Gehören Minarette zur Religionsfreiheit?

Die Volksinitiative «Gegen den Bau von Minaretten » ist im Juli 2008 eingereicht worden. Sie will neue Minarette in der Schweiz umfassend und ausnahmslos verbieten. Das Initiativkomitee argumentiert, das Minarett als Bauwerk habe keinen religiösen Charakter, sondern sei ein Symbol jenes religiöspolitischen Machtanspruchs, der Verfassung und Rechtsordnung der Schweiz widerspreche. Ein Minarettverbot tangiere die Religionsfreiheit nicht, sagen die Initianten, die im Parlament von der Schweizerischen Volkspartei unterstützt wurden. Die andern grossen Parteien und der Bundesrat lehnen die Initiative ab. Sie stehe im Widerspruch zu zahlreichen in der Bundesverfassung verankerten Grundwerten der Schweiz – so zum Prinzip der Rechtsgleichheit, der Glaubens- und Gewissensfreiheit, der Eigentumsgarantie, dem Verhältnismässigkeitsprinzip und dem Gebot der Beachtung des Völkerrechts. Zudem sei ein solches Verbot ein unverhältnismässiger Eingriff in die kantonalen Kompetenzen. Die lokalen Behörden seien am besten in der Lage, Minarette zu bewilligen oder zu verbieten, und zwar auf Grundlage der geltenden Bau- und Raumplanungsgesetze. Der Nationalrat verwarf die Initiative mit 132 zu 51 Stimmen, der Ständerat mit 39 zu 3.

my best birthday

http://www.hse.gov.uk/news/buncefield/index.htm

void

a particularly fine night with stars clearly shining, an alien night, no moving lights, only one high flying plane? satellite? tumbling through the emptiness of Ursa Major

political blockheads

http://forgacsoltkult.blog.hu/

to be honest I have absolutely no desire to be a library assistant but this has become a matter of honour, having now made (how many?) applications; I will carry on persisting; I have begun to enjoy failing at this

THe Happiest Days of Your Life

failed artist

http://www.katorlegaz.com/commentary/failed_artists.php

Friends unReunited

Here's a funny phenomenon: joining Friends Reunited out of curiousity or idle vanity ... friends you were at school with have done the same thing ... but all are holding back coyly, not submitting photographs.  Who wants to broadcast the spreading waistline and moderate career profile that summarises being over 50?

individual failure

I'm curious about the era in which personal success or failure were engendered as attributes.  It seems to me that the existence of the modern ego is very recent.

The Fable of Failure in Modern Art

http://www.vqronline.org/articles/1997/summer/barolsky-fable/

drawing

the world surely has enough life studies.
the ability to draw was, in the first instant, the portal to being an artist, a recognition of the ability to see what's there.
but a lifetime and an art degree and immersion in the theoretical have pushed this towards seeing what is not there ...
so drawing in whatever form is about re-connecting

rejection

I regard this as a success: so far it is the only actual letter of rejection I have received in 9 months (interrupted) of job applications.  for the most part I have received few acknowledgments of submission and almost no rejections.  contrary to recommended practice, this makes it impossible to request feedback from 'employers'.

commitment

not managing a daily entry to the blog becomes another stick to beat myself with. (split infinitive - bad grammar, also deserves punishment).
before starting a blog I produced a stack of sketchbooks with random musings - these I think describe the nature of thought: consistent but random, and are, in themselves, a body of work.  it's my belief that, were I to collate their entire content, to organise it, to impose taxonomy, an oeuvre would emerge.  will I ever do this? quien sabe.
a blog is a different model of thought collection.  I might almost resist its linearity, for, in my sketchbooks, I don't start at the beginning and work through to the end.  I might start anywhere and work 'backwards' or 'forwards', amend some previous thought, annotate something else.  the sketchbooks are primarily full of words, though I often doodle in them when listening to a lecture or someone talking; they are the conduit for nervous energy, the scribblings a mirror of another's rhythms of speech, the acknowledgement of my listening, which I do better if my body can do autonomous actions.  I can think better this way as well: whilst walking or gardening. 
my allotment, also, is an expression of mind sketches; sometimes I am aware of others gardening very seriously, digging rectangular beds and planting vegetables in straight rows.  do the vegetables appreciate this regimentation?  I often come to, realising I have been pottering for an hour, transplanting weeds, lobbing snails into the distance.  I have discovered a word, 'pottager', which I think describes the more random appearance of my allotment: a few vegetables here and there and some flowers amongst.

on failing

failure only has presence where there is agency.
to fail is to have attempted something, therefore 'failure' is a contradictory term.  real failure would be never to have attempted anything.  rather 'failure' is being diverted from the intended outcome.

failed conversation

Sometimes in the garden or allotment I think ' my father would have liked that'.  It's a thought based on very scant information.  Just a few times in the last few years of his life my father volunteered information about things he liked: very frilly and pink fuchsias and motorway flyovers.
Just these few details serve to highlight how little I knew about what he thought; and I don't think he ever even asked what I liked.
So this is all part of a conversation that never took place.

on diaries

http://www.artvehicle.com/asides/13?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailmarketingsoftware&utm_content=504655551&utm_campaign=Artvehicle48+_+oiluyr&utm_term=OnDiaries