I am speaking of the Fort Hood Report, which the U.S. military’s just released, detailing the shooting that left 13 dead. In the 86 page thingy, here’s what you won’t find: the name of the killer, or his Muslim faith. The dudes who did the review argue that those pieces of information aren’t important – their concern is more with “actions and effects, not…with motivations.”

Here in Sanity Village, we call this “super duper crazy talk.”

Cuz, you know, if there’s one thing I learned from Obama the candidate – is how important root causes are. You remember: before calling someone evil, you need to first understand their motivations.

True, root causes are troubling, because it’s applied only when Obama and others feel comfortable with its conclusions. If the killer was a fundamentalist Christian, his right wing rage would be hammered home. Janet Napolitano created an entire report on such matters. That was quaint.

But in Hassan’s case, pointing out motives only hurts feelings. Citing Islamic extremism as a culprit will simply upset more Muslims, so the P.C. thing to do is to leave it out. It’s one of those “dots” we keep hearing about – but instead of “connecting,” we’re just covering it up with Liquid Paper.

They still make that crap, right?

Tonight we’ve got the delightful Kelly Evans, the Governor/talk show star Mike Huckabee, comedian Jesse Joyce and John Stossel!

Under the aegis of Rupert Murdoch’s Twentieth Century-Fox, a zillion dollar corporation with over a billion in annual box office, James Cameron makes a movie, Avatar, about an average, avaricious, American corporation backed-up by a Marine garrison which is out to exploit or destroy a forest full of “fly-bittin’ savages” who listen to voices from trees for precious “Unobtanium!”

Reality check: if you wish to assay the true value of “Unobtanium,” try getting a return call from James Cameron or a movie deal with 20th Century Fox!

Gee whiz! I grew up believing that Earth would be taken over by a Blob, or an “Invasion of Bodysnatchers,” or a “Brother from Another Planet!” Now, according to Cameron we, you and I, are the space menace! We’re the Romulans! Since when did the United States of America become a member of the Sci-Fi Axis of Evil? Where are Captian Kirk, Spock, and Bones?

Can anyone explain why Cameron and the Hollywood Industrial Complex is hell bent on characterizing our great nation as the embodiment of evil? Could it be that ticket sales overseas in general and in Muslim-tottering regions of the world grow in direct proportion to the level of self-flagellating anti-Americanism in American films?

Heinrich look! 

What is it, Brunhilda? 

Again zoze krazy Amerikaners are making fools of zemselves!

As a matter of fact, if I were a radical Iman with a Mosque in London, Paris, Hampsterdam, or any of the other capitals of the future Eurabia where political correctness trumps national security, I would screen “Avatar” in my Mosque’s main sanctuary every night with matinees daily during Ramadan.

“You see my little Fakhir? This ‘Avatar’ movie provides proof positive that the godless American Infidels have depleted their lands and are now secretly having their way with the gentle people of Pandora just as they have been raping our sacred lands for centuries! That is why we jihad! Do you understand?” 

“Yes, Inmam.” 

“When Allah, praise be he, reigns supreme, when a Fundamentalist Islamic Republic controls all the world’s natural resources, corporations, governments, and peoples only then will the tribes of Pandora and the tribes of desert be out of the Infidel’s reach.  

“But Imam, I think ‘Avatar’ is but a fairytale. Didn’t the Americans liberate Iraq? Enfranchise tens of millions of Muslims with the right to vote? And aren’t they about to do something about that madman running Iran?” 

“Do not speak such blasphemy again, Fakhir or by shariah I shall be obligated to gouge out your eyes and slice out your tongue!”  

It doesn’t have to be this way! If this writer had a $500M budget to make a movie about Omaticayians flying Banchees to protect their Hometree and the Unobtanian beneath it this might be the log line:

Avatar: US Marines liberate the Na’vi from an oppressive Muslim regime as a American business leader helps them to mine Unobtanium so that they may defend their forest nation, feed their Mountain Banshees and nourish their Tree of Souls.

Why is Cameron’s film, Avatar, an act of cultural suicide?

We humanoids, at least the vast majority of us, possess a region deep in the brain called the Limbic System. There, our feelings, thoughts, and actions are in large part processed instantaneously. When you pick up the handle of a hot frying pan, drop the pan, and swear, the combined reflexive response is a product of the Limbic System. The overwhelming majority of Hollywood auteures have lost touch with their Limbic Systems and may therefore be referred to as “Limbeciles.”

