Justice or Porn?

Justice or Porn? Which one is more important? Being familiar with the environment of a school like SIU, it was not difficult for me to guess the answer. But what I saw last night was more disappointing than what I had guessed.

Like any other school, we have all sort of public talks. These talks will help students deepen their insight into areas of public interest and develop their intellectual capabilities by getting to know about different perspectives first hand. Hearing about somebody's viewpoints from third-parties is far different than hearing directly from the very person. On that account, I approve of having all sort of speakers on campus, even if not approving the speaker's viewpoints. Well, of course when it's not funded out of the fees I pay as a poor student.

Last night, we had two public talks on campus. The first one was titled: Attorney General Lisa Madigan, A Rising Star in Illinois Politics. The talk was sponsored by the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at SIU. Lisa Madigan is the first female Attorney General in the history of Illinois. She's been reelected to the position by 72.4% of the vote. Having read the following on the event flier, I made a mental note to attend her speech:

Lisa Madigan, the first woman to serve as Illinois Attorney General, has earned a reputation as a distinguished public servant and tireless advocate for protecting the public and improving the lives of Illinois citizens. Following a successful tenure in the Illinois Senate, Madigan was elected as the state’s chief legal counsel in 2002. Re-elected in 2006, she captured the largest vote total of any statewide candidate. As Attorney General, she has dedicated her office to protecting communities from sex offenders and online predators, safeguarding the environment, fighting for open and accessible government and defending consumers from fraud and deceptive practices. Madigan previously worked as a community advocate to develop after-school programs and volunteered as a high school teacher in apartheid-era South Africa.

Then, I found through my professor of Introduction to Sociology about another talk. It was a debate between Ron Jeremy and Craig Gross. Ron Jeremy is a former schoolteacher turned porn-actor, having the Guinness Record of Most Appearances in Adult Films, having performed in over 1900 films and directed 246. And Craig Gross is a pastor who has founded XXX Church.com to challenge porn addiction among the youth, not by escaping from the problem, rather by giving information about it. He also tries to help ex-porn stars come back to normal life.

I was already familiar with their debate tours. They visit universities, debating each other about whether porn is good or bad. I had watched one of their debates on the Nightline last year. And I was amazed by the support Ron Jeremy received from college students. He argues that there is nothing wrong with porn. It's a natural thing and more so, it's an artistic performance. So, porn per se shouldn't be considered a problem. If it causes any problem it's that person's fault. So, basically smoking should not be banned. If smoking causes any problem, it's that person's fault, not the cigarette.

Or when Pastor Gross argued that porn is degrading to women (in that it reduces them to sex objects or makes men have unrealistic sexual expectations), he countered that porn is liberating and empowering not degrading women. And to support his argument, he mentioned Jenna Jameson as a success story who has made over 17 million dollars and asked if that is not empowering, then what is? Quite an argument! I'm really glad that he left his job as a schoolteacher. What was he teaching those poor school kids?

Pastor Gross on the other hand, supports his case by giving statistics and horror stories about people whose life has been ruined by this natural artistic performance. Interestingly, as a pastor, he doesn't bring in religion in the argument to further his case (well, except for repeating that God loves everybody); he just relies on stats and facts to prove that porn is a nasty harmful thing. And he frequently visits porn shows and tries to give bibles with a title of "Jesus Loves Porn Stars".

What's interesting about their debates is the way they address each other. If you're not familiar with their diametrically opposing views, you might assume they are close friends or at least close colleagues. Maybe the latter is not so far from truth. When you frequently visit colleges with this other guy, even though he is at the other end of the spectrum, these frequent campus visits make you colleagues, even if your collegiality is to discredit each other.

So, being familiar with their debates and arguments I didn't have difficulty deciding between the two public talks last night. And I really enjoyed listening to Lisa Madigan. And knowing about SIU atmosphere, I could guess what would have been the easier choice for the majority of students. And it appeared that she was kinda unhappy about the other talk overlapping hers; although the Law School auditorium (the venue for her speech) was full. At the beginning of her speech, she quipped about the swarm of students around the other event and promised us that her speech would be at least as entertaining as the other one. And it was.

