Here are some cool things I’ve unearthed in recent weeks that I’ve been meaning to blog about at length but find myself to busy to do!
- An article about an Afghan man who got 20 years in prison for asking questions about women’s rights under Islam.
- A blog post by a friend about Obama’s election and what it made him think about.
I am writing and reading a lot this fall, and most of the writing is not for publication, sadly – like my personal statement for my Ph.D. application, amongst other things. So keep sending me cool stuff, or I may start posting descriptions of classes I want to teach, and other odd things.
Here’s a really interesting op-ed about race and the gay community and prop 8, by a (really cool sounding) woman:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-cannick8-2008nov08,0,3669070.story
The podcast where I first heard it is even better:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96817462
About the Afghan story, this is the nation we’re trying to save from the Taliban and bring western democracy to in the name of fighting terrorism? Almost every story I’ve read, including the one about the women with the book about the beauty college, only shows me they don’t want or plan to change beyond re-establishing a fundamental Islamic state. I’ve read better stories about Greg Mortenson’s work with building rural schools, “Three Cups of Tea.”
What don’t we understand that you can lead a nation to democracy but they don’t have to use it? And I remember Bush said he wasn’t into nation building. Are we willing to spend a generation in Afghanistan in the hope of something different? Or haven’t we learned from their history of occupation?