Limbeciles are unable to discern that walking off a cliff, shooting yourself in the head, or spending an hour listening to Bill Maher will probably result in death or severe brain damage. That’s why they make films which due damage to the free society and economy which pay them to do so. Is there really a difference between say drilling for oil in Iraq and selling Paul Blart: Mall Cop to unwitting audiences in Kampala, Sanan’a and Dhaka?

Question: What do you call people who benefit greatly with little or no sacrifice, are hateful of the very place and people which have showered them with almost absolute freedom of expression, adoration, and riches, and refuse to accept responsibility for their art and actions?

Answer: Adolescents!

Grow up Hollywood!

Is there a solution? Of course:

A)  Americans who love their country could stop buying tickets to movies that defame it.

B)   Hollywood Limbiciles could suffer a crisis of consciousness and begin making movies that cast less of a dark shadow on their blessed nation.

C)   Or we could scotch tape an I’M STUPID – KICK ME HERE sign with an arrow pointing south onto Lady Liberty’s derriere.

Until that time perhaps we should watch reruns of Buster Crabbe playing Flash Gordon in “The Purple Death From Outer Space.”

Both shows started with wonderful Christmas flair: NCIS had a couple cutting down their own Christmas tree in a snow covered forest and NCIS: LA had a beautifully decorated downtown street complete with a Salvation Army Santa. Unfortunately the Christmas Spirit in both shows didn’t last through their first commercials. 

In the NCIS episode, the couple in the woods found a young white Marine, a Muslim, killed while praying toward Mecca. His father, once a Marine Colonel, retired to become a minister because in his words, “When my wife died, I wanted to be closer to God, now he’s taken my son as well.” 

As Gibbs and his team take the forty-eight minutes to figure out who-done-it, the audience is treated with some not so light-handed preaching favoring Islam. At one point, when the father of the killed Marine utters, “God forgive me, and Tom’s God too.” Gibbs responds with, “They are one in the same colonel.”  And although I would beg to differ, anybody who watches NCIS knows that whatever Gibbs says is gospel. 

Spoiler Alert—don’t read on if you plan to watch the episode and want to be surprised. 

It turns out the Marine was murdered by his own brother in what I can only describe as an “Honor Killing.” The ‘Christian’ family was so embarrassed by the son’s conversion to Islam that the brother thought the only recourse he had was to kill him. 

Out of all the cultures in the globe where honor killing is a very serious problem, how many have happened in America within a Christian family? Oh yeah—NONE. Is there a verse in the Bible one can point to where the Christian is instructed to kill the offending family member should he or she decide to convert to another religion? I think not. 

NCIS, what were you thinking? 

And evidently having received the same memo just in time for Christmas, the writers of NCIS: Los Angeles found a way to write into that night’s episode something just as shocking. 

Not too long into the Christmas holiday shopping scene, a young Marine’s head is blown off by his cell phone. The likely suspects are all part of an explosive ordinance disposal unit that was attacked by an IUD in Iraq: a mechanic who lost one leg, a man who turned to God after returning home, and a Muslim who’s face was burned badly in the incident. 

Spoiler Alert—one of these three suspects ends up strapping a bomb to his chest and attempts to become a suicide bomber.  Can you guess which one? 

A key clue in the middle of the episode is dust writing in Arabic on a blown-up car’s rear window.  “Those who reject our faith and deny our signs shall be companions of hell fire.”  At first, LL Cool J’s character attributes the writing to the Koran, Al-Maeda (chapter 5), verse 10. 

So, pulling the classic bait-and-switch on the unsuspecting audience where all things point to the Muslim Marine as the culprit, there is suddenly a break in the case. The staff psychologist is given a Bible by the Christian Marine and wow, he finds this passage in Thessalonians, “In flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God.” And the case is solved—it’s not the Muslim—it’s the Christian blowing up his fellow Marines. 

The scripture is actually 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 2 verse 7 in the King James Version, referring to when Jesus returns to Earth with his angels and brings about the final judgment. It should be noted that in that entire passage there is nothing about the followers of Christ helping out with that vengeance. The Apostle Paul was actually comforting those of the faith that were being persecuted, definitely not telling them to take any vengeance into their own hands. Ah, but I digress.  

