Thursday, February 23, 2012 I have lived in the United States of America as a legal immigrant since 1964 and I love this country as if it were my own. I am also a Christian. But I cannot stop myself from expressing my anger in response to the absolute stupidity and utter ignorance of our military in Afghanistan. If after 10 years of occupation (for whatever reason we think we need to be there) we still do not undertand the significance of the Quran to the Muslims living there we deserve to be expelled by the justified oproar of the populace. Are we so addicted to our lust for money - and oil for our gasoline slurping vehicles - that we could not possibly understand that there would be people who did not share our greed? To burn the Holy Book of another civilization, aggravated by the addition of vulgar sex magazines in the fire, is such an act of incomprehensible ignorance that we should not be surprised that our (even most 'sincere') apologies will only add to the ever escalating level of protest and rejection of our continued presence in this region. |
Question & Answer Section |
Wednesday, August 22, 2007 At the end of an interfaith conference (Jewish, Muslim, Christian) a self-professed atheist told me the following: If there is a God, he is (1) Incompetent ("I could accept that") or (2) Indifferent ("This would make me very mad") My response: (3) God loves you as if you were his only child! There was very little time for continued discussion so I asked him to check this site occasionally over the next few months and I would try I to elaborate on this in more detail. |
Wednesday, October 30, 2002
Give me your Tired, your Poor?
(Inspired by Haitians jumping ship in Miami) Of the 20,000-plus persons who are detained by the INS on any given day, about 3,000 are asylum seekers. They are not criminals; the most they could be accused of was having improper documentation or none. They are treated worse than persons incarcerated in US prisons for murder. They are not guaranteed access to a lawyer; they must find out by themselves how to get one. If they do not have a lawyer with them at the hearings, they are six times more likely to be denied asylum and "removed" that is, deported. Their access to telephones and visitors is strictly controlled; although there are federal regulations for minimum standards in this regard, they are not routinely kept.
In the past 5 or 6 years treatment of persons seeking entrance to this country has become more and more punitive under national regulations. Last December in Oregon, the district office of the INS was exposed by a reporting team of The Oregonian as going beyond national guidelines in refusing entrance to Asians. Their treatment became so egregious that travel agencies in Japan were advising customers to choose any other destination than Portland. The district director was finally forced to resign, although he swore he was only following the rules. (Enforcing the rules is a matter of wide interpretation by INS officials, at the best of times.)
10/22/02 7:57 PM – CPCC(17) – Anthropology (The Origin of Religion?)
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Sunday, April 28, 2001
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