[Rhodes22-list] what is list etiquette? Ignore That!

Wed May 18 18:07:33 EDT 2005

Rik,

I'm certainly not condoning their actions, and I think it's stupid too.
Nor am I excusing their behavior.  I'm just saying we ought to be smart
enough to expect that behavior from people as extreme as they are.

Slim  

On 5/18/05 3:58 PM, "Rik Sandberg" <sanderico at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Slim,
> 
> You know, we can reason and discuss how these people might feel on and on into
> infinity. But the bottom line is, killing people over a damned book is
> stupid..... pure and simple, whether the rumor about the toilet was true or
> not.
> 
> I'll not be making excuses for these people to make behaviour like this seem
> somehow acceptable. I doubt their "God" would either.
> 
> Your first statement about wasted breath is probably right on the mark though.
> 
> Rik
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Alm <salm at mn.rr.com>
> Sent: May 18, 2005 3:35 PM
> To: Rhodes <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
> Subject: Re: [Rhodes22-list] what is list etiquette? Ignore That!
> 
> Brad,
> 
> Thanks.  I mostly agree with the article however calling for "perspective
> and objectivity" is a waste of breath.  By definition, "extremists" are
> incapable of that.  (And I don't just refer to Muslim extremists.)
> 
> As I understand it, Islamic fundamentalists object to Democracy because it
> puts men in charge of the law instead of Allah and the Koran--(Qu'ran?)  So
> if the shoe were on the other foot, it would be like flushing the Bible AND
> the Constitution.  That's the perspective WE need to keep in mind.  It's
> easy for us to sit back and condemn the Muslim extremists for over-reacting
> to a tiny little blurb that may or may not have been true, but if the Koran
> IS your whole world, how could you not protest?  They already view
> themselves as the losers and they're getting desperate.  Violent reactions
> are as predictable as the sunrise when some country half way around the
> world strips you of your entire life/value and crams their own ideology down
> your throat.  What did we expect?
> 
> What bugs me is what Don Rumsfeld had to say: "Oh, you've got to be very
> careful what you say..."  WHAT?  Look who's talking?  Frankly, I wouldn't
> doubt that the story was indeed true and Newsweek was pressured to retract
> it.
> 
> Slim
> 
> On 5/18/05 11:01 AM, "brad haslett" <flybrad at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>> Ric,
>> 
>> I was responding to your post when my daughter put her
>> elbow on the keyboard (I'm home all week playing Mr.
>> Mom.)  Ignore that first post.  At least she didn't
>> call 911 like she did when she was 1 1/2.  Those cops
>> still think I'm lying.
>> 
>> Anyway, I've been too busy to make any pithy political
>> comments but not to busy to read.  Here's an article
>> from today's Chicago Tribune.  Not only is it funny in
>> its own way but dead on the money correct.  This is
>> neither left nor right folks, just a fastball straight
>> down the middle.
>> 
>> Brad
>> "CoraShen"
>> 
>> 
>> Seeking sanity in the asylum
>> 
>>   
>> 
>> By Kathleen Parker
>> 
>> May 18, 2005
>> 
>> Reaction to an inaccurate Newsweek report that led
>> recently to rioting and death in Afghanistan suggests
>> that hysteria is, indeed, contagious.
>> 
>> To briefly recap, Newsweek reported in a small blurb
>> May 9 that American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay
>> had flushed a Koran down a toilet in attempts to get
>> Muslim terror suspects to talk. Once the Newsweek
>> story was broadcast abroad, the usually reticent
>> hate-America crowd erupted in mass pique. Havoc
>> ensued. At least 15 Afghans died and many more were
>> injured.
>> 
>> All because of a story that may not have been true.
>> The "knowledgeable U.S. government source" who told
>> Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and John Barry about the
>> flushing apparently wasn't so knowledgeable. At the
>> risk of seeming insensitive, may I suggest that c'est
>> la guerre and urge everyone to follow Dr. Lamaze's
>> always-useful advice: Breathe deeply and focus.
>> 
>> What we need here is a little perspective.
>> 
>> First, we all can agree that flushing a Koran down a
>> toilet, if physically possible, would be both
>> insensitive and rude, though Westerners generally have
>> a higher tolerance threshold for such offenses. Put it
>> this way: You could flush a Bible down the toilet in
>> front of Goober in Kabul, and it's unlikely that
>> Mayberry suddenly would be awash in blood.
>> 
>> Without disrespecting true believers of Islam, one
>> also could debate the relative miseries of seeing our
>> favorite scripture disappear into the plumbing versus,
>> say, watching airplanes fly into buildings, killing
>> thousands of innocents. Remember, these are terrorist
>> suspects captured after 9/11, not kidnapped members of
>> an Afghan boys choir.
>> 
>> The apparent Newsweek mistake was regrettable, but we
>> should beware of allowing ourselves to mirror the
>> emotional reactions of people who were by no measure
>> justified in their response--even if the story had
>> been proven true.
>> 
>> The same people foaming over a reported act of
>> blasphemy didn't flinch while executing women for
>> stepping outside sans burqa. I'm afraid my moral
>> outrage in favor of the morally outrageous is tapped
>> out.
>> 
>> While the world was reacting in righteous indignation
>> to the Newsweek report, another story was circulating
>> about Turkish women in Germany being executed by
>> family members in "honor killings" sanctioned by
>> certain interpretations of the Koran. Their offense?
>> Acting like Western women. Or, in the pithy words of a
>> 14-year-old Turkish boy who was justifying an
>> execution: "The whore lived like a German."
>> 
>> Before the good Muslim world objects, let me assert
>> what shouldn't need saying: Islam isn't the problem
>> here. The problem is ignorance and the right-wing
>> Islamist faction that will use the Koran for its
>> purposes, whether to incite a riot or murder a woman
>> who refuses to wear her headscarf. The enemy is
>> extremism.
>> 
>> I have no interest either in defending Newsweek or in
>> justifying interrogators' methods, but let's be blunt:
>> Those rampaging in Afghanistan didn't need a reason to
>> riot; they needed an excuse. That the media provided
>> one is regrettable, but that regret needs to be
>> tempered by perspective and objectivity.
>> 
>> Instead, much of the anger the past several days has
>> been directed not at the Islamist extremists who went
>> berserk, but at the reporters who apparently got the
>> story wrong. What if they'd been right? Should
>> Newsweek not have reported it? Would the riots have
>> been justified if someone had flushed a Koran?
>> 
>> We might debate those questions, but meanwhile we
>> should resist the urge to overreact as some have in
>> suggesting that the press should be restricted or
>> stifled. Although imperfect, a free press is one of
>> our nation's highest expressions of freedom and the
>> thing that separates us from the same right-wing,
>> authoritarian, extremist forces that we condemn. Yet,
>> an alarming number of Americans, their faith in
>> journalists damaged by recent scandals, have lost
>> sight of the meaning and importance of a free press.
>> 
>> A recent University of Connecticut survey found, for
>> example, that only 14 percent of respondents knew that
>> freedom of the press was part of the 1st Amendment.
>> Only 55 percent of those surveyed strongly agreed that
>> newspapers should be allowed "to publish freely
>> without government approval of a story." Now there's a
>> finding to warm the cockles of a Taliban heart.
>> 
>> Once we start asking the government for permission to
>> publish, we become partners in propaganda and cohorts
>> of authoritarianism. Far better to risk mistakes--and
>> even riots from the lunatic fringe--than to forfeit
>> the right to question authority.
>> 
>> Mistakes will be made, but freedom means living to
>> say, "I'm sorry."
>> 
>> Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist for the
>> Orlando Sentinel, a Tribune newspaper. ----------
>> 
>> E-mail: kparker at kparker.com
>> Copyright ? 2005, Chicago Tribune
>> 
>> 
>> --- brad haslett <flybrad at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> --- Rik Sandberg <sanderico at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>> Cheryl,
>>>> 
>>>> Somehow, I don't think that "political screed" was
>>>> all there was to that message, was it? Wasn't it
>>>> just one of Ed's little signature addendums? I
>>> think
>>>> I'd do my best to get over it if you want to hang
>>>> out on the Rhodes list, because, we talk about
>>> most
>>>> anything here, sometimes even politics. Maybe it
>>>> would be good if you went to
>>>> 
>>>> www.rhodes22.org/list
>>>> 
>>>> and read the charter. Then you can decide what is
>>>> appropriate .... or not and and decide whether you
>>>> want to stay .... or not.
>>>> 
>>>> Rik
>>>> 
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: Cheryl O'Grady <cheryl.ogrady at mail.com>
>>>> Sent: May 18, 2005 8:49 AM
>>>> To: The Rhodes 22 mail list
>>>> <rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org>
>>>> Subject: [Rhodes22-list] what is list etiquette?
>>>> 
>>>> I don't think it is kosher for someone to use my
>>>> email address from the list to send political
>>>> screed.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is
>>>> that good men do nothing."  Edmund Burke, Irish
>>>> philosopher
>>>> 
>>>> __________________________________________________
>>>> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help?
>>>> www.rhodes22.org/list
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> __________________________________________________
>>>> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help?
>>>> www.rhodes22.org/list
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Yahoo! Mail
>>> Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the
>>> tour:
>>> http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
>>> 
>>> __________________________________________________
>>> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help?
>>> www.rhodes22.org/list
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Yahoo! Mail
>> Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour:
>> http://tour.mail.yahoo.com/mailtour.html
>> 
>> __________________________________________________
>> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list
> 
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Use Rhodes22-list at rhodes22.org, Help? www.rhodes22.org/list