Saudi Charity Begins...Nowhere By Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld
Author of "Funding Evil", Director of The American Center for Democracy
Upon hearing Warren Buffett’s announcement on June 25, 2006, of giving $37 billion to charitable foundations, mostly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the director of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Nihad Awad, declared that Muslim organizations “are lagging behind,” only because of intimidation by the West. The Muslims, he said, are in “the cycle of fear,” [of] “being accused of funding suspicious organizations that fall under the scrutiny of anti-terrorism investigations.” One wonders why they are funding “suspicious organizations” in the first place.
Instead of blaming America and the West, as CAIR constantly does, it could initiate the establishment of a new Muslim foundation with a similar mission to that of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This new Muslim foundation could supply immunization, HIV and anti-malarial medication, and medical means to reduce cervical cancer incidence and deaths in poor Muslim countries, feed millions of refugees from Muslim atrocities in Darfur, and generally “bring innovations in health” to Third World Muslim countries. Indeed, Awad himself pointed out that, “We in the Muslim world are lagging behind when we should be pioneers as per our Islamic beliefs.”
To be sure, there is no shortage in oil billionaires in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. According to Forbes Magazine 2006 list of the World’s Richest People, Saudi and Gulf billionaires are worth at least $134 billion. Muslim billionaires in Egypt, Turkey and Lebanon are worth additional $29.4 billion. This is not taking into account Muslim billionaires and millionaires in Asia and elsewhere. Moreover, the oil boom in the Middle East generated at least 300,000, new wealthy millionaires in the region.
According to the Department of Energy, Saudi Arabia is estimated to gain $154 billion in oil revenues in 2006, alone, and has at least $110 billion in foreign assets.
Review of HBO’s Polygamy Series
Andrea's Big Love Blog, Part l
By Andrea Moore Emmett, Author of “God’s Brothel”
April 9 episode: Bill gave his mother a television? With the fictional "Juniper Creek" based so obviously on the real life "Short Creek" area where televisions are not allowed, this would never happen.
The constant portrayal of mainstream Utah Mormons, in this episode and the last, being upset about people living polygamy is no where near how it is in Utah. The Mormons don't care if people live polygamy, and in fact, many defend the polygamists profusely.
April 15 episode: The 14- or 15-year old plural wife of the prophet told her husband's elder son never to raise his voice to her again. I thought, "Yeah right, in polygamy she'd be picking her head up off the floor for speaking to a male like that." Also, earlier she taunted him with the old Carly Simon song, "You're So Vain." NO ONE in polygamy knows popular songs and though she stole an iPod and then learned the song, she wouldn't want anyone to know she knew any popular songs. She would be in huge trouble for knowing anything about "the devil's music."
April 23 episode: Watching this show is sheer torture for me. Except that I'm beginning to think that among other things, this show is mainly meant to really, really piss off the Mormons. And they're so good at it. Maybe the Mormon PR department will long for the good old days when it was only me writing about polygamy...and their baptisms for the dead and their child sexual abuse problem!
The 'Big Love' writers have done their homework in some ways: Dusting off their feet, The One Mighty and Strong, garments ... but much of Utah culture they have just plain wrong. For instance, in the last few episodes they try to depict garden variety Mormons as having it in for the polygamists. In fact most Mormons in Utah are either related to polygamists, know polygamists, hire polygamists or are "wanna be" polygamists. They defend polygamists, they don't condemn them. As I say in my book, the Mormons and the polygamists are "kissing cousins."
And some things are just way too over the top: Yes, the Mormon missionaries are pushy and think they have "the one and only" truth. And yes, they do (once in a great while) dust off their feet from someone as an eternal condemnation. But they would never do this to a polyg woman. I'll say it again: Mormons believe in polygamy even though they don't practice it right now.
Except for the popular music on the radio, which a polyg would never listen to, the one true to life part of the last show was where the Prophet's son 'almost' has a homosexual encounter. It was also the best acted. The pick up scene, his back and forth ambivalence in the room, then avoidance ... all portrayed with perfect self-duplicity. Then his sudden head banging serving to stop his urges and scare away the erotic guy he picked up and finally, the self congratulatory look at himself in the mirror after the guy leaves. Good drama. All very real and true to life ... at least in the world where gay men are told it's evil and they'll be eternally damned if they act on it.
Oh, and those garments...the style is all wrong and how come Bill's wives never wear them? And by the way, Nikki's clothes aren't that different from most women in Utah. The prairie look is big in Utah.
Most agree abortion is at the very least unpleasant. Even two of its most ardent political supporters, Bill and Hillary Clinton, concur abortion should be "safe, legal, and rare." There's no reason to say that unless abortion is bad for some reason.
But latter-day feminist abortion advocates disagree. They think abortion is not just fine; it's holy.
I'm sure fringe feminist writings equate abortion as sacred. What surprises me are the mainstream pro-abortion feminist leaders making such statements today, like Debi Jackson, owner of Cincinnati Women's Services abortion mill, and Cecilia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux Native American tribe.
I became aware of the sacredness of abortion when reading Debi's ramblings. In an abortionesque take-off of John Lennon's "Imagine," she posted "The World as I Would Create It" on the feminist website Moondance, aptly. After imagining the day when abortions were a private matter and contraceptives were easily accessed (hello?), Debi let loose:
