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Fatah, Jund al-Sham fight it out in Ein el-Hellhole
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Humor: Political joke
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees 49.09 minutes west longitude."

She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Republican."

"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information and I'm still lost. Frankly you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Democrat."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met but somehow it's now my fault."
Posted by: gorb || 03/22/2008 00:54 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Utter, Hysterical Panic About Global Warming
It’s not a script for the next science-fiction thriller, but renowned British scientist James Lovelock is giving human civilization less than 32 years before all hell breaks loose because of the effects of global warming.

Lovelock said the impact of climate change is irreversible regardless of what mankind does.

“By 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine,” Sarah Sands of The Daily Mail (U.K.) wrote in an article published on March 22. “The people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain. We will, he says, have to set up encampments in this country, like those established for the hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the conflict in East Africa. Lovelock believes the subsequent ethnic tensions could lead to civil war.”

According to the article, Lovelock has the ear of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and even the Queen of England. The 88-year-old scientist also supports the work of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Firms such as Shell have consulted him about his theories. Prince Charles has invited him to lecture at his summer school this year,” said the article.

But Lovelock isn’t calling for the draconian solutions set forth by climate change treaties like the Kyoto Protocol – which will eventually cost Japan $500 billion by the year 2020.

“Lovelock believes it is too late to repair the damage. Government targets are ‘futile,’” Sands wrote. “Britain contributes such a tiny amount of emissions compared with countries such as China that our self-regulatory measures are pathetic.”

“Everyone could burn coal all day and drive around in 4x4s and it would not make a scrap of difference,” Lovelock said to The Daily Mail.

According to Lovelock, several scenarios will play out by the time the magical year 2040 arrives. The Chinese will inhabit Africa, the Russians will migrate to Siberia and Americans will move into Canada. He told The Daily Mail he believes “white Americans” will adapt easily to these Armageddon circumstances.

“White Americans are descended from those who had the guts to cross on rough old ships and find a new life,” Lovelock said. “They have the right spirit of can-do.”

The British Isles will survive this pending doom because Lovelock estimates the Gulf Stream that has kept Britain warm for hundreds of years will end and counteract the rise in global temperature. Unfortunately, the rest of Europe won’t be as fortunate.

“By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe,” Lovelock said. “We are talking about Paris. As far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position.”

Lovelock emphasized the futility of the efforts touted by many of the global warming alarmists. In fact, he warned a lot of those efforts would not only have economic consequences on developed nations, but they would make matters worse. He cited the recent climate change agreement made in Bali in late 2007.

“Bali may make things worse,” Lovelock said. “One peculiarity is that when you burn coal and fuel you not only put CO2 into the atmosphere, which makes the Earth warmer, but you also put out a lot of dust and haze, which acts as a screen and cools the Earth.”

These end-of-the-world claims aren’t uncharacteristic from Lovelock. In October 2007, Lovelock told Rolling Stone that predictions of the earth’s warming would be likeliest predictions of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” He said climate change would all but wipe out civilization, killing 6 billion and leaving only 500 million survivors, but only in the far northern latitudes – Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and the Arctic Basin.

Not all climate scientists agree warming is a problem. Prominent hurricane forecaster Dr. William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, told the audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 4 in New York that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place. However, he said that same cycle means a period of cooling would begin within 10 years.

“We should begin to see cooling coming on,” Gray said. “I’m willing to make a big financial bet on it. In 10 years, I expect the globe to be somewhat cooler than it is now, because this ocean effect will dominate over the human-induced CO2 effect and I believe the solar effect and the land-use effect. I think this is likely bigger.”
When in danger/When in doubt/Run in circles/Scream and shout.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/22/2008 17:56 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The last dying scream of the liberal global shamming scheme.

In 2040, if the sun keeps up its trend, will be cold.

I predict it is either gonna be colder or about the same as it is now in 32 years.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/22/2008 18:20 Comments || Top||

#2  "The sky is falling" said Chicken Little.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/22/2008 18:22 Comments || Top||

#3  "When in danger/When in doubt/Run in circles/Scream and shout."

Did you pay the Gorebot™ to use that, 'moose?

It's his motto, you know. I'm sure he's had it copyrighted.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/22/2008 18:24 Comments || Top||

#4  He told The Daily Mail he believes “white Americans” will adapt easily to these Armageddon circumstances.