After her speech (which was about her fight against injustice in Illinois), although I didn't personally need to attend the other event, I felt curious to evaluate the swarm. And as a TA, I knew that a lot of my students would attend the debate and some of them would choose to write about it as their Assignment no. 1. So, I pedaled my bike fast toward the Student Center. And man, I got to know what she meant by swarm. One of the doormen (in fact a SIU staffer) told me there was no room in and that he had turned away five hundred people and in a not-so-polite way, told me to stay away. Actually, I could see lots of disappointed students who had not been able to get in. Although I was not so eager to go in, his attitude didn't feel nice on me.

I went around the building and found a way in through the backdoor. The ballroom was overcrowded with enthusiastic students who would shower Ron Jeremy with their applause from time to time. And when the debate finished, there were many students eager for an autograph from their star. Apparently for these guys, deepening their insight and building on their intellectual assets were not at the top of their priorities for attending this public talk.

Pastor Gross joked that "it's OK to ask Ron Jeremy for autograph, but please don't pull out your penis for that; students who did that in previous events did not get a good autograph, as the signature would not stand well on a penis". Quite a pastor!

For more news coverage, look here and here.

Thinking about the stark difference between the number of students in these concurrent events made me think about the way our society is going. Surely, as a conservative, I don't agree with all the liberal views of Lisa Madigan (like on abortion or homosexuality).

But I wonder who should be the role-model for our students who will be our future professionals building our future society? Which one should be the true star? A filthy porn star who has a Guinness record of public adultery and promoting perversion? Or a rising shining star who has dedicated herself to fight injustice? And this brings me back to my first question: Which one is more important? Justice or Porn? Unfortunately, the answer is crystal clear for many students at SIU.

Obama is a Muslim? What if he is?

Finally, somebody came out to face all this stupidity head on. And it came from Colin Powell, somebody whom those stupid hate-mongers cannot accuse of being un-American. Well, surely they can; quoting Forrest Gump's mother: "stupid is as stupid does". And it didn't take long for some to attribute his endorsement to race. Not that I approve of whatever he's done as a General or Secretary of State.

And this bold move came from a veteran Republican. And he did what Democrats did not have the spine to do. Addressing the issue of whether Obama is a Muslim, he didn't stop short of simply saying: "no, he's not" (or like how McCain addressed whether Obama is an Arab, saying: "no, he's a decent family-man citizen"). Watch this part of Powell's interview with Meet the Press below:

As somebody who has had personal experience with racism, he challenged the source of the problem: "the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer's no, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, 'He's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists'. This is not the way we should be doing it in America".

Obama In God We Trust

I'm not a big fan of Obama. He's a celebrity politician and like any vote-desperate politician, he's been doing a lot of flip-flopping, among others, over Palestinian rights in their occupied land; especially, I found it abhorring to hear in the VP debate that he has been against elections in Palestine, because the outcome of that democratic process wouldn't be approvable by him. So basically, just like good terrorism and bad terrorism, we have good democracy and bad democracy. It all depends on who practices democracy and whether we like the outcome of that democracy. So long for steady unwavering principles.

But I'm just fed up with people oversearching Obama In God we trust, In God we trust Obama and all the other variations in that line. Just google Obama In God we trust and even before hitting the search button, Google gives an estimate of 672,000 search results. As a result of these searches, the report I wrote earlier this year on his campaign at UT has become a hit and it usually shows up in the first page of search results. Well, the title of my blog "In God we trust" followed immediately by the title of that post "Obama at UT" makes Google find it a close match and show it up.

Like any blogger, I'm happy with people landing on my blog. But I hate it when it happens out of ultimate stupidity and bigotry. There have been all sorts of hoaxes about Obama widely circulating since he decided to run for President; with the most famous one being, Obama is secretly a Muslim. This hoax originates from his middle name, Hussein, which he has inherited from his father who was a secular non-practicing Muslim.

Obama has killed himself to make people understand that he IS NOT a Muslim, as if being a Muslim would be the biggest infamy for a candidate. That's another reason I don't like Obama. It's OK to assert your Christian faith if you are a true Christian. However, a true believer in American values (which should supposedly be represented by the US President), must have enough spine to fight bigotry as one of the biggest vice in our world and especially in this country; not just desperately try to save face to save some votes. Not even once, has Obama supplemented his bold vote-saving Christian faith assertions with even some mild statement against anti-Islamic bigotry (that gives rise to such rumors).

