2013-05-07T18:47:44-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:47 pm   By

Mozaffar’s Moments was kind enough to bring this fascinating Honda Accord commercial to our attention.  It brings back fond childhood memories of wacky and ridiculously convoluted mechanical solutions to everyday problems on "Tom & Jerry" and the like. The pioneer of this delightfully impractical intellectual pursuit was Rube Goldberg.  You must see this amazing, real-life example, a noodle-preparation machine here, that involves fire, bowling balls and even a hamster.  Judging by the animated Howard Cossel-style commentary in Japanese, there are... Read more

2013-11-21T23:33:22-05:00

Last updated on: November 21, 2013 at 11:33 pm   By

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2013-05-07T18:41:28-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm   By

Was reading about theology when I should be updating some technical specifications for the IT project I’m working on when I came across some intriguing observations about Christian faith and its tensions with popular practice that I think could be fruitfully applied to Islam. Try substituting "Sufism" for "folk religion" in the quotes and you’ll get a sense of how concerns the excesses of "popular" religion are both natural and legitimate yet simutaneously prone to great exaggerration. The observation that... Read more

2013-05-07T18:41:29-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm   By

City of Brass has an eye-opening update on the Miami Seven urban legend…err…"plot".  Okay, we’ve established that they weren’t Muslim, but now it turns out there’s no link to Al-Qaeda, and there wasn’t even a freakin’ bomb. This is increasingly becoming a case study in media hysteria.    City of Brass on "The Miami Seven": Why haven’t I commented on the alleged home-grown terror plot by American muslims in cahoots with Al-Qaeda to destroy the Sears Tower?  Well, they weren’t... Read more

2013-05-07T18:41:29-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm   By

Have been enjoying a wonderful series of free MP3 lectures on the Byzantine Empire by Lars Brownworth of the Stony Brook School in New York.  They’re beautifully and accessibly narrated and flow like good stories.  Highly recommended.  Dr. Brownworth has done an admirable public service.  I hope more scholars catch this bug! Read more

2013-05-07T18:41:29-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm   By

In a first in the post-9/11 political era, Muslim leaders in Miami have responded to the furor over the recently apprehended bomb plotters against the Sears Towers by arguing that  the culprits are not Muslims.  (CAIR also refuted the link and urged the media to refrain from referring to them as Muslims.)  They’d know, and I don’t think this is something a community could get away with lying about.  These leaders know very well that if these individuals really are ... Read more

2013-05-07T18:41:29-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm   By

Haroon Siddiqui has written an interesting and informative article on the evolution of Dutch attitudes towards immigrants and Muslims.  He also argues that the pendulum is swinging back. TheStar.com – How the tolerant Dutch became so intolerant For the last five years, the story from liberal Holland has been that it had gone from being multicultural to being xenophobic. It had shut the door on immigrants, warehoused its refugees in camps and turned on its own 1 million Muslims. The... Read more

2013-05-07T18:41:29-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm   By

The ever insightful Norm Soloman on the consequences of the American media’s spineless and selective coverage of wartime atrocities in "Their Barbarism, and Ours" : "The story really takes us back into the 8th century, a truly barbaric world," John Burns said. He was speaking Tuesday night on the PBS "NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," describing what happened to two U.S. soldiers whose bodies had just been found. Evidently they were victims of atrocities, and no one should doubt in the... Read more

2013-05-07T18:41:29-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm   By

A very interesting article in The Economist. Look out, Europe, they say Why so many Muslims find it easier to be American than to feel European Read more

2013-05-07T18:41:30-05:00

Last updated on: May 7, 2013 at 6:41 pm   By

Commenting on the apparent coverup campaign by the Israeli military of its shelling of a Palestinian family that was picnicing on the beach,  Jonathan Cook provides an excellent illustration of the unspoken dehumanizing assumptions of  Muslims being congenitally irrational and prone to violence that infect so much coverage in the Western media.  [HT: Mostly Water] From "Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up" in CounterPunch:  The army has been claiming for more than a week, based on its own evidence, that the lethal... Read more

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