Chilling Chapter from Excellent Pew Study of Muslim Attitudes

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Bruce

This is one chapter of a larger study, accessible at <http://www.pewforum.org/Muslim/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia.aspx#views>

The whole report can be downloaded at <http://j.mp/PewMuslimSurvey>

pewforum.orgTopicsReligious AffiliationMuslim

The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society

POLL April 30, 2013

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Chapter 1: Beliefs About Sharia

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According to the survey findings, most Muslims believe sharia is the revealed word of God rather than a body of law developed by men based on the word of God. Muslims also tend to believe sharia has only one, true understanding, but this opinion is far from universal; in some countries, substantial minorities of Muslims believe sharia should be open to multiple interpretations. Religious commitment is closely linked to views about sharia: Muslims who pray several times a day are more likely to say sharia is the revealed word of God, to say that it has only one interpretation and to support the implementation of Islamic law in their country.

Although many Muslims around the world say sharia should be the law of the land in their country, the survey reveals divergent opinions about the precise application of Islamic law.14 Generally, supporters of sharia are most comfortable with its application in cases of family or property disputes. In most regions, fewer favor other specific aspects of sharia, such as cutting off the hands of thieves and executing people who convert from Islam to another faith.

Sharia as Divine Revelation

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In 17 of the 23 countries where the question was asked, at least half of Muslims say sharia is the revealed word of God. (For more information on sharia see text box.) In no country are Muslims significantly more likely to say sharia was developed by men than to say it is the revealed word of God.

Acceptance of sharia as the revealed word of God is high across South Asia and most of the Middle East and North Africa. For example, roughly eight-in-ten Muslims (81%) in Pakistan and Jordan say sharia is the revealed word of God, as do clear majorities in most other countries surveyed in these two regions. Only in Lebanon is opinion more closely divided: 49% of Muslims say sharia is the divine word of God, while 38% say men have developed sharia from God’s word.

Muslims in Southeast Asia and Central Asia are somewhat less likely to say sharia comes directly from God. Only in Kyrgyzstan (69%) do more than two-thirds say Islamic law is the revealed word of God. Elsewhere in these regions, the percentage of Muslims who say it is the revealed word of God ranges from roughly four-in-ten in Malaysia (41%) to six-in-ten in Tajikistan.

Views about the origins of sharia are more mixed in Southern and Eastern Europe. At least half of Muslims describe sharia as the divine word of God in Russia (56%) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (52%). By contrast, three-in-ten or fewer hold this view in Kosovo (30%) and Albania (24%).

Overall, Muslims who pray several times a day are more likely to believe that sharia is the revealed word of God than are those who pray less frequently. This is the case in many countries where the question was asked, with especially large differences observed in Russia (+33 percentage points), Uzbekistan (+21), Kyrgyzstan (+20) and Egypt (+15). Views on the origins of sharia do not vary consistently with other measures, such as age or gender.

Interpreting Sharia

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Muslims differ widely as to whether sharia should be open to multiple understandings. While many say there is only one true interpretation, substantial percentages in most countries either say there are multiple interpretations or say they do not know.

A majority of Muslims in three Central Asian countries – Tajikistan (70%), Azerbaijan (65%) and Kyrgyzstan (55%) – say there is only one way to understand sharia. But elsewhere in the region there is less consensus, including in Turkey, where identical proportions (36% each) stand on either side of the question.

Muslims in Southern and Eastern Europe tend to lean in favor of a single interpretation of sharia. However, only in Bosnia-Herzegovina (56%) and Russia (56%), do majorities take this position.

Across the countries surveyed in South Asia, majorities consistently say there is only one possible way to understand sharia. The proportion holding this view ranges from 67% in Afghanistan to 57% in Bangladesh. But more than a quarter of Muslims in Afghanistan (29%) and Bangladesh (38%) say sharia should be open to multiple interpretations.

In the Middle East-North Africa region, belief in a single interpretation of sharia prevails in Lebanon (59%) and the Palestinian territories (51%). But opinion in Iraq is mixed: 46% say there is only one possible way to understand sharia, while 48% disagree. And in Tunisia and Morocco, large majorities (72% and 60%, respectively) believe sharia should be open to multiple interpretations.

In Southeast Asia, opinion leans modestly in favor of a single interpretation of sharia. The biggest divide is found in Thailand, where 51% of Muslims say there is only one possible understanding of Islamic law, while 29% say it should be open to multiple interpretations.

