news from abroad part 2

Dag Alle,
I know that it has been some time since I have blogged here. A number of reasons, among them; inertia, illness, being out most of the time and plain laziness. I have been feeling all these since I got to The Netherlands from the UK. For some of you who have not experienced flying from London to Amsterdam, a tip for you all at the customs is that there is no such thing as freedom of movement between these two countries, so you have to go through the entire rigamarole at customs again, unless of course you have an indefinite entry pass or something equivalent, or have been in and out of the country often enough without incident.

Weather is usually blustery, and temperature can drop low enough to leave frost lying on leaves, grass and rivers the next morning. I saw hail only once in my two weeks here, but it was enough to keep me indoors the entire time. Hence the lack of blog. Not much to write about when you are stuck at indoors sleeping, reading, reading emails. surfing the net and doing all that one does back home (:

However, since I am currently living in a village at the outskirts of Central Utrecht, I managed to pay the town a visit, as well as Amsterdam and Delft. Unfortunately, I have not been able to go around as much as I like, due to bad weather and transportation prob (I live in a village and have no car). Life would have been simpler if I have rented a car, that would put me back by 300 euros per week, and the fact that everyone drives on a different side of the road would have limited my car-induced mobility. So I make do with freezing walks, buses, cabs(highly expensive) and trains. But since I can't go out as much, it isn't too bad.

Amsterdam is a charming city, interspersing old and new, sleaze and calvinism. Streets are much dirtier than other parts of the Netherlands I have visited, but it is a colourful place, and it has a Chinatown located in the red light district (albeit a tiny one). Trust the Chinese to operate from dodgy parts of European towns. It is also in the red-light district (the map will tell you where it is and the Dutch actually name that part of town Red Light District) that you can get really charming and interesting stuff, especially big second hand bookstores (*drool*). Utrecht and Delft on the otherhand are very Dutch, though one see some Indonesian-Chinese and Surinamese restaurants around, the way one would see HK and Indian/Pakistani restaurants in London. If you know a little German and a lot of English, you might be able to understand a few simple words here and there. Learning Dutch isn't too difficult if you are a German or English speaker, though I am told that it is harder to learn to pronounce in Dutch if you are a native German speaker. Oh yeah, did I mention that this is a place where you can buy cannabis biscuits and marijuana sells rather cheaply? If I ever stay here long enough, I'll invest in a bicycle and cycle around, carrying it on the train whenever I have to move between cities. Oh, clock towers are ubiquitous around here. You know you are at the centraal part of town once you see one. And the lovely canals.

I will write more later. Weather has turned for the better, so am planning for another outdoor excursion.

Tot ziens

New from Abroad Part 1

From the first day I arrived, this has been my sixth day in London, with around six more days to go. Most of the time has been spent getting things done (like posting letters, getting a mobile simcard) and orientating myself around (with a number of misses of course). I am beginning to learn more about this city, being forced to go around on my own since most friends are not availble a majority of the time. I discovered some interesting shops, streets and museums. Some quaint and some look like what you would see in big cities in Asia.

I've also managed to get a British Library reader's pass, which is valid for a year, so that means I can go to the Library anytime I want between now and early Dec next year, subject to possible renewal. Despite the fact that it is now housed in a building quite a distance away from British Museum, it has a nice scholarly ambience, even if it lacks somewhat in history.

In between shopping and sighs-seeing, I am please to say that I managed to get some research work done. Well, four days spent on sightseeing and shopping, and all the other days (except this Sunday and the next Mon when I will be flying off to the continent) will be spent in BL (though I can still go shopping after closing time (:, or maybe take in a museum of two, if they aren't close by then. Most public places tend to close, early, with the exception of libraries.

Cheers

Re-learning a language

I have only around 8 more days, including today, before I depart from Malaysia to another continent where I will be installed for a month. As such, I am busy trying to get everything done and meet as many of my friends as I can before the hiatus begins, well not real hiatus where my dissertation is concern but a hiatus nonetheless when it comes to income generating work and being contactable in Malaysia. (:

Being back to freelance for this period while I try to complete my dissertation requires some adjustments of to finance management and lifestyle, which though not cumbersome, is still thorny. I have to remember not to overspend when I am abroad, as I no longer have a regular income to come back to. At least for this short duration.

