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[ by Charles Cameron — Muhammad Ali ]
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The knockout:

Obviously, the champ was a knockout — and this photo is almost certainly the loveliest photo of a sporting event I have ever seen — victory and defeat in perfect symmetry:

Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images via The Guardian

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The protestor

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The sufi:

How did your dad come to embrace Sufi Islam, and what attracts him to it?

My father has a collection of books by a man named Hazrat Inayat Khan. They’re Sufi teachings. He read them front to cover. They’re old and yellow and the pages are torn. They’re amazing. He always says they’re the best books in the world.

My father is very spiritual — more spiritual now than he is religious. It was important for him to be very religious and take the stands he did in earlier years. It was a different time. He still tries to convert people to Islam, but it’s not the same. His health and his spirituality have changed, and it’s not so much about being religious, but about going out and making people happy, doing charity, and supporting people and causes.

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The man:

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May he cross the bridge and attain the lake.

[ by Charles Cameron — in which a railway tunnel assumes an almost mystical significance ]
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There were some pretty strange-looking goings-on at the opening of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, to be sure:

But in case that Ibex looked just a tad too pagan — or even Satanic, as it did to some — let me assure you that Saint Barbara has a shrine inside the tunnel:

and that clerics from a handful of reputable religions were on scene to provide appropriate blessings in any case:

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Video:

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Sources:

BBC, Gotthard tunnel: World’s longest and deepest rail tunnel opens in Switzerland

BBC, Switzerland tunnel: The oddest moments of the opening ceremony

Dark Horse News, Bizarre Opening Ceremony For Gotthard Base Tunnel In Switzerland

[ by Charles Cameron — crow, racing pigeon — swan? ]
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See the swan, yeah? Okay!

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When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.. Shakespeare, right? Not so with insights.

Sources:

Robert De Niro et al., Red Lights

Robert Krulwich, After Tens of Thousands of Pigeons Vanish, One Comes Back

After Tens of Thousands of Pigeons Vanish is an extraordinary tale of what (presumably) happens when a Concorde overflies a mass of racing pigeons — compare the video accompanying How Our Consumer Culture Is Killing Whales.

Boom!

[ by Charles Cameron — offensive to our sensibilities, yes, but far from the worst thing going on ]
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Men in Pakistan encouraged To "Lightly Beat" their wives if they refuse sex: https://t.co/ZmefXwpqVo @Refinery29 pic.twitter.com/LellOmLBHV

— Raju Narisetti (@raju) May 29, 2016

Wahhab-beat your wife | Saudi #family therapist gives advice on how to ‘beat your wife’ https://t.co/LkglxImP0S #Women

— David Miles (@Globalpolitic) May 29, 2016

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As I understand it, the idea here is to limit the violence to something that might be considered “gentle reproof” — compare, for example, the hudud penalties as applied in both countries — and bearing in mind also these notes from Wiki:

These punishments range from public lashing to publicly stoning to death, amputation of hands and crucifixion. The crimes against hudud cannot be pardoned by the victim or by the state, and the punishments must be carried out in public. However, the evidentiary standards for these punishment were often impossibly high, and were thus infrequently implemented in practice. Moreover, Muhammad ordered Muslim judges to ‘ward off the Hudud by ambiguities.’ The severe Hudud punishments were meant to convey the gravity of those offenses against God and to deter, not to be carried out. If a thief refused to confess, or if a confessed adulterer retracted his confession, the Hudud punishments would be waived.

Bear in mind also the “western” punishments I described here recently in The Cat and the Database. Female genital mutilation, in other words — a cultural, not an Islamic practice — is far more worthy of our scorn.

[ by Charles Cameron — the series continues from six ]
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What a pleasure to discover Matt Damon does graph theory in his spare time!

— or that the female face. similarly, is viewed by some as the basis for graphical analysis:

— and that even war-gaming boards, such as this one from PAXsims’ ISIS Crisis game, can feature the node and edge / circle and line format, along with cards, dice, hexagons…

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Sources:

Matt Damon, Good Will Hunting

PBS Digital, The vague Horror of Face-Swap

Geek & Sundry, Can Gaming Inporove Strategic Military Planning?

Incidentally, I have a brief exchange with Rex Brynen in the comments section at PAXsims

Previous posts in this series:

On the felicities of graph-based game-board design: preliminaries

On the felicities of graph-based game-board design: two dazzlers

On the felicities of graph-based game-board design: three

On the felicities of graph-based game-board design: four

On the felicities of graph-based game-board design: five

On the felicities of graph-based game-board design: six