That small point didn’t seem to matter to the NCIS writers. They just thought it was best to deliver another Christmas present to my family that afternoon—a Christian suicide bomber. And you might ask when was the last time a Christian strapped on a bomb and became a suicide bomber in this country?  I think you get the point. All I can say is thank God it was only in the warped writer’s imagination. 

These two episodes would have been troubling enough anytime during the year. But to air them back-to-back as their Christmas episodes makes me wonder what agenda the producers had in mind. I have been a fan of both shows and they usually have great scripts. But this day, I was truly disappointed. 

How about a New Year’s resolution NCIS? Go back to good story telling and leave the Christian bashing behind for 2010.

So, denying the role militant Islam played in the Fort Hood atrocity is like staring at a shark bite and thinking, “bicycle.”

When a fundamentalist kills thirteen innocent people while shouting “allahu akbar,” Islam isn’t just a small player – it’s got a starring role. And now that U.S. intelligence admits Hasan tried to contact al Qaeda, it should make it increasingly hard for anyone to say otherwise.

I say it “should,” but it won’t.

Look at the news.

Over at Time, thoughtful types speculate over a “secondary trauma” that could have driven Hasan to kill. Never mind terror – one news network tells us we should focus more on “a backlash against Muslim soldiers.” On a major website, they want us to ponder the “next McVeigh.” And our very own Homeland Security secretary says she’s hard at work preventing “a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment.”

And that’s the drill: concern over crimes that have never happened, as opposed to the terror that has. When Americans are murdered in cold blood, the first step in our screwed-up world is to chant, “backlash.” Never mind that backlash concerns may have allowed this massacre to occur in the first place. Hasan exhibited more signs than a horoscope – yet fears over appearing politically incorrect kept him around.

The fact is, in mosques all over the world, the desire to destroy the west continues – and our administration still worries about what you might do. The PC thing? Avoid “connecting the dots,” but stick to the “square peg in round hole” equation: a troubled man feeling hopeless in a weird world, suddenly snaps and kills people.

But it’s more than that. The defiant Muslim living in America has contempt for modern life, your lifestyle, your beliefs. Add to this a rejection of female equality, which pretty much eliminates any chance for a hook-up – and you’ve got a madman on a mission.

I suppose saying all this makes me a right-wing hate monger. But that’s the point. When a man kills Americans in the name of Allah – and you become a bad guy for pointing that out – then it’s time to be the bad guy.

It’s far better than moaning “why do they hate us.”

tonight, Jim Norton (fun!), S.E. Cupp (yum!), Jonathan Hoenig (rich!) and, other stuff!

“The mainstream Hollywood crowd, an apologist group that enjoys traveling to Taliban-run countries such as Iran spreading their holier-than-thou “cultural understanding” of rogue regimes, has been effectively censored by Moslem clerics. Filmmaker Roland Emmerich chose not to blow up the Kaaba at Mecca in his film 2012 for fear of a fatwa (death sentence issued by Moslem clerics) being placed on his head.

“Yet, in 2005, actor Sean Penn went to cover a so-called Islamic Republic “election” wanting Americans to visit Iran and become familiar with its culture. In March 2009, director Phil Alden Robinson found that Iranians were not very different; and actress Annette Bening (surely with a headscarf given Iran’s brutal enforcement of hijab) hoped her trip to Iran would jump start a bridge between the U.S. and the mullahs in Tehran.

“These frivolous, superficial entertainers turned international political experts, who cause socio-political damages beyond the limits of this article for their misguided trips to imprisoned societies, are now censored in their own free societies by the mere thought of being personally harmed. Ironically, Emmerich’s admission may actually teach Americans about mullahcracy compliments of Hollywood.”

Read the full article here.

“Larry David would never do this to Muslims. He doesn’t have the guts.”

That’s missing the point.

Hypocrisy or a fear of how some wacko extremist might react has nothing to do with this. Hollywood constantly singles out Christians for cruel ridicule and the worst kind of stereotyping for one simple reason…

They hate us.

They hate our guts.

There’s nothing more complicated to this question than that.

I promise you that if every Muslim on the planet was as gentle as a kitten, it would still be Christians singled out by the entertainment industry at every opportunity.

