I miss this average American, this was (still is to a degree) my life.

And so it begins...
 

Saw this at Talking Points Memo a few moments ago.

The New York Police Department has confirmed to TPM that a cab driver in Manhttan was allegedly stabbed by a passenger who asked if the cabbie was Muslim, and says the incident is being treated as a hate crime. The suspect has been charged with attempted murder and other crimes.

According to Detective Marc Nell, at 6:12 pm last night, the driver picked up Michael Enright, 21, of Brewster, NY, at the intersection of 24th Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan. The cab proceeded to drive north, and Enright asked the driver, who Nell identified as a 43-year-old Asian male, if he was Muslim. After the driver responded that he was, Enright allegedly stabbed him repeatedly with a Leatherman tool, according to police.

"[Enright] stabbed the driver in the throat, right arm, left forearm, right thumb and upper lip," Nell said.

According to police, the driver called 911, and stopped the cab on 3rd Avenue between 40th and 41st streets, managing to lock Enright inside until police arrived.

Nell told TPM that the cab driver is in stable condition, and that Enright has been charged with "attempted murder two as a hate crime, assault with a weapon as a hate crime, aggravated harassment second degree because of race and religion, and criminal possession of a weapon."

Nell could not confirm that Enright had admitted to asking the driver if he was Muslim.

Bloody fucking hell. This insanity is -exactly- what the universe does not need.

i don't understand why there is a debate about this. the right to build the mosque is protected by the first amendment. the bill of rights doesn't just protect certain groups or people. it is the bill of rights for everyone.

Yeah, no small number of conservatives appear to think that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." has a hidden caveat of "unless said religion is Islam or some other minority religion and/or that religion is globally practiced by brown people with names we have trouble pronouncing correctly." When this center is built (and for ALL our sakes I hope it is) expect to hear talk coming from the right-wing that perhaps it is time to 'clarify' the meaning of the First Amendment. As much as I don't think it needs any clarification (it seems pretty straight-forward to me) I would, after a fashion, welcome the proposal and subsequent debate. Why? Because I believe that what no small number of the Republican base *mean* when they invoke the First Amendment is this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting any Christian denomination over any other Christian denomination or prohibiting the free practice of Christianity..."

Since it appears that is what conservatives *mean* it would be nice if they would just *say* that is what they mean.

Btw. the reason I say that this center should be built for all our sakes is that if it isn't built then Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah will have all of their recruiting propaganda written for them for the foreseeable future.

Cheers
Aj

I am confused by people calling it a Mosque.
Is it not an Islamic Community Center? Two blocks away from ground zero?
Should we not honor the Muslim victims of 9/11? Are they not American as well? Do they not deserve our tears as much John Smith?

Partial List of Muslim 9/11 Victims:
Samad Afridi
Ashraf Ahmad
Shabbir Ahmad (45 years old; Windows on the World; leaves wife and 3 children)
Umar Ahmad
Azam Ahsan
Ahmed Ali
Tariq Amanullah (40 years old; Fiduciary Trust Co.; ICNA website team member; leaves wife and 2 children)
Touri Bolourchi (69 years old; United Airlines #175; a retired nurse from Tehran)
Salauddin Ahmad Chaudhury
Abdul K. Chowdhury (30 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Mohammad S. Chowdhury (39 years old; Windows on the World; leaves wife and child born 2 days after the attack)
Jamal Legesse Desantis
Ramzi Attallah Douani (35 years old; Marsh & McLennan)
SaleemUllah Farooqi
Syed Fatha (54 years old; Pitney Bowes)
Osman Gani
Mohammad Hamdani (50 years old)
Salman Hamdani (NYPD Cadet)
Aisha Harris (21 years old; General Telecom)
Shakila Hoque (Marsh & McLennan)
Nabid Hossain
Shahzad Hussain
Talat Hussain
Mohammad Shah Jahan (Marsh & McLennan)
Yasmeen Jamal
Mohammed Jawarta (MAS security)
Arslan Khan Khakwani
Asim Khan
Ataullah Khan
Ayub Khan
Qasim Ali Khan
Sarah Khan (32 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Taimour Khan (29 years old; Karr Futures)
Yasmeen Khan
Zahida Khan
Badruddin Lakhani
Omar Malick
Nurul Hoque Miah (36 years old)
Mubarak Mohammad (23 years old)
Boyie Mohammed (Carr Futures)
Raza Mujtaba
Omar Namoos
Mujeb Qazi
Tarranum Rahim
Ehtesham U. Raja (28 years old)
Ameenia Rasool (33 years old)
Naveed Rehman
Yusuf Saad
Rahma Salie & unborn child (28 years old; American Airlines #11; wife of Michael Theodoridis; 7 months pregnant)
Shoman Samad
Asad Samir
Khalid Shahid (25 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald; engaged to be married in November)
Mohammed Shajahan (44 years old; Marsh & McLennan)
Naseema Simjee (Franklin Resources Inc.'s Fiduciary Trust)
Jamil Swaati
Sanober Syed
Robert Elias Talhami (40 years old; Cantor Fitzgerald)
Michael Theodoridis (32 years old; American Airlines #11; husband of Rahma Salie)
W. Wahid