In a number of countries, significant percentages say they are unsure whether sharia should be subject to one or multiple understandings, including at least one-in-five Muslims in Albania (46%), Kosovo (42%), Uzbekistan (35%), Turkey (23%), Russia (21%), Malaysia (20%) and Pakistan (20%).

An individual’s degree of religious commitment appears to influence views on interpreting sharia. In many countries where the question was asked, Muslims who pray several times a day are more likely than those who pray less often to say that there is a single interpretation. The largest differences are found in Russia (+33 percentage points) and Uzbekistan (+27), but substantial gaps are also observed in Lebanon (+18), Malaysia (+16) and Thailand (+15).

Sharia as the Official Law of the Land

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Support for making sharia the official law of the land varies significantly across the six major regions included in the study. In countries across South Asia, Southeast Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East-North Africa region most favor making sharia their country’s official legal code. By contrast, only a minority of Muslims across Central Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe want sharia to be the official law of the land.

In South Asia, high percentages in all the countries surveyed support making sharia the official law, including nearly universal support among Muslims in Afghanistan (99%). More than eight-in-ten Muslims in Pakistan (84%) and Bangladesh (82%) also hold this view. The percentage of Muslims who say they favor making Islamic law the official law in their country is nearly as high across the Southeast Asian countries surveyed (86% in Malaysia, 77% in Thailand and 72% in Indonesia).15

In sub-Saharan Africa, at least half of Muslims in most countries surveyed say they favor making sharia the official law of the land, including more than seven-in-ten in Niger (86%), Djibouti (82%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (74%) and Nigeria (71%).

Support for sharia as the official law of the land also is widespread among Muslims in the Middle East-North Africa region – especially in Iraq (91%) and the Palestinian territories (89%). Only in Lebanon does opinion lean in the opposite direction: 29% of Lebanese Muslims favor making sharia the law of the land, while 66% oppose it.

Support for making sharia the official legal code of the country is relatively weak across Central Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe. Fewer than half of Muslims in all the countries surveyed in these regions favor making sharia their country’s official law. Support for sharia as the law of the land is greatest in Russia (42%); respondents in Russia were asked if sharia should be made the official law in the country’s ethnic-Muslim republics. Elsewhere in Central Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe, about one-in-three or fewer say sharia should be made the law of the land, including just 10% in Kazakhstan and 8% in Azerbaijan.

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Again, level of religious commitment makes a big difference in attitudes about the implementation of sharia. Muslims who pray several times a day are more likely than those who pray less frequently to favor Islamic law as the official law of the land. The difference is particularly large in Russia (+37 percentage points), Lebanon (+28), the Palestinian territories (+27), Tunisia (+25) and Kyrgyzstan (+24).

Across the countries surveyed, support for making sharia the official law of the land generally varies little by age, gender or education. However, in the Middle East-North Africa region, Muslims ages 35 and older are more likely than those 18-34 to back sharia in Lebanon (+22 percentage points), Jordan (+12), Tunisia (+12) and the Palestinian territories (+10).

Should Sharia Apply to All Citizens?

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Among Muslims who support making sharia the law of the land, most do not believe that it should be applied to non-Muslims. Only in five of 21 countries where this follow-up question was asked do at least half say all citizens should be subject to Islamic law.

The belief that sharia should extend to non-Muslims is most widespread in the Middle East and North Africa, where at least four-in-ten Muslims in all countries except Iraq (38%) and Morocco (29%) hold this opinion. Egyptian Muslims (74%) are the most likely to say it should apply to Muslims and non-Muslims alike, while 58% in Jordan hold this view.

By contrast, Muslims in Southern and Eastern Europe who favor making sharia the official law of the land are among the least likely to say it should apply to all citizens in their country. Across the nations surveyed in the region, fewer than a third take this view. This includes 22% of Russian Muslims (who were asked about the applying sharia in their country’s ethnic Muslim republics).

In other regions, opinion varies widely by country. For example, in Southeast Asia, half of Indonesian Muslims who favor sharia as the official law say it should apply to all citizens, compared with about a quarter (24%) of those in Thailand. (Thai Muslims were asked if sharia should be made the official law in the predominantly Muslim areas of the country.) Similarly, in Central Asia, a majority of Muslims in Kyrgyzstan (62%) who support making sharia the official law say it should apply to non-Muslims in their country, but far fewer in Kazakhstan (19%) agree. Meanwhile, in South Asia, Muslims who are in favor of making sharia the law of the land in Afghanistan are 27 percentage points more likely to say all citizens should be subject to Islamic law than are those in Pakistan (61% in Afghanistan vs. 34% in Pakistan).

