Stay true to the dreams of thy youth

From Patrol:

Surely you've all heard by now that Sufjan Stevens has released a new EP online. This is exciting news for Sufjan fans everywhere, but I would urge you to think twice before paying the 5 dollars to download the music. It was not even 10 years ago when Islamic radical extremists destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11th, and already we're going to support a man named "Sufjan" as if nothing happened on that tragic day?

It may sound like a good idea at first. Many believe that supporting this man's music will help heal the wounds left by the terrorists, but come on people, we do not live in a vacuum. The fact of the matter is that this album should be released under another name, something with less Islamic connotation than "Sufjan." Or, the album should be released in a different format. EP also brings to mind other Islamic names. Ep Shiraa. Ep Sadaar. It just hits a little too close to home.

Think of the families who suffered and lost their loved ones in that tragedy. Out of sensitivity towards them, refrain from supporting this so-called Stevens. And be warned, some sources have indicated that Sufjan's middle name is Usama. Sufjan Usama Stevens? Doesn't sound like the kind of artist I want singing our national anthem before a baseball game.

Many of you may be asking, "but is Sufjan a terrorist?" The facts here are foggier than we should be comfortable with. First of all, he has never outright condemned Hamas. Should we support someone who isn't clear in his separation from terrorism?

And many of us have heard that Sufjan is actually a Christian. Well to that point, where is his birth certificate?

Look at the last two tracks on All Delighted People, Arnika and Djohariah. Does anybody know what those words mean? I don't, but I'm not sure if I want to find out.

It's too soon, Sufjan. Even if you and your album have no connection at all to terrorism, your name reminds of Muslims, which in turn reminds of 9/11. So please, for the sake of the families still having nightmares about towelheads riding camels into their homes and stabbing their children with those big curved swords from the movie Aladdin (by the way, Sufjan's name actually means "comes with a sword." Coincidence?), please, change your plans and release your album somewhere else.

As a New Yorker, you'd think Sufjan wouldn't be acting in such poor taste on this issue. He lives in Brooklyn, practically two blocks away from Ground Zero! Is he even an American? Was this 50 States project all a huge cover-up for his Islamic plan to take over the music industry and lull us all into submission with his indie-folk-pop harmonies and "beautiful" melodies.

And if I can speak to Sufjan directly for just a moment. Mr. Stevens, have some tact! If you really love your fellow New Yorkers, you'll change your name. Sure you have a constitutional right to whatever name you want, but this issue goes deeper than political freedoms. This is an issue of the heart, and with the release of this album your heart seems to say "This is an issue of freedom, not misguidedly ignorant and possibly racist emotions." And to that I say, boo. Boo to you, Sufjan.

We had to kick a different folk-singer "Stevens" out of the country, and if Sufjan doesn't change his tune, he'll be joining Cat Stevens with Uncle Sam's boot print on his ass. Take your Islamic propaganda somewhere else, YuSuf.

The mass Islamaphobic, racist and irrational hysteria against the building of an alleged "big mosque" at the site of the World Trade Center is ridiculous. The media's role in stoking the fires of prejudice is even more disgraceful. Even worse is the ADL's opposition to its building under the pretext that it may offend someone (Well, ADL, you offend me. Can we shut you down?). Anyone against the building of the Islamic complex, is, in my opinion, prejudiced against Islam, irrational and xenophobic.
The fact that Jewish groups in Manhattan, a Jewish mayor in New York, a majority of people living in Manhattan, the Manhattan zoning board and numerous other Christian, Jewish and Islamic organizations support the Cordoba Center, or at the least, don't oppose it, suggests to me that "real America" (read bigots in Alaska and elsewhere) is simply racist and dumb.

Here is a map showing the planned location, the center is in red.

I'm in California enjoying the warm beach and the company of good friends, so my reading list is a bit light for the previous days.

