RETURN TO SENDER

King Hearing Casts Muslim Americans as Clueless – The Nation

Dear Muslim Americans,

It’s been a while. You probably thought we wouldn’t follow up on the 9/11 follow-up of persecuting you and throwing that cousin of yours in ‘Guantanamo’ for selling marijuana to a Senator’s daughter, but here we are again. Although we, the upstanding citizens of the United States of America, never really knew you existed before September 11th, and haven’t bothered to understand you since, you have certainly always provided us with sensible comedic material, and one can’t put a price on that. But, you must understand, September 11th constitutes a deep scar on the stars and stripes in our red, white and blue hearts which have bled for our dead countrymen and will continue to do so as long as we don’t find a plug to clog the pain still seeping through, therefore we must ask you why you are all the spitting image of a terrorist. It’s a legitimate question, and objectively you haven’t been able to procure us with an appropriate answer. As I gaze upon the American horizon with all its Yellowstone Parks and Grand Canyons and Mount Rushmores, and I begin to levitate with patriotism, I cannot help but choke on the grief I feel when I see that you are still allowed to rest your head on this great country that is the United States of America. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure a bunch of you are great people, but why must you continue to taunt us, and mock the memory of our dead heroes, by continuing to pray to your malevolent God on your flea-ridden rugs of death, don your veils of terror, your beards of tyranny, and eat our babies? Hey, it’s not your fault. You don’t know any better! Why wouldn’t you help your brother build a trip-wire triggered pipe bomb and post in the mail for him if he asked you? He’s family, and family comes first. You are yourself subject to radical propaganda like the lot of us, but because of the religion you practice, you are more vulnerable to ideology swings. Why would you love this country, you’re Muslim. We understand. We are just trying to help you understand what is happening to your community. Do not doubt Peter King’s intentions as chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. Joe McCarthy helped our great nation weed out the bad apples, distinguish the ‘reds’ from the ‘red and blues’. Peter King is trying to accomplish the same for a new generation. If anyone is to hold fair, constructive hearings, his IRA-supporting rants should be evidence enough that he understands your people. Furthermore, he has allowed no actual American Muslim expert to testify, so we can find comfort in that the hearings will not be infiltrated by any of your free world hating brethren. Now we could beat around the bush all day, toss around ‘hypotheticallys’ and ‘what ifs’ as we attempt to “humus you up”, but really as the issue seems to lie in the terrifying, nebulous depths of your pious minds, the question asks itself: must you really provoke us and be so obstinate in your desire to remain Muslim? Think about it.

With Love And Compassion,

America

Note-worthy: “No one is disputing that terrorists with professed religious motivations pose a violent threat. But as Ellison made plain in his testimony, extremists “are individuals, not a community.””

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Long-Term Care Program Needs Changes – NYTimes

Ayman woke up that morning in a foul mood. His back grieved him. His knees irked him. What little teeth he had left pestered him. As he wrestled himself out of bed and eased himself into the adjacent chair, strategically pointed at the TV, he relinquished a distressed sigh. As a gray sky dawned on another morning in suburban New York, he was 84 years old. As per his habitude, he would spend the better part of the day sitting in his recliner, one of the few belongings he had been able to scavenge from his home. He did not like to participate in group activities. He did not enjoy socializing with the other residents. He had few pleasures. Diagnosed early with diabetes, he still allowed himself the odd sweet, which he devoured with relish, a rare glimpse of infantile merriment in his eyes. His liver sporting a rather disagreeable grimace on most x-rays, and against doctors’ orders, he still overindulged in his favorite liquor, which one of the nurses sneaked in for him whenever he would run out. He had two kids, a son and a daughter, now well past the age of needing him in any way for subsistence. They had moved away years ago, even before his wife’s untimely passing. They would sometimes come visit for Christmas. Most years though, they were too busy. They would generally call on his birthday. Sometimes, they forgot. Ayman rarely saw his grandchildren. His daily routine was dependent on his daily TV schedule. The highlight of his day was ‘Jeopardy’. A longtime avid sports fan, he had given up on them after years of watching his favorite teams fall short of expectations. He rarely thought of his mother anymore, who had single-handedly raised him in a house not far from where he now hung his cane. He had long forgotten the buzzer-beating shot he had sunk to beat St. Andrews High School, after which his teammates had hoisted him up on their shoulders. The cute brunette from across the river who first unbuckled his pants and stole his innocence still brought the hint of a smile to his face. He could not, for the life of him, remember her name. The thought of his estranged brother, whom he hadn’t spoken to since their mother’s car accident, oft and again made his eyes swell with tears. He often longed for his late wife’s touch, and felt ashamed that he could no longer quite picture her face, nor recall the very first time he had laid his eyes on hers. He suddenly wished there had been more times, better times. But as gray clouds cast a shadow on another morning in suburban New York, and Ayman relinquished a distressed sigh, it was time.