How Should Sharia Be Applied?

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When Muslims in different regions of the world say they want sharia to be the law of the land, do they also share a vision for how sharia should be applied in practice? Overall, among those in favor of making sharia the law of the land, the survey finds broad support for allowing religious judges to adjudicate domestic disputes. Lower but substantial proportions of Muslims support severe punishments such as cutting off the hands of thieves or stoning people who commit adultery. The survey finds even lower support for executing apostates.

Family and Property Disputes

Islamic law addresses a range of domestic and personal matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance.16 And most Muslims who say sharia should be the law of the land in their country are very supportive of the application of Islamic law in this sphere. Specifically, in 17 of the 20 countries where there are adequate samples for analysis, at least half favor giving Muslim leaders and religious judges the power to decide family and property disputes.

Support for allowing religious judges to decide domestic and property disputes is particularly widespread throughout Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East-North Africa region. Across these three regions, at least six-in-ten Muslims who support the implementation of sharia as the official law say religious judges should decide family and property matters. This includes more than nine-in-ten in Egypt (95%) and Jordan (93%), and nearly as many in Malaysia (88%) and Pakistan (87%).

In Central Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe, Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land are somewhat less enthusiastic about having religious judges decide matters in the domestic sphere. Across these two regions, fewer than two-thirds favor giving religious judges the power to decide family and property disputes. The least support for allowing religious judges to decide matters in the domestic sphere is found in Kosovo (26%) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (24%).

Penalty for Theft or Robbery

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Among those who want sharia to be the law of the land, in 10 of 20 countries where there are adequate samples for analysis at least half say they support penalties such as whippings or cutting off the hands of thieves and robbers.17In South Asia, Pakistani and Afghan Muslims clearly support hudud punishments (seeGlossary). In both countries, more than eight-in-ten Muslims who favor making sharia the official law of the land also back these types of penalties for theft and robbery (88% in Pakistan and 81% in Afghanistan). By contrast, only half of Bangladeshis who favor sharia as the law of the land share this view.

In the Middle East and North Africa, many Muslims who support making sharia the official law also favor punishments like cutting off the hands of thieves. This includes at least seven-in-ten in the Palestinian territories (76%) and Egypt (70%), and at least half in Jordan (57%), Iraq (56%) and Lebanon (50%). Only in Tunisia do fewer than half (44%) of those who want Islamic law as the law of the land also back these types of criminal penalties.

In Southeast Asia, about two-thirds (66%) of Malaysian Muslims who want sharia as the law of the land also favor punishments like cutting off the hands of thieves or robbers, but fewer than half say the same in Thailand (46%) and Indonesia (45%).

In Central Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe, relatively few Muslims who back sharia support severe criminal punishments. Across the two regions, only in Kyrgyzstan do more than half (54%) support punishments such as whippings or cutting off the hands of thieves. Elsewhere in these two regions, between 43% and 28% of Muslims favor corporal punishments for theft and robbery.

Penalty for Adultery

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In 10 of 20 countries where there are adequate samples for analysis, at least half of Muslims who favor making sharia the law of the land also favor stoning unfaithful spouses.18

Some of the highest support for stoning is found in South Asia and the Middle East-North Africa region. In Pakistan (89%) and Afghanistan (85%), more than eight-in-ten Muslims who want Islamic law as their country’s official law say adulterers should be stoned, while nearly as many say the same in the Palestinian territories (84%) and Egypt (81%). A majority also support stoning as a penalty for the unfaithful in Jordan (67%), Iraq (58%). However, support is significantly lower in Lebanon (46%) and Tunisia (44%), where less than half of those who support sharia as the official law of the land believe that adulterers should be stoned.

In Southeast Asia, six-in-ten Muslims in Malaysia consider stoning an appropriate penalty for adultery. About half hold this view in Thailand (51%) and Indonesia (48%).

Muslims in Central Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe are generally less likely to support stoning adulterers. Among those who favor Islamic law as the official law of the land, only in Tajikistan do about half (51%) support this form of punishment. Elsewhere in the two regions, fewer than four-in-ten favor this type of punishment, including roughly a quarter or fewer across the countries surveyed in Southern and Eastern Europe.

