mouths of children shut. We know why some drugged out party girl doesn’t report her child missing... The connection between who we give our sympathy to and cultural decline is clear. You can pretend that... there’s some reasonable explanation for not reporting your child missing or even that you truly believe that it’s necessary to let guilty people go free to ensure that innocent people aren’t imprisoned. What you cannot pretend is that there aren’t consequences to your pretense, one of which is the corpse of a Caylee Anthony."

Exactly. Commenting the case in my Sept. 6, 2011 post Unreasonable doubt, I wrote, "Seeing Casey Anthony acquitted and commentators praising the verdict as a victory for the US justice system, other people may be tempted to emulate her." I fear that this is what has happened in South Carolina, and while I wish very much for little Amir to be found alive after all, I have little hope that his grandmother will ever hug him again. We'll see what will follow and whether Zinah Jennings will be let, like Casey Anthony, to step over her child and continue her life as a free woman.

Anders Breivik found insane

Anders Breivik (photo copied from the Guardian).




On July 22, 2011 Anders Behring Breivik, the nice-looking young Norwegian pictured above, detonated a bomb in the center of Oslo, killing eight people. Then, while the capital was in horror and dismay, he sailed to the nearby island of Utoya, where Norwegian socialists organized a youth camp. Dressed as a policeman and heavily armed, he shot in cold blood at the defenceless, mainly young people, killing 69 people. The youngest victim was a girl named Sharidyn Svebakk-Boehn who had just turned 14. She had a blog where the last entry is dated July 20, 2011 - two days before her death.

Breivik was motivated by his Islamophobic and anti-multiculturalist views. For me, it meant that the perpetrator of a most horrific mass murder had views very similar to mine. I admit it created an eerie and uneasy feeling in me, and inevitably led to some soul-searching. I discussed my thoughts on Rose-Anne's post The Look of Crazy. It was not very suitable for this purpose because verbal abuse was guaranteed, but I simply wished to discuss it, and Rose-Anne was the only blogger known to me who wrote a meaningful post on the subject.

Two months later, the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 attacks overshadowed this more recent massacre. And now - sad to say but true - the Norway victims seem all but forgotten. Most people seem to think that in the current situation, we'll have some Breiviks and we have to accept this, period. Just hope that you and your loved ones won't be around a Breivik when he detonates, because, as Rose-Anne correctly stated, usually there is no way to recognize such a psychopath before he has exposed his lethality.

What about his views? I think the observations of Breivik and his description of the current situation in Western Europe are quite true. What is wrong is his proposed solution, his choice of action. And we must admit that every time when we confront a danger associated with human beings, some of us may wish to solve the problem by exterminating these human beings. In the 1970s, some people fought communism by rounding up thousands of suspected communists to a stadium, torturing and killing many of them. In the 1940s, some sought to defeat Nazism and prevent its relapse by ethnically cleansing millions of Germans, sending mothers with babies out at Celsium -20 just because they happened to be German. And in the 17th century, other people tried to fight plague by locking victims inside their houses. All this is inhumane and utterly unacceptable, yet it does not mean that communism or nazism are acceptable, either, or that plague adds beautiful diversity to human population and so should be embraced despite its tendency to kill people here and there. I'd also point out to anyone else worried by the similarity of his views to Breivik's that we are actually comparing our sincere, unmoderated views to a highly moderated version of Breivik's views, because he took much care not to look as right-wing extremist in order not to attract attention by authorities.

From the moment when I heard that Breivik was captured alive, I was worried by the inadequacy of the punishment he could receive under Norwegian law. The maximum prison term in Norway is 21 years, and the treatment of prisoners is reportedly quite benign. The idea is that the criminal is not a source of evil but a poor person who needs help to reform and become a good member of society, rather than punishment. Like every system of morality and justice centered not on actual and potential victims but on the perpetrator, this shows its charlatanism to full degree when confronting a murderous psychopath like Breivik. During the discussion at Rose-Anne's blog, I wrote, "I may be barbarian... but I am glad that Bin Laden was shot dead, and I wish the same had happened to Breivik. We already have more of his oratory than any reasonable person would want. Now, he will have a due process in a country having humane prisons and no death penalty. He will smile from the bar in the faces of victims' parents, adding insult to injury. Yes, it is a principle that everyone is entitled to a fair trial... but he gave no fair trial - no trial of any kind - to the kids he murdered."

People, however, have found a way around this problem. In late November, Breivik was psychiatrically evaluated and declared insane. Factually, this is 100% wrong. Breivik is a very intelligent person who planned his actions with great deliberation and self-possession. He bought a farm for the sole purpose to be able to buy nitrate fertilizer needed for the bomb without arousing suspicions. (Other wannabe terrorists who hadn't the resources or far-sightedness to pose as farmers have been arrested soon after buying fertilizer, e.g. two young men of Arab Muslim origin detained in Berlin on Sept. 8, 2011.) However, from a not-so-formal point of view I think the psychiatrists did the right thing. No trial to be used as a tribune by Breivik, no smiling in the faces of victims' mothers, no release (I hope) after a decade or two. The very tissue of what we call our life depends on putting thick walls between ourselves and creatures like this murderer, although we can do it only after it is too late.