Dr. Lovelock, meet Rev. Wright. Rev. Wright, Dr. Lovelock.
Posted by: ed || 03/22/2008 18:55 Comments || Top||

#5  Head's Up - The Great Global Warming Swindle is back on the net.
Posted by: doc || 03/22/2008 18:59 Comments || Top||

#6  The jerk want to explain the snow that fell here in Chicago yesterday?
Posted by: 3dc || 03/22/2008 19:28 Comments || Top||

#7  He said climate change would all but wipe out civilization, killing 6 billion and leaving only 500 million survivors, but only in the far northern latitudes – Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and the Arctic Basin.

Canada, eh? So nothing to worry about then.
Posted by: Excalibur || 03/22/2008 23:06 Comments || Top||

#8  Send yer resumes to me and we will set up a commune in the north. You must bring skills, weapons, ammo, reloaders, musical instruments, and a sense of humor to the table. You will not need gold or money. We have enough here for our trading.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/22/2008 23:21 Comments || Top||

#9  Should we bring our bathing suits, AP?

Seeing as it's supposed to be so warm and all....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/22/2008 23:37 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Another Angry Black Preacher
Another white, guilt-ridden liberal proves Krauthammer's point.
Let's ask the hard question about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Is he as far outside the African American mainstream as many of us would like to think?

Because Barack Obama's speech on race in America was so candid about both the legitimacy of black and white grievances -- and the flaws in those grievances -- it carried the risk of offending almost everyone.

A man who, by parentage, is half black and half white took it upon himself to explain each side's story to the other. Obama resembled no one so much as the conciliatory sibling in a large and boisterous family, shouting: "Please, please, will you listen to each other for a sec?"

One of the least remarked upon passages in Obama's speech is also one of the most important -- and the part most relevant to the Wright controversy. There is, Obama said, a powerful anger in the black community rooted in "memories of humiliation and doubt" that "may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends" but "does find voice in the barbershop or the beauty shop or around the kitchen table. . . . And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews."
Playing on white guilt, check.
Yes, black people say things about our country and its injustices to each other that they don't say to those of us who are white. Whites also say things about blacks privately that they don't say in front of their black friends and associates.

One black leader who was capable of getting very angry indeed is the one now being invoked against Wright. His name was Martin Luther King Jr.
Moral equivalence, check.
An important book on King's rhetoric by Barnard College professor Jonathan Rieder, due out next month, offers a more complex view of King than the sanitized version that is so popular, especially among conservative commentators. In "The Word of the Lord Is Upon Me," Rieder -- an admirer of King -- notes that the civil rights icon was "not just a crossover artist but a code switcher who switched in and out of idioms as he moved between black and white audiences."

Listen to what King said about the Vietnam War at his own Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 4, 1968: "God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place." King then predicted this response from the Almighty: "And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."
That's the same thing as G. D. AmeriKKKa, you see?
If today's technology had existed then, I would imagine the media playing quotations of that sort over and over. Right-wing commentators would use the material to argue that King was anti-American and to discredit his call for racial and class justice. King certainly angered a lot of people at the time.

I cite King not to justify Wright's damnation of America or his lunatic and pernicious theories but to suggest that Obama's pastor and his church are not as far outside the African American mainstream as many would suggest. I would also ask my conservative friends who praise King so lavishly to search their consciences and wonder if they would have stood up for him in 1968.

These are realities that Obama has forced us to confront, and they are painful. Wright was operating within a long tradition of African American outrage, which is one reason Obama could not walk away from his old pastor in the name of political survival. Obama's personal closeness to Wright would have made such a move craven in any event.

I'm a liberal, and I loathe the anti-American things Wright said precisely because I believe that the genius of our country is its capacity for self-correction. Progressivism and, yes, hope itself depend on a belief that personal conversion and social change are possible, that flawed human beings are capable of transcending their pasts and their failings.

Obama understands the anger of whites as well as the anger of blacks, but he's placed a bet on the other side of King's legacy that converted rage into the search for a beloved community. This does not prove that Obama deserves to be president. It does mean that he deserves to be judged on his own terms and not by the ravings of an angry preacher.
Judge him by his choice to educate his daughters in such "lunatic and pernicious theories".
Posted by: Bobby || 03/22/2008 06:29 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wright is a racist. If Obama agrees with him, then Obama's a racist, too. It's as simple as that.
Posted by: gromky || 03/22/2008 6:57 Comments || Top||

#2  And you people say we are dumb because we negotiate with Paleos!
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 03/22/2008 9:27 Comments || Top||

#3  This is nonsense. King was marginalized by '68 because he was no longer working on civil rights but on economic rights and anti-war pap like that.

