Anna L. Pierre is running for mayor of the city of North Miami. Her campaign poster says that she has been endorsed by Jesus Christ.
May 14 2013
Just when I thought the one-percenters couldn’t sink any lower …
… I come across this news item.
Some wealthy Manhattan moms have figured out a way to cut the long lines at Disney World — by hiring disabled people to pose as family members so they and their kids can jump to the front, The Post has learned.
May 14 2013
Pressure cookers in the news
Following Boston, pressure cookers have now become suspicious objects. We have news reports of a student from Saudi Arabia being questioned by the FBI after neighbors reported seeing him carrying one. It turns out that he had cooked some food in it and was taking it to a friend’s house.
May 14 2013
The bill of rights applies to US citizens abroad
There is this curious belief by people who want to defend president Obama’s right to kill even US citizens abroad that US citizens no longer have the same rights under the US constitution once they leave the country. Charles Krauthammer is the latest person to make this claim, saying in a recent column that “Outside American soil, the Constitution does not rule”.
May 13 2013
“And into the hole he goes”
The late Irish comedian Dave Allen often had a very funny take on religion, delivered with nice timing and facial expressions. I posted this clip a long time ago but came across it again and enjoyed it so much that I decided to repost it for the benefit of those who have not seen it before. In just five minutes, he captures some of the major points of Christian doctrine, with its absurdities and contradictions.
May 13 2013
Saudi Arabia destroying ancient shrines
Islam, like all religions, is full of contradictions. For example, some of its adherents are very sensitive to slights and in those countries like Myanmar and Sri Lanka, there have been clashes between the majority Buddhists and minority Muslims sometimes resulting in mosques being damaged or destroyed, provoking great anger.
But then we find that in Saudi Arabia, the government is destroying some of the oldest sections of the most important mosque in Mecca and other shrines in that city.
May 13 2013
Those wimpy Chinese
Naw Kham is the leader of a drug trafficking group suspected of a massacre of Chinese citizens who had been eluding Chinese authorities for a long time. Working with Laotian authorities, the Chinese authorities captured him when he went to that country, took him back to China, and he is now standing trial. What is interesting is that the Chinese government refrained from using drones to pursue him into the jungles of Myanmar and Laos and kill him even though they had intelligence pinpointing his location. They say that this was because they wanted to capture him alive and bring him to trial and also because of concerns that such an action would violate international law.
May 13 2013
Harvard takes a beating
May 12 2013
The Great Gatsby and me
As an immigrant, I figured that probably a good way to understand to nature of my adopted country was to familiarize myself with its literature, especially the ones that are asserted to be classics, since the books that a society values are the ones that reveal its sense of identity. So naturally as part of that exploration I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, often referred to as the great American novel.
May 12 2013
Coda to the burial controversy
So Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body has been finally buried in a small private cemetery in Virginia, which I hope brings to an end a ridiculous chapter in the Boston bombing tragedy.
Martha Mullen, a woman in Virginia, hearing about the difficulty the family and funeral director were having in finding a cemetery willing to accept it, felt it was her Christian duty to help and so quickly organized a local interfaith group in her area to have him interred in a small burial ground. Her action has resulted in the predictable vituperation from local officials, neighbors, and the online community, as if she had committed a heinous crime.
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