Christopher Hitchens review: Occidentalism

Those who are eager to die are expressing a hatred for the everyday, banal achievements of human society... The ideas of liberal pluralism are newer in "the West" than we suppose, and could in fact use some ruthless warriors of their own.

--Christopher Hitchens

??????????

In Buruma's view, the Islamist militant war against the West has less to do with imperialism or global injustice/ inequality than it does with hatred for pluralism and global modernization. We are to assume Islamic radicals are following in the footsteps of 20th-century European fascists and Japanese militants who simply hated Americanism and universalism. I think we have to keep an open mind as to where this somewhat overly-idealistic version of Anglo-American society is coming from. We should never forget the consequence of actual history. A careful and realistic study of both English and American history might cast an entirely different light on this view. Let me preface this next line by saying I am not a Marxist (because I can just hear the trolls singing now). The U.S. and England have backed any efforts in the Islamic world to smash their Marxist parties. There is no doubt a strong hatred of imperialist exploitation in Arabic and Islamic lands today.

The New York Review of Books January 17, 2002 Occidentalism
By Avishai Margalit, Ian Buruma

Chronicle Review-The Origins of Occidentalism

The book at Amazon.com

OK, so he didn't have them. But did he want them?


What's next? Maybe: OK, so he didn't want them, but did the thought ever cross his mind......at all....even once?

David Brooks is doing damage-control for someone....


David Brooks (who I'm sure is being paid very well by his employer) is posing as a non-partisan who is wounded by the damage the Richard Clarke-circus has done to precious American politics. (I'll cry tomorrow.) Brooks clearly begrudges Clarke for the attention (and money) he's amassed by telling his own truths about his 9-11 experience. David Brooks accuses Clarke of being like a "Power Ranger"...in Brooks own words:

See Dick Clarke courageously take control of the government in the middle of the terror attacks! See him heroically lead a teleconference! Behold his White House conversations! Everything he says is farsighted and brave! Everything the Bushies say is incorrect. And he remembers it all perfectly!

Why do you suppose David Brooks is riled to the point of reducing Clarke to a Power Ranger? These tasks Clarke performed on 9-11 may sound mundane in stark contrast with the heroic terms Brooks uses to describe them. Yet, I ask you to think about it for a moment. Do you remember when you first heard about those planes hitting the towers? Are there experiences from that day that are forever etched in YOUR memory? IF you wrote about them in a journal, would that make you a Power Ranger? A partisan? A liar? Of course not. Now, imagine you were working for the White House on 9-11. How soon would you forget all you'd done and how you felt?

Brooks can't seem to accept the fact that Clarke is assigning responsibility and accountability to this White House. He calls him a "shrill partisan". He says Clarke wrote "shrill passages" about Bush's stupidity. Brooks imagines American politics are damaged by these types of activity. He may be right. But what exactly do POLITICS have to do with TRUTH, anyhow? Who gives a damn how "politics" are damaged? The object, after what this nation experienced on 9-11, is the TRUTH. Clarke, as far as I can see, is telling HIS side of the truth. It's politically incorrect and David Brooks can't seem to handle that. I submit that he's every bit as partisan as Clarke might be. Politics has little to do with what is TRUE..I cannot stress that enough! Let politics take the biggest beating of its life over this. It's time we got to the core of what truly matters. Too many innocent Americans died on 9-11 to worry about the fragile state of politicians' overbloated egoes. David Brooks is doing damage control for someone....I wonder who?

Don't miss Bohemian Mama's Haiku


To Richard Clarke:

Profound good shines through
When great men defend the truth;
Thank goodness for you

Costa Rica tosses Ortega

No more political asylum for the Venezuelan "troublemaker"...Venezuelan union leader Carlos Ortega. Mr Ortega was facing charges of treason and rebellion when he walked into the Costa Rican embassy to request asylum on March 14. Apparently, he's turned out to be too controversial for the good of Costa Rican foreign diplomacy. Ortega says he'll go back to Venezuela to clandestinely plot to overthrow Hugo Chavez. Clandestinely? Not anymore, I guess. He spilled his own beans. It's no secret,anyhow. The sad part is that neither Kerry nor Bush will support real democratic order in Venezuela. Chavez was democratically elected. The mobs are trying to rule with loud protests. There were mobs protesting the Iraq war in February, 2003 and Bush dismissed them as a "focus group". What makes these Venezuelan mobs any more than a "focus group"?

