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Better Representing Muslims: A Few Ideas
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No worries. Besides, I've seen weirder things happen on the forums.
The tiny, but important difference is that these parts of the bible have officially been deemed obsolete and irrelevant for todays christians. The Quran however is considered the word of God himself, infailable and always valid. That's the very reason why countries with sharia law still stone women who got raped to death and behead gays and "witches". All in the name of Allah, as directed by the prophet Muhammad.
You haven't been following the news in recent months, have you? In all countries of the "Arab Spring", all non-muslims must fear for their lifes. Foreigners and non-muslims get abducted, tortured, persecuted or outright executed on sight. All in the name of Allah. I could post some videos, but that'd get me insta-banned.
I know what's gonna come now: "that's only a minority, not all muslims are like that". Well, 70% of the egyptian people have voted for the people who promote exactly that. And it's not like the "good" muslims in these places fight to protect and support those who suffer from the wrath of the "bad" muslims. Guess that's saying a lot.
I live near Berlin, Germany, a major city with LOTS of muslim immigrants. I have to deal with them personally more often than I'd like to. And unfortunately, most prejudices turn out to be actually true more often than not. I've also read a good deal of the Quran, it actually DOES tell you to kill infidels because they are "lower than lifestock" and not beliving is worse than death. I can quote that as well if anyone wants me to.
"Fine, here is the deal, [Americans] stop [bombing/invading/drone-striking] us then we can talk."
See what I did there?
On topic, I broadly agree with the theme of the article, though I think that suggesting the Covenant from Halo are some kind of Islam allegory is probably pushing it.
That aside I agree, and what would be really refreshing would be having a modern-setting game with a Muslim character where their religion was perhaps mentioned once, and was henceforth completely irrelevant. That way you aren't cack-handedly promoting or detracting from Islam, you just treat the character as an actual person.
Ok, take it from me, the Islamic faith and some Islamic cultures have some potentially violent and contentious practices but this specific one isn't true. I specialized in the Islamic faith in college and have actually studied the faith. Both its scriptures and its laws. Regarding your statement about a command to compulse people into belief. There are specific verses that say the opposite, that there can be no compulsion with faith. They have historically acted on that. Take the Muslim invasion of Spain by in 711 a.c.e. True, that was within a hundred years of the inception of the faith which does speak to its militant nature, but the Jews and the Christians were only killed if they fought back but generally left alone otherwise. Islam gives special provisions for Jews, Christians, and Sabians, even going so far as to say that they have nothing to fear on the day of judgment (it is said twice, once each in the 2 and 5 Surahs). Nonbelievers are taxed and not permitted to serve in certain functions but death isn't an automatic like people think. Adherents of other faiths or Atheism may be a bit murkier a discussion though. But spreading the religion by the sword is generally referring to conquering other lands and installing Sharia law and encouraging the faith. Not forcing or killing if they don't convert.
What most people don't realize is that Islamic Denominations also have Hadiths (acts/sayings of the Prophet) that are used in combination with the Qur'an to form Sharia Law. Some Hadiths are held at the same level of authority as the Qur`an. The two largest denominations, Sunni and Shi`ite, make up about 90% of the faith. Sunnis have four schools of law that each place a different emphasis on various passages of Hadith and the Shi'te expression has its own school of law with a different set of hadiths they consider legitimate. The next largest group may be something like the Quranists who are Qur`an onlyists. You may have heard of Islamic sufis but you can be a member of the other denominations and be sufi rather than Sufi being a seperate expression/denomination. I mention this to establish that not all Muslims are necessarily the same, but they're a lot more similar to one another than Christian denominations.
What Western culture would probably be the most upset with Islamic teachings on would be things like:
1. Since the Prophet married Aisha when she was six/seven and consummated the marriage when she was 9, this is an inherrently righteous action going forward. There's been a lot of work to apologize this practice. He was likely 40 years old at the time and the vast majority of hadiths agree with these numbers.
2. The Qur`an has a three step response to reprimand your wife for being out of line. Attempt 1: Warn her. Attempt 2: Sleep in a seperate bed. Attempt 3: Beat her. I'm surprised this verse hasn't gotten more public circulation. Modern translations of the Qur`an had tried to lighten the verse by adding the word "lightly" to the third step. Like that makes it cool. This, along with other verses, actively objectify and trivialize women. Women who defend Islam as a religion that's all about love and equality are sadly misguided into defending something that's against them.
3. The Qur'an demands active prejudice against non-Muslims. Some instances do incur death on the individual but other things like basic rights and not being discriminated against are thrown out of the way by order of their God. I'm referring to things like being taxed or being unable to have rights to free speech.
4. Iconoclasm. The Sunni faith abhors physical representation of living beings. This is why Sunni culture has almost no images of people's faces or animals or anything. The controversial side of this is that they very much believe in destroying icons/images due to their schools of law (not Qur`anic verses). If Sharia law ever reached, say, the Louvre, it would be burned to the ground.
So this article fails to account for difference between a realistic evaluation of the faith and a "postive portrayal". It is difficult to distinguish between prejudice and direct portrayal of a group of people when a non-trivial segment of them seek to actively pursue what we believe to be evil. There are many Islamic cultures that believe we are in direct war with them and so to portray them as peace loving people who just want to dance in fields of flowers with Americans in the right context is just as misleading as making them insane and blood thirsty all the time without exception. There are many peaceful Islamic groups, especially in the US. But they have to ignore certain aspects of their faith to fit into Western society.
One thing I will absolutely say is that the Qur'an doesn't encourage the slaughter of innocents. Seperate cultures may, but not the faith. These bombings and other nonsense are not condoned in their faith. Fighting against militant groups = totally legit.
Excellent article. These lessons could be applied in a broader sense to game development as a whole.
Gonna skip over the echo chamber. Pointless to debate in this atmosphere
This made me smile. Just felt like sharing that
Novel concept :P
I suppose Dark Cloud could count as having Middle Eastern characters/setting, but that could be dismissed as just an art design choice
A) Character writing is quite literally about focusing on an individual. Kinda missing the point here
B) You know, when you needlessly throw in your own political biases, you largely invalidate your own points, which if stated in a more rational (or "moderate" if you prefer. wink) fashion, you'd much more effectively get your point across by not clouding your own argument
...You do realize that Christians still worship that kind of God, right? Sure he might not advocate stoning rape victims /now/, but there was certainly a period where he was cool with it. Sends children to hell, too. And the Jews still have all of the crazier Hebrew Bible laws still technically canon, but nobody minds, because they don't actually hurt anybody. See, there's this fascinating new concept we just got from the Athenians--it's called the justice system. When somebody does something bad, they're punished for their actions. Conversely, when someone doesn't do something bad, they're not punished. We're still working out the kinks, but if everything goes right, we might be able to hold people accountable for their actions. Wonderful new idea, really. Judging individuals when they do something wrong...I tell ya, those Athenians come up with the wackiest forms of government.
Also have to nitpick about the Game of Thrones point. The most "Arab" group are the people of Dorne. A group of ethnically and culturally diverse peoples ruled by a benevolant ruler, Prince Doran Martell. They are one of the safest places in the seven kingdoms, one of the strongest militaries, and is home to some of the most morally just and peaceful Houses in Westeros.
Clearly the solution is to just outlaw both. Because obviously, ancient texts with little-to-no relevance in the modern world are just the thing to use as a guideline in said modern world.
OT: The last item in the article is by far the most important one to achieve IMO. People (including myself, sadly enough) get so caught up in making distinctions between "us" and "them" that they lose sight of the fact that no matter what the group, people are still people. There's good ones, bad ones, and most are somewhere in the middle.
It's human nature to catalog and stereotype, so we may never get past it, but we really need to stop looking at the categories people fall under and pay more attention to the fact that they're people.
You do realize the Crusades the Christians had were against Muslims right?
As for them all secretly hating everyone behind closed doors? Sorry, that's just paranoid.
The Crusades were fought because the ruling houses of Europe wanted control of the spice trade in/out of Spain, which was run by Muslim trading houses. Granted to get the peons of the time to go along, they invoked God and Hell and whatever. My problem is that fanatic, political leaders in the Muslim world are able to readily use the Qu'ran for their own gain, and because its a holy book, its immune to criticism. The real problem isn't the zealot-ism, its that technology allows for much greater "acts of faith". A thousand years ago the best you could hope for was killing a few noblemen and a village or two. Now a days, with dirty bombs, zealot-ism is much more dangerous. That Islam is still going through a difficult time is one thing, and honestly, not a big deal. It'll grow up and become inclusive in 500+ years and that's totally 100% fine. THAT a single violent Islamic extremist can kill a thousand-times the number of a single christian Crusader with a sword, IS a major problem.
The bible has its fair share of out of whack stuff.
Being gay = dead, women are possesions , slavery is fine , if a childs being unruly its acceptable to sell it, a woman who wears two different fabrics should be stoned to death , planting two crops side by side is a lethal transgression , working on the sabbath? get the town together and stone that heathen!
Read all replies before posting please. I already stated my stance in this thread towards all religions, including Christianity.
