I am sure you are all familiar by now with the case of the British teacher who has been jailed in Sudan for 15 days for naming a teddy bear Muhammad. Gillian Gibbons will be deported at the end of her brief sentence.

According to news reports, it appears that Gibbons asked her 7-year-old pupils to choose a name for the bear, and 20 of the 23 kids chose the name Muhammad.

What I have been pondering the past few hours is, if the Sudanese are barmy enough to arrest, jail and deport a foreigner for naming a teddy bear Muhammad, why aren’t they also turning their attention to the kids and the parents too? Aren’t they all as culpable for this blasphemy? After all, it wasn’t the teacher who named the bear it was the children.

Sticking with Sudan, I also noticed a story recently in the New York Times that said the Sudanese government had banned Scandinavian troops from acting as peace keepers in Sudan because of the Danish cartoon controversy.

Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the president of Sudan, said in a recent interview with the television network Al Jazeera, “We in Sudan declared mobilization against the Scandinavians after the publishing of the offensive cartoons of the prophet.”

Last time I checked, Scandinavia was comprised of a number of different countries. So why lump all of them together?

UPDATE: It seems Gillian Gibbons’ 15-day sentence plus deportation is too lenient for some:

Protests in Khartoum
Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.

Mrs Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed by a court on Thursday after allowing children in her class to name a teddy bear Muhammad.

[...]The marchers took to the streets after Friday prayers to denounce the sentence as too lenient.

The protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks.

Marchers chanted “Shame, shame on the UK”, “No tolerance – execution” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad”.

Fall has come very late this year. I remember my first Thanksgiving a few years ago it snowed. Yet during our trip to Connecticut on Thursday many of the trees were just starting to turn. Brooklyn has a little color of its own too. This was the scene in Prospect Park on Saturday morning. Glorious.

It’s Thanksgiving today, one of my favorite days of the year and one of the few occasions when practically all of New York takes the day off.

This year, Sofie and I are making a return visit to Connecticut. One of my favorite parts of the day (aside from the company and the food) will be standing in the middle of Grand Central Terminal around 1.30pm watching people hurrying in all directions carrying bags and boxes of food.

For those of you outside of the US who may be wondering what a Thanksgiving dinner might taste like, here’s the menu I was sent ahead of our meal today:

Hungry yet?

I was crossing 42nd Street today when I heard a bang and turned around to see this. Someone is not going to have a very happy Thanksgiving.

Spotted outside Circuit City in Oak Park, Chicago, yesterday.

I managed to steal a couple of hours to walk around Chicago yesterday afternoon. Within about six blocks of Dearborn Street I saw a 50 ft Picasso sculpture, a 40 ft Miro, the world’s tallest church, a ten-ton Dubuffet sculpture, Mies Van der Rohe’s Federal Center Complex and a handful of very interesting skyscrapers including the sweeping Chase Tower (formerly Bank One Plaza).

My little Canon Powershot can’t do any of these buildings justice (hence the links above). Taking this photograph of the 3,000 square foot Chagall mosaic Four Seasons at the foot of Chase Tower seemed easy by comparison, and was made all the more rewarding when I noticed this amusing detail below.

Since we moved house and our old video library closed, I’ve been forced to sign up for Netflix. I don’t know why I avoided it for so long but I am really enjoying the choice of films and the luxury of being able to build a playlist at home rather than scanning the shelves looking at the same choice week in week out.

On the advice of a friend, I’ve queued up a handful of films by Howard Hawks and the other week we watched the first of them To Have and Have Not. Brilliant stuff. Sofie and I particularly liked the musical numbers. But I don’t think I could possibly post about the film without including the clip above.

PS I’m in Chicago at the moment for work. If I get any time to myself I might do a bit of exploring. But first impressions are exceedingly good. Great buildings. Friendly people. Not sure about the roads though. I’ve never driven anywhere with so many twists, turns and highways with exit ramps on left and right.

It looks like we might have to wait a little longer to see the new series of 24. (Via Katherine.)