President Chavez wants the U.S. to "get its hands off" his country. What if a powerful nation was trying to determine and force the issue of who OUR chosen leaders would be? You'd tell them the same...to get the hell out of our affairs. Would you not?

"In the name of truth, I have to ask the Washington government to get its hands off Venezuela. Bush's government is financing this mad opposition."
--Hugo Chavez

*The US government has persistently denied such accusations*

Even if these Venezuelan mob-elites were to succeed in their desire for referendum, it would not insure an end to Chavez rule by a long shot. The BBC reports:

.....let's suppose for the moment that the CNE - under pressure from the US, the Organisation of American States and the European Union - decides there are enough signatures for a referendum. What then?

First of all, if it takes place after mid-August, there will be no new presidential elections.

Instead, and in accordance with Venezuela's Constitution, the country's vice-president would take control (remote control by President Chavez, the opposition fears) till the end of Mr Chavez's term.

If the referendum takes place before August, there there's no guarantee the opposition would win either this, or any subsequent presidential elections.

The only force uniting the opposition here is hatred of Hugo Chavez. And once he's out of office, his opponents could fall foul to their own internal divisions.

About these mobs, one Venezuelan Chavez-supporter has stated:

"They have economic power. We have power of conviction."

Do conviction-based ideals mean anything to our leaders anymore? They certainly meant everything to our own Founding Fathers.

In fairness, read these tips on getting to know Venezuelan politics from one of those mob-elites. Gustavo Coronel is a 28- year oil industry veteran. He says he is against the current government. He says his opposition is "not about the details, but about the essentials". He thinks the Chavez government is not a real government but a "dictatorship of the inept".

The question is...how do Bush and/or Kerry support democracy and support the convictions of the majority of Venezuelan citizens at the same time without blatantly compromising all that democracy truly means?

Senator Kerry's recent statement included these thoughts:

Too often in the past, this [Bush] Administration has sent mixed signals by supporting undemocratic processes in our own hemisphere -- including in Venezuela, where they acquiesced to a failed coup attempt against President Chavez. Having just allowed the democratically elected leader to be cast aside in Haiti, they should make a strong statement now by leading the effort to preserve the fragile democracy in Venezuela.

Supporting the referendum is well and good, but all it may well result in is "remote-control" by Chavez, anyway. Or it may result in having to wait until the next election..an election Chavez may win, anyway. What will Kerry do if Venezuelan mobs turn to more vandalism and violence? He cannot amend Venezuela's Constitution from a seat in the Oval Office. Would a President Kerry resort to backing an attempted coup when the elite do not get their way? (As the Bush administration has been accused of doing?)

We all know this is about our American interests. We understand this. Yet, it goes against the grain of all the rational logic we are asked to accept about our own democracy and what it means to us.

We got what we wanted!
I'm glad to know Condi will publically testify


Placing myself in a state of empathy with the 9-11 families, I'm sure they're happy to hear Condi Rice will testify before the 9-11 Commission. It's about time. Let's get this done and make positive changes for the future safety of our people. With all the Bush administration's complaints about the abuse of our legal system by trial lawyers, a piss-poor example of abusing the law has been set by an administration that hides behind every Executive loophole it can find to remain non-transparent.

Senator Chuck Schumer(NY) said, "The administration's reversal shows that it was using executive privilege as an excuse to keep Dr. Rice from testifying. ... The dedication and bull's eye integrity of the commission has succeeded and now hopefully we will be a lot closer to the truth.''

