Here’s a parlor game anyone can play. Familiarize yourself with the controversy about the “ICE manger” at St Susanna’s Church in Dedham, Massachusetts. Then get into an argument about it with any specifically Christian critic of the parish and/or apologist for ICE. Then count how many minutes it takes before they sacrifice both Baby Jesus and the Holy Family to Herod, Caesar, and the Roman Empire. In my experience, it takes about two.
Continue readingAuthor Archives: Irfan Khawaja
Psycho Circus
Follow these instructions precisely. As a preliminary precaution, first visit the bathroom. Then find coverage of the rock group KISS at the Kennedy Center Honors last night. Then listen in sequence to the songs “Psycho Circus,” and “Lick It Up,” and see if you can hold it together. Don’t skip the videos.
If it’s not immediately visible to you (you get different interfaces on different devices), make sure you click on the last screenshot, for the lyrics to “Psycho Circus”: “We’re exiled from the human race.” Hard to beat.
As my friend Nicky Reid puts it, “it’s funny that Ace Frehley, the only member of Kiss with any talent, decided to die instead of showing up to this thing.” For once, “Rest In Peace” actually means something.
Ominous Parallels
Mutatis mutandis, that’s exactly what I think of Stephen’s own writing. First and second wave Hicks had some interesting arguments, but then came the decline.
The Contradictions of Institutional Neutrality
Coming Attractions in My Jihad Against Institutional Neutrality
Over the last year or so, I’ve written about two dozen posts here critiquing institutional neutrality, and given maybe a half dozen conference presentations on the subject. But in some ways, the criticisms I’ve made so far are peripheral to the fundamental problem with the doctrine. The fundamental problem is that it’s self-contradictory and self-subversive. This latter problem is so obvious, and so obviously fatal to the doctrine, that stating it threatens to trivialize the whole discussion about institutional neutrality: if the doctrine is self-contradictory, why discuss it? Good question. In any case, I might as well articulate the objection, if only to put it out there. Continue reading
Those “Drowned Out” Zionists
Joshua Leifer’s “Conflictedly Connected” Liberal Zionist Center
The well-regarded left Zionist writer Joshua Leifer has a much fawned-over piece in Ha’aretz that’s been adopted in some quarters as the expression of profound wisdom. In it he argues that there’s a “conflictedly connected” Zionist quasi-left “majority” that’s been “drowned out” by the extremist voices of the “ultra-hawkish right” and the “anti-Zionist left.” If only this “conflictedly connected” majority could be liberated from the shackles placed on it by these twin extremists, the Golden Mean would prevail, and virtue would flourish on the topic of Israel and Palestine. Continue reading
Questions for Princeton Council (1)
Public Comments and “Disruptions”
My name is Irfan Khawaja. I’m a resident of Princeton. I have a question for the Council, to which I request a forthright answer.
There’s a video now in the public domain which shows Councilwoman Fraga at the New Jersey League of Municipalities conference in Atlantic City, disclosing that this Council made a decision to move public comments to the end of the meeting in order to forestall disruptions.
This is what she said, verbatim. Continue reading
The Immigrant Trust Tour: Three Wins
A quick update from the Immigrant Trust Tour: we’ve just had three Immigrant Trust Act (ITA) resolutions passed here in New Jersey in the last few weeks. The first was at the Somerset County Board of County Commissioners in Somerville (Nov. 12, unanimous), the second, at the Mercer County Board of County Commissioners in Trenton (Nov. 24, unanimous), and the third passed tonight at Clifton City Council (Dec. 2, 4-3). Mercer County was friendly and receptive, but Clifton was a tough battle–contentious and occasionally hostile. I wasn’t privy to goings-on at Somerset. In any case, three wins. Continue reading
Out in the Cold
It’s a good day, just really cold. I go to the gym. I get my hair cut. I go to the public library, and get some books to read. On my way out, I stop by an exhibit displayed with great pride in the lobby: the municipality is tearing down the lo-fi flyer kiosks in town and replacing them with hi-tech versions, at an estimated cost of $80,000. Stupid, I think. Expensive, vain, and pointless–but typical.
It’s dark now, and even colder than it was when I left the house–somewhere in the 30s. I’m annoyed at the prospect of having to bike home in the cold, but it’s festive in the square, and for a minute or two, even I manage to feel a bit of holiday cheer, Scrooge that I am. Continue reading
If You Want Blood
Do yourself a favor. Go back and re-read the Declaration of Independence, but do it this way: skip the beginning and the end, and read the bill of particulars in the middle. It’s too long to quote here. You really just have to read it for yourself. Once you do, you’ll see that details aside, we’re living in the very world that the Declaration describes, excoriates, and uses as the basis of its declaration of war. Virtually everything in it is something that our present government is doing to us. Like the people of British North America ca. 1776, we are a people under military occupation. Continue reading
Viewpoint Diversity: A Convo with the Dean
You’re an academic. Your Dean walks in.
“We need viewpoint diversity,” she says.
“OK,” you say. She’s your boss. She’s obviously just read some bullshit in CHE about viewpoint diversity, and feels the need to start Deaning. Deaning demands faculty uptake, so you’d better answer. “So what do we do?”
It’s a kosher question. As it stands, her claim has no action-guiding implications. We could need viewpoint diversity, but we might already have it. Or we might have too much of it. Or we might need more. “We need it” doesn’t resolve any of that.
“Well, we need more,” she says. It’s a non-sequitur, but you let it go. “Pretending that stupid shit isn’t stupid” is your career-long coping strategy. It’s worked so far.
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Policy of Truth 