I am a National Enlightener

Yesterday, Nov. 1, was the Day of the National Enlighteners (Den na narodnite buditeli) in Bulgaria. National Enlighterners are, above all, the people who led the Bulgarian National Revival during the 19th century which culminated in the April Uprising of 1876 and the restoration of the Bulgarian independence after the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-78. However, Enlighteners in a broader sense are considered all who have contributed to the cultural advancement of the Bulgarian nation, including all conscientous teachers and scientists. For that reason, schools and universities have a day off on Nov. 1. I am proud to say that I qualify to be called a National Enlightener not only owing to my occupation but also by the merit of my own deeds.

Of course this pompous statement is tongue in cheek, but it is based on a real recent achievement. Not that I have written a good educational text popularizing science or that some research manuscript of mine has been accepted for publication by a peer-reviewed journal with impact factor (or be it even a journal without impact factor). Nope. Keep in mind, however, that all this intellectual activity associated with "enlightenment" is, as Marxians would call it, a superstructure. To be possible at all, it requires a base - a set of material preconditions. If a person isn't fed, dressed and comfortably positioned, he is totally unable to engage in any intellectual activity. Our students, thankfully, come to us fed and generally well dressed. However, when we come to the comfortable position, we have problems.

The microscopic observation in our teaching labs requires lab chairs with variable height. For many years, it has been impossible for our Department to buy such chairs. The Bulgarian law requires all equipment for government institutions to be bought by a complicated procedure, so our demands must be sent "above", to the Rector's office. The aim of this procedure is to prevent corruption, but the actual result is what you can expect if you let clerks disconnected from teaching and not too interested in its success to buy all items needed for teaching. The most urgently needed things somehow get cancelled from the list, the rest are supplied with great delay (up to a year) and usually in a form unsuitable for the purpose. In the case of lab chairs, some were indeed bought with variable height as required, but the maximum height was about 35 cm. We cannot even figure out how could such close-to-mother-Earth chairs be produced in the first place. Our only reasonable guess is that they have been meant for kindergartens.

So I have for years used some of my time at work to try and repair our available old lab chairs that become fewer and more valuable with each passing semester. Some of them still have their labels indicating that they were produced in the 1950s. I receive little acknowledgement for these efforts. Most colleagues mock me, and the students never think that someone may be doing hard work so that they have something to sit on. However, I know I am doing the right thing. My maternal grandfather, who was a carpenter, would be proud of me if he could know. Unfortunately, sooner or later every chair has its metal part broken, and at that point I give up, because I haven't the equipment and skills needed for welding.

This semester, we have another problem. Our building has been in renovation for more than a year already, with no end in sight. While this process is taking place, normal teaching and research is all but impossible, and if you at least save your things needed for work you are lucky. We have already lost reagents for many thousands euro because of incompetence of some electricians who disconnected the power supply to a freezer full of antibodies. Now, the workmen have come to the task of renovating the central heating. It is a rule in Bulgaria to renovate and repair the heating systems in the autumn-winter season when heating is actually needed. In our building, this was done last in the cold and hungry winter of 1996-97. At that time, apart from writing about cell cycle and protesting against government, I was busy to manage some heating at my workplace. Happily, the room where I spend most of my time had a glassware dryer suitable also as a heater. The same was true for one of our four teaching labs. But what about the other three?

I found two electric heaters which were dispensable at home and brought them to work. One of them was initially not working. I had recently re-read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig, which claims that everybody has the mental skills necessary to repair moderately complex technology such as motorcycles. I was young, trusting and stupid, so I thought that electric heaters are even simpler than motorcycles and tried to repair it myself. After the attempt, when I plugged the heater into the socket, there was a "puff" and some sparkles, then everything went dark. So I strongly advise readers not to follow Pirsig's theory with any electric device (or anything significantly more complex than a chair).

Close to my workplace, there was a garage turned into a shop. It was conveniently selling and repairing simple electric equipment. I brought there my blackened heater. The electrician said that a short circiut had destroyed all parts of the heater except for its corpus. He added, however, that due to the ongoing hyperinflation, it was still more advantageous to buy and install all these parts than to buy a new heater. So my poor old heater got a new life. Indeed, it had lost its legs long ago, but we are putting it on a metal test tube stand and it is OK.

This autumn, as weather turned cold, I placed the two heaters in two of the teaching labs. But what about the fourth lab? I don't remember how we managed it in 1996-97, but now I am in charge of the practical teaching and feeling responsible for it. My mother had mentioned that a heater had stopped working and she had bought an electric radiator. She immediately agreed to give me this heater for my workplace, as she had given me the two older ones.

Unfortunately, my friends at the garage-shop were no longer in business. The garage was not their but municipal property. The Mayor's office had raised the rent to some ridiculous level (about EUR 350 per month, they said). They could not afford it and moved out. Nobody rented the garage-shop after then. It is locked and slowly deteriorating, illustrating how government attempts to manage business invariably turn to slaughtering the egg-laying hen. I don't know whether the electricians have found a new place, but the fact is that our giant Medical University campus is deprived of their services. Who would repair my heater now?

