istanbul – Ashura procession

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a brief discussion of the recent Spanish elections and the impact the bombings may have had on the results. I have a great deal of respect for his analysis in general, although I do occasionally have reservations about his discourse with respect to Islam. Since I’ve now got a soapbox, I wanted to talk a little about his interpretation of the meaning of events in Iraq from a religious perspective.

While visiting unmedia, I saw a link on deconstructing Daniel Pipes’ latest peace writings. This particular rambling was on identifying oneself as a moderate Muslim. From unmedia, I got to Zack’s detailed criticism of Pipes, and I don’t want to reinvent the wheel. Zack in-turn lead me to a beliefnet quiz on what type of Muslim I am. Good fun. I came in as a “spiritual seeker,” but I found so many of the questions hard to answer because they pre-supposed a particular understanding of Islam, which is not mine. I’m still working on that Shi’ism post.

It looks like Captain Yee will not be charged with anything. The fifth column brush that was getting ready to paint the entire Muslim community should not be rinsed and ready to be put away. However, if you read the article, you know it’s just poised over the canvas. The choice to not prosecute Yee was not based on the lack of evidence of his guilt, but because it would be a national security risk to reveal the evidence, so they are just going to put him back on active duty. I can’t wait to come back through the looking…