This evening I went to the salad bar at Whole Foods at Cambie & Broadway, and afterwards went across the street to Wendy's restaurant for coffee. There were people in there with a range of accents, and a group of Quebecers speaking French, leading me to believe that some of these people were early arrivals for the Olympics.
A Chinese man who spoke perfect English, dressed all in black with a pager on his belt, walked up to the manager and told her that a "suspicious item" had been sitting on a table by the wall for some time with nobody around. He laughed nervously and said, "It could go boom!", throwing his hands in the air.
I knew a guy who lived in Israel who told me that suspicious packages left in public places there got noticed and reported, but I'd never seen this happen in Canada.
I looked over at the item on the table. It did look suspicious. There was nothing else on the table, no food or drink, just a flat black plastic box about the size of an old fashioned portable cassette tape recorders. The manager walked over and looked at it, but somebody called out that it was theirs.
Nobody treated the guy who reported it as though he was paranoid. The manager walked back past his table and said, "Thank you, sir."
We of course have Islam to thank for this fear.
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24 comments:
Thank Islam?????????
I can't even absorb that last comment after you stated you shopped at Whole Foods!
WHOA!
Good observation of the changes that will never go away again.
"We of course have Islam to thank for this fear."
That's hilarious, err, I'm pretty sure you're being facetious...
u must have lots ov money 2 shop for salad uptown cambie.
Not all, nor anywhere near most, Muslims are terrorists or terror sympathizers, of course; but lately, most all terrorists around the world have been Muslims and there have been thousands of incidents. Why do people have trouble digesting this fact? Can we not show at least enough respect to the "other" and listen to the terrorists telling us just what motivates them (i.e. their understanding of Islam, their cause of universalizing the rule of mankind by Sharia?)? Given the ignorance of the above comments, one can only wonder will BC's loony left use the Olympics as an occasion to reverse the identity of the terror trend and strike a blow for "equality" and moral and cultural relativism?
But you've got to smile at someone who thinks Whole Foods shoppers must be PC. The web of delusions we spin...
My boyfriend is muslim and you are a complete ASS!
anonymous,
Name calling is easy. What is not easy, in fact impossible, is to refute the point that Muslims themselves are telling us that they are behind terrorist acts around the world, that they are setting bombs off in the name of Islam.
Maybe you should ask your boyfriend to speak up and denounce these Muslim terrorists. Too few so-called moderate Muslims do.
1. Some muslims does not equal Islam. Some muslims have been misusing the koran for almost as long as some christians. Your comment is irresponsible, if not ignorant.
2. There are many things to fear. Grow a pair, already.
Here j'accuse Jack Hughes of being uninformed if not a simple and ridiculous conformist who parrots the line we all recall from Geo. W. Bush: that a small minority of Muslim extremists have hijacked an otherwise peaceful religion that has no more to do with the violence committed in its name than does violence committed by Christians. I'm no fan of George Bush, and less a fan of silliness spouted by the uninformed but self-important moralists who think that because they don't want Islam to be violent, then, because these commentators are simple who they are, the world must conform to their statements as if their statements were reality. It's called hubris, as someone trying to attach himself to Emile Zola's essay, J'accuse, (defending a nineteenth century Jewish military man falsely accused of treason and then sent to Devil's Island,) would likely know, even if he's never read the essay or its background. So, I accuse Jack Hughes of being a conformist and a bigot, if not an outright racist, which to my mind is likely. I claim that Jack is not a rebel struggling against the system in a righteous battle against oppression, is not the daring devil he might like others to see him as, not a moral man standing up for the weak and tyrannized: I argue that Jack is a Conformity Hippie who has nothing to fear and much to gain by mimicking the power norm. How afraid is Jack of standing up and proclaiming that Islam is a religion of peace? Does Jack think we will be impressed by this? That Jack will have to face alone a mob of maddened Baptists fresh out of church who might, in a fit of Christianity, shooting