Another reason why I have not been posting is that on top of trying to write another chapter of the dissertation, I have also been involved with writing another article, in Malay (my fourth attempt between this year and last, and a longer piece at that), and that has sucked up most of my Eid Fitr holidays (not that I celebrate the occasion personally, though being able to go visiting or on a short cheap holiday somewhere would had been great). I am rusty when it comes to writing in the language, and it somehow lacks the verve and finesse that I have when writing in English (though I am far from being a polished writer of English at this point). The editor pointed out that my piece sometimes lacks coherence and contain too many repetitions and is clumsy. Looks like I would have to work from scratch when it comes to writing in Malay, having left it behind with my school days. And to think I am trying to learn German, and later Chinese. I hope I am not overloading my grey matter and escalating its breakdown. :P Anyway, with regard to the article, it is to come out in a book anthology. I will post more details under the news section when it is out, which would most probably be in December 2004.

I've still got a number of books to review which I will do next year when I get back. I would like to start writing a column somewhere next year, as a way of expanding my publishing career. Not sure where and how, though I know what. That remains to be seen...

Anyway, back to work. I am working from home again. Though I enjoy it, too much of it can get to me. (:

If anyone wants to offer me a job in publishing, advertising or anything related next year, please contact me. (:

Cheers
Clarissa

Dark times or return to the past?

I having been posting for awhile, especially since after leaving my job. The main reason being that I am no longer regularly in front of the computer as I used to be. Another thing is that too many things are happening in my life that needs lots of attention. And I am writing a book. :P

The result of the Nov 2 election left everyone in a shock as the Republicans gained control over America and its millions of citizens, snatching away the Congress and whitehouse from the Democrats. A dejavu comes over me as I see a replay, at a bigger scale, all that happened in my own country in the elections earlier this year. Except that while we had a new leader, America retained its leader, a leader that has been compared to Reagen. The dejavu I am talking about is suspected corruption and mishandling of the electoral system. Has something messed up big time, or have a majority of Americans become fundamentalists overnight? I see this no longer as a struggle between left and right, but a bigger problem of a system going from democratic to semi-totalitarian. Is the Camelot days over? But then, this is just my opinion.

I have posted here some of the debates and links related to the Nov 2 elections. Though we might want to ignore the outcome of the elections, the fact that the American government and foreign policies affect our lives means that we better sit up and stop being ignorant. One does not have to agree with all the views posted below, but it is good to weigh all your options.

It will be interesting to see what the White House has in store for the next year. I wonder if the New Yorker will still be featuring as much stories on US politics after the elections.



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From: Kevin Glynn
Reply-To: Cultural Studies
To: cultstud-l@mailman.acomp.usf.edu
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 13:52:01 +1300
Subject: [cultstud-l] In Diebold Systems Inc. We Trust?

