For more than a week I’ve wanted to post about CNN’s Generation Islam feature, and it has been thwarting me by making it impossible to copy and paste the text or save the graphics. I had to resort to typing. It is not clear to me why CNN is interested in disseminating a mix of accurate and inaccurate information about Islam right now, but they’re doing it and so here I am.

The Generation Islam premise seems to be that Muslims are exotic people in strange clothes who live far away and that there is a giant gulf between us and them, and that those Muslims resent us for mysterious reasons and we might want to do something about it so they don’t hurt us again.

Here’s the tagline right under the banner:

9/11 taught the U.S. that it ignores rising Muslim resentment at its own peril. America can’t have another generation of Muslims who hate it. Is it possible to win the hearts and minds of Muslim youth?

and the first link, immediately underneath it:

Experts: Why some turn to violence

This will take more than one blog post to squeeze all the possibilities out of Generation Islam. Let’s start with the simple stuff and go to the Islam: Key facts page.

Islam has a monotheistic (belief in one God) message and follows some of the same principles as Christianity and Judaism. Muslims, the followers of Islam, believe in Allah and believe Mohammed was his prophet.

I used to expect better from CNN. Of course, that was before Lou Dobbs starting telling lies in prime time and getting away with it. So now I’m dying to know which principles CNN thinks Muslims follow that Christians and Jews also follow, and which ones CNN thinks they don’t. CNN also leads us to think that Muslims believe in some crazy, alternative god named “Allah,” whose pronoun doesn’t get capitalized the way good old American God’s pronoun does.

CNN has several related articles on the page. Kind of a journalistic version of “scent layering,”* which a guy in my college speech class explained as he gave us all an Amway-style sales pitch as a class assignment.

I saw part of the story about the Muppet Show for Palestinian children the other day. Maybe I’ve gotten overly sensitive, but the vibe I got from what I saw was that Palestinian children are inherently prone to violence, probably due to their Arab genes, and need extra handling and guidance to guide them on the right path.

Daoud Kuttab, executive producer of “Shara’a Simsim,” knows that the Muppets are highly effective communicators. “Anything the Muppets do, anything they say, any idea they transmit, the children accept.”

An internationally respected Palestinian journalist, Kuttab began working with the show more than a decade ago. After covering the war-torn region for years, he realized that Sesame was a great way to reach Palestinian children who desperately needed an alternative to the harsh lessons they were absorbing.

“I would say 3-, 4-, 5-year olds — if we don’t catch them at that early age, we do risk losing them to all kinds of propaganda, whether it’s conservative, religious or fundamentalist,” Kuttab said.

Okay, I would argue that Palestinian children aren’t absorbing any worse lessons than Israeli children are. Different, sure. Palestinian children are seeing that they are second-tier human beings, and they can expect to spend their whole lives being pushed around, made to wait in interminable lines, walled off from their own property, arrested or shot for venturing outdoors, etc., but Israeli children are learning that apartheid is natural, that some people are far beneath others, and that disproportionate violence is the only way to deal with your unfounded fears.

“We are interested in teaching tolerance, respect, pride in their own country and their own nation, and also in understanding that there are people who are different, and that’s OK,” Kuttab said.

“Boys are a problem in our society. They see their parents being humiliated. They think they are the men of the house and have to do something about it. But they can’t do anything,” Kuttab said. “We’re trying to tell them, ‘your energy is OK, but let’s channel it in a different way.’ “

Live-action segments introduce children to Palestinians who have channeled their energy into becoming teachers, doctors or business owners — people, Knell says, “who can act as role models, people who strive to remove themselves from the hardships children see.”

Sesame Workshop hopes to expand this type of localized programming into other areas that have witnessed recent conflict, such as Pakistan. Perhaps that means Iraq will get its own show someday and won’t have to hold on to someone else’s.

The bolding is mine. As far as I can see so far, this is the only acknowledgement in this entire Generation Islam cloud of “information” that the population of Gaza is in distress, and that those scary Muslims who might wish to do violence to us might have a reason for it. More information here would have done a world of good, CNN.

As for Shara’a Simsim, it’s basically nothing more than a new market for Sesame Street. At least it’s not Disney Princesses.