*Yanks this conversation back onto topic.*
One thing to do, and this is likely not to happen for awhile, is to have a game portraying someone in the collectively lumped together part of the world known as the Middle East, but after a massive biological holocaust has wiped out a vast majority of the world.
We never know who they are, we never hear them speak, we can only observe and explore and study. It might even be that they're wearing a full body suit designed to protect them from the elements. It becomes a survival game. One all about you trying to recover fragments of the past to be brought back to your home for safe keeping. Until the surface is habitable once more.
This could well apply to anywhere in the world, but it might be a nice way to freeze-frame part of that world, then show a reason for it to be presented, with the goal of the game literally being to understand the history of this part of the world. We could show us moving between the different ethnic regions of that part of the world. See how the thoughts, actions, even the very degree of information could change. Your highly advanced suit might point out certain differences in the same books. Information left out, put in, altered, things like that.
This would essentially be a game about looking at the modern Middle East and letting you do so from the point of a silent protagonist with no voice, personality, or name. Because that way it then becomes *you* exploring the world.
True. Zealot-ism is an issue. However, painting all the "bad guys" as Muslims(specifically Muslim sterotypes) just puts us in more danger, because then we will be looking for a fake vision of the problem, and miss the real ones.
For example, the U.S. just caught a Militia group of Christians, who were planning to murder a law officer, and bomb their funeral in an attempt to kill as many cops as possible.
Indeed there are bad people out there. However, they aren't all Muslim, or even living in some far away land.
I like this article. I definitely agree that we need more characters with personality. I can't recall the last time I played a game where a middle eastern character was anything beyond being the guy you insert bullets into. And that part about them being regular people, that has to be my favorite part.
And for God's sake guys, go to religion/politics if you wanna argue about how much you hate religion. This place is for discussing the article, not complaining that you don't like people with faith.
I did not claim to know more than anyone else on this subject, I claimed that I have more experience of The Middle East/North Africa/The Arabian Peninsula and their peoples than anyone else posting in this thread. It is indeed because I've been to those parts of the world. I don't know why you think that's somehow not a good argument.
You would trust an anthropologist or a diplomat who had lived there for years, wouldn't you? Why not afford me some of that trust? Sure, I've not lived in any of those places for more than a couple of months, but let me tell you: a week in a country is all you need to smash prejudices you didn't even know you had, and make you realise how little you really know about life and the people there.
And make you realise how shitty and distorted a representation of the place you get in your home country.
You don't realise what you're doing, and that's what so frustrating for me.
You are objectifying and attempting to essentualise a massive complicated mess of individuals, cultures, societies, histories, geographies, ethnicities, languages, and so on and asking me to "prove" that your reductive argument- so called as it is only based on the Qu'ran- is wrong. Do you really think it's as simple as: 'All x think y; T/F' and here's the stat to back it up?
Let me put it this way. Over 3/4s of the world believe something along the lines of "Americans are fat, stupid, selfish, arrogant, consumerist, materialist, know-it-all Christian whackjobs. We should be resisting their international domineering."
Now I ask you to prove them wrong.
See how nonsensical it is?
Reacting with "Prove it" is child's play, and you strike me as more adult than that.
What do you want me to do? I can't remember most of the day-to-day occurrences- what you call facts and information- only the conclusions I drew from the trip. Should I re-type my personal diaries for you? Construct a MASSIVE ethnography on the whole of the region? There is no way to prove stuff like this. It's too big, and I'm not going to even make a tenth of the effort it would take to explain this to you on an internet forum where in all likelihood you'll ignore me anyway.
Imagine the book- it would be hundreds of volumes containing all the minutiae of life in that area. Great tomes on the history, culture, economy, politics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy of the region would be required, and even then you'd be committing some ethically dubious academics. And you're asking me to condense my taste of that into a forum post.
Hell, if I could write that book, I sure as hell would not give it out for free on the internet. It would be groundbreaking.
The only way you'll be able to understand my paradigm is to experience what I've experienced, and that would involve living in the region and having connections to it and so on, (which I'm assuming you do not have at the moment in any meaningful way).
I'm sorry that you found my claim to superior experience belittling, but I do have to wonder why.
There's as much truth in "You'll understand when you're older," as, "You'll understand when you're there." As anyone who as aged can tell you, the first is true. As anyone who has travelled properly can tell you, the second is true.
That's essentially what anthropologists do.
Of course, they can't become invisible flies-on-walls. Instead, they try to integrate fully into the culture they're studying so as to no longer be regarded as an outsider by the inhabitants. They become socially unremarkable, like a chameleon. They then participate and observe in the culture, take notes as they go along, and bind it all up in an ethnography at the end.
A great deal of understanding comes from the participation, not just the observation. For example: it's very hard for a Westerner to understand the importance family connections and social status play in the Middle East (and, actually, most of the rest of the world), until they find themselves living in that social context where it is right to make claims on family, and for your family to make claims on you.
The West seems to me to be relatively disconnected. For example: where do you go when you want money? Not your family or friends, but a cold, mechanical bank. Or a cold, mechanical corporation to exchange your time and skills for money. What seems so common-sense to us is not in fact so.
Hell the Japanese are so connected to lineage that they used to kill themselves because they had dishonoured their families. A Japanese CEO recently killed himself because he had to lay off so many of his employees. Westerners just can't *get* that. Such social connections form some of the core of the justification for honour killings.
As much as I'd love an Anthropology game, I think that gameplay would be rather boring for most people. Although it would be interesting for the rest, as it would essentially be living abroad without leaving your house.
Plus, y'know, how would it work? You'd essentially be simulating whole regions of the world and dropping the player in them. Nevermind the arguments I made above about the inherent problems of objectifying things so complex, I have a more practical problem in mind: Would the NPCs speak English or their Native dialects? If it's English, are you committing some form of cultural imperialism? How much is lost in translation (It's a lot more than you'd think)? If it's Arabic, how the hell will anyone outside of the Arab-speaking world know what's going on? So much of culture is language you'd be conducting a grave misrepresentation if you excluded it.
An example I read recently was of how the British and (IIRC) the Thai describe the phenomenon of rain. English-speakers say, "It is raining." They say, "There is rain." And that subtle difference says a whole lot about the differing worldviews.
Uhm, what?
First of all, Jesus, the prophet of christianity/son of da man himself said stuff like "love your enemy", "turn the other cheek" and "let him who is without sin cast the first stone". Very same book, supposed to be a role model for all christians.
Muhammad on the other hand was a warlord that raided settlements of the infidels, killed the men, enslaved the women and claimed the land for himself. He executed those who refused to convert and had sex with children and women he considered spoils of war. And Allah says it's aok, as it is written in the Quran. And because the Quran is the word of god, it's still being law in regions with muslim majorities.
There's a fine line between doing nasty stuff, realizing it is bad and officially condemning it and doing said stuff for over a thousand years and continue doing it because some delousional dude said we can't have nice things.
Every civilization has ugly spots on its vest, but some learn from them while others are proud about it.
To return to the actual topic: muslims are portrayed in video games as they're perceived in real life. Guess they're not so innocent about that. And what anyone interprets into fantasy characters his business. If I wanted to, I could whine about the same stuff whenever Space Nazis or the like show up because I'm German.
But I don't for some very simple, yet plausible reason: I simply have enough commonsense to realize not fucking everything is aimed at insulting me. A valuable lesson most muslims do not seem to have learned yet.
No, but that's besides the point. The Quran specifically says that and it's why there are more incidents of Islamic terrorism than any other religion. It's why child grooming gangs are predominately Muslim and why honour killings happen. The religion itself is inherently evil given that their main prophet was a murderer who couldn't take insults.
That's the reason why we have Muslims as enemies in games. They're more likely to be evil. I'm not saying that all Muslims are fundamentalists, by the way. Most are westernised and good people, but those are the people that don't follow the religion correctly.
The God of the Old Testament is very much like Muhammad, just on a bigger scale.
This may be one of the more bizarre articles that I've read in recent memory.
For starters, the author seems to be arguing that there needs to be a better representation of Arabs and Middle-Easterners, not a better representation of Muslims (hopefully not a news flash to anyone here, but not all Muslims are Middle-Eastern, and vice-versa). Islam is not an ethnicity, it's a religion.
Second, this: "The Covenant are religious radicals prosecuting a holy war under the order of a prophet, and Grunts frequently suicide bomb the player with plasma grenades"
Third, Game of Thrones. It's kind of hard to argue that they're depicting the Eastern Lands as being a terrible place when they also depict Westeros as being just as bad, if not worse. Also remember that Game of Thrones is heavily based upon the War of the Roses, with Westeros representing Britain and Europe. At that time, 'the East' (ie. Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa) was viewed as being a land of barbarians, mystery, and magic.
Fourth, religion itself. In all seriousness, when was the last time you played a game, ANY game, in which you knew any character's religion, excluding fantasy games with made up religions? Honestly, I thought as hard as I could on this one, and the only one I could think of was the "Dante's Inferno", and that game pretty much needs the religious aspect to even exist. Devs are going to avoid having a character's religion be a big focus of a game because they're worried it'll alienate people or cause controversy. And hell, if you want to play a game and imagine your character as a Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, or Branch Davidian, then knock yourself out.
