Tolerance--he said it better than me.

[catsittingstill]

There is a great essay about freedom and tolerance here.  I wish I had written it.  But I enjoyed reading it, so I forgive the author for making me jealous.

And a stray thought.  19 terrorists who were also Muslims (out of a group of about 10,000 al Quaeda members) destroyed the World Trade Center nine years and a smidge ago.  There's a diagram here.  There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.  1,500,000,000 minus 10,000 is 1,499,990,000.  If rounding to three significant figures is a reasonable first approximation, then to a reasonable first approximation, NONE of them were involved.   The terrorists disappear in the rounding error.  They stay in the rounding error until you get to the seventh significant figure.  It's weird to think like this--but it also makes me wonder why I haven't thought this way all along.

The diagram also makes clear why we would rather not be at war with Islam if we can avoid it.  Not to mention that a sizable chunk of us* are Muslim, which would make it all even harsher.

*Where I'm using "we" and "us" to mean Americans, and beg the indulgence of anyone I discomfit thereby.

Comments

[catsittingstill]

:-) I'm glad you liked it. I wouldn't mind seeing more of this guy's writing. Or his comedy, though since I don't have a TV, and live in the US anyway, I suppose that isn't too likely.

[keris]

If you click on the link to te article, then click on his name, you'll find articles going back a couple of years. I haven't watched the video articles there as I don't have sound on this computer (and video is dodgy, it's rather under-powered) and have only sampled the text articles, but what I've read both makes me giggle and at the same time makes me think. He seems to write the same way he talks, I can 'hear' him saying it as I read.

I'll see if I can find any of his comedy programmes online.