Pakistan, Peace, and the Arts

Muslim actors (and others) take note of the quote below. We don’t need to be terrorists on television, or anywhere else. Peter Dinklage Was Smart to Say No – NYTimes.com. He sipped his coffee and pointed out that media portrayal is, in part, the fault of actors who are dwarves. “You can say no. You can not be the object of ridicule.”

A medieval monument to religious pluralism, hidden in the mountains of Afghanistan. One of the great wonders of the medieval world is a very tall, heavily ornamented minaret nestled in a green valley at the edge of the Jam river in what is now Afghanistan. Often called the Minaret of Jam, the monument was almost a millenium ago illuminated by a torch at its top, and surrounded by a thriving town with small industries and outlying farms.  What’s remarkable is that the writing on the minaret and archaeological remains nearby strongly suggest that the city harbored a population of Muslims,…