Yourish.com

Cutting straight to the point

Carnival of the Cats #151

Posted on February 11th, 2007 at 8:40 pm by Laurence Simon.

Filed under: Israel

Carnival of the Cats celebrates the return of When Cats Attack to the catblogging area… and with even more cats than ever!

So, with all that said, who is Catmodel of the Week?

It’s Faith of Lissa Kay’s Place!

Catmodel of the Week is determined by the number of clicks a cat receives in The Catmodel Gallery.

If you’d like to add your blogging kittycat to the Carnival of the Cats homepage banner, just send me the 4-by-3 photos in JPEG format and I’ll get them added.

Changing the wire services, one story at a time

Posted on February 11th, 2007 at 1:59 pm by Meryl Yourish.

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Israel, Media Bias, Religion

Yesterday, after reading several days’ worth of AP and Reuters articles incorrectly identifying Judaism’s holiest site as the Westen Wall, I sent an email to each of the services. Here’s the one the AP received:

Dear editor,

The AP is incorrectly identifying the Western Wall as “Judaism’s holiest site.” In this particular wire story, as in the many before it, you write:

Jews venerate the compound as the site of their biblical temples, and one of its outer walls known as the Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. The Western Wall is what remains of the retaining wall around the Temple complex.

In another article, you wrote:

The bridge has been used by Jewish women going to pray at the Western Wall, which is Judaism’s holiest site.

In fact, the ramp leads to the Temple Mount, not to the women’s section of the wall. That’s two errors in one sentence.

And one last thing: By repeatedly ignoring or minimizing the importance of the Temple Mount, (which is Judaism’s holiest site) while emphasizing–generally in the lede of your article–that the Al-Aqsa Mosque is “Islam’s third-holiest shrine,” you do seem to be slanting your articles toward the Muslim identity of the site, and away from its far-longer history (3,500 years) as a Jewish holy site.

I expect you’ll be correcting the errors in your upcoming pieces.

Today’s AP boilerplate in the Temple Mount story:

The Old City hilltop compound has been a catalyst for earlier rounds of Israel-Palestinian fighting. It houses the third holiest site for Muslims, who believe it is where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The compound is Judaism’s holiest site, venerated as the location of two biblical temples, and Jews gather to pray near one of its outer retaining walls, known as the Western Wall.

I’m counting that one as a win for accuracy. With thanks to Lynn and Rahel, who pointed out that not only does the ramp not lead to the Women’s section, but that the Mount is, uh, above the Wall. Reuters made that mistake as well.

Dear editor,

Your articles identifying the Western Wall in Jerusalem as “Judaism’s holiest site” are incorrect. Judaism’s holiest site is the Temple Mount. The Western Wall is the remnant of the retaining wall around the site.

You make the error here:

The Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques sit above the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, in an area referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the al-Haram al-Sherif.

Here:

The Aqsa Mosque and another mosque called the Dome of the Rock sit above the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site, on land referred to by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the al-Haram al-Sherif.

Here:

The Aqsa mosque and another mosque called the Dome of the Rock sit above the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest site.

And here:

Israeli authorities are involved in a few excavation projects near al-Haram al-Sharif, the site of the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque where the biblical Jewish Temples once stood. The Western Wall — Judaism’s holiest site — overlooks the shrine in the Israeli-annexed old city of Jerusalem.

That last goes back to January 29th.

You need to correct your boilerplate. The Temple Mount, on which stood the Holy of Holies, is Judaism’s most holy site.

Today’s Reuters boilerplate:

Jews revere the compound, overlooking Judaism’s Western Wall, as Temple Mount, where two destroyed biblical temples once stood.

It’s a half-win. That’s in the sixth paragraph, which, we all know, is usually cut in the three-to-five-paragraph World section of most newspapers. In the third paragraph, Reuters makes absolutely no mention that Al-Aqsa is in the Temple Mount complex, and they still downplay the Jewish connection and maximize the Islamic influence:

Israel’s archaeological authority is searching for ancient artifacts some 50 meters (yards) from Haram al-Sharif, a compound in Arab East Jerusalem that houses the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque.

But—and this is important—the error that was being fed to more than 90% of all English-language newspapers and other media outlets has been fixed. Both services no longer report the Wall as “Judaism’s holiest site.” They now correctly identify it as the Temple Mount.