The idea of an Italian American mainstream is what? Ludicrous. Is it Ferraro or Giuliani? Neither, because they are part of the American mainstream. Or at least Giuliani is. As long as there is an African American mainstream, there will not be an African American president.

Hussein had run on the idea that he was part of the American mainstream, not the African American mainstream. But he blew it when at the same time he declared Wright to be within the African American mainstream and the grandmother who raised him to be a typical white. So who's the typical black? Wright?

He's a fool and he's probably set back the chances of a black rising to national office a generation because until it's been forgotten, every black who tries is going to be asked what he thinks about Wright's comments.

All blacks are going to get to a point where they have to choose between their race and their country. When Hussein reached that decision point he choked. And Sister Souljah should have taught him he could choose his country and win with both blacks and whites in doing so. Instead he chose the easy win with blacks and now he can get all their votes.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/22/2008 9:38 Comments || Top||

#4  E. J. Dionne. How did I know without even looking?
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/22/2008 9:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Because Tom Oliphant's retired...
Posted by: Raj || 03/22/2008 12:46 Comments || Top||

#6  "Another Angry Black Preacher"

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Christian religion is the right one. I'm not Christian, but I do know enough about the religion and what Jesus said to know that, according to the teachings of Jesus, these "Angry Black Preachers" and their followers are going to be in for a very fat surprise when they die.

Or, to put it in non-religious terms, karma's a bitch, baby, and will sooner or later bite you in the ass.

If I hope it's sooner for these racist clowns, does that make me a bad person? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/22/2008 15:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Barbara, dear, you could never be truly bad. Efficient, certainly, but in the end that's better for all involved, however uncomfortable the object might find it at the moment. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/22/2008 15:48 Comments || Top||

#8  "you could never be truly bad"

I'd be willing to give it the good old college try for certain scum of the earth people, tw. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/22/2008 15:53 Comments || Top||

#9  Schadenfreude is not a cardinal sin, at least not the last time I asked.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/22/2008 16:41 Comments || Top||

#10  Another Angry Black Preacher...

I suppose if or when Hildebeast manipulates the superdelegate vote to her advantage, there will be a lot of angry black preachers--probably a lot of angry blacks donk voters.
Posted by: JohnQC || 03/22/2008 17:26 Comments || Top||

#11  Inshallah, John. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/22/2008 18:08 Comments || Top||

#12  Let me get this straight....White people bad eventhough without them slavery would have continued. Husseins Black father left him....is this typicial black behaviour? White mother and white Grandparents raised aboandoned boy, and they are the typical white people. Seems to me we need more typical white people.... Just my observation but I see many typical white people raising kids of typical black men who have typically abandoned their own... all this has happened since typical liberal leaders have promised that they can provide for the typical black person.....Can I get a Witness!
Posted by: AMEricAN || 03/22/2008 19:06 Comments || Top||

#13  Wright was operating within a long tradition of African American outrage, which is one reason Obama could not walk away from his old pastor in the name of political survival.

Note the term "long tradition". Methinks that Rev. Wright was looking for a paycheck, much like that other "reverend" Je$$e Jackson. I made note of the term "long tradition," because for most of us white folks born AFTER the Civil Rights movement, even in the South, race doesn't mean anything. I live in the "Black Mecca" (Atlanta, GA), yet, I'm proud to listen to country music and discuss politics like this with a 65+ year old black man at work who grew up in Brooklyn. You'd be amazed at how many issues we see eye-to-eye on that NEED attention (the economy, illegal immigration and it's effects on EVERYTHING, health care, retirement for us "generation Y" kids, etc.).

I think this anger is of a bygone era, and it could very well be the death-throes of the "old school" civil rights advocates, who have NOTHING better to do than continue to "remember the past" and look for payouts/shakedowns. Part of me wishes these clowns would die off, so REAL racial progress will move on. But, even here in the "deep South", you wouldn't believe the progress already made....inter-racial dating, "non-denominational" churches (who have congregants from every nation on the planet), very professional folks (of all races) working together 9-to-5 to feed their kids, more attention being paid to the value of family/marriage on raising children, etc.
Posted by: BA || 03/22/2008 23:36 Comments || Top||


The Speech: A Brilliant Fraud (Krauthammer)
The beauty of a speech is that you don't just give the answers, you provide your own questions. "Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes." So said Barack Obama, in his Philadelphia speech about his pastor, friend, mentor and spiritual adviser of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.