Penalty for Converting to Another Faith

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Compared with attitudes toward applying sharia in the domestic or criminal spheres, Muslims in the countries surveyed are significantly less supportive of the death penalty for converts.19 Nevertheless, in six of the 20 countries where there are adequate samples for analysis, at least half of those who favor making Islamic law the official law also support executing apostates.

Taking the life of those who abandon Islam is most widely supported in Egypt (86%) and Jordan (82%). Roughly two-thirds who want sharia to be the law of the land also back this penalty in the Palestinian territories (66%). In the other countries surveyed in the Middle East-North Africa region, fewer than half take this view.

In the South Asian countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, strong majorities of those who favor making Islamic law the official law of the land also approve of executing apostates (79% and 76%, respectively). However, in Bangladesh far fewer (44%) share this view.

A majority of Malaysian Muslims (62%) who want to see sharia as their country’s official law also support taking the lives of those who convert to other faiths. But fewer take this position in neighboring Thailand (27%) and Indonesia (18%).

In Central Asia as well as Southern and Eastern Europe, only in Tajikistan (22%) do more than a fifth of Muslims who want sharia as the official law of the land also condone the execution of apostates. Support for killing converts to other faiths falls below one-in-ten in Albania (8%) and Kazakhstan (4%).

Views on Current Laws and Their Relation to Sharia

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Many Muslims say their country’s laws do not follow sharia, or Islamic law. At least half take this view in 11 of the 20 countries where the question was asked. Meanwhile, in six countries, at least half of Muslims believe their national laws closely adhere to sharia.

Muslims in Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia are among the most likely to say their laws do not adhere closely to Islamic law. A majority of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina (68%), Russia (61%) and Kosovo (59%) take this view. Roughly four-in-ten Muslims in Albania (43%) also say their country’s laws do not follow sharia closely, and about half (48%) are unsure.

In Central Asia, at least half of Muslims in Kazakhstan (72%), Azerbaijan (69%) and Kyrgyzstan (54%) say their laws do not follow sharia closely. In Tajikistan, by contrast, 51% say the laws of their country follow sharia.

In the Middle East-North Africa region, Muslims differ considerably in their assessments on this question. Lebanese Muslims (79%) are the most likely to say their country’s laws do not follow Islamic law closely. At least half of Muslims in the Palestinian territories (59%), Jordan (57%), Egypt (56%) and Tunisia (56%) say the same. Fewer Muslims agree in Iraq (37%) and Morocco (26%).

In the two countries in Southeast Asia where the question was asked, at least half of Muslims say their country’s laws adhere to sharia. By a 58%-to-29% margin, most Malaysian Muslims say their laws follow sharia; in Indonesia, the margin is 54% to 42%.

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Muslims in Afghanistan stand out for the high percentage (88%) that says their laws follow sharia closely. Fewer Muslims in the other countries surveyed in South Asia believe their laws closely follow sharia (48% in Bangladesh and 41% in Pakistan).

Across the countries surveyed, many Muslims who say their laws do not follow sharia believe this is a bad thing. Muslims in South Asia are especially likely to express this sentiment, including at least eight-in-ten Muslims in Pakistan (91%), Afghanistan (84%) and Bangladesh (83%). In Southeast Asia and the Middle East-North Africa region, too, Muslims who believe their country’s laws depart from sharia tend to say this is a bad thing. At least six-in-ten in the Palestinian territories (83%), Morocco (76%), Iraq (71%), Jordan (69%), Egypt (67%), Malaysia (65%) and Indonesia (65%) hold this view. Somewhat fewer Muslims in Tunisia (54%) say the same.

In the Middle East-North Africa region, Lebanon is the only country where opinion on the matter is closely divided. Among Lebanese Muslims who say their laws do not follow sharia closely, 41% say this is a good thing, while 38% say it is a bad thing, and 21% have no definite opinion.

Muslims in Southern and Eastern Europe and Central Asia are less likely to say it is a bad thing that their country’s laws do not follow sharia. Among Muslims who believe their country’s laws do not follow sharia, fewer than a third in most countries surveyed in these regions say this is a bad thing, while many say it is neither good nor bad, or express no opinion. The two exceptions are Russia and Kyrgyzstan, where almost half (47% each) say it is a bad thing that their country’s laws do not adhere closely to Islamic law.

