Jonathan's blog

This afternoon we braved the cold to watch the Timberwolves suffer a close upset to Ferris St, 17-14. Here are some pictures.

According to an article on Slate.com, the British TV comedy Saxondale is coming to America in Americanized form. Feeling un-hip because the first time you saw the The Office was on NBC? This is your chance to get ahead of the curve by watching the British Saxondale on BBCAmerica before it gets Americanized for the US TV market. This will be the third British show that I enjoyed that later on came to the US in mutated form. The first two were The Office (of course) and Teachers. I didn't even bother to watch the Americanized Teachers (which lasted only 6 episodes) because I thought the British version was kind of marginal itself. I'm still waiting for the Americanized versions of Shameless, The Catherine Tate Show, The Robinsons, Little Britain, The Kumars at No. 42, Waterloo Road, Love Soup, The Thick of It, The Street...or even seasons 2 through 4 of the British Teachers.

Tonight there was a hoedown at Elliot's school, so we got dressed up and went. The highlights were a donut-eating contest that Elliot and his friends entered (see the video below) and the square dancing that all four of us did.

More photos are here.

Heroes seems to be all the rage. I gave up on it after a few weeks, but maybe I'll try to get caught up. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was rumored to be on the verge of cancellation. NBC says that, on the contrary, three additional episodes have been ordered...but it does seem like the show may be not long for this world. (All of this Studio 60 news via Slate's "Today's Blogs" column.)

From an article of the same title by Kevin Sullivan and Karla Adam in The Washington Post:

...Jack Straw, a top official in Prime Minister Tony Blair's government and leader of the House of Commons...started the controversy this month by complaining that veils create distance between individuals and cultures... The veil debate has become part of a larger discussion in Britain about Muslims and religious tolerance, free expression, human rights, prejudice and security. These issues have dominated public discourse since the July 2005 bombings on the London public transportation system and a plot uncovered in August this year that allegedly involved blowing up transatlantic jetliners. In both cases, Britons were alarmed to discover that the men who allegedly committed or contemplated mass murder were young Muslim men who had been raised in Britain. While the veil issue has exacerbated tensions between non-Muslims and Muslims, it has also sparked passionate reactions within Muslim communities. Some Muslim leaders have accused Straw, Blair -- who called veils a "mark of separation" -- and others of demonizing Muslims, but others have said they have raised an important issue that has no clear consensus among Muslims... The veil issue has also divided women's rights advocates, Muslim and non-Muslim. Some argue that wearing the veil is simply a woman's choice, whether a statement of quiet religious observance or a battle cry for political independence, and should not be questioned by white male government officials. But others call veils a sad symbol of oppression and subservience.