An interesting, if belated, admission. But the more important question is: which "controversial" remarks?

Wright's assertion from the pulpit that the U.S. government invented HIV "as a means of genocide against people of color"? Wright's claim that America was morally responsible for Sept. 11 -- "chickens coming home to roost" -- because of, among other crimes, Hiroshima and Nagasaki? (Obama says he missed church that day. Had he never heard about it?) What about the charge that the U.S. government (of Franklin Roosevelt, mind you) knew about Pearl Harbor, but lied about it? Or that the government gives drugs to black people, presumably to enslave and imprison them?

Obama condemns such statements as wrong and divisive, then frames the next question: "There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?"

But that is not the question. The question is why didn't he leave that church? Why didn't he leave -- why doesn't he leave even today -- a pastor who thundered not once but three times from the pulpit (on a DVD the church proudly sells) "God damn America"? Obama's 5,000-word speech, fawned over as a great meditation on race, is little more than an elegantly crafted, brilliantly sophistic justification of that scandalous dereliction.

His defense rests on two central propositions: (a) moral equivalence and (b) white guilt.

(a) Moral equivalence. Sure, says Obama, there's Wright, but at the other "end of the spectrum" there's Geraldine Ferraro, opponents of affirmative action and his own white grandmother, "who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." But did she shout them in a crowded theater to incite, enrage and poison others?

"I can no more disown [Wright] than I can my white grandmother." What exactly was Grandma's offense? Jesse Jackson himself once admitted to the fear he feels from the footsteps of black men on the street. And Harry Truman was known to use epithets for blacks and Jews in private, yet is revered for desegregating the armed forces and recognizing the first Jewish state since Jesus's time. He never spread racial hatred. Nor did Grandma.

Yet Obama compares her to Wright. Does he not see the moral difference between the occasional private expression of the prejudices of one's time and the use of a public stage to spread racial lies and race hatred?

(b) White guilt. Obama's purpose in the speech was to put Wright's outrages in context. By context, Obama means history. And by history, he means the history of white racism. Obama says, "We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country," and then he proceeds to do precisely that. What lies at the end of his recital of the long train of white racial assaults from slavery to employment discrimination? Jeremiah Wright, of course.

This contextual analysis of Wright's venom, this extenuation of black hate speech as a product of white racism, is not new. It's the Jesse Jackson politics of racial grievance, expressed in Ivy League diction and Harvard Law nuance. That's why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.

But Obama was supposed to be new. He flatters himself as a man of the future transcending the anger of the past as represented by his beloved pastor. Obama then waxes rhapsodic about the hope brought by the new consciousness of the young people in his campaign. Then answer this, Senator: If Wright is a man of the past, why would you expose your children to his vitriolic divisiveness? This is a man who curses America and who proclaimed moral satisfaction in the deaths of 3,000 innocents at a time when their bodies were still being sought at Ground Zero. It is not just the older congregants who stand and cheer and roar in wild approval of Wright's rants, but young people as well. Why did you give $22,500 just two years ago to a church run by a man of the past who infects the younger generation with precisely the racial attitudes and animus you say you have come unto us to transcend?
The first black presidential candidate, undone by his own racism.
Posted by: Bobby || 03/22/2008 06:26 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Krauthammer...Krauthammer...what can I say about Krauthammer??? Yep, nothing!
Posted by: smn || 03/22/2008 11:32 Comments || Top||

#2  A very interesting point was made last night on local talk radio. Wright's "chickens coming home to roost" speech was delivered on the very Sunday after 9/11. Many, many Americans were in church that day. Where was BHO? Was he absent that day too? He's already on record as "absent" but I wonder - is it possible to place him at that church....on that day....listening to that sermon?
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 03/22/2008 11:32 Comments || Top||

#3  Are we going through all this because what the guy's pastor says? Who gives a sh*t.
Posted by: Pearl Pholuns7216 || 03/22/2008 12:57 Comments || Top||

#4  That's why the speech made so many liberal commentators swoon: It bathed them in racial guilt while flattering their intellectual pretensions. An unbeatable combination.

the Kraut-hammer pounds Obama's fraudulent speech to smithereens. _:)
Posted by: RD || 03/22/2008 13:10 Comments || Top||

#5  Not only is the guy's Obama' pastor (for 20 years) but one of his closest advisors. And the fact that Michelle has much the same 'tone' gives a pretty broad hint to the person Obama is and what kind of things Obama believes in.

