Akram's Razor
BBC NEWS | Americas | Pentagon gay ‘disorder’ list row US lawmakers are calling on the Pentagon to change a document listing homosexuality as a “mental disorder”. [HT: MostlyWater] Read more
BBC NEWS | Americas | Pentagon gay ‘disorder’ list row US lawmakers are calling on the Pentagon to change a document listing homosexuality as a “mental disorder”. [HT: MostlyWater] Read more
I realize that the whole 20th century practice of meeting other human beings in the flesh flies in the face our way of life, but nonetheless there’s a neat event coming up in New Jersey for those of us who blog about religion and spirituality and who are on the Left. It’s the Progressive Faith Blog Con being held at Montclair State University in the Garden State July 14-16. Shabana and I would love to attend, but its proximity to... Read more
Some considerably less upbeat news from the state of Denmark, and from Jutland, Jylland-Posten’s heartland. The Danish newspaper Politiken reports (my translation): According to Aalborg Police, approximately 110 threating letters have been mailed directly to northern Jutlanders with Muslim-sounding names. "In the past, we have had individual cases of racism but nothing at all on this scale. So we take it very seriously. It is deeply tasteless action and a punishable offense," said Chief Criminal Inspector Aage Nøgaar Jensen, Aalborg... Read more
This has to be one of the odder images of interfaith dialogue yet. Priests and imams settling the Crusades on the soccer field. I’m sad to report that my team (though I must confess to being a bit torn, being both Danish and Muslim) got thrashed 7-0, and despite some healthy trash talking (apparently, the imams made the mistake of playfully promising to "eat them for breakfast"; I guess the priests decided to dust off their Viking helms and just... Read more
A recent article in alt.muslim ("Mosques With Foreign Flags") illustrates much of what’s dead wrong with discussions in Washington of Muslims, immigration and assimilation. I try to ignore silly statements of this nature in the media, but with this mix of irresponsible rhetoric and indifference to elementary considerations of historical and social context coming from a prominent Muslims I’m irritated enough to comment. I have to shake my head in amazement at these ill-informed potshots and flimsy generalizations. I’d expect... Read more
Worrying developments in Malaysia, which long seemed such a promising laboratory for new models of tolerance and peaceful coexistence for Muslims and non-Muslims. IPS on Temple Demolitions in Malaysia: Hundreds of worshippers watched in horror as the workers, mostly Muslims, brought down the roof, pushed down the walls and smashed the deities that immigrant Indian workers had brought with them from South India to provide solace in a strange new land. "We are poor and our only comfort is our... Read more
From The Forward: Religious Groups Push Kentucky Schools To Use ‘Before Christ’ Activists, along with the governor and other state politicians, have accused the State Board of Education of attempting to drive Christianity from the classroom through the use of secular notations, like BCE for “Before the Common Era,” in place of religious ones, like B.C. for “Before Christ.” The Western calendar counts years from the traditional birth of Jesus. The use of the notations B.C. and A.D. (anno Domini,... Read more
[Am reposting this because I’ve added some eye-opening passages from key prayers of Islam, Christianity and Judaism.] Ali makes some intriguing observations about the “myth” of a Judeo-Christian West. A particularly stimulating claim is that there is no unified Judeo-Christian religious tradition because Jews have for much of recent Western history been advocating–as an understandable defensive tactic by a vulnerable minority in Christian societies that were steeped in anti-Semitism–secularism that goes (or, at least until recently, went) against the grain... Read more
I generally steer away from racier topics, schizophrenic quasi-prude that I am. On the one hand, the romantic (Or is it elitist snob?) in me can’t get enough "Murder She Wrote", "Rumpole the Bailey", and "Brideshead Revisited", but I’m probably better known among friends for switching on David Chappelle or, history’s funniest movie ever, "Booty Call" (to which I’m not going to provide a link, beta). In fact, "Booty Call" was, to poor Shabana’s horror, the first movie I rented... Read more
There’s a fascinating and innovative new "Civilization"-style web-based game in the works where you take the role of a Third World farmer struggling to survive in the neofeudal economic order that is modern "Globalization" for much of the world. It can be played online, so try it out. BTW, it looks like this game is being developed in Denmark. It’s nice to see a reminder of the vision and compassion that characterized Danish politics before Denmark went Neo-Con. A tip... Read more
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