As one teacher learned when she tore up a Bible to get students to think about how they would feel if someone desecrated what they considered sacred.
Thinking about what you would feel if someone desecrated what you hold sacred as a teaching technique: GOOD.
Witnessing someone desecrating what you hold sacred as a teaching technique: BAD.
NEVER FORGET!
Guess I’m in good company.
As a reader pointed out down yonder, there is a second offensive toy that has been produced and bundled with candy in Florida. This toy appears to depict Usama bin Laden standing between the WTC towers. (And, it looks to me, as if he is preparing to knock them over.)
As before, the candy company explained that it bought the toys sight unseen and did not realize what it was sending out. It has now recalled the toys.
The importer previously defended the first 9/11 toy discovered. No word on whether it also defends this one.
Remember 9/11?
Remember how horrible it was?
Remember all the even more horrible terrorist attacks that followed it?
You don’t?
Neither do I.
This raises a hopeful possibility: Maybe al-Qa’eda has spent its force.
Maybe we’ve neutralized so many of its leaders and footsoldiers that it isn’t able to project the force it did on 9/11.
Maybe it played its hand too early and didn’t have the accumulated strength needed to pull off similarly horrible attacks. (Maybe there just aren’t that many fanatical Muslims willing to kill themselves in the pursuit of jihad.)
Maybe it’s a combination of the these factors.
What I know is that, despite all its posturing, al-Qa’eda hasn’t (yet) been able to pull off a similarly horrible attack in the three years that have elapsed since 9/11.
What I’m sure of is that al-Qa’eda would have carried out a similarly horrible attack if it had been able to do so during most of that time.
What I’m worried about is that al-Qa’eda may have been able to accumulate enough resources to attempt such an attack before the U.S. election two months from now.
What I’m confident of is that al-Qa’eda is still a threat that must be taken with grave seriousness and vigorously pursued.
But as more time elapses without a catastrophic attack, the more evidence accumulates that al-Qa’eda is a spent force.
HERE’S SOMEONE WHO WILL PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER FOR YOU ON THAT HOPEFUL POSSIBILITY.
Remember 9/11?
Remember how horrible it was?
Remember all the even more horrible terrorist attacks that followed it?
You don’t?
Neither do I.
This raises a hopeful possibility: Maybe al-Qa’eda has spent its force.
Maybe we’ve neutralized so many of its leaders and footsoldiers that it isn’t able to project the force it did on 9/11.
Maybe it played its hand too early and didn’t have the accumulated strength needed to pull off similarly horrible attacks. (Maybe there just aren’t that many fanatical Muslims willing to kill themselves in the pursuit of jihad.)
Maybe it’s a combination of the these factors.
What I know is that, despite all its posturing, al-Qa’eda hasn’t (yet) been able to pull off a similarly horrible attack in the three years that have elapsed since 9/11.
What I’m sure of is that al-Qa’eda would have carried out a similarly horrible attack if it had been able to do so during most of that time.
What I’m worried about is that al-Qa’eda may have been able to accumulate enough resources to attempt such an attack before the U.S. election two months from now.
What I’m confident of is that al-Qa’eda is still a threat that must be taken with grave seriousness and vigorously pursued.
But as more time elapses without a catastrophic attack, the more evidence accumulates that al-Qa’eda is a spent force.
HERE’S SOMEONE WHO WILL PUT THE PIECES TOGETHER FOR YOU ON THAT HOPEFUL POSSIBILITY.
A toy packaged with candy to be sold to children in central Florida depicts the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Parents, stores, and even the candy company are outraged and have pulled the toy from their shelves. However, the import company that brought the toy into the U.S. and sold it to the candy company (which did not see the toy beforehand) does not deny that the toy depicts 9/11 but also does not believe that the toy is offensive and sees no problem with its distribution.
I want to know who owns this importer and who originally manufactured the toy.
Precision-guided weapons are not the only weapons that represent the future of warfare. Non-lethal ones will play an increasingly important role as well, which will cause moral theologians to have to do a lot of rethinking if future warfare is able to capitalize on achieving war goals with fewer and fewer casualties.
One new weapon that has been announced is a stink bomb the Israelis are planning to use against Palestinian demonstrators.
Let’s hope that the capture of key figures involved in the plot and their hard drives will convince al-Qa’eda leadership that the operation has been so compromised that it needs to be called off.
Let’s also pray that the information that has been captured is sufficient to let the authorities capture the rest of terrorists involved in the plot and to continue to disrupt al-Qa’eda operations.
Lord, hear our prayer.
Alan Keys, a conservative Catholic and Republican candidate for the Illinois seat in the U.S. Senate being contested this fall, laid into his rival, Barack Obama, accusing him of holding a position on abortion comparable to that of slaveowners regarding slaves. In both cases, a class of human beings is denied full humanity and then systematically exploited for the benefit of others.
According to the Associated Press story:
Up at dawn for a whirlwind round of broadcast interviews, the conservative former diplomat [Keyes] started his first full day of campaigning as the GOP candidate by saying Obama, a state senator from Chicago, had violated the principle that all men are created equal by voting against a bill that would have outlawed a form of late-term abortion.
Keyes said legalizing abortion deprives the unborn of their equal rights.
“I would still be picking cotton if the country’s moral principles had not been shaped by the Declaration of Independence,” Keyes said. He said Obama “has broken and rejected those principles– he has taken the slaveholder’s position.”
The remarks underscore the uniqueness of this Senate race in which both candidates, one an outspoken conservative and the other a favorite of party liberals, are black.
Obama, who has been basking in national celebrity since delivering the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention, suggested Keyes is outside the moderate mainstream of state Republicans.
Asked specifically about the phrase “slaveholder’s position,” Obama said Keyes “should look to members of his own party to see if that’s appropriate if he’s going to use that kind of language.”
Faced with the Keyes onslaught, Obama was ambiguous on the number of times he would meet Keyes in debate:
Obama said Monday that there would be “a sufficient number of debates” between himself and Keyes– both men are Harvard-educated, polished debaters– but not the seven such clashes he had promised [former senate candidate Jack] Ryan.
IMPACTING HARD.