Word: symbolic
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Buried in Facebook's new payment terms is this gem: if you spend $1 to get 10 credits at Facebook's virtual-gift shop--where you can buy icons of unicorns as well as of sock-draped doorknobs (the universal symbol for "Keep out, we're hooking up")--you have three years to use up your points. After that, Facebook reserves the right to go rogue by "sending virtual gifts to your Facebook friends." This is yet another reason to rethink friending your boss, lest you one day unknowingly send her a (virtual) flaming...
...fatal stabbing of an Egyptian Muslim woman in a German courtroom two weeks ago sparked anger across the Muslim world and fueled demands for a formal apology from Germany. But while the region rages about the story of the "headscarf martyr," holding her up as a symbol of persecution, the plight of China's Muslim population has provoked a more muted response...
...without historical precedent. Shortly after tobacco was introduced to the Ottoman Empire in 1601, Sultan Murat IV banned the use and sale of tobacco - on penalty of death - after clerical decree. That ban, however, was repealed a little over a decade later, and smoking quickly became a status symbol, "one of four cushions of pleasure," according to one historian...
...Sherbini, a 32-year-old Egyptian pharmacist stabbed to death in a German courtroom last week, has stoked growing anger in Egypt, where the local press has taken to referring to her as the "headscarf martyr." But with everyone from Islamists to the government claiming Sherbini as a symbol for their cause, her death is transitioning from shocking tragedy to a weapon of religion and politics...
...more salient than the women's-dress issue is the manipulation of Sherbini as a symbol of Islam in a perceived standoff between the Muslim world and the West. "She is a martyr of Islam, and justice will be served on the day of judgment," wrote one man on the wall of another Facebook group, Marwa El-Sherbini "Muslim Martyr." Even Iran, Egypt's traditional adversary, has joined the fray, holding a symbolic funeral for Sherbini in Tehran on Friday and summoning the German ambassador to the Foreign Ministry to hear Iran's formal protest over the attack...