It doesn't make much sense to just dodge the attacks as long as you don't tackle the main source of problem where all these attacks come from: stupidity, bigotry, hate mongering and racism. But maybe I'm expecting too much from somebody who ditches his lifelong pastor just to secure a couple of votes (his pastor's comments had been misconstrued out of context BTW). And assuming his pastor's views were reprehensible, did he discover about them just after 20 years, right before election? This made me lose the last bit of respect I had for Obama. Anyway, even assuming Obama was a Muslim and he IS NOT, so what?

Last time I checked, the Article 6 of the US Constitution clearly states that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States". And all that rumor-making about allegedly Islamic faith of Obama comes from people who deafen the world with their trumpeting about American freedoms and values. Still, when you run for office in this free country, freedom of religion is meaningless. Even simply being Christian is not enough; you have to be White Anglosaxon Protestant.

And as stupid and as widely-circulated as this number one rumor about Obama, is the hoax that he's going to remove "In God we trust" from our money, from our Government, everywhere. And guess what? It comes from the same people who project Obama to be a Muslim. And they supplement their stupidity with complementary stupid lines like: Obama's gonna replace "In God we trust" with "In Allah we trust".

My threshold for stupidity has been saturated for quite some time, but I still feel dumbfounded by its limitlessness. Allah and God are not two different things. Allah is not the god of Muslims. Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. If you read the Bible in Arabic, you will find Allah all over the Holy Book.

But none of these facts about religion and faith matter. There is another more important fact: Obama is black. And a black should never be the President of White Anglosaxon Protestants. And amid this dwindling economy and War of Terror, there are still people who are concerned why Obama's pastor association isn’t discussed more. Yet, they don't believe the same standards apply to themselves. Read here and here for more. And all this reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Schiller:

Against stupidity, the very gods themselves contend in vain.

Eid Fetr

Eid Fetr is one of the most important holidays in Islam. We celebrate our accomplishments over a month of fasting, worship and prayer ... and if you're a grad student at SIU, tons of reading (I'm not sure if that last one is as fun as the others). With all the hardships I faced this Ramadhan as a religious minority, I would say I couldn't enjoy the banquet of God quite the way I dreamed (or the way I used to enjoy it in Iran); although I tried to make it somehow more enjoyable through a sense of community.

Last night, I felt so sad about the end of my annual banquet of God which was rendered not very enjoyable by a combination of sleep deficiency and unreasonably heavy loads of reading. To simulate my Iftars in Iran, I began to listen to my collection of Iftar prayers near sunset. And I was so carried away that I forgot about eating long after Iftar time. Quite an experience.

In Iran, we celebrate our holidays with cookies, cakes and all sort of sweet stuff. Unfortunately, thousands of miles of land and sea and a single-entry visa separate me from those delicious Iranian cookies (and many other good things in Iran). But still, cookies are cookies, even if not Iranian. To celebrate the Eid, I put some cookies and cakes in our grad lounge. It was an interesting experiment. It gave me a statistical sense of sweet preferences of my class mates and fellow students. Some cakes were quickly gone and some cookies (including my favorite) remained on the table. Now, I know what to buy next time.

And it appears that multiculturalism in a liberal school is mostly about awareness about sexuality and not necessarily diversity of religion. Over past 2 months I've been inundated with info on rights, protection, awareness, resources etc. for LGBT (LGBTQ, LGBTQA or other variations of the sexuality alphabet soup). I would say much more than my entire time in Toledo. And that's not all; we've got a month of LGBT history awareness in October.

And yet, I've got only one Email on Ramadhan from ISS (still, better than nothing). And that's while we have a decent number of Muslim students here. And while we have a Saluki Rainbow office in our nice student-funded Student Center (claiming to be the largest student union in the nation), there's no prayer room for Muslim students. Oddly enough, there's a Wuzu facility, but I wonder what should we do after making Wuzu. We had a room in our old classic Student Union at UT, not a nice room, but still better than nothing.

To be fair however, there is one of our liberal professors who (through her frequent visits to Bangladesh) has good awareness about Muslim concerns; she even brought some stuff for Iftar over her late afternoon seminars. And she greets us Muslim students in an Islamic way (especially over Ramadhan). And near the end of Ramadhan, she invited us to an Iftar dinner organized by IDSA. But that's about it. Nothing much from school or even our department. And when she saw me in the hallway, she greeted me in the Islamic way for this holiday: Eid Mubarak!