Someone has had a great idea: let’s build a 13-story mosque 600 yards from “Ground Zero” at the World Trade Center in New York City. The keg of worms opened up by this proposal had to have been foreseen, yet the project was launched anyway.

I don’t really care to argue or reiterate the points made by the plan’s proponents; they are right to want to expose people to a more fair and balanced examination of Islam than what the average American gets from watching television. It is also incorrect, in the factual sense, to view the proposed mosque as a monument to terrorism. Any educated brain knows that the terrorists who flew jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were not terrorists simply because they were Muslims, just like Timothy McVeigh did not bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City just because he was a Republican, a Roman Catholic, and a member of the NRA.

The true evil of terrorism lies in the acts themselves and their perpetrators, and not in the core beliefs held by millions of people which happen to be shared, supposedly, by these terrorists. How many homosexuals have been beaten to death on a city street somewhere by people who consider themselves to possess Christian values?

So, with the blatantly obvious out of the way, why do I agree that building this mosque at Ground Zero is a bad idea, even though I don’t see an equation between celebrating Islam and propagating terrorism?

Because it’s a bad idea, and everyone involved knows it, yet they decided to pursue it anyway. This is not a matter of differences in religious or ideological stances. Racism, homophobia, women’s suffrage – these were and are valid social issues, and yes, sometimes reform in these cases is not achieved through quiet contemplation. However, many Americans equate terrorism with Islam, and they fear Islam because they don’t really know much about it. In other words, they are not necessarily objecting to specific values held by Islam, they are simply afraid of what they don’t know.

There is no reason that I am aware of why this mosque has to be built at Ground Zero. I guess the sentiment is that if we build this mosque, and people will be more readily exposed to it, in time we will learn more about Islam. Perhaps. But these good intentions will eventually be overshadowed by public outcry and eventual vandalism. This “building of peace” will be a magnet for every local yahoo. It has not even been a full decade since 9/11. While it may be true that it’s unfair to blame Islam for 9/11, it is nevertheless illogical to proceed with this plan and expect an outcome that is of a different nature than what we are already seeing

According to a CNN.com article, an American woman wrote to President Obama asking for his help in resolving her husband’s immigration problem. The hubby’s bid for political asylum had been denied a decade ago, and the man has been dodging immigration authorities since then, remaining in the country illegally.

The guy has not been sitting on his laurels in the meantime, however: the couple got married five years ago, and he finished an engineering degree two years ago.

Having entered the U.S. legally myself, with the intent to marry a U.S. citizen, and being therefore familiar with the process, I find it difficult to understand how a guy who managed to get an engineering degree failed to take care of this problem a long time ago. His wife is even a VP at a marketing firm. Surely they had the financial and intellectual resources to determine the best course of action to change his status.

The President isn’t a 911 operator or an immigration attorney. If you get arrested for dodging a deportation order, your lawyer is your first phone call. The President has taken an oath to uphold the laws of this country; should he personally help you find loopholes around them just because you know how to write a letter and lick a stamp?

I don’t agree with how the man was detained, as described by the article in question, but this piece is written with such an obvious slant that I have to wonder what’s being left out.

The daily influx of emails from some of my more Fox News-oriented friends revealed a couple of real gems. Apparently no one does any fact-checking whatsoever these days; people are happy to forward any politically motivated chain letter so long as it coincides with their own political leanings.

First on our list is this picture of a “clothing tag”:

The image was followed by a message in huge letters proclaiming that “small business [was] alive and well in America.”

What this email forgot to mention was that this tag is from a laptop bag made by a Seattle company back in 2004. The president being referred to was George W. Bush.

I guess whoever found this image and randomly decided to email it to people, insinuating that it was referring to President Obama, probably forgot that while the French were not crazy about Bush, they actually love Obama. That alone should have clued them in to the fact that this was about Bush, but of course, as always, reaching that conclusion requires a healthy dose of logic.

The second contender of the day in our fresh batch of anti-Obama propaganda is a “message from Grand Isle“, which claims that during Obama’s visit to Grand Isle, his cronies brought in bus load after bus load of workers to make it seem like a cleaning operation was taking place there. You know, as if Obama was doing something.

This same letter, the author of which remains conveniently unknown (but whom everyone seems to claim to know through a friend), also claims that no one came to see President Obama, to wave any flags, and that the entire island literally ignored his presence there.

