Monthly Archives: October 2006

The Century Mark

[A few of Jesus Montalvo’s 12 brothers and sisters in Mayaguez say he used to phone home from Iraq, asking them to sing him plenas — Puerto Rican ballads. This Christmas, their brother won’t be here to accompany them on the pandereta drum and the cuatro guitar. Those pictured (from left) are: Segismundo Lopez Montalvo, Leo Montalvo, Olga Montalvo and Clarissa Montalvo.]

Listening to NPR “Morning Edition” on my morning drive to the university, I learned that the death toll of U.S. servicemen this month in Iraq has reached 100. It is hardly more tragic just because a round number is reached. But it does give pause to those ardent defenders of our failed involvement in Iraq that insist we “are not there yet.” What is the threshhold of “there” that would convince unflinching “stay the course” advocates even when just about every marker indicates it is the wrong course? Continue reading The Century Mark

Speaking of Veiling (BBC Style)

A little shameless self-promotion pervades today’s post. Last Thursday I was interviewed by Dan Damon of the BBC World Service for their weekly program on religion. The topic was the history and variety of veiling within Islamic societies. Yesterday the program aired for all 42 million listeners to be edified. You can hear the whole radio program online by going to their program webpage at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/reporting_religion.shtml). Continue reading Speaking of Veiling (BBC Style)

Hijab, Raw Meat and Catnip

Many non-Muslims assume that Islam is a far more sexist religion than Judaism or Christianity, usually under the assumption that only the latter two faiths have been secularized into acceptable moral modernity. Media images of women covered in full-length chadors or wearing a solid niqab (face covering) with only slits for eyeholes, the legality of having four wives, Quranic passages torn out of context, misogynist traditions and medieval male musings: all of these suggest that Muslim women have few if any rights. Muslim women in most cases feel otherwise. Many are bemused that their sisters from other faiths are so unaware of the rights Muslim women have enjoyed (at least in legal theory) since the very beginning of Islam. But a problem still remains and that is the unflinching, culturally-induced male chauvanism that crosses the boundaries of established religions. A prime example from down under has recently surrounded a major Muslim figure in Australia. Continue reading Hijab, Raw Meat and Catnip

That Next Quran Term paper

One of the pedagogical blessings of cyberspace is a service called turnitin.com, which exposes students who copy passages verbatim from internet sites. With the proliferation of websites of mundane term-paper-quality papers for sale, the detective work that now surrounds grading term papers turns even the meekest of professors into forensic hounds. You might expect a temptation for a struggling student to cheat in history or psychology, but surely not on the topic of religion. Imagine assigning a paper on “A Biblical View on Plagiarism” and finding out that it is not a blessing to give the material received a passing grade because the students had less than divine inspiration. What might a pragmatic student be thinking by starting off such a paper with “In the beginning God created…” Continue reading That Next Quran Term paper

Second Thoughts

[Clocks ticking Iraq clock repairmen work at their shop on a Baghdad street (AFP/Karim Sahib) April 11, 2006]

In a commentary yesterday in the New York Times, columnist Nicholas D. Kristoff started off with a startling figure. “For every additional second we stay in Iraq, we taxpayers will end up paying an additional $6,300.” Most Americans make less than this in a month, which by my count for the 30-day variety has a total of 2,592,000 seconds. My math faculties start to break down with the thought of computing the cost per month of this war in seconds on the U.S. Budget. Continue reading Second Thoughts

Not Knowing the Enemy

In an eye-opening commentary in yesterday’s New York Times, Jeff Stein (the national security editor at the Congressional Quarterly) clues us into the clueless state of this administration’s national security apparatus. “Can you tell a Sunni from a Shiite?” he asked a number of counterterrorism officials and members of Congress. The responses, often dumbfounded “I dunno” looks, reveal one of the reasons the so-called war on terror is going so badly. “Too many officials in charge of the war on terrorism just don’t care to learn much, if anything, about the enemy we’re fighting. And that’s enough to keep anybody up at night.” Anybody, it seems, but our self-assured Bush League presidency. Continue reading Not Knowing the Enemy

“Hath Slain His Thousands”

… Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands, and Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him; and he said, They have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom? I Samuel 18:7-8

Saddam was no King Saul and most certainly George Bush is no David (although perhaps the Democrats wish he would cast his eyes clintonesque on an intern named Bathsheba). But the sentiment of the ancient Israelite king renowned for slaughtering the Philistines (who incidentallty lived in what we now call Gaza) may be reverberating in the scandal-defying offices of Karl Rove. Earlier this year President Bush estimated the Iraqi dead after our invasion in the 30,000s. The site Iraq Body Count has yet to hit 49,000 for its maximum, as of today. So imagine the wrothness of Bush and Blair defenders when a respected medical journal, The Lancet, releases a study that puts the number of Iraqi casualties as close to 655,000 or 2.5% of the population in the study area. And this does not include deaths since last July. Continue reading “Hath Slain His Thousands”

Homeland Security in Wolf’s Clothing

The PBS documentary series Frontline broadcast a special report yesterday on “The Enemy Within: A Case Study of America’s Response to Homegrown Terrorism.” This is available for viewing online, along with a website with interviews, readings and links. The focus of the report is on several high-profile cases intitially reported as al-Qaida terror cells on American soil. Now that the judicial process has taken its course, not always in the interest of justice as the report shows, it turns out that there is no evidence anywhere of al-Qaida terror cells here in America. This administration has made protecting Americans from terror such a mantra that security agencies have sent out agents cock-sure radical Muslim extremists are swarming out of suburban mosques. We have heard the cry “Wolf” so many times now, that it should come as little surprise that most of the time all we are seeing are sheep fleeced into wearing wolves’ clothing. Continue reading Homeland Security in Wolf’s Clothing