sundries

[rm]

I am home, but Patty doesn't get home until the weekend-ish, so all is not quite right with the world yet.

There will be some interesting, accessible to the public, outgrowth of the conference stuff available soon. Soon, of course, as regards academic timelines, which I find to be geologically slow. More about that from my own perspective later, but for now, soon there will be stuff for you, also I will still post my notes.

Also need to write about the Martin Carthy gig.

I have to say, Virgin Atlantic handled the gluten-free meal requests MUCH better than Delta. I did get a roll yesterday that contained "gluten-free wheat starch" that I was too scared to eat, because gluten-attack on an airplane? NO WAY IN HELL DO I WANT THAT EXPERIENCE. Do any of the other celiacs reading this have any insight into "gluten-free wheat starch"? Is it derived from clean oats (which I can't eat anyway) or is it some other bizarreo process?

Thank you to everyone who posted auction items to graduate_maria while I was away. I'll try to check up on and update tags and stuff tonight, and bidding will open in a few days. People who have asked me to post items for them or host pictures, I will also try to get that in order tonight. Sorry for the delay, things have been overwhelming.

George Steinbrener has died.

I cannot believe all this drama about the possibility of a mosque near the WTC site is still ongoing.

Oh, this kid again. Teen serial thief arrested.

Paperwork fuckery is preventing a team of lacross players from the Iriquois Confederacy traveling to an international competition in Manchester because the UK gov't is worried the US won't allow them back into the country with their tribal passports. The US won't guarantee that they will. WTF?

The Son of Sam, his image makeover and a bunch of evangelical Christians.

Geese removed (via death) from Prospect Park in response to flight that ditched into Hudson a year and a half ago. 1. Ugh. 2. You know the thing with birds? They'll make more. Killing park geese isn't going to stop them from flying into airplanes.

The Advocate has starting putting up the Day in Gay America photos.

Big DADT trial begins today, thanks to the Log Cabin Republicans.

That damn writing meme going around. It told me it thought "Because Men Once Went West" is written like Stephen King. That would be no.

Since I can tell it's going to be that type of morning, and I've other stuff to do: Yes, I've seen the purported Torchwood casting sheet; no, I don't have anything to say about it at this time.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

The only purpose of nuclear war is to commit war. The only purpose of Islam is a connection to a the diving and a community around such, regardless of what some criminals have done in its name.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I agree with that. I want to believe that what they are doing is building a community center to help dispel the negative image that they have received due to the actions of a few criminals. I just think that they could locate it somewhere else, out of some sense of decorum. Some people are just never going to accept it at the location no matter how it is defended.

[rm.livejournal.com]

No one asked churches not to be built near the Oklahoma bombing site out of decorum. We have a cultural double-standard about Islam that is not helping the situation at all.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Agreed about the cultural double standard. Still, how wold you classify the Oklahoma bombing? It was anger at the government by a group of anti-government individuals. As far as I can recall it was not religiously motivated, nor an act of war ( unless you consider it a kind of civil war ).

[rm.livejournal.com]

I don't consider what happened at the WTC an act of war either, since it did not involve a country declaring war on us and the Taliban, despite various realities on the ground, is not the official representative of any government.

I don't have a huge amount of knowledge about Oklahoma City, although I'm sure someone else here will and will show up. I'm just saying that when white Christian dudes blow stuff up, if their religion comes into it, it generally comes into it was them being aberrant representatives of their faith (I will note a quasi-exception to this is the Mormons. When the FLDS does something completely fucked up (although usually not involving explosions), people do tend to put that on Mormonism as a whole).

The idea that mainstream Muslims are the exception to the rule is completely maddening.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I think that in the case of Oklahoma city the religion aspect was just a background thought. The idea was that some people got it in their minds that they were angry enough at the government to do something about it. While they may have considered it their Christian duty to do what they did ( I could be wrong here ) they didn't run about screaming for all Christians to kill anyone associated with the government as demanded by their God. Their beef was with how the country is run, and their frustration at having no voice and no control turned to violent action.

Would you consider that radical Islam, while not an official representative of any government , has control of some governments - in a similar fashion of how radical Christians while not representing the US government still have quite a bit of control over it?

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Also American culture is chock full of double standards. A good example of this is how Mel Gibson is being dragged over the coals for using an inappropriate word, yet yesterday in a restaurant I heard the same word used 27 times ( yes I counted ) in a conversation at the table next to me, and heard it at just about every stop light from the car radio next to me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Sure, we're full of double-standards, but it doesn't mean we should be catering to them.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, I'm just saying that the double standard re Islam is not a unique snowflake in American culture. It's not like they are being specifically targeted, it's just the way we are.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes, Islam is specifically targeting, along with a long list of other groups and types of people. Today, I was talking about Islam. The fact that this sort of shit happens all the time doesn't make it less important to talk about or more effective to talk about all the groups it happens to all the time, if I'm trying to have a specific conversation about the reception of Islam in the US and in NYC in particular.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I'm not trying to place value / importance on anything. I'm just saying that we are guilty of piles upon piles of double standards. It seems to be the way things operate. I don't expressly agree with it, but that's how it is. I also agree we should not be catering to them, and we should be working towards eliminating them.

[sethg]

If Muslim extremists want to draw attention to their version of Islam, they can blow a bunch of people up, or conspicuously threaten to blow them up.

Having an Islamic community center near a major tourist attraction strikes me as an excellent way for Muslim moderates to draw attention to their version of Islam. It won’t have that effect if the center is built “decorously” in some obscure place.

(I have no interest in lobbying for Islam as such, and I take no sides in disputes over whether the extremists or the moderates represent “true Islam”. I am just in favor of not blowing people up.)

[delchi.livejournal.com]

I'm not suggesting an obscure location ... put it in Times Square (They have the space ) , or in the half built Mosque/Educational center up on 97th st behind Mt Sinai hospital ( I used to live next door to it ). Just not at the location where ~3000 people were killed in the name of Islam. some folks might be touchy about that.

I also am in favor of not blowing people up :)

[trinker.livejournal.com]

In the *perversion* of Islam.

We have, as a culture, been doing the wrong thing in response to this for the last 9 years and more, and I suspect we're going to *keep* doing this and making it worse.

We should have *immediately* declared this the action of a fanatical *fringe* movement, emphasised the *fringe* aspect, and declared it a *criminal* act.

When we make it about all Islam, and into a war, we just glorify their side, and make it easier for them to recruit. Stupid.

No one is calling for a "hail the Islamic heroes of the fall of the WTC" monument next door to the site.

Sigh - all we've managed to do in the last decade is do away with secular Islam/secularism in the Middle East. It makes me cry for all the women who've been shoved back behind the veil involuntarily.