Politically, the Bush administration has caved in to the intense pressure. In the NYT, Siegesmund Von Ilsemann says:

Richard Clark has now thoroughly reshaped this image of the level-headed leader. Should his accusations, printed in a bestseller and publicly repeated under oath, convince the general public, the son will likely follow in his father's footsteps in losing his bid for a second term.

Even if the long-awaited and hoped-for agreement for Rice to tesify was forced by political pressures, it's two-headed. It is a forced onus to strongly reply to Richard Clarke's Commission accusations (for history's sake) as well as a political need for Rice to try to restore the faith of many Americans who previously supported Bush, but have had recent doubts.

For whatever reason Rice is testifying, we must remember they work for us. This isn't a gift from the Bush administration. It's something the majority of Americans feel are rightfully due the public under the unusually weighty circumstances of 9-11 attacks. It's high time we got some good faith from the Bush administration. Condi's a great start. Now, if we can just get to the crux of who outed Valerie Plame and who Cheney met with in secrecy to formulate OUR energy policy....

Speaking of transparency, Senate minority leader Tom Daschle said today: "The commission should declassify Mr. Clarke's earlier testimony -- all of it, not just the parts the White House wants ---"

For the sake of truth, it had best be all...or nothing.

Faith interpretation can mean the difference between terror and peace


The symbolic meanings of the (Islamic) Seal of the Children and the (Christian) Rapture, which will signal an end to the emergence of man are much like the prophesied Imam Mahdi.

About Mahdi:

The Muslim holy prophet Muhammad has prophesied about several events that will occur just before the advent of the day of judgment. Among these, Rasulullah has foretold the advent of one of his descendants, Al Mahdi (the guided one), which will materialize when the believers are severely oppressed in every corner of the world. Muslims believe He will fight the oppressors, unite the Muslims, bring peace and justice to the world, rule over the Arabs, and lead a prayer in Mecca at which Isa(Jesus) will be present.

Muslims are called upon to remember that the prophecy about Mahdi is one that will come to pass. This prophecy, however, does not absolve the Muslim community from its duty to strive in the cause of Allah, oppose injustice, and seek peace and betterment of human condition. Centuries have passed from the time of the holy Prophet and there is a good possibility that many more will expire before the advent of Al Mahdi. Muslims who are negligent in their duty hoping for a savior are committing a grave mistake and are not following the divine decrees ordained in Quran or taught by Rasulullah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We do not know whether man's potential is fixed, with some kind of defined limit or some kind of expected end. We do not know if man's reign is open-ended. It's a matter of faith. The tendency of liberal faith interpretations, in general, is toward an open-ended existence of mankind along with expansion into evolving forms of expression. Thos who interpret their faith liberally, whether in the case of Islam or Christianity, believe Man is made in the image of God, that God is Infinite, the single.....ultimately unknowable.

At the other end of the faith-interpretation spectrum, you can see more conservative/fundamentalist interpretations of these end-signs. For instance, the Left Behind series of books cannot be doing wonders for promoting understanding, intra-faith cooperation, and peace right here on terra firma.

Ref: Glorious Appearing in bookstores

~~~~~~~~~~

"That is not to say that we are "martyrdom-seekers" but it is to say that we are prepared for that.."

~~~~~~~~~~

In World Net Daily, there is an article stating that "Jihadists are in a global frenzy over coming of prophesied 'Mahdi'.

At World Net Daily, I find the kind of journalists who show tendency to be every bit as fundamentalist as their "frenzied Jihadist" counterparts. For your consideration, I submit this information in hopes you will see how a liberal interpretation of faith and finding commonality between people of all/any faith is far more important to a peaceful and democratic society than promoting fear about our different beliefs.

Then again, perhaps the decided Christian-right journalists at World Net Daily are doing a bit of a good service in their fear and mistrust of other faiths by showing us how their Islamic counterparts are abusing their own sacred text to suit their own political desires.