"Islamic Community Center two blocks from the very edge of the Twin Towers area and several more blocks from the actual tower locations" doesn't fit on a protest sign.

It also doesn't scare ignorant and gullible people.

good points and a glaring representation of the media bending the truth.

to me community center evokes images of mommy & me classes, quinceañero parties and craft classes. not al queda training camps.

True enough. It also doesn't fit into the narrative of "wherever there is an Islamic conquest they (Muslims) erect a mosque so if we allow a mosque to be erected *anywhere* in the United States, that means that we're capitulating to having been conquered by the Saracens, I mean the Moors, sorry one more try, Al Qaeda. Isn't it wonderful that Islam can look to Christianity as an example because, I'm sure you're all aware, that there isn't a single instance--what-so-ever--of Christians building a triumphalist church on or near the site of a battlefield. Okay, if you eliminate every Christian church built in the Western Hemisphere there are no examples of that. No that doesn't quite work; not counting any churches built in the Western Hemisphere, anywhere between Istanbul in the south to Moscow in the East, any Christian churches built in Western Europe, any Christian churches in Israel, Egypt, or Algeria, or sub-Saharan Africa, you can't find a *single* instance of Christians building a triumphalist church on or near the site of a battlefield. No, that still doesn't quite work, this time for sure; if you exclude the planet occupying the third orbital position around our local star, and just count orbital positions 1, 2 and 4 (Mercury, Venus and Mars respectively) you can't find a *single* triumphalist Christian church built near a battlefield.

Cheers
Aj

quinceañero parties? That sounds Spanish to me. Spanish isn't English which makes it near to Arabic. Arabic is spoken by Muslims and Arabs. Arabs are brown. Mexican people are (largely) brown. Muslims are terrorists. Therefore quinceañero is just Spanish for "Al Qaeda training camp". One cannot help but notice that quinceañero and Al Qaeda both have q's in prominent places. Coincidence? I think not.

You know, parodying the kind of breathless hysteria on the right is almost *too* easy.

Cheers
Aj

so what you're saying is that the proposed mosque near ground zero is responsible for mercury in retrograde? don't tell rush limbaugh.

You forgot one other clear connection: Spain is near Arabia.

Not to fear, though, as SB1070 will take care of the problem.

It's an Al Qaeda plot! Wait. If you think about it. Muslims built mosques on Earth. Earth is near the sun (relatively speaking). The sun is the gravitational center of the solar system. Reagan's ghost! Islam has conquered the solar system!!!!!! It's worse than that, in about 5 billion years, the sun is going to expand out to about the orbit of Mars, completely destroying the Earth! What I think has happened is that future Muslims have traveled *back* in time to build the Cordoba House as a sign that the final triumph of Islam will occur when the Sun (which is just a star and a number of Muslim-majority nations have stars in their flag) parboils the Earth. (The mosque couldn't be built after the sun cooks the Earth thus the traveling back in time.) Or it might be that these Muslim time-travelers are from the *very* far future (15 billion years +/-) when the Universe undergoes heat death.