—-
*Off-topic plea: please go easy on the perfume and cologne. As in, I shouldn’t be able to smell your perfume or cologne unless I am snuggling you.

I’ve blogged about this before. In the United States and Britain, it’s generally considered extremely cute to dress animals in human clothes. On the other hand, in parts of the middle east, it’s considered a grave insult.

Here’s a recent case.

Apparently the movie I Love You Man includes a little dog named Anwar Sadat, named because he “looks like” the late president.

Rokaya Sadat, elder daughter of the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, claims the memory of her father has been sullied by a Hollywood film that has named a dog after him. Sadat has filed a lawsuit against Minister of Information Anas Fekki for allowing the release of the “I Love you, Man” in Egyptian cinemas.

One of the film’s main characters calls his dog Anwar El Sadat. In one scene, when asked if he chose the name because of Sadat’s political views, the character responds by saying that the dog merely looks like the former president, who was assassinated by Islamic radicals in 1981. The movie’s credits also contains Sadat’s name as himself/the dog.

Despite omitting the scene from the version currently playing in Egyptian cinemas, many pundits believe that it should have never been shown in this country.

“Any artist is allowed to criticize public figures and men in power like current and ex-presidents, but it is totally unacceptable to insult someone like El Sadat in a film,” prominent film historian and critique Tarek Shenawi told Al-Hayat TV. “It is really strange to find El Sadat, who is well-known and respected in the West for his peace achievements, get mocked like this.”

She really believes this was intended as an insult to Sadat’s memory. That’s what’s so sad about this.

Of course, cartoons like this probably don’t help:

so you can kind of see why they'd be sensitive

I seriously cannot believe this never occurred to me before. I mean, I’ve been annoyed that there seem to be no language classes at Hogwarts–not only do students there not even learn the English they need to hold down a job, but they don’t even consider the importance of learning foreign languages so they can travel the world acquiring useful spells and potion recipes–but I didn’t realize until today that Parseltongue in the Harry Potter universe is very similar to Arabic here.

Parseltongue is the language of snakes, and the wizarding world considers it a sign of a dark wizard. At first I thought maybe Parseltongue is only the language that snakes use to speak to humans, not to other snakes. But at one point Harry overhears a snake talking to himself.

When Harry speaks to a snake in Parseltongue in front of his classmates, they assume on the face of it that he was telling the snake to attack. This reminds me so much of the “joke” answers I keep seeing on Yahoo Answers, that go something like this:

Question: How do I say, “I love you, mom” in Arabic?

Answer from some ass: “Blow urself up ur virgins r waiting.”

Possibly because Parseltongue can only be learned with great difficulty, Harry conveniently receives the ability from his early encounter with Lord Voldemort. It would make logical sense for Parseltongue to be difficult for a native English-speaker to learn, since only a witch with patience and determination would stick with studying it until reaching fluency.

Why on earth should we assume the entire snake species is up to no good, though? The issue is not addressed.

هل انت بخير يا اخي؟ الحمدلله بخير و انت؟

Found this clip on YouTube, from the movie Alexander. Here’s the conqueror entering Babylon, you can see glimpses of the Ishtar gate and near the end there’s a view of the city. Pretty cool.

I recently watched this History Channel three-hour movie. Before I rented it I read a couple dozen reviews on Netflix. It was funny how many reviewers were angry that it showed the Crusaders in a bad light some of the time. They felt the program dwelt more on the Crusaders bad behavior than the Muslims’. I took that with a grain of salt, because having already read The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf, I was already familiar with the Arab view of the Crusades.

I disagree with those reviewers. While the Crusaders were portrayed in a worse light than we are used to, the program wasn’t kind to the Muslims. First of all, every actor portraying a Muslim character was unattractive. Call me superficial, but I think a subtle thing like that makes a difference. What was weird was that I kept seeing actors who looked like attractive Arab men to me, but then it would turn out they were portraying Crusaders or Christians.

