Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Fjordman on Muslims and Hitler
Why Muslims Like Hitler, but Not Mozart
In 2005, Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf was among the top bestsellers in Turkey, behind a book about a Turkish national hero detonating a nuclear bomb in Washington D.C. Adolf Hitler remains widely popular in many other Islamic countries, too. At the same time, Turkish PM Erdogan stressed that Islamophobia must be treated as a crime against humanity. It is banned by law to discuss the Armenian genocide in Turkey, a genocide that allegedly inspired the Nazis in their Holocaust against Jews.
Despotism comes quite natural to Islamic culture. When confronted with the European tradition, many Muslims freely prefer Adolf Hitler to Rembrandt, Michelangelo or Beethoven. Westerners don’t force them to study Mein Kampf more passionately than Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa or Goethe’s Faust; they choose to do so themselves. Millions of (non-Muslim) Asians now study Mozart’s piano pieces. Muslims, on the other hand, like Mr. Hitler more, although he represents one of the most evil ideologies that have ever existed in Europe. The fact that they usually like the Austrian Mr. Hitler more than the Austrian Mr. Mozart speaks volumes about their culture.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Voice Mail Death Watch
Voice mail is one of the most inefficient, socially awkward, and least user-friendly means of communication out there....
If the voice-mail leavers in your life are anything like those in mine, there's often no great reward for getting through your messages, either. Guess you're not there. Call me back. That message might have made sense in the days of home answering machines, when the main function of voice mail was to let someone know who you were and that you'd called—both things our phones now tell automatically. On the rare chance that you do get an important voice mail, your first move is to transfer the information to some more permanent medium—say, ink and paper. Unlike just about every other mode of electronic communication today, after all, voice mail can't be searched.
And don't spin me on how voice mail is somehow inherently warmer and more human than e-mail. Speaking into a dead phone has always seemed unnatural. That's why we stammer, ramble on, leave awkward pauses. I submit that whatever finally makes voice mail obsolete will make us all sound far more human—and a little more polished at that.
My personal issue with voice mail is the longer messages. I always think, what does the caller expect me to do, take notes? The answer of course is, yes some of them do actually expect that. Screw that, just send me an email.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Who'd Be Female Under Islamic Law?
I am a Muslim woman and, like my late mother, free, independent, sensuous, educated, liberal, contrary and confrontational when provoked, both feminine and feminist. I style and colour my hair, wear lovely things and perfumes, appear on public platforms with men who are not related to me, shake their hands, embrace some I know well, take care of my family.
I defend Muslims persecuted by their enemies and their own kith and kin. I pray, fast, give to charity and try to be a decent human being. I also drink wine and do not lie about that, unlike so many other good Muslims. I am the kind of Muslim woman who maddens reactionary Muslim men and their asinine female followers. What a badge of honour.
I am aware that my words will help confirm the pernicious prejudices that fester in the minds of those who despise Islam. Yet to conceal or excuse the violations would be to condone and encourage them. There have been enlightened times when some Muslim civilisations honoured and cherished females. This is not one of them. Across the West – for a host of reasons – millions of Muslims are embracing backward practices. In the UK young girls – some so young that they are still in push chairs – are covered up in hijabs. Disgracefully, there are always vocal Muslim women who seek to justify honour killings, forced marriages, inequality, polygamy and childhood betrothals. Why are large numbers of Muslim men so terrorised by the female body and spirit? Why do Muslim women encourage this savage paranoia?
I look out of my study at the common and see a wife fully burkaed on a sunny day. She sits still. Her children and husband run around, laughing, playing cricket. She sits still, dead, buried, a ghost. She is complicit in her own degradation, as are countless others. Their acquiescence in a free democracy is a crime against their sisters who have no such choices in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Arlen Specter Switches Parties
Like it or not, any politician running on a party ticket owes a duty to complete his or her term as a member of that party. A duty to the party and to the voters. If he or she believes that they can no longer represent the voters through the party, then they should resign first, then join another party, and then stand for reelection.
The fact is, like most national politicians, Specter stands for the only principle he knows: Getting reelected.
Update: David Broder on Specter the Defector:
The one consistency in the history of Arlen Specter has been his willingness to do whatever will best protect and advance the career of Arlen Specter.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Divorced
Of course this starts with my marital status: I am divorced. My ex-wife and I have two children. She has remarried. I am currently engaged to a divorcée with two children of her own. So, I will live with another man’s children while yet another man lives with mine.
I was raised Catholic. But the Catholic church will not acknowledge my divorce and second marriage. So, I have divorced my church as well. My fiancé was raised Baptist. But when she married her first husband, who is Jewish, she had to convert to Judaism for the sake of her then-future children. Today, her children are Jewish and she has now divorced two faiths.
My father worked for one company for his entire career. I have worked for five already. I divorced three of these, one divorced me, and one simply collapsed. Today, I am self-employed.
Ten years ago, I divorced my political party. Previously, I had been loyal to it since I became old enough to vote. But, like most Americans, I am a political moderate, fiscally conservative, socially liberal. What party represents me?
I grew up in Massachusetts and lived there after college. Admittedly, the cost of living there was always high. But eventually, I divorced my home state. The cost of living, taxes, and unions drove me to start my own business in another state.
This year, I divorced my newspaper. What passes for journalism these days is embarrassing. And besides, I can get more news from a greater variety of sources online, generally for free. And if any one of them goes astray, I will divorce them as well.
After buying American-made automobiles my entire life, I have just divorced Detroit. My new car is also made in America, but it carries a foreign nameplate and any profit made by the manufacturer benefits a foreign stock market. But then again, our own stock market divorced me in 2008.
I also recently divorced Microsoft. After paying Mr. Gates and crew for 25 years for a deficient product, I just bought a Macintosh. I feel better already.
And as divorce goes, I am not even average. Many Americans have become totally divorced from the world around them. Sure, we have all quit taking the newspaper. But many of us have replaced it, not with other news outlets, but rather, with Comedy Central. Oprah has become the new Walter Cronkite. And Americans are more interested in Britney and Paris and football and basketball, than in the real issues of the day. In short, they have divorced reality.
Even well read Americans seem to have divorced themselves from the ability to think about what they read. If Thomas Friedman writes it and the New York Times prints it, well then, it must be true. In their desire to avoid the perception of being judgmental, our post-modern intellectual classes have decided to divorce themselves from good judgment.
I am an American, and, like you, I am divorced.
So as not to be confused with James Frey, this essay is observational, not autobiographical.