Category: Current Affairs

Idea Lab – Why Are So Many Terrorists Engineers? – NYTimes.com. They say they believe in freedom and share our values. They say a few bad apples shouldn’t bring down judgment on their entire kind. Don’t be fooled. Though they walk among us with impunity, they are, in the words of Henry Farrell, a political scientist at George Washington University, “a group that is notoriously associated with terrorist violence and fundamentalist political beliefs.” They are engineers.

On Burning Qur’ans – avari | haroon moghul. I don’t think the overwhelming majority of Muslims ever cared.  Other than sad, annoying facebook campaigns which are so clueless as to not know that one cannot campaign for a restriction of a constitutional right.  Even now, the pictures of violent protest we see, with crowds of angry demonstrators stupidly retaliating against one fringe pastor’s insensitivities by burning American flags (can hypocrisy become any more absurd?), are restricted to Afghanistan — where we are at war.  Almost nobody in the media is talking through this, at all.  Clearly, the anger at the…

Iraqi Voices Amplification Project. In the fall of 2009, Intersections International led a delegation of 8 American artists from many different disciplines on a 3-week immersion trip though Jordan, Lebanon and Syria at part of the Iraqi Voices Amplification Project (IVAP). Our goal  is to use the power of the arts to call attention to one of the most pressing and under-reported social justice issues of our time: the displacement of more than 4 million Iraqis as a result of the military intervention in Iraq.  While on the trip, the delegation entered into conversations with hundreds of refugees at community…

Orrin Hatch Supports Building Of Park51: ‘I’d Be The First To Stand Up For Their Rights’. Hatch went on to add that as a legal scholar, “I have the tendency, when it comes to religious liberty issues, to always uphold the rights of legitimate churches… I just think that what’s made this country great is we have religious freedom. That’s not the only thing, but it’s one of the most important things in the Constitution.”

‘Stealth Jihad’ Conveys Paranoia – Newsweek. Also, simply put, foreign words freak people out. “Jihad” and “Sharia” reinforce the sense among Americans that Muslims in general have an unfathomable world view. During World War II, formerly obscure words like “hara-kiri” and “kamikaze,” which suggested the “warlike ferocity” of the Japanese, became common parlance, Nunberg says. “There was this sense of being confronted with this hostile, alien culture.” The Japanese were “literally demonized,” he says.

Great two part series on the logical problems with current opposition to Park51. Make sure you click through to the second part as well. LSAT Logic and “Ground Zero Mosque” Arguments, Part 1. As regular readers may agree, aside from a few simple dissections of logical fallacies on The Colbert Report, I’ve rarely revealed, let alone promoted, my personal opinions on this blog. However, the more I read and watch about Park51 (the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque”), the angrier I get.

Dear NRCAT supporters in the Greater New York City area: NRCAT would like to encourage you to attend the new play,ALTERNATIVE METHODS, written and produced by one of NRCAT’s supporters in Washington, DC, Patricia Davis. Pat also co-authoredThe Blindfold’s Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth, with torture survivor, Sr. Dianna Ortiz, the founder of Torture Abolition Survivors Support Coalition. The play, which “explores indefinite detention, learned helplessness, and the deep involvement of psychologists in torture,” premiers in New York City at the First Floor Theater of La MaMa on Sunday, August 15 at 8:15 PM. There will be four…