This, of course, is supposed to suggest that no one likes President Obama. Everybody hates him. Guess he should go eat some worms.

What boggles my mind is that if Grand Isle residents are concerned about the effects of the BP oil spill which threatens their livelihood, and the most powerful man in the country – if not the world – is visiting the location, why would they choose to ignore his presence? How does ignoring a visit from an extremely powerful Commander-in-Chief improve the oil spill situation?

If there is an opportunity to talk to the President, shake hands, and ask questions, and if indeed no clean-up crews have bothered to show up to Grand Isle before, then wouldn’t you want to, you know, bring it up? Maybe?

Oh, and in case it matters: the workers being bussed into town were actually there courtesy of BP, to clean up their public profile. These workers had nothing to do with Obama or the federal government.

But hey, cool story, bro.

Blog bloggety blog.

I’m sure there are few things more boring than reading a blogger write about blogging (unless you’re a blogger yourself), but here goes anyway.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that a blogger whose blog I like to blog – err, read – had added me to his blogroll. A blogroll is, as you may well know, a list of other blogs that a blogger reads and recommends to others. So this guy, who is a terrific writer and satirist, added me to his list. I was surprised, and flattered, since my blog is hardly the sizzling hub of the universe.

Yet, about a week ago, I noticed he had removed me from the list.

I don’t touch my blogroll very often. I usually add blogs to it when the mood hits me, but other than that, I rarely mess with it. It’s not an all-inclusive list of blogs I visit, anyway. It’s just a few names dropped for others to perhaps check out. So blogs tend to stay on that list for quite a while.

I was baffled as to why my site made such a short-lived appearance on his blogroll. This vexed me terribly. I sought an answer by meditating, hiking the Appalachian Trail, and consulting Tibetan monks, yet the reason for my dismissal was too elusive.

As cold sweat lined the wrinkles on my forehead, and creatures from the beyond visited my mind in the quiet of the night, I pondered this question: was it something I said?

I tend to speak my mind. I speak it, I change it, and then I speak it again. It would not greatly surprise me if I ruffled some feathers in the process, especially with some of my political opinions. I also don’t refer to unbecoming words by their first letters – I simply do not see the point. Perhaps it can be too much for some people. In fact, I’m sure it is.

When someone adds us to their blogroll, or friends’ list, or contacts, we don’t very often wonder why. I guess it’s self-explanatory: who wouldn’t want to know us? However, being removed from a list of 800 friends on Facebook can still feel like a slap in the face. Before the Internet, before social networking, if you wanted to not associate with a person any longer, you simply stopped calling them, or writing them, and stopped answering their calls or letters. You no longer popped in for a visit, and if you bumped into them on the street, Saturday was never “good for you” – neither was any other day.

Nowadays, rejection is much more proactive. Relationship statuses change from “married” to “it’s complicated,” and then “divorced” or “single.” Perhaps the reason it’s such a personal affront is because it’s so obviously impersonal. It’s not just between you and them; the whole world becomes privy to that change of status.

Successful bloggers, who have been keeping a blog for a long time, have accumulated subscribers, some of which may have become contacts, or even friends. I would imagine that such success would grant one with at least some confidence. A sense of security; the knowledge that even if one person removes you from his or her virtual life, there are others who still want what you provide.

For a writer, I think, who has not garnered such a following and success, there is a degree of danger in allowing oneself to believe that one is not one’s only audience.

Honestly, take a time machine back to a few days before the story about Obama getting the Prize broke and take a street poll among regular Americans asking them to name ONE PERSON who has previously won a Nobel Peace Prize. Nobody on this side of the Atlantic gave a damn who the Norwegians were giving this award to until it was our own elected president, who supposedly shouldn’t have been awarded it for this reason or another.

The Norwegians can pick Homer Simpson to win the award for all I care. I am tired of hearing this unpatriotic bullshit.

Being able to visit the ruins of Pompeii via Google Maps’ street view is pretty exciting.

Follow this link and click on Street View.

Sarah Palin just doesn’t know when to give up. Sitting down for an interview with Rusty Humphries, a conservative radio host – obviously, since Palin doesn’t sit down with liberal ones – she validated the “birther” movement by saying that “the public rightfully is still making it an issue.” She went on to say that the McCain/Palin campaign did not do its job properly and failed to raise enough questions about Obama’s background and beliefs, as well as those of people he associates with.