It's TRUE! And since parts of Spain were once under Muslim control (until 1492) and Spanish was still spoken then---Spanish = Arabic? Coincidence? I think not!

Hey, wait a minute!!! I learned this in school - "In fourteen hundred and ninety two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". OMFG!!! Columbus was a Muslim. And Columbus discovered America. That means all Americans are Muslim!!! My neighbors are terrorists, and I didn't even know it!! I better go lock the doors and windows!!

:seeingstars:

america's first mosque:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__TkYG1Rhmo.../teepee400.jpg

Wait. Since Mercury is the ruling planet of Gemini - does that make me a terrorist?

Now I'm all upset!

Thank you for posting this.

Finally, some of the family members of Muslim's that died in the towers are speaking up.

Also, one woman (non-Muslim) from NY made a great comment about I heard today about how she felt that the real slap in the face (disrespect was the term she actually used) to the families of victims was the extreme right-wing political candidates making all the assinine remarks about the community center putting out election materials with pics of the towers burning.

I'm probably way too sleepy to fully graSp the humor in this.....

playing it safe ..
la reconquista started mostly in 1212, portugal being the first to eradicate the majority presence of muslims {and jews}, a few centuries later{bla bla} in 1492, the last vestiges of a muslim leadership was quashed*Iberian peninsula anyways*, royalty of spain said "go for it" in 1480 to the Inquisition forcing muslims, romani and jews to convert or die.
Those that did, still kept a secondary status and were also called marranos because they were suspected to continue their faith in secret {which probably explains why some of my relatives despise such a word}
In the 1600's however, if there was suspicions, those too were ejected/killed.
Hence the little saying "No hay Moros en la Costa"....

the joys of being taught unbiased history....
over and over and over and over....
bedtime for me..
:seeingstars:

This was a great interview. She boldly calls it out for what it is!!!
Cloaking religious persecution and racial intolerance with fear.
"Every moment that we don't acknowledge white privledge we stab them."

A city cab driver is in the hospital after being stabbed by a passenger who allegedly asked if he was Muslim, police tell NY1.

Investigators with the New York City Police Department say it all began Monday night when a 21-year-old man hailed a cab at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.

Police say the passenger asked the driver, "Are you Muslim?" When the driver said yes the passenger pulled a knife and slashed him in the throat, arm and lip.

The 43-year-old driver was able to lock the passenger in the back of the cab and call 911.

Both the driver and the passenger were taken to Bellevue Hospital.

http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/top_stories/124338/police--cab-driver-stabbed-by-passenger-who-asked--are-you-muslim--

As of late Tuesday, no charges had been filed.

Just because you can do something, doesnt mean you should....

That's what Sarah Palin said on the subject.

Got a reason why the Community Center should not be built? I haven't heard a good one yet...........maybe you can shed some light......

from a blog I ran across in a post made in HuffPo
 

The Ground Zero Synagogue—Lebanon Becoming More American than America

...


“Ground Zero” for Lebanon is an ever expanding, never ending, open wound that never heals.

So what now Newt?

Should you expect the Lebanese to allow a synagogue to be built on their Ground Zero, in the aftermath of a 9/11 that occurred 5 years after ours and which, “proportionately” speaking, was 30 times the size of ours?

Well guess what you hateful, misguided, twit?

THEY DID.

In the process of re-building Beirut yet again, in 2008, renovations began and have now been completed on the Maghden Abraham Synagogue located in the middle of newly renovated downtown Beirut in an area known as the “Solidere" which has become the focal point and showcase of Lebanon’s rebirth.

This isn’t some hole in the wall, nondescript, “excuse me” synagogue hidden out of view so as to not “offend” Lebanese non-Jews—this is an elaborate, ornate, beautifully designed, cathedral-style house of worship built for a Lebanese Jewish population that totals less than 500 in a country of more than 4,000,000 (in stark contrast to the eight million American Muslims living in the United States).

And wait until you hear Hezbollah’s response to the building of this Ground Zero Synagogue.

