Flight 297

Happy Gregorian Year 2006! I’m working part-time at a bookstore – a nationally recognized company that shall remain nameless. It’s a good way to keep off the streets and out of trouble, and I figure the surest way to tapped by the NSA is to be an unemployed, overeducated Muslim male who is also an American citizen. In any event, I saw something today that really made me start off the new year right. A young hijabi, perhaps in her 20s, was reading a book on sex acts. I’m happy for her.

If a Jinn asked me what wish I would like to be granted – I would ask that historical amnesia be erased from all peoples.  Alon Levy does a great job reminding us of how other immigrants were viewed by Americans.  A couple of grafs to whet your appetite: Islam and Christianity are so similar that they are almost, but not quite, the same religion. They’re both monotheistic, with all the cultural implications this carries. They both have a progressive view of the world, in which good works and proselytization will create an increasingly better world. Their eschatologies are remarkably…