The Islamist
This book was Ed Husain’s own story. He was brought up in an apolitical Muslim family in London. He did not carry along very well with his shoolmates and was interested in the ideas of some radical Islamic groups. Husain joined the groups and preached their thought. The first haft of the book vividly depicted how he organized gatherings, heckled others groups, attracted the media, and something alike. Obviously he was talented in these areas. This part already makes the book very readable.
One day, someone in the group attacked another with a knife. The violence woke Husain up. He was disappointed and left the radical group, continued his study, found a job in a bank and got marry. Had he been an ordinary man the story would have ended. It would have been yet another mediocre grow-up story. But Husain was an introspect man. Unable to face his past, Husain quitted his banker job and travelled to Syria and Saudi in search of his root. Finally he found the beauty of his religious and most importantly, peace in his heart.
Along with the story Husain tells you what Muslim is really all about and points out what is wrong with radical Islamic groups. He mixes those very well with his personal story, makes his points in a non-preachy way, and makes the book a very good read.
A Thought on this Blog
The great Chinese chess grandmaster Yang Guan-lin passed away. I paid tribute to him by posting his early games in a Chinese chess forum. The posts received thousands hits. Naturally my time spent on this blog has reduced. I did not even know Wordpress 2.5 was out for a month, or Ubuntu 8.10 was on its way. I think I should post my writing on Yang on this blog, but I would have to change the language to Chinese.
Modern Chinese Warfare, 1795-1989
A history book on China written by a westerner. I think hardly any Chinese would agree with the writer Elleman’s views but he does have some insights, and points to some facts that have not been mentioned by many Chinese history books.
Points of View. In the wars involved the English speaking countries, Elleman tends to play down the invasive nature. He describes the opium war was a trade war, and never uses the word “invasion”. He fails to discuss if sending an army to another country for any trade, opium or tea or silk doesn’t really matter, is wrong. On the Sino-Japanese and Sino-Soviet wars, when the westerners were not involved, Elleman clearly discusses from a more balanced point of view.
Something interesting on opium war from the book:
Han-Manchu relationship. On the opium war, Elleman says the Han-Manchu relationship at the time played a part on the outcome. He says Han soldiers were unwilling to fight for their Manchu generals. To prove his point, he sites the battle in Zhenjiang, where the British suffered a casualty that was greater than from all other battles combined, when faced with a fiercely-resistant Manchu troop. I am not sure if Elleman is right, but few Chinese scholars discuss that.
Chinese Muskets. I pictured the Chinese (Qing) troop fought western cannons and muskets with bows, arrows and swords because that was the way movies depicted. This book remains me the Qing troop also used muskets, but were with a touchhole large enough to let the charge blew out back or escaped forward, and were fired by holding a slow-burning cord over a hole instead of by pulling triggers.
Weapon Improvement. According to Elleman, the Chinese weapons were not that backward at the beginning of the war, it was the British sending better and better ships and artilleries throughout the war to win.
Yangzi Economy. I thought it was purely military failure conceded Hong Kong. But Elleman points out it was the control of Yangzi and hence the following blockage of foodstuffs and commodities forced the Qing government to negotiate.
Bureaucracy. Elleman points out the Chinese officials at the time like to report how many British soldiers were killed as claims of victories. He further argues it was such bureaucratic practice made the Qing court thought winning over westerners was possible and failed to modernize the Chinese troop at a earlier point.
Wordpress and Drupal
I played with Drupal and Wordpress for a while, and am seriously considering moving to Drupal. To single users, Wordpress is easier to use but Drupal is more flexible.
Post sorting
Wordpress can only list posts in reverse chronicle order. Drupal has other ways. For example, its book module is something that Wordpress does not have.
Humanized url
In Wordpress, humanized urls are added automatically. In Drupal, users need to manually type in humanized url for each post.
Themes
Both have many, but Wordpress seems to have more.
Drupal’s themes are more customizable. Users can set different themes for different views. The contents in the header and the footer can be set in administrative panel. Wordpress users have to hard code for the header and the footer.
Category list
It is the basic feature of Wordpress. In Drupal you need to find some php code to do that.
WYSIWYG editor
Worpress comes with a rich text editor TinyMCE. Drupal needs to download and install separately, but Drupal have a range of editors to choose from.
My Visitors
I have taken no active step to promote this site. But I have got unexpected visitors from Google. I must have disappointed them.
Most of them searched for “paper tiger chess“. I searched the Google but did not find my site. My visitors must be very patient. Minority matters.
A few visitors searched for “web usability and hyperlinks“. My post on hyperlinks came up on the first page of Google search result. I was really stunned. Web usabilities experts wrote too little on this.