Yeah, the teacher is made to be the bad guy because it’s every kid’s right to graduate with his or her friends.

Last Wednesday our school hosted its annual kindergarten night, when we demonstrate for parents practical activities they can do at home to help their children become school-ready. About ten families showed up, all Spanish-speaking. Not a single US-born parent showed up. Sad. Guess it’s easier to put all the responsibility for learning onto the schools and them blame them when the child falls behind, an approach that makes sense when you realize that about a third of a child’s annual waking hours are spent at school.

Sorry for preaching off-topic, Elgin.

I still feel that it is also the role of the responsible Muslim or Christian to protest within their community when they believe their leadership has gone astray.

You might check out Jeffery Hodges’ blog Gypsy Scholar, included in the blogroll. He has written quite a few posts on Islam and Muslim political and social movements. An ordinary Muslim has no need to condemn publicly acts of violence propagated in the name of Islam but Muslim leaders should and often do. Likewise, Irish politicians have long distanced themselves from the terrorism of the IRA. Timonthy McVeigh didn’t bomb the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in the name of the United States. To the contrary, it was a violent act against the US government. Likewise, Cho Seung-hui did not murder 33 people in the name of Korea and Koreans. Be careful about distinguishing individual acts of violence from those committed by groups with a political or social agenda. Muslim attitudes towards violent Islamist movements is a real issue within the Muslim community and between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Perhaps I am naive, being a white western woman living in a predominantly Muslim country commenting on the situation of a white western woman living in a Muslim country, although Emirates is a far cry from Sudan. You shouldn’t paint all people of the same nation or religion with the same brush, when you say that the Muslim community as a whole should suffer for the actions of a few. What, an Irish Catholic sitting at home should have to answer for an IRA bomb in London? All white Americans should be held accountable for Oklahoma City? All Korean Americans should be held accountable for Virginia Tech?

“In Alexandria, he (Athanasius) assembled an “ecclesiastical mafia” that could instigate a riot in the city if needed. ”

And now we have Opus Dei.

In Alexandria, he (Athanasius) assembled an “ecclesiastical mafia” that could instigate a riot in the city if needed. It was an arrangement “built up and perpetuated by violence.” (Barnes, 230). Along with the standard method of excommunication he used beatings, intimidation, kidnapping and imprisonment to silence his theological opponents. Unsurprisingly, these tactics caused widespread distrust and led him to being tried many times for “bribery, theft, extortion, sacrilege, treason and murder. (Rubenstein, 6) While the charges rarely stuck, his reputation was a major factor in his multiple exiles from Alexandria.

He justified these tactics with the argument that he was saving all future Christians from hell. Athanasius stubbornly refused to compromise his theological views by stating, “What is at stake is not just a theological theory but people’s salvation.” (Olson, 172). In this assertion that violence was justified in defense of theology and the church, Athanasius, some hold, laid the foundation for theological concepts such as just war and the inquisition. . .

Last time I looked, no one is doing this sort of thing, now, in the name of Christ though one could argue that these concepts of “just war” and a political “inquisition” have been usurped by politicians who likewise sometimes mimic the aura of religion.

The people that bomb clinics are arrested and put into jail as well. Americans are free to disagree over “gay rights” and that is simply a part of the political process, like it or not. Your implication that today’s practiced Christianity is similar to the great problems in Islam is obviously false for many reasons that I should not need to exemplify unless you have no powers of impartial observation.

It also seems that the British teacher has been convicted and sentenced to 15 days in jail. I appreciate the comment from one citizen there:

Our government creates such problems to divert the eyes of the world community from our domestic problems,” Ms. Hussein said. “ I am sure that the case of the British teacher is politically motivated and has got nothing to do with our Prophet.