If Obama was white and attended a 'KKK' church and had the KKK 'Grand Wizard' (or whatever-the-hell-its-called) as a close advisor the Media would be all over it - giving us 24/7 coverage.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/22/2008 13:12 Comments || Top||

#6  "If Obama was white and attended a 'KKK' church and had the KKK 'Grand Wizard' (or whatever-the-hell-its-called) as a close advisor the Media would be all over it - giving us 24/7 coverage."

And there you have the leftists and the MSM (but I repeat myself) in a nutshell, CF.

They set a much lower standard for ALL minorities because they're sure minorities can't live up the same standard as white people do.

"The soft bigotry of low expectations" nails them as the self-satisfied racist assholes they are. I wonder when minorities are going to WAKE UP to this. >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/22/2008 15:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Peral, its relevant because Obama made it that way. Early on, he gave great credit to Wright, and that racist bigoted travesty of a church.

So Obama hs put himnself in the place where either

a) he believed that racist stuff and is trying to cover it

or

B) he didnt beleive it and his "religion" is worn on his sleeve.

The former marks his as a liar, the latter marks him as an empty suit politician.

In either case, Obama at the heart of the matter, has not done much anything at all to claim the mantle of Christian Faith that he is attempting to grab votes with.

And that makes it relevant - it points out he is a power hungry politician at heart, one with marxist and socialist tendencies.

He may be glib, but ultimately no different than Hillary in terms of his lack of qualifications for the Presidency, and similar in his lust for power and his willingness to do nearly anything to obtain it.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/22/2008 16:47 Comments || Top||

#8  "The former marks his as a liar, the latter marks him as an empty suit politician."

No reason he can't be both, OS.

Oh, wait.... He is.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/22/2008 16:55 Comments || Top||

#9  Another little problem is that Obama's advidor (that is "reverend" Wright) hates America. And Obama is OK with it. Now Obama is free of his opinions but if I were an American I wouldn't trust the Presidency to a guy who hates the country: that does not lead to have the interests of the country at heart.

While we are at it is said in Spain: "Tell me with who you are walking with and I will tell you who are you" and Obama walks with an antiamerican and a racist.
Posted by: JFM || 03/22/2008 20:58 Comments || Top||

#10  To add to the "Why worry about his pastor" question, here's your answer....

Obama has NOT told ANY of us who he IS, period. All he's selling is "Change" and "a new hope". No specific plans, no outlines of how to pay for these plans, etc. At least with Hillary, we KNOW she's gonna bankrupt us with "Universal Everything".

Thus, when a man (much less a politician looking for the highest office in the land) tells us NOTHING about whom he/she is, we MUST "look at the company he keeps." What's funny about this is that so many are paying attention to his pastor, but he has MANY other ties to nefarious people...for example, that former head of the Weather Underground (an ADMITTED domestic terrorist group and leader). Not that I want Hillary in office either, but at least we KNOW her skeletons.
Posted by: BA || 03/22/2008 23:23 Comments || Top||


The masterpiece of a disaster
Wes Pruden waxes lyrical on B.O.'s O'Bummer.
Posted by: Fred || 03/22/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Frankly, I saw this coming. In fact, the weekend admin chose not to post my commemts on the black church agenda, that I tried to put up 2 weeks before Damnation-Gate broke. Told you so.
Posted by: McZoid || 03/22/2008 1:24 Comments || Top||

#2  eupepsia: good digestion, the opposite of dyspepsia... at least according to Dictionary.com.

Congratulations, McZoid. It's a rare and precious feeling. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/22/2008 4:07 Comments || Top||

#3  You cannot excuse yourself by blaming your grandma. That is just not lame, it's offensive.
Posted by: Creling Darling of the Lichtensteiners8341 || 03/22/2008 9:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Wait'll the other shoe drops. obama stuck to the sole...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 03/22/2008 15:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
The Adhan at Harvard
Two weeks ago, the Islamic call to prayer, or adhan in Arabic, was broadcast from the steps of Widener Library across Harvard Yard as part of Harvard Islamic Society’s “Islam Awareness Week.” No doubt, the week’s events have broadened some horizons, and exposed some in our community to facets of a religion with which they were not previously familiar. This is certainly a good thing. However, it should be asked if other, more important concerns have been overlooked. We feel compelled to write this editorial to initiate a discussion on the intersection of pluralism and Islam, and the content of the adhan itself, which translated into English reads:

God is the Greatest
I bear witness that there is no lord except God
I bear witness that Mohammad is the Messenger of God
Hurry to prayer
Hurry to success
God is the Greatest
There is no lord except God

It is wonderful that we embrace the free practice of many religions at Harvard. We are thankful that most members of the Harvard community understand the importance of respecting people’s rights to have their own beliefs. We are deeply committed to respecting and protecting the rights of others to believe at they choose, and we believe that one of the first principles of respectful conduct and religious practice is to avoid unnecessarily criticizing or confronting others’ personal beliefs. We cherish the fact that it is possible to discuss our differences with our classmates and neighbors without that discussion erupting into conflict and sowing the seeds of division and disrespect.