I’m sure most people who watched this program were surprised to hear of the cannibalism that occurred that at Ma’arra (معرة النعمان) an incident that was sandwiched between the wholesale slaughter of Antioch and the wholesale slaughter of Jerusalem. I was surprised myself when I read about, in fact, it didn’t even sink in until the second time I read it.

From Wikipedia:

One of the crusader commanders wrote to Pope Urban II: “A terrible famine racked the army in Ma’arra, and placed it in the cruel necessity of feeding itself upon the bodies of the Saracens.”[citation needed]

Radulph of Caen, another chronicler, wrote: “In Ma’arra our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking-pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled.”[1]

These events were also chronicled by Fulcher of Chartres, who wrote: “I shudder to tell that many of our people, harassed by the madness of excessive hunger, cut pieces from the buttocks of the Saracens already dead there, which they cooked, but when it was not yet roasted enough by the fire, they devoured it with savage mouth.”[2]

Many authors suggest that the crusaders’ behaviour was not really born of their hunger but fanatical belief that the Muslims were even lower than the animals.[citation needed] Amin Maalouf in his book The Crusades Through Arab Eyes points out the most crucial line for such belief among the Muslims: “Not only did our troops not shrink from eating dead Turks and Saracens; they also ate dogs!” by Albert of Aix.

The portrayal of Saladin seemed like a bit of a hatchet job. They portrayed him as a hale and hearty man, when the Arab historians say he was frail, and they skip over everything that leads to his being thrust into leadership of Cairo after the former strongman is killed, because he (Saladin) is perceived as the weakest of the possible choices and therefore the least threat. Then they allude to how Saladin’s rivals and enemies kept fortuitously dying, as if Saladin as a young lad was the evil genius behind this. It was reminiscent of the famous Clinton death list (I don’t know if this is the most up-to-date version, but I know there’s already an Obama version circulating).

The Arabs realize that Saladin got a lot of lucky breaks. But when Frederick Barbarossa, King of Germany, the most powerful Christian king ever to embark on a Crusade and a huge threat to Saladin, drowned in a freak accident while fording a river, even the most ambitious spinmeister couldn’t find a way to pin it on Saladin.

Speaking of whether the program portrayed the Crusaders unfairly, I found it interesting that the scene of Saladin’s soldiers cutting off the heads of Templars and Hospitallers after the battle of Hattin and the scene of Richard I’s soldiers cutting off the heads of 2,000 hostage Muslim soldiers were almost identical.

Wikipedia:

On Monday, July 6, two days after the battle, the captured Templars and Hospitallers were given the opportunity to convert to Islam. According to Imad al-Din, only a few accepted, although those that did became devout Muslims.

The executions (one of only two executions of prisoners ordered by Saladin) were by beheading. In an act of solidarity, many of the captured crusaders wrongly claimed to be Templar knights, forcing Saladin’s men to behead them as well [7]. Saint Nicasius, a Knight Hospitaller venerated as a Christian martyr, is said to have been one of the victims.[8]

“Saladin ordered that they should be beheaded, choosing to have them dead rather than in prison. With him was a whole band of scholars and sufis and a certain number of devout men and ascetics, each begged to be allowed to kill one of them, and drew his sword and rolled back his sleeve. Saladin, his face joyful, was sitting on his dais, the unbelievers showed black despair” – Imad ed-Din, Saladin’s Secretary [9]

That was in 1187. In 1191 (from Wikipedia):

Richard had kept 2,700 Muslim prisoners as hostages against Saladin fulfilling all the terms of the surrender of the lands around Acre. Philip, before leaving, had entrusted his prisoners to Conrad, but Richard forced him to hand them over to him. Richard feared his forces being bottled up in Acre, as he believed his campaign could not advance with the prisoners in train. He therefore ordered all the prisoners executed.

By beheading.

The program never even mentioned Saladin’s famous benevolence in sparing conquered people, which led to his eventual downfall.

You wouldn’t want this documentary be the only thing you know about the Crusades, but it does a pretty good job. After all, the Crusades in the Holy Land lasted almost two hundred years, and this was a three-hour program.

Jon Stewart expresses appreciation for Arabic linguists on April 28th’s the Daily Show. At least that’s how I interpret it.

