What? Do you think I shit nickels?

Everyone would be eating lots more fiber if that were true. And vegetarians would rule the world. Muahahahahahaha

Hello. Again.

I'd say I'm back, but I fear I'll just wake up screaming and sweating, a night before another final exam/paper deadline. I had 10 of these, and I still got two seminars to write, but I've got a month for these two babies so I can go and play outside with the dangerous strangers (the 10 papers and finals, however, were taken in just under two months). I don't feel victorious such as downcast. They turned my brain from fun into somewhat neurotic place. And in the last 48 hours everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

Anyhow. I can see that you're talking about Ground Zero mosque. That, and shitting nickels. I approve the first, can't really see the interest you're finding in the latter.

I also approve of vegetarians.

Is there any objection to the cultural centre actually coming from New York? Just, living in London, it seems like in a big city you'd have to take offense every two minutes if stuff like that was going to bother you. Extremists blew up a bunch of people on the tube here, and no one seems to mind when new mosques are built. Prior to that, Irish terrorists were blowing things to smithereens on a regular basis, and no one was protesting against Irish pubs (there is a joke in Ireland though about how we all love Muslim extremists now, because we don't get pulled at airport security anymore).

Is there any objection to the cultural centre actually coming from New York?

There is some, but most of the polls show New Yorkers much more supportive of it than Americans as a whole. And I have no idea where I saw this poll, but there was one that broke down the numbers in a few different geographical ways, and basically, as you kept getting closer in to the actual neighborhood (like, first looking at the city as a whole, then just Manhattan, then Lower Manhattan), the support kept going up.

Hil, I bet that would make an awesome graphic.

With regard to the facebook defriending - I don't think I'd notice if anyone ever defriended me, unless they out and out told me. I don't pay enough attention to things, a lot of the time.

I forgot to close the downstairs windows before going up to bed last night. Brr cold now.

Jealous! Of the cold, that is.

There is a table at work...the "snack table" where people dump food for everyone on the floor. There's often popcorn [1], a cake if someone just certified in some discipline, cookies when someone felt like baking, leftover pizza iif someone didn't finish their dinner...that sort of thing. Nothing lasts long on the table. For 5 days now there have been 4 individually wrapped "fruit and nut dessert loaf"s sitting there, forlorn, like unwanted fruit cakes. I'm almost astonished...but then remember all the stories about fruit cakes.

Random thoughts.

[1] The city won't foot the bill to give us free coffee, but they provide a movie-theatre style corn popper in the breakroom along with corn and oil. Go figure. Greasy fingers on keyboard = ok but freely cafinated shift workers = not ok

Stories about fruit cakes? Ha?

Hi, Shir, wonderful to see your font!

erin_o, kinda makes me wonder which council member has a relative with a popcorn maker factory and/or movie theater that had surplus popcorn makers.

If disrespect, fear of giving offense, and popular sentiment were given primacy over Constitutional principles, women still wouldn't have the right to vote, people of different ethnic/religions/appearances wouldn't be able to marry, and some people would be obligated to pay poll taxes because popular sentiment suggested they should.

Prevention of that kind of behavior is part of what the Constitution is about - equal protection under the law....and popular sentiment which demands that popular sentiment be given primacy over the law deeply and meaningfully undermines the Constitution.

An open society requires running the risk that someone's going to use the openness against you. There's no problem with reasonable caution, but it's not as though there are hordes of Islamic people preparing to storm lower Manhattan. Even if the people building the mosque were radical, fire-breathing Islamic fundamentalists, THEY'D STILL HAVE THE RIGHT, whether or not it opened old wounds. As an atheist, I don't care for religion of any type, but that doesn't give me the right to to tell someone they can't build a church in my neighborhood. I can tell them I am not interested in their message, but I can't shut them down because I don't like their belief system.

And IMHO, that's what the mosque furor is ultimately about - having the courage that the principles of openness and fairness will ultimately result in a better, more tolerant society.

Matt, I agree with all of this, for the record. I don't think feelings should be given primacy over Constitutional principles. And I think it will be an American triumph when the community center is built.

I absolutely support the Cordoba Initiative's right to build the center (and, not that it matters, but I should note it does not cause me pain, unease, or offense). I wish, last night, that I'd thought to express my feelings thusly, "Were my congregation in the Cordoba Initiative's position, I would suggest that we change our plans, in order to avoid causing pain and strife."

I fully acknowledge the above is so very easy for me to say. I'm a New England Protestant in a town that was founded more than 100 years before the American Revolution. Back then, in order to found a town, you first had to start a church. That church (congregation, not building, we have a history of fire) is the one to which I currently belong. I know full well I can't squeeze my enormous, privileged hoofs into the Cordoba Inititive's shoes.

You know what's really fucking disrespectful? Jack-hole former politicians from Georgia and Alaska telling people in lower Manhattan who breathed the ashes of their neighbors as they fled for their lives what they should and should not put on their own fucking block.

Yeah. I think we're hearing a lot of put-on offense, and it's being put on for the sake of midterm elections. They're trying to gin up legitimate pain in this country, and exploit it for political gain.

What I'm really gobsmacked by is how Obama's milquetoast comments have caused such OUTRAGE. I think people are just looking for reasons to be OUTRAGED.