(To those expecting a Newt Gingrich equivalent response, prepare to be woefully disappointed).

Courtesy of Hassan Nasrallah himself: "We respect Judaism, just as we respect Christianity. Our only problem is with Israel."

Did you hear that Newt (and the rest of you idiots)?

An Arab democracy, with a Muslim Prime Minister and a Christian President, allowed the building of a synagogue, squarely in the center of their “Ground Zero” in the heart and pride of downtown Beirut which used to be a dumping ground for Israeli military ordinances.


*the whole post is interesting but i haven't investigated sources of the blogger etc.*

From a 24 year old...
 

Kind of interesting...... another viewpoint from someone just starting out... I don't agree with all that is said, but, there are some points to consider for all of us. And to consider in watching the younger generations take their place and vote, be part of communities, raise kids.

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-486298?hpt=C2


iReport — Like many people, I have been closely following the events of the past few weeks, surrounding the debate over the more-controversial-than-it-should-be Park51 community center. My interest in the matter has grown to borderline obsession, as I observed this issue swell from community disagreement to n#ational divisor. The religious freedom points have been exchanged ad nauseum. I’m tired of hearing both sides use it as a crutch while they try to find better words to suit their arguments. It’s time to put that part of the debate to bed.

I’m 24 years old. I mention this because I have yet to hear any voices of America’s youth speaking up about their feelings regarding this matter, at least not beyond the frenzy of Facebook status updates and “tweets”. I have yet to see or hear anyone asking how my generation feels about this project. Of course, I imagine my generation’s age is the primary reason for this, but it’s also why I bring it up.

I’m not insensitive to those who lost loved ones on 9/11, but since I didn’t experience personal loss that day, it puts me in an awkward position when I express my views on this matter. I was 15 when the attacks occurred. The dust clouds I viewed from the Hudson River, enshrouding what would be a forever changed skyline, is an image that still haunts me. However, personal losses aside, my generation experienced another loss that day. We lost our innocence, because we knew this was going to be our fight in the years to come. We knew that this war would be carried on our backs. The politicians and pundits could wax poetic about their respective views, but the young adults of America would be doing the real heavy lifting. These are the young adults who are now getting ready to start families of their own, and to raise the next generation of Americans. That generation will inherit the consequences of this war. What kind of America are we making for them?The 9/11 attacks were a gut-wrenching reminder of the hatred that exists in the world—hatred that has caused us great pain. But how long must we allow our pain to manifest itself in socially destructive ways? Across the country, protests are springing up against mosques being planned in other communities, spurred on by the protests surrounding Park51. The opponents of Park51 base their objections on the “insensitivity” of the location, but what’s the excuse for people wanting to stop a mosque in Temecula, California? Or Sheboygan, Wisconsin? Or Murfreesboro, Tennessee? If you read Laurie Goodstein’s August 7 New York Times article, you’ll see that some members of the opposition are quite clear in stating that their problem is with Islam itself. Despite the vast range of Islamic sects, it’s not uncommon for members of these movements to toss all Muslims into the same pot. Perhaps that’s why so many of Park51’s supporters feel there are undertones of bigotry in this case, despite the opposition’s denials. They need to do some honest soul-searching, and ask if their objections would really be this severe if a synagogue or church were to be built there.

If I may digress for a moment, my gripes with the opposition aside, I have my own axe to grind with my fellow supporters. I was at the August 22 rally in New York City, and among the supporters were people shouting slogans like "Free Palestine," passing out communist/socialist revolutionary literature, trying to get people to sign a petition to send a U.S. flotilla to Gaza, and holding signs saying, "Muslims are not the enemy...Big Business is." My friends, whether I may agree or disagree with your relative sentiments, these particular rallies are neither the time nor the place for these issues. This facility is not about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's not about revolution, and it's not about Big Business. Save it for a more relevant rally and focus on the issue at hand. For once, stop being the "professional left," as the right-wing pundits take such pride in calling you. It weakens us and makes us seem fractured at a time where we can ill afford to appear in such a manner.