At 2:45 in part 3 of his interview with Cliff May, the full version of which appears on thedailyshow.com.

“…and we’re going to get better at getting information by learning Arabic…”

Arabic linguists, the civilized alternative to torture.

Was Watto meant to be an insulting stereotype of an Arab, a Jew, or just Semitic in general?

I love Veronica Mars! I watch at it almost everyday after school, even though there have been some little time to it now days. It is the sweetest program, her life is so perfect. Kristen Bell is an incredibly good actoress, just like Jason Doring. Love them both.
Do you know about a cuter couple?
Found an incredibly cute video, check it out.

Lately Kristin Bell and the creator if VM Rob Thomas ran into each other, and they were discussing a new concept; Veronica Mars the Movie.
Now Kristin Bell is shouting Heroes, and Rob Thomas is busy with other protects. But he said “as soon as I have any free time, [the movie is] my top priority.” So we’ll just have to wait and see. I think this will be a great idea! VM on big screen, love it.

Q: Do you like this idea?

-S

Now the show 90210 are coming to Norway! But not before this fall.
I can’t belive it. I have watched that show since last fall, and now its coming to Norway. One whole year after america.
I can’t see there is a point, thows who really want to see it already has.
>

It’s the same about Gossip Girl. Now there is episodes on TV that I have seein i November last year.
I hope Norwegian TV soon will figure that out, and just pay a little more for the shows. It’s that way they get viewers.

-S

The Norwegian version of PH is beginning to be kind of tragic. First they start with having two contestants that have been dating for two years (Rune and Ida), than broken up. And now they both are in PH. After that we get to know that there is a third contestant that know Rune, and have hade some flirting with him (Noor).
Then there are supposed to come two new guys that no one knows. But we get to know that right after Rune and Ida had broken up, Ida slept with one of his best mates (Vegard). Of course Rune got mad, and didn’t speak to Vegard anymore.
Guess who came to Paradise? Vegard!
-
I do love a bit drama, but this is too obvious. The drama can be around the other couples as well.
BTW, who is your top two and who bottom two?
For me it is Lene and Maths for top two and Noor and Vegard for the bottom two.

-S

Today the Norwegian version of Paradise Hotel starts. Guess who is going to sit right in front of the TV? Me!
Actually is it a program that just is about stupid things, like sleeping with everyone. But I just have to see it, addicted after they sent the Danish version last summer.
- Are you going to see it?

S*

I still haven’t seen any of Little Mosque on the Prairie yet, but this clip from YouTube just makes me want to see it more.

this is a movie i just watched with my godfather (daddy) and my godmother (mama). actually i just watched the ending but it was still a really good movie. you can see the rating at imdb.com (internet movie data base). this is the trailer:

this is the ending where they do their bollywood dance:) mama says that ever bollywood film has one:

and this is just an interview with the two main characters Dev Patel and Freida Pinto. on imdb, it said that dav is from th UK. you can hear his accent on the video. and he is only like a year older than i am! the freida girl is from india but she doesn’t have a strong indian accent it’s funny. she is like seven years older than i am. she is really pretty though:

-soenatashia

Hahaha i just talked about how they should have categories and here it is!!! i already moved that post onto here. so there was this other korean drama i was hooked on. it is called Spring Waltz. it’s a season themed type of movie directed by the same guy who also directed it’s other season themed drama Yoon Suk Ho.

• Alternative Title: 봄의 왈츠 / Bom-ui Wal-cheu
• Genre: Romance
• Film Date: March, 2006
• Total Episodes: 20
• Korea Casts:
  Daniel Henney, Han Hyo Joo, Lee So Yeon, Seo Do Young
• Description:
  Will the tragedy of spring be repeated years later?

  To escape debt, Lee Su-ho’s father escaped to a remote island where his friend has a young daughter Eun-Young, who is the same age as Su-ho. After being abandoned by his father, Su-ho sought to leave, but his mind changed after being touched by Eun-Young’s pure heart. A series of unfortunate events ensue, and Su-ho disappears, while Eun-Young is sick in the hospital.

