News and Analysis (8/23/12)

In “the first law issued by President Mohammed Morsi since he assumed legislative powers this month in the absence of a parliament,” the Egyptian president (who plans to visit the US in September) ” has issued a law that bans imprisoning journalists pending trial for publishing-related charges”:

Sacrifice of American liberty is not a trade-off for security, it is a lose-lose situation …

… and while the NYPD’s pathetically desperate attempt to defend the program pretends that “evidence of the negative effects of profiling programs like their own” constitutes “critical national security information” …

… Attorney Jethro Eisenberg calls holding anyone who speaks Urdu as suspect and anyone from southern Lebanon as potentially “dominated by Hezbollah” to be “a terribly pernicious set of policies,”comparable to those to which Japanese Americans were  subjected in World War II and he will ask the courts to shut down the NYPD Demographics Unit:

Reasonable argument for shaving Nidal Haassan’ beard: Because he agreed to be clean shaven when he joined the army.  Bigoted argument for shaving Nidal Hassan’s beard: “Because his religious beliefs are associated with the crime”:

Talat Asad argues that his famous father should not be seen as a Western intellectual seeking to liberalize Islam, but as a Muslim intellectual concerned  “with immersing himself critically in the tradition of Islam that became his tradition, and with encouraging members of his community (Muslims) to adopt an approach that he considered to be its essence”:

Motivated by her concern over misrepresentation of Islam, a Catholic turned liberal Quaker tries a mini-Muslim-style fast, and concludes that while self-reflection may be a good idea at any time, “perhaps the fasting, the sense of community, the shared experience and the self-control presented during Ramadan offers a much needed helping hand”:

A survey by the Arab-American Institute finds Republicans love Presbyterians and Jews (by margins of 60%), but hate Muslims (by a margin of 31%) and aren’t so crazy about Sikhs either:

“Ban is ‘fully aware of the sensitivities’ of the visit, but not going ‘would be a missed opportunity’”:


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