Why Christmas is important to Sherlock Holmes, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

Why Christmas is important to Sherlock Holmes

By JOHN J. MILLER

DECEMBER 23, 2009

For Sherlock Holmes, the most important date on the calendar is Christmas—and not just because the latest film to feature him comes out on Dec. 25.

In a sense, literature's most famous detective was born on that day: The first story Arthur Conan Doyle ever wrote about Holmes, an 1887 novel called "A Study in Scarlet," appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual. Another entry in the Holmes canon, "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," is a Christmas tale. Doyle's devotees often cite it as a personal favourite.

Later, when Doyle tired of Holmes, he killed off his character during the yuletide. In "The Final Problem," the fatal encounter between Holmes and his archnemesis, Moriarty, takes place in the spring, but the story itself appeared in the December 1893 issue of the Strand Magazine.

How will Holmes fare this holiday season? The answer isn't so elementary. Judging from a movie trailer full of fisticuffs, explosions and sexual innuendo, the big-budget action film will thrill fanboys who don't realize that the Baker Street Irregulars appeared on the printed page before the silver screen. Anguished purists, meanwhile, may choose to cover their faces with deerstalker hats.

Except that the most faithful followers of Holmes know that his legacy is already a mishmash of invention and reinvention. Take those deerstalker hats. Almost nothing is more associated with Holmes than the checkered twill cap with brims in front and back and a pair of ear flaps on the sides. In Doyle's stories, however, there is precious little evidence that Holmes ever wore such a thing. It entered the popular imagination because of Sidney Paget, a magazine illustrator whose work accompanied Doyle's fiction.

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The roots of terrorism lie in Pak politics, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

The roots of terrorism lie in Pak politics

By I.A. Rehman

October 30th, 2009

As regards the preliminary purpose of the military operation, namely, gaining control over the terrorists’ strongholds, the security forces have succeeded beyond expectations. The speed with which they flushed the extremists out of Swat and other parts of the Malakand division won them praise at home and abroad. The experience gained in that theatre of conflict and a somewhat less difficult terrain seems to have helped them improve their performance in the South Waziristan Agency. However, there is little room for complacency about what remains to be done before final victory over terrorism can be claimed.

It is easy to appreciate the fact that the objective of the operation in South Waziristan is materially different from that in Swat. There the main challenge came from alien militants that had gathered local adventurers around them and the primary task was to force the outsiders to retreat. Success in this manoeuvre and the infliction of heavy losses on local militias created conditions in which the large number of displaced people could return home. Still, the Swat operation was not without warning that the terrorists were capable of widening the area of conflict by launching attacks on military and police posts and personnel across Pakistan, especially in the Frontier and Punjab.

http://newageislam.com/the-roots-of-terrorism-lie-in-pak-politics/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/2053