We believe that the adhan, issued publicly in a pluralistic setting, does indeed sow those seeds of division and disrespect. It does so by declaring that “there is no lord except God,” and that “Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” To the extent that this statement is a profession of faith, it is benign; however, by virtue of its content, it is also a declaration of religious superiority and a declaration against all beliefs that conflict with those two statements. This puts the adhan in a different class of religious expression than, say, the sounding of church bells or the displaying of a menorah because it publicly advances a theological position. By doing so, it comes precariously close to crossing the line between the legitimate creation of awareness and proselytization. Imagine, if you would, a Southern Baptist evangelist standing atop the steps of Widener Library, exhorting passersby to pray, denying the validity to other faiths, and declaring the divinity of Jesus. Would such an activity be congruent with Harvard’s tradition of liberalism and tolerance?

We do not believe so. Indeed, other religions make truth claims similar to those contained in the adhan, but those claims, as a matter of practice at Harvard, are voiced privately or not at all. The adhan, it seems, is the exception to Harvard’s unspoken rule of religious respect and tolerance.

The authors of this piece do not believe that there is no lord but God. Nor do we believe that Muhammad was God’s prophet. In fact, we do not believe in prophets. We expect that our statements might be offensive to some, and for that reason, we believe that it wouldn’t be appropriate, in the name of spreading awareness about our beliefs, use a public address system to declare to everyone in Harvard Yard that God is imaginary, that prayer is a waste of time, or that Muhammad was not a prophet. Similarly, it is best that those who hold similar beliefs about Hinduism or Buddhism or any other religion avoid loudly declaring the falsehood of other faiths.

The Harvard community should be very aware of Islam, as it is one of the world’s most influential religions. We believe that Islam Awareness Week ought to continue, but in a way that does not foist Islamic doctrines upon everyone. We believe that students who resent the forceful infusion of theology with their Harvard experience should be spared the indignity, and we believe strongly that our community should not grant license to any religious group, minority or otherwise, to use a loudspeaker to declare false the profoundly important and personal beliefs of others.

Benjamin Taylor is a graduate of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Aaron D. Williams and Diana K. Esposito are graduate students at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies
Posted by: john frum || 03/22/2008 14:02 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under: Global Jihad

#1  It looks like some liberals are saying "enough".
Posted by: tipover || 03/22/2008 14:37 Comments || Top||

#2  By doing so, it comes precariously close to crossing the line between the legitimate creation of awareness and proselytization. Imagine, if you would, a Southern Baptist evangelist standing atop the steps of Widener Library, exhorting passersby to pray, denying the validity to other faiths, and declaring the divinity of Jesus. Would such an activity be congruent with Harvard’s tradition of liberalism and tolerance?
?

Perhaps not, but it would be congruent with John Harvard's intention in endowing the school which bears his name. So when did the Corporation decide to betray that donor?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/22/2008 15:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Aaron D. Williams and Diana K. Esposito are graduate students at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies

Indeed, these two writers would certainly have had the opportunity of experiencing Muslim religious attitudes toward non-believers. I wish them well for the remainder of their graduate studies.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/22/2008 15:36 Comments || Top||

#4  "I wish them well for the remainder of their graduate studies."

Unfortunately, after speaking up the way they have about the subject they have, I think we'd better wish they live for the remainder of their graduate studies, tw.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/22/2008 15:48 Comments || Top||

#5  Not too late to switch to a doctorate in shoelace eyelets...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 03/22/2008 15:52 Comments || Top||

#6  They must be pissed that they can't get into the gym when they want any more...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/22/2008 16:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Would Harvard allow the Apostle's Creed to be broadcast from the steps of Widener Library during a hypothetical Catholic Awareness Week?

The question answers itself.
Posted by: Tiny Ulirt4387 || 03/22/2008 18:02 Comments || Top||



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