The NY Times Puts Us In Our Place

I don't know about you, but I feel terrible that I am so unsophisticated and uneducated that I can't understand the brilliance that comes out of Washington DC and now out of New York City. If I were only one of the elite, I might understand why it's necessary to build a mosque right on top of the gigantic hole in the ground in New York City that represents Islamic tolerance.

New York City Mayor Auntie Bloomberg just had a Ramadan dinner for all those moderate Muslims, and once again instructed us rubes that we are intolerant, bigoted and just plain stupid for opposing the lovely Islamic center funded by Saudi Wahabbists, al Qaeda and Hamas. Of course I'm just guessing who's funding it since the moderate Muslims planning it won't reveal their funding sources. Bloomberg reminded us of just how tolerant Islamists are by pointing out that if we don't quit opposing their great center of learning, it might promote violence from the Middle East.

The boy from Chicago also fits right in with the Beltway and West Side liberals. Even a faux president from the midwest (by way of Hawaii, Indonesia and Kenya) can become sophisticated enough to recognize just how crude and anti-intellectual all Americans are outside of NYC and DC. The menu for the pro-mosque feasts comes, of course, from the rapidly-declining Newspaper of Record, The New York Times.

Times "reporters" Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jeff Zeleny recently participated in a Political Points confab in which they blamed racism for Barack Obama's low poll ratings, and opposition to the Ground Zero mosque as both racism and a clear lack of Manhattan-style sophistication. This would also explain why 18 percent of the American people believe that Obama is a Muslim. According to both Stolberg and Zeleny, such a belief would also cause them to believe that Obama is responsible for all those pesky things presidents are supposed to be doing.

The moderator, Sam Roberts, kicked things off by channeling Michael Lerner of Tikkun magazine's "demonized other" concept. Said Roberts: "Well the whole notion, Sheryl, you wrote, of 'otherness,' which is rather incredible, considering how far we've come. I guess maybe we haven't come that far, and the whole notion that America, a majority-white country, elected a president who is black, we still haven't gotten over that in a way." Is he asking a question, or arguing with himself? Still, he asked the right leading question, even if it wasn't elegantly put. America is majority-white, therefore racist. Right or wrong Sheryl?

Now don't gasp when you hear her answer. "Well, I think that's right." No? Really? Says Stolberg: "There's a new poll out from the Pew Research Center that finds a startling rise in the number of Americans who believe if incorrectly that President Obama is a Muslim." Well, I don't think he's some kind of Muslim. But I do believe that he's more Muslim-friendly than the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, so it really doesn't matter if he's actually a Muslim himself. Ergo, I'm an ignorant hick (even though I did live in midtown Manhattan for two years).

Stolberg made it clear that the rubes disapprove of the plan for the Ground Zero mosque because they don't know what's going on, unlike those knowledgeable Manhattanites. She has failed to notice that outside of Gracie Mansion and the upper West Side, most Manhattanites are equally unsophisticated. Still, Stolberg opines: "I think, in New York, especially in Manhattan, people realize that Muslims live and work in Lower Manhattan, in the area where they're seeking to build this community center, which would also include a fitness center where young people could play basketball or swim or what have you. Out in the country (that's us, the rubes), the news coverage has not been as intense, there are fewer details and it allows for the debate to be reduced to its essence, boiled down to a few words: Mosque at Ground zero. (emphasis added). And those words have become inflammatory around the country and I think the nuances is [sic.] somewhat lost, frankly."

I'm glad she decided to be frank. Prior to that, I wasn't clear just how unsophisticated she considered us to be. She reveals her own lack of sophistication, however, by not knowing that mosques are neither churches nor synagogues, nor is their primary purpose a place of worship. Historically, they have been armories with worship as part of the jihad activities. More recently, they have become heavily legalistic, preaching (or teaching) sharia law which specifically denies the rule of any other law (like the Constitution, for instance).

So I'll be frank as well. She's full of crap. I couldn't be happier that I am no longer a resident of San Francisco, aka New York City Junior. I take back what I said in my opening paragraph. Instead I am proud to be a rural California hick who thinks the least informative newspaper in America is The New York Times. And pace our regular contributor, Bev, I'm just unsophisticated enough to believe that if the mosque does get built, it will show that New York City, home of The Times, is lacking in self-respect and is the most suicidal city in America.