Here is a sad and laughable news clip:
A man named Boubker Lamkadmi was palling around with his coworkers after work at the Whirlpool Refrigeration Appliances factory in Amana, Iowa when he made a joke about blowing up Amana because his "friend" bin Laden was dead. His coworkers then turned around and tattled on him. He was arrested, promptly lost his job (and possibly his apartment), was charged with the felony threat of terrorism, and is now speaking with the FBI. His face is all over the Iowa news and his story is inciting comments such as:
Ask him if he'd like to skin dive without air.
And,
He wasnt kidding. He just verbalized what every other Muslim was thinking. Oh wait, Islam is a peaceful false belief (rolleyes). I think the only people that actually believe that load of crap are Feds...I hope I've managed to piss off some raghead somewhere, God bless.
(And these comments came straight off a police website. Yikes. The comment sections of local news sources aren't any better.)
A shopkeeper I was speaking with yesterday in Decorah, Iowa told me that the locals treat her like a suspect outsider because she's originally from Wisconsin. So I can only imagine how Lamkadmi (who is brown and accented) felt; his neighbor says Lamkadmi "wanted to make friends, said he didn't have a lot of friends." Funnily enough, I haven't come across any news stories that say where Lamkadmi is originally from or what his ethnicity is; all they say is that he is "of Marengo" (another Iowan town). I suppose their hope is to distance themselves from racial profiling by leaving that out... It seems like an understatement to say, too little too late.
The news channel I first saw the story on was flashing phrases like "Terror Threat in Iowa!" and "bin Laden threat in Iowa!" and everyone interviewed was afraid. People are so bored they want to be terrified.
OMG. I’m sorry but what an idiot. Would it be cruel to say I laughed? To make such stupid jokes in front of your white “friends!” Shit, I wouldn’t make a stuipd joke like that in front of my Muslim in-laws. Ppl need excuses these days to turn someone in as a “threat.” What the hell is a Muslim doing in Iowa? Hello!!
In other news, a Texas teacher was fired for making a freshmen girl cry after he caled her out in front of her classmates and said that she must be grieveing at OBL’s death. On a positive note, the classmates stood up for her and comforted her. The story can be found at Houston Chronicle.
Well, not cruel, but I’ll relay something this article brings to mind.
I work with a guy who has spent most of his life in Australia and is originally from Somalia. We were joking around the other day and he cracked some not dissimilar jokes to the fellow in Iowa. We were talking about religion (he’s muslim) and we’ve previously discussed the wave of islamophobia that occurred, and has been heavily stoked, after 9/11.
Thinking about that now, I believe making jokes like these are sometimes a way of talking in an oblique fashion about the trauma of being subjected to discrimination and stereotyping. Kind of, “if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry”. I also used to work with a guy whose family fled Afghanistan in the 1990s and he’d make terrorist jokes all the time.
In both of these instances, you’d really have to be pretty darn stupid to interpret them as anything but the innocent words they were.
From Wikipedia on the Dakota War of 1862:
In early December [1862, in the aftermath of the War], 303 Sioux prisoners were convicted of murder and rape by military tribunals and sentenced to death. Some trials lasted less than 5 minutes. No one explained the proceedings to the defendants, nor were the Sioux represented by a defense in court. Pres. Abraham Lincoln personally reviewed the trial records to distinguish between those who had engaged in warfare against the U.S., versus those who had committed crimes of rape and murder against civilians.
Henry Whipple, the Episcopal bishop of Minnesota and a reformer of U.S. policies toward Native Americans, urged Lincoln to proceed with leniency. On the other hand, General Pope and Minnesota Senator Morton S. Wilkinson told him that leniency would not be received well by the white population. Governor Ramsey warned Lincoln that, unless all 303 Sioux were executed, “[P]rivate revenge would on all this border take the place of official judgment on these Indians.” In the end, Lincoln commuted the death sentences of 264 prisoners, but he allowed the execution of 39 men.
