Category: The Dish

The military should surely not be training Arab translators, only to fire them because they’re gay. Three more have recently been shown the door. Just crazy.

ABC News says:

"In the six days since we first contacted the CIA and the White House, at no time did they indicate that broadcasting this report would jeopardize lives or operations on the ground. ABC News management gave them the repeated opportunity to make whatever objection they wanted to regarding our report. They chose not to."

Hmmm.

You wannit? You got it.

Asbury Park, New Jersey, 3 pm.

For an interactive gallery of Dish readers’ window views across the world, click here.

Hats off to David Colman who managed to write the following "could-it-get-any-gayer?" sentence in the NYT today:

Many men relish the chance to dress more casually, if they can do it with style. So this spring fashion has come to the rescue, and as usual, fashion is about as much help as a lifeguard waiting for a pedicure to dry.

Go tell it to Dutch.

A reader writes:

What hasn’t been talked about much in the just released Pew poll is that, while 47 percent consider themselves Muslim first and American second, 42 percent consider themselves Christian first and American second.

And while 43 percent of American Muslims think mosques/churches should express views on political/social issues, 54 percent of American Christians think likewise.

I certainly hope America has enough genius to assimilate those Christians, too.

Another adds:

Clearly, there are troubling aspects to the poll, the suicide bombing response in particular. However, when it comes to issues of governance and influence there are parallels. A Pew poll from August 24, 2006 yielded the following: "(S)ix-in-ten white evangelical Protestants say that the Bible should be the guiding principle in making laws when it conflicts with the will of the people."

From the same 2006 poll, 67 percent of those polled believe "the U.S. is a Christian nation." I suppose that self identity isn’t so much the problem as how one lives his or her civic life — or more importantly, how that civic life impacts the civic life of others. The problem is when personal faith becomes public oppression, or worse. I suppose naysayers could claim there is no comparison between the two polls, in terms of worst-case outcomes. Yet, we shouldn’t have to choose between the lesser of two fundamentalisms, should we?

The chief military investigator of Abu Ghraib takes a strong stand. Funny, isn’t it, how so many military leaders oppose the use of torture, under any euphemism? There is a difference between Hollywood and honor, and it is very sad that so many conservatives of all people can’t see that.

"James nodded his thanks, opened the wax paper and looked a bit suspiciously at the offering, it looked to be a day or two old and suddenly he had a real longing for the faculty dining room on campus, always a good selection of Western and Asian food to choose from, darn good conversations to be found, and here he now sat with a disheveled captain who, with the added realization, due to the direction of the wind, was in serious need of a good shower," – Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen, as quoted by Janet Maslin in a hilarious review in the NYT today.

Love this bit:

If the climactic battle in "Pearl Harbor" is the only stage at which the authors’ fascination with their subject comes alive, much more of the narrative is taken up with prophetic conversation. "I was born in Hiroshima," says Genda Minoru, the Japanese military strategist, when he encounters the American general Carl Andrew Spaatz, known as Tooey, when they meet by chance aboard a Pan Am Clipper (a plane that is lovingly described as an example of American luxury and know-how). "You should visit Hiroshima some day, sir."

The general, who will go on to lead the strategic bombing of Japan, replies, "Perhaps I will some day."

Did Trey Parker ghost-write it?

A quote from the past.

Some of you may have already seen this video of the public stoning of a Yazidi girl for dating a Sunni in Kurdistan. Digby comments here. I don’t think finding a connection between this and the Iraq war makes much sense. What you see here is a glimpse of the other side of the cultural abyss, in which the control of women – their bodies and their souls – by brutal patriarchal fundamentalists is the norm. It’s evil.