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The ink of the learned is equal in merit to the blood of the martyrs.
— Louis de Bernières (b. 1954), Birds Without Wings

Article of the Week about

Torture, according to the international Convention against Torture (CAT) is as "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity." It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. It excludes pain and suffering caused by lawful sanctions, such as corporal or capital punishment. It does, however, broaden the classic definition of physical harm to include intimidation. For the purposes of this article, torture is specifically a function of a government or quasi-state, rather than the actions of an individual who inflicts pain for personal reasons such as revenge or sadism; this differentiate reflects the CAT, Geneva Conventions, and the position of the World Medical Association.

Under the CAT, if capital punishment were ordered through a legal process, it would not qualify as torture, but as pain and suffering incidental to a judicial sanction. The concept of "cruel and unusual punishment", while not limited to the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, is by no means universal. While there was much outcry when Singapore ordered caning as part of a judicial sentence, there was no major outcry that it violated international law.

Many medieval and ancient acts were not, in this sense, meant as torture, but as painful methods of execution. There certainly were medieval tortures, however, not intended to be lethal, but have fallen into disuse in favor of means that are simpler or more "scientific". In the current context, the emphasis is not on the deliberate killing of a prisoner by painful means; see capital punishment. (Read more...)

New Draft of the Week about

As an oral tradition, handed down generation after generation, the true origins of the Hawaiian language are relatively unknown. The Hawaiian alphabet, ka pī‘āpā Hawai‘ i, however, does not have such an obscure past. It was originally designed in the early 1800s by American missionaries who wanted to print a Hawaiian bible. Due to the language being passed down as an oral tradition, the missionaries had to adapt the Roman alphabet to fit their needs.

Origins

In 1778, British explorer James Cook made the first reported European discovery of Hawaiʻi. In his report, he wrote the name of the islands as "Owhyhee" or "Owhyee". By July 1823, they had begun using the phrase "Hawaiian Language." The actual writing system was developed by American Protestant missionaries on January 7, 1822. The original alphabet included
A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z
and seven diphthongs
AE, AI, AO, AU, EI, EU, OU.
In 1826, the developers voted to eliminate some of the letters which represented functionally redundant interchangeable letters, enabling the Hawaiian alphabet to approach the ideal state of one-symbol-one-sound, and thereby optimizing the ease with which people could teach and learn the reading and writing of Hawaiian. (Read more...)