Fifth, complaining that the Redguard looks like a stereotypical Arab warrior from the Middle Ages is like complaining that a Nord in Heavy Armor looks like a stereotypical Middle Ages European Knight. So the Redguard come from a land whose look is modeled after the Arab World from years ago. So? Almost all fantasy sticks with certain established looks and feels from human history. That's why Skyrim's imperials have Roman-esque Armor, because they devs drew inspiration from Ancient Rome. It's why the Nords have helments with horns and drink mead, because the devs drew inspiration from the Vikings. Additionally, someone has already pointed out that the Redguard culture is actually pretty far removed from stereotypical Arab culture.
And to end it on some true bizarreness: 'These days, we spend more energy making a gun true to life than we spend on the person in its crosshairs.' This is like arguing that Uncharted should have had as many speaking parts for the various bad guys you have to kill as it did for Nathan Drake. The gun sticks with you the entire game, the guy you're about to shoot lasts about 10 seconds, the devs are not going to exhaust vast resources and time to give you background and a history lesson about every bad guy you're fighting.
I feel like Assassin's Creed: Revelations portrayed Muslims quite well.
They're pretty much depicted as normal people, which is refreshing.
I'm going to point you to this post:
And also inform you that honour killings happen all over the place, both in the Muslim world and not. Hell, all those Old Westerns? Chock full of Honour killings. We totally understand why a wife might kill her husband for cheating on her. Honour killing. The Japanese have a famous history of Honour killing- and even inflicted it upon themselves. Duels to the death over matters of honour were common in Europe. Gangs kill for "Respect."
If you are prepared to fight for your reputation, then you might perhaps understand why lots of people are prepared to die for it, or kill for it. Especially when their social standing is derived more from their association with a well-reputed group than their particular actions, which is still the case across much of the world as the scope for individual action is limited by economic and political constraints. When your social capital is the most sure-fire way to gain access to resources, you can be sure that people will kill and die for it.
Erm.. no. Most are no Westernised. Unless you want to claim that Indonesia is somehow part of "The West." Because North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, and West Asia certainly are not.
In Mass Effect, by talking yo Ashley you find that she's a fairly devout Christian, and seems to have influenced the mild-to-moderate xenophobia she displays at times.
Your post was tolerable up until this point. America didn't anyone.
Thanks for pointing that out, I didn't know that.
I'm sure they are out there, but my point is that I play a lot of video games and I really struggled to think of even one example where a character's religion is on full display (again, not including fantasy religions), and thus I think it's hard to argue that something is badly depicted in a medium when it's hardly ever depicted at all.
(Minor gripe)
No, no you don't. You find out that she's religious (vague as to which religion, only that its mono-theistic), which is treated as entirely separate to her mild-xenophobia, which has its roots in how Ashley's grandfather was treated by the Alliance after the First Contact War. At no point is the Religiousness and the Xeno-scepticism linked. (To the best of my knowledge, the religion only comes up in one conversation, although her romance email in ME2 does mention praying.) Ashley's distrust of aliens is also treated as part of her generally cynical attitude that other people will only ever look out for themselves.
Anyway... back on topic.
To comment on some of the anti-religious themes being passed around: Yes, there are religious people out there who use their religion as a reason to do harm to other people. There are also people out there who are religious, but who are motivated by it to do good. "Christian Aid" and "Islamic Relief" both spring to mind. And there are plenty of people who are religious, keep it to themselves, don't shove it your face, and possibly aren't even that devout but just believe that there is a god and there is life after death. (Context - I come from a primarily Christian family, although I personally identify as agnostic.)
Believing in god, or life after death, or even just a vague 'something more' is not a problem. Having a set of beliefs is not a problem.
Inflicting those belief's onto other, unwilling, people is a problem. Religious extremists, like Al'qaeda or the KKK, take it way too far.
Regarding the article - more realistic characterisations, warts and all, of people from Middle Eastern cultures can only be a good thing. (More realistic characterisations in general is a good thing.) Understanding each other brings people together, for one thing, and for another: there is a wealth of character potentials in these cultures - why stick to the same tired old cliches?!
...You read the cliffnotes version of the Hebrew Bible, didn't cha? I won't discuss my opinion on the whole, "Hell," business, seeing as how I'd probably insult a few people, but from what I can tell, a pretty large number of Christians believe, not only in Jesus, but also in God. Shocker, isn't it? And God was something of a delinquent in his teenage years. Smiting transpired, I'd reckon. Rape victims being punished via group ballistics, slavery being legal, et cetera. Claiming that what's written down in the books a people read defines their morals is a pretty messed up idea of morality.
"I simply have enough commonsense to realize not fucking everything is aimed at insulting me."
"You haven't been following the news in recent months, have you? In all countries of the "Arab Spring", all non-muslims must fear for their lifes. Foreigners and non-muslims get abducted, tortured, persecuted or outright executed on sight. All in the name of Allah. I could post some videos, but that'd get me insta-banned.
I know what's gonna come now: "that's only a minority, not all muslims are like that". Well, 70% of the egyptian people have voted for the people who promote exactly that. And it's not like the "good" muslims in these places fight to protect and support those who suffer from the wrath of the "bad" muslims. Guess that's saying a lot."
See, the irony is, most of the ringleaders, the propagators of violence, are--while certainly Islamic--mostly giving the west grief for political reasons. I'm not saying they're justified, but they're not doing it just because God told them to. Granted, they tell their followers that it's the holy thing to do, but if there's anything history has shown us, it's that using religion to create killers is ridiculously easy.
Is it completely and utterly evil of me that my first thought on this is that we need to arrange for a live debate between the "Portrayals of Muslims in Videogames" folk and the "Tropes vs Women in Videogames" people? Worthwhile discussions in an open and public forum.
I know... I'm a baaaaddddd man.
Well, I don't believe in mincing words, this situation is what it is, there isn't a lot of room to dress it up. When I go off about the left wing and it's politics I do so to make a point, those who are offended because "hey I'm left wing" but might otherwise agree with the argument are kind of those I'm writing for, to get them to re-assess their priorities on these issues. For the record I am actually pretty moderate as there are issues I swing pretty far to the left on (freedom of speech, workers rights, and even what limitations should be placed on business) but those subjects rarely come up on these forums. Mostly when I go off about the left wing, it's simply because the ideal that you should be tolerant of everyone is a problem, and anything that encourages people to be intolerant is wrong, is something I feel needs to be opposed. Tolerance is a nice ideal to strive for, but at the end of the day there are some people, even large groups of them, that should not be tolerated or accepted under any circumstances. A culture like the one in The Middle East is one of those things, when you basically let a people enslave half their population... the women, and then see visiting women follow those customs to show "tolerance" and "avoid offense" that's a problem. There is no reason at all we should be tolerating a culture that does that, and that's just one aspect of the entire thing as I explained.
As far as this applies to gaming, understand that the article writer is talking about a large variety of things. A big part of his point revolves around the portrayal of Muslims as bad guys in video games, and their culture as being pretty much a bad thing even when portrayed through science fiction analogy. My counterpoint is that this is both accurate and nessicary because that is pretty much what your dealing with. If some Muslim looks in the mirror and the truth hurts, that's a good thing in the long run. This kind of stuff is not being made up and projected onto Muslims as a whole as part of some kind of racist agenda, its really what that culture is like. The point of the links I posted (and I encourage people to do their own research) is to demonstrate that. In say a FPS where your dealing with an opposing force, the portrayals are pretty accurate, and if anything don't go far enough.... and let's be honest, this is who we are fighting in real life and why, making games about the military in the present day it's not out of line to portray who it actually fights against, and why by showing the people as a group who they are. I demonstrated how these people are conditioned into fanatics, how early that starts, how much unreasoning hate they are taught for everyone not themselves, and even one video (which is hardly unique) of children being taught to engage in suicide warfare. Like it or not the whole "suicide bomber" thing isn't a negative stereotype, it's real, and conditioning kids while they are young and teaching them this kind of stuff via having their childhood mascots and heroes murdered and similar techniques is exactly how you get people willing to commit suicide to inflict damage on an enemy.
On a more individual level, when your dealing with the portrayal of Muslims as scheming bad guys, who are out to screw everyone, well understand these are people conditioned in that culture to hate anyone who isn't a Muslim. Those that aren't fighting are going to cheat you and do whatever they can to achieve whatever small victories they can. Exceptions always exist, but that is going to be the most common situation. What's more you have to remember the guys calling the shots are the ones who are producing those videos of childhood mascots being murdered, and telling the people to hate and kill everyone not like them. On some levels these guys might believe in what they are doing, but from an outside perspective they are pretty bad.
In general if you were dealing with totally self contained stories about Muslims dealing with other Muslims without outside influence coming much into the question, you'd be right if there was some effort to make things utterly demonic. This is pretty much the whole "Aladdin", "Arabian Nights" school of thought and really that works fine on it's own and generally isn't where we're having problems anyway. On a more adult level the best reference I could think of would probably be George Alec Effinger's "Marid" stories like "When Gravity Fails" which largely take place in a cyberpunked Middle East.