I have no doubt that she was referring to William Ayers, a college professor and acquaintance of Obama, who used to be involved with the radical Weather Underground activist group. Personally, I don’t agree with Palin’s assessment that the Republican campaign did not raise enough questions about Obama, or his friends. I think they did so to a nauseating degree. If they failed at anything, it was keeping to the facts.

Apparently, should Palin herself attempt a run for the presidency in 2012, slinging muddy allegations without a shred of evidence will continue to be her campaign practice; because, had Sarah taken five minutes out of her day to actually look into the whole birther craziness, she might have come across FactCheck.org’s exhaustive investigation into the birth certificate question.

However, as things stand, judging by her comments, Sarah Palin’s main source of information appear to be those brainless disinformation emails that right-wing nuts love to perpetuate.

What is amazing to me is that after the disastrous McCain/Palin campaign, the RNC talked openly about their need to freshen up the Republican brand, yet they have done next to nothing to ball-gag this walking paper shredder.

Patrick Phillips wrote in his blog about a California man who has proposed a ban on divorce. In his post, and in the comments, he talked about the same-sex marriage debate, and “civil unions.”

I wrote the following in response to his post, and I am copying it here because I’ve often written in my blog about the same-sex marriage issue, and much of the content of my comment would be suitable fodder for my blog as well.

As I see it, the problem with the “civil union” concept is not with the legal rights associated with it – the issue is with its perception.

They started doing civil unions for same-sex couples in my native country in Europe a decade or so ago. Essentially the rights were exactly the same as those acquired by a legally wedded straight couple, but there was no church wedding (despite the fact that openly gay priests were everywhere, go figure).

Furthermore, while I had no objection whatsoever to these civil unions, I did not consider them “marriages.” In Finland, heterosexual people also occasionally get married through a “civil union” process, typically if a church wedding is not an option for them. A church wedding is invalidated as an option if one or both of the individuals seeking marriage have resigned from the church, or have not completed Confirmation at all.

A civil union therefore in my mind became just a legal term for a legally – if not socially or culturally – recognized marriage.

Now, granted, in America it’s not the same, as you don’t necessarily have to belong to a church in order to have a church wedding, as I understand it. However I do suggest that while homosexual couples base their claim for equality on legal status, it isn’t really so much about those legal rights as it is about social acceptance. As social acceptance is an abstract concept and hard to gauge, people offer legal standing as the backbone of their appeal.

After all, you can’t legislate public perception. Congress cannot pass a law mandating that all individuals embrace homosexual marriage or lifestyle. A law can be passed, however, to legalize it, so they’re going for what they can get.

It’s just that they don’t want “civil union.”

When women or blacks got the right to vote, what if we had decided to call that something else? What if we decided that to allow a black man to vote was threatening the sanctity of the legislative process – a crazy notion, but bear with me – and that the black vote or the women’s vote should be called “participation” instead.

White men vote. Blacks and women “participate,” or “cast their participation.”

We could argue that essentially it would be the same thing. You get to cast your participation, so what are you complaining about?

But in the eyes of public perception, it would never be a vote. That is discriminatory.

I truly believe that this whole same-sex marriage business is about seeking something that the legislation itself will not provide. That alone, of course, is no reason to deny it, though.

If I may, I’d like to add one more thing, and this is regarding this ban on divorce thing: I don’t agree with the concept. To me it is just as illogical as Proposition 8, and just as illogical as teaching abstinence instead of proper sex education.

There is a significant difference between the legal definition of marriage, and the religious definition of it. Just look at polygamy if you need proof of that. Catholics believe that divorce is a great sin. I personally believe that while it is not immoral, it is certainly an affront to the whole basic concept of marriage.

Many people don’t really place enough stock in marital vows. Certainly, if you are swearing to God in court to tell the truth, then swearing to God to join with another for life should carry the same weight. Yet while we avoid committing perjury at the risk of being found in contempt of court, we habitually ignore the wedding vows as something frivolous and procedural.

The trouble is, the legal definition of marriage is a contract. While infidelity may be illegal, when was the last time anyone was prosecuted for it – and no, Bill Clinton doesn’t count; that wasn’t the charge.

