The war against Islam

This weekend, Muslims will be celebrating Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of our holy month of Ramadan. But this year, the holiday falls during an ugly time. This year Eid coincides with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and comes at a time of great tensions between the Islamic and western world.

We are currently in the midst of heated opposition to building a community learning center along with a mosque near the area of ground zero, with thousands of people protesting that the mosque would be a monument to terrorism.

Islamophobia has escalated dramatically, with radical evangelical pastor Terry Jones hosting a “Burn a Koran Day” at his church, the Dove World Outreach Center, in Gainesville, FL as his own personal way to commemorate 9/11. How remembering the fallen by hosting a hateful, disrespectful, abominable event such as this one is beyond me.

Jones, who has previously been expelled from a German church for his hateful teachings, has admitted that he has never read the Qur’an, stating “I have no experience with it whatsoever. I only know what the Bible says.” He claims to be sending a warning to radical Muslims that “they can’t push their agenda upon us.”

Jones’ event has been condemned by religious leaders around the world and U.S. officials at all levels, including President Obama, who said of Jones, “I just hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values of Americans, that this country has been built on the notions of religious freedom and religious tolerance." Jones has ignored all warnings that such an event endangers our troops in Afghanistan and will almost certainly result in retaliation. Shows just how much Jones cares about his country.

Jones also inspired hate-pastor Bob Old from Springfield, TN to participate in Qur’an burnings as well. Old stated that in his opinion, there should be no Muslims in America.

The actions of these hateful pastors not only go against American ideals, but also against Christianity. While Jones has never read the Qur’an, it is doubtful he has even read the Bible, because the teachings of Jesus oppose such disrespectful, hateful actions.

Hellen Keller once said, “The highest result of education is tolerance.” It’s truly a shame that we still have such ignorant people living in this country which stands as a beacon for religious tolerance.

Eid to coincide with 9/11 this year

Dear Sarah Palin and Republican party,

By freak chance Muslims will probably celebrate Eid on Sept. 11th this year. Please use this to your advantage and manipulate images/news clips to show Muslims celebrating on 9/11. We hope you continue to try and somehow make the world a worser place to live in than you already have.

My trip to Hogwarts

Take a look at some of my pictures from my trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, Florida. For Harry Potter nerds like me, the place is perfect, like being transported inside the books.

The village of Hogsmeade is fantastic, with everything from the Honeydukes sweet shop to Ollivander's wand shop. Employees wear wizards robes and refer to us as "muggles" (hmph). In Honeydukes they sell all kinds of treats including Bertie Botts Every Flavor Jelly Beans (vomit and booger flavors included), Chocolate Frogs, and Ton Tongue toffee. Zonkos joke shop has chattering teeth, Remembralls (just a display of course), screaming yo-yos and more prank stuff. Filch's Emporium, carries goods confiscated by Filch such as pet dragons, and Dervishes and Banges carries biting books, Hogwarts robes, and tourist stuff for us muggles.

Inside Ollivander's wand shop, the wands are stacked to the ceiling and the wandmaker appears as a character right out of the movies. He actually does magic by making things move around and wands fall out of their shelves, and he even chose a boy out of the crowd to demonstrate how the wand chooses the wizard (suspiciously similar to the scene when Harry shops for his wand).

We had lunch at Three Broomsticks, a pub-like restaurant where they served fish and chips, Sheppard pie, and chicken salads. The decor stayed true to the books and the service was, as the British say, lovely. Outside Three Broomsticks was the best treat of all: butterbeer! A delicious drink, as perfect as I imagined. It was cold and non-alcoholic, and tasted like butterscotch-flavored cream soda with delicious hot foam on top.

Outside of Hogsmeade is the fantastic Hogwarts castle, full of magic and wonder. There are moving, talking portraits of wizards on the walls (all grumbling about the tourist muggles). We passed the hourglasses which show how many points each House has (Gryfindor in the lead of course) and the Sorting Hat which gave us its wise words of wisdom.

The Common Room is lit with hundreds of candles in the ceiling and leads to the Forbidden Forest journey, an absolutely magical interactive 3D ride in which Harry leads us through the Forbidden Forest, the Quidditch fields, save us from dementors, spiders, and I think even Voldemort. Best ride I've ever been on.

Outside the castle there are the dragon roller coasters. We had our choice from the Hungarian Horntail or the Chinese Fireball. We took the fireball and the ride was thrilling, with lots of twists and turns and amazing speed.

Overall, Harry Potter fans will not be disappointed by this visit. If anything, I wish they had expanded the park to include more- I could see Azkaban make a great haunted boat ride, and where were all the house-elfs?! But the trip achieved what I would guess is the goal - to make me feel as if for a day I lived in the world of Harry Potter.

Why progress is not seen as progress

They passed healthcare. They brought the economy back from the brink of a depression. They stopped the deceptive practices of credit card companies. They got us the closest we've been to improving relations with the Muslim world in the past decade. And now they just passed the most sweeping financial regulatory bill since the 1930s.

But even after all of this, liberals are not happy with the Obama Administration, and here's why: While all of the above accomplishments are a step towards progress, the bills are nowhere near as strong as they could have been had the Administration pushed for more aggressive policies, like Obama had promised (I for one am still bitter about the public option). As these battles die down, the fight to correct these remaining problems will likely not be taken on for a long time. It's not a matter of failure so much as lost opportunities.

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog puts it into clear perspective here:

Obama isn't the kid who promised to get an A and only got a B-. He's the kid who was fully capable of getting an A, but settled for a B-, because he was afraid to try for more. That's not behavior you praise. Especially when the kid is actually an adult, and running the most powerful country in the world.

Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it

The Dow Jones is repeating the same pattern it did before the Great Depression. This is scary.

Me and Landon Donovan

I met the USA's World Cup hero as he came back from South Africa to ring the bell at the NYSE. What a petite man. He's almost as short as me. :D

Being a Creeper

If you look closely, that's me creeping behind the President.