OK – there is for sure a right-wing populist lunatic fringe that spoke very loudly a couple days ago. But the other big populist story of “election” ’04 was the astonishing mobilization of anger from the hip hop generation to the elderly, from Springsteen and Eminem and Chuck D to the Dixie Chicks – anger over Iraq and the estimated 100,000+ killed there already, anger over the wholesale disenfranchisement of African Americans in 2000, anger over an insane Republican theocracy that is off the leash. And frankly I’m with Greg Palast (author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy) when he says there’s no reason to put any faith in the official election results reported in states with unaccountable and unverifiable “black box” voting machines courtesy of Diebold Systems Inc. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but what better way to respond to a massive mobilization of really pissed-off first-time voters, young voters and other voters-who-don’t-usually-vote, than to get ‘em to stand in line in the rain for 8 hours just to teach them that all their mobilization meant nothing in the end after all. Hell, the Michigan Republican who said several months ago that “we’ve gotta do something to suppress the black vote this year or it’ll be our undoing” (or words to that effect) spoke to a profound sense of threat that was rampant throughout the whole right-wing kleptocracy called “our” government. THIS “president,” “elected” again under these global and domestic circumstances, in a fashion that apparently (and all too conveniently) puts to bed the controversy over the theft of the White House in 2000 and sets the stage for a radical restructuring of state power in the US, as well as potentially nipping in the bud a populist mobilization that just might feel newly emboldened to flex its “dangerous” muscles in future elections? Sorry, I’m just not buying it. It’s all too fishy. Something really stinks here. Here’s this from a computer science prof in the Netherlands (see http://www.electoral-vote.com/, and recall that exit polling is generally considered to be far more accurate than predictive pre-election polling, since it entails asking people who’ve just voted, how they actually voted):“Various people sent me mail saying that it is awfully fishy that the exit polls and final results were substantially different in some places. I hope someone will follow this up and actually do a careful analysis. Does anyone know of a Website containing all the exit poll data? If we go to computerized voting without a paper trail and the machines can be set up to cheat, that is the end of our democracy. Switching 5 votes per machine is probably all it would take to throw an election and nobody would ever see it unless someone compares the computer totals and exit polls. I am still very concerned about the remark of Walden O'Dell a Republican fund raiser and CEO of Diebold, which makes voting machines saying he would deliver Ohio for President Bush. Someone (not me) should look into this carefully. The major newspapers actually recounted all the votes in Florida last time. Maybe this year's project should be looking at the exit polls. If there are descrepancies between the exit polls and the final results in touch-screen counties but not in paper-ballot counties, that would be a signal. At the very least it could be a good masters thesis for a political science student. The Open voting consortium <http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/> is a group addressing the subject of verifiable voting.”Things are just too smelly here. The bill that would have required all states to use verifiable voting machines has been stalled for months in the Republican Congress. Jeb Bush has flatly refused to install the paper trail that would actually benefit him by making the Florida 2004 result appear credible. Ditto in Ohio (for months labeled the “new Florida” of 2004). But don’t look for this story on Fox News! For more on Diebold, point your browsers here:http://www.jewishtimes.com/2435.stmFor Palast's latest account of this year's sequel to the theft of democracy in 2000, see:http://www.tompaine.com/print/kerry_won.phpOn the prospect of Diebold rigged elections forevermore, see:http://www.alternet.org/The theorists of “Election” 2004 are Gramsci and Baudrillard: the declared, official result may well be a simulacrum designed to subvert the formation and mobilization of a progressive bloc. Yes – a simulated election, complete with long queues, record turnouts, a pre-programmed (Diebold), down-to-the-wire outcome, and even a few minor "reported incidents" of voter obstruction, etc. It would be the perfect "model" of democracy in action (as Baudrillard might put it). What more legitimating spectacle could Bush and his despicable cronies wish for?-kevin


From: winna rae
Reply-To: Cultural Studies
To: Cultural Studies
Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 21:40:18 -0500
Subject: Re: [cultstud-l] In Diebold Systems Inc. We Trust?

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/There's also the question of the county in Ohio where over 4000 peoplevoted for Bush.One problem.There are only about 600 registered voters there.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/4/224812/643

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From me-
For a history of the electoral system, check out the government website at http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/election04/

And you can hear views from all sides here
http://www.watchblog.com/

Recap of news in the run-up to the elections.
http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/1865.cfm

Some require subscription, but you can read the free news
http://news.ft.com/indepth/uselections

And my favourite online newspaper for all these news would be
http://www.nytimes.com

And here are some archives of America's brutal domestic past
http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/home.htm
http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/remembering/

hysteric

Sometimes, when we put ourselves in the hands of others, we either experience tender mercies or brutal assaults. Perhaps this is related in some ways to the human capacity for mercy and cruelty, both sides of the same coin (a cliche nonetheless).

When women, who are often typecasted as emotional, hysterical, and insane, fall prey to the straitjacketing of institutions and society bound on forcing them into unmitigating docility, they become easy targets for abuse and maltreatment, just because they have been labelled as unstable or unreliable, hence their voices ignored.

Below is a link to website on how women who seek or are forced into psychiatric treatment have been abused and patronized. You have hear of a various famous women creative types who finally descended into the final abyss of mental darkness, thrust into that role by societal's iron fists. Freud, the pioner of psychoanalysts, could not understand why his female patients complained of sexual abuse, had labelled them as hysterics, thus turning back the clock on psychology.

Here is an account of legendary, beautiful and volatile movie star, Frances Farmer. I am sure the world over would have similar stories to share.
http://www.cchr.org/art/eng/page34.htm

The setting up of institutions to hide away society's unpresentable and outcast, and treating them as less than savages highlights our fear of what Kristeva will call the abject. Frances's case became well known because of her fame and beauty. But what if similar circumstances happened to an uknown person? Women, in the words of the philosopher-semiotician, are abject beings, as are all associated with them.