My point is pretty much that there is nothing at all wrong with portraying members of the Muslim culture pretty much as they are. The implication here being that the portrayal is inaccurate, when really as I demonstrated, it's not. That portrayal is grounded in reality. In general if your an outsider it's pretty much expected a Muslim is going to try and get one over on you within his own culture, to him, you are the enemy. From a military perspective, it's even less ambigious. The only reason I can see to argue against this is largely political as part of an overall agenda that might be well intended but is fairly misguided. I've done a lot of digging into it over the years, and to be blunt it's actually pretty straightforward over all. Some guy grows up listening to TV telling him everyone who is not Muslim is the enemy, he's taught Jews killed Mickey Mouse, he goes to church and hears "kill Americans" every day and the horrors of the great western satan every day, granted he might not become a warrior himself, but some westerner walks up to his spice stall to buy something, do you think he's going to want to do business fairly?
I know not everyone will agree with me, but that's my two cents (pretty much what I said before). To be honest though I will consider what you say and see if maybe I can be a little more diplomatic in the future, though to be honest I'm not really sure how you can make these kinds of points with the same strength in doing so. I mean the gist of my argument is "hey look, there is all the stuff we're talking about". My basic argument is people didn't just make stuff up so people would dislike Muslims, rather Muslims did stuff that made it so people didn't like them.
At the end of the day when Muslim culture changes (one way or another) so will perceptions. I think it will happen, but it's not going to be through denial, or not using them as bad guys in reality based FPS games that are based on what's actually going on.
It's amazing, because you keep presenting examples of why the points Rath raises are important. Now, my mother's side of the family are Muslim, belonging to a reasonably small Islamic sect called the Druze, and they are nothing like what you describe. They live in Lebanon, a country that has historically been invaded time and again by one of the US's closest allies, but they are fervently and fanatically pro-American. They think the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are some of the best things to ever happen to the region. And their reasons for this are based, in no small part, on their unique combination of ethnicity, religious leaning, and nationality.
I've traveled extensively in the Middle East, and opinions you run into on the ground run the gamut of, well, anything you can imagine. The Middle East, above all things, is complicated, and you're generalising one of the most diverse and divisive areas of the planet with terms like "Muslim culture". The fact is that based on your ethnicity, your sect, your nationality, and an absolute myriad of other reasons, your views on Americans, on non-Muslims, and the world in general are going to vary wildly. This is why the article is important. People like you get these ideas of what "Muslims" or "Arabs" are like, and never realise that the terms "Muslim" and "Arab" are essentially meaningless for this kind of discussion because they just cannot be broad enough to apply to the majority of people and still convey a disposition towards the rest of the world. A Muslim is simply someone that follows Islam, but one of the largest Muslim countries on the planet is Indonesia and they hardly get a mention in this kind of debate. One of the biggest perpetrators of the problems supposedly inherent to Arabic culture is Iran, where they don't even speak Arabic or belong to the Arab ethnicity.
Rath doesn't seem to be saying that there aren't problems in the world of Islam or within the North African/Middle Eastern/Central Asian parts of the world. There are. That's not on debate, and isn't even close to the point of the article. What he's talking about is this kind of blanket treatment. Large swathes of the Middle East trace their current social climate directly back to the days of tribalism, and this informs their identity. It's an incredibly complicated geographical area with people that defy the kind of labels the West has, and continues to, put on them. The kind of portrayals he advocated would be immensely helpful in helping people like yourself to understand that even within the "Non-Muslim hating, anti-American, 'burn the infidels'" group, there is an incredible spread of different attitudes and social, economic, and political reasons behind those feelings beyond their religion and their culture. That first point in the article, "Stop lumping everyone together", is critical. It's the key to understanding the Middle East. Everything there plays out on a far more micro level than anyone in the West gives them credit for.
Hence his suggestions. Understanding which tribe one of those formless terrorist groups from the Modern Warfare series belong to would go a long way to understanding their motivations. Understanding motivation, in real war, is key to winning the conflict. It's really hard to argue with Rath's point that "realism" in games only seems to go towards their portrayal of guns, rather than the way the war is actually fought.
Oh goodness, I think I'm in love. Yes, this, exactly this. It's so hard to get people to understand just how much family (and by extension, ethnicity, tribalism, etc.) means in regards to life in the Middle East. Even the word "family" makes this hard to convey. In Lebanon, if I'm talking about my "family", it seems I mean half the country. Here in Australia, it's pretty much just my mother and father and siblings, or maybe the slightly more extended family of uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents. Back in Lebanon it means talking family trees so labyrinthine and extensive that it could really only be described as a forest.
Thank you so very, very much for those posts. It's nice to see someone that actually gets how hard it is to talk about this part of the world.
Freakin' process ate my freakin' post...
Anyway, I get the feeling the article title might have been better referring to culture instead of religion (as indeed the article itself does), though I guess one of the points was that there's no real way to do that. And it's not like I disagree with anything said.
I'm honestly more concerned about my country's culture in general learning to distinguish between stereotypes and reality (though apparently, we're still better than most of Europe), but like with the sexism in society and sexism in gaming thing, they're not exclusive and zero-sum. I get the feeling if Arabs/Persians/Kurds/North Africans/Indonesians/Azeri/Chechens/etc. start receiving more honest portrayals in either general life or games, one will certainly affect the other.
That's not really possible, since they don't contradict each other. Their contexts are very similar, and they're two different presentations; that part of Surah 8 is presented as a general moral lesson (though specifically referring to the Banu Quaraysh, sorta like the Bible presenting moral lessons using the Pharisees and Sadducees), while in Surah 9, it's referring to a specific then-upcoming event. Verses 8:58-62 are roughly saying "if you suspect your enemies will betray you, confront them about it on equal terms while preparing for war. If they betray you, God will strengthen your hand, but if they insist they want peace, trust God and be peaceful." Verses 9:3-5 are saying, in effect, "in about four months, on the day of pilgramage, is when our ceasefire with the Banu Quaraysh will dissolve. If you've got other treaties going on, though, with Pagans who've been keeping up their ends, those are still in full effect. After the dissolution, and when we get to Mecca, kick the Quaraysh's asses, unless they agree to peace and to stop being dicks."
Even if that part of Surah 8 came before (might have, though it's hard to tell, since the Quran is organized by topic, not chronology), neither can really take "precedence." I figured you'd bring up something like the rules concerning alcohol, gambling, or polygamy, since those are the easiest examples of that happening.
...what would they debate? I get the feeling there'd be a bit of overlap between the people will to actually argue for those topics. It might even come down to a compare-and-contrast between damaging portrayals due to fear and ignorance, due to objectification and pandering, or even tragic overlap between the two.
If some Muslim looks in the mirror and the truth hurts, that's a good thing in the long run. This kind of stuff is not being made up and projected onto Muslims as a whole as part of some kind of racist agenda, its really what that culture is like.
Y'know the truth does hurt, but not for the reason you think. The truth hurts because if you and the majority of this thread is any indication my childhood paranoia is wholly justified. Roughly 95% of you people have no clue what the hell your talking about.I have never been to the Middle East I was born and raised here in the states. Religion has always been used as a justification for evil behaviour. But here is the trick it isn't the religion itself that is inherently evil, it is the bastards who misinterpret and outright twist the words to suit whatever they are trying to justify.
Anyone remember the Beatles song Helter Skelter? how that was outright twisted to justify a vile mans actions? Remember how the blame was squarely on the man and not the bible or the beatles?
Therumancer, when you mention how a child grows up hearing how every non muslim is the enemy, those are the words of whatever tyrant is in charge, twisting Islam to suite his needs. After all its easier to claim that everyone you deem the enemy is evil if god "has your back"
Anyone that says the "Culture of the Middle East" simply show just how truly ignorant of the region they are.
There is no "Culture of the Middle East" there are a myriad of cultures, practically a unique one for ever country, usually far more then that. And if you are talking about Islam, which most of you are, then know that just like every other major religion out there, their are multiple sects and extremists groups out there. While it would be bull to say that they don't influence each other, they are all different and truly unique. Also Arab does not necessarily mean Muslim, remember there is a sizable Christian population throughout the region.
FYI outside of Saudi Arabia, the women are in no way "slaves" In the past 10 years alone, more women then ever have been joining the workforce, and not necessarily the "Female accepted" jobs like secretary or teacher. More women are being given government jobs and even positions of authority. Years back it made news that women were being accepted into police academies in certain countries. Even in Saudi Arabia the restrictions on women are finally starting to loosen, and let me tell you, this isn't because they did the "proper" thing and westernise. Hell, my own aunts are a recently graduated architect and a veteran lawyer with her own practice.
I am well aware that the Middle East as a whole (though I stress you really shouldn't think of this complicated region as one whole) isn't as far along in the female rights department as say the US or Europe, but it certainly isn't the backwards cesspool of practical enslavement and biblical time mentality that depressingly many of you think it is.
The soldiers are not fighting Islam, they are fighting Al Qaeda and tyrants. they are not there to attack a religion. While it is true that many of the members of Al Qaeda will identify as Islamic, but the truth is that they are only using it as a justification for their actions, just like the crusades used Christianity, just like Manson used Helter Skelter.