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Summary of 2014 US Budget Proposal Implications for NGO/non-profits

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Bruce

POLICY/SOCIAL CONTEXT

President Obama’s FY2014 Budget: The Issues for Nonprofits

WRITTEN BY RICK COHEN CREATED ON THURSDAY, 18 APRIL 2013 13:49

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Now that President Obama has released a proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2014, the ideological battle of taxation and spending is now joined in something close to what Congress calls the “regular order.” Unlike the past couple of years of federal budget-making, left to a handful of Congressional leaders to negotiate behind the scenes, the President’s proposal, along with budgets passed by the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, moves the nation back into the process of congressional committees holding hearings, calling witnesses, issuing reports, and recommending legislation for the floor votes.

See the rest at Non-Profit Quarterly:

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Environmental Fine for “Trimming” Trees in Critical Area

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Bruce

Guilty Decision for “Trimming” Trees in Severn River Critical Area

From the Edgewater-Davidsonville Patch. Check the comment that apparently describes an alternative universe not shared by the judge in this case, among others.

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US National Park Service Recreational Water Quality Testing

Posted on April 6, 2013 by Bruce

Recreational Water Testing NPS SCIENCE 2013_04.pdf

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Get Rid of that Damn Spartina!!!

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Bruce

From Hokianga Harbour in the Northlands Region of North Island, New Zealand . . . . one man’s salvation is another’s invasive specie.

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Why I Count Glass Eels — why it’s really important

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Bruce

(South RIVERKEEPER Capt. Diana Muller just got back from a 3-day EPA conference on citizen science.)

The New York Times

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Internet Use Shows FALLING INTEREST in the ENVIRONMENT

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Bruce

From: malcolm McCallum
Date: Friday, March 29, 2013
Subject: Internet use shows falling interest in environment
To: CTURTLE

Self promotion! 🙂

“Google search patterns suggest declining interest in the environment”
Malcolm L. Mccallum • Gwendolyn W. Bury

Abstract: Public interest in most aspects of the environment is sharply declining relative to other subjects, as measured by internet searches performed on Google. Changes in the search behavior by the public are closely tied to their interests, and those interests are critical to driving public policy. Google Insights for Search (GIFS) was a tool that provided access to search data but is now combined with another tool, Google Trends.

We used GIFS to obtain data for 19 environment-related terms from 2001 to 2009. The only environment-related term with large positive slope was climate change. All other terms that we queried had strong negative slopes indicating that searches for these topics dropped over the last decade. Our results suggest that the public is growing less interested in the environment.

—

Malcolm L. McCallum
Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry
School of Biological Sciences
University of Missouri at Kansas City

Managing Editor,
Herpetological Conservation and Biology
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Fact Sheet for the Anne Arundel Stormwater Bill (2-13)

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Bruce

These are not opinions, they are facts, as near as conscientious professionals can convey them.

Read and tell your county councilman what you think.

Stormwater Utility Legislation, Bill 2-13 Information
Purpose – The goal of bill 2-13 is to create a dedicated, local fund to protect revenues generated by a stormwater utility fee and to implement the fee itself. The goal of the fee is to generate sufficient revenues to meet the terms of the County’s MS4 permit (20% impervious retrofit over 5 years) and its TMDL obligations (eventually about $75 million/year in restoration costs).What Does It Do?

  • Creates the protected fund, with a prescribed set of uses.
  • Creates an annual fee on all of the privately owned, developed property in the county.
  • Creates a system of credits/reductions/rebates based on implementation of best management practices.

Defined Uses (Fund can only be used for the following purposes).

  • Capital improvements for stormwater management (including stream and wetland restoration).
  • Operation and maintenance of stormwater management systems and facilities.
  • Public education and outreach relating to stormwater management and restoration.
  • Stormwater management planning
  • Review of stormwater management plans & permits (if revenues from new development are put into the fund).
  • Grants to non-profit organizations for projects meeting the above purposes.
  • Reasonable costs necessary to administer the fund.

Structure of the Annual Fee

  • 3 tiers for residential property: High density, medium density, low density
  • High Density (R15, R10) – Generally, townhouse type development: $34/year.
  • Medium Density (R5, R2) – Generally single family homes: $85/year.
  • Low Density (R1, RLD, RA) – Generally single family homes on large lots: $170/year.
  • All non-residential charged based on actual impervious cover divided by 2,800sf times $85.

