the cinnamon peeler's wife

the nytimes magazine offers an insightful look at islam, democracy, and what may lie in the future for iraq: an islamic democracy for iraq?

the article is by dutch-born ian buruma. i am not such a huge fan of his book 'occidentalism' (being a lame attempt at turning said's orientalism around), but i did enjoy some of his guardian columns a few year's back. he was a fellow at the woodrow wilson institute in dc. regardless, his piece in the nytimes seems to support what i have thought all along. the more a nation suppresses religion (here islam) the more people turn to it and usually the extremist strain. buruma offers up examples of indonesia, iran, turkey, and the rest of the usual suspects. but i agree that if one allows islamic parties to coexist in a democracy usually they have to listen to the people and in turn moderate themselves. by making religion forbidden, in times of tyranny and exasperation, people turn to more extreme forms. let the islamists, the sufis, the wahabis, the secularists all vie for the people's vote! usually the result after some time is some form of moderate and culturally appropriate politics. but by banning religion, govts give the extremists the lure of fighting some sort of holy crusade against secularism. anyway read it, interesting thoughts on iraq.

other thoughts:
(1) should i give up on hotmail? everyone keeps pushing gmail on me, but since i use outlook for both my hotmail and school accounts- it didn't really matter to me. plus recently hotmail increased my storage space tremendously. however, hotmail has recently been down and not available more than it has worked. is it worth all the changes to leave hotmail? thoughts?
(2) during break i have a list of things i want to read: the new boston review issue, the latest le monde articles, roald dahl's omnibus of short stories, moor's last sigh (again), germs/guns/& steel, eats/shoots/& leaves, imam al-haddad's treatises on mutual reminding and good manners and the other non-law books in my growing pile! or maybe i will just sleep the entire break.
(3)for ppl in c-bus: does anyone really pay for wi-fi at barnes and noble? especially when you can walk two doors down to cup-of-joe for free wi-fi and better coffee (read not starbucks!)
(4) 'i am not a prophet' aka the dylan interview on 60 minutes. hmmmm, lots to say, but just one thing: bob, where can i get what you are on? oh and one more thing: "Dylan has been nominated this year for the Nobel Prize in literature for his songwriting." okay i know bob dylan is great, but the nobel prize?
(5) aerosmith has been around for some 30 years and yet i think their best song was 'dream on' way back in 1973. not a huge aerosmith fan, but steven tyler did something right when he wrote that song.
(6) why am i not studying and writing this instead?