Legally, no one can be forced to marry anyone. Neither should anyone be legally forced to stay married to anyone. (Mind you, I have not read the specifics of the ban on divorce proposal so that may not apply here specifically.)

In a perfect world – one we should aspire toward – the state would not legislate morality. I have no problem with the church disapproving of divorce or strongly recommending against it. In fact, I quite agree.

However, I do not believe for a second that the church has any business using its influence to use the state to regulate its own moral agenda.

It is a tricky definition, because obviously some laws have to exist based not so much on logic as basic human decency; take animal abuse laws for example.

Here is what it comes down to: person X does not approve of homosexuality. Person X’s religion condemns homosexuality. Person X is not a homosexual. Person X’s relationship with God is between him and God. Whether Person Y is a homosexual or married to another homosexual has no bearing on X’s own life. Yet, because Person X believes homosexuality is “bad” in general, he wants the law to make Person Y’s lifestyle illegal. He wants Person Y to become a Person X.

I strongly disagree with it. People have the right to believe in whatever moral values they choose to believe in, but they should not be allowed to use the law to persecute others for not sharing the same values. I think we’re all better off if we push legislators to draft legislation which directly affects our own lives and our own rights, instead of using them to make moral decisions for other people.

Most things about the Internet are great for the mind if not necessarily for the soul. Vast amounts of knowledge right at your fingertips. Even the worst speller can turn out decent writing with the aid of online dictionaries, spellcheckers, and various other tools. There are news, conversations, debates, and dozens of ways to participate in the world around us. This massive globe of ours feels just a wee bit more personal when the Internet is there to bring people from the far ends of the planet closer to one another.

However, there is one area in which bringing knowledge to the masses may not be such a great thing: the world of medicine.

One of my biggest fears in life is getting ill in a terminal way. I frequently find myself concerned about changes in my body, because, let’s face it, the human body does change a lot over time. As much as we like to think of ourselves as unique and beautiful butterflies, some of those changes we undergo are not all that exquisite.

The problem is, that while medical science can explain many weird things, it’s still a bit of a crapshoot. This is infinitely more the case when medical information is brought to the users in the form of online medical databases, such as WebMD.com. These services allow you to click your way through questions and reach a handful of possible suggestions for a self-diagnosis. This can presumably be helpful.

For me, it sure isn’t.

I deliberately try to avoid such websites due to my tendency to allow myself to be lead by the hand to a diagnosis that not only does not bode well for me, but is also unlikely to be accurate. Worst yet, once I am losing sleep over the possibility of a headache being linked to a stroke, cancer, liver disease, kidney failure, or Tsetse fly bite, and I drag myself to see a physician, if the doctor tells me it’s not terminal and probably just stress, I find it difficult to believe him. Why? Because the Internet told me it could be something else.

When these self-diagnosis sites first came about, they were mostly about clicking on a symptom and getting advice on how to treat it. Basic stuff. It’s when they started providing ways to diagnose yourself without x-rays, MRIs, blood samples, and stuff like that, that it became a whole new ballgame.

At least for us hypochondriacs.

I’ve been a big Star Trek fan ever since I watched the Original Series re-runs as a kid. There is something to be said about great stories: they don’t need to wrapped in a lot of hi-tech special effects in order for them to work well.

The original series has been released on DVD before, but a new, remastered version was released a couple of years ago. The remastered edition took its time getting to Netflix, but it’s available now on the rental service. I received the first two discs of the first season a few days ago.

I had mixed feelings about the remaster project when I first heard about it. That was mostly because I was under the impression that Paramount was going to keep the footage otherwise the same, except add some redone special effects sequences. My concern was that those new sequences would look completely out of place next to the grainy old footage.

Luckily, they didn’t stop there. In addition to the new CGI clips, the original footage has been cleaned up and enhanced. The details on the actors’ faces look much more high-definition now, and in general the scenes look more detailed and, well, better.

The only gripe I have is that actors who were not originally in the episodes have reportedly been added to the backgrounds of some scenes. That’s likely getting some Star Trek purists pretty ticked off.

Nevertheless, having watched several remastered episodes, I can at the very least be thrilled about the fact that the best component of the show – the writing – has remained just as heart-warming and exciting.