A few of you in this thread ask why the muslim community doesn't try to apologize or better establish that most of us are not like the terrorists (who happen to identify as muslim) To that I only have to say this
Indeed why should we have to establish that we are human beings and not ignorant murderers.
And in regards to the comments about the cultures changing, there is a bloody rebellion in Syria right now with the explicit purpose of rididng themselves or a tyrant and improving the country in the long run, In Susan they successfully dethroned their tyrant. Change is happening, slow, plodding even, but it is happening.
When I was a kid, and even now, I shut myself away and stick to playing games because I am terrified of making friends. Terrified that they would have a thought process just like most of you in this thread. So yes Therumancer it does hurt to look in the mirror, it hurts knowing that so many of you are gleefully ignorant of a complicated region. it hurts knowing that most of what I type will fall on deaf ears or just be regarded as me either being an "Apologist" or indoctrinated from a young age.
For many of you there simply is no scenario where Islam isn't some form of institutionalized corruption. If just one of you will take the time to do some real research, not just look up the absolute worst that comes from the region or the religion or whatever Fox has on the T.V. Whether that means reading the Qu'ran for yourselves or looking up anthropolgy reports or whatever, then this post wasn't in vain.
Signed: an ignorant, indoctrinated, womens rights hating, xenophobic, muslim.
To cut to the basics here.
At the end of the day, there is one basic metaculture present through "The Middle East" deriving from very similar interpetations of the Muslim faith. There are different tribes, nations, and points of view, many of which do not get along but they are united by a lot more similarities than differences. This is why there are so many calls for "Jihad" to put aside those differences and attack those that the overwhelming majority of the people in the region believe are the enemy. It's also why Bin Ladin was willing to surrender early on but only if he could be tried in a Muslim country under Islamic law, and why despite a huge amount of fighting when it came to facing the US and it's allies during "Desert Storm" Saddam was able to hide military forces in Iran to prevent them from being destroyed.
Understand that there are exceptions, and you might even one of them, but we're talking about the big picture not individual exceptions that defy the trends. What's more, I myself pointed out that there isn't generally that big a problem with Islamics that happen to be born and raised apart from that culture.
Incidently, your also dealing with the opposite of ignorance, since I myself demonstrated the truth by showing what is going on in the region. The source not being one network, program, or fringe videos distributed by some underground video house, but what passes for public education in the region. Sure there might be progressives in the region, but they represent a tiny minority.
Things like Al Queda are simply the violent arm of the problem, the active fighters. The problem is that they are a symptom of the bigger problem. If Al Queda is defeated as long as the central metaculture of the region continues more groups of the same sort will just appear to replace them, as the entire metaculture of the region is designed to produce it.
What's more, I do not put much credence in someone pulling the "I'm a Muslim and I'm okay" card as that's pretty much what you'd expect. It's possible that you are one of the progressives and yourself do not see the problems and believe what you are saying. It's also possible that it's a carefully considered argument because such arguments are a very effective way to undermine sentiment in the US since it's what people actually want to believe. I look back at cases where we've had progressive seeming professors at universities here in the US secretly running information hubs for terrorism. Sensible, peaceful arguments on one hand, makes you want to sympathize, but then look behind the curtain and... ooops. Trust me, when I say I've put a lot of thought into my positions and spent a lot of time examining the facts across a wide range of points of view, which is in part why it was so easy for me to provide a few links reinforcing my points right off the cuff.
Also, if you read what I said you'd notice that I mentioned very specifically that the Qua'ran is no worse than any other religious text, and that Islam could be practiced peacefully and in cohabitation with other societies, and indeed is for a number of people. That is however not the case with the metaculture dominating the Middle East which represents the core of the problems that are being dealt with.
What's more you mention Syria, but understand that this is not a war to overthrow a tyrant, it's actually a war between two religious factions... the Sunnis and the Shiites going at it once again. The sides are defined largely by religion and both sides want their faith to dominate. We already saw what happened here with Iraq, where instead of being progressive the first thing a Shiite majority did was ensure in their new constitution that they were going to be an Islamic state, as opposed to separating the church and state and making way for more progressive laws and reforms.
I'm one of those people who actually thinks we should stay out of Syria other than to prevent the Russians from selling/installing weapon systems there. After all whoever takes over is going to be bad news, and keeping Syria vulnerable in case we, or Isreal, have to go in is in our best interests. Other than that, as far as I'm concerned
As jaded as that sounds, understand that we already trusted several groups in the region and it generally backfires. We pretty much built up Saddam to be a progressive influence in the region and stand off Iran so we wouldn't have to get involved directly. Pretty much letting Muslims deal with other Muslims and dealing with what were supposed to be progressive factions to help reform the region... that ended beautifully, largely because Saddam decided he could get a better deal from Russian patronage and they would let him go a-conquering which was pretty much what he really wanted to begin with. When it comes to Afghanistan... again, our mess, we trusted these "Taliban Freedom Fighters" (yes I remember when I was a kid they were portrayed as the good guys) who proceeded to create an even more horrorific regime than the one the Russians were allied with. Despite pretty much giving these guys their country, they backed Bin Ladin and refused to give him to us when we tried to go through diplomatic channels since by rights The Taliban should have
That said, we're not going to agree. You think I'm wrong, I think your wrong. Ultimatly time will tell.
Also don't get me wrong, I actually kind of wish you were right, but from everything I've seen, researched, and run into, I do not think you are.
On a side note, while I mentioned it in passing, and it has little to do with any of this, Manson's dogma was largely reactionary to the "Black Muslim" faith and their belief in a great uprising against white people who were created by the sorcerer/scientist Yakub to enslave them. I made a reference to the Wikipedia page on that which does an okay, if not perfect job of handling it. The thing is though that none of the mainstream Muslim faiths in The Middle East seem to acknowledge Yakub (or didn't) which is why I mentioned it as a side point about a non-Middle Eastern group that represents a problem... alongside those Muslims who are divorced from the regional metaculture and manage to live alongside others peacefully without their faith ever coming up (I myself have pointed out they do exist, but are globally speaking a tiny minority when it comes to the genuine ones as opposed to those playing that card to hide in other societies).
Strictly speaking while The Beatles couldn't be blamed for what Manson did, arguably Black Muslims could be, as his insanity seemed to largely be reactionary to those calls for a race war, along with Manson's belief that whites were doomed to near extinction, and that extreme measures were the only way to ensure we'd ever survive or come back to anything resembling a civilization... or at least that is my understanding of it. In Manson's Dogma "Helter Skelter" which he just took from the song (for whatever reason) is what he called that apocalyptic war/uprising in which most whites were going to be killed. It has very little to do with the song which is about a slide at a playground if I remember correctly. :)
What's more, it's a demonstrably, ludicrously poor justification. Most of their targets and the majority of their victims are Muslims of every stripe, and that's not a bug, it's a feature. With Al Qaeda and other groups practicing takfir, you could easily say that they're the ones fighting Islam. After all, when the clerics[1] gathered in Jordan and issued a statement saying in part "we represent every legal and mystical school of thought in Islam today, and we say that anyone who thinks they can randomly declare someone to be not a 'true' Muslim is talking out of their asses," the response from Global Jihadist groups was basically "oh yeah, well you're all heretics too!"
I'm not a Muslim, myself, so I can't match your feeling exactly...but speaking as someone going into international security-related fields as a career, I think I can come close. I'm not in a position to feel personal insult, but I do feel frustration over the kind of willful, toxic ignorance it takes to not only lump a massive group of incredibly disparate people and cultures together under a single heading against actual evidence, and to not only then assign them every atrociously negative quality they hear about (regardless of source), but to allow that drown out anything they learn to the contrary. The kind of ignorance it would take to read something like this and dismiss it implying nothing at all, like some twisted inversion of "some of my best friends are black." Ignorance that's not just wrong, but actively harmful.
In other words, I feel ya, dude. Though I guess I'm just a college-educated librul (who reads Reza Aslan, of all people), so what do I know, huh?
[1] Not that there aren't also problems with the ulama, I realize.
Ah a religious article, great.
Muslims get a tough wrap, it really is a shame to judge a whole religious nation of people, especially when its made up of so many different races and creeds. The question we must really ask ourselves is why are they portrayed as violent sociopaths at any given opportunity in the media. Even in the news?
I mean everyone remembers the death of an American ambassador in Libya, but did anyone hear about the little reported incident after when all the locals decided enough was enough and chased the extremists thought responsible from the area. It was so little reported on that i cant even find an article regarding the incident.
If you ask me its one massive smear campaign so people arent horrified by western sponsored atrocities in the middle east.
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Abe Bortz, the Social Security Administration's first historian and a voracious book collector and reviewer, died Tuesday of lymphoma at his home in Pikesville. He was 93.
Dr. Bortz grew up in Cincinnati, graduating from high school there in 1937 and earning a bachelor's degree in history from the University of Cincinnati in 1941. He was drafted into the Army the next year and served first as a lieutenant and then as a captain in the military-supply Quartermaster Corps.
He saw Buchenwald, one of the German concentration camps, soon after the Army liberated it in 1945.
