http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2013/02/16/morning-madness-notes-from-all-over Comments On: Morning madness: Notes from all over by Max Brantley en-us Copyright 2013 Arkansas Times. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, Arkansas Times readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact Arkansas Times. robert@arktimes.com (Arkansas Times Webmaster) Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:01 -0500 Wed, 22 May 2013 03:15:00 -0500 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
These are the same maggots festering in your legislature. And Arkansas wants to build "America's Bridge" and that "Tech Park" and that Big Steel ripoff, etc., etc.

Don't miss the comments after the article, if you want to know the growing national reaction to people like your transvaginal probers, 6,000-year-old-earthers and climate-change-deniers.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/16/tim-…

It's six o'clock. Time to dress like the angel I am and go play in the City of.
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 20:16:08 -0600 Arkansas Times
As "Argo" makes perfectly clear, it is folly for the U.S. to try to install secular governments in Islamic countries. Any student of history knows the same.

As does any student of Islam and its treatment of women (and human rights generally).

Trifkovic does a masterful job of deconstructing the myth of the "Golden Age of Islam."

"Our behavior" or lack of it, Cobb, hasn't helped "enhance" Islam's hold over women or anybody else "there." It has been an utter failure, no matter how it's read.

Islam's hold on Islamic countries is EXACTLY where the Roman Catholic church's "hold" on Europe was at the same age: namely, what popularly used to be called the Dark Ages, starting around 1200 C.E., when the Church's spreading Inquisition sought out and killed "heretics"--especially those who represented education, enlightenment, literacy and science all across Europe.

Those enlightened elements threatened (still do) religion's superstitious hold on ignorant tribal masses. Religious power is based entirely on divide-and-conquer strategies that depend on demonizing The Other. The Lie is that they're about Love. They're about Control.

Islam is now 1,200 years old, as was The Church when it started the Inquisition and sought to supress the spread of secular knowledge.

The Church is now 2,000 years old and dying. So are the other two Abrahamic religions: the far older Judaism and the newer Islam. Global education and the internet are responsible.

Your false notion that women EVER had some Golden Age of rights under Islam is completely uninformed.

Your notion that U.S. policy has in any way affected "rights" under Islam, for good or ill, fails beneath the facts of Islamic rule since its inception.

No one likes to admit they are powerless to help people. Yet it's true.

You can't help drunks dry out, or morbidly obese people lose weight, or homicidal "maniacs" become model citizens . . . unless they themselves are genuinely motivated to change. Even then, the task is lifelong and arduous.

You can't "make" countries abandon centuries and millennia of religious superstition unless they're motivated to. Same with backward states like Arkansas and the South generally. Once they hurt enough, left far enough behind, they will change.

We have EVERY right to "complain" about Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Scientology, et al., those of us not in thrall to their bullying, mendacity and deceit.

We have EVERY right to point out that statements like yours are worse than short-sighted, self-serving and cosmetic: the blame for lack of human rights, including women's, in the Middle East has nothing to do with whether the U.S. does or doesn't try to intervene. To say so promotes misunderstanding and perpetuates ignorance.

The sole reason we're there, have ever been there, is oil money. If another source of plentiful and renewable energy were discovered tomorrow, the Middle East would dry up and blow away.

No matter how much we "wish" we could improve the lot of women and others under Islam, nothing will change until enough of their people wake up to what's going on in the rest of the world . . . as they are doing with readily available information on the internet and through the media.

Which is why nations like them (including China, Russia, most of Africa), and even our own precious United States, are fighting to control and contain the web.

Islam has always been what is still is. Recent history has nothing to do with it, much as you seem to believe it.
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 19:45:12 -0600 Arkansas Times
Oil was discovered in that region around the time females were gaining rights in other areas. U.S. constant interference in that region for our own gain continually sets back normal evolution of society there. When you upset the balance of power in a country, it's not the cream that rises to the top.

