My #torture statement at ACLU blog

The Sydney Morning Herald is reporting the imam of a local mosque, the largest from what I understand, has commended the 9-11 hijackers in a khutba in Lebanon. The defense is that the comments were taken out of context, but the text is not made available. Give us the context. More telling is the final line: “”When you make a speech in an Arabic environment, the translation will be different in an English environment.”” How will it be different to recommend murder in one language than in another? I agree we shouldn’t rush to judgment, but the Muslim community of…

As of August 10, my new kunya is now Abu WOMB@!, but at least in this space, I’ll remain islamoyankee. His name is honor of Umm WOMB@! who is an Australian. Until things settle down, I’ll be posting Eschaton-style for a while. update: Abu means father, as Aunty Doodle-bug pointed out, not everyone knows that. Technorati Tags: wombat

I was invited to speak at the Chautauqua Institute this summer on the theme of The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion and Violence. The initial calendar event is here. A pre-talk write-up is here, and post-talk write-up here, both from the Daily Chautauquan.  A video of the talk is embedded below.