"It's the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed," said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Morrison, Colo., who had come to Pennsylvania to offer what help he could and attended the burial. He said Marie Roberts was also touched.
"She was absolutely deeply moved, by just the love shown," Porter said.
And the reason for the staying power of each—neoconservatism and jihadism—might, ironically, be the same. Both are movements rhetorically rooted in religion, but politically rooted in self-interest; both cling to religious law when it suits them and ignore it when it suits them, and when absolutely necessary (Jesus never preached a crusade; the Qur’an specifically forbids the killing of non-combattants [Surit il Nisa’]) invent it out of whole-cloth.Read it all.
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Friday that a foreign policy aimed at punishing the Hamas-led Palestinian government through a seven-month aid freeze has failed, and called on the international community to seek other ways to resolve the conflict.What Carter doesn't seem to understand is that sometimes tough love is required. The best way to love the Palestinians is to stop enabling their delusions and their hatred and make them face reality.
"The attempt to coerce Hamas leaders by starving the Palestinian people has failed, and it is time for the international community to alleviate their suffering and resort to diplomacy," Carter said in a statement.
The former president added that he is doubtful that Palestinian leaders will make any progress toward reconciliation with Israel "as long as the Palestinians are subjected to this kind of debasement and personal suffering."
Back in February, you may remember, I cobbled together a little mini-movie called "First, They Came" inspired by the Mohammed Cartoon riots. It's a simple slideshow highlighting the victims of Islamic violence over the years. We posted it at YouTube a while ago. No problems. Until last week, when I received this e-mail: ...
However, an employee of YouTube called Think & Ask following publication of "Fetish Videos Land on Family Entertainment Website YouTube" and for that individual's own protection we agreed not to publish the informant's name or gender. The company has relatively few, but tightly knit employees.
"It [pornography] was bound to happen, but we don't have the [manual] resources to control what people post here," the informant said.
"For our future business model the issue is very sticky. I'm sure upper management won't comment for that reason," the informant said.
Yesterday evening, I took notice of this interview published on September 30, 2006 in the New York Times. Chad Hurley, one of the founders of YouTube, spoke with their reporters and editors to answer some questions, which were excerpted to compile this story, from which I have extracted the following question and response:(The NYT didn't pursue this line of questioning, perhaps because they themselves advertise on YouTube. No possibility of disinterested journalism here.)
Times staff: "But you said a vast majority of your stuff was user-generated and kind of wacky unpredictable stuff. Why would an advertiser want to be next to something where it might be something disgusting?"
Chad Hurley: "Well, I think it's the nature of the Internet. There's not really any safe places on the Internet. And they just want to get in front of audiences.....And I think they're just looking for new opportunities to get in front of an audience, and that's what we're providing for them."
I think that Chad Hurley's comments come as close as you possibly can to stating that he believes most major advertisers care more about getting their message in front of an audience than they do about offending their audience.
First, and exceedingly strange, is the fact that our media has persuaded the public that Mr. Arar is an ordinary immigrant Canadian of Syrian descent. No, he is not an ordinary Canadian like most of us. He is a citizen of Canada and a citizen of Syria. For months this writer has tried verify this fact by listening to every newscast and reading every newspaper possible in order to find out if Mr. Arar was indeed a dual citizen but no luck, nary a mention. Why the silence? Why the mystery? Apparently, the fact was discussed early in the O'Connor Inquiry and then dropped, so there is no excuse for the media.
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Mr. Arar knew the torture practices in his own country, so we should ask Mr. Arar why he risked keeping his Syrian citizenship. Certainly by retaining his Syrian citizenship, Mr. Arar must be partly responsible for his own misfortunes, even if he is totally innocent.
Syria makes it very difficult for expats to renounce their citizenship.
http://www.opm.gov/extra/investigate/IS-01.pdf
LOSS OF CITIZENSHIP:
VOLUNTARY: Though voluntary renunciation of Syrian citizenship is permitted by law, the Syrian Information Office stated that it is so complicated that it is best not to attempt the process. In effect, according to that Office, the process is complicated in order to discourage renunciation of Syrian citizenship. Former citizens of Syria probably maintain an unofficial dual citizenship status and would be subject to Syrian law as citizens should they return to Syria.
Therefore your rant on Maher Arar (http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/field100406.htm) is highly inaccurate. Are you going to publish a retraction?
I generally try to avoid getting involved in the heady realm of Norwegian politics, but an issue has arisen which has serious, far-reaching implications for fathers, our sons, and the very soul of manhood.
The Ottawa Citizen has been highlighting some of the nonsensical censoring going on at the Department of National Defence. To wit:Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor has no intention of dealing with the wave of censorship that has seen his department classify as secret information ranging from the fact that Canadian commandos fought in the Second World War to the hourly cost of operating the military's VIP jets.Bureaucrats, it is commonly known, seem to have a natural aversion to being under scrutiny. Government bureaucrats develop particularly severe cases, and those in military departments push the pathology to ridiculous levels. This is true of all governments in all countries, under parties of all political stripes.