This clemency resulted in protests from Minnesota… Republicans did not fare as well in Minnesota in the 1864 election as they had before. Ramsey (by then a senator) informed Lincoln that more hangings would have resulted in a larger electoral majority. The President reportedly replied, “I could not afford to hang men for votes.”
Even Ha’aretz sees through the modern Lincoln: “Obama murdered bin Laden for a fistful of votes”
link to haaretz.com
Here in England, the day after, five young London men of Bangladeshi background were arrested up near Sellafield nuclear power station, and their family homes searched. The day after that report, the news bulletins were very clearly enunciating that all five had been released without charge.
If anyone is looking for laughs, an Indian comedy film, “tere bin laden” (without you) is really good. it has English subtitles. I think i’m going to rent it again after exams and watch it.
It’s depicted in Pakistan. A journalist and a leftist radio talk show host get together and come up with a plan to make money after they spot a guy who looks very much like OBL. They put out a video and sell it to a news network…. good stuff.
Out of the mouths of babes. Yesterday, a 12 year-old-girl told me that when she was “younger” she confused Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Bush’s propaganda machine worked.
I wonder if the killing of OBL inflamed people’s passions or whether this kind of irrational response could have happened last week too.
My friend’s eleven and a half year old son living in SoCal had NO IDEA who Osama Bin Laden was when it came up in conversation some three weeks ago. He could barely pronounce Osama’s full name correctly and we kept repeating it at him till he got it. Needless to say I was astounded, a touch disturbed, yet envious of his pure and precious pre 9/11 state of mind.
Then a coupla days ago he foned me to arrange the pick up of his skateboard helmet that he’d left behind at my house on his last visit; after which, at the point of saying goodbye, he suddenly squeaked: “So like, you know that guy, you know, erm, the one with the long name, they killed him in the night d’you hear ’bout it?” Poor baby, his brain just won’t wrap itself around Osama’s name. “What, huh?… oh you mean Osama Bin Laden?” He chirped: “Yeah yeah he’s dead they killed him so why’d they kill ‘im?”. He took me by surprise and not wanting to extend the conversation replied: “Well that’s a long story little guy – why don’t you go ask your dad?” He mopped and mowed: “I already did and he like said stuff and like lotsa people’s names and… I dunno, I can’t remember.” Myself, knowing that his dad is disengaged and lazy about politics (gets his news from CNN in the kitchen and yahoo news online), I felt that I could be treading on a minefield if I were to say stuff that contradicts what he’d already heard from his dad, so I decided to employ the obscure motto: when in doubt, offer sympathy. “Yes, yes, you’re right – it’s too much to take in all in one shoot – and all these long strange-sounding names makes it all so confusing huh. Maybe I can come up with an easy way to explain it – well I’ll sure think about it okay?” He paused; then: “Well alright um and why they killed the three kids in Pancakeson.” OY-vey and my eyes rolled: “You mean Pakistan, Pakistan, right?” I was about to instruct him like a teacher to repeat the word but he interrupted animated: “Yeah what’s goin’ on there? D’you see the helicopter bamm crashed on the wall?!” Here, one can only chuckle at the spontaneous black comedy of innocence: “Uhuh I saw the picture, you know the whole world saw the same picture – actually they’re making a movie ’bout it right now.” The little sprite delighted: “Oh really? That’s cool.”
After I hung up the fone I thought: Oh crap I’d better quick come up with a simple and honest explanation of the Bin Laden story to tell my friend’s kid – before Hollywood plants it’s dumb and infectious seed in his cute and curious brain.
On the one hand, such threats are no joking matter. An adult with a brain should have known that. The press is chalkful of idiots at airports who thought it was funny to make all kinds of jokes about this or that, only to end up charged with threat of terrorism. Some things you simply don’t joke about.
On the other hand, had he been white and his name were Jim McCormick, he would have gone home and returned to work as usual, without incident.
I’m inclined to think that someone at his workplace had it in for him and this incident was a welcome opportunity to get back or get rid of Boubker. Perhaps he was up for a promotion and someone else thought he deserved it more than Boubker did. It’s all politics.