Why Residential Tiers?

  • It is both beyond the bounds of the county’s existing technology and logistically unrealistic to assess the individual imperviousness of ever residential property (over 158,000 units).
  • Assessing all properties at a single rate creates large distortions for people at either end of the spectrum (townhouses or estate properties).
  • Creating 3 tiers, based in zoning was deemed to be a reasonable compromise that ties assessment closely to the median imperviousness of each tier (High: ~1,100sf; Med: ~2,800sf; Low: ~5,700sf).

The System of Credits and Reductions

  • Non-residential properties and communities built to post-2002 stormwater management standards AND with proof that their facilities still exist and have been maintained, are eligible for a 50% credit on the fee. This is an opt-in program.
  • Non-residential properties and communities built to pre-2002 stormwater management standards are eligible for credits to their fee based on implementation of best management practices.
  • Holders of industrial discharge permits, in good standing with their permit, are eligible for a 25% reduction in their fee.
  • Residential property owners are eligible to take part in a rebate program, funded by the fee, to defray the cost of implementation of best management practices on their property.

Answers to common concerns that may arise about the fee:

  • The proposed Anne Arundel County fee is directly in line with those existing and proposed by other jurisdictions in the region, including Harford County ($125), Baltimore City ($192), and Montgomery County ($107).
  • The Howard County fee, while proposed, is lower, assumes immediate escalation of the fee in following years. The Anne Arundel County fee is set at a level to be stable for a number of years.
  • The cost of the fee to non-residential properties is proportional to the cost to residential property owners, and based on actual impervious coverage. It is intended to be as equitable as possible.
  • The state of Virginia did NOT refuse to implement a stormwater fee, in fact, the state has enabling legislation that allows local governments to do so, and Charlotteville, VA did so in the last month.
  • The proposed fee structure does affect non-residential and residential property owners proportionately.
  • The average fee for a homeowner will be $85/year. That doesn’t come anywhere close to exceeding the average homeowner’s property tax assessment.

Answers to common concerns over the spending and increase of the fee:

  • The fee cannot be increased without a separate act of the council and is set so that it can be stable for at least 3-4 years.
  • The funds raised through the fee will be used to implement the county’s Watershed Implementation Plan, which is a very detailed document the county has put together over the past several years. Detailed maps and strategies can be found here: http://www.aacounty.org/DPW/Watershed/WIPdocuments.cfm#.UUMut1d8TVQ
  • The legislation requires the creation of a specific, dedicated fund, and the money can only be used for purposes associated with stormwater-related restoration. Unlike the state, the county has a very strong track record of not tapping into these funds for other purposes. This special fund will be like the wastewater/drinking water and solid waste utilities that the county already has.

What Can You Do? – Stormwater Utility
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Why Two Spaces are WRONG!

Posted on January 14, 2013 by Bruce

from Slate:

Space Invaders

Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period.