  Years later, while traveling in Germany, Eun-Young meets the talented pianist Chae-ha, a man with a cold exterior with a few words, who bores a resemblance to Su-ho. As their love start to develop, truth unfolds… Can their love endure the harsh spring tragedy many years ago?

yeah aren’t the guys in there dreamy?! lol:D this is a scene in the show.

i want to learn the song! i think that the half korean(left Daniel Henney) is fake playing though. you know he is going to be in an x-men movie(X-men ORigins: Wolverine)??? i can’t wait till it comes out! i think it is coming out on may 1. here is the trailer:

-soenatashia

so i just found out that the pages aren’t just like a new blog page. it’s like a new entry i guess. i thought you could enter more stuff in there… so yeah that’s dumb… if i could categorize them i’d have one on movies that i have watched or want to see. then i’d have one one the things that i am obsesed with. anyways, i like this new drama. it’s called You Are My Destiny. the story is so weird cause everything just happens just right that it causes all this drama. but i guess that is why it in that category. so here it is:

Synopsis: Jang Sae Byuk is a a girl who tries to find a new meaning in life after she receives an eye cornea transplant from another girl of the same age. She becomes close with the family of the dead girl who gave her the transplant. The family slowly accepts her as part of the family.
Some of the cast: Im Yoon Ah,Park Jae Jung, Lee Ji Hoon, Gong Hyun Joo, Lee Pil Mo, Lee Hye Sook, Jung Ae Ri, Kang Suk Woo, Sa Mi Ja

can you believe the lead actress in the show is just a year older than i am?? crazy… my sister and mother don’t really like her though cause in the last show she was in, she acted as the bad, annoying girl. (The Witch) but i am okay with her since i never watched that show. but in this one she is somewhat annoying because of the things she does. all of it is in good intentions but if i was the person she bumped into, i’d be pretty annoyed… i don’t have any thing else to say though cause if i told the whole story of what i know now, this post will be pretty long… oh yeah and Mrs. Toph, my english teacher just gave birth to a baby boy yesterday! (january 11, 2009) his name is Jason Bernard Toph.

-soenatashia

It has it all. The young ruler of a vast empire, sumptuous surroundings, lush costumes, intrigue, conflict, sex, violence…

Suleiman was three years younger than Henry VIII and lived a life that Henry would have coveted:
1- No doubts about his family’s legitimacy to be rulers of the empire
2- A healthy son
3- Hundreds of concubines and no wife
4- No pretenders to his throne
5- Endless land and wealth

Numbers 1 and 4 are related, in that Ottoman law allowed the ruler to kill off all pretenders to the throne, and Suleiman’s father, Selim, did so. Selim had had quite a few brothers that he disposed of, and either Selim or Suleiman himself killed off Suleiman’s brothers. So you have that drama, right there. It might make a good opening scene.

2 and 3 are related. The Sultan didn’t need to get married*; he had a harem full of women that were completely isolated from all other intact men. Any children they bore could reliably be assumed to be Suleiman’s own offspring, and the child of a slave could become Sultan.

Of course a miniseries could have a field day with scenes from the harem, and could focus on Roxelana, the ambitious Russian slave who bewitched the Sultan and even got him to marry her, supplanting the Sultan’s favorite of many years, Gulbehar “The Rose of Spring,” who was the mother of his first son, Mustafa. This latter was shaping up to be a worthy successor to the empire, about whom the Austrian ambassador said, “Suleiman has among his children a son called Mustafa, marvellously well educated and prudent and of an age to rule, since he is 24 or 25 years old; may God never allow a Barbary of such strength to come near us.” One wonders about the course of history if Mustafa had come to the throne–would we all be Muslim now? Anyway, Roxelana preferred that one of her own sons succeed and tried to have Mustafa murdered.

But the intrigues aren’t limited to the harem. There was Ibrahim, the Greek Christian slave and boyhood friend who rose through the ranks until Suleiman made him grand vizier. It didn’t end well for him, as Suleiman eventually became suspicious of him and he mysteriously died.

But enough of the soap opera drama. There was also military adventure going on all this time. Warfare against Charles, (the Holy Roman Emperor, though Suleiman preferred to call him the “King of Spain”) and Charles’s brother Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria; plus various Italian semi-states, the Safavid dynasty of Persia, pirates, knights Templar, etc. His navy, commanded by Barbarossa (Khayr al-Din) was as large as the navies of all the other European countries together.

