Merit-bound Alley

Dear Body,

Why do you hurt me? Through all my years, I’ve tried to look the other way and hope things would change. I’ve been good to you. I’ve given you coffee when you wanted it, any treats that you desired, even went and got you the women that you wanted. I’ve seen you grow large and flabby, but that didn’t change the way I felt about you. All I’ve gotten from you out of 31 years of dedication are aches, pains, and 13 years of back problems but this last is the worst betrayal that I could imagine.

Now, they tell me that you stop breathing while I sleep! You motherfucker. I would never willingly harm you, yet you constantly hurt me, and now I find out that you’re trying to get rid of me in my most vulnerable moments? That’s just sick! You’d better shape up, you abusive douchebag, or I’m outta here. You’re not leaving me any choice. If you shape up, we can be together for 40-50 more years, if you don’t… well, you’ll miss me when I’m gone, I can guaran-fucking-tee that!

Well, I’ll be getting a mask that will make certain that any further attempts to get rid of me will fail. I want to trust you, but I just can’t right now. I hope you understand. Shithead.

Yours until Death,

-Joe

A scientific look at the magic appearance of presents that your parents didn’t buy. I particularly like this quote:

Is External Delivery the same as Santa Clausism?

No. The theory of external delivery is only concerned with empirically testing whether Christmas presents are delivered by an external agent, or an internal agent such as your parents. Santa Clausism typically starts with the premise that Santa Claus is delivering presents, and then seeks to fit the evidence to that theory. The theory of external delivery has developed strictly from objective interpretations of the empirical evidence.

Enjoy!

Well, the verdict is in, and Miss Gibbons is guilty. However, the court allowed a lesser sentence of 15 days in jail, which while still ridiculously severe for the “crime” is better than 6 months and 40 lashes. I guess we can all be happy that Sudanese Muslims did not decide to brutalize an old woman. Yay for them.

The real good news in this mess is the rare public outcry (and the more rare news coverage of such) of moderate Muslims in the west. The following quote reflects views that I suspect are more prominent than we realize:

“It’s very, very sad, very embarrassing for us,” said Dr. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament in Great Britain, earlier this week. “The Muslim community here has also expressed that this is simply unacceptable behavior from the Sudanese government, and I think the Sudanese have got to realize that this episode is doing immense damage to their credibility outside.”

Less bold is this statement from Daisy Khan, director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement:

“I think that what we’re looking at is a difference of cultural expression,” Khan said, “because most Muslims revere their prophets and don’t name their prophets in vain.

And:

“What we’re looking at here is a cultural ‘faux pas,’ and there’s a political undercurrent that’s running through this furor,” said Khan. 

While I appreciate that Khan is speaking out (kinda) against this monstrosity, it bothers me that she is doing it in a typical American Pussy fashion that forwards the view that any discussion of religion must be handled with kid gloves. Where is the outrage? This kind of wishy-washy limp dishrag statement does nearly as much harm to the credibitilty of Muslims as the barbarism of the monsters that wanted to batter Ms. Gibbons in the first place. Don’t talk about “cultural differences” when a government wanted to incarcerate and whip the shit out of an old woman who gave a toy to some kids! I want want to see Khan flushed with rage and sick with anger that these tyrants want to brutalize a kindly teacher in the name of her god.

Now, I’m going to take a shot at the media for their shameful dereliction of duty in not giving an appropriate amount of coverage of moderate Muslim decrial of this and other inhumanities dealt out by extremists in the Middle East. While I do think that moderate Muslims need to be more vocal, what’s the point if the media ignores it? There should be as much coverage of the outcry as there is of the target of that outcry, otherwise you have slant. But let’s face it, folks, bad news gets viewers, and we will probably never see the moderate Muslims on any network as much as we will see Anna Nicole, the War on Christmas, or OJ.

So, a heartfelt round of applause goes out to Dr. Siddiqui and others who are not afraid to voice their disgust, and the a hearfelt middle finger to those afraid to voice theirs and the media for not giving it the attention it deserves.