Tennessee Williams have vowed a dark and horrific vengeance on Blanche in The Streetcar Named Desire when he had her institutionalised for insanity, after being raped by her brother-in-law.

pertinence of cultural studies

Here is something that might be of interest to some of you. It is about cultural studies at a crossroad, and I paste a quote here that is pertinent to as many fields as it is to cultural studies

"But there is another question regarding the "where" of cultural studies. Where might it be found? That is, in one sense, a where (what) is our object of study, our project, that which we want to elucidate or engage and, secondly, where might we find cultural studies being done (and maybe a third question of when ). On what terrain or plateau might we look?ot dig? From many accounts the "where" is a bit of a worn out place. Someplace we've certainly been before and someplace from which bombs have been lofted our direction for years. It's the economy stupid. In this conjuncture junction, where the function is to hook up logics, and peoples, and products, and politics, we're not clear how it is that this time, via an understanding of the new conjuncture, cultural studies will be able to make a difference in a way that it hasn't in the past."

http://info.interactivist.net/print.pl?sid=04/10/02/2021233

Could it be that we are now suffering from the overlapping of fields? Many new-fangled undergraduate and posgraduate courses that have sprung up from the growth of various new fields has led me to think of Hannah Arendt's essays on "Crisis in Education" and "Crisis in Culture" found in her book "Between the past and future", how we often miss the woods for the trees. More on those two later as I will need to revisit them before I can comment further. (:

As I look back...

Dear readers,
I am now a year older. Much has happened, some for the worse some for the better. Each and every experience that comes knocking at my door, and turning my life upside down, have a sweet and bitter aftertastes. I learn to see myself and to know myself better, to question everything that I have let slide or take for granted. Sometimes I bemoan the dullness of my life, yet when excitement comes, I collapse too easily in exhaustion. A bottle of contradiction, I am.

On a different note, I have updated this page with more links from friends (you can check it under Links of Interest, and have decided to link a published poem of mine. Yes, I am pathetic. Only have one measly piece published. I haven't have time to think and write creatively, though I have notes and jottings here and there that could be turned into poetry, given time. I am still new, and a rather unpolished writer. There is too much that I still need to learn and I will need to apprentice myself to a great poet/writer, as what other great poets/writers have done (though I am not considering myself great). While I am sometimes too tired to write, I can't give it up, as it is my life, part of what constitutes me. To not write, is to be crippled. I have a number of unpublished drafts that I will be working on as and when time permits. I have even tried writing in Malay, and I will continue to do so.

This is a busy week, so I shall stop here. Feel free to drop me words of inspiration. (:

Love,
Clarissa.

pr0n

Here is an article on the amount of smut in cyberspace
http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.001/boeringer.html

Gimme your rubbish and the horror genre

Heh, saw this on Guardian today. If you ask me, it seems as if the recycling industry is either overloaded, understaffed or not properly managed. Can one make a living just recycling stuff?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,12188,1308278,00.html


Some of you out there might have read series of thrillers, horrors and gothic stories. It wouldn't be very different if I just take a story written since the eighteenth century and transplant that to modern day news on crimes. Better still if they could be serialized in tabloids. Coming to think of it, they USED to be serialised in tabloids. (:

I am so addicted to Dvorak's Symphony in E Minor for some reason. Must be the mood thing again.

Here is an interesting bit in Guardian again about ten year olds in Britain. They aren't too different from the kids in Malaysia, if thou were to read kiddies and teenaged (under 15) weblogs. :D

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1299466,00.html

I am not that old, but I feel ancient whenever I say that kids have greater access these days, for better or worse. I can't decide as to when I think is the best time to be born, as one can only look to the past, but can't predict the future.

Rape is Rape

To all those still new to the idea of gender relations, to sex and violence, marriage, etc, you will do well to read this http://www3.malaysiakini.com/letters/30115 .

I find it reprehensible that a few pea brains and rotten apples among the Malaysian men are giving Malaysian men in general a bad name for being backwards and chauvinists. And I find it idiotic that there are some who condescend to argue every dot and commas in this idea of marital rape instead of looking at the bigger picture, and finding profitable solutions.

