Good story on sustainable development in Kenya, done by a Muslim aid agency. Pay particular attention the idea of the madrasah, as opposed to the hot-bed of Islamic radicalism.
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The Mahdi
Father Jake had a question regarding the Mahdi and the use of the name “Mahdi Army” by Muqtada as-Sadr. He’s gone out and done a fair amount of research, and I wanted to add my two cents. From a theological perspective, the idea of the Mahdi is incredibly ill-defined, because the idea of the end days are ill-defined in the Qur’an. While we have a sense that the mountains will crumble, stars will fall from the sky and the sky itself will tear, there is no equivalent to the Book of Revelations in the Qur’an. (For a wonderful discussion of…
Why Rumsfeld Shouldn’t Resign
There’s a petition on-line to get Rumsfeld to resign. Sign it because I think a partial victory is better than a total loss. However, I don’t think Rumsfeld should resign. He should be fired. Joho comes to a similar conclusion. My take has more to do with the honor of America. The President should defend it and his administration should live it. Rumsfeld was given the chance to resign and to help keep America’s honor; he chose not to. He’s said that America, the American ideal, is unimportant; raping and torturing people of color is what is important. If he…
Who to blame (redux)
So it looks like Professor Osgood is helping me make up my mind about who to blame regarding Abu Ghraib. Here is a graf from what he wrote in today ‘s Washington Post: Military sociology has at its core two powerful insights. First, military organizations reflect in many ways the societies from which they emerge. If a society condones brutality and lewdness, you will find soldiers beating prisoners and copulating with one another while their comrades take souvenir snapshots. If a society has no norm of chief executives accepting responsibility for their corporations’ moral and financial failures, do not expect…