Current Affairs – Page 28

Social Justice

islamoyankeeMarch 2, 2005

This issue is about social justice. Every Muslim in the US should be stepping up and saying until the community is fed, until parents can spend time with their family instead of working 20 hours a day for necessities, until the sick are cared for, until hope is only an aspiration and not a refuge for the desperate, until … Until then we cannot be bought with cheap talk of family values. Until then our faith with remain pointless. Until then the promise of America will remain unrealized. It’s not like there’s no precedent for this sort of talk in…

Current Affairs Inter-faith

Kill all the Infidels

islamoyankeeMarch 1, 2005

Via Atrios we have a Republican Rep. from Texas saying he wants to nuke Syria. I think we now have more than an inkling that there is a fifth column in the US, people who agree with Osama Bin Laden and are trying to further his agenda. Rep. Johnson seems like a prime person to fit that bill. He wants to nuke a country that has a type of Islam that OBL can’t stand, Shi’ah sympathetic (although not primarily Shi’ah), and he wants to kill Christian minorities in Muslim majority countries. Isn’t this part of the Al-Qaeda platform? Texas Democrats,…

Current Affairs

Central Asian Elections

islamoyankeeMarch 1, 2005

First hat-tip here. The NYT is not allowing perma-links on the issue. Try to check out their coverage. Tajikistan, the country with which I’m most familiar, has a great deal of potential in terms of human capital. It would be a shame if the corruption of the government kept it from realizing its potential. While the initial blush of post-Soviet headiness in the international community has faded, I believe there is enough aid and interest in Tajikistan that it still has a short window in which it could develop a sustainable economy.

Current Affairs

I am not of the disappeared

islamoyankeeMarch 1, 2005

Disappeared in America. Since the reporters aren’t getting on this, I’m glad the artists are. I suppose the cynic in me wants to know for how much longer before they too are silenced. Link via Sister Scorpion.

Current Affairs Intra-faith

Islam and Democracy

islamoyankeeMarch 1, 2005

Dilip Hiro in today’s NYT.

Current Affairs

What is an appropriate response?

islamoyankeeFebruary 28, 2005

Over 120 dead today. Pray for the victims and their families. I hope this doesn’t turn the insurgency into a Sunni-Shi’ah civil war. The country is in bad enough condition as it is. Hopefully Sistani will issue a call for peace, and will be allowed and encouraged to do so. Hopefully Sadr won’t get any ideas in his head to launch the end of the world. Pray for peace.

Current Affairs

Do we need to explain?

islamoyankeeFebruary 25, 2005

Read Bob Herbert’s op-ed today. Do we really need to explain to people why torture is bad? Why it demeans the US? If we do, have we already fallen too far?

Current Affairs Intra-faith Shi'ism

Weep not

islamoyankeeFebruary 22, 2005

What do you call someone who doesn’t follow the tradition of Prophet Muhammad? Who in fact does the opposite of the tradition of the Prophet? What do you call someone who relishes in the death of the Prophet’s family? Who celebrates the murder of the Prophet’s grandson by killing those who believe it to be a sorrowful event? Muslims (not most, all) would call him a murderer. To everyone else they are Muslims. We Muslims are more than a nationality, an ethnicity, a collection of people who speak the same language. We are those who have promised to submit ourselves…

Current Affairs

Fighting fire with…

GhostdogFebruary 16, 2005

I have to admit, that I was pleasantly surprised at the high rate of voting in the recent Iraq elections. Even a cynic such as myself watched as a high number of Iraqi citizens lined up under threat of death and cast their vote for the future of the country. This was historic. History will decide whether is was worth the cost of over 100’000 Iraqi lives. While I do not delude myself that this event will deter violence, it does give Iraqis a stake in their country. It does another thing as well; it shifts the focus of insurgent…

Current Affairs Television

Cool TV

islamoyankeeFebruary 13, 2005

From tonight’s Law and Order: Criminal Intent website: Season 4 Episode E5416 STRESS POSITION 9/8pm 02/13/05 PRISON GUARD’S SLAYING RIPS LID OFF CORRUPT PRISON; GUEST STAR CHRISTOPHER NOTH REPRISES ‘LAW & ORDER’ ROLE — The murder of a corrections officer points the Major Case squad toward a corrupt Brooklyn prison where unaccounted-for prisoners are secretly abused by guards — and the key to exposing the ring lies with a prison nurse whose boyfriend is the maverick Detective Mike Logan (Christopher Noth, NBC’s “Law & Order”). As Logan warily aids Detectives Goren (Vincent D’Onofrio) and Eames (Kathryn Erbe) in their probe,…