"I hope that in the next century we will come to terms with our
abysmal ignorance of the Muslim world. Muslims aren’t a bunch of
wackos and nuts. They are decent, brilliant, talented people with a
great civilization and traditions of their own, including legal traditions.
Americans know nothing about them. There are people in that part of
the world with whom we are simply out of touch. That’s a great
challenge for the next century."
--Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, in 1999.
And I remember when Jews felt like persecuted outsiders. Rashid Khalidi is secular, by the way. His father was Muslim, his mother Christian, neither practicing.
(Thanks to David Bloom)
I don't know why I am reminded of this post by Yglesias on Peretz:
http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2007/01/better_hummus_too.php
In a recent membership recruiting email, INEAS points out that every time we use our Hindu-Arabic positional decimal numerals, we should thank the intellectual synthesis
and