Now, you wouldn’t know it from following modern-day pop culture, but we Christians do have a sense of humor and are just as capable of laughing at ourselves as anyone. But we also know when we’re being singled out, when we’re being laughed at and the difference between good-natured and mean-spirited. We acknowledge that there are many good people working in Hollywood who oppose this kind of bigotry and double-standard, just not enough of them to put a stop to it…

Here’s how much they hate us, how much they want to hurt us — and it goes way beyond a willingness to damage their own bottom line…

Good people hurt innocent people every day. We lose our tempers, say things in anger and generally come to regret it later. That’s one of the rougher parts of dealing with the human condition. And when good people watch Larry David piss on Christ, his mocking and blatant disrespect makes them angry. Some might even think, ”I should produce a YouTube of me pissing on Hollywood’s god – Barack Obama!” Which wouldn’t be a difficult or expensive thing to do in this digital age.

But good people don’t follow through on such things. Eventually, their better nature takes over as they think about how such a cruel and disrespectful act might hurt those they know who admire Obama … or the president’s two young daughters. 

Nothing, however, stopped Larry David — not the time, logistics, planning or funds needed to put this cruel episode together. David’s not a dumb man, and neither are the many people who made the production possible. Every one of them knew exactly what they were doing, what the outcome would be and what Christ means to His followers. 

And they relished every moment of it; the planning, execution and most of all, the uproar and disappointment that followed.

Anger puts cruel thoughts in your head. Hate’s the fuel required to take you across the finish line.

There’s no shortage of fuel in Hollywood.

This one’s for the writers and artists who tell the truth about the enemy, using the enemy’s own words and actions against them.  As for my own work, find out why it led a troll to actually post this at my blog:  “People like you are the reason why I won’t be sad when we all die in a nuclear holocaust.”

For instance, consider the uproar from the left when Don Imus opened his silly yap about the black women on the Rutgers basketball team.  Now compare that to their response when David Letterman made his smarmy cracks about Sarah Palin and the governor’s 14-year-old daughter.  The liberals immediately sprang to his defense, pointing out that Letterman is nothing more than a TV personality and is therefore free to make offensive jokes without fear of censure.  So what do they think Don Imus is?  The secretary of state? 

Or consider how choleric those on the left become any time that Dick Cheney defends the former administration.  Well, if Obama and his cronies didn’t constantly attack Bush and Cheney and their policies, the chances are the ex-vice president wouldn’t feel compelled to set the record straight. Furthermore, Jimmy Carter never stopped bashing George Bush during the eight years he was the president, and yet nobody on the left ever suggested he shut up.  On the contrary, he was hailed at the 2004 Democratic convention, and even had the honor of being seated next to the patron saint of left-wingers, Michael Moore.  Speaking of Carter, how is it that he, who is always volunteering to monitor elections anywhere on earth, including the Westminster Dog Show, wasn’t in Iran, making sure that Ahmadinejad got 110% of the vote? 

Liberals never got tired of telling us how much George Bush was despised by those in other countries, although, for the record, I kept asking the loons to name those countries, but could never prompt a response.  I assume even they were too embarrassed to mention Iran, North Korea, China, Yemen and Russia.  Instead, they kept insisting that America should be more like Europe.  Inasmuch as conservative politicians are winning elections in England and all over the continent these days, the people finally waking up to the unmitigated disaster socialism is, I could now join in the chorus.  But, of course, so far as leftists are concerned, I’d now be singing a solo. 

I have to wonder, though, how much non-Muslim nations trust our current president.  It’s one thing, after all, to travel to other countries and talk a lot of diplomatic flapdoodle, but when Barack Obama takes every opportunity to tell the world how awful we are — or at least how awful we were until he got elected — it has to make people wonder if, like his missus, he had never been proud of America prior to his canonization by the media. 

It doesn’t make things a lot better when he makes obviously foolish remarks, such as insisting that the U.S. is one of the largest Muslim nations, and that Muslims played a major role in the creation of our republic. 

That one really had me reeling, so I went back to my trusty old history book and looked it up and, sure enough, he was correct.  Right there in black and white, I discovered that among the most influential of the Founding Fathers were Abdullah Washington, Mahmoud Adams and Osama bin Jefferson.

Nope.  Not saying I’ve consulted the Creator, but…I have it on good authority that that virgin-in-paradise thingie is just a cheap, bucket-o-baloney BS recruiting tool. 

Psych!