A real joy is experienced in seeing just one person reaching out in the dark over the expansive fault-line that exists within their own faith family...

My hope is that we could all teach our children as well as that one person....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you know....

Some individuals, faith groups, public opinion pollsters, government census offices, etc. define a Christian as anyone who believes that they are following the teachings of Jesus Christ. This definition would include about 76% of adults in the U.S. and a similar number in Canada. It would embrace members of Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Protestant churches, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox churches, Anglican churches, mainline and liberal Protestant denominations, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many persons who are not members of a specific faith group.

But within Fundamentalist and other Evangelical Protestant faith groups, the term "Christian" is generally restricted to those persons who are born-again or "saved." i.e. an individual who has repented their sins and trusted Jesus as Lord and Savior. They might total about 30% of adults in the U.S., and 10% in Canada.

March 31st: The O'Franken Factor


Website: http://airamericaradio.com/
Time: 12-3pm.
Current stations: WLIB (NYC, AM 1190am), WNTD (Chicago, AM 950), KBLA (LA, AM 1580). Will also be streamed online at http://airamericaradio.com/.

The O’ Franken Factor: 12:00-3:00pm

After debunking right-wing propaganda in his bestselling books Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them and Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot, Al Franken is taking the fight to America's airwaves--and he's doing it drug-free. With his co-host, veteran radio personality Katherine Lanpher, Franken will deliver three hours a day of fearlessly irreverent commentary, comedy, and interviews. Franken and Lanpher have a mean streak a smile wide. The O'Franken Factor will energize fans, infuriate liars, and deliver the truth--in what Al Franken likes to call the Zero Spin Zone.

Host: Al Franken

Co-host: Katherine Lanpher

Producer: Billy Kimball

Which sounds more sane and in line with American ideals?


--"Let us not forget that democracy is the only way to maturity, and that secularism is an inseparable part of democracy. We have to put our trust in democracy and in people and patiently wait for the positive outcome, while not forgetting to pray."


--"Both church and state are also presented as being divine institutions and ultimately answerable to God. Secularism is so patently false that it is amazing that this is the view of church and state."

Look at comments section to see where these statements came from.

Globe and Mail / Canada
Trust Clarke: He's Right about Bush
by Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay

Two international relations experts claim that, two years after the worst terrorist attack in history, the President still does not understand the threat we confront. This is very stinging for the Bush administration and you're now seeing them lash back with vicious attacks upon the credibility and character of Mr. Clarke.

Regardless of the emphasis Clarke puts on his disappointment with the Bush administration's own failings and regardless of these attacks upon Mr. Clarke by the Bushites and all the pundits who love them, there are key facts that will steadily stand:

-- Clarke repeatedly warned the Bush Administration about attacks from al Qaeda, starting in the first days of Bush's term.

-- In face-to-face meetings, CIA Director George Tenet warned President Bush repeatedly in the months before 9/11 that an attack was coming.

-- On September 12, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld pushed to bomb Iraq even though they knew that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan.

-- Also on September 12, 2001, President Bush personally pushed Clarke to find evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks.

-- The Bush Administration knew from the beginning that there was no connection between Iraq and 9/11, but created the misperception in order to push their policy goals.

-- The war on Iraq has increased the danger of terrorism.

From A Conversation between Bill Maher and Ralph Nader


LINK TO TRANSCRIPT HERE

BILL MAHER (to guest Ralph Nader): After three years of Bush.. I've got to say it, just now voting your conscience seems like a bratty indulgence to me. It really does.

RALPH NADER'S REPLY: let's not talk about 'spoiler.' We're supposed to have the right to run for political office. What about the 250,000 Democrats who voted for Bush in Florida? Democrats aren't worried about them?

-------------------------------

RALPH NADER (on the topic of MSNBC's Chris Matthews): Chris Matthews has turned into media staccato. He's turned from entertainment to caricature. I could hardly stop from laughing when I was on the show. I just couldn't believe it. What is this? No wonder he's parodied on 'Saturday Night Live.'