"While I was there, some of the prisoners were still there walking around," he recalled in a 2000 interview with a granddaughter. "They were literally skin and bones. If you've seen pictures of them, they were accurate. That was the first we heard of what they had done to the Jews."
After Dr. Bortz was honorably discharged in 1945, he immediately went back to school. His father, a Russian immigrant, impressed upon him the importance of education, and he had no intention of stopping with a single college degree.
He earned a master's degree in history at the University of Cincinnati in about 1947 and his doctorate in the same subject from Harvard University in 1950.
Dr. Bortz had hoped to teach at a university. But he received no full-time offers and his adviser, chalking it up to anti-Semitism, suggested the federal government as an alternative, said a son, Bruce Bortz.
So Dr. Bortz moved to Baltimore and became an Army historian, part of a team writing a multi-volume history of the Army in World War II. After 12 years, he took a job at what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Shortly afterward, he went to work for the Social Security Administration — building a foundation of information for all who study the country's largest domestic program.
As the agency's first and longest-serving historian, Dr. Bortz preserved early records, established its museum and launched its research archive, said Larry DeWitt, who retired from the same position last year.
"He was a pioneer in federal history," said Mr. DeWitt, who now lives in Arizona.
Dr. Bortz collected records, memorabilia and anecdotes, both serious and amusing. Among his museum displays, according to a 1982 United Press International profile of him, was a Social Security card that caused a lot of trouble. A manufacturer copied an employee's card from the 1930s and included it in thousands of wallets. Many of the new wallets' owners used that number instead of their own, by mistake.
Dr. Bortz, who remained as the agency's historian until he retired in 1985, found Social Security an engaging and worthwhile subject for study.
"He often made the point … that Social Security is really the most successful federal program ever created because it has all but wiped out poverty among old people," said Bruce Bortz, who lives in Baltimore. "And that's such a major societal accomplishment."
But Dr. Bortz's early desire to teach never faded. While he worked by day as a federal historian, he spent several nights a week in class as an adjunct history professor at the Johns Hopkins University and what was then Western Maryland College in Westminster.
Over the same period he wrote more than 100 book reviews, all for the Sun papers, largely the Evening Sun and Sunday Sun. He focused on histories of all sorts. In his first review in 1959, he considered two foreign-policy tomes and concluded: "Both books make the reader feel uncomfortable. For this reason alone they need to be read and pondered."
His appetite for books was ravenous. He amassed a collection of more than 10,000 — so many that his wife, the former Rita Gradsky, eventually decreed that any books coming in would have to be offset by an equal number going out. He gave thousands to the Johns Hopkins University library.
Reference books were among his favorites. He also owned many volumes about history, politics and journalism.
"We had bookshelves in pretty much every room," Bruce Bortz said, recalling his childhood. "He haunted bookstores, especially second-hand bookstores."
When Dr. Bortz retired from Social Security, he also retired from book reviewing and teaching. He and his wife traveled, seeing Europe and splitting the rest of their time between Baltimore and Florida.
The couple was married for 58 years, until Mrs. Bortz's death in 2009.
In addition to his son in Baltimore, Dr. Bortz is survived by a sister, Gittee Bortz of Cincinnati; another son, Jon Bortz of Potomac; and six grandchildren. In addition to his wife, he was predeceased by two sisters, Ann Loobman and Ruth Kravitz, and a son, David Lee Bortz.
A graveside ceremony was held Friday in Reisterstown. A celebration of life memorial is being planned.
Baltimore Sun researcher Paul McCardell contributed to this article.
Abe Bortz, the Social Security Administration's first historian and a voracious book collector and reviewer, died Tuesday of lymphoma at his home in Pikesville. He was 93.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The Fed Is Now Scared
Bloomberg News (March 25, 2009) reported a speech by San Francisco Fed president Janet Yellen in which she called for authority for the central bank to issue its own debt. The request must have most people perplexed, especially since her rationale was delivered in Fed-speak. "Issuing such debt would reduce the volume of reserves in the financial system and push up the funds rate without shrinking the total size of our balance sheet," Yellen said.
Actually, Yellen, who is also an economist, is addressing a very serious issue. It is one that critics of current Fed policy have been raising for some time.
The Fed is loading up its balance sheet with illiquid assets, including many dubious assets taken in as collateral for loans of money and Treasury securities to financial institutions. In the process, the Fed has an ever diminishing supply of highly liquid (and safe) Treasury securities on its own balance sheet.
Critics like economic historian Anna J. Schwartz and former Fed attorney Walker F. Todd have pointed out that the Fed will have a technical problem if it wants to start sopping up all the liquidity it has created. In a 2008 paper in International Finance, Schwartz and Todd wrote that "it is fair to ask what the Fed intends to do if it decided that it would tighten monetary policy by raising interest rates." Without a sufficient supply of highly liquid assets to sell in the markets, the Fed would need to dispose of its illiquid assets at losses. That would possibly drive up interest rates more than desired.
Yellen's call for the power to issue Fed debt signals a number of things. First, the Fed, contrary to recent happy talk from other officials, is worried about inflation. Second, its critics are correct that the Fed has painted itself into a corner by taking illiquid assets onto its balance sheet. Third, the Fed wants to hold those dubious assets to maturity (hence Yellen's point about not "shrinking the total size of our balance sheet").
Yellen's trial balloon drew a "no comment" from the Fed's Washington headquarters. The issue will not go away.


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very day the women with their banners marched across the park to take up positions in front of the White House. They came from the headquarters of the National Woman's Party (NWP) on Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. Their banners demanded that President Woodrow Wilson help them in their campaign to get all American women the same right to vote that American men already had. They maintained their vigil every day for two months, through the rain and snow of January and February 1917.
The NWP pickets began to encounter violent reactions from onlookers after the United States entered the First World War in April 1917. The police began to arrest them and to imprison them under harsh conditions. Many people were shocked when they learned about the women's treatment. Some lawyers thought the sentences imposed were in violation of the First Amendment. The women continued to demand their rights, in spite of the violence they endured. The 19th Amendment, guaranteeing all women in America the right to vote, finally became part of the Constitution in 1920, three years after the first pickets marched to the White House.
By exercising their First Amendment rights, the women provided a model for many others. Groups and individuals have demonstrated against the Vietnam War, for rights for gays and lesbians, for and against abortion, and for civil rights. U. S. citizens and foreign nationals also protest on issues or events occurring around the world that they believe the United States should be aware of and become involved in. All of these people have presented their causes and their grievances to the president in Lafayette Park—where he could not ignore them.
About This Lesson
Getting Started: Inquiry Question
Setting the Stage: Historical ContextLocating the Site: Maps
Determining the Facts: Readings
Visual Evidence: Images
Putting It All Together: Activities
How the National Register
Contact TwHP
This lesson is based on the Lafayette Square Historic District in Washington, D.C. It is among the thousands of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places.


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Looks like you are using an old version of Internet Explorer - Please update your browser
Your latest magazine is absolutely fabulous! I wish I could buy one for every Christian school teacher.
No results found in Readers Respond.
Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry, dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.


text: The Days Inn Chambersburg has many amenities to offer to its guests. We serve a complimentary Continental Breakfast including Bagels, Cereals, Toast, English Muffins, Donuts, Coffee, Tea, Apple and Orange Juice each morning from 6 AM until 9 AM for the whole family and children 18 and under stay free at our property. Free high speed wireless internet, iron and ironing board in all rooms. We are just minutes away from many attractions. Schools such as Wilson College, Shippensburg University, Penn State and Gettysburg College are also just minutes away. We are conveniently located off I-81 at exit 16. Pets allowed with a fee of 10 USD per pet per night.


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San Diego, CA, US
This is a conceptual architecture design looking at the cramped and stressful environments of dental operatories and how they could be helped. The overall design was thought to be transferable to any typical steel frame building with approximately 25' bays.
Focusing on the users, the typical square footages of these spaces were re-worked to enhance the human interaction with the space. As most of the user's time spent in these spaces is lying in a chair staring at the ceiling, this design aimed to provide a pleasing experience on the ceiling for positive user distraction without being bothersome to the doctors.
This comes to be in the form of a reflected water drainage system located on the exterior of the building casting light and shadows onto the interior ceiling plane. These reflections are then made special, for only the users can see them through a portal above the operatory chair angled as to prevent unwanted distraction.
The scenes depicted below are a video of the ceiling element mentioned above and a physical model built in March 2011.
Status: School Project
My Role: Architect - Designer
Additional Credits: University of Oregon B.IARC


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T magazine styled a fashion shoot after Giuseppe Arcimboldo, the 16th Century Italian painter who became the focus of renewed appreciation following the Surrealists' rediscovery of his work. Who's hungry?
Elsa Schiaparelli's experiments with mingling food and fashion famously resulted in the lobster dress and the bunch-of-grapes hat. Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada are the subjects of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute show that opens next month; these Richard Burbridge photographs are offered in homage.
Honestly, though, the fish one kinda makes me gag.
Salad Days [T Magazine]


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Peach Edible Art Paint
This Peach Edible Art Paint by Sweet Sticks will make your cake decorating much faster and easier; as well as helping you produce stunning results.
- 15ml bottle
- A little bit goes a long way
- Ready to use - just shake, pour and paint!
