London -- August 9th & 10th, 2006

First, I just have to say that I am so glad that Anderson is finally out of the Middle East. Although, I'm sorry, I'm gonna miss the vest. I thought it was sexy.

Second, I'm sorry I haven't actually updated for realz in forever. I finally got myself a social life one month before I have to move away to university >.>

Third, when Peter Bergen said "If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it's not the ALF" I nearly fell out of my bed laughing. Oooh, the ALF.

Four, saving entries as drafts rules. Hence why I've been working on this for about five days.

Five, I really truly do feel bad for those of Arab descent who are getting caught up, or may get caught up, in the "ARABS ARE BAD THEY WANT US ALL DEAD AND HATE OUR LIVES" attitude. You know, like this one from my favourite hatemonger:

"Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims."
Ann Coulter's syndicated column; Sept. 28, 2001

Gotta love Ann Coulter. She makes me want to vomit. The whole "Islamofacist" thing is truly frightening. This has nothing to do with Islam, or with skin colour and nationality and to define people in such a way is truly despicable. Evil has no definition. To say that all terrorists are Muslim is not only prejudice and disgusting, but it's a blatant lie. The first act of modern terrorism as we know it now happened in 1875 in Bremerhaven, Germany by a man who went by the alias of William King Thomas. His real name, Alexander Keith, Jr., was born in Scotland but moved at a very young age to Halifax, Nova Scotia. His uncle was the famous brewer Alexander Keith, whom he was named after. He had concocted a plot to blow up steamliners to collect insurance money. What happened in Bremerhaven was a primitive timebomb planned to go off onboard the Mosel exploded on the dock, killing 80 people. It was the "crime of the century." Find The Dynamite Fiend by Ann Larabee and read about it. That wasn't his first crime.

Another non-Muslim terrorist: Timothy McVeigh of which Ms. Coulter says:

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."
New York Observer article; August 26, 2002.

She's lovely, isn't she? I'm just going to write up an excerpt from my own personal journal that is relative to all of this. I wrote it after starting Walking Since Daybreak by Modris Eksteins.

Feb. 8, 2006
Someone telling their own story is so powerful and can enlighten a person to the struggle that has played out in our own history, what is playing out now in the Middle East. Too many parallels between the present and the past. There's always a bad guy and the good. Usually it is some power in the West versus some other 'evil,' [defined by us of course]; Germans and the Nazis, the Japanese after Pearl Harbour, the Communists, [actual and perceived,] Russians, Vietnamese, [Chinese] and Cubans, and not it's Arabs and Muslims. Our media, and their media, portrays the other side as the bad guy and we're all painted with the same extreme brush. Our generation has been so lucky. Despite all the conflict abroad, we've remained relatively untouched here at home, but if the powers that be continue on the path we're on, we'll end up right back where we were in 1945, if we're lucky. We need to do more than read about the past, we need to look objectively and find the mistakes because those mistakes are being made again. You can see the lines being drawn, the division in nations, ideologies, races, cultures and the world. [...] Intolerance is rising. [...] The global community really needs to stop sugar-coating and address the serious underlying issues in oppression, poverty, hatred bigotry and intolerance, because it's there more than we care to admit.

Terror and evil has no ethnicity, no political affiliation, no religion or gender. But right now, we need an enemy to fight, an enemy with a face, an image to focus on. Unforunately, there is a link of ethnicity and religion among all of those who have plotted serious terrorist attacks and have carried them out, giving an image to fight against. Now a whole new breed of racists and bigots, like Coulter, has surfaced. I feel oh-so-comforted.