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May 18, 2006

Google Notebook; How to play spoons; Saudi king asks newspapers not to publish photos of women

Bloggers' tool: Google Notebook is a browser extension used to "add clippings of text, images and links from web pages."

The Google Operating System blog reviews it:

After you install the extension, go to a page, select a fragment from the page that can include images, right-click and choose "Note this". You'll see a very small windows in the bottom-right corner which will stay there even if you go to another page. You can open or close the notebook from the status bar.

If you maximize the notebook, a new tab will open, but the new page will have all your notes in full size. You can edit the notes with a rich-text editor, print the notebook and even create more than one notebook. If you have more than one notebook, you can move a note from one notebook to another using drag and drop, but the experience isn't great (in Firefox, it doesn't work most of the times). Divide a note into sections to organize your notes, especially if you want to print them.

Download it here.

Kitchen instruments: How to play the spoons. Let your kids try this.

Eyes and minds: Saudis Nix Pictures of Women in Newspapers. Reuters:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - King Abdullah has told Saudi editors to stop publishing pictures of women as they could make young men go astray, newspapers reported Tuesday.

The king's directive, made in a meeting with local editors, caused surprise as the monarch has been regarded a quiet reformer since he took office in the ultra-conservative country last August.

In recent months, newspapers have published pictures of women - always wearing the traditional Muslim headscarf - to illustrate stories with increasing regularity. Usually the stories have had to do with women's issues. The papers have also started publishing a range of views on causes that are not generally accepted in Saudi Arabia - such as women having the right to drive and vote.

The king told editors on Monday night that publishing a woman's picture for the world to see was inappropriate.

"One must think, do they want their daughter, their sister, or their wife to appear in this way. Of course, no one would accept this," the newspaper Okaz quoted Abdullah as saying.

"The youth are driven by emotion ... and sometimes they can be lead astray. So, please, try to cut down on this," he said."

Might he instead have said, "Please, try to see women as people"?

Western newspapers have for some time tried to include women and people of color in more news stories as part of covering the entire society. With such opposite and contradictory values, can there ever be understanding and detente with the Arab world?

Note: Crooks and Liars, a source of the Al Gore SNL video and others, is down today. algore.org and iFilm also have the Gore clip.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 7:47 AM | Permalink