She's Our Valentine

News about Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' astonishing recovery:

With a group of friends and family members acting as a backup chorus, Ms. Giffords has been mouthing the lyrics to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby.” And as a surprise for her husband, who is celebrating his birthday this month, a longtime friend who has been helping her through her rehabilitation videotaped her mouthing the words to “Happy Birthday to You.”

Blues Brother

For his first-ever appearance on the Grammys, an apt and humble choice by Mick Jagger: The late Solomon Burke's 1964 hit "Everybody Needs Somebody To Love."

Phobias In Yorba Linda

Brooklyn Imam Siraj Wahhaj is a former member of the Nation of Islam who later became a Sunni Muslim. In 1991, he was the first Muslim to offer an opening prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives. A U.S. attorney identified him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, though he denies any involvement. Amir Abdel Malik Ali (shown below) is an Oakland imam who also cut his teeth in the Nation of Islam and appears regularly on college campuses to denounce Israel and profess his admiration for Hamas and Hezbollah.

Not guys you'd expect to find giving speeches at an event in Richard Nixon's birthplace town. Yet both were guests this evening at the Yorba Linda Community Center at a meeting organized by the Islamic Circle of of North America (more information here). The $25 per person event was advertised as a fundraiser for ICNA's charitable work, but several hundred protesters who came to Yorba Linda from around southern California weren't buying. A conservative activist interviewed on the local ABC affiliate said that while she thought a few guests might have been under the impression that the event had innocent purposes, she didn't think it was a coincidence that the Muslims had come "to conservative Yorba Linda on a quiet Sunday night to make trouble." Said another protester, "It's not right for terrorism to come to Yorba Linda."

Five years ago, protesters would've been looking back to Sept. 11. But there's something more going on. Trolling various web sites, you get the impression that a significant number of people have come to believe that Islam is waging a secret war to establish Sharia in the United States. If it were, then Wahhaji and especially Malik Ali, with his noxious views, wouldn't be doing the conspiracy much good. Nor is the puny rate of population growth among American Muslims. Anyone who promotes violence deserves to be spurned and scorned. But it seems to me that imagining, fearing, and actually devoting energy to preventing a Muslim takeover of the U.S. are historic wastes of time -- or worse, if they result in policies, legislation, and messages that target or scapegoat Muslims.

Egyptian-American journalist and filmmaker Jehan Harney has a good blog on Islamophobia in the media and politics. On Feb. 10, the ICNA issued a press release saying its Yorba Linda event was being targeted by Islamophobes, which brings the name-calling full circle, since Malik Ali is accused of antisemitism thanks to his bloodcurdling criticisms of Israel. The Middle East is enough of a muddle without the dimension of angry stateside pontification from either side of the equation. Yet the ICNA charge of Islamophobia in Yorba Linda would seem to have some merit based on signs I saw at the demonstration along Imperial Highway, though they went unmentioned by both ABC and this Orange County Register report: "Jesus Is The Only Way To Salvation" and "Send Islam To Hell." These messages were aimed not at two radicals but the heart of a whole faith.

They Should Put This Show On The Road

John Mayer, Norah Jones, and Keith Urban performed Dolly Parton's "Jolene" on the Grammys tonight. More, please!

Hannah Nixon's Sky

From a quiet corner this evening, a view of the Yorba Linda United Methodist Church that a heart of peace would have loved

Khomeini More Times?

This New York Times analysis was tons more reassuring that its headline: "Egypt's Path After Uprising Does Not Have To Follow Iran's."

Jihadist Conspiracy Continues

The Muslim Brotherhood says it won't seek the Egyptian presidency.

"Episconixonian" Takes Congress To Woodshed

Speaking this morning with NPR's Audie Cornish, Reagan budget director David Stockman explains how Democrats have poisoned and paralyzed discourse about the federal deficit by stigmatizing any talk of cutting Social Security and Medicare and Republicans have done so by stigmatizing tax increases (often by forgetting to mention their hero Reagan's $400 billion a year in new taxes).

Stockman's right. They're all a bunch of scoundrels. The "Compact With America"? "Compact" is the operative word. Cutting a few hundred billion from discretionary spending? Chicken seed. Peanuts. Pennies on a $1.4 trillion annual problem, victimizing the least among us to protect the vested.

From now on, I don't want to hear from any president, senator, or congressman who doesn't talk about the three-legged stool of some entitlement cuts, some defense cuts, and some tax increases. Any politician who fails to do so is putting the future of our country at risk for the sake of his career. Rep. Jim Rogan did what he thought was right even though he knew he'd lose his seat. Saving the U.S. from stagnation and bankruptcy will take his kind of honesty and courage. President Obama could make the first move by speaking up for the findings of his own deficit commission.

Vote For Me. I'll Probably Do Just As Well.

Reflecting 0n the Jan. 20 "Fresh Air" on the proliferation (or, I'd say, the continuation) of violent rhetoric in politics, Geoff Nunberg says that Sarah Palin got a bum rap when she was accused of having had anything to do with inspiring the Jan. 8 shooter in Arizona. He concludes:

It's a strength of modern political culture that these apocalyptic metaphors no longer rouse people to armed insurrection. But then indignation has never had so many recreational outlets before. We can spend all our waking hours listening to broadcast political invective or writing sarcastic blog comments to excoriate the morons on the other side. That's the dirty little secret of political vituperation: left and right, we all enjoy going there sometimes.

But even if these violent reveries are almost never acted out, they coarsen the debate and dehumanize the other side. The scenarios behind those fantasies goes a long way toward creating the so-called climate of hate. If you're going to imagine yourself riding to the rescue of the republic, you're going to need to see your opponents as nefarious alien life forms. You put on a cowboy suit, and suddenly everybody else is an Indian.

As Nunberg notes, over the centuries a considerable amount of real violence has been sublimated into angry political conversation. Not only is it better to yell at than shoot each other, doing the former probably helps keep us from doing the latter. Palin's critics were seeing it the other way around.

And while I'd certainly enjoy more civility in political discourse, I wonder how practical that desire is in any system based on regularly scheduled, honest elections. Republicans wouldn't get very far mounting a challenge to President Obama by saying that while he's doing pretty well under the circumstances, they deserve a chance, too. It's hard to run against an incumbent without saying that all is lost if she continues in office; and it's hard to make that almost-always-incorrect accusation without doing a certain amount of rhetorical violence.

The alternative is to have elections only when we really need them. Anyone interested?

Taking The Point

While I resist the temptation to snap photos in church, it was Youth and Scout Sunday today, sheer exuberance was in the air, and I happened to have my phone out. Here's an image of our weekly joy, in this case fellow ministers Makenna, Elizabeth, and Ryan preparing to lead the people of God in procession.