To cut the long story short - finally, my husband did it. He is a man of technology, not some inspired Pirsig reader. So on Monday I gladly informed my colleages that we already have a heater in every teaching lab. I only asked them (and I keep praying) that nobody forgets to unplug the heater when leaving the room. Otherwise, a fire could easily ensue, we could share the fate of the Department of Pathophysiology, and to cap it all, I would be held responsible for bringing the heaters in the first place.

But let's not think of disasters likely to happen. At least, now we can let Grannie Winter come with all her merry white granddaughters (as a Bulgarian nursery rhyme says) without worrying that we have to teach at Celsium 5. And I have all right to call myself a National Enlightener, haven't I? Just try to say I haven't, to see your comment moderated :-).

How to love

Today's date is special to me, and this post marking it is very personal.
I am now thinking of two loved ones who recently returned from emigration.
Love is not just a feeling. It is a skill that is not always easy. It is expressed in acts that, like all our acts, may have results different from those wished.
When something goes wrong with someone we love, we start the "What if..." thinking. We see grave mistakes in what we have done or not done 15 or 20 years ago. I don't know if this sometimes teaches us to avoid future mistakes; but what is sure is that it is felt as devastating.
I usually respect other people's privacy and rarely try to impose my opinions on them and to tell them how to live. I wish to live my life and understand that others want and deserve the same. When a friend or a relative makes a step I would not make, I do not rush to label it a mistake, because different people want different things. However, when something bad happens , I feel guilty for having done nothing to prevent it.
A month or two ago, I heard of a composer in the city of Varna who set up his own music studio and so gained independence. Because my loved people were musicians, I immediately thought that they could possibly do the same and nobody would need to emigrate. This imagined picture of what might have been, and the feeling of guilt for not having given enough support (to be precise, any support) to make other solutions possible, almost made me cry.
It is especially difficult to decide how to behave if you are in the position of an aunt (uncle) or an in-law. Because people don't choose their aunts and in-laws and we all know how arrogantly some of them intrude into our lives, I prefer not to be intruding. So I do not call those whom I love - and then sit and think that maybe they wish I had called.
If they are reading this, I hope they know that I love them and I am thinking of them, despite not calling. If I can help them in any way, I wish they just tell me. Of course I hope they won't be in any need of help, but if this happens, I'll do what I can.

Ten years since Sept. 11, 2001

Three days ago, the world marked the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attack.
It is good that the mastermind of this horrible massacre was killed and deprived of the opportunity to celebrate. It is bad that there are still plenty of other people eager to advance his cause. Because, unfortunately, the advocates of Grand Zero Mosque have not yielded to public pressure to build it somewhere else - anywhere else, - this post will be a blog action against Islamism. To honour also the beginning of academic year in Bulgarian schools tomorrow (Sept. 15), I have copied from the Faithfreedom site a text which should interest everybody having a touch with education. Let me warn Muslim readers that they are likely to be offended by the following text.

Sabrina's story

2005/03/10

Dear Dr. Sina,

Your site brought tears of joy to my eyes. It is so great to realize I am not alone!

I left Islam before your site came into existence. I kid you not; I left Islam when I was 7 years old or so! My apostasy was triggered by a very interesting incident.

Kids usually regard textbooks as something sacred and believe every word it says. If an author says that the French revolution is good (or bad), then most students will parrot it. They won’t use their own brains.

My teacher wanted us to use our brains and stop “worshipping” textbooks. She gave us an assignment to write our own book. When we finished, she said that we could now publish it. Some kids wrote that every parent has to buy an ice-cream every day, others wrote that schools and education as a whole must be banned. Nobody could prevent us from publishing our books. If we had released our masterpieces without mentioning our ages, some people would have certainly believed every single word in our books. If we had added the magic abbreviation “PhD” to our creations, many people would have started worshipping it.

Then it suddenly occurred to me that Mohammed, a man whom my parents named “a perfect man”, could have made up the Koran! Why should I believe him? I can create my own religion and claim that I’m the prophet of the only true God.

Since then I have never named myself “a Muslimah”. When I became a big girl, I studied Islam thoroughly and came to a conclusion that Islam is a load of crap. My parents left Islam too. We all now are safe and sound in Paris .

I advise all Muslims to read articles in this site. You don’t need to worship Ali Sina or believe him. He could think out every accusation he has leveled at Mohammed. In my opinion, he is just a man who studies Islam critically. If Ali Sina didn’t exist, Islam would still be a load of crap. Friends, you have your own brains, so use them. How could a prophet marry a 9-year-old girl? How could a prophet have more than 20 wives and concubines but at the same time command his followers to have only 4 wives? Isn’t it strange that God permitted Mohammed to have more than 4 wives? Decide for yourself. Make your own investigation. AND USE YOUR BRAINS!

Today I believe in God. But, I’m afraid, Mohammed had nothing to do with God.

Dear Ali Sina, I am very happy that you exist! Yes, without you Islam would still be trash but it feels so go(od) with you.

Kind regards,

Sabrina