him half a dozen times as he bicycles, in a park in Amsterdam on a sunny weekday on his way to work, leaving him crying for mercy, begging his assailants to reason? ("Can't we talk about this?" said Theo van Gogh as he was then close to beheaded and his chest knife-pinned with a multi-page screed of Islamic text and hate rant against infidels.) Is jack afraid of Baptists like that? Or is he perhaps afraid of an atheist like Timothy McVeigh, who must somehow be a Christian anyway? Or maybe Jack is afraid of Catholics, those whose secret ceremonies are so full of killing the non-Catholic world? It could be that Jack is afraid of such Catholics, they being the IRA, their devious slogans about Ireland for the Irish being mere subterfuge, being a hiding away of their religion in favour of public stances about nationalism. Somehow Jack has to find a way to equivocate so he can think himself a brave fellow standing up to evil Mennonites with pitchforks. Jack is trying to convince us he is a brave and strong man who will stand up to the violence of, say, Geert Wilders, a far-right Dutchman under permanent police protection from Muslim assassins. Good old Jack, a man who would counter, if he could, Wilders' ten minutes or so video of the violence inherent in canonical (as it were) Islam. But gee, Jack doesn't have financing from the Oil Companies and Haliburton like a Dutch guy does. So Jack makes comments here to tell us all how smart and multi-culti he is. Jack, off (the bat, perhaps,) it's not working with me. "Phony," J'accuse.
More:
Jack Hughes said...
1. Some muslims does not equal Islam.
Jack, which Muslims do not equal Islam? Who, dare we ask, do you think Muslims are who equal Islam? But you probably mean, if you were careful enough to communicate with your readers, that some Muslims, (capitalize, Jack,) do not equal all Muslims. That's a big math one, isn't it? Most of us probably got it anyway, even without you pointing it out. But what you also missed, and it's kind of important, is that you haven't got a clue what Islam is, who's a Muslim among Muslims, and who isn't. So, let me do you a favour by explaining what "Islam" means and what "Muslim" means:
Islam is not the same as "peace," regardless of what G.W. Bush says to you. Isalaam and Salaam are related etymologically, Jack, in the same way that soap and soap opera are related etymologically. Islam means, not "submission" as so many would have you believe, but "slavery." Don't like it? Think it's a bad thing? Think Islam is all about freedom and peace? Well, you have to know Islam to have a clue. You obviously don't, so I'll explain it a bit: Muslims do not think you are cool for saying Islam is not slavery. They detest that, as a rule, the exception being the practice of taqiyya, religiously authorized lying in defence of the faith, i.e. Islam. You might not like the idea of Islam meaning slavery, but your opinions don't really matter much to Muslims, Jack, in spite of your high opinion of yourself. No, Jack, it turns out that Muslims have their own idea about things, and they don't go to you to ask permission or for validation. They not only lie the idea of Islam being "slavery," they demand it, of themselves, and unfortunately, of all others. Jack: "I am the slave of Allah." Jack, that means a man, women not counting for anything good in Islam, they being awrah, (a collection of genitalia, e.g. hair, that must be covered to hide the shame of them), to repeat, a man is proud of being a slave of Allah. He submits to Allah as a slave. That's a good thing, Jack, in Islam. All Muslims, and I mean there are no exceptions among Muslims, are the slaves of Allah. If they are not slaves of Allah, then they are not "muslims," (not capitalized in this sense of the word,) which is to say, those who submit as slaves to the will of Allah.
More to come.
One seriously doubts Jack has actually read the Koran. If he were familiar with that book which relentlessly divides the world into "belivers" and "unbelievers" and casts no end of curses towards the latter, I don't think he could be so sanguine about knowing the "proper" "use" of the Koran. Having said that, it is true that one must interpret the Koran and as such it can be variously interpreted. But if Jack showed much knowledge of Islamic history I also doubt he would be so sanguine about the proper "uses" of interpretation.
As for his comment about Christians, it's ungrammatical and illogical - a desperate attempt at asserting moral equivalency, lest he have to face up to reality, make significant moral distinctions, and actually consider whether he should judge that one religion might be better than another - in other words a cheap shot. Jack's pair are not labeled intellectual courage.