• Guard troops to head to border states Aug. 1 - AP

  "National Guard troops will head to the U.S.-Mexico border Aug. 1 for a yearlong deployment to keep a lookout for illegal border crossers and smugglers and help in criminal investigations, federal officials said Monday. The troops will be armed, but can use their weapons only to protect themselves, Gen. Craig McKinley, chief of the National Guard Bureau said at a Pentagon news conference. The troops will undergo initial training and be fully deployed along the nearly 2,000-mile southern border by September."

• A special report on Egypt: The long wait - The Economist

• Man convicted of rape for consensual sex with woman but told her he was Jewish (English) - Ali Abunimah

  "Jail time for Arab who impersonated a Jew and raped through fraud A court sentenced a resident of East Jerusalem who lied to a young woman and told her that he was Jewish in order to have sexual relations with her to a year in a half of prison time. “Protect the public from such criminals.”"

• China Becomes World's Biggest Energy Consumer - WSJ

  "China is now the world's biggest energy consumer, knocking the U.S. off a perch it held for more than a century, according to new data from the International Energy Agency. The Paris-based agency, whose forecasts are generally regarded as bellwether indicators for the energy industry, said China devoured 2,252 million tons of oil equivalent last year, or about 4% more than the U.S., which burned through 2,170 million tons of oil equivalent. The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower."

• Netanyahu: 'America is a thing you can move very easily' - Checkpoint Washington

  ""I know what America is," Netanyahu told a group of terror victims, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in their way." Netanyahu also bragged how he undercut the peace process when he was prime minister during the Clinton administration. "They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords]," he said. "I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders."

• Headless bodies and other immigration tall tales in Arizona

  "The Arizona governor, seemingly determined to repel every last tourist dollar from her pariah state, has sounded a new alarm about border violence. "Our law enforcement agencies have found bodies in the desert either buried or just lying out there that have been beheaded," she announced on local television. Ay, caramba! Those dark-skinned foreigners are now severing the heads of fair-haired Americans? Maybe they're also scalping them or shrinking them or putting them on a spike. But those in fear of losing parts north of the neckline can relax. There's not a follicle of evidence to support Brewer's claim."

• Schoolgirls Controlled by Loverboys: Math Class in the Morning, Turning Tricks at Lunchtime - Spiegel

  "They are still children, only 12 or 13 years old. They fall in love for the first time, at the school gates or on Facebook, and wind up with a pimp. Parents and police are struggling against the hold so-called loverboys have over young girls, but often it's already too late."

• Russian Spy Games - The Daily Beast

  The next day, he received a call from a friendly woman who said her father had found Sam’s briefcase and would Sam mind picking it up? With chocolates and flowers in hand, Sam met the man, and got his briefcase back, but his iPod and recorder were missing. He thought nothing of it, until he had dinner later with an American diplomat who was not surprised by his story. “Oh, yeah,” the diplomat said, in Sam’s recounting, “It’s your turn. That’s the FSB”—the security service that succeeded the KGB. “They do that to new diplomats and new journalists when they first get to Moscow. They just want to let you know they’re around.” And that’s when Sam realized that something had been a bit weird: The man had called Sam’s landline, which was not listed on any document in the briefcase."

• Illegal Workers Swept From Jobs in ‘Silent Raids’ - NYT

  **I'm for providing a full path to citizenship for these hard-working immigrants. Without them, the food industry would collapse, our country would be a lot less interesting and we would be betraying the very fabric of our country - acceptance of immigrants from around the world** "Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies. The agency has levied a record $3 million in civil fines so far this year on businesses that hired unauthorized immigrants, according to official figures. Thousands of those workers have been fired, immigrant groups estimate. "

Israeli government releases racist, ridiculous and disgusting music video of Turks and Arabs allegedly singing about how they have conned the world, and how in truth Gazans have a happy and prosperous life, except for the many terrorists among them.

Utterly ridiculous and very clearly created by Israelis, as they say Hamas wrong, using the Hebrew kh sound)