____________________


Common Dreams:
Senator Kerry: You Want My Vote?
Support My Positions!

...As recently as Thursday night at a Democratic funding raising dinner President Jimmy Carter said, in a statement directed at Ralph Nader, "Don't risk costing the Democrats the White House this year as you did four years ago." This type of scapegoat does not make me feel all warm and fuzzy about voting for John Kerry and the Democrats. Carter also said "I hope everyone here tonight will do your best to make sure Ralph Nader gets zero votes this year." There is a very simple way to insure that Ralph Nader gets zero votes this year: support his positions.

....I would doubt the majority of Americans know who Hugo Chavez is or care about America's relationship with him. If this speech is not earning Kerry points with the voters, why is he making it? It's a wink and a nod at the wealthy and the corporations who have business interests in Venezuela.

....Do you want my vote or do you want to continue courting corporations and the wealthy? Either way the Democratic Party ought to stop blaming Nader for their own failures.

See: Miami Herald article about Kerry's views on Chavez

Today in history..


"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people."
- Virginia Woolf, who died March 28,1941

1834- U.S. Senate Takes Jackson to Task over the Second Bank
1899- Brewing magnate August Anheuser Busch, Jr., was born
1939- Spanish Civil War ends
1969- Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower dies
1979- Nuclear Accident at Three Mile Island


1999-Concert in Belgrade at Air Raid Alert

1999- NATO broadened attacks on Yugoslavia targeting Serb forces in Kosovo in the fifth straight night of airstrikes, protest concert in Belgrade.
2003- American-led forces in Iraq dropped 1,000-pound bombs on Republican Guard units guarding the gates to Baghdad and battled for control of the strategic city of Nasiriya

Reflections on Bruce Lawrence's "Rethinking Islam in the West"-

Who are the Muslim Pluralists?

In his recent article No More Crusades at the Harvard International Review, Bruce Lawrence says:

We do need religious voices to speak to the current fault line between East and West, Islam and America, and it is Muslim pluralists who are the philosophers and religious thinkers with whom non-Muslim others can and should make common cause.

I decided to go on a search for those who might be considered Muslim pluralists. I wanted to find at least one and bring that one voice to the forefront this morning. If the pluralist voices could be raised over the din of the terror-talking media, people here in this country might begin to understand that the work to end terror will be as hard as any work we've ever had to do..and will not be solved by force. Real solutions will not come through war, force, occupation, and violence. It will need to come through our hearts.

A writing to which I refer you is a Jerusalem Post item titled Learning to love Islam from Yossi Klein Halevi, a religious Israeli Jew, correspondent for the New Republic and a senior writer for the Jerusalem Report. He is the author of the book "At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for God with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land" The writing credits Muslim dissident Irshad Manji, for her wisdom. Irshad is a Toronto journalist whose Indian-born parents fled Uganda after Idi Amin's takeover. She calls herself a "Muslim Refusenik". She has recently published a book called The Trouble with Islam, which takes the form of an extended open letter to her fellow Muslims. Irshad has made observations such as:

I hear from a Saudi friend that his country's religious police arrest women for wearing red on Valentines Day, and I think, Since when does a merciful God outlaw joy--or fun? I read about victims of rape being stoned for "adultery" and I wonder how a critical mass of us can stay stone silent.

Concerning the found commonality at the heart of the Muslim and the Jew, Halevi proclaims:

Our critique of Islam requires a nuanced tone. We should offer Islam not just our criticism but our respect and, if possible, our love.

Love is always a swim upstream. The water is almost always tinted with the blood of those who refused to understand this: While we were stuck on this planet together, our children could have lived in peace.

We need now, more than ever, to create conversations where none existed before.