By |Posted Saturday, Jan. 12, 2013, at 6:00 AM ET

Exactly two years ago, Farhad Manjoo ranted against people who still type two spaces after a period. To this day, people are still talking about the article. And some of them make a point to leave two spaces after all of their periods. In honor of the piece’s anniversary, we are reprinting the piece below.
Original
Can I let you in on a secret? Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong.
And yet people who use two spaces are everywhere, their ugly error crossing every social boundary of class, education, and taste. *  You’d expect, for instance, that anyone savvy enough to read Slate would know the proper rules of typing, but you’d be wrong; every third e-mail I get from readers includes the two-space error. (In editing letters for “Dear Farhad,” my occasional tech-advice column, I’ve removed enough extra spaces to fill my forthcoming volume of melancholy epic poetry, The Emptiness Within.) The public relations profession is similarly ignorant; I’ve received press releases and correspondence from the biggest companies in the world that are riddled with extra spaces. Some of my best friends are irredeemable two spacers, too, and even my wife has been known to use an unnecessary extra space every now and then (though she points out that she does so only when writing to other two-spacers, just to make them happy).
What galls me about two-spacers isn’t just their numbers. It’s their certainty that they’re right. Over Thanksgiving dinner last year, I asked people what they considered to be the “correct” number of spaces between sentences. The diners included doctors, computer programmers, and other highly accomplished professionals. Everyone—everyone!—said it was proper to use two spaces. Some people admitted to slipping sometimes and using a single space—but when writing something formal, they were always careful to use two. Others explained they mostly used a single space but felt guilty for violating the two-space “rule.” Still others said they used two spaces all the time, and they were thrilled to be so proper. When I pointed out that they were doing it wrong—that, in fact, the correct way to end a sentence is with a period followed by a single, proud, beautiful space—the table balked. “Who says two spaces is wrong?” they wanted to know.
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Typographers, that’s who. The people who study and design the typewritten word decided long ago that we should use one space, not two, between sentences. That convention was not arrived at casually. James Felici, author of the The Complete Manual of Typography, points out that the early history of type is one of inconsistent spacing. Hundreds of years ago some typesetters would end sentences with a double space, others would use a single space, and a few renegades would use three or four spaces. Inconsistency reigned in all facets of written communication; there were few conventions regarding spelling, punctuation, character design, and ways to add emphasis to type. But as typesetting became more widespread, its practitioners began to adopt best practices. Felici writes that typesetters in Europe began to settle on a single space around the early 20th century. America followed soon after.
Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It’s one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men’s shirt buttons on the right and women’s on the left. Every major style guide—including the Modern Language Association Style Manual and theChicago Manual of Style—prescribes a single space after a period. (The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, used widely in the social sciences, allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts but recommends one space in published work.) Most ordinary people would know the one-space rule, too, if it weren’t for a quirk of history. In the middle of the last century, a now-outmoded technology—the manual typewriter—invaded the American workplace. To accommodate that machine’s shortcomings, everyone began to type wrong. And even though we no longer use typewriters, we all still type like we do. (Also see the persistence of the dreaded Caps Lock key.)
The problem with typewriters was that they used monospaced type—that is, every character occupied an equal amount of horizontal space. This bucked a long tradition of proportional typesetting, in which skinny characters (like I or 1) were given less space than fat ones (like W or M). Monospaced type gives you text that looks “loose” and uneven; there’s a lot of white space between characters and words, so it’s more difficult to spot the spaces between sentences immediately. Hence the adoption of the two-space rule—on a typewriter, an extra space after a sentence makes text easier to read. Here’s the thing, though: Monospaced fonts went out in the 1970s. First electric typewriters and then computers began to offer people ways to create text using proportional fonts. Today nearly every font on your PC is proportional. (Courier is the one major exception.) Because we’ve all switched to modern fonts, adding two spaces after a period no longer enhances readability, typographers say. It diminishes it.

Type professionals can get amusingly—if justifiably—overworked about spaces. “Forget about tolerating differences of opinion: typographically speaking, typing two spaces before the start of a new sentence is absolutely, unequivocally wrong,” Ilene Strizver, who runs a typographic consulting firm The Type Studio, once wrote. “When I see two spaces I shake my head and I go, Aye yay yay,” she told me. “I talk about ‘type crimes’ often, and in terms of what you can do wrong, this one deserves life imprisonment. It’s a pure sign of amateur typography.” “A space signals a pause,” says David Jury, the author of About Face: Reviving The Rules of Typography. “If you get a really big pause—a big hole—in the middle of a line, the reader pauses. And you don’t want people to pause all the time. You want the text to flow.”
This readability argument is debatable. Typographers can point to no studies or any other evidence proving that single spaces improve readability. When you press them on it, they tend to cite their aesthetic sensibilities. As Jury says, “It’s so bloody ugly.”
But I actually think aesthetics are the best argument in favor of one space over two. One space is simpler, cleaner, and more visually pleasing (it also requires less work, which isn’t nothing). A page of text with two spaces between every sentence looks riddled with holes; a page of text with an ordinary space looks just as it should.
Is this arbitrary? Sure it is. But so are a lot of our conventions for writing. It’s arbitrary that we write shop instead of shoppe, or phone instead of fone, or that we use ! to emphasize a sentence rather than %. We adopted these standards because practitioners of publishing—writers, editors, typographers, and others—settled on them after decades of experience. Among their rules was that we should use one space after a period instead of two—so that’s how we should do it.
Besides, the argument in favor of two spaces isn’t any less arbitrary. Samantha Jacobs, a reading and journalism teacher at Norwood High School in Norwood, Col., told me that she requires her students to use two spaces after a period instead of one, even though she acknowledges that style manuals no longer favor that approach. Why? Because that’s what she’s used to. “Primarily, I base the spacing on the way I learned,” she wrote me in an e-mail glutted with extra spaces.
Several other teachers gave me the same explanation for pushing two spaces on their students. But if you think about, that’s a pretty backward approach: The only reason today’s teachers learned to use two spaces is because their teachers were in the grip of old-school technology. We would never accept teachers pushing other outmoded ideas on kids because that’s what was popular back when they were in school. The same should go for typing. So, kids, if your teachers force you to use two spaces, send them a link to this article. Use this as your subject line: “If you type two spaces after a period, you’re doing it wrong.”
Correction, Jan. 18, 2011: This article originally asserted that—in a series of e-mails described as “overwrought, self-important, and dorky”—WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange used two spaces after every period. Assange actually used a monospace font, which made the text of his e-mails appear loose and uneven. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
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Grist seems to be losing their sense of humor . . . .

