[Previous entry: "Where do I start?"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "If I ever grow up, I want to be just like Dr. Condoleezza Rice."]

04/03/2004: "Weekend Wheedling"

Where are the outraged civil rights groups?

A white, angry male has verbally attacked a black woman and the NAACP and NOW are nowhere to be found. Where’s Jesse and Al? Richard Clarke said Dr. Condolezza Rice looked like she didn’t even know who Al Qaeda was. That’s his interpretation of her body language. She didn’t say anything along those lines to him, just his interpretation of the look on her face. We know now that Mr. Clarke could use a remedial body language course because a year prior to this conversation, Dr. Rice had addressed the Al Qaeda issue thoroughly in a speech which makes this silence worse. A condescending white guy publicly trashes a black woman and is proven wrong and not a word out of groups that have built their coffers on defeating racism, sexism, and ending stereotypes. I guess if you’re a card carrying conservative, you don’t fall under their umbrella of protection. Not that Condi can’t take care of herself but the pretense of these organizations applying their principles across the board would have been a refreshing change.

Too much testosterone?

Fallujah conjures up images in my mind of a society overflowing testosterone with no estrogen counter balance. At the risk of offending NOW, there are differences between men and women and “that’s a good thing.” Huh, Martha? (Sorry, the bitch kitty came out in me.) While we have torn down a lot of barriers created by stereotypes in our society and we can find exceptions to every rule; there still remains a basic difference between the sexes. There is not a woman reading this right now who can’t instantly cite an example of husband overrun with testosterone that wasn’t gently quashed with an application of estrogen common sense and it probably was related to road rage. A stupid driver did something offensive and the male unit was about to enlighten them about it. Enter woman unit with dose of common sense. Don’t know the psychological makeup of perpetrator of stupid move, don’t know the weapon status of said perp, on a scale of 1 to 10 this incident is a minus 10 over the long haul…Don’t do it, honey…don’t give that long, glaring look…don’t say a word…don’t use any gestures…at least not while I am in the car. Should you decide to get yourself killed in a road rage incident is one thing but not while the kids and I are with you! Please! (Appealing to the male protector genome.) And he doesn’t. Not because he was threatened or pussy whipped but because common sense and rational thought triumphed over machismo. That’s what is missing in cultures that treat women as chattel and allows men to run wild.

Along those lines, where is the Muslim outrage over Falluja?

An interesting article that is worth the read. How nice that the desecration of corpses is forbidden, HOW ABOUT MURDER? IS THAT OKAY? I’m sorry but if my religion was being hijacked, I would be shouting it from every rooftop, I would commit civil disobedience to draw attention to it, I would be emailing and calling every news media trying to get the message out, I would be organizing an offense, because I would not want my silence to be interpreted as agreement! WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? I keep looking for it and I just don’t see it and that may be the most revealing clue we have as to the situation we find ourselves in today. My favorite Iraqi blogger did provide the appropriate outrage in his April 1st and 2nd posts. Unfortunately, he is accepting the mullah's condemning the mutilating of corpses as a true condemnation of this event. It just isn’t good enough from this westerners viewpoint.

I have no dog in the fight of organized religion versus organized religion. I am not an atheist but quite frankly the God that lives in my mind and rules my daily action is better than any God that organized religion has come up with. My God has no human frailties. My God is not narcissistic, requiring praise and worship. My God is not vindictive, requiring penance and suffering for atonement. My God is tolerant because it doesn’t make mistakes. My God isn’t human because that means it’s flawed. My God is all the good in mankind and only the good.

I have the strangest feeling that Christians are about to understand first hand what Jews have known all along. Hatred for the collective body turned to violence. A religious war against them because of who they are and who they aren't. The reason for the Madrid bombings was to avenge the driving out of the Muslims centuries ago. We will all pay for the sins of "the fathers" in their world. I see a squaring off of religion against religion, and sadly it will be done in the name of their respective Gods.

The following is anything but politically correct…….Warning……Faint of heart should not read further.

The Middle East was the cradle of civilization in the beginning and now it lags behind. It lives in the 7th century while the rest of the world has progressed. This civilization gave mankind much of the foundation of mathematics and science that has allowed growth and prosperity for the rest of us. What happened during that time period that turned the tables? Islam. If only the resentment was channeled in the right direction.