Veteran’s Day

I was watching CNN last night and came across a Lou Dobbs interview with Fouad Ajami, Director, Middle East Studies Program, John Hopkins University. Dr. Ajami made a lot of sense to me. To get a sense of where he is coming from, here is a list of articles by or about Dr. Ajami: Iraq and the Arabs Future Rude Arab Awakening What the Arab World Is Watching [critique of Al-Jezeera] Lebanon Star [critique of Ajami’s attack on Al-Jezerra] During the interview, in which he was speaking about the Abu Ghuraib scandal and the brutal beheading of Nick Berg, Ajami…

I was on a plane so I missed Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), but I heard it was brilliant. I caught part of Al Sharpton’s last night, and all of John Edwards. Edwards is probably going to get the most press coverage, so I want to mention part of Sharpton’s. Favorite section of the evening: You [George Bush] said the Republican Party was the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. It is true that Mr. Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, after which there was a commitment to give 40 acres and a mule. … We didn’t…

I normally hate copying whole articles into posts. However, a really good piece appeared in the LA Times by Muslim academic about what it means to teach about Islam in a post-9/11 world. Unfortunately, the piece is no longer available on-line. The complete text of the article appears below the fold.