------------------------

*additional reference: LIBERAL ISLAM: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES by Charles Kurzman

...liberal approaches to multi-religious co-existence have been stimulated by three historic shifts of the past quarter century: the rise of secular higher education in the Islamic world, which has broken the monopoly of the seminaries over religious discourse; the growth of international communications, which has made educated Muslims more aware than ever of the norms and institutions of the West; and the failure of Islamic regimes to deliver an attractive alternative. These liberal approaches face serious challenges, including accusations of treason and inauthenticity, and a Western ignorance about the existence and importance of this internal Islamic debate.

Frank Rich on faux journalism,
the White House's new ally


Excerpts:

American television is increasingly awash in fake anchors delivering fake news, some of them far more trenchant than real anchors delivering real news......The more real journalism declines, the easier it is for such government "infoganda" (as The Daily Show's Rob Corddry calls it) to fill the vacuum. President George W. Bush tries to facilitate this process by shutting out the real news media as much as possible....

When the president made an exception last month and took questions from an actual frontline journalist, NBC television's Tim Russert, his performance was so maladroit that the experiment is unlikely to be repeated soon....
.....There is no point in bothering with actual news people anyway, when you can make up your own story and make it stick. No fake news story has become more embedded in our culture than the administration's account of its actions on Sept. 11. As The Wall Street Journal reported on its front page this week - just as the former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke was going public with his parallel account - many of this story's most familiar details are utter fiction. Bush's repeated claim that one of his "first acts" of that morning was to put the military on alert is false. So are the president's claims that he watched the first airplane hit the World Trade Center on television that morning. (No such video yet existed.) Nor was Air Force One under threat as Bush flew around the country, delaying his return to Washington. Yet the fake narrative of Sept. 11 has been scrupulously maintained by the White House for more than two years.......

After Sept. 11, similar fake-news techniques helped speed us into "Operation Iraqi Freedom."...... What few journalistic efforts were made to penetrate the trumped-up rationales for war were easily defeated by the administration's false news reports of impending biological attacks and mushroom clouds. To see how the faux journalism sausage was made, go to www.reform.house.gov/min, where a searchable database posted by Representative Henry Waxman identifies "237 specific misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq" made by Bush and members of his administration...

I like today's Thomas Friedman column

I've been hard on Mr. Friedman lately. I forget that he. too only desires to see out nation make some positive progress. In Awaking to a Dream, Mr. Friedman begins by saying: "Imagination is on my mind a lot these days, because it seems to me that the only people with imagination in the world right now are the bad guy...."

Also in today's NY Times, Bob Dole tells us "..President Bush has the facts on his side. His job now is simply to remind voters that America is safer and more prosperous than it was on the day he was sworn into office." As Bush did in the lead-up to the Iraq war, he's going to have to get out there and do some more misleading to make us believe we've come anywhere near tackling the terrorism problem and that we're safer for having made the pre-emptive attack which has become a quagmire. He'll have to do a misleading song and dance about those millions of lost and/or outsourced jobs, too.

Harvard International Review
No More Crusades
Rethinking Islam in the West
by Bruce B. Lawrence

"Since September 11, the "Clash of Civilizations" theory has dominated and incorporated all others. It seems to explain Muslim-Western hostility as both ancient and irreversible. It is neither. This enmity is made by humans and thus can be unmade by humans."

Points covered in the article:

..What is needed to advance beyond pseudo-dialectics and interminable warfare is a double critique-internal and external-that must begin with the symbolic event that haunts the memory of Christians and Muslims alike: the Crusades.

..Who are today's Crusaders? (Read and you may be surprised).

....Crusader logic is matched by Islamist, or Islamic extremist, rhetoric. Those [9-11] planes were meant not only to destroy buildings and to kill people, but also to send a message to the largest possible audience through modern media. The message was as stark as it was simple: the United States is the enemy of Islam, and the core of the United States is business that is privileged by the capitalist world system.

..We do need religious voices to speak to the current fault line between East and West, Islam and America, and it is Muslim pluralists who are the philosophers and religious thinkers with whom non-Muslim others can and should make common cause.