I think Bat Ye'Or's recent comments on the Geert Wilders lynching in Holland are a propos: Muslims might feel insulted by Geert Wilders’ opinions on Islam. However, Geert Wilders and non-Muslims feel insulted – threatened — by the hostile and negative opinions on them enshrined in Muslim holy books, laws and customs. These are not hidden or dismissed as outdated, but continuously and proudly published, taught and publicly expounded throughout the world — without being opposed by Muslim leaders.
Westerners have been conditioned by their governments, their media, the Palestinisation of their culture and societies, to be the culprit and to accept without a murmur the continuous harassment of the permanent terrorist threat. Such terrorism has taken already many innocent lives and wounded countless others since it started, in the 1960s, in Europe with the collaboration of Palestinians and Nazi groups murdering Jews and Israelis.
In view of an aggressive indigenous and foreign terrorism within the Netherlands itself, it is clear that Geert Wilders is answering a provocation against him that obliges him to live under permanent security controls. How is it possible that in the XXIe century, in a democratic and peaceful Europe, some people, politicians, intellectuals, cartoonists or others, need 24-hour security when they have done nothing but lawfully express themselves ? Will self-censorship define our culture?
Part three:
1.a. Some muslims have been misusing the koran for almost as long as some christians.
One must assume that Jack, in the box above, means that [some] Muslims have been justifying violence against others by claiming authority from the Qur'an. Jack doesn't capitalise a proper noun like Islam, showing to the world how cool he is to downgrade all proper nouns to the level of non-proper nouns, not discriminating against them, being a very cool equalitarian, we must presume. That might be a small point. What though do we make of a commentator who uses the Orientalist "koran"? Doesn't Jack know that "koran" is passe in modern linguistic circles? It's unfashionable for those not "racist." Well, no, Islam is not a race, it being a religion, but some don't pay attention to details, preferring instead to make emotive statements based on their own egos, relegating the source of the point irrelevant, i.e. dismissing a billion people to nonsense in their own right so he can "defend" them. It doesn't matter to Jack, et al, that Muslims have their own sources of understanding the universe; what is important to Jack is to show others how cool he is in his defence of Islam. Who cares what Muslims have to say about Islam? What matters to Jack is what Jack says about Islam.
What do Muslims say about Islam? Let's look at Jack's "misuse" of Islam.
Jack might say, "There is no compulsion in Islam." OK.
Sura 2:256 "There is no compulsion in religion, for the right way is clearly from the wrong way."
Jack and Geo. W. Bush to the rescue. Islam is saved. Islam is a religion of peace. Thanks, guys. Ah, there's just one problem.
There are two parts in the Qur'an, the Meccan suras and the Medinan suras. Guess what? The sura above is a Meccan sura. That means something significant to Muslims, though it's likely mush to Jack. The Meccan suras are those that come from the period before the "beginning of history," in Islamic terms. They are prior to Year Zero. They are outside of history, from the time of jahaliyya. Nashk, Jack. If you were a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence you would know that the meccan suras are abrogated, made irrelevant after the revelation of the Medinan suras. The don't count if they contradict the "better" suras that come later. "Of the Koran's 114 suras (chapters), only 43 are without abrogated or abrogating verses." [and] "Only the later, abrogating verse now represents authentic Muslim teaching." c.f. Qur'an. So, either George W. Bush and jack Hughes are right about Islam being the religion of peace, or a billion Muslims today and 1,400 years of Islamic scholars are right. Let me think it through.... Hmmmm. I'm still trying to figure it out.... Ah Ha. Got it. Muslims know about Islam. The following Median suras are relevant and authoritative.
Part Four;
Jack and Geo. W. Bush to the rescue. Islam is saved. Islam is a religion of peace. Thanks, guys. Ah, there's just one problem.