So all you would-be jihadist bombers with a hard-on to plant the IED’s that are designed to kill our brave servicemen… hey, find something else to do with your hard-on, Sparky, instead of waiting to use it on those 72 clueless virtual babettes.  If you’re that lonely and pathetic and worthless, hop on the ubiquitous 25-hour Internet porn sites, take tool in hand, and work out three minutes of your destiny right there in the privacy of your mud hovel.  Keep the explosives at home!  Your imagined glory doesn’t give a sh*t about you and you blowing up an American G.I. won’t keep you from an eternity of teeth gnashing and anal herpes, so get your head out of your poo-hole, and go get a real job – like maybe something that helps people instead of kills them.  Just a thought.

But talk about irony — how’s that for a sad, sick joke?  These devoted extremists, buying the whole jihad warrior myth hook, line and stinker; keeping themselves religiously devout and chaste…waiting for the ultimate reward for their heroic, murderous acts of carnage…and they don’t go to heaven at all.

They go straight to hell!

It’s almost funny.  Or at least it would be, if it weren’t so terribly sad.  A small, extremist segment of one of the world’s largest religion locked into a horribly illogical, obstinate and cruel horror of futility.  All based upon a lie.  That their ‘god’ compels them to either convert the world to Islam…or if that doesn’t work, blow everything up.  That they are committed to an eternal jihad to kill any who won’t accept and adopt their strict religious doctrine — man, woman or child.  That they are in fact rewarded by murdering those innocents with an eternal bliss of paradise and fornicating with virgins.

And they call us the Great Satan.

Okay…let me back up.  With all due (and undue) respect…and I know that is a broad disclaimer, but I don’t know how else to couch it.  I’m speaking now to only violence-prone, extremist Islamofascist Muslims.  I can understand that your feelings were hurt five thousand years ago when the Jews started jumping around declaring that God said that they were the ‘chosen people’.  I understand you may have felt a bit…what, slighted?  I know I would have.  “What do you mean you guys are the ‘chosen ones’?   Chosen by whom?  God!?  You kiddin’ me?  Oh, yeah, and what – we’re chopped liver??  What kind of sh*t is that??”

But have you considered…”chosen…for what, exactly?”   If you look at their history, it becomes clear that they haven’t always been chosen for good things.  There was that slavery thing in Egypt.  That worked out all right, eventually.  Moses rocked.  And the Promised Land was cool.  But what about that exile into Babylon?  That could not have been pleasant.   Then the struggle with the Romans?   There was no United Nations to complain to.  And the ACLU could get no traction, though I’m sure they tried.  And then, bummer of bummers, Jesus comes into popularity…gives the Jewish leaders a bunch of lip…rampages through the temple like Axel Rose trashing the penthouse suite at the Hollywood Hyatt…and the Jews get the rap for the death of Christ!   And everybody who was there said it was the Romans who killed him!    (If only we had a Zapruder film back then, we could put that controversy to rest, huh?)  Then…the prosecution in Russia…the pogroms…and finally…Europe under Nazi rule.  The Final Solution.  

So…you have to ask yourself…  They’re the Chosen People…but chosen for what?

Still…to be ‘chosen’ is to be special.  So, by extrapolation, to not be chosen…is to not be special.  That’s gotta sting.

Well… I feel your pain.  It’s got to be a wee bit aggravating to develop your culture side by side with a whole race that touts at every turn its own unique favor with the deity.  An exclusive club, a gold-key membership and back stage pass to the All-Mighty.  The Jews as Rock Stars.  And that other offshoot from Abraham…the Muslim root?  “Uh…sorry, guys, you can be the roadies.  Grab those Marshall cabinets, will ya, pal?   We gotta get going with the sound check.”

I don’t know.  Maybe if that Cain dude hadn’t killed his brother Abel, things might have turned out differently?  

I’m a Christian, I’m not one of the ‘chosen people’ either.  You don’t see me tearing my clothes, ripping out my hair or swinging my scimitar at the closest synagogue.  I’m easy, I say, “Hey, they’re the Chosen People?  Good on them, I hope it works out.”   But listen, Ahmed – and I say this with patience, tolerance, and respect.  It’s been five thousand years…so I suggest that each of you who are still smoldering with this multi-generational hatred for all things Jewish…sit down now and pour yourself a nice hot cup of Lighten-the-F*#k-Up.

Time to let it go.

