People sometimes complain, with some justification, that the Muslim call to prayer is a theocratic attempt to command airspace for Islam. The equivalent in the American suburbs is the gas-powered leaf-blower, which is just as loud, just as jarring, just as disturbing to peace and quiet, and at least as ubiquitous.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Fatwas
Against Palestinian Disarmament
I’m not one to give anyone specifically military advice, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to comment on the fraud of Trump’s Gaza peace plan. Only one thing really needs to be said, and said at top volume: under no circumstances should any Palestinian militant group disarm for anyone or anything. That goes for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, the Lion’s Den, and anyone else with a weapon and the will to use it. Do not disarm. Do NOT disarm. To disarm is to commit mass suicide by placing yourself in the hands of confirmed liars and psychopaths. Things are bad, but nothing could be worse than that.
Continue readingZ is for Zyklon
You’ve likely encountered Fox News host Brian Kilmeade’s suggestion that we deal with the problem of homelessness by killing mentally ill homeless people. The remark has widely been treated as an isolated, one-off, a kind of non-sequitur that Kilmeade dreamed up out of the blue, and for which he has now apologized. So, case closed.
In fact, Kilmeade’s comment is no one-off non-sequitur at all. If you read through the relevant part of transcript of the show, and work through a few minor interpretive puzzles, you come to realize that what Kilmeade did was to draw a logically valid inference from an argument that Lawrence Jones, his co-host, had set up. Far from being a one-off, Kilmeade’s claim only makes sense as an inference from Jones’s argument, implicating both of them in the same set of claims. And far from being a non-sequitur, what the two of them offered up to the public was a well-structured argument. In a very real sense, they’ve done us the service of laying out the logical structure of genocide. Continue reading
Mistah Kirk, He Dead
I’m sitting here eating a nice vegan meal, reading Livy. I just heard that somebody killed Charlie Kirk, another fascist nobody in this rapidly disintegrating country. We can’t keep track of how many fucking wars or proxy wars we’re in, or how many innocent people we’ve killed or sent to concentration camps in a week, but here come the hand-wringers and cry-babies on command, from Trump to Newsom to Obama, gnashing their teeth and virtue signaling over the least consequential death in America today.
Continue readingKiosks and Cowardice
I wrote this in May, but forgot to post it. I happened to notice it today while cleaning out old files. It seems a fitting start to the academic year.
In Princeton, where I live, there are two kiosks on Nassau Street, the main drag, on which people put up up flyers of various sorts, sometimes announcements of cultural events, sometimes flyers of a more political nature. Most but not all of the political flyers tend to the left of the political spectrum, and some of these target either the municipality or the University. The kiosks are deeply resented by elites at both institutions, who regard them, with predictable hauteur, as “eyesores.” Despite determined public opposition, the local town council has voted to demolish the kiosks and replace them with something that it can (in the words of one proponent) “control.”
They’re still there for now. The stated rule governing them is that flyers are taken down on the first of every month. Today is the 22nd of May. And yet, as I walked through town this morning and then this evening, I found all of the flyers systematically taken down on both kiosks. Continue reading
Loyalty and Academic Freedom
The case of Jonathan A. C. Brown
A friend is circulating an Open Letter to Interim President Robert Groves of Georgetown University in defense of Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown, the Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilisation in the School of Foreign Service. Apparently, during the recent US-Israel-Iran war, Brown made this comment on X:
“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops,” Brown wrote on X.
Brown has tenure and a chaired professorship at Georgetown, but apparently the comment was regarded as frightening enough to call for his suspension. The President forced Brown to delete the tweet, and he’s now been suspended. He’s also been removed as chair of his department, which I believe was intended as punishment. Continue reading
Death to the IDF
On this day, 249 years ago, Americans declared war on Britain, or at least on the British Army. To declare war on an army is to wish death upon it, and to act on that wish.
About a week ago, punk rocker Bob Vylan led a chant at Glastonbury Festival in Britain, wishing death on the Israeli military: “Death to the IDF.” I agree with him. The IDF should be defeated, destroyed, and if necessary, annihilated. It’s an army of aggression, conquest, occupation, torture, and genocide. It has no right to exist, and no right of self-defense. If any organization on the planet deserves death, it’s the IDF. Continue reading
My First Foreign Visit as Mayor
I was aimlessly surfing online when I happened on that now-famous clip of the New York City mayoral candidates being asked what foreign country they would visit first on being elected to office. It’s amusing to me that, put in that situation, I would truthfully have answered Israel. It’s even more amusing how uninformative that answer turns out to be. Funnier still is the number of people who, on hearing it, would confabulate their way to an explanation and get it wrong. But I would not have prefaced or explained what I said. Ask a stupid question? Get a cryptic answer. Under the circumstances, they should be grateful to get an answer at all. Continue reading
Against War with Iran
People like to say that Near East politics is complex, but the war on Iran is blindingly simple. Aggression is immoral, as is participation in it. Israel’s war on Iran is a blatantly obvious, incontestable act of aggression, as is US participation in the war so far, along with any further participation. No one has bothered to provide even a semi-plausible justification for this war, no one can, and no one will. The whole thing is insane.
Continue readingThe Lesson of LA
A typical discussion of what’s happening right now in LA:
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Trump administration is spoiling for a fight on America’s streets. On Saturday, after a protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests degenerated into violence, the administration reacted as if the country were on the brink of war.
The violence was unacceptable. Civil disobedience is honorable; violence is beyond the pale.
You want to know what’s “unacceptable”? It’s bullshit writing of this sort. Continue reading
Policy of Truth 