There are two parts in the Qur'an, the Meccan suras and the Medinan suras. Guess what? The sura above is a Meccan sura. That means something significant to Muslims, though it's likely mush to Jack. The Meccan suras are those that come from the period before the "beginning of history," in Islamic terms. They are prior to Year Zero. They are outside of history, from the time of jahaliyya. Nashk, Jack. If you were a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence you would know that the meccan suras are abrogated, made irrelevant after the revelation of the Medinan suras. The don't count if they contradict the "better" suras that come later. "Of the Koran's 114 suras (chapters), only 43 are without abrogated or abrogating verses." [and] "Only the later, abrogating verse now represents authentic Muslim teaching." c.f. Qur'an. So, either George W. Bush and jack Hughes are right about Islam being the religion of peace, or a billion Muslims today and 1,400 years of Islamic scholars are right. Let me think it through.... Hmmmm. I'm still trying to figure it out.... Ah Ha. Got it. Muslims know about Islam. The following Median suras are relevant and authoritative.
Sura 8.12 "Remember thy lord has inspired the angels with the message. Give firmness to the believers and instill terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. Smite them above their necks and smite the fingertips of them."
Sura 9.5 "When the sacred months have passed, kill the idolaters whereever you find them."
Sura 47.4 "When you encounter the unbelievers, Strike off their heads. Untill you have made a wide slaughter among them tie up the remaining captives."
Yeah but, yeah but, yabbit.... Christianity is just as bad; or worse. Look at the Crusades!
I seem to think that in c. 620 A.D. the Arabian Peninsula was populated by a majority of Christians and Jews. All of the Middle East was either Christian or Jewish till the Muslim invasion wiped out most of it. Medina, for example, was a mostly Jewish city till Mohammed conquered it and killed or exiled all the Jews. Then non-Muslim were wiped out off and on from Arabia to India to France for the next 700 years and more, even to this day if one cares to look at Turkia, Sudan, Egypt, and Bethlehem, for example. Great swathes of the planet became dominated by Islam. How so? You might look at Islamic history to find out. That would require learning and study. Hard and time-consuming, unlike ad hominem. But the Crusades:
Part Five:
1071 Byzantine army is destroyed by Turks
1071 - 1085 Mercenary Seljuk Turks conquer Syria and Palestine. The City of Jerusalem is taken from the more civilised Saracen caliphs
1085 - 1095 3000 Christian Pilgrims were massacred in Jerusalem and the Christian churches were destroyed or used as stables
1095 Emperor Alexius I sent an embassy to Pope Urban II regarding the atrocities in Jerusalem and the growing threat of the Turks to Constantinople and the whole of Europe
1095 Pope Urban II called a great council of the Church at Placentia, in Italy, to consider the appeal - decisions were deferred until later in the year
1095 November 27 Pope Urban II called a great council of clergy and nobles to meet at Clermont in France called the Council of Clermont. He called for a crusade against the Infidels
1095 - Spring 1096 Peter the Hermit took up the cry "God wills it!" and ordinary people join in the 'People's Crusade' - most were unarmed
Summer 1096 Armed forces gathered at Constantinople to embark on the First Crusade
August 1096 Emperor Alexius I shipped the Peoples Crusade over the Bosphorus
October 1096 The Peoples Crusade were annihilated by the Turks in Anatolia
May – June 1097 Siege of Nicacea
July 1097 Battle of Dorylaeum
Oct 1097 - June 1098 The Siege of Antioch
1098 June 1 Stephen of Blois and numerous French crusaders flee the siege of Antioch with news of the arrival of Emir Kerboga of Mosul
1098 June 3 Bohemond I, elder son of Robert Guiscard, led the capture of Antioch
1098 June 5 Emir Kerboga of Mosul and his army of 75,000 lays siege to the crusaders led by Bohemond
1099 Feb 14 - June The siege of Arqah, near Tripoli
1098 June 28 The Battle of Orontes. The First Crusade wins a victory forcing Emir Kerboga to lift the siege of Antioch
1099 June 13 Raymond of Toulouse leads the crusaders from Antioch and to Jerusalem
1099 July 15 The soldiers of the First Crusade successfully scale the walls of Jerusalem and take the Holy city
And yet more to come, for those fascinated readers who really care about the history of Islam.
truepeers: So, you want to talk about desperate, cheap shots while you copy-edit the comments section of a sensationalist blog, is that right?
