Looking for Cheesecake in the Muslim World
David Weigel | January 17, 2007, 9:47am
Craig Malisow has an odd story in the Houston Press;
Pakistani-American Mariyah Moten participated in a Miss Bikini World shoot in China, and let herself be photographed with a Pakistani flag. She graced the cover of a cheesecake calender. And while Malisow tries to sex the story up, the point seems to be... no one cared.
As Miss Canada Pakistan founder Sonia Ahmed says, "They have opened up the women' s rights, and women are now free to do what they want and dress how they want, and represent Pakistan in whichever way they feel they want to represent Pakistan. It's becoming more secular."
After the firestorm over Moten, Ahmed says, she's entered contestants in four pageants without a peep from Pakistani officials. She says it's part of a cultural shift that, at times, can be confusing.
"The majority right now is a modern and liberal government," she says. "The people are now confused...thinking, 'OK, we were once upon a time very Islamic, now we've got to be modern. So if we're going to tell everyone that we're Islamic, are we going to be the bad people?'"
This is, of course, the most promising news you could apply to the future of Iraq in quite a while.
UPDATE:
Nick Gillespie noted Moten last year, when it appeared as though the model and her deep thoughts might actually prove controversial.
Loundry | January 18, 2007, 9:58am | #
J sub D
Wiretapping.
I oppose it on principle, but the issue is more complex than the word "wiretapping" itself can convey.
Torture.
I fully support waterboarding of the mujahedin. I also support the killing of the mujahedin, each and every single one of them. If anything, we need to be more vicious in this regard, not less. At this point, the Bush Administration has been obsequious in regards to the evil religion of Islam, and that acquiescence to political correctness has severely damaged our military effectiveness. "Progressives" are like Bush in this regard, but ten times worse.
Disregarding internationl treaties.
Can you be more specific?
Gitmo.
I support the use of Gitmo to imprison, interrogate, and waterboard mujahedin captured in foreign countries. Then again, if we defeated our enemies, then perhaps Gitmo wouldn't be necessary. Hard to say since we won't pursue the morally right policy of utterly defeating our enemies.
I stridently oppose the gross violations of the rights of American citizens, even that bastard Jose Padilla (who should be tried for treason). The deprivation of constitutional rights of American citizens is one of the worst things that Bush has done in his idiotic "war on terror".
Maybe not evil, but awfully stupid wouldn't you say?
I think the Bush administration's policies are colossally stupid, not to mention weak. The moronic "nation building" we're doing in Iraq is destined to fail. We need to destroy America's enemies, period, and that principally means Iran. Tehran should be destroyed first, and we should heavily propagandize in Iran which city will be next if they don't completely surrender. In other words, we should start doing to America's enemies of the present what we did to America's enemies of the past, namely, Germany and Japan, who, after being utterly defeated and their cities lying in smouldering ruins, now propser as our allies. By contrast, the enemies to which we choose to "negotiate" and have "diplomacy" with parade missles in their streets chanting "Death to America!"
Do you really think the Iraqi people are better off today than they were priot to the "Coalition of the Willing" invasion and occupation? Please tell us all why.
I don't give a shit about the Iraqi people. We should fire-bomb fallujah and leaflet which city will be next if they do not completely surrender. Actually, we should get out of Iraq and focus our military on Iran. I fully support the civil war in Iraq and I hope it intensifies.
Oh, I'm sorry, did you think I was a Neo-Con? That's your full-blown sense of "nuance" compelling to you speak when you can't think outside of your world in which there are only two sides, and your side is right by definition.
To everybody else, I know, don't feed the trolls. My apologies.
I'm sure my opinions must seem disgusting to you, and, in that sense, I must look like a "troll" to you. I'm not doing this to get a negative reaction out of you, though I can probably merely open my mouth and someone as cowardly, weak, and compliant as you will be offended.
