Jon Stewart on the Daily Show continued coverage of the New York City Islamic Center controversy last night ("Tennessee No Evil") taking his examination of the controversy from the Park 51 Center (the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque") in Manhattan, two blocks from the WTC, to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, "18,000 blocks" from the WTC.
"They came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up.."
One of our editorial projects, the Saudi-US Relations Information Service, that we have produced since 2003 was profiled today by "American Bedu" a blog authored by former U.S. diplomat Carol Fleming.
This week I wrote about politicians’ pandering to voters over possible fears of Islam — opposing mosques and Islamic community centers in Tennessee and New York City. It is a hot topic and the controversies continue even though the primary…
Why has standing up for a fundamental Constitutional protection become an act of political courage? That question was one of the least savory aspects of the primary battles that wrapped up this week for U.S. House seats and the Governor’s job in Tennessee but it sadly reflected recent political pandering and religious bigotry at the national level.
Today we posted "Not on the Cover of the Rolling Stone" among the columns here. For those of a different generation who might not have heard the Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show tune you should take a look and listen.
The newest addition to the seemingly unending collection of stories that you just can’t make up is the strange case of General Stanley McChrystal, who until this week was the top military man in Afghanistan directing American and NATO combat forces. The general handed his commander in chief a resignation on Wednesday after the public airing of disparaging comments aimed at American civilian leaders. But there is the unanswered question of why he joined a fight he was sure to lose, and a particularly strange part of the story is the battlefield he chose for the losing campaign. Rolling Stone.
Thanks to everyone who sent feedback about this week's column, "Memo to Glenn Beck and Fox News Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch." In it I mentioned that President Obama was giving Memorial Day remarks at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Illinois after Mr. Beck and others on Fox News (and elsewhere) asserted that President Obama was skipping the Arlington National Cemetery observance at the Tomb of the Unknowns in favor of a "vacation." [Click on this post title to see the video.]
As one of the many Americans who value the real Memorial Day as a very special occasion and who is a regular visitor to family and friends whose address is Arlington Cemetery, it is offensive that the disturbing trend of divisive dialogue in our country’s political life has punctured what should be an off-limits zone. Fox News, keep your hands off our Memorial Day. We want it back.
We Americans consider ourselves to be among the most generous people on the planet and when it comes to individual charitable giving that appears to be the case. Americans give three and one-half times more per capita than the French, seven times more than the Germans and 14 times more than the Italians, according to a television news magazine story by John Stossel. When asked about Americans’ giving in response to the Haiti earthquake in January, Cass Wheeler, who knows something about raising money as former CEO of the American Heart Association, said, “When you think about this country, the spirit of volunteering time and making contributions is really a part of our fabric.”