What kind of day is it? I'll tell you what kind. Down at Comment is Free, Halima Mansoor is writing about Malala Yousafzai, the girl shot by Taliban militants criminals and thugs on account of her campaign for education. Mansoor refers to this particular preoccupation of Yousafzai's, her demand for 'the freedom to study for all and to develop a country that focuses on education'; she quotes her as saying 'democracy is the best rule'. And how is this presented to the CiF readership? Under the following subhead:
Malala is the latest in a history of strong females in the region, who pander neither to western values or Taliban barbarianism
Never mind the felicitous 'neither... or'. But one might think that education and democracy, whoever else might be committed to them, were not to be counted among Western values; and that Taliban barbarianism and western values were two of a kind. It's just another normal day at the Guardian.