New Yorkers, opportunistic politicians, and the ignorant and intolerant are up in arms over plans to build a multi-story mosque just blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. Well, not a multi-story mosque exactly, more like a community center open to the public (sort of a YMMA), which includes a prayer room, but let’s not let facts get in the way of hysteria.
The two Egyptian men behind the plan say it’s meant as a statement against extremism, to bridge the gap between Muslims and non-Muslims. A Tea Party spokesman calls it a memorial to the 9/11 hijackers.
An upcoming ad campaign, to appear on New York City buses, will demand that the city prohibit the building from being constructed. The ads will show pictures of one of the planes hitting the World Trade Center.
A spokesperson for the group paying for the ads said that being allowed to run the ads is a victory for free speech and tolerance.
A victory for free speech and tolerance.
The sound you hear is George Orwell turning over in his grave.
As an American, this all disgusts me. And it’s stupid as well as wrong, because what we’re telling the Muslim world that we think of every Muslim as our enemy.
As a Jew, the fact that so many Jewish groups are joining the hysteria troubles me. And it’s stupid as well, because traditionally, when a government looks for excuses to single out and discriminate against a religious group, it tends to be the Jews. Letting hysteria decide where Muslims can’t build… is that a precedent we really want to support? Hatred of Muslims is just the flavor of the week: anti-Semitism endures.
If this arrogant son of a bitch doesn’t get tossed out of office over this incident, then surely no voter who reads this New York Daily News headline will vote for him again.
And this year’s Worst and Most Misleading Newspaper Headline award goes to… [full News article here]
When I saw the headline, I thought there was something more to the story. But no, it’s apparently just a woman who was rushed to the delivery room on her wedding day. Gosh. Aside from the fact that this has been a cliche since the time of Rock Hudson and Doris Day, hasn’t this happened a zillion times?
Sarah Palin complained that this week’s Newsweek cover is sexist, and… well, I think I sort of agree, though we might be dealing with semantics here: Certainly Newsweek chose this particular photo with the inten of trivializing Palin (the photo is real, but was taken earlier this year as part of a spread for Runner’s World magazine). And they probably wouldn’t have used this sort of photo to trivialize a male politician (can you imagine a cover story about Obama’s domestic policy agenda being illustrated with this?
So if using a “sexy” cover photo of a female politician is a context where you wouldn’t use one of a male politician is sexist, then I find myself in the odd position of siding with Palin.
Of course what I found most interesting about all this was Palin’s comment on the cover, ending with “If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin” — clear proof, I guess, that she writes her own material. I mean, I sort of maybe know what she’s kind of getting at here, but…
And actually what makes that quote more interesting is the fact that it was written (apparently) on the same day that she vigorously defended racial profiling on the Sean Hannity show.
One of the tabloid television programs — ET, I think; I saw this on one of the tv screens at the health club — conducted a poll asking “Do you feel David Letterman has sufficiently apologized?”
I’m not clear why Letterman should be apologizing to anybody other than Mrs. L, and certainly he doesn’t owe me anything, so I’m not entirely certain how the ET audience defines “a sufficient apology.”
Actual broadband speeds lag advertised speeds by as much as 50% to 80%. So more than half the time, and sometimes as much as eight out of ten times, consumers are paying for slower Internet access speed than they signed up for.
Interesting enough, the Post owns Newsweek, which I believe, over the past year, has not published a single statistic they did not mangle.
I got a message from my son’s high school this afternoon assuring me that he would not be forced to watch Obama’s speech next week, and that the school would provide an alternative educational program for all students whose parents opted them out of watching the speech. I understand this sort of thing is going on in schools all across the country.
Is there any explanation for this other than mass insanity? I could understand it if Obama were intending to ask children to tell their parents to support his health care reform, or suggest they go through their mothers’ pocketbooks and send him all those little pieces of green paper with presidents’ pictures on them… but apparently he’s only going to offer a pep talk about working hard in school.
Just the sort of underhanded thing you’d expect from a native-born Kenyan!
Does anybody sincerely think this is controversial? And if so, why not just follow with an opposing viewpoint such as a clip from Ferris Bueller?
The singer’s upcoming 50 concerts will make him rich again — if he holds up”
Thus begins one of the lead articles in the July 9 Rolling Stone, which hit the stands today. I don’t know, this just seems like way too long a lead time for a weekly magazine.
Laurence Bunin, the general manager of the College Board’s Scholastic Aptitude Test, the exam that measures the math and language skills of millions of college-bound high school students, told Newsweek magazine that there are “less kids taking [the] SAT.”
Um…
Which brings up an interesting question: Should a reporter (or the reporter’s editor) ever edit a direct quote? The point of a direct quote is, of course, to reproduce strictly verbatim what the subject said — but should a grammatical (or minor factual) gaffe ever be “fixed” for publication?
This is what the congressionally mandated report, released yesterday, actually said:
“The commission believes that unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013.”
Did anybody see a single newspaper headline that didn’t say that a WMD attack was either “Likely,” “Almost Inevitable” or “Inevitable”?
“I’m sorry it’s happening, of course. Obviously I don’t like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s. On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system. I mean, we’re in. And if we need to be in more, we will.” -George W. Bush, December 1, 2008
I find it interesting how often newspapers and other media are nearly unanimous in telling us in large print that this public figure or another is apologizing for such or such (and I’m not even talking about the insipid, meaningless “I take full responsibility for” comments), when in fact they’ve done no such thing.
According to Newsweek magazine, one of Hillary Clinton’s staffers told one of the magazine’s reporters during the primaries that everybody after a certain point everybody was “fed up with the Bill Clinton mishegoss.”
This word has always been a part of my personal vocabulary, but does the quote make any sense to most of Newsweek’s audience? I’ve noticed that New York City-based magazines and (to an even larger extent) Hollywood screenwriters seem convinced that the entire country is familair with Yiddish (which I suppose, if these magazines and screenwriters keep using it, might eventually be the case).
From today’s Eugene (Oregon) Register-Guardian, referring to today’s court appearance by Joel Courtney, accused of abducting and murdering 22-year-old Brooke Wilberger in 2004:
Citing respect for the Wilberger family, [the prosecutor] did not say whether they planned to attend Courtney’s arraignment or trial. Calls to the family were not returned Tuesday night.
