I read stuff like this, and I can only shake my head in dismay.

The Fastest Girl in Kabul

From a report in the SF Chronicle about a new study of religion in America (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/23/BATE11AKBJ.DTL):

(Begin excerpt) Americans remain heavily religious, but their views rarely conform to dogma, according to a massive new survey released this morning.
Seventy percent of religious adherents in the United States believe multiple religions can lead a person to salvation, while 68 percent say there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of their religion.

Yesterday, I was riding on the public bus, on my way to visit a very good friend of mine, and a pair of Mormon guys got on the bus. They were wearing the white shirts with the name tags—missionaries. One of them came back and sat near me, and started up a conversation with me. Now, I am from the Southern United States, the land of Christian evangelism, so I immediately knew what his goal was. We started by talking about the weather and the landscape of Boston and Massachusetts versus that of Utah (where he was from) and the South.

I think I’ve finally found the phrase that identifies me, at least with regards to the kinda guys I go for. According to part 3 of the Gay Muslims documentary, I would be a “Mohammed queen”. (Similar to how a white guy who likes East Asian guys is called a “rice queen” and a non-white guy who likes white guys is called a “snow queen.”) I feel like my ideal lover and life partner would be a guy who identifies as Muslim and practices the faith (or, at least, shows some genuine love/affection for it).

Sorry I have been MIA for a bit. A couple or three things jump out from the New York Times, NPR and the ‘Net this morning.

Firstly, there’s an op-ed in the NYT this morning by the country director for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting providing his personal perspective about the bombing of the Serena Hotel in Kabul, a watering hole (and just a place to hole up) for expats, particularly. And there have been other stories about Afghanistan in The Times, on NPR, other places in the last few days. It seemed to hit me; is it a coincidence that the Western Media and Zeitgeist is sitting up and noticing—or should I say acknowledging, since some information has always been around—that Afghanistan is down the tubes because the Taliban, as Mr. McKenzie tells us, have now started a policy of targeting westerners?
The other thing that jumped out at me was from a series that NPR is doing on Muslim Women in Britain.

Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.
Mrs Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed by a court on Thursday after allowing children in her class to name a teddy bear Muhammed.