O'Connor's spokesman Etienne Allard said it is up to Defence Department bureaucrats to manage the release of such government records to the public through the access to information law.
As part of its latest secrecy push, the Defence Department on Tuesday declared that releasing information showing Canadians fought with the famed Devil's Brigade during the Second World War could harm national security. Also censored from the records, released to the Ottawa Citizen under the federal access law, are the locations where the Devil's Brigade fought in Europe in the 1940s.
Additional details now being kept from the public are the costs to the department to run individual pieces of equipment, a list that ranges from electric snowblowers to forklifts. Information about the hourly cost of flying the military's Challenger jets, used to ferry politicians and bureaucrats, is also now secret. Such information had been available to the public through the access law up until 2004.
In one sign of their approach to tragedy, Amish residents started a charity fund yesterday not only to help the victims’ families but also to help the gunman’s widow.
Yesterday on NBC News, I saw an Amish midwife who had helped birth several of the girls murdered by the killer say that they were planning to take food over to his family's house. She said -- and I paraphrase closely -- "This is possible if you have Christ in your heart."
We arrived in this community of Nickel Mines, Pa., curious about how the Amish, who live differently than most Americans do, might react to what was an unthinkable act of violence.
It didn't take long for us to learn that the Amish families most affected by this tragedy have responded in a way that might seem foreign to most of us: They talk about Monday's school shooting only in terms of forgiveness.
A cousin of one of the children shot by disturbed killer Charles Carl Roberts, aged 32, has said in an interview that he believes Mr Roberts’ wife would be welcome at the funeral of the girls who died.
The Amish community in Pennsylvania, USA, is in “deep shock” over the events, those close to it say. But they continue to be sustained by the love of God, and by a strong belief in non-violence and the power of forgiveness.
Lefever told those gathered in the large church that he was with Roberts' widow and children Monday when an Amish man arrived at around 9 p.m.
Standing in the kitchen of the man who shot 10 Amish girls hours earlier, he embraced Marie Roberts and offered forgiveness.
"In that place of mourning, there was hope," said Lefever, fighting back tears. "There was life."
...
Marian Koob ... recalled an accident about a year ago when the Amish community offered their forgiveness after a drunken driver killed an entire Amish family as they rode in their buggy.
"The Amish community has taught us all about forgiving," Koob said. "They teach us all how to live in this world."
Callimachus at Done With Mirrors has started a new series on life in Iraq for American contractors. Kat, the young lady on the right, is the contractor in question.This opens a series of posts that will run here over the next few days. It expands the account written by my friend Kat, who worked in Iraq for a contractor in infrastructure reconstruction. That story was told in outline here.Kat was more than a little blistering in her attack on the courage of reporters. She was challenged by a commenter, and her response has grown into a three-part series on life in Iraq for an American contractor. It's a fascinating read, and more than a little disturbing, something like looking into an alternate universe.
A large part of her message is her frustration with the lack of media coverage of work such as she did for almost two years.
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A week or so ago I sent her a link to an interview with New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins. As the interview was written up, it justified the MSM in its lack of complete coverage of Iraq by presenting Iraq as a place too dangerous for them to go out and do their jobs. I knew this would get under her skin, and I hoped it would provoke her to writing a rebuttal to that attitude.
She did, privately, and later she agreed to let me publish it.
Roberts' co-workers said his mood had darkened in recent weeks, but suddenly brightened over the weekend, [State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B.] Miller said.I am struck how easy it is to not know the people we work and even live with. There are things under the surface that can be incredibly powerful - for good or for evil - and yet remain completely hidden. Evil things in particular grow better in the dark. Most of the deranged killers in recent memory have been loners or very quiet men, turned in on themselves, or at the very least, keeping locked rooms in their souls that no one else was allowed to enter.
"A few days before the shooting a weight was lifted," Miller said Tuesday.
It is only when we as a nation recognize that every pre-eminent nation that succeeded us fell when they became enamored with sports, entertainment, and thus became consumed with lifestyles of the rich and famous. We must recognize that we can learn quickly from their mistakes and misplaced values so that we can avoid the same decline.Unlike most commentators, he doesn't wallow in gloom and doom though; he sings the praises of a program designed to point children toward academic excellence - the Carson Scholarship program. Hat tip to Booker Rising.
Travis Biehn, the Newfoundland-born teenager who was convicted in Pennsylvania last year of making a bomb threat against his school and possessing explosives, has won his appeal. Biehn's conviction was overturned last month, and the DA has not filed a counter-appeal.
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Fear is what this whole sorry story is about. Biehn was charged, in the absence of evidence, because of fear. He was convicted, based on innuendo, in a climate of fear. His conviction became news touted by a media that acts to magnify that fear, and commented on by bloggers who were, by and large, too busy pissing themselves to use their brains.
