Month: November 2009

A reader writes:

I love my mother, but she exasperates me sometimes. She told me today that no Muslims should be allowed in the military. I told her that people used to think that about Catholics. To which she said, “That’s different. We’ve proved ourselves. The Muslims haven’t.”

If I’d had the presence of mind at the time, I would have pointed out something that occurred to me afterwards. There are an estimated 1.1 – 7 million Muslims living in the United States (I don’t think there’s an exact estimate). Our country has been at war with Afghanistan (a war I supported with mixed emotions) for eight years. We have been at war with Iraq (a war based on a lie) for almost seven years. If Muslims match the caricatures bandied about by today’s right-wing talking heads, wouldn’t Fort Hood be just another day in America? Where are all our Muslim American suicide bombers?

It occurred to me (too late for my argument with my mother) that maybe the most important news about America’s Muslims isn’t what we hear, it’s what we *don’t* hear. I hope I don’t sound like I’m damning with faint praise. “Good for those Muslims, they’re not blowing themselves up in shopping malls!” I don’t mean to. I mean to make a point: We have occupied one or more largely Muslim nations for several years, led by the dunderhead who described himself shortly after 9/11 as “on a crusade.” And yet Fort Hood stands out precisely because of the rarity of Muslim American attacks on fellow Americans. This matters.

Yes it does. And it stands in stark contrast with much of Western Europe.

Not so great for the Democrats or the president. The attacks and the recession and worries about health insurance reform are taking their toll.

"We talked about everything. There's nothing that we didn't talk about," – Oprah Winfrey, on her taping with Sarah Palin yesterday.

A reader writes:

My son, Calvin, has Down syndrome. We did not find out until after his birth, but it would have been nice to know. My wife and I love our son more than anything in the world. When you receive the diagnosis, though, you go through a mourning. You mourn the loss of the future you thought you had. Knowing before-hand would have allowed us to go through the grieving process before his birth. We would have been able to just enjoy him. We look back now and wonder what we were even mourning. Our future, and his, is nothing but bright. I think you might be overstating things with the amnio. A recent study has shown the risk to be very low.

Also, I want to point out that my son was not a “Down syndrome baby,” nor was Trig Palin. The are people who have Down syndrome, just like you are not an HIV man – you have HIV. You are not defined by HIV, it is something you have. Calvin and Trig are not defined by Down syndrome; it is a condition they have. Trust me, to people who are involved in the disability community, whenever you write “Down syndrome baby” it comes across as ignorant.

Thanks for the link to the 2006 study. As for terminology, it was shorthand and not intended to offend. But we won’t use it again and are grateful for the input.

Another lie.

Senator Lindsey Graham is censured by the Charleston GOP for supporting cap-and-trade legislation to tackle climate change, for supporting the bailout of the banks, and for backing McCain’s immigration bill. The base of the GOP’s position seems to be that climate change is a hoax, the banks should have been allowed to fail, and illegal immigrants should be rounded up and sent home. This is not a serious platform for a party interested in actually governing.

Ryan Avent ponders the greenness of car sharing:

Zipcar may mean that some trips which were previously taken on foot or by transit are now taken by automobile. But because using an automobile to ferry around huge items is so much more convenient than trying to do it on foot, the availability of car-sharing makes city life more attractive relative to the suburban alternative. And this should encourage more people to live in cities, which will indisputably be green, on net.

Phew. A zipcar is the only guzzler we use. And only when we have to move something big or heavy, or have to go somewhere outside of bike-range.

The indispensable Laura Rozen does her best:

The one-on-one meeting between Obama and Netanyahu was supposed to last 30 minutes, but it went on for 70 minutes, a diplomatic source said — a very long one-on-one meeting with POTUS. There was also a 20 minute meeting between the larger U.S. and Israeli PM delegations.

The immense damage done by secretary of state Clinton's "unprecedented" gaffe is clearly being walked back as thoroughly as possible. It is easily the worst diplomatic error she has made so far. Rozen parses Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns speech to the Middle East Institute on Monday and doesn't disagree with the American Task Force for Palestine's Hussein Ibish:

"Almost everything cited here shows a subtle but noticeable shift back towards the Palestinian perspective."

And for domestic consumption: the appointment of a US special envoy to monitor global anti-Semitism. Which, given the climate these days, is a very good thing. Bottom line: amid deep, deep gloom (thanks largely to Netanyahu's intransigence), some tiny specks of hope.

Tyler Cowen flags a Ben Casnocha post on the subject:

There are some remarkable contrasts between "dumb" searches and "smart" ones. People who start their search "how 2" are more likely to search "how 2 get pregnant" or "how 2 grow weed." People who start their search "how one might" are more likely to search "how one might discover a new piece of music" or "how one might for the rise of andrew jackson in 1828."

Dan Savage: