FOLLOW me on my popular Twitter feed. Just click this photo! @hbbtruth - David - Common sense on #Politics #PublicPolicy #Sports #PopCulture in USA, Great Britain, Sweden and France, via my life in #Texas #Memphis #Miami #IU #Chicago #DC #FL 🛫🌍📺📽️🏈. Photo is of Elvis and Joan Blackman in 'Blue Hawaii'
Beautiful Stockholm at night, looking west towards Gamla Stan
ITN YouTube Channel video: The family of slain Royal Fusilier Lee Rigby visited the scene of his grisly murder outside the Woolrich Royal Artillery Barracks in Artillery Place at the hands of two Radical Islamists. They laid flowers and read many of the tributes for the 25-year-old soldier who while off-duty and walking down the sidewalk last Tuesday was intentionally run over by a blue Vauxhall Tigra automobile and hacked to death with a machete. Meanwhile, British Home Secretary Theresa May warned there are potentially thousands of people at risk of being radicalised in the U.K., as she indicated plans for a fresh crackdown on extremist groups. Reported by Tom Ellis. Uploaded May 26, 2013. http://youtu.be/j0xrrb27OCc
Channel4News YouTube Channel video: One week after the Woolwich attack on drummer Lee Rigsby, while hundreds of members of the Metropolitan Police Service continue investigating the case, Channel 4 News has been told that one of the suspects, Michael Adebolajo, was described as having a split personality. Uploaded May 29, 2013. http://youtu.be/fZeUQzongVE
Another Islamist terror attack, another round of assurances that it had nothing to do with the religion of peace
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
May 27, 2013, 6:40 p.m. ET
I've seen this before. A Muslim terrorist slays a non-Muslim citizen in the West, and representatives of the Muslim community rush to dissociate themselves and their faith from the horror. After British soldier Lee Rigby was hacked to death last week in Woolwich in south London, Julie Siddiqi, representing the Islamic Society of Britain, quickly stepped before the microphones to attest that all good Muslims were "sickened" by the attack, "just like everyone else."
This happens every time. Muslim men wearing suits and ties, or women wearing stylish headscarves, are sent out to reassure the world that these attacks have no place in real Islam, that they are aberrations and corruptions of the true faith.
Ever since the spectre of Islamic terrorism in the West first manifested itself, Britain has had its head stuck firmly in the sand.
After both 9/11 and the 7/7 London transport bombings, the Labour government promised to take measures to defend the country against further such attacks.
It defined the problem, however, merely as terrorism, failing to understand that the real issue was the extremist ideas which led to such violence.
IkoIko video: A 2006 Fox News Channel segment by reporter Steve Harrigan on immigration strife in Sweden and ethnic violence caused in the Rosengård area of Målmo by Muslim immigrants. Uploaded April 17, 2006. http://youtu.be/whWgCOE56K8 Despite all the changes that have taken place since it first came out, Prof. Fouad Ajami's 1982 book, The Arab Predicament, which I first read in school, still remains a go-to
book for those who need to make sense of the current Mid-East reality and how we got to this point, for better and worse, as well as an insightful look at Arab sensitivities and sensibilities (and ultra-sensitivities) to being seen as the outlier. My comments follow the essay.
The Washington Post
Why is the Muslim world so easily offended?
By Fouad Ajami
Published: September 14, 2012
Modernity requires the willingness to be offended. And as anti-American violence across the Middle East and beyond shows, that willingness is something the Arab world, the heartland of Islam, still lacks.
Time and again in recent years, as the outside world has battered the walls of Muslim lands and as Muslims have left their places of birth in search of greater opportunities in the Western world, modernity — with its sometimes distasteful but ultimately benign criticism of Islam — has sparked fatal protests. To understand why violence keeps erupting and to seek to prevent it, we must discern what fuels this sense of grievance.
Responses to the Ajami essay, which I sent out via email early on Saturday evening, consisted largely of "Maybe because the lunatic religious fanatics are running the show?" and even a link to Google Maps of the Middle East and questions about where are those Moderate Muslims that the Mainstream Media so adores, anyway?
Where are they hiding, exactly? Well, actually, they're not hiding, per se, rather it's just that a disproportionate number of them live far from the field of battle and the negotiating table, living as so many of them do in New York, London, Paris and Berlin among many other places, which is why reporters there have no problem finding them - THERE. This, of course, is a self-fulfilling prophecy in a sense in that having so many educated "moderates" in Western cities -a problem the MSM never sees or brings up- means that there's less actual resistance to tenets of radicalism in those countries. Radicalism fills the vacuum, not reasonableness. As for the rest of his essay, I do have an important correction for those of you who will perhaps not see it yourselves, and it actually touches on a subject that I've been wanting to write about and update since my last post on it, which netted me many interesting emails, though not all positive, since there's always someone who prefers butt-kissing to honesty. In the middle of his essay, Prof. Ajami says something that with just a slight bit of word substitution could just as easily be said is true of large swaths of current-day Miami, "You can live in Stockholm and be sustained by a diet of al-Jazeera television."
While that is factually true about Stockholm as much as it is true of dozens of other large and dynamic Western cities, as I've stated previously here on the blog, a better yet more troubling example of what he speaks about is in Målmo, on Sweden's west coast, opposite Denmark's capital, Copenhagen. See my January 6, 2011 post titled, Uh-oh! Upcoming BBC World Service 'Open Eyes' segment on racial tensions in Malmö. Hmm-m...; Swedish immigration policy costs borne by local residents
Unfortunately for Målmo, owing to both past immigration patterns, geography, and familial ties, it's now home to not only an area that soon will be 50% Muslim, but also home to a large percentage of Muslim immigrants in the Rosengård area who, in many cases, make little effort to even try to assimilate Swedish values and norms.
No, Malmö, despite an avalanche of internal and external Political Correctness regularly sprinkled on the city and its inhabitants by a very PC and often patronizing national and European news media, is also the home to what all reasonable parties acknowledge is a very big long-term problem: a large percentage of all the Muslim immigrants in Sweden who fail to fully appreciate Sweden's freedoms, liberties and culture and incorporate that into their daily lives, people who actively fight assimilation, live right there. And many of the people who don't feel they should need to change are cocky and uncivil and don't care what you think about them being so publicly ungrateful. And they aren't afraid of using violence, either, as the video at the top makes clear. When you attack firemen trying to put out a fire in YOUR neighborhood... you DON'T get the benefit of the doubt.
But it's a lot more than just a PR problem to be solved, since the things that have happened there the past ten years have ranged from very negative to extremely dangerous and even deadly, and have been well-documented by the Swedish news media. Everyone knows what has happened there. Because of this extensive coverage, the rest of the country has largely started to develop negative feelings about Målmo as a whole because of what they view, essentially, as a policy of appeasement. No, even worse from the point of view of Swedes who don't like what they see with a small but not insignificant number of immigrants taking advantage of their good nature and willingness to help, they see far too many people who won't even pretend that they're trying to assimilate, which, if you didn't know, is the one thing that educated Swedes of all political persuasions DO rather INSIST upon -immigrants actually trying to assimilate. And that includes learning enough Swedish to at least get by, not consciously going out of your way to cause offense by intentionally NOT speaking Swedish in public or govt. interactions, just to make others uncomfortable.
That tension and anger felt by a majority of Swedes is largely due to not only the natural resentment of knowing that you're being taken advantage of by others, but also, frankly, knowing for a fact that there are many more would-be immigrants in other countries who would only be too happy to do what little is expected of them if they could legally move to Sweden. People who'd be happy to try their best to fit in without having to be asked or reminded, and who would contribute something positive to society. That's who they want more of!
There are some positive things going on in Rosengård, thanks to the hard work of some very dedicated people who want to show Sweden and the rest of the world that there are lots of immigrants who are, indeed, grateful for their new lives in Sweden, and the myriad opportunities that they and their families now have. No, not every immigrant has a chip on their shoulder -or a rock in their hand. Some DO take pride in their area, and are well-adjusted, including the kids shown in this mittomrade video, which got posted to YouTube last week.
mittomrade video: Sophästen på Rosengård. Ivan Varga of "Ivan's Wagon Trail" and his horse, Bango, paid a trip recently to the Rosengård area of Malmö and proved an instant hit.Uploaded September 14, 2012. http://youtu.be/gAw1r4DJ_6Y
I didn't mention it before but among the many aspects of the failed immigration policy that causes people heartburn is the not-insignificant matter of all that taxpayer money being spent on all these social programs and activities, which contrary to what you may think in the U.S., actually comes more from local government, not from the national government. Which means that something locally that might've done some good, was not funded because something for immigrants was. A majority of people in Sweden feel that thru not only their words and actions but also thru their willingness to put their money where their mouths are, and bankroll a humanitarian process that makes it easy for newcomers to become part of the dynamic modern world that is Team Sweden, they don't think it's unreasonable for the newcomers to act more civilized and think before acting, not throw-down at the smallest sign of a slight, like where they came from. Taxpayers feel like they've shown their good intentions, and think it's not unreasonable for more immigrants to show more effort and gratitude, NOT act like they're still living in their old Mid-East country, and act publicly and privately in ways that are contrary to Sweden's customs and culture.
Yes, unfortunately for the people of Malmö,many Muslim immigrants in their part of the country have really mastered the art of bending-over-backwards to be seen publicly as the sullen "other," the outlier, and to get media attention for that. The foreigner who publicly takes advantage of Swedish hospitality and who won't get with the program. Is it because that's how they really feel, or because they thought they could get away with it and know that it gets them more attention? Probably both, but then the outlier never tells, do they? The thing is, despite all their democratic freedoms, Sweden, like Japan, is a consensus-driven and still-largely homogeneous country, and one that does NOT like people trying to consciously go against the grain and undermine Swedish society or customs simply for the sake of doing so; as opposed to doing so because of some larger, well-intentioned principle or policy. You can be a thirty-SOMETHING college-educated female that thinks that teenage girls in Sweden vying to be selected as the Lucia in their hometown, school or church is pretty silly in the 21st Century, and write about it on your too-cool-for-school political or fashion blog. But that's very different than verbally attacking the teenage girls in public, or you publicly saying that the tradition should stop merely because you and your hip pals are not enthusiastic about it.
Nobody is forcing you or your hung-over pals to get up early on December 13th and watch the national TV broadcast of the candlelight and music ceremony from some well-known church, while you all sit on your sofa thinking and saying disparaging thoughts about people you don't even know, while eating hot crossed buns or cold pizza pulled from the fridge. Sleep-in, it's all the same to everyone else It's freedom of choice. But denying others the choice to make their own personal decisions, well, that's the problem in a nutshell isn't it for the Muslim in Muslim-dominated countries today? He or she is part of a religious culture that continues to deny personal choices and freedoms and micro-manage all aspects of someone's life.
That sort of attitude is anathema to most Swedes, who, thanks to several well-chronicled exploits of several Muslim troublemakers, have in many cases largely given up on the idea that most future Muslim immigrants will do the right thing and assimilate. Which, logically, is why some ask, Why not just turn off the faucet to the Middle East? ----- Meanwhile, over at Romesnsko.com... NEWSWEEK’S #MUSLIMRAGE = BIG #FAIL http://jimromenesko.com/2012/09/17/newsweeks-muslimrage-big-fail/
Above, 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta's Florida Driver's License
While living in Arlington County, I followed the9/11 Commission hearings VERY closely, more than just about anyone I knew, watching or taping many of them off of C-SPAN, and, consequently, often staying-up late at night to catch up on their activities. Though it seems obvious now, while I'd heard from many sources that some of the hijackers had used Broward County Library computers to access the Internet to send messages -and book their flights- it never dawned on me to think about where, specifically, they had lived in South Florida.
But despite how much of the hearings I watched, I couldn't see everything, so it wasn't until another Washington-area friend who worked on Capitol Hill -also originally from Florida- pointed it out to me one night at a sports bar, that I found out that 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta lived in Hollywood. In fact, 4.6 miles from my father's home in Hallandale Beach.
(Not the subject of the column below, true, but just wanted to mention it all the same. Also relevant: On the morning of 9/11, I was working directly across Pennsylvania Avenue from the Dept. of Justice, the FBI and The National Archives. I was working on a litigation project for the law firm Crowell & Moring, a projectinvolving DODthat was supposed to send me and my team to Dayton for a few weeks that Fall, but that was cancelled for obvious reasons. From the firm's large windows facing Pennsylvania Avenue -and even more so from the large balcony that overlooked the street that were clearly perfect viewing for Inauguration Day festivities- I and the dozens of us on my flooor could clearly see the dark smoke arising in the SW from The Pentagon, just past our view looking towards the Old Post Office. More about my 9/11 experiences in Washington, D.C. here, from a Sept. 2011 post, http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/911-george-f-will-on-american-landscape.html) Well, I've been sitting on them for a while now. Wondering, wondering, wondering just when to run them in this space, but this excellent common sense perspective by liberal columnist Ruth Marcus in today's Washington Post about voluble Rep. Peter King of Long Island, and his resolve to finally have some long overdue congressional hearings on radical Islam in the U.S., despite protests from the usual suspects and however an imperfect a vehicle for that overdue development she thinks he might be, just might be the sign I've been waiting for.
So what's the them? My sign to let you know that coming soon to the blog will be some delicious articles, columns and video about Islamic radicalism and not-so-democratic Muslim immigrants (not at all interested in assimilation) that I guarantee you you haven't seen or heard about elsewhere in the American Mainstream Media.
At least, as represented by the Miami Heralds andNPRs of the world, where news stories and real-life actualities that don't fit their political or social template never see the light of day in print or make the airwaves.
That's largely because even some liberals can see the lie of the fiction long articulated by the MSM, in the U.S. as well as in Europe, that EVERY Muslim -esp. immigrants- are just like Jane & John Q. Public, whether they live in Northern Virginia, Queens, London, Parisor Malmö. Nope. Some are but more than you think are NOT. Just because the press wants it to be so doesn't change reality -or human behavior.
I know something of this first-hand because my first roommate at IU was a great guy named Salim who just also happened to be a Kenyan-born Muslim from Oman, who was at school on a World Health Organization (WHO) scholarship. Salim was very appreciative of the opportunity he had to live and study in the United States and loved IU and the beauty and friendliness of Bloomington more than many of my other friends, who were blase about it, and because of his personality and willingness to talk about what he knew about growing-up in a life different than ours, Salim made friends easily. A later roommate in the Washington area was a completely different story.I had known many Iranian-born friends as a kid growing-up in North Miami Beach, even seeing Grease at a drive-in with two -count 'em two- ridiculously cute and vibrant Iranian sisters in our family's convertible when I was in high school.
Their brother was a soccer teammate of mine and as I've related here previously, I sometimes went with him and his family to anti-Shah rallies at the JFK Torch of Freedom on Biscayne Blvd. in downtown Miami because members of his own family had been tortured or killed by the Savak. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912364,00.html
The Iranian-born medical student I was somewhat forced to live with in Arlington once another roommate moved-out just weeks before the lease was up -a know-it-all with with a real superiority complex- told me plenty of amazing stories about ways that Iranian students he knew played the State Dept. reps in Europe at the embassy or consulates for fools, in order to get visas. They accomplished this by telling them the appropriate narrative that would allow them to be admitted into the country. He said there even was a list of which State Dept. consular offices were more easy to fool than others, and since it was important to get to the U.S., they didn't mind the additional costs of flying out of whatever European country they might be living in in order to get to a consular office with a reputation for letting people in.Fly from Germany to Copenhagen or Portugal or...He knew that for a fact because it worked for HIM.
If college students knew how to game the system, do you honestly think that well-trained people with nefarious intentions and unlimited resources can't do even more?
Some people can never let go of their internal anger, never really want to fit in and are keenly disposed to wreck havoc on civil society wherever they can, even if that means corrupting freedoms or denying other people's guaranteed rights.
And when they're caught on film, they... yes, often celebrate their anti-social behavior. That is, until they realize that it will make them look bad once it is shown on TV or the Internet.That moment of clarity is always a sight to see! As you will soon see here for yourself, there's almost nothing better on TV then when the often-dubious world of Reality TV slams head-first into the behavior of the 'Real World' that the Left and its apologists in the media has been making excuses for for years.
That it happened in Sweden is not so surprising, sorry to say, but I can't help but think that if it had happened on a British TV show, where the conversation would've been in engelska, we'd all have long since seen the video by now and that it would be sure-fire water cooler conversation once20/20orNightline or Sixty Minutes highlighted the behavior for Americans.
That is, if people still really have water cooler conversation as shown on The Office, instead of sipping their dopey Five-Hour drinks and $4 fruity organic drinks from their desk when there's a perfectly good cold Dr. Pepper in the soda machine looking to add drinking satisfaction.
----- The Washington Post Islamic radicalism: The questions that Rep. Peter King is right to ask By Ruth Marcus Wednesday, March 9, 2011 One of the odder exchanges I've ever seen during a congressional hearing involved Attorney General Eric Holder, Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith and the phrase "radical Islam."