We do little about the rights in Saudi. We funded those that became the Taliban. We helped overthrow a democratically elected government in Iran and more recently, helped Sharia law rule in Iraq. We have no right to complain about Islam when our behavior has helped enhance its hold over women there.
Posted by Cindi Cobb]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 18:09:52 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by historian]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:47:28 -0600 Arkansas Times http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasphemy_Day

The Repug Taliban has stolen the concept of family values and warped it to fit their intolerant dictates. They manipulate religion to declare that what is good is evil and what has been perceived as evil is good in their Bizarro world.

Politicians need to reclaim the term and speak out for the real family values that elevate society. They need to establish family values as their campaign platform. Liberal family values promote good health, a safe job with a living wage, education, a clean environment, freedom of religious belief (or non-belief), and freedom from hate, discrimination, and injustice. That is a political message that can win.
Posted by YossarianMinderbinder]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 15:56:45 -0600 Arkansas Times
http://tinyurl.com/a8vjwg7
Posted by Sound Policy]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 15:54:33 -0600 Arkansas Times > THIS trend to become popular on Natural State campuses.

It's beginning at UA Fayetteville. Fayetteville Freethinkers hold free "Bible Study" classes at UA. It's a shocker for some fundies and believers.
Posted by eLwood]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 14:37:53 -0600 Arkansas Times
Speaking of such:

How about declaring Support Gay Marriage in Arkansas Day at the state capitol!? All men wear a tie to show you support gay marriage!
Posted by GrizLee Bear]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 14:30:50 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by RYD]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 14:21:38 -0600 Arkansas Times
Tweet me in 50 years.

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/16/non_believ…
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 14:00:29 -0600 Arkansas Times
I would say you've got to be kidding, but I know you're not.

Citing William Montgomery Watt as an objective observer of Islam is like asking a tenured professor at the Yale School of Divinity, or a Sunday school teacher, to tell you the origins of Christianity.

If he or she told the truth, they'd lose their jobs.

Objective observers of Islam, still today, risk losing their lives.

Amen.

(Which term, BTW, like the figures of "Moses" and "Jesus," was stolen from ancient Egyptian religion, namely the worship of Amen-Ra.)
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:56:09 -0600 Arkansas Times
These political prayers are in violation of House rules. The preacher should be reprimanded and banned from any repeat appearances and the sponsoring legislator should be prohibited from inviting any other outside agitator to speak.

This is yet another example of the arrogance of the Repug Taliban and the total disregard they have for rules and laws they disagree with. The Salem Witch Trials (which were attacks on women also) are nothing compared to what the Repug Taliban have in mind for our future.
Posted by YossarianMinderbinder]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:51:47 -0600 Arkansas Times >meteorite is somehow connected to chemtrails and liberals.

truth-seekers only! Don't you listen to the radio!
Posted by eLwood]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:25:13 -0600 Arkansas Times
What say you, Waltons? What say you, Walter Hussman? Are you up for the challenge?

P.S. I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Platinum Spoon Brigade to accept the challenge. They're well aware they would lose a fair competition.
Posted by Sound Policy]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:06:14 -0600 Arkansas Times
This GED business for profit irritates the hell out of me. Why must the state of Arkansas privatize something that's been working as is for decades? I had a girlfriend once 32 years ago who had been sexually abused by her father since she was 8 years old. She was a junior in high school before she found out that other girls weren't required to sexually satisfy their fathers. The shock caused her to quit school and run away down highway 71 seeking protection from the state.

I met her a year or so later when she lived with a foster mother and was trying to regain a stable life more or less on her own. She was working on her GED when I met her and working part time as a receptionist at a plumbing company. Before I met her I had always looked down my nose at people who got GEDs. I was shocked how hard her classwork was, but by definition a GED class is accelerated high school. She was having to learn in months what I had years to learn. It was hard as hell! And I was mighty proud when she graduated and could do better than a part time receptionist job.

Adding one ounce of difficulty to the business of getting a GED will knock a lot of people out of the program. Nearly all of them are hanging by a thread today because most are parents trying to get by on minimum wage pay often working more than one lousy job to keep the lights on.

And in steps a private company who wines & dines some state officials until they think it's a fine idea to make our GED program a for-profit situation so some rich sumbitch can add 100 more dollars per student to their millions. It's cruelty in action. It's a recipe for keeping more poor people on Arkansas welfare rolls, trapped forever in the world of awful jobs if they can even find a job.