To all the women who are reading this. Do not be afraid to walk it alone if you have to. I am sure you have friends and family members who could lend support of some sort. Leave crap behind and flush it down the toilet where it is due. Unfortunately, never in our training have we ever been taught how to make good choices, and learn to face up to the responsibilities of our actions. We have not been taught how to relate to people, even as we score As in our academic subjects in schools. Hence, it is pretty normal to see a super-achieving woman going out with a complete loser who beats the brains out of her. So if the educated among us are willing to suffer shit, how are you going to get those from more inimical backgrounds to fight for change. As women with choices, we are duty bound to make good ones and set the examples for our less fortunate sisters.

So apt that I am reading about the abject this Sunday afternoon. :D

Cheers all

Church and Sex

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

economics of recycling

Out of a guilty conscience, I have taken into the habit of trying to recycle as many things as I can. That interest took a dive for awhile, and something in my mind just forced me to look into my wasteful habits. One example. I packed food into my room today, with polystyrene packaging. I had to throw one pack away because it was too oily and also because I accidentally broke it, though I kept one to put my other foodstuff in. Guilt rides high prior to that and I googled this out

http://www.polystyrene.org/environment/econ.html

so, how well does recycling help in saving the environment (and in assuaging our guilt conscience)? We need all our chemist, environmental technologists and environmental economists to help us out!

I am hungry still so going to have some crackers.

Letter to the world

The line breaks differ from the original piece I sent it, and some sentences have been edited out. Nevertheless, my voice punctuates it. Some parts of the argument seem hollow and could had been better explicated. But as it was getting late and since this is just a letter, I thought I would leave it at that, since I don't want to risk it getting longer than it already is, or revise the entire thing. (:

Here it is
http://www3.malaysiakini.com/letters/29914

Good night for today.

Get past me

Spent the weekend either talking to friends or reading. I actually managed to read 2 essays of Hannah Arendt, 5 essays of Rosseau, looked through a book my friend wrote, browsed through another for possible review, read 2 books of Aristotle's Physics and actually begun reading a book on conservative Christian theology. I even caught a play (a bit marred by an audience with a fixation of the scatological-perhaps a sign of the repressed?). I did everything except.....work on my dissertation...uh oh. Oh well, I promise to spend today (though I would attend a party in the evening) and tomorrow (a National Day public holiday, not celebrating so would most probably be at home) working on my dissertation. Somehow, I don't feel all that patriotic, knowing that the day that we are celebrating is just another long list of nationalist propaganda and revised historiography.

Looking at this left me with bad taste in my mouth (and mind) . These girls are either so clueless that they have no idea that they are a fodder for burlesque and carnivalesque camp, or they are just desperate enough to do anything for a few seconds of fame and money (if they win). So much for ERA. It seems that a number of them come from the Bible belt part of the USA (go figure. I wonder what would Iran think of their women start taking part in competitions like these). It seems that Stuff has now come to Malaysia. Why is it that only magazines like these ever come to Malaysia? Is it because they think that Malaysians love magazines like these? Or that they have money to branch out to a small country like Malaysia? Or that they are desperate to increase their sale? With so many gadget, sex and lifestyle magazine around, I wonder how would they survive? Or do men never tire of cheap titillation?

Anyway, for something inspiring, I found this blog when looking in my email.
To all Malaysians, enjoy your public holiday. Remember to make it a meaningful one.

To the rest who might not have a holiday, well you will get your turn. (:

Christian Education

Having all these debates and things going on, as shown by the links below, really makes one rethink the aim of education. As a start, I will post some links on religious education in the US, which usually means bible colleges and Christian centric home-schooling. You will find it interesting to note that there is no unanimous voice in how it should be done, but that it should be done.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0421-09.htm
http://www.google.com.my/search?q=cache:688CqK4CKNsJ:www.pepperdine.edu/provost/Library/Benne-Athens%2520and%2520Jerusalem.pdf+engagement+between+bible+colleges+and+secular+education&hl=en
http://www.homeschooldigest.com/ERodd.htm

It is late and I am tired so I will discourse more another day. Goodnight.

The right to Protest?