Does Christian history reflect the teachings of Jesus Christ (as your reasoning suggests)? Because if it does, then we should probably take a look at the history of the crusades, modern and ancient, before you claim the moral high ground on behalf of Christendom.
I don't claim to be an expert on any religion, but I can smell your hypocrisy a mile away.
To continue with the Crusades: any honest reader will see immediately that they were on the part of the Europeans, defensive. C.f. Stephen Runciman, Vol. I. (1951) for details; Spencer (2006) for a general outline.
Islam was and is a major force of imperialism in the world, not halted to this day. Islam is a religion of peace, as Jack Hughes and George W. Bush claim, insofaras it is the peace of the dead. One surrenders completely to the slavery of Islam, i.e. becomes a Muslim, or one is subjected to either dhimmitude, (c.f. Pact of Omar) or one is murdered for the greater good of Islam's peace.
La ilaha ila Allah; Muhammadur-rasul Allah. 'There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.'
"Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them...."
That, Jack, boots Islam into a whole nother realm. But you might, if you know, claim that Christians and Jews say the same: " You shall have no other gods before me." Exodus 20:4. Not the same. In Islam one has no choice but to believe completely or to suffer slavery, i.e. dhimmitude, or death. Jews especially, Christians mostly, don't care what the Hell you do with yourself. Muslims do, and to the point they actively murder those who disagree with them on this issue.
Not all Muslims? Well, how does one define a Muslim? Truepeers, with much to say for his position, argues such is a matter of broad and fluid context over time and culture. I refer directly to Islam, particularly to Islam's canonical texts, e.g. the Qur'an, ahadith, and fiqh: a Muslim is one who submits totally and permanently to Islam, i.e. who is muslim, (lower case,) a slave (muslim) of Allah. The Crusades were defensive, not a grand imperialist plot by Europeans to capture territory for wealth gain.
But of course, none of jack Hughes' nonsense has anything to do with Islam as it is; it is only Jack's way of barking at the world, his way of showing his coolness to his friends; that Jack is a guy who says the commonplace things in the expected moments. jack is thus a Conformity Hippie, a follower of the conventional wisdom, which is far from wisdom and further from sense. This sums it up nicely:
Victor Davis Hanson, "Bush Did It! And, Really, Bush Did It! And Bush Really Did It!," Works and Days. Pajamas Media. 6 January 2010.
Every self-destructive moralist, as tragedy teaches us, is obsessed with the self. In our own age, recall Woodrow Wilson’s shrill furor at lesser mortals who were suspicious of his exalted League of Nations, remember FDR’s court-packing anger at the less than sympathetic Supreme Court, or remember Jimmy Carter’s “crisis of confidence” whine in summer 1979. Such is the lashing out of all exalted moralists when we, the lesser folk, have failed to appreciate the demi-god in the White House who has “deigned” to guide us."
Jack is a pretend-moralist. He is a Conformity Hippie who has no sense of things as they are, particularly Islam, as he has proven above. for Jack and those like him, Islam is not a matter of importance: Only Jack's ego matters. It matters to him that he be seen as being part of the in-crowd.
In keeping with that thought, let's look at anther comment from a thinking person re. Conformity Hippies:
Roger L. Simon, "The typicality of John Edwards’ pseudo-leftism," www.pajamas media.com. February 1st, 2010
"[F]aux leftists wear their politics like jewelry. Something to be displayed and admired by others, but signifying nothing but the vanity of the wearer. A fashion statement. A tribal affiliation displayed by adults in middle school developmental arrest who are still desperate to be among the Cool Kids."
4. Victor Erimita
Bush did it. The Christians are just as bad. The Jooos! The Jooos!
Jack and his pack are not moralists at all, not even moralistic emoters; they're just hacks apeing their betters.