Smith, at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee last May, cited three recent terrorist incidents: the Fort Hood shooting rampage, the underwear bomber and the Times Square bomber. "Do you feel that these individuals might have been incited to take the actions that they did because of radical Islam?" he asked Holder. The attorney general did his best not to go there. "There are a variety of reasons why I think people have taken these actions," he said. "I think you have to look at each individual case." Smith tried again - and again. Holder repeatedly resisted, before grudgingly acknowledging the obvious. "I certainly think that it's possible that people who espouse a radical version of Islam have had an ability to have an impact on people like" the accused Times Square bomber, he said. Read the rest of the excellent column at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/08/AR2011030804487.html ---- Dr. Pepper TV commercial, 1960's http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpByXzdMQfk When I first got to Bloomington in August of 1979 and told people I met at my dorm, Briscoe Quad, or people I met on and off the IU campus that I was from North Miami Beach, it was very quickly obvious that they imagined that my life down here in high school on weekends was probably not unlike the end of this commercial, albeit many years later, with grill parties at the beach, throwing frisbees and footballs around and cute girls prancing around everywhere...
Believe me, it was very disappointing to have to tell them the truth about how boring and mundane late 1970's life in NMB was, or how many great opportunities or locales were wasted.
Haulover Beach on the Intercoastal side could get crazy on weekends, but it was never fun like life depicted in films or TV about teen life in SoCal, whom I envied. You know, where people describe every other thing they go to as "epic"? If only we had had cell phones and digital cameras and the Internet then...
Sayeeda Warsi, Baroness Warsi, is a VERY interesting personality and the star of some of the British Conservative Party videos, some of which I have posted here on my blog in the past.
Sayeeda Warsi looks at the exciting times ahead http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP5PopqK9e8
I'm listening now toBBC Radio5 live... a VERY INTERESTING interview byRichard BaconwithDuran Duran'sSimon LeBonon their exciting new album All You Need is Now-online now, out physically March 21st, that sounds like their '80's roots; it sounds great!- and they will be discussing her speech in Leicester later in the day: http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/#two Check it out!
http://www.sayeedawarsi.com/
Daily Telegraph Tory chief Baroness Warsi attacks 'bigotry' against MuslimsPrejudice against Muslims has become widespread and socially acceptable in Britain, the Conservative chairman will claim. Baroness Warsi will warn against trying to divide Muslims into 'moderates' and 'extremists' saying that it simply fosters intolerance By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent 10:00PM GMT 19 Jan 2011
Islamophobia has “passed the dinner-table test” and is seen by many as normal and uncontroversial, Baroness Warsi will say in a speech on Thursday.
The minister without portfolio will also warn that describing Muslims as either “moderate” or “extremist” fosters growing prejudice. Lady Warsi, the first Muslim woman to attend Cabinet, has pledged to use her position to wage an “ongoing battle against bigotry”. Read the rest of the column at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8270294/Tory-chief-Baroness-Warsi-attacks-bigotry-against-Muslims.html
So many possible "winners" but the answer is Pakistan.
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FOREIGN POLICY What the Waters Washed Away The rural, conservative refugees from Pakistan’s floods have not only lost their homes, but also their entire way of life. By Rania Abouzeid September 17, 2010
CHARSADDA, Pakistan-Zeynat wipes her tears away with the edge of her donated, cream-colored dupatta. Her family was separated shortly after raging floodwaters destroyed her modest, mud-brick home, and it has been well over a month since she last saw her three teenage daughters. For the past week, Zeynat and her mother-in-law have been sharing a tent with her friend and former neighbor, Bach Sultan, and four of Sultan's children, in a makeshift settlement here in Charsadda, in the socially conservative and insurgency-plagued Khyber Pakhtunkwa province bordering Afghanistan.
Zeynat's tent, which lies just feet away from the dozens of others pitched alongside Charsadda's Sugar Mill mosque, is sweltering inside. The front and back tent flaps are kept open in the hope of attracting a breeze, but they merely serve to expose the women to the view of passersby. The women say that custom prevents them from idly sitting outside. The camp's proximity to the mosque means that the building's bathrooms are available for use by the flood victims. This ensures them a modicum of privacy absent from many other camps, which lack sanitation or rely on outdoor toilets.
See also: Foreign Policy New attacks stun Pakistan By Imtiaz Gul September 10, 2010 http://www.imtiazgul.com/Sep_10_2010.html http://www.imtiazgul.com/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/
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U.S. Fund for UNICEF: Alyssa Milano on Pakistan flooding