Back to the main issue. What worries me is the state of mosques beyond Ground Zero, such as the embattled ones mentioned above. If Park51 were to crumble under the tide of mob pressure, what comes next? How would that empower the other anti-mosque movements in the country? Will it grant them a greater sense of legitimacy to say, “Of course you’re free to practice your religion…but we don’t want you to do it here.” If that were to happen, then by the same right should the Muslims of Dearborn, Michigan have the privilege to protest and try to stop the construction of a church or synagogue, and say that they shouldn’t be building there? Would Jews in Great Neck be right to try to stop a church or a mosque from being built there? What comes after that? What cycles of reciprocity could be spawned from this, and what kind of example does this set? Things have gotten to the point where the Tennessee center’s construction site was been subjected to arson. So what comes next?

Naïveté comes with youth, but sometimes it can allow us to be the best of bridge-builders. I was in Israel a month ago, with young Jews like myself. One night, we stayed at a youth hostel in the city of Arad. Also staying there was a group of Muslim teenagers, participating in a religious camp program. At first, our two groups stayed separate from one another, but when some of us went over to introduce ourselves, the atmosphere changed from one of distant observation to one of warmth and friendship. We kicked a soccer ball back and forth. We shared laughs over cell phone videos of these kids performing acts of teenage silliness, even in religious school. We may not have understood everything about each other’s backgrounds or religions, but we still built bridges and connected with one another. That’s what we need here: to be a nation of people who can make a concerted effort to connect with those different from us for the sake of truly peaceful coexistence, not who lash out against that which we don’t understand.

When I start a family, that’s what I’m going to teach my children. That’s the America I want them to grow up in.

IG:

If I could trouble you for a couple of things:

1) What distance is far enough away? Is a mile far enough? Two miles? No where within the great NYC area? Is Jersey far enough away? If, in fact, the argument is that building this center would be insulting or insensitive, and the issue is that people were traumatized by 9/11 (which is true) then is there *anyplace* in the United States that can be far enough *not* to rile someone? I lost a old friend, a dear friend, in those attacks. Does that mean that Portland, OR is now also too close?

2) If the mosque would be troublesome/insulting/painful then isn't the fact that there is *already* a mosque, closer to the site than this community center will be, already traumatizing? Should that mosque be shut down?

3) If the mere presence of a mosque, which would be a reminder that there are Muslims, then isn't the mere *presence* of Muslims also insulting/painful? Should there be an exclusion zone around the WTC site where no Muslim is allowed to go?

4) Is Tennessee *also* too close to the WTC site? What about California? Is that also too close? I ask purely because mosques in both states have been opposed on the grounds that anywhere a mosque is built, that is a capitulation to Islam.

5) Can you find me a single historical instance wherein a religious minority was targeted for this kind of special treatment and it turned out well? Now, admittedly, I'm not a scholar of history and so my knowledge base is far from complete however, I can't think of a single time when this has turned out well.

6) If it is insensitive toward the people who died on 9/11 for this community center to be built, would it also be fair to say that it is insensitive for, just to take two examples, Christian churches to be anywhere there is a large GLBTQ population? Anyone who was there and everyone who has written history about the first two decades of the HIV pandemic firmly and justifiably places a non-trivial amount of responsibility for the deaths of so many gay men *squarely* at the church door? Along similar lines, would it be fair to say that given that about twice that number of blacks were lynched in the last century that it would be insensitive for white Southern Baptists to build churches near large populations of blacks?

If it isn't insensitive may I ask what the difference is?

And another incident
 

Another attack on another person who 'looked like' a Muslim. And what was his crime? Wearing a turban.

SEATTLE – A man accused of punching a man wearing a turban at a Seattle convenience store has been charged with malicious harassment - a hate crime - and assault.

KOMO News reports 35-year-old Brock R. Stainbrook of Seattle yelled, "You're not even American, you're al-Qaida. Go back to your country."

A store employee broke up the Aug. 24 attack, and Stainbrook was arrested a few blocks away.


Cheers
Aj

How come?

I am curious to why they can't since there is a church at every corner like a Starbucks?

This whole debate and the craziness ensuing all over the rest of the US is probably making actually terrorists really happy.