It is difficult to distinguish which characteristics from the different cultures and civilizations that grace our planet impact a people’s tendencies toward their elders and how they treat their senior citizens. In a western society, though, where our attention span often extends no further than that dog’s from ‘UP’, it is customary to quell one’s conscience simply by making sure their fathers, mothers, grandparents are receiving the best attention money can buy, when in some cases, the best care could never be bought. In the winter of life, a person’s home is sometimes their final grip on the memories they gathered from this world, and for still others a sense of dignity. But where others can afford the luxury of donating their time to their elders, perhaps because the ‘ipad 2’ has not yet been released there or because the I-95 doesn’t jam up around rush hour, most tap themselves on the back and reassure themselves with the comforting thought that their parents realize that their time has come and gone. For although budget cuts from the military are simply infeasible, the nurses who attend to senior citizens in their own homes are considered expendable, but one must understand that a nation must endure some collateral damage to win the war in Afghanistan.

Note-worthy: “Mr. Foster said his analysis showed the program faced “a significant risk of failure” because people who are or expect to be sick or disabled were more likely to sign up.”

FIREBALLS AND BOLTS OF LIGHTNING

The Arab uprisings: Endgame in Tripoli – The Economist

As the autocratic dominoes/crucial western allies continue to fall, all eyes have fallen on the ‘double 6s’ that is Libya and its authoritarian ruler Qaddafi, sporting a look that would make fellow insane person Kim Jong II jealous, but who should really be swapping his military briefs for a poncho before getting skillfully disarmed by ‘The Man With No Name‘. Achieving ‘Cruella de Vil‘ degrees of derangement, Muammar “Soup Nazi” el-Qaddafi has vouched to rid his country of a population and rule only himself. The current trend in the Middle East dictates that his efforts are doomed to fail, which is why Qaddafi is resorting to unprecedented repressive means. In the absence of suitable candidates for finger-pointing other than the blatantly obvious lunatic under the pink umbrella, it seems only reasonable that the true culprits be held accountable for every innocent Libyan life lost fighting for their country’s freedom: social networking. Indeed although Qaddafi may be the only one currently able to digitally update his status (“is thinking salmon mousse for tonight’s Oscar party”?), after a sweeping victory in Egypt, it seems safe to say that Facebook and Twitter have really dropped the ball on this one. After helping coordinate protests in Cairo, spread opposition missives and, following now retired washed-up dictator Hosni Mubarak’s desperate buzzer-beating hail mary attempt of media censorship, helping journalists get the word out on daily happenings, wall posts and tweets have shown themselves powerless, unable to prevent the Libyan streets from being painted red. The death toll has reached such unattractive proportions that it has pressured even the UN Security Council to re-prioritize their respective oil interests in the region and denounce Mr. Qaddafi as something of a ‘douche bag’, further positive PR for Google. Surely ‘Androids’ and ‘YouTube’ would have the situation well under control by now.

It is rather unbecoming of the United States to consider that the country would sooner and quicker fire SCUD missiles on unsuspecting civilians in the name of spreading democracy, freedom, and finding disappearing weapons of mass destruction, than deliver a butchered people clamoring for help from a tyrant with a merciless fist. As the Middle East continues to demonstrate to the former Bush administration that they are in fact evolved enough to be masters of their own destiny, the Egyptian people accomplished what fundamentalist martyr Sayyid Qutb envisioned (albeit with a considerably larger role for Islam) and bin Laden right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri sought to produce for years through violent means. The future, however uncertain in years to come, is finally filled with hope, and the present inexorably beautiful following the events of the un-worthily named “18 day revolution”. However imperfect a science it is to study the butterfly effects of geopolitics, the beats of Mohammed Bouazizi‘s wings rippled throughout the world, lighting fires had that been attenuated for too long in too many arab souls. If it was its moral imperative to save the Iraqi people in the name of God, then perhaps it is now America’s subsequential duty to impose a cessation to Libyan hostilities/assist the Libyan rebels, if only because the Iraqi people, as bloody as it would assuredly have been, never got to seize their own destiny and initiate their own revolution. Memo to Baracky: silver bullet to the desert jackal’s head, “wasn’t me”  answers all ICC questions.

Note-worthy: “Mr Qaddafi, with a characteristic mix of bluntness and illogic, declared that his ideology was “theoretically” a genuine democracy, but in reality, “the strong always rule.” “I was the one who created Libya,” he is said to have declared recently, “and I will be the one to destroy it.””