(Note to literalists: the Watched column presently contains only a smattering of 'warblogs' because the facilitator of the template-change--Dr. Menlo--is not very familiar with them, and will be adding more as they are sent to him. Also, this blog may contain areas of allusion, satire, subtext, context and possibly even a dash of the surreal: wannabe lit-crits beware.)
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[Watch this space for: Pentagon and Petroleum, The Media is only as Liberal as the Corporations Who Own Them, Wash Down With, and Recalcify]
WARBLOGGER WATCH
Friday, July 05, 2002
A. Essay question. Two choices: life as an gay atheist in Oklahoma, or life as a Christian gay in Afghanistan. Write 1,000 words describing how each faces equal hardship. If your essay contains less than 1000 words, you will either be docked ten years in prison or suffer few consquences, depending on which morally-equal culture the teaching assistant wishes to consult.
B. Western Culture is equal or inferior to Arab culture because: (check any you believe apply)
1. Our so-called democracies are fronts for corporate interests. Nader doesn’t win here; Nader doesn’t win in Jordan. What’s the difference (Apart from the fact he wasn't running in one of those contries)?
2. Arabs so-called scientific inquiry unshackled from religious strictures is a sham. Didn’t every study of the stars end in failure because Abul Hasan never invented the Telescope? Isn't the whole world dirty because they never invented soap? Stupid Arabs!
3. We spend more on flavored massage oil than we do on foreign aid, which is so, like, typical. Saudi Arabia spends more on mosques here in the United States than their citizens spend on Hustler, which should tell you something.
4. We may execute the mentally-ill and minors, but they are equally puritanical. At least we let our condemned sit on death row for a while.
5. I saw this documentary on the Crusades, and did you know that Arabs killed white guys? Why the hell did we let any of them live? For god's sake, they're ISLAMIC.
6. No culture is better than any other.
7. Did you know that "hashish" comes from the Arab word for "Assassin?" And that "Editor" is derived from the name of the guy who chose which gladiators lived or died. Seriously. Those crazy kikes.
8. There’s absolutely no chance of me getting a hook-up on this campus if I said Islamic values rule. Nada. Half the men are, like, y'know, the Islamic church is full of priests who have sex with small boys, and if they were so great they wouldn't make their women wear that crazy head-gear. And they're all, like, caught up in their crazy weblogs and telling everyone just how bad shit those Islamic fuckers are and how we should bomb them back into the stoneage, which they are already in, apparently.
1. Describe the likelihood of Islamic Indonesian driving a truck-bomb up to the replacement hospital.
2. If this occurred, write an imaginary description of the celebration in Bali, as they celebrate the great victory.
3. As for the hospital itself, it was a government building: Describe your feelings if a member of the Bush administration had suggested that the rebuilt Hospital be fashioned in the style of a Ka`bah. Extra credit if you conclude by warning of internment camps for Christians.
37% of all college students said they would be "likely to try to evade the draft," while another 21% would be willing to serve "but only if stationed in the United States." Only 35% of college students today would be "willing to serve and fight anywhere in the world."
To those 37%:
1. Ever paid taxes? Just curious.
2. Do you have a romantic notion of joining an platoon which is decimated by rifle fire as the enemy, surrounded by the local population, swarm at you, killing the men you've lived with for the past three months, when suddenly your legs are literally shaved from your body, leaving you to lie, agape in agony, as the blood seeps from your body, the last thought in your mind as a RPG explodes somewhere to your right, that you wish you could see your mother one last time.
"More students (55%) can name the leader of the Palestinian Authority than the US Sec’y of Defense (32%) or National Security Advisor. (19%)"
A. Since the leader of the PA is a heterosexual male, and the National Security Advisor is a single Black female, your inability to know the latter is due to:
1. The obsessive media attention given to the worst of the world in order to secure ratings and hire advertising rates rather than - hold on, what was the question?
2. The People! United! Will Never Be Defeated!
3. The leader of the Palestinian Authority cannot possible have a higher media profile than an American, therefore he does not exist. He is simply an excuse for Israel to wall off the Gaza strip.
"While President Bush receives very high marks for his handling of the presidency (70% approval), a majority of college students (57%) believe the policies of the United States are "at least somewhat responsible" for the September 11th terrorist attacks.
A clear majority of college students (60%) believe "developing a better understanding of the values and history of other cultures and nations that dislike us" is a better approach to preventing terrorism than investing in strong military and defense capabilities at home and abroad" (33%)."
Given that Osama et al wish to reestablish the Caliphate and establish their faith as the planet’s sole religion, would you:
1. Understand the values of those who would ensure the Constitution makes God mandatory
2. Support a national effort to rewrite spellcheckers so they replace "Arab" with "Terrorist"
3. Support sending the religious police to break up homosexuals in their own house, hog tie them to the back of a truck, and drag them through town
4. Understand why the cause requires the death of this child:
This is, or rather was, Rami Jamal al-Durra and his father. They were shot by IDF forces in the Gaza strip. Your task: find the Eastern value that says he deserved to die. Find the Eastern value that says Allah wants this child to be shot in front of his father. Find a big-league Cleric who commended her killer to paradise, and a murderer's mother who exhulted in this child's extermination.
Last question: you remember that famous, horrible photo of the young girl fleeing naked from a napalm attack in Vietnam. You may know that she was treated in Saigon by American-staffed hospital. She survived, was held up as a heroine by the Communists, sent to Cuba to be educated - and she defected to the West for freedom the first chance she had.
Describe, in as many words as necessary, the likelihood of a Israel giving intensive medical care to Rami , granting him citizenship, appointing him to an international human rights board, and writing stories - for domestic newspapers - drenched in shame for the trauma he suffered.
