As for the ALA, I have known for about 13 years that all is not well at the libraries, well before post-911 surveillance laws, though I strongly support public libraries. I'm not exactly sure if my experience with the public library here was typical or how broad a policy what I saw go on might have been, but when I was researching something controversial there, the books were not reshelved after I returned them. I noticed that at the time and wondered if someone was watching what I was doing but dismissed my sudden doubts about what that meant. Big mistake. I got in trouble for reading those books. There has been some talk here and there on key subjects that are controversial of resources suddenly disappearing from shelves, and ever since then I always wonder. Best option is to read it on the site and never check it out, but sometimes that's not feasible.
The email from this Myra person has the schedule for the original program, and that to me seems really odd in itself. Your talk on jihad seems to have nothing remotely to do with the other speakers' topics, unless they thought you meant to talk about it as interior struggle rather than military action. Maybe this was an Alinsky-style set up in that case.
Did you actually read the report referenced? It's quite interesting. Here's the link:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/library/documents/asia... Definitely worth the time to slog through that and see the direction of things, though I wonder seeing all the typical earmarks this site points out in these cases why the organization had such a dismissive summary of the jihadi intent. Were they a little nervous maybe?
If you read my comments below and on other posts regarding Angels & Demons on this site, I am not taking issue with the fact that historical facts should not be messed with, that is unless they do something like with the Watchmen where they came out and stated at the beginning that this was an alternate reality and not things as they actually happened. This website is getting way too hostile in its conversation, and by no means were any of my comments above out of line or extreme. Many of the people I'm around are more arch-conservative Catholics who do think exactly like your "straw man". I think the tone of your comments above is unnecessarily sharp, and maybe this isn't the site for me to be bothering with anymore.
This post is a scream. I'm waiting now for the new "WWMD?" bracelets, courtesy of the latest CNN column asking "What Would Michelle Do?" And you thought the Obama Chia Pets were flying off the shelves. Just wait until this one hits. As for the other Obama porn, I try to avoid grocery store checkouts and walk through bookstore chains as if I had blinders. You'd think they'd get tired of it, wouldn't you?
The social construction of reality is true to the same extent multiculturalism is true. They just take it to such extremes that it becomes a parody of itself. It's true that language and culture limit our ability to perceive and interpret, but there's still some objective truth somewhere even if we don't see it. By the same token, appreciating other cultures and seeing some good in them is a worthy goal, but that doesn't make them equal or to be embraced uncritically.
I have my own theory on past injustices, also not likely to be popular. Here's the rule, if it didn't happen to you personally, then you have no right to be upset about it. Period. If the actual victim is dead, and the actual victimizer is dead, end of story. God will deal justice in the end after death if not in life. I came to this enlightened view after spending five months working on a job where a white Jewish woman and a black woman argued constantly about which of their people were history's ultimate victims. The funny thing was both of them were middle-upper class, families all educated, had good jobs, and neither of them went to the gas chambers or the slave block themselves, though you'd never know it to hear them whine all the time.
I thought I heard Putin now has a civilian youth corp, Nashi, and has taken on a more KGB style. So much for it snapping back after chaos.
Take it further and consider what will happen to music, photos of loved ones, and dancing. As a student of bellydance, I know there are worthy elements of their culture, but in spite of them, not because of them.
You may want to expand on the theme a bit and go into the results of athiesm, like Pol Pot, Maoist, and Stalinist massacres, because that's rather unique, even when compared to religious violence.
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