Nothing Aside

Quote of the Day

From the Guardian's Muslim youth forum:

"Islamist terrorists" is what many are calling them; I am afraid there is no Islam in terrorism; therefore a terrorist can not be an Islamist. To be a Muslim one has to accept Islam and Islam certainly does not call for terror. The primary objective of Islam is to protect and safeguard life, intellect, property, honour and family. These people have clearly shown their true colours and if they are responsible for this carnage, as they claim they are, they have relinquished the right to be called Muslims.

This is the kind of language that needs to be front and center.  I hate it when people refer to "jihadists" as if these terrorists are truly fighting for a religious purpose.  Islam is a convenient vehicle which has been abused and severely misinterpreted by these killers.  It's good to hear someone speaking up about this - someone other than the lonely voices of Khaled Abou El Fadl and Omid Safi.

"We Rose Together"

As it turned out, I was very pleased with my commencement speaker (David Foster Wallace), but check out what my senator, Barack Obama of Illinois, had to say at Knox College:

What will be your place in history?

In other eras, across distant lands, this question could be answered with relative ease and certainty. As a servant in Rome, you knew you’d spend your life forced to build somebody else’s Empire. As a peasant in 11th Century China, you knew that no matter how hard you worked, the local warlord might come and take everything you had—and you also knew that famine might come knocking at the door. As a subject of King George, you knew that your freedom of worship and your freedom to speak and to build your own life would be ultimately limited by the throne.

And then America happened.

A place where destiny was not a destination, but a journey to be shared and shaped and remade by people who had the gall, the temerity to believe that, against all odds, they could form "a more perfect union" on this new frontier.

And as people around the world began to hear the tale of the lowly colonists who overthrew an empire for the sake of an idea, they started to come. Across oceans and the ages, they settled in Boston and Charleston, Chicago and St. Louis, Kalamazoo and Galesburg, to try and build their own American Dream. This collective dream moved forward imperfectly—it was scarred by our treatment of native peoples, betrayed by slavery, clouded by the subjugation of women, shaken by war and depression. And yet, brick by brick, rail by rail, calloused hand by calloused hand, people kept dreaming, and building, and working, and marching, and petitioning their government, until they made America a land where the question of our place in history is not answered for us. It’s answered by us.

Go read the whole speech.  It is a great one.

Graduation

As of today, I join the illustrious ranks of alumni of Kenyon College.  From President Lincoln's Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and the 19th President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes himself, to Butch Cassidy (the great Paul Newman) and Bill Watterson, the pen behind Calvin & Hobbes, the company is quite impressive.  I hope my accomplishments will one day be even a fraction of those by these and the thousands of other alumni who came before me.  For now though, I am just savoring the moment.

Where one major stage of life comes to a close, another will inevitably begin.  Here's to what lies ahead.

Quote of the Day

A quote of the day worth remembering these days as the Religious Right seeks to intrude into American government:

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute - where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote - where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference... I believe in an America that is officially neither Catholic, Protestant nor Jewish - where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches or any other ecclesiastical source - where no religious body seeks to impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.

That's President John F. Kennedy, 45 years ago.  Andrew Sullivan added this:

At the time, the speech was regarded as an attempt to refute anti-Catholic prejudice. Today, wouldn't the theocons regard it as an expression of anti-Catholic prejudice? Wouldn't Bill Frist see president Kennedy as an enemy of "people of faith"? Just asking.

No doubt.  What an unfortunate state of affairs.

The Sights of a State Funeral

One of the most interesting aspects of the Pope's funeral happened earlier today: the official funeral in St. Peter's Square.  What I found to be most captivating was the impressive collection of world leaders all gathered within a few hundred feet of each other.  It really was one of those rare occasions when the leaders of the free world and the not so free world come into contact with each other.  Here are some highlights:

Oh, how awkward!  That is Israeli President Moshe Katzav on the left, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad right behind him.  Pro-Syrian Lebanese Prime Minister Omar Karami, who said he will soon step down, is in the front row on the right.   I'm sure Katzav was a bit uncomfortable with that set-up.

Ouch!  That's Katzav again, this time sharing the screen with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, seen on the right with the shades.  It was almost like the Vatican was not even trying to make things comfortable.

It's not every day President Bush is seen in the same frame as a member of the Axis of Evil.  That's Bush in the foreground, with Khatami in the background.

This is a good one: the UK's Prince Charles on the left, Zimbabwe's dictator Robert Mugabe in the center, and Ukranian President Victor Yushchenko, fresh off his Orange Revolution/near-death poisoning.  Mugabe, who travelled to Italy in defiance of a European Union travel ban, apparently was able to shake hands with Prince Charles.  It was just days ago that Mugabe ranted that Britain's Tony Blair was trying to control his country.  Someone needs to warn the Prince about that sort of diplomatic faux pas.

What can you really say about this picture.  French President Jacques Chirac kisses the hand of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, as President Bush, Laura Bush (seated) former President Clinton, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (top left) and Palestinian Speaker Abu Ala (behind Bush) look on.  Meanwhile, Spanish King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia are seated in the front.  No word on if Bush gave the silent treatment to Annan as a segment of his Republican Party would wish he would.

On a lighter note, the delegation from Bangladesh was headed by Food and Disaster Management Minister Chowdhury Kamal Ibne Yusuf.  Huh?

**UPDATE**: Apparently Katzav shook hands with both Assad and Khatami.  He even spoke with Khatami, in Farsi, about how they were both born in Yazd, Iran.  All sides, of course, insist that these handshakes and exchanges were of no political significance, but it sure makes me wonder.  How much better off would we be today if leaders actually had to represent their relations with each other face to face?  Based on the rhetoric from Tehran and Damascus you would think that Assad and Khatami would have taken the first opportunity to tackle Katzav and take his lunch money.  But they can't do that face to face.  It's not civil.  Imagine if they had to be civil all the time.  Their relations would be incredibly more pragmatic. 

Quote of the Day II

I didn't want to say it, but I'm glad Rep. Christopher Shays (R - CT) did:

My party is demonstrating that they are for states' rights unless they don't like what states are doing.  This couldn't be a more classic case of a state responsibility... The Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy. There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.

It really must be no fun to be a Connecticut Republican these days.  The party of the rich in the north is little more than the party of la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you in Texas and the Bible Belt.  That spells trouble for American democracy.

Quote of the Day

From Thomas Friedman:

This administration is for "ownership" of everything except responsibility.

It's kinda a crucial missing element, isn't it?