——
*Yes, for hundreds of years Sultans didn’t marry, despite what Mike Huckabee says about five thousand years of one-man-one-woman marriage. And you might think Huck’d know better, since he claims to be conversant in Islam thanks to his backwoods theological training.

People look at my record and say that I’m as strong on immigration, strong on terror as anybody. In fact I think I’m stronger than most people because I truly understand the nature of the war that we are in with Islamo fascism. These are people that want to kill us. It’s a theocratic war. And I don’t know if anybody fully understands that. I’m the only guy on that stage with a theology degree. I think I understand it really well. And know the threat of it is absolutely overwhelming to us

By the way, Huckabee does not actually have a theology degree:

“Governor Huckabee doesn’t have a theology degree. He only spent a year in seminary.” –Huckabee staffer Joe Carter.

And to continue the hijack, here’s a cartoon that considers the question: why are there so few female polygamists?

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While I’m at it, I’ll toss in this super-cool video to the awesome They Might be Giants song, Istanbul (Not Constantinople).

I’ve been watching (and loving) Showtime’s The Tudors,* having already read several biographies of King Henry VIII and his wives and daughters, and all this time I have been in almost complete ignorance of the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, which was going on at exactly the same time and on the same continent.

Suleiman ruled the Ottoman empire from 1520 to 1566. (He was born in 1494)

Henry VIII ruled England from 1509 to 1547. (He was born in 1491) I know that Henry considered Francis his rival, not just as a monarch but as a person, and I’m a little surprised not to have read or heard anything about his feelings about Suleiman, who he must have been aware of.

I want to know so much more. So I borrowed a book or two, starting with Suleiman the Magnificent, by Andre Clot, and The Sultan’s Harem, by Colin Falconer; but it may be a while before I get to them, because I’ve accumulated a formidable pile of books I want to read already.

What I know about Suleiman so far is that he wore a turban approximately five times the size of his head, for some reason. It really looks very comical, and he’s not a very imposing guy to look at if his portraits are accurate likenesses. Looks a bit like Bashar al-Asad. Pale and spindly. Then when he’s older his portraits get more stylized and he looks like generic older man with beard and turban.

But he was a reigning monarch at a very interesting time and place, and he had intrigues going on in his court and at least one untraditional romance, too. I’m hoping Showtime or someone else comes out with a lush costume drama about it all.

Suleiman is a bit out of the range of this blog, being an Ottoman and not an Arab, but since the Ottoman empire encompassed the Arab world at this time, I say it counts.
—-
*I just finished watching season I of The Tudors because I am perpetually behind the curve on all such things, except my notable early appreciation of Matt Groening. An example of my being behind the curve is that I’m currently watching season 5 of Angel and season 3 of My Name is Earl on DVD. Please don’t spoil them for me.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Okay, I just wanted to say happy thanksgiving. hehe. WELL, I hope yours was awesome, because mine was! A nice thanksgiving lunch with my family! (Grandparents, cousins, sisters, brothers, dad, stepmom!)

Bucket List:

Okay, what is a bucket list? Well, I was recently watching a movie called, “the bucket list”. It’s about 2 guys who get cancer and want to do everything before they, “Kick the bucket” and die. SO, I thought I might want to list the things I want to do before I go. (Not in this order) Even though some might be a little crazy and are never going to happen!
1. Go to Australia
2. Go to the Amazon rainforest
3. Publish a book
4. Have kids
5. Be famous for something enviornmental.
6. Be a singer
7. Discover a new species of mammal.
8. Star/Co-star in a movie based on a fantasy book
9. Stay married when I finally do and not get a divorce

All I can think of. (For now!)

Enter site, then go to city hall to find out Who you are in Whoville!

A Saudi scholar expressed his disapproval at the insidious anthropomorphism of unclean animals.

The article has great fun with it, but it boils down to the scholar’s saying that the mouse is an unclean animal in the Muslim (as it is in the Jewish and Christian) faith and that cartoons with winsome murine protagonists lead children to believe that real-life mice are probably pretty cool, too.

