Eccentric Flower:200911/From The Phoenix

From Eccentric Flower

«November 2009 «Eccentric Flower

From The Phoenix

So, ladies and gents, this is how it is. I am aware that I only just posted a fairly long essay, and that many of you have not seen it yet, much less read it - and that this is on top of three entries yesterday, and this business of going from desert to rainforest without warning is mighty disorienting. I do apologize.

Nonetheless, there were some articles from this week's Boston Phoenix which I wanted to link before I forgot them, and I am going to do so. Do not let this prevent you from reading the previous entries, especially the one just previous, which I think is pretty good.

About the only major issue I don't seem to have given any words to anywhere this week is this business of Nidal Hasan. I don't have heavily orchestrated thoughts on this but I think the Phoenix says something important:

That Hasan's faith and its impact on his actions were topics worthy of sober, nuanced analysis seemed to elude pundits on both sides. Instead, the question was framed in stark terms: did Hasan kill because he's a Muslim; or was linking Islam to last week's massacre a gratuitous move that reeked of religious bigotry?

Adam Reilly's fundamental point is that while the right-wing commentators on this were thoroughly repulsive in immediately spouting the equivalent of "No Muslims in this country can be trusted" and other statements even more vile, the left-wing's attempts to keep the discussion completely secular - their backbends and handstands to keep Hasan's faith completely out of the discussion altogether - are just as bad, and in some ways worse:

The problem with this approach, though, is that it ignores how instrumental Hasan's faith could have been in causing his despair and hopelessness in the first place. Maybe Hasan's dissatisfaction with military life made him reluctant to aid what he came to see as a war against his co-religionists. Then again, maybe that reluctance stemmed from the gloss that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan routinely get from Christian and Muslim extremists alike. Or maybe it came from Hasan's own reading of the Koran - copies of which he gave away on the morning of the shootings - which states that Muslims are natural antagonists of Jews and Christians (5:51), and that no Muslim should kill a fellow believer (4:92–3).

True, most American Muslims would not do what Hasan did - just as most American Catholics don't follow the lead of John Salvi III, who murdered two women at two Brookline abortion clinics in 1994. But that shouldn't obscure the theological sheen of each man's crime.

The point here isn't that Islam is more inherently violent than Judaism or Christianity (take a look at Deuteronomy 2:33–34, or Pope Urban II's speech launching the First Crusade before you make that argument). It's that, if we're not honest about the possible religious roots of Hasan's violence last week, we risk fundamentally misunderstanding why he acted as he did - and increasing the likelihood that, if another Hasan comes along, the warning signs will again be ignored until it's too late.

To which I would add: If neither side is interested in having an honest discussion, then we all lose.

Also of note:

Two counterpoint pieces on whether Obama has peaked -

Yes, he has
No, he hasn't

- both of which raise very interesting points about expectations and so forth.

A brief interview with Leonard Nimoy, still one of my favorite people on earth ever.

And a Matt Bors cartoon about - oh, hey, here's another topic I didn't talk about this week! (Panel #2 inspired a long outburst of wry and bitter laughter.)

That is all. Keep calm and carry on.

ProfRobert:

You know, of course, that the Emancipation Proclamation didn't free all slaves, only the ones in states that were "in rebellion." So slaves in Maryland and Delaware, for example, were not liberated until the 13th Amendment. There's more of an analogy here than I think the cartoonist realized.

-- 20:39, 13 November 2009 (GMT)

Bunny42:

Obviously, I think Stark is spot on. (I would, wouldn't I.)

Back a hundred years ago, (it seems like,) I attended a Boca City Council meeting, at which newly-elected council members were being assigned duties and areas of responsibility. One woman, for whom I had not voted, was asked to be the liaison between the Council and the Palm Beach County Board of Commissioners. She declined, declined, mind you, saying she was new and didn't have enough experience for the job. I was so steamed, I went home and wrote her a letter, pointing out that if she weren't qualified for her job, then she should not have run for election in the first place. Sure, there's a certain amount of on-the-job training, but nowhere does it state that the job of city councilperson includes a training period. It was now her job, she should get on with it.

I must not have been the only one she heard from, because she subsequently accepted the position.

Where's all this going? Well, I'm getting a feeling that people are saying wait, give him time, he's new, yada yada. No. That's why he's supposed to have advisors and experts. For example, he's got McCrystal on the ground in Afghanistan, and he's not listening to him. You don't get elected with a year's-worth of apprenticeship. Cut him some slack? How much slack did JFK get? He got dumped right into the Cuban Missile Crisis. Or Dubya? Nine months in office and bam! 9/11. Ramrodding bills through Congress, huge bills, thousands of pages long, without anybody even reading them (stimulus, anyone?) seems reckless and doesn't garner much respect, from me, anyway. The numbers are telling the tale. Hide and watch.

-- 22:07, 13 November 2009 (GMT)

Jette:

I ignored most of the political pieces and read the Nimoy interview, which gave me a warm feeling that we have a President who knows how to give the Vulcan hand gesture. Yeah, okay, I agree he should be doing other stuff better, but my inner geek is pleased for the moment.

-- 22:59, 13 November 2009 (GMT)

Jweader:

Who put the bomp...

in the bomp...

...sha-bomp...

-- 01:43, 14 November 2009 (GMT)

Eccentric Flower:200911/From The Phoenix

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