I wonder what would happen if someone protests at the UMNO General Assembly. Definitely would not be a pretty picture.

http://www.rncprotestrights.org/rights-bust.html
http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/kamenetz/

Ealy morning blog

I thought that it would be good, for a change, to start my morning, from home, by making a blog entry.

The good news is, all the journals to whom I have submitted my academic writing have acknowledged receipt of my articles (which is a far cry from what used to be two years ago). I had to resend a number of the articles after not haven't heard back from some of the publications I sent to (despite having received the acknowledgement 2 years to 8 months ago) even after emailing them and giving them a wide space of time to reply. At least one of the other articles were rejected on first attempt and had been revised further (problem with my style, apparently. Damn, I need to learn how to write academic papers properly) so I am sending it in again. There is another article which I have decided to send to a literary as opposed to a scholarly journal, as I felt that it is more of a critical essay than a scholarlyly one (despite having written it for class).

Anyway, if any gets rejected, I think I will just post it on my website as sample of my student work (heh) and to share with you guys, in case any readers here ever have to research any of the topics. At least 2 of my essays are now on two different literary websites and from what I gather, widely read (or at least looked at). I am always glad to know that there are people out there who are interested in my work.

The end of summer is approaching, so that would mean that all those erstwhile academics who have put me on hold while they jetset around the world would finally respond to me. I sometimes wish I have more time and money to do that (not that I haven't been doing that, just that I aint doing that as often as I wish). My travelling here and there explains why I have little savings, that despite working 3 jobs at one point :P. Ok, only one of it paid well (that being my regular job, the others are just freelance).

I finally got my copy of Paris Review, after having to wait for customs to approve it. It is one thick, paperbound, quarto size pack, with loads of poems! And of course some critical essays. I am keeping that at work so that I could read a bit a day. I was supposed to be doing some work yesterday (when I got back after dinner) but as I was down with a bad cold but with no inclination to sleep yet, I decided to look at some blogs and newspaper articles at random. I am not yet back to my old self, but am feeling much better this morning than yesterday night, when I had dinner with a friend and his friends. They are an interesting bunch, except that I wasn't feeling perky.

Anyway, while looking around for websites on modernism, I came across this site that I would like to log here for my own reference and for you to click on :P

Cheers!

psychosis

Working on Plath can sometimes push me into a state of melancholia.

Here is an article that might be of interest to you guys. It is on Evolutionary Psychology .

I am now looking around for more works and articles that have ever been written on Plath. If anyone of you out there reading this knows someone who is or is a Plath scholar, please email me. I would like to pow-wow with you. (:

Health conscious

I have been particularly health conscious, going for health checks for every little sign and symptom that might be a probable diagnosis to a disease. Such meticulous attention has less to do with hypochondria but more to do with the awareness that I am not getting any younger and the world at large is getting unhealthy, due to unnatural and natural courses (from the frenetic modern day lifestyle to mutations of viruses). Hence, when I pricked myself with a needle while sewing yesterday, I decided to go see the doctor and get vaccination againt possible Tetanus. Sure enough, the doctor gave me a dose of the adsorbed tetanus toxoid. For those of you who are not in the know (I wasn't until yesterday), there was a shortage of vaccines due to the discontinuation of its production by one of the pharmacological companies. However, the problem of supply has been resolved, and those who have not had an anti-tetanus injection in years might want to think about getting a booster shot. Find out more about the drugs at
http://www.ashp.org/shortage/tetanus-update.cfm

To look at research done on the impact of postvaccination antibody anti tetanus response, you can go to this article online at
http://iai.asm.org/cgi/content/full/67/11/5951

Going for regular medical examination (at least once a year) is good for your soul. At least it serves as warnings and reminders when you misbehave.

Religion and politics

When religion and politics are merged, does it mean that the underclass(the non-patricians) will suffer from over-zealous, bigoted, narrow minds who think that they have been called to decide what is good or bad for them?

Check it here
Girl got executed for "Sharp Tongue"
To the women:Sleep with the Mullah if you want your rights

I used to naively think that religion can make you a better person. Yeah right. It just allows the unpopular, short, and ugly kid fo exact his or her revenge, in the name of God/Allah/Yah-Weh.

I supposed the reason the People of the Book get so much bad press is because there are more of us to screw around with the other people (both of the Book and not of the Book).