[Austin-ghetto-list] a modest proposal

[Carolyn Garner Siscoe]

Dave,
  I share your frustration with the awful situation.  Also I am not sure
you are not being ironic.  Anyway, I will forge ahead and take you
seriously.  To me I think it is best to not to challenge people on a
religious issue.  People who are religious take everything so
seriously.  I am not sure Moslems understand irony or have a sense of
humor.  I took arabic at the UT (for a very short time) and I remember
some of the practice sentences for us to translate;
   'shall we flay him alive'
   shall we cut off his head'
and so forth, it was a startling contrast to what was offered as work in
my italian class.
  It is not possible to compare cultures but I remember reading about
what the german army encountered when they rolled into Yugoslavia during
ww2, the slavs run out to greet the army pulled aside their coats and
yelled 'shoot me ,shoot me'  the elderly mother of my landlord a Croat,
told him when he was desperate to get her our Croatia during this recent
mess told him, 'bombs, I don't care, I will embrace the bomb'
  I think the moslems would react the same way towards their holy places
and then where would we be?  My husband has suggested, in light of the
Talban destroying the Buddhist statues this summer we send in the
Buddhist to deal with them.  bad humor,
carolyn

"J. David Moriaty" wrote:

> I understand that if you're a true moslem believer and die
> defending the faith you will be instantly transported to
> paradise, no matter what else you've done, so whiskey and strip
> clubs are no big deal as long as you're reasonably sure you
> won't die in a car wreck on the way home.
>
> Instead of bombing the desert and threatening to kill people
> who believe they'll be instantly transported to paradise should
> we succeed, maybe we should try the mutually assured
> destruction that has prevented atomic war for so long.  All
> we'd have to do is announce that upon another terrorist
> incident we'd immediately blast Mecca and Medina into twin
> glass-lined craters, and since we'd announced our intent in
> advance, leave it to the true believers to figure out how much
> blame God would assign them for another such attack.
>
> Dave