Thought I’d share this inspired quip from Freedom Rider (emphasis added): The right wing are going nuts because of a poll that showed 8% of American Muslims approving of suicide bombing in some cases. So, a majority of Muslims are opposed to terrorism. They certainly aren’t like Christians. A majority of them are in favor of torture and a majority of them are in favor of deliberately targeting civilians in warfare. Thank God for Muslims. Hopefully they will keep those... Read more
Watched The History Channel’s "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed", a documentary purporting to unveil the artistic and cultural underpinnings of the Star Wars genre. Found it pretty disappointing. It shed a few intriguing insights, but was overall pretty light on information and devoid of the revelations promised by the title. Hadn’t given much thought to how multi-faceted the franchise’s female heroines are, nor how the personalities of all its main characters (even villains) develop before one’s eyes during the films.... Read more
On this Memorial Day, let us all stop for a moment to thank and pray for those who’ve given their lives (or sacrificed their health) to protect us. Let us also pray for the many innocent people who have tragically found themselves in the crossfire. In their honor, let us also resolve to 1) support our troops in the future by actively opposing all unnecessary wars and 2) punish all leaders (whether in government or in the media) guilty of... Read more
Am two thirds of the way through a 3-week summer intensive "German for Reading Knowledge" course that meets for 3 hours daily (and bright and early–by summer standards–at 9:30) and assigns a corresponding amount of homework each night. As the title says (hopefully correctly), I’m feeling like a prisoner in a cult these days. It’s great to get an academic requirement that would otherwise be a distraction out of the way quickly, but boy does an intensive course like this... Read more
[I’m reposting this because of a technical problem that I think prevented it from getting distributed properly to people using RSS readers.] Here’s Mark Steyn on opponents to militarism that he encounters when doing radio interviews on NPR and similar outlets. SteynOnline – KEEPING CALM But, when, as they often do, they cite Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi, I point out that we’re not always as fortunate to find ourselves up against such relatively benign enemies as British imperial... Read more
A hotel in Peshawar was bombed in Pakistan and many innocent people sadly lost their lives two days ago. This senseless savagery happened as if on cue to welcome my wife and daughter, who are currently visiting family in Lahore while I live the "swinging" (read: unlimited access to the SciFi Channel) but very culinarily-deprived life (one word: tuna) of the temporary bachelor. I tend to be very conscious of probability in life and, thus, rarely give much thought to... Read more
Did the post entitled "The resurrection of Willie Horton in the service of Islamophobia" appear normally? I’m asking because I mistakenly assigned a date in the past when I posted and I didn’t notice it my reader (BlogLines). So I’m wondering if that tweak confuses RSS readers and I need to repost with the current date in order for it to reach everybody. Read more
Veterans who are Wiccans may now choose to have a pentacle on their graves in military cemetaries. It’s also quite interesting so see that in spite of separation of church & state, it took them 10 years and a lawsuit to get this fairly trivial matter (which normally takes only a few months, according to the article) approved. Formally, all religions are equal before the law, yet an ostensibly secular government authority fought for a decade to banish the symbol... Read more
A few days ago, I argued that nonviolent resistance is not always an effective option in our day’s conflicts thanks to the corporate media’s dereliction of its duty to report war’s human toll and cited the ironfisted way Israeli troops tend to deal with even peaceful protests by Palestinians. I wrote Palestinians who stick flowers into IDF gun muzzles are likely to catch a gun butt or rubber bullet in the face. So their options are a lot more limited... Read more
The latest stupid Western overreaction to hijab. A Scottish bus company recently went to the trouble to promulgate a rule requiring that veiled women show their faces when boarding a bus on one of their passes. BBC NEWS | UK | Scotland | Edinburgh and East | Anger at bus firm’s veil ruling A bus company in Edinburgh has sparked anger over rules requiring drivers to ask Muslim women wearing the veil to show their faces. Religious groups and unions... Read more
Akram's Razor
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