We don’t worship a wall, people. It’s a no-brainer.

All in all, I call it a good day’s work, and thank Lynn and Rahel for pointing out the other two errors—since fixed—in the Reuters and AP stories.

Now if only we could get them to stop the bias.

The tragic end of Al Aqsa mosque

Posted on February 11th, 2007 at 9:30 am by SnoopyTheGoon.

Filed under: Iran, Israel

Lest you should continue nursing hopes about the possibility of Al Aqsa mosque surviving the latest onslaught by the murderous Zionists, here comes the news:

Tehran’s Interim Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati warned that the destruction of the al-Aqsa Mosque by the Zionist regime of Israel has been resulted from the silence Muslim states have so far shown in the face of Israeli crimes.

Has been resulted… Al Aqsa mosque is no more, ladies and gentlemen. Finished. Deceased. Kaput.

Anything you may hear or see to the contrary is a figment of your own infidel imagination or even worse - the Zionist black magic.

And this comes from a mere Interim Friday Prayers Leader. What should we expect from the main dish on the menu - the Main Friday Prayers Leader? I shudder at the thought…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Fixed in AP

Posted on February 11th, 2007 at 8:35 am by Meryl Yourish.

Filed under: AP Media Bias, Israel, Religion

I wrote to AP and Reuters yesterday about the errors they made in describing the Western Wall as Judaism’s holiest site.

Fixed in AP:

The Old City hilltop compound has been a catalyst for earlier rounds of Israel-Palestinian fighting. It houses the third holiest site for Muslims, who believe it is where the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

The compound is Judaism’s holiest site, venerated as the location of two biblical temples, and Jews gather to pray near one of its outer retaining walls, known as the Western Wall.

More when I finish teaching my little Yiddishes to grow up to be big Yiddishes.

Update: And not quite fixed in Reuters.

Jews revere the compound, overlooking Judaism’s Western Wall, as Temple Mount, where two destroyed biblical temples once stood.

No mention of the Temple Mount as Judaism’s holiest site.

And no sign of corrections from either, yet.

And, oh yeah—I’m feeling a little good today.

They are cheating in exams too…

Posted on February 11th, 2007 at 8:27 am by SnoopyTheGoon.

Filed under: World

Does cheating in exams mean that the students in this British school are fully integrated in the famous British multi-cultural environment? If so, this is the only criteria that may show that the school is in UK.

Because, after reading this, you will be sure that it is about one of these famous Pakistani madrasas that fabricate generation after generation of misogynistic indoctrinated wahabbists that are so good in blowing themselves up - with as many other people as they succeed in taking with them.

The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as “apes” and Christians as “pigs” and has refused to withdraw them.

Dr Sumaya Alyusuf confirmed that the offending books exist after former teacher Colin Cook, 57, alleged that children as young as five are taught from racist materials at the King Fahd Academy in Acton.

She said: “Yes, I do recognise these books, of course. We have these books in our school. These books have good chapters that can be used by the teachers. It depends on the objectives the teacher wants to achieve.”

In another exchange, Dr Alyusuf insisted the books should not be scrapped, saying that allegedly racist sections had been “misinterpreted”.

The school is owned, funded and run by the government of Saudi Arabia. Mr Paxman asked: “Will you now remove this nonsense from the Saudi Ministry of Education from your school?”

Dr Alyusuf replied: “Just to reiterate what I said earlier, there are chapters from these books that are used and that will serve our objectives. But we don’t teach hatred towards Judaism or Christianity - on the contrary.”

That’s more or less the whole story in a nutshell, and here is Dr Alyusuf’s picture.

I do not pretend to be a reader of faces, but this one says “I am a liar” to me every time I look at it. Here is a bit of proof:

Dr Alyusuf initially claimed that the books were “not taught currently”, saying: “We teach a different curriculum. We teach an international curriculum.”

And here is a bit of the end result:

Pupils have allegedly been heard saying they want to “kill Americans”, praising 9/11 and idolising Osama bin Laden as their “hero”.

So, cheating in the exams is just some icing on that cake:

Mr Cook claims he was dismissed last December after blowing the whistle on the school for covering up cheating by children in GCSE exams.

Quite…

Cross-posted on SimplyJews