Are these the "noble Iraqi people"?

Drumming their chests and whipping their backs, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shi’ite Muslims swarmed through the holy city of Kerbala on Tuesday on a pilgrimage suppressed for decades by Saddam Hussein. Marking one of the most important events of their year, some men slashed their heads with knives and left bloody wounds in a ritual display of readiness to die for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. The imam was killed in Kerbala in AD 680.

Are these the "noble Iraqi people"? If we really want a peaceful Middle East, it’s time to bring some of that eeevil western imperialism (read: secularism and private property) to Iraq, rather than allowing rabid Islamic fundamentalists to spew their religiously motivated hatred of rights, reason, and reality. Liberals have it all wrong: they blame the conservatives for their "colonialism" but Bush, with his new-age Christianity, will never understand that the true nature of the conflict is western secularism vs. religious fundamentalism.

BloodyDumb Fundies

Hundreds of Millions Found in Iraq

LGF reports that hundreds of millions of dollars were found in Iraq by US soldier, who stubmled upon the money hidden in sealed-up cottages in an upper class Baghdad neighborhood. CNN reporters are currently debating whether the money was destined for Iraqi civilians or the dismantling of WMD’s. </sarcasm>

In other news, new evidence shows that the shuttle was most likely doomed by the falling debris in the first few seconds of flight. Read my take on NASA here.

While the lights were out…

Power Outage

The power went out in College Station last week, and Texas A&M shut down for the day as the stop lights in the entire city died (see the photo I took above.) Moments after my power died, I heard the generator in the private dorm come on, while the rest of the city remained dark. Going to my [canceled] class, I overheard various cell phone conversations as one person said "pray for power" and another "the main power line for [XYZ] generator is down." (I leave the metaphysics lesson up to you.) In a scene eerily reminiscent to a certain book, I later heard that the power failure had been greatly compounded by faulty infrastructure caused by massive bureaucratic regulation of the state’s power grid. (My own conclusion.) The official response to nearly 4 hours without power? Keeping the citizens safe from food poisoning:

As the power outage stretched into its third hour, the Brazos County Health Department ordered all area retail food outlets without power to close the doors."There is a simple law under the Texas Food Establishment Laws that once food is being kept below 45 degrees it is no longer safe to eat," said Julie Anderson, spokeswoman for the health department. "We tried to get the message out through the radio, but some restaurants said they wouldn’t close so we sent inspectors out there," Anderson said, adding that they ended up having to urge only one to shut down.

Meanwhile, as the stop lights in the entire city died, I watched one-time coordination scenarios play out over and over, as thousands of students who had only been driving for a few years somehow managed to avoid hitting each other, and while traffic backed up, there were no major accidents and only a few horn blows. A policeman tried to direct traffic on one street, but seemed to give up when the drivers did a better job directing traffic on their own. Alternation between cross-traffic seemed to happen by momentum: whenever a driver paused before crossing an intersection, the cars next to him would pause as well, giving the cars and pedestrians on the intersection a chance to cross. When the first pedestrian or car paused before crossing the intersection, the other side would get started, starting the next cycle. The biggest pauses were caused by unaware or aggressive drivers who tried to initiate crossing the intersection without waiting for a prompt from the other side. All in all, an interesting study in game theory.

LTE: Gaines Memorial Would be a Tribute to Racism

Despite the noble claims of those who support erecting a statue of Matthew Gaines on campus, their real motivations are dishonest, and their “tribute” is fundamentally racist in nature.  If Gaines had been instrumental in the founding of A&M, and had his contribution hushed up because of his race, there might be a case for recognizing his efforts –but even his supporters admit that their primary motivation for his memorial is his skin color.  Whether they believe that the memorial will inspire other students or be a politically popular move for the administration, there can be no doubt that their motivations are racist in nature.

 Some people reduce racism to a dislike of a particular skin color or ethnic group, but this is a very incomplete understanding.  Racism is the notion that one’s race determines one’s identity.  It is the belief that one’s values, character, and achievements are determined not by their mind, but one’s anatomy or blood.  To praise or condemn an individual based on his race is to claim that the value of a person comes from inherited characteristics rather than their achievements, destroying people’s confidence in their own mind.  Classifying people by racial identity creates an unbridgeable gulf between groups, as though their skin color determines their identity and actions.  When Frederick Douglass took inspiration from Thomas Jefferson’s immortal words that “all men are created equal” was he mistaken in applying them to himself because he was not white?  Am I wrong for thinking of Martin Luther King Jr. and Walter Williams as heroes and great Americans because I am not black?  Should those who follow the teaching of Jesus forget them because he might be white, black, or neither?  Would the supporters of the memorial have me ignore the contribution of all the great men and women in history because they are not the same sex or color as I?

 I will not accept this view.  I will judge individuals based on their values and actions, not their race.  If the administration truly wishes to extinguish racism, it must teach students to recognize people for their values and actions, not traits that they have no control over.