Debbie Hobbs.....you're better than that or at least you used to be. Is this something you learned in the Nazarene church?
Posted by DeathbyInches]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:41:49 -0600 Arkansas Times
Of course if you get educated you might vote the crazies out of office.
Posted by Polecat]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:35:18 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by GrizLee Bear]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:14:30 -0600 Arkansas Times
As to Iraq, it was secular. Honor killings were rare. Remember Dr Taha? Go find a photo of her covered up. You won't. Their rights there began to lessen with the sanctions but until we invaded and a new constitution was written, Sharia law was not the top law of the land. Bremer swore that would not happen but it was allowed to in order to meet the timelines set up by our administration. I remember that day well. You can find many sources on rights pre and post invasion. Our needless invasion resulted in drastically worsened conditions and laws there.

I never stated Islam was positive for female rights now. I said it was as compared to female rights at the time. The point is that if Biblical law was enforced in the US, it would be much worse for females here than in the mid-east.
Posted by Cindi Cobb]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:13:31 -0600 Arkansas Times I'm with ya. My family is currently in Northeast Arkansas and I need to be close to them. As a gay man, I currently live and work in LR, but I've just discovered that Southern Illinois is fairly close to where my parents live in NE Arkansas. And it's not much further than Little Rock

I have worked for 23 years in this state to make myself fairly wealthy by Arkie standards. I could have stopped working my main job 3 years ago. I pay A LOT of state taxes, but I am no longer interested in paying taxes to a state controlled by *irrational* right wing Baptists. If the current marriage vote in Illinois proceeds as I hope, I will begin to look at moving to Southern Illinois to restart my life. It will take about 2 years to untangle my finances here.

The whole thing makes me see illegal immigration to the US in a new light. Because, should I leave here, I will be leaving as a person seeking political assylum in another state. I cannot begin to contemplate what these law makers are cooking up for Arkansas' gay people.

One of the things that helped me make the decision to start looking for a new place to live is the article in The Times about desegregating the Capitol cafeteria. Read it. I can see the same attitude taking hold here again, and I will not be a part of it.
Posted by spunkrat]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:12:17 -0600 Arkansas Times The meteorite is somehow connected to chemtrails and liberals.
Posted by GrizLee Bear]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:11:32 -0600 Arkansas Times
Using the minimum wage to address poverty is very, very inefficient. Take a look at who earns minimum wage: www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011tbls.htm

Only 5% of hourly workers are paid minimum wage or less. 23% are teenagers. Another 26% are college age. A bunch of others are the second earner for their household and may not be anywhere near poverty.

While all those suburban white kids (at least the ones that can get jobs) and all the people working just to have something to do will really appreciate having some extra spending money, it's not going to do much for poverty.
Posted by Gylippus]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:07:20 -0600 Arkansas Times Those in the know realize it's alien landings but I won't reveal my source.
If you don't have an 'in' with Donald Trump then you're left with government
cover stories.
Posted by eLwood]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 11:39:36 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by wannabee conservative]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 11:36:42 -0600 Arkansas Times
Don't know where you get your information about women and Islam, but it is entirely false, historically. It can only be propaganda.

You find it "amusing?" Your ignorance on this matter is astonishing.

It is worse than misleading to present what you say as in any way factual. It ignores or excuses Islam's hideous record on women's and others' rights.

Your statement also appears utterly ignorant of and blind to the ugly and overwhelming anti-female foundations of all three Abrahamic religions.

Among the many, many educated and informed scholars and critics of Islam (to mention only relatively recent ones) are figures like Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Serge Trifkovic and, most importantly and recently, renowned Islamic feminist and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, one of Time's 100 most influential women, whose autobiography, "Infidel," should be required reading for the world.

Nor is your assertion that "our" invasion of Iraq is in any way responsible for Islam's rule there in the least true.

Your ignorance of history and fact is anything but "amusing." It's horrific.
Posted by Norma Bates]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 11:10:15 -0600 Arkansas Times Posted by plainjim]]> Sat, 16 Feb 2013 11:04:40 -0600 Arkansas Times