Irshad Manji and Salman Rushdie at 92nd Street Y

See Irshad's post about this discussion. See here for 92nd Street Y's website.

What a religious whackjob!

I first saw this video in a blogpost by Jotman,


I'm not against religion per se. I just dislike those, like the nutjob in the video, who mis-interpret and distort religion for their own ends. Unfortunately, these jokers can be found in every part of the world.

*shaking my head and exhaling a heavy sigh*

To publish or not to publish: Developments in the Jewel of Medina controversy

Note: This blogpost will be updated as and when new developments occur.

I've been following the events surrounding the book, The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones, ever since Random House pulled out from publishing it.

Gibson Square, a British independent publisher, then took over and is slated to publish the book sometime Oct 08. That was then. I wonder what's going to happen now given this news of a firebomb attack on the publisher's house.

Violence, or the threat of violence, is never the answer. And such acts will just backfire on the religion itself. It may just be a minority of nut jobs in any religion who perpetrate these acts but its pretty loud and visible when such things happen. Thus amplifying the actions and effects of these unthinking fanatics.

I think the book should be published. And those who find they disagree or dislike with what it says should just rebut it AFTER reading it themselves. There are many different ways these days to do that without resorting to violence, threat of violence, and/or intimidation.

Oct 8, 08 update: BBC reports the book has been published in the US.