See? This seems reasonable:

“According to Islamic law, the mouse is a repulsive, corrupting creature. How do you think children view mice today – after Tom and Jerry?

“Even creatures that are repulsive by nature, by logic, and according to Islamic law have become wonderful and are loved by children. Even mice.

Also from the article:

The cleric, a former diplomat at the Saudi embassy in Washington DC, said that under Sharia, both household mice and their cartoon counterparts must be killed.

Hmm, one wonders how you kill a cartoon counterpart. Perhaps this is a roundabout way to justify the televised beating death of Farfur, a costumed Mickey Mouse lookalike who was on a Palestinian children’s show until he met his dreadful end.

But hold on a second. First off, just because an animal is “unclean” doesn’t mean you have to kill them on sight. Secondly, mice are cute.

While we’re talking about sheikh Munajid,

Last month Mr Munajid condemned the Beijing Olympics as the “bikini Olympics”, claiming that nothing made Satan happier than seeing females athletes dressed in skimpy outfits.

So he’s not completely wrong.

Anyhow, for comparison’s sake, let’s drag out this news story from 1999:

[...] the Teletubbies have made the Rev Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, hot under the collar. He decided to “out” Tinky Winky in the February edition of his National Liberty Journal.

In an article called Parents Alert: Tinky Winky Comes Out of the Closet, he says: “He is purple – the gay-pride colour; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle – the gay-pride symbol.”

He said the “subtle depictions” of gay sexuality are intentional and later issued a statement that read: “As a Christian I feel that role modelling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children.”

And he was no minor character, rather

He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia. He founded Liberty University in 1971 and co-founded the Moral Majority in 1979.

Flipping through the TV channels the other night I saw that professional wrestling has a bad-guy sheik again. My little brother used to watch pro wrestling, otherwise I’d know even less about it than I do. I know that in past years there was a relatively famous character known as the Iron Sheik. The Iron Sheik, an Iranian man, joined the World Wrestling Federation right at the time that Iran was disposing of the US-friendly shah and installing the Ayatollah Khomeni, but the wrestling promoters decided to go Arab instead of Iranian. It may be accurate to say that he was promoted as a bad-guy middle easterner with no distinction as to whether he was Arab or Persian. I don’t remember.

BTW, the Iron Sheik is alive and well in Fayetteville, Georgia, and according to his MySpace page, you can book him to be the best man at your wedding.

Oh my, a Google search reveals he was on the Jerry Springer show at some point.

He doesn’t appear until after minute 3:00.

Back to the present: the current Arab-facsimile bad guy in pro wrestling is another Iranian-American passing as an Arab, and he goes by Sheik Abdul Bashir, real name Shawn Daivari. From Wikipedia:

Daivari signed a contract with World Wrestling Entertainment in August 2004[2] and debuted on October 19, 2004, on Raw alongside Muhammad Hassan as Khosrow Daivari.[3] Their gimmick was that of two Arab-Americans who were tired of the prejudice and racism they were receiving after the 9/11 attacks. In the weeks leading up to their debut, the two men would appear on Raw in vignettes promoting their hatred towards America.

His hallmark is his insulting microphone antics. Daivari, whose parents are Iranian, usually speaks Persian during promos and matches. On-screen, he is often referred to as being Arab-American and his speech as Arabic.

But I don’t watch wrestling, so I’ll get to my point, which is that the name Abdul Bashir is not quite right. Abdul meaning “Servant of the” is always followed by one of the 99 names of God. Bashir is not one of those names, although it’s a perfectly lovely name.

Apparently there are actual people, not made-up characters, in the world named Abdul Bashir. I can’t explain that.

And gives Sherman a little lesson in what the CIA has been up to since then in the region. I love it!

I never realized how talky Mister Peabody and Sherman cartoons were until now. Makes it easy to replace the original dialogue with dialogue of your own, if you’re a talented voice artist. I must have learned a lot of history from these cartoons.

Found at Just Another Blog From LA.

btw, there is some foul language, so don’t traumatize the little kiddies.