- Use brushes or sponges to apply
- Once dry, the paints are rub free on almost any edible surface (see below for a list of surfaces the paint can be used on).
Original Edible Art Decorative Paints can be used on the following:
- Fondant
- Ganache
- Chocolate
- Candy Melts
- Modelling Chocolate
- Set Buttercream
- Royal Icing
- Sugar Cookies
- Marshmallows
- Gold Leaf
- Deco Magic
- Fruit
Allergen Information
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I mix different colours to make my own colour?
Yes. All paints are made with the same ingredients, therefore they are the same consistency which allows you to make your own colours.
Can I achieve a watercolour look using these paints?
Yes, you can. Simply add a high-grade alcohol (eg. rose spirit) along with a few drops of your desired colour.
Can I paint on chocolate?
You can paint on milk or dark chocolate with these paints (not the metallic range though). Create a base coat using the white paint first to achieve a true colour.
Can I use this to actually colour chocolate?
We don't recommend you do. This is designed to paint on a finished piece. If you are after a chocolate colouring, you can use an oil based food colouring or our Rolkem Rainbow Spectrum Dust.
How quickly does the paint dry?
Between 15 and 60 minutes. Humidity can affect how the paint dries, so ensure your work space is low humidity.


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It's Angels Contract Tuesday
The Angels signed contracts today, avoiding four of their six remaining possible arbitration cases, with Erick Aybar, Howie Kendrick, Reggie Willits and Kendry Morales. Wait, Kendry? The Angels and a Scott Boras client reached a deal quickly and amicably? No snarling, gnashing of teeth or packing up of toys and running home swearing never to play with one another again? Apparently so, and amen to that I say. So, is this the dawn of a new era? Doubtful. I chalk it up to the classiness of the client (which as we all know, especially after watching contract negotiations this year, only goes so far) and an early Boras lull into a false sense of security before Kendry becomes a free agent. But for now we'll take it…and it's highly possible teeth were gnashed in private.
In other Tuesday Angels news, the team apparently traded dollar amounts with the other two arbitration eligible players, Jered Weaver and Mike Napoli. In terms of baseball dollars (you know, what's an extra million give or take), the numbers being reported in the papers don't look like the players asking prices and the Angels offers are too far apart. Personally, I hope the Angels just give Weaver and Napoli what they're asking for. Weaver pitched an All-Star year and filled John Lackey's vacated ace shoes like he's been wearing them his whole career and meeting his request now might earn us some good will in negotiations when he's a free agent…okay, he's Scott Boras' client so probably not, but it couldn't hurt. Napoli did everything the team asked of him and more…okay his runners in scoring position clutch was a little broken, but when has that not been an off and on issue? He still had the most home runs of anyone on the team, a career high for him in a year where career lows ran rampant through the clubhouse, and he moved over to first base and played it admirably well when the team needed a first basemen.
Wow, did typing that ever bring on a flood of memories. (Yeah, yeah. I digress. You are all shocked.) Memorial Day weekend. My husband and I were in Cambria. Oh no, the whole home stand against the Mariners was blacked out on the Central Coast! No problem, we can catch bits of the games on our phones. Wait. Kendry did what? Naps is playing first? The next day we desperately platooned our Blackberries to "watch" the game on MLB.com Gameday intermittently with Cambria and Paso Robles' notoriously sketchy cell phone signals and wound up jumping up and down like loons in the middle of a Giants territory bar while the Giant's season ticket holder bar owner (great guy and a great bar by the way – been favorite of ours for years) chuckled at us when the Angels actually pulled it off. As long as everyone is healthy and hale this season, this officially becomes a good memory.
At any rate, the 2011 team is starting to take shape…and it's pretty much the same shape as last year but, for whatever reason. Call it not losing any more key players this year? Call it Kendry's back? Call it plain old fashioned excitement because I'm starting to see the barest glimpse of Spring Training on the horizon like that first glimmer of the beacon on top of the Luxor seen from just outside of Baker? For whatever reason, I am starting to feel just the tiniest bit of that preseason optimism.


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At the request of some of our Ghostvillagers in the UK and Canada:
We have added links to buy the book from Amazon.ca and Amazon.co.uk on this page: http://www.ghostvill...mhp/index.shtml
So you won't have to pay any crazy overseas shipping charges by buying from the US Amazon.
Also, I know there is a distributor in Canada, so the book should be on the shelves of your local bookstores within the next few weeks. In the UK, for now you'll have to buy through Amazon.co.uk.
To our Ghostvillagers in Canada and the UK
Started by Jeff Belanger , Aug 18 2004 05:00 AM
4 replies to this topic
Posted 18 August 2004 - 05:00 AM
Posted 06 September 2004 - 10:42 AM
thats a good idea...if i lived in the UK or Canada, I wouldnt want to pay any crazy overseas shipping charges...but i live in the US so i dont gotta worry about that...
-Du Súndavar Freohr-===================================--------------------------------------------Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here and drink what comes out"?
Posted 06 September 2004 - 11:44 AM
fisrt time i've seen this.
thats a book done by someone from these forums?? :huh:
although its over the net i've never met anyone who's actually published before
thats a book done by someone from these forums?? :huh:
although its over the net i've never met anyone who's actually published before
You're sorta stuck where you areBut, in your dreams you can buy expensive cars,or live on mars and have it your wayAnd you hate your boss at your jobwell in your dreams you can blow his head offin your dreams show no mercy]
Posted 07 September 2004 - 09:46 PM
I was in Coles/Chapters tonight, and the book is on the shelf in Canada now, and it is a great book I must add.
Posted 09 November 2004 - 03:17 PM
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ACC Morning Five: 10.19.11 EditionPosted by mpatton on October 19th, 2011
- ESPN – Grantland: Grantland's "Why ____ Will Win the National Championship" series continues with Duke, the weakest team of the five profiles. But don't let the title keep you from reading the post, which does a great job at assessing the outlook for this year's team. To sum things up, no one really knows how good Duke can be this year (though he projects a Sweet Sixteen). The one point I disagree on is that Coach K should not have played Kyrie Irving during the NCAA Tournament. Yes, Nolan Smith carried Duke on his back for most of the season; and yes, Nolan Smith played terribly once Irving came back. But if you look at Smith's progression (minus the ACC Tournament championship game), he began struggling in March. I think Krzyzewski knew that to win he had to put the best team on the floor, and Kyrie Irving was a part of the best team he had. Not to mention if Arizona plays that second half against any college team, it wins by a lot. But read the article: it's funny, informative and insightful.
- Charlotte Observer: Mark Gottfried had his old boss, former UCLA coach Jim Harrick, at practice with him yesterday. Harrick is a somewhat controversial figure, as he's seen NCAA trouble nearly everywhere he's been. NC State athletic director Debbie Yow was quick to point out that Harrick is serving as a "mentor" and "personal adviser," and not a "university employee" to avoid any rumor or innuendo. But Harrick's presence was also a reminder of Gottfried's former success: in addition to a solid head coaching career, Gottfried was an assistant on UCLA's 1995 National Championship team.
- Miami Herald: New Miami coach Jim Larranaga isn't playing games. Durand Scott earned 20 minutes on a stationary bike after showing up to practice with his shoelaces untied in a motivational statement that appears to be along similar lines to Mark Gottfried referring to CJ Leslie as "Calvin." While FrankHaith comes across as a player's coach, Larranaga is decidedly old school: he's stressing discipline and fundamentals. I for one am very interested to see how his system works, as he's inherited a talented team from his predecessor. Look out for the Hurricanes come January with Reggie Johnson back in the line-up.
- ESPN Boston: In case you haven't seen Boston College's updated roster, they've added a lot of guys since Steve Donahue took over a little over a year ago. The team has nine freshmen slated for next year. His monster class is headlined by ESPNU Top 100 recruit Ryan Anderson, but a lot of the other players were more under the recruiting radar. In an interview with ESPN Boston, Donahue expressed his excitement at being able to offer scholarships for the first time, but also made things clear: "Down the road maybe we redshirt one or two of those guys, but we've got guys that are high-character, skilled and can play, and in a couple of years they're gonna be really good." This is raising a couple of red flags for me personally, as NCAA scholarships are renewable on a year-by-year basis. It makes sense that Donahue would seek to fill up his roster, but what happens if there's another top 100 recruit up for grabs next season?
- Winston-Salem Journal: Wake Forest recruit Devin Thomas wants to be an instant impact player when he suits up as a Demon Deacon next season. Thomas is joining a large 2012 class that looks to be Jeff Bzdelik's best bid to right the ship. According to his coach Thomas has matured considerably over the last year, and should be a solid rebounder from the start. Based on Wake's rebounding percentages last season (they ranked an absolutely abysmal #283 in defensive rebounding and #321 in offensive rebounding, according to Ken Pomeroy), and their increased off-the-court troubles, Bzdelik should be thrilled with both.


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When Dr. Jeffrey Saver announced last week at the International Stroke Conference that treatment of acute, ischemic stroke patients with the Solitaire retrievable stent produced a 61% rate of complete recanalization, he predicted that this landmark result would quickly propel acute stroke management into a new era.
