Last week I wrote about an NYU professor who wrote a bigoted and ignorant piece on Forbes.com essentially working from the hypothesis that all Muslims are violent. Tunku Varadarajan used the phrase "Going Muslim" to describe incidents like the one at Ft. Hood, going into some detail in describing what he meant by this term:

“This phrase would describe the turn of events where a seemingly integrated Muslim-American–a friendly donut vendor in New York, say, or an officer in the U.S. Army at Fort Hood–discards his apparent integration into American society and elects to vindicate his religion in an act of messianic violence against his fellow Americans.”

I wrote a letter to NYU President John Sexton, which I also posted to Daily Gotham, to express disgust at the bigotry of Tunku Varadarajan. I should note that I suggested no specific actions in this regard other than calling on Sexton to reject the kind of bigotry expressed by Varadarajan, and suggesting that it reflects poorly on NYU.  read more »

In my continuing coverage of Republican racism and anti-Semitism, one of the stupidest Republican memes was "gee, uh, duh, isn't Obama a Moooslim?"

My first reaction was "so what if he was?" Why couldn't a Muslim be an American leader? But that is beside the point. There has never, ever been the slightest evidence that Obama was Muslim.

Those who listen to this lie and believe it are, quite honestly, abyssmally stupid or amazingly gullible.

But who originated the "duh...Obama is a Moooslim" lie?

Seems an unstable anti-Semite, named Andy Martin, started it. And Fox News let this unstable anti-Semite assert lies without questioning him...yet another connection between Fox News, lies, and anti-Semitism.  read more »

Right wing terrorism is alive and well in America and being ignored. On 9/11/2006 there was a terrorist attack on a woman's health center in Davenport, Iowa. There was the Delaware Pogrom where Jewish and Muslim families were driven out of a small town for not being Christian. The list goes on. And mostly it is just ignored by the media, but Homeland Security...by everyone.

The latest attack is a chemical attack on children in a mosque in Ohio. From Daily Kos:

On Friday, September 26, the end of a week in which thousands of copies of Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West -- the fear-mongering, anti-Muslim documentary being distributed by the millions in swing states via DVDs inserted in major newspapers and through the U.S. mail -- were distributed by mail in Ohio, a "chemical irritant" was sprayed through a window of the Islamic Society of Greater Dayton, where 300 people were gathered for a Ramadan prayer service. The room that the chemical was sprayed into was the room where babies and children were being kept while their mothers were engaged in prayers. This, apparently, is what the scare tactic political campaigning of John McCain's supporters has led to -- Americans perpetrating a terrorist attack against innocent children on American soil.  read more »

I grocery store bills are ridoncuously high due to the assorted allergies we have to manage. My oldest has something in the order of 15 allergy markers; while the little, their father and me have abut 5 allergy markers each. Eggs, nuts and sesame seeds can lead to life threatening reactions.

No wonder I spend most of my week at supermarkets. A loaf of spelt or gluten-free bread is anything between 4 to 7 dollars. Same with cereals and other sundries. So I spend my days shopping online or checking local supermarkets for sales on anything that is wheat free.

Guess what I saw at the supermarket on Avenue A and 4th Street?  read more »

In 2005 there was much sound a fury about a series of Danish Cartoons portraying the prophet Mohammed. The bottom line was that several Danish cartoonists drew cartoons including the prophet as part of a newspaper's publicity stunt. Two of the cartoons were making fun of the newspaper's publicity stunt itself. Two were, arguably, based on racial stereotypes. At least one specifically addressed Western stereotypes of Muslims. In other words, the cartoons were a mixed bag of attitudes towards Islam and the West's attitudes towards Islam.

The overwhelming reaction in the Muslim world was of outrage, often with no real knowledge of the actual cartoons.

This controversy has come back. One of the cartoonists, Kurt Westergaard, was targeted for death by Muslim terrorists. This plot was stopped by the Danish police. In response to the terrorist threat 11 Danish newspapers reprinted Kurt Westergaard's original cartoon...further pissing off Muslim nations.

Again...much sound and fury, signifying nothing.  read more »