What’s the difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Knights of Columbus?
Between Opus Dei and the Masons and the Muslim Brotherhood?
Which organization really is a threat to our way of life?
Just askin’.
Sphere: Related ContentMonday, February 14, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Right Wing Interpretation
If you ever needed an example, Dear Gentle Reader(s), of the disingenuousness of far-right propagandists, seek no further. Thanks to The Daily Dish, we get this from The Drudge Report:
“Military coup?” Not a “People’s coup?”
No credit the the men and women and children in the streets?
Shame.
Trust, but verify. (And you really need to verify the Drudge Report!)
Sphere: Related ContentSunday, February 6, 2011
Um…Mr. Friedman…
In today’s New York Times, Tom Friedman discusses the unrest afflicting the Middle East. In it we find this paragraph:
The Arab world has 100 million young people today between the ages of 15 and 29, many of them males who do not have the education to get a good job, buy an apartment and get married. That is trouble. Add in rising food prices, and the diffusion of Twitter, Facebook and texting, which finally gives them a voice to talk back to their leaders and directly to each other, and you have a very powerful change engine.
Much has been made of the part played in the uprisings by Twitter and Facebook. A question arises, though: If there are no jobs and rising food prices, who’s able to pay for access to Twitter and Facebook?
We see pictures of stones. We do not see pictures of people tweeting; nor do we see pictures of people taking pictures—as we did in the Iranian uprising in 2009.
Clarification, Mr. Friedman?
Trust, but verify.
Sphere: Related ContentTuesday, January 11, 2011
Best phrasing of the day…
Here’s the opening para of Bob Herbert’s piece in today’s New York Times:
By all means, condemn the hateful rhetoric that has poured so much poison into our political discourse. The crazies don’t kill in a vacuum, and the vilest of our political leaders and commentators deserve to be called to account for their demagoguery and the danger that comes with it.
Here’s a nominee for best phrasing: “The crazies don’t kill in a vacuum.”
There are a lot of commentaries holding that the rhetoric of the right wing cannot be proven to have been related to the shooting in Tucson last Saturday. See, for instance, David Brooks in the same issue of the Times.
Point taken…if you’re looking for specific, direct-line relativity.
Herbert, though, takes the argument; there is no social vacuum in today’s world.
Trust, but verify.
Sphere: Related ContentThursday, January 6, 2011
It’s a start
Here, Dear Gentle Reader(s), is a link to a UND website which contains a statement by an Egyptian Muslim leader repudiating the efforts of certain Islamic extremists to use the Koran to justify killing.
Salient point:
There is no religion worthy of the name that does not regard as one of its highest values the sanctity of human life. Islam is no exception to this rule. Indeed, God has made this unequivocal in the Quran by emphasizing the gravity of the universal prohibition against murder, saying of the one who takes even one life that “it is as if he has killed all mankind.” Islam views murder as both a crime punishable by law in this world and as major sin punishable in the Afterlife as well. Prophet Mohammad said, “The first cases to be decided among the people on the Day of Judgment will be those of blood-shed.”
The Islam that we were taught in our youth is a religion that calls for peace and mercy. The first prophetic saying that is taught to a student of Islam is, “Those who show mercy are shown mercy by the All-Merciful. Show mercy to those who are on earth and the One in the heavens will show mercy to you.” What we have learnt about Islam has been taken from the clear, pristine, and scholarly understanding of the Quran, “O people we have created you from a single male and female and divided you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.”
Terrorism, therefore, cannot be the outcome of any proper understanding of religion. It is rather a manifestation of the immorality of people with cruel hearts, arrogant souls, and warped logic. It is thus with great sadness and outrage that we witness the emergence of this disease in our nation with the recent bombing outside a church in Alexandria that killed tens of Egyptian citizens. There is no doubt that such barbarism needs to be denounced in the strongest of terms, and opposed at every turn.
We need more of this sort of discussion.
Trust, but verify.
Sphere: Related ContentTuesday, January 4, 2011
Gaydar Humming…mmmmmmmmmmmmm
Um, Dear Gentle Reader(s), this teapot tempest about the Navy officer and his politically-incorrect videos is indicative of not very much, isn’t it?
It’s astonishing to watch one of them as presented by the website of the Virginian Pilot*, but only in the sense of “Huh?”
Even a few years back, when these videos were made, we had evidence of the omnipresence of private information available through the internet. How could Honors have not known these vids would come back to, er, bite him on the ass?
Besides, I’m not nearly so offended by fag and faggot. Black men call each other nigger all the time—at least they do on certain tv shows and in certain movies. Why should I be offended when a man, who most certainly has a strong marriage and enough offspring to crew a small boat, sets my gaydar off?
Let him keep his command, I say. He’ll do more good than harm after this exposure.
Trust, but verify.
*Thanks to the paper for posting three videos.
Sphere: Related ContentMonday, December 27, 2010
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