The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for March 2006

From The Mailbag

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Dear Jack,

What is your problem with cleveland. All you ever do is bash it. cleveland is a real city with real people which is a far cry from your city of plastic surgery and insecurity.

Eat us raw!

A proud clevelander.

Dear clevelander,

If you were really that secure you wouldn’t feel the need to write me, would you.

Love,

Jack

Hello Jack,

A short while ago you asked us what we think about your blog. I didn’t want to respond there so am sending you this note. I hate your political posts and your crass humor. Please stop blogging immediately.

-E

Dear E,

I am curious about which posts might possibly bother you. It could be this or this or this or this or this or maybe this. Which one is it.

All my love,

Jack

Dear Jack,

I think that most of your writing is fake and so are you.

-Lynn

Dear Lynn,

Something tells me that you know a lot about faking things.

Hugs and kisses,

Jack

When your Favorite Blog Suddenly Goes Bad

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If you blog for any length of time you witness the rise and fall of many blogs. Some of them are good, some are fair, some are horrible and some are just amazing.

Many bloggers have written about blog crushes. They have spent time elucidating and illustrating what it is that makes them smile. They may have even gone into intricate detail about the blogs they love, it is part of a blog crush. Sometimes you cannot put your finger on why you enjoy it, you just know that you do.

Here is what you don’t see much of, the discussion of what happens when your blog crush fades into the twilight. There are a number of reasons why this could happen. Sometimes it is just because they stop blogging. It doesn’t matter why they stopped, the writing just ends and there you go.

Sometimes your blog crush fades because you come to grow tired of the gimmick and or style of their writing.

But in my book the saddest end of the blog crush is when they write something that is so shocking and offensive that you cannot continue to read them anymore. I guess that you could see it in similar terms to a breakup or divorce. And so your crush comes to a bittersweet end.

****Update****
This post is not about a particular blog. I wasn’t thinking about a specific blog or blogger, it is really just my own comment on blogging.

Abdul Rahman- What Is Freedom Worth

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Some of you may not have yet heard about Abdul Rahman. He is Afghani convert to Christianity who has been sentenced to death for the offense of converting from Islam to Christianity.

The US and a number of our allies have been pressing Karzai and company to free him and rightly so, not because we overturned the Taliban but because there are some core values in life that are worth trying to impose on others.

Yes, I said impose and I said it deliberately. Freedom of worship is a core value and of exceptional importance. At a later date I might expand upon this concept of “imposition of values” but for now let’s keep it simple. There are times in which war is the moral act. There are times in which it would be immoral not to use force to help others.

It is a troubling situation. If you read the rhetoric and comments about this case there are a number of things that merit attention.

First, there was news that the Afghan government was going to try and have Rahman released by having him declared mentally incompetent as this gave them a way to spare him from execution. But it is not a smart precedent to establish and not something that alleviates the problem as seen in this AP quote.

“Diplomats have said the Afghan government is searching for a way to drop the case. On Wednesday, authorities said Rahman is suspected of being mentally ill and would undergo psychological examinations to see whether he is fit to stand trial.

But three Sunni preachers and a Shiite one interviewed by The Associated Press in four of Kabul’s most popular mosques said they do not believe Rahman is insane.

“He is not crazy. He went in front of the media and confessed to being a Christian,” said Hamidullah, chief cleric at Haji Yacob Mosque.

“The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if he is freed.”

Raoulf, who is a member of the country’s main Islamic organization, the Afghan Ulama Council, agreed. “The government is playing games. The people will not be fooled.”

“Cut off his head!” he exclaimed, sitting in a courtyard outside Herati Mosque. “We will call on the people to pull him into pieces so there’s nothing left.”

He said the only way for Rahman to survive would be for him to go into exile.

But Said Mirhossain Nasri, the top cleric at Hossainia Mosque, one of the largest Shiite places of worship in Kabul, said Rahman must not be allowed to leave the country.

“If he is allowed to live in the West, then others will claim to be Christian so they can too,” he said. “We must set an example. … He must be hanged.”

That last sentence is particularly chilling and an example of the ideology that we are fighting. Look at this next quote:

“The clerics said they were angry with the United States and other countries for pushing for Rahman’s freedom.

“We are a small country and we welcome the help the outside world is giving us. But please don’t interfere in this issue,” Nasri said. “We are Muslims and these are our beliefs. This is much more important to us than all the aid the world has given us.”

Afghanistan’s constitution is based on Shariah law, which is interpreted by many Muslims to require that any Muslim who rejects Islam be sentenced to death.”

If we lived in a world in which we had no concern about the impact of other thoughts and beliefs that might give us an opportunity to ignore something like this ideological disconnect. But the reality is that we live in a global community and that prevents us from ignoring ideologies that are so dramatically opposed to our own.

I am not sure that we can afford to raise the flag of tolerance and multicultural acceptance on this one.

Spiderman To Save cleveland

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“cLEVELAND – Watch out for Spider-Man on the city’s trademark Terminal Tower skyscraper. “Spider-Man 3,” starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, will shoot exterior scenes next month, the Greater Cleveland Film Commission announced Wednesday.Cleveland won out over New York City, where it’s more expensive to shut down streets.

The Greater Cleveland Film Commission landed the Spider-Man filming in part by offering free soundstage space at the city’s convention center.”

I always knew that a superhero was required to help that place.