Who are their "betters"? We might look to Jack's uncited source: Plato, whom Neil Postman cleverly refers to as history's "first systematic fascist." (1992.) Jack, sprat as he does, misses the sense of the Philosopher Kings he would please by his masochism-- if he could. We can't seriously think Jack Hughes thinks of himself as a Philosopher King. He must consider those powerful and intelligent people to be the Philosopher Kings he aims to please, e.g. Obama and Pelosi, Chomsky, Zinn, et al. Playing masochist to such is the best a man can do who wishes to flee his freedom, as Hoffer (1951) argues, and Fromm (1941). It makes the terrified individual flee from his miserable self, which Jack Hughes is a fine example of, into the meaning and safety of a greater being, a fasces, as it were, a central power that will allow him to be something new and better than his loathed self. Jack and like are able to flee from freedom into conformity and into the safety of a grand protection, a political religion, i.e. a poligion, that allows them all the coolness of being anything other than themselves. Jack et al. can be cool so long as they conform to the party line. Some cling to Islam, some to Nazi-ism, some to Communism, and others to any other cheap and dirty poligion that comes along, such as environmentalism. No, not other religions. Those aren't political religions. They are "religions." There's a severe difference that Jack and kind can't figure out. Thus, he follows the party line to tell him what to write in comments at other peoples' blogs. Maybe next time he'll let us know he's found the sublimnity of Islam and he's converted altogether. Why not? A bigger poligion is a better poligion.
And now, leaving the rest of Jack off the page, let's turn to "You're an ass," writer above, she who married a Muslim.
If Islam is so good, then will you take your daughter to a Muslim country to live among Muslims?
Will you risk your daughter being subjected to "Female Genital Mutilation"?
"Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), female circumcision or female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), is any procedure involving the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs "whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons."[1] The term is almost exclusively used to describe traditional or religious procedures on a minor, which requires the parents' consent because of the age of the girl.
When the procedure is performed on and with the consent of an adult it is generally called clitoridectomy, or it may be part of labiaplasty or vaginoplasty."
What does Islam say about FGM? what does Mohammed say?
According to the Muslim Women's League:
"Those who advocate for FGM from an Islamic perspective commonly quote the following hadith to argue that it is required as part of the Sunnah or Tradition of the Prophet:
'Um Atiyyat al-Ansariyyah said: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (pbuh) said to her: Do not cut too severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband'." 1,8
A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet said to her: Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband. Dawud 41.5251
Sahih, ass-lady. You willing to risk your daughter with it?
"The procedure is usually performed on girls between the ages of 9 to 12 years, prior to the onset of puberty. In the past, the procedure -involving removal of the clitoris, together with the excision of all or part of the labia minora – was generally carried out by traditional birth attendants (dayas) and "health barbers" (who also perform circumcision of boys). The operation was frequently done without an anesthetic, using knives or razors. In recent years, however, more than 60 percent of circumcisions have been performed by physicians and nurses.
The more severe forms of FGM/C can lead to problems with menstruation, intercourse, and childbirth, and in some cases can cause death. The psychosexual effects of FGM/C are also often harsh and lifelong."
Source: UNICEF.
It is plain dishonest of you, RP, not to publish my response. You've just lost a reader. Have fun with your snivelling, reactionary friends.
Jack Hughes,
There is no record of a response from you.
It has been pointed out to me that you probably never left one. You're looking for a way out now that truepeers and dag have shown just how nonsensical your moral and cultural relativism is.
Your friends have shown nothing of the sort. In their incoherence they clarify nothing but that they're frothing at the mouth. There is no record of my comment because you sent it to the trash. Your cheap tactics betray the weakness of your position. Bye.
Jack Hughes,
No comment was received from you in response to those of truepeers and dag.
If you made an argument which you believe wasn't published, you are welcome to repeat it. That would be preferable to using the comment section for insults, such as your claim of "incoherence" which you don't substantiate with even one example.
"You're cheap tricks betray the weaknes of your position."
I think that statement applies to you.
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