Why American news is utterly worthless...

If you have never watched Al-Jazeera English, I suggest you do. My partisan/Arab-loving feelings aside, Al-Jazeera does a great job of presenting real news from subaltern perspectives. Watch it here:

Below is a link to another great article authored by a conservative Evangelical Christian discussing Dr. James Dobson's recent statements in regards to Obama's speech on religion.

Find the article here.

Linked below is a good article from the The Washington Post discussing the origins of the email smear campaign directed against Obama. I've received a few of the emails myself alleging that Obama is a frothing, hate-filled, "jihadest", Manchurian Candidate Muslim, and each one of these emails is just as ridiculous (and ignorant) as the previous.

If you have received some of the emails, please send them to me. I'm curious to read what they say.


To read the WP article, click here.

Interesting and rather entertaining commercial by Bud Light that did not show on television as it is a bit... vulgar.

Bud Light's marketing team has done a good job using viral marketing - marketing through pre-existing networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and other online communities. This commercial according to The Economist has been viewed millions of times already.

I'm always interested by the creative ways that human rights, animal rights, and other non-mainstream protest groups utilize their ingenuity and creativity to make their message known.

B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, has been a strong advocate of protecting Palestinian human rights and in seeking a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One of their most recent projects, "Shooting Back" responds to Israeli aggression on Palestinian civilians by "shooting back" by recording videos of the attacks and publishing the videos on the B'Tselem website. Average Palestinian civilians in remote areas are given cheap video cameras to record attacks in their area, predominantly by settlers in isolated settlements. Check out the official website here.


See one of their videos here.

June 13, 2008, 16:44

Blast in Russia’s south kills one

An explosion has killed a man in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan. The home-made device containing 3.5 kilos of TNT equivalent went off in the capital Makhachkala close to a government building, killing a jogger. The man killed has been identified as 48-year-old businessman Zaur Abdullaev.

Police thwarted an attack in the republic on Thursday when a bomb squad defused a device containing 5kg of TNT found near a road.

Local police say a terrorist group may be attempting to destabilise the situation in the Caucasus republic.

Walking around the streets of Rome last week I was struck by the beauty of ancient Roman ruins and the magnificence and opulence of the city’s churches and shrines. Stumbling upon my favorite monument, Il Vittoriano in Piazza Venezia, I was awed by the beauty and magnificence of the building clearly influenced by the fascist architecture style of the early 1900s.

The building is enormous, occupying most of Venice Square. Its walls and pillars are adorned with beautiful sculptures commemorating Italy’s unknown soldiers and her casualties of war. Roman gods and other mythological figures fill the building representing the ideas of the timeless Roman state, the values of hard work and patriotism, and the idea of destiny and Italy’s perpetual horizon of future success and sacrifice. This shrine truly represents the past, present, and future success of the Italian state.

Continuing my trek throughout the building, I stumbled upon a small church attached to the back of the structure. The inside of the church was quiet and dark and inspired in me a sense of awe and tranquility as I walked through its marble halls. The church was empty - Il Vittoriano was not.

The irony of the entire situation hit me as I continued my tour. The enormous building dedicated to the love of the Italian state utterly dwarfed the beautiful church and its representation of religion and spirituality. In these two buildings, the worship of God was utterly subsumed and dominated by the worship of the Italian state. Italians are not alone in their misplaced worship… people worldwide prostrate themselves at the shrine of constitutionalism and democracy (and other –isms) before they worship at the shrine of religion. These two buildings are simply a visible representation of what many of us already know.

Benedict Anderson in his famous book “Imagined Communities” analyzes the creation of nationalism in the last three centuries and argues that it is a constructed idea reflecting the interests of 18th century elites in maintaining their privileged positions within their regions. Through a number of other influences, nationalism gained ground as the most prevalent idea in the following centuries. Regardless of its origins however, it is a created idea, not something tangible or worthy of worship.

In the 21st century, however, the idea of the ‘nation’ in particular ‘our nation’ is dominant, and individuals are educated from birth to believe in the greatness of their nation and the inferiority of all others. In schools and in churches, the nation is often elevated to the level of godliness, and often viewed hand in hand. Why is this so? Why do people the world over worship at the shrine of the nation with more enthusiasm than those worshipping at the shrine of God? Why were so many Christians in the United States practically drooling to go to war with Iraq in 2003? Why are Christians in the United States willing to kill and be killed for the idea of the American nation? Why do we sing patriotic songs in church with tears welling up in our eyes? I know some will argue that this emotion and love of country is an expression of their thanks to God for providing them with a great country, however, I think it is often much more. I think it is idolatry, the worship of the nation, the worship of a fictitious idea created in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Lest you think I am ungrateful, I will offer the disclaimer that I love living in the United States. I appreciate the sacrifices that people have made to maintain our way of living in a beautiful country. Americans are wonderful and kindhearted people who are extremely generous and loving. As a Christian, and as an individual arbitrarily possessing an American nationality due to my birthplace, I cannot sit back and worship the idea of the American nation. Don’t tell me God Bless America, God bless everyone else too. We should not ask for God’s blessing to extend only to our 300 million people encapsulated by fictitious political borders and united by a common language simply because we are “American” or because we think we are a “Christian” nation. We should worship God as humans, undifferentiated by our nationality and unhindered by the political and ethnocentric trappings of our country.