5.3.07

Real Quick

The new issue of Harper's has a great article by Ken Silverstein called "Parties of God: The Bush Doctrine and the Rise of Islamic Democracy." It is a refreshingly level-headed look at Islam and how it fits into world politics. I am not typically into political business but after living in a Muslim country for 2 years I have a better understanding of it. Yeah, I don't have any particular affinity for it, I won't be fasting any time soon, but I do have a problem with the demonization of it by our government and our media. Moderate Muslims, and this is a guess that I will defend until someone presents solid evidence to the contrary, are a majority that are sadly overlooked by an increasingly blood-thirsty and sensationalistic public and media.
Really, and we all know this, all religions are fucking insane when taken to fundamentalist levels.
My thoughts aren't too clear on this. Well, they are, but I have hard time voicing them as my pen is more adept at recounting drunken debacles and heartbreak rather than totally legitimate fears of an all out and totally unnecessary holy war. I just know that I would like my parents and aunts and uncles and co-workers and anyone else who will quickly and without thought drop a blanket label of 'insane' over all of Islam to read this article with an open mind and hopefully... fuck, I don't know. Learn something?
Whatever.
This link is only a tidbit of the article, but if you are interested you should go to a book store or a library and read the whole thing.
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Oh, and on a totally unrelated note:
I decided today that I could never trust that an individual was truly human if they did not like--love, even-- Otis Redding.

5 comments:

J. Herzog said...

Harper's is probably the best of those fancy slick mags. Last issue had a great piece by Jonathan Lethem on the aesthetics of plagiarism, and it's online in full.

I'll check that Islam piece soon.

Anonymous said...

Otis who?? is he the guy that makes those delicious cookies?

Uncle Jesse said...

i liked watching otis' performance in that monterey pop documentary. he's really sweatty there. even more sweatty than elvis.

Uncle Jesse said...

is there two t's in sweatty? it looks funny. sweaty. that looks wrong too...huh.

J. Herzog said...

Otis makes great elevators too.