I’m reminded of that TV show a few years back, “Ally McBeal”.  Gregg Grumann played a lawyer they called, ‘Fish’.   Fish had the amazing proclivity for screwing over everyone he came in contact with; effortlessly, sometimes unwittingly, but screwing them over nonetheless, just as a matter of course.   Upon discovering any of his innumerable offenses, he would instantly relieve himself of blame, responsibility and penalty with a simple, tossed-away word:  “Bygones!“   (As in, ‘Let bygones be bygones’.)  (As in Yo!  Fahgettaboudit!)

Abdul… Ahmed… Sal-hakim Ib bin Sal-har Alimi-Omar… all together now:   “Bygones!”

Yes, there have been thousands of years of war.  Yes, there were plenty of atrocities perpetrated in the name of “God-wills-it” over the millennia.  And as a Christian infidel, I’ll cop to some various offenses those Crusade fellows may have been involved in as they were busy ‘evangelizing’ the Muslim world, Bible in one hand, sword in the other.  (That Richard the Lionheart was reportedly a real irascible sort, and not much prone to mediated negotiation.)

But you tyrants and extremists under the star and crescent (peace-loving Muslims I have no quarrel with… although, in light of your religion having been somewhat hijacked by a vocal and violent extremist minority, you do yourselves and the world a great disservice in not speaking up against Wahhabbi extremism – and your silence is deafening!”)... it’s you guys who have been doing the lion’s share of unprovoked bloodletting in recent memory.  If you guys were truly interested in peace you would acknowledge at least Israel’s right to exist.  You wouldn’t have turned down Ehud Barak’s numerous peace proposals and concessions to Arafat.  You wouldn’t have stoked the so-called Lebanese civil war (if unprovoked slaughter of untold Lebanese Christians can be called civil war).  And if you were truly a people of peace…you would devote yourselves and your culture to building up you society and your people.  You would engage in enterprises that develop technology and help to feed your people and provide a better, more peaceful existence.  You would work in harmony with your Jewish neighbors, exchanging products, services and ideas for furthering the happy, peaceful progress you espouse openly in English to the western press; and then just as quickly, deny and disparage in your own language to your own people.  Like…”Now that we’re alone, and have fooled those suckers, now I can tell you what we really are all about.”  (Little things like…driving Israel into the Mediterranean.)

When you tell us you’re all about peace….is it any wonder we don’t believe you?

As of this writing there is a great tremor shaking earth.  The winds of revolution are stirring in Tehran, following claims of a fraudulent election that would restore the crazed despot Ahmadinejad to another oppressive term.  The people of Iran are filling the streets, rising up for freedom.  They are out in force, risking their lives, opposing the tyrant.

We Americans, we who love liberty, are being stirred to our core in empathy and encouragement.  We cheer from the sideline, much as when we see film of a baby seal swimming desperately for its life, trying to escape the jaws of a killer whale.  We urge him on, and against overwhelming odds, the tiny seal somehow escapes to freedom…and life. 

We are stirred by the scenes in Iran because we remember our own impossible beginnings.  Going up against the power and might of the British Empire, the one lone superpower of its day.  With so much allied against us, the birth of our Republic should never have happened.  And yet it did.  The human will, that sacrosanct human drive, the will to be free…overcame all the threat, fear, danger… and sacrifice.

These are pivotal, indeed, critical times for our nation and for our world.  To what extent will we support that drive for freedom, in Iran, and in other sections of the world?

And, in light of recent movements by the Obama administration and Congress to the contrary…to what extent will we support the drive for liberty in our own nation? 

With the seemingly endless abundance of practiced and prodigious bullsh*t hurled about in the media, some from the commentators, some from our leaders — we often lose sight of certain self-evident truths, not the least of which is this:  there is right…and there is wrong. 

The line in the sand has been drawn. 

It was drawn while we were downloading from Itunes, it was drawn while bugs were eaten raw on SURVIROR, it was drawn while the Lakers were surmounting their drive for the championship.  And despite great pop-cultural obfuscation to the contrary, the line is quite clear. 

Right, wrong.  Good, evil. 

No one any longer has the luxury of sitting back and letting ‘those others’ make the decisions, call the shots, and determine what sort of world we are to live in.  To make no decision is to make a decision; to the detriment of society.  You are on one side…or you’re on the other.   And ignorance, in the day years ago of crude technology and limited information sources, may have been an excuse.  But no more.  The information age is upon us, and to abdicate to laziness or outright arrogant refusal to self-educate, is to join the legions who foment darkness and encourage intellectual and spiritual bondage. 

So which side are you on?

