And an e-mail comes in on FAQ with a heartfelt request:
Will you try to use your status as a celebrity to protect against the violence done to Muslim Americans? I'm sure and other famous people speaking out against these acts would be great...
Well, sure, for whatever good it will do. The people who would do violence to Muslims, or to Americans of Arab descent, are probably not reading this blogger. (And considering the first death in 'retaliation' of an American was some people in Arizona shooting a Sikh (from the Punjab, and, as a Sikh, obviously not a follower of Islam), I don't even think that, for example, explaining that the Taliban no more represents Islam than Torquemada and his thugs represented Christianity or the Nazi Party represented neo-paganism would do much good. The Arizonans who killed the Sikh spotted the guy with the beard in the turban and figured that the gentleman had committed the crime of being brown-skinned and