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Bruce

This from GRIST, the good-humored, but scientifically sound environmental on-line magazine. . . 

Surprise: Shell’s rig ran aground in Alaska because the company was trying to avoid taxes

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On New Year’s Eve, in the middle of a storm, Shell was trying to tow itsKulluk drilling rig from Alaska to Seattle. Why then? Why risk the bad weather, which, as it turned out, caused the rig to break free from its tugboats and run aground on Kodiak Island?

To avoid paying state taxes, of course. From Alaska Dispatch:

A Shell spokesman last week confirmed an Unalaska elected official’s claim that the Dec. 21 departure of the Kulluk from Unalaska/Dutch Harbor involved taxation.

City councilor David Gregory said Shell would pay between $6 million and $7 million in state taxes if the Kulluk was still in Alaska on Jan. 1.

Ah, but the weather had other plans, sorry to say. Shell will end up having to pay that money after all, and then some.

Gregory said the departure of the Kulluk took money away from local small businesses servicing the rig. He predicted the maritime mishap will prove very costly to the oil company.

“It will cost them more than that $6 million in taxes. Maybe they should have just stayed here,” Gregory said.

The Kulluk grounding is costing taxpayers too. The 630 people working on the unified relief effort include employees of the state of Alaska and the U.S. Coast Guard. Twenty-one vessels are on the scene or nearby, and that doesn’t include aircraft.

Last night, the unified command held a press conference to update reporters on the status of the recovery. In short: Not much has changed. The Kulluk remains where it ran aground. Efforts to determine damage are still incomplete. The tens of thousands of gallons of fuel onboard don’t appear to be leaking.

One reporter asked a pointed question about how forthcoming Shell will be in sharing its assessment of the accident. You can guess the response.

Margie Bauman [reporter from Fishermans News Seattle]:[G]iven the seriousness of this incident, why would Shell’s own investigation of this not be made public along with the Coast Guard investigation? Thank you.

Sean Churchfield [Incident Commander and the Operations Manager for Shell Alaska]: OK. So I think the main point I’d like to make on the investigation is Shell will collaborate, completely cooperate—collaborate—collaborate completely with the Coast Guard and other investigations that are required.

Margie Bauman: Yes. But I’d like to know (cross talking)…

Captain Paul Mehler [Coast Guard Federal On Scene Coordinator]: (Inaudible). But the Coast Guard investigation, as I say, we’re bringing up investigators from the Center of Excellence, and we have our investigators working that. And of course the results of those findings will be made public.

Margie Bauman: And would that include Shell’s …

Amy Midget [unified command representative]: And we will have those said (ph) remarks posted online for anybody who—on the phone system who is not able to hear them.

In other words, don’t hold your breath for Shell to be forthcoming.

There is some good news in all of this, for Shell anyway: The U.S. government shows no indication that it will reconsider the company’s permit to drill in the Arctic.

“The administration understands that the Arctic environment presents unique challenges and that’s why the [interior] secretary has repeatedly made clear that any approved drilling activities will be held to the highest safety and environmental standards,” Salazar spokesman Blake Androff said Thursday. “The department will continue to carefully review permits for any activity and all proposals must meet our rigorous standards.”

Salazar has not given Shell permission to drill deep enough to actually hit oil. The company hopes to get that approval this summer.

Shell didn’t get that permission last year because it was unable to demonstrate to the government that its spill-containment system would work, even after repeated testing.

All this mess so Shell could avoid $6 million in state taxes — an amount equal to 0.1 percent of its profits in the third quarter of 2012. Good to know that Shell puts money over safety. Bodes well.

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