It sounds a bit audacious for the results of a study with 113 randomized patients to change the face of U.S. management of acute, ischemic stroke patients, but Dr. Saver laid out a compelling scenario at the meeting. In essence, it's the right result for the right device at the right time.
Acute stroke care in America is already poised at an important threshold. Last week, The Joint Commission, the U.S. organization responsible for accrediting health-care institutions, announced their newly crafted criteria for credentialing Comprehensive Stroke Centers. By next year, Dr. Saver predicted, 100-200 such centers will have received this designation into the highest tier of acute stroke management. He expects all these locations to treat patients with the Solitaire stent, as well as a few others. "At least 250" U.S. sites should be using it within the next couple of years, he told me. In addition, an emergency-medicine culture already exists to ambulance acute stroke patients to one of the 1,000 Primary Stroke Centers that now exist in America, use imaging to identify the ones who qualify for intravenous lytic therapy with tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA), start administering the drug, and then transfer them to a center that can apply more advanced care, a strategy know as "drip and ship."
Having the Solitaire device takes this approach a step further, making it "drip, ship, and grip," he told me, with grip being the step when the thrombus causing the stroke is engaged and removed.
"We stand poised at a new era, our first experience with highly effective cerebral revascularization," he said at the meeting last week. "The open secret in our field is that t-PA or the devices now available deliver treatment that fails most of the time." Intravenous t-PA by itself produces full recanalization in about 5% of patients, while existing devices up this to 25%; for Solitaire the rate was 61% in the new randomized study, and the rate of full or partial recanalization was 83%.
This new level of success with Solitaire will make a big difference in how widely the treatment gets used, he told me.
"I think motivations [to use endovascular interventions] will shift with a more reliable device. That will drive wider uptake." He called it a "paradigm shift" and a "game changer."
Rapid application of effective endovascular therapy "was the vision of acute stroke care that was a hazy dream when I first became a stroke neurologist 20 years ago," Dr. Saver said. "I think that in the next few months and years it will become the reality."
—Mitchel Zoler (on Twitter @mitchelzoler)


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Home : Design Your Own : Rally Towel
Personalized Rally Towels. Our sports spirit rally towel is made of 100% cotton sheared terry with fringed ends. Ordering a large number, be sure to select our money saving 10 and 50 packs.
Add A ♥
Easy way to add a heart to your design. Type [h1] for a black heart (include the brackets), [h2] for a red heart, [h3] for a pink heart, [h4] for a white heart, [h5] for a yellow heart and [h6] for a gold heart. Perfect for your own custom "I ♥" design.
Hint: For a larger heart, use a larger text size on that line.
Select a DESIGN
from my COMPUTER


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Nicklaus Children's Hospital has several outpatient and urgent care centers throughout South Florida, including on-demand, virtual care.
Walk-in urgent care with no appointment needed.
Serving as your child's primary doctor's office.
Pediatric specialty consultations available closer to home.
A full range of comprehensive services all under one roof.
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The human respiratory system is divided into the upper and lower respiratory tracts.
The major passages and structures of the upper respiratory tract include the nose or nostrils, nasal cavity, mouth, throat (pharynx), and voice box (larynx).
When you breathe in through your nose or mouth, the air is "filtered" through natural lines of defense that protect against illness and irritation of the respiratory tract. Nasal hairs (vibrissae) at the opening of the nostrils trap large particles of dust that might otherwise be inhaled. The entire respiratory system, as with the reproductive, digestive, and urinary systems, is lined with a mucous membrane that secretes mucus. The mucus traps smaller particles like pollen or smoke. Hairlike structures called cilia line the mucous membrane and move the particles trapped in the mucus out of the nose.
Inhaled air is moistened, warmed, and cleansed by the nasal epithelium (the tissue that lines the nasal cavity), which covers the turbinate bones (conchae) in the nasal cavity. The nasal epithelium has increased blood flow that helps to warm the inhaled air, but also facilitates nosebleeds in some people.
The pharynx is a muscular, funnel-shaped tube about 5 inches long that connects the nasal and oral cavities to the larynx. The pharynx houses the tonsils and the adenoids, which are lymphatic tissues that guard against infection by releasing white blood cells (T and B lymphocytes).
The larynx forms the entrance to the lower respiratory system. With the help of the epiglottis (a leaf-shaped flap), the larynx prevents food or liquid from entering the lower respiratory tract while swallowing. Two pairs of strong connective tissue bands that are stretched across the larynx (vocal cords) vibrate to produce sounds while talking or singing.
The major passages and structures of the lower respiratory tract include the windpipe (trachea) and within the lungs, the bronchi, bronchioles, and alveoli.
After the inhaled air moves through the larynx, it reaches the trachea. The trachea is a rigid tube about 4.5 inches long and 1 inch wide. Embedded in the walls of the trachea, C-shaped cartilage rings give the trachea rigidity and allow it to stay open all the time.
Inward airflow from the trachea then branches off to the two bronchi. One bronchus leads to the right lung, the other to the left lung. The bronchi also contain C-shaped cartilage rings like the trachea.
Deeper in the lungs, each bronchus divides into secondary and tertiary bronchi, which continue to branch to smaller airways called the bronchioles. There is no cartilage in the bronchioles, and therefore they are subject to constriction and obstruction, as during an asthma attack. The bronchioles end in air sacs called the alveoli. Alveoli are bunched together into clusters to form alveolar sacs. On the surface of each alveolus, there is a network of capillaries carrying blood that has come through veins from other parts of the body. Here gas exchange occurs -- carbon dioxide from the blood is exchanged for oxygen from the alveoli. After the blood is oxygenated, it goes to the heart (between the two lungs), where it is pumped out to all of the body tissues and extremities. When you breathe out, the carbon dioxide is exhaled and expelled from the body.
The diaphragm, located below the lungs, is the major muscle of respiration. It is a large, dome-shaped muscle that contracts rhythmically and continually, and most of the time, involuntarily. Upon inhalation, the diaphragm contracts and flattens and the chest cavity enlarges. This contraction creates a vacuum, which pulls air into the lungs. Upon exhalation, the diaphragm relaxes and returns to its domelike shape, and air is forced out of the lungs.
Other important respiratory muscles include the intercostal (between the ribs) and abdominal muscles.


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It Is Time for Transatlantic Free Trade
S.E. Eizenstat & D.S. Hamilton, EUBC & JHU | December 19, 2012
Europe buys three times more US products than China. ++ Though US orientation towards Asia is legitimate, the importance of transatlantic relations must not be neglected. ++ A Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement can significantly foster bilateral economic growth. ++ Liberalizing trade and eliminating tariffs can lead to 7 million new jobs in both the US and Europe. ++ An agreement would also serve as a paradigm of free trade and liberalization. ++ US-EU standards quickly would become the model for global standards.


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Sipp feeling good about new surroundings after debut
PHOENIX -- Even though his first outing in a D-backs uniform lasted only a few moments in Tuesday's 6-1 loss against the Cardinals, Tony Sipp was pleased to get the first one under his belt after spending the first four years of his Major League career with the Indians.
With two runners on base and two outs in the sixth inning, D-backs manager Kirk Gibson called on the southpaw to retire the left-handed-hitting Daniel Descalso and get the club out of the jam. Sipp admitted he felt nervous on his way from the bullpen to the mound, but those butterflies soon flew away as he needed just one pitch to retire the Cardinals batter and end the inning.
"It was kind of over before I even realized it," he said. "I didn't think it'd be that quick. It felt good though to have good results. Obviously, there are a lot more outings left and not all of them will be that easy, but just to even get out there and get the jitters out of the way felt nice."
The pitch Sipp got Descalso out on was a 76-mph slider up in the zone that induced a fly ball to center.
"We knew he was going to be aggressive in that situation, so we threw a breaking ball and got him out in front," Gibson said. "That's the kind of bullpen change you like to make."
The D-backs acquired Sipp this winter in a trade that involved Trevor Bauer going to Cleveland and Arizona netting Didi Gregorius. When the left-hander first became aware of the move, he was worried about adjusting to a new organization, but since arriving this spring, the transition has been as smooth as possible.
"It has gone way better than I expected it to, I thought it might be awkward at first, but I haven't had an awkward day," Sipp said. "From day one, I came in and it felt like everyone really guided me through and showed me the ropes. They've done an amazing job of helping me if I forget a name or if I need to know where to go. I've really enjoyed it because if everyone is joking around and laughing, it makes it easier for the new guy to come in and feel comfortable."
The biggest difference between the Indians and his new club, Sipp said, is how much the D-backs' coaching staff works to develop the fundamentals like holding runners on base.
"They really drill it, but it's not like it's tedious," he said. "They make sure you're doing things right and I don't mind it at all because it only helps you in the game."
In 249 career appearances, Sipp has a 3.67 ERA and 225 strikeouts and 111 walks.


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Deep Cuts Poster
Snowdogs - Deep Cuts Poster
PS10415 x 18 Click here to add a poster tube to your shopping cart. Otherwise your poster arrive folded.
Price: $3.00 PS104
Please click here to add tube to your order, otherwise the poster will arrive folded.
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