Yet one more example of how hypocrytical the US is.

It's OK to have peep shows and adult booksstores close to Ground Zero, but not Islamic comunity centers, because why?

We say we are good people, that we have freedom of religion. Sure as long as we approve of the religion people want to practice.

The burning of the equipment being used to buildi the Mosque in Murfresboro and the shots fired will figure in terrorist outreach fils, yet one more example, along with torture, Guantanamo and Abu Grabe of how much the US sucks and hates Islam.

We are going to end up in a huge holy war.

Right, we shouldn't do it because we CAN, we should do it because it's RIGHT.

Self-serving politicians and sensational media hijacked a community discussion and turned it into a national debate/farce.

As a New Yorker who lived through 9-11, I resent LIKE HELL the venting of bias and bullshit, the spreading of race panic, the manipulation of traumatized families, all on the backs of TOTALLY INNOCENT CITIZENS.

They are undoubtedly quite amused with how we are tearing ourselves apart.

Aj, here's one more:

7) If it's not insensitive for Muslims to hold daily prayer right on top of a 9/11 crash site that overlooks a memorial for same (they've been doing it without complaints for eight years), then why is insensitive for Muslims to learn to cook and to play basketball in an abandoned building several blocks from a 9/11 crash site?

there you go again...............confusing the issue with trivial tidbits of information.....

Yep. Quite the fact-centric little bitch, aren't I?

Not to mention that swaths of downtown Manhattan were built on top of the remains of African American slaves and Native peoples. Talk about "hallowed ground..."

Read this: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/08/...-graves-slaves

And yet *another* incident
 

It would appear--based upon this incident--that upstate New York is also 'too close' to the WTC site for a mosque to exist.

Five teenagers have been arrested for disrupting religious services at a mosque in upstate New York after allegedly driving by the mosque during Ramadan services, honking their horns and firing a shotgun.

The five, who are all 17 and 18, have allegedly driven by the World Sufi Foundation mosque in Carlton, N.Y., during Ramadan services twice over the past week, yelling obscenities.

Last Friday, one of them also fired a shotgun into the ground. No one was hurt. He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, a felony; the others have only been charged with disrupting religious services, a misdemeanor, but more charges are expected.

And before it is said:

1) Yes, it would be better if the 3000 people who died on 9/11 had not died. That said, this incident doesn't bring any of them back.

2) Acknowledging that incident is wrong and, in fact, a sign that this debate about the Cordoba house is about more than mere proximity of the center to the WTC does not mean that I am in bed with, encouraging of, or apologizing for terrorism NOR does it mean that I am pro-Islam (it's just more monotheism to me) or that I want sharia law applied to the United States. Clearly the issue is beyond proximity to the WTC site though. If it weren't then would it not be logical that it wouldn't *matter* where mosques were built as long as that distance was > N-distance from the WTC site?

3) If it's reasonable to hold Muslims who had *nothing* to do with 9/11 responsible such that building a mosque within N-distance of the WTC site is unacceptable then it is *equally* reasonable to hold opponents of the Cordoba house responsible for the incident above, and the one in Tennessee and the one in Seattle and the next incident and the one after that. Unless, of course, someone can tell me why it is reasonable to hold all Muslims accountable for the actions of some.

Cheers
Aj

Here's the thing I find quite frustrating about this argument--I have *yet* to see a compelling reason given. What I've heard or read, so far, are lots of variations on the theme of "they have the right to build what they want, provided that they don't actually build it". I've heard a lot of statements along the lines of "it's an insult to those who died"--without saying how those who died are insulted. Yet, I haven't seen an explanation for why Muslims--all 1 billion of them--can be held responsible or, at least, share in the culpability of those 19 enterprising young men from Saudi Arabia but it is entirely unreasonable to, for instance, to hold all white Americans responsible for, say, the decimation of native populations in the Americas or the enslavement of Africans, or the apartheid that was both the custom and law in America an South Africa until the last part of the 20th century, or....

I wonder why it is that there's no explanations forthcoming about why collective responsibility applies to the minority but not the majority.


Cheers
Aj