..To make a plural world safe both for democratic citizens and religious rivals demands nothing less than a hardy inter-faith coalition of good-willed Abrahamic advocates. The only victory that counts in the war on terror will come off the battlefield, in the minds and hearts of moral combatants who recognize their internal enemies as well as their external foes.

..Without attention to the fault lines of human caprice, including those within the churches, there can be neither peace nor its necessary concomitant, sustained Muslim-Christian cooperation, which also includes Jews and Buddhists along with others dedicated to pursuit of the collective good. It is a jihad, in the truest sense, a struggle against our own demons as well as others. It prohibits a Crusade. Indeed, it will only succeed when Crusades, Crusaders and Crusading have been understood for what they are: a bygone chapter of world history not to be repeated, except as a cautionary tale, for our own and for all future generations.

Questions about Iraq

There is excellent commentary about Iraq and the war on terror at Rodger A. Payne's blog this week.
On March 24th, Professor Payne said the real debate over Iraq remains, asking:

Can a nation like Iraq be democratized by toppling a despotic regime and "building" a new nation from the rubble?

Was military force the best way to do this?

-- Did the attack set a dangerous precedent and potentially legitimize similar uses of violence by other states that will make the world a much less safe place?

-- Will the use of military force without wide international support create so much backlash throughout the Islamic world that the forces of terror are substantially strengthened by this move?

How long will it take to democratize Iraq?

Can a democratic Iraq trigger a democratic domino effect throughout the region?

Why begin with Iraq? What if the US had put strong (non-violent) public pressure on other states -- like Saudi Arabia? Or Egypt?

Professor Payne also shares my fascination with the Republicans suddenly embracing transparency.

Harvard International Review
Religion and International Affairs

In the most current issue of the Harvard International Review, religion's role in international affairs is in focus.

From the Review:

Beginning with questions of religious radicalism, Karen Armstrong examines the forces behind the global surge in religious fundamentalism, while Mark Juergensmeyer describes religious violence against the secular state. Next, Symeon Giannakos provides a case study tracing the development of religious and statist identities in Southeast Europe. Keeping the pitfalls of civilizationalisms firmly in mind, Jonathan Fox draws on statistical evidence to show that religious factors are not the primary cause of ethnic conflict. Turning at last to ways in which religiosity can benefit the international order, David Smock evaluates the role of faith-based non-governmental organizations in peacemaking, and Robert Barro investigates the correlation between religion and economic growth.

Also, see No More Crusades- Rethinking Islam in the West by Bruce B. Lawrence.

Rep Nick Smith/House Ethics Probe Underway


On February 26th on Iddybud, I wrote:

I hear the investigation's really heating up on this Rep. Nick Smith-Medicare-House of Representatives bribery case. The House Ethics Committee may not be the only investigators...I hear there may also be an ongoing criminal investigation.

I see it's hitting the mainstream. It was the focus of ABC's Nightline last night. Yesterday, the House ethics committee named four lawmakers who will investigate whether Rep. Smith was offered the bribe to vote for the Medicare bill. A talk-radio host who helped expose the Medicare bribe has curiously lost his job. According to Roll Call, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the matter, too

Medicare Bribe Archive:
Feb. 26, 2004: "FBI Examines Medicare Bribe"
Feb. 4, 2004: "Brad's Little Problem"
Jan. 22, 2004: "Burying the Bribe"
Jan. 8, 2004: "Bob Novak Ate My Brain!"
Dec. 23, 2003: "Now It's a Scandal"
Dec. 8, 2003: "A Drug-Company Bribe?"
Dec. 6, 2003: "Why Smith Can't Recant"
Dec. 5, 2003: "Nick Smith Recants"
Dec. 1, 2003: "Who Tried To Bribe Rep. Smith?"

Eat your boogers
Forget an apple a day.
Go ye the green way.


Fake Boogers

Show your four-year-old how corn starch and water is sticky (especially as it dries out) and he will be looking at synthetic boogers!