That thought also crossed my mind, people can be very petty. I’d like to see an interview with the people who reported him.
wow – shocking story…
“So I can only imagine how Lamkadmi (who is brown and accented) felt; his neighbor says Lamkadmi “wanted to make friends, said he didn’t have a lot of friends.”
paranoia reigns supreme…. i feel sorry for a country that has to operate under these types of circumstances too, especially one that likes to think of itself as free……………….
The Iowans sound like a bunch of settlers. “Ask him if he’d like to skin dive without air.”
Hard to say that this is all over the news in Iowa since I live in Iowa and this is the first I’ve heard of it.
I certainly agree with this though:
“A shopkeeper I was speaking with yesterday in Decorah, Iowa told me that the locals treat her like a suspect outsider because she’s originally from Wisconsin.”
I moved to small town Iowa from a thousand miles away years ago, and am still treated as “suspect”.
All that corn. Corn robs the body of niacin, depletes it, along with your mood.
Really? Corn deplets niacin? ‘Cuz ive been grilling some corn lately, actually every day!
I get my fill of corn from High Fructose Corn Syrup ;)
Sheeesh it’s in everything. Well, almost everything.
Yes, high fructose corn syrum is in everything! Even in ketchup. I try to avoid it as much as I can. My sis in law, who’s Canadian, said that they don’t put that in their products.
News update about the bin Laden assassination:
The Power of Nightmares.
To all those who think this man is being treated unfairly because of his ethnicity, check this out
Several years ago, Ann Coulter famously said, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.” In this interview, she was asked if she stood by this quote, and she responded: “Of course I regret it. I should have added, “after everyone had left the building except the editors and reporters.”
As we all know, Coulter was investigated by the FBI, held in administrative detention without charges for several years, waterboarded repeatedly to determine what she knows (nothing, it turns out), and has disappeared into a CIA black site secret prison where the worst of the worst are held.
>> Several years ago, Ann Coulter famously said …
The difference, y’see, is that Ann doesn’t hate America. Boubker (and, really, what kind of good, Christian name is that?), on the other hand, may or may not be a freedom-hating Islamofascist, but should we really wait until that smoking gun turns into a mushroom cloud to find out?! 8-o
Following is the latest on the attack on OBL:
The pakistani security services confirmed that THERE WERE NO WEAPONS in that house!!
If that info is true, then why were OBL with five other persons executed?
How could he defend himself against 25 highly trained soldiers? How could there be a firefight when no weapons were there?
The pakistanis were not informed of this particular action, they are pissed of and warned the USA on TV never ever to repeat such an action or we must bear the consequences!
A question to our President: how can one have a firefight without guns and why could 25 seals not be able to capture an unarmed old man?
It becomes obvious that the order was to kill, not to capture.
This is a lose-lose situation for Obama. If he produces pictures of the dead OBL, the moslem world will honor him as a martyr. If he refuses, they say it is a hoax, a lie, OBL still lives. Not to mention the problems he caused with Pakistan and the human right activists charging him with illegal, premeditated murder.
Don´t we have anyone in the WH who has a little brain and can see further than his/her nose?
I don’t know about him being hailed as a martyr by the Muslim world. Those that consider him as such are the few who already consider him to be a hero.
Osama was a great excuse to kill scores of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And now Pakistan?). If the killing stops, Muslims will appreciate that he’s gone, but if the invasions and occupations continue, then killing him, instead of arresting him, does raise questions.
Are you ready to bet that the attacks will not stop?
Two days after the death of OBL, (his death was also confirmed by the AlQaida), we again attacked a village in Pakistan, with several civilian deaths.
In response Pakistan closed down the US airbase from where those unmanned planes operate and cut the number of US advisors to half.
We are playing with fire! Although Pakistan depends on our yearly military aid, they cannot continue to loose face forever, the people are rebelling. Eventually they will throw us out and cut our supply line to Afghanistan.