Are you on the side of the Oppressors?  On the side of those who would control you, regulate you, tax you, fine you, imprison you, or kill you if you don’t adhere to their philosophy of life or rules of religion?  Or are you on the side of the Freemen?   On the side of free individuals engaged in liberty and the free pursuit of happiness, unfettered by excessive government restriction, and guided by a code of honor and responsibility and devotion to goodness, strength, love and liberty?

The time for sitting on the sidelines has passed – for all of us.  That tapping you feel right now, deep inside…   It is the urgings of your soul.  That tapping shall soon be a great pounding drum beat.  It is the universal urging to be free, of which every human being is born.  To deny it is to submit to enslavement.  To answer it is to stand up and take your rightful place among a free people of destiny. 

Terrorists and tyrants can have hell – they earned it. 

Let those of us who cherish freedom and honor life stand now here, on this earth, and fight for freedom.  And let us fight as though our future, our families, our very lives depended on it.  Because, friend…it surely does.

Zahra.

Well known to Muslims, Fatima az-Zahra was one of four daughters of the prophet Muhammad. Today, Zahra is also the name of two important, outspoken women of Iran.

One is Zahra Rahnavard, the courageous and charismatic wife of the allegedly defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. The other is Zahra Khanum, the equally courageous and charismatic woman portrayed in a new movie, “The Stoning of Soraya M.,” about the death of an Iranian woman on trumped-up charges of adultery.

Begging forgiveness for this confederacy of cliches, but we seem to have a perfect storm of tipping points.

Beneath the surface of news blasts covering Iran’s tainted elections, riots, protester deaths and government crackdowns, a subtext of women’s rights is emerging. It is a subtext only to the extent that women’s oppression isn’t often acknowledged directly — not even by the leader of the free world. But human rights are at the core of what is occurring now.

A government that oppresses its people can only sustain itself with violence, as the world is witnessing yet again as thousands take to Iran’s streets. And, in Iran as elsewhere in the Muslim world, violence against women — as well as against homosexuals and others considered inferior according to the mullahs’ masculinist standards — isn’t only permitted but justified with religious doctrine.

Mousavi challenged these notions — and the government, apparently, saw fit that he lose. Even in the midst of so much heat, Mousavi’s wife, Zahra, on Monday urged students at a Tehran University protest to hold fast in their resistance. Climb to the rooftops, she said, and shout, “God is great!”

Zahra R., who holds a PhD in political science and was an adviser to former president Mohammad Khatami, also has been vocal in urging reforms that would eliminate “morality police” as well as end discrimination against women.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that monument to self-confident masculinity, reportedly was so undone by Zahra’s power on the campaign trail that he questioned whether her doctorate was legitimate.

Americans will begin getting a glimpse of the other Zahra as soon as “The Stoning” opens in select cities. Based on a true story, the movie is adapted from French Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s 1994 novel of the same name.

In the film, produced by Stephen McEveety (”Braveheart” and “The Passion of the Christ”), the journalist-author is stranded in a small village when his car breaks down. Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo) dodges the threatening stares of her fellow villagers and persuades the reporter to come to her house and record her story. Evil has visited her village, she tells him, and she wants the world to know.

Briefly, Zahra’s niece Soraya, mother of four, had been accused of adultery by her abusive, unfaithful husband. The truth was that he wanted a divorce so he could marry another. When Soraya refused, he and the village mullah conspired to accuse her of adultery.

As the title suggests, Soraya was convicted and condemned to death by stoning.

I saw a rough cut of this film several months ago. Since that time, I’ve been unable to shake the story or images that I suspect will haunt me forever. Be forewarned: It is brutal. McEveety and director Cyrus Nowrasteh felt that the stoning scene needed to be accurately portrayed or the film would be an insult to Soraya’s suffering.

It will be hard for many to get through to the end, but staying with the movie brings a reward. Despite the brutality, the film is also beautiful and true. It reminds us that a woman in some parts of the world can be destroyed at a man’s whim without consequence. The beauty is that truth will out.

“The Stoning,” which will be in most theaters June 26, was intentionally timed for release after Iran’s elections. Dennis Rice, charged with promoting the movie, figured the election would help create interest, but he didn’t anticipate the serendipitous intersection of the two Zahras. “Irony?” he asks. “I think not.”

In Arabic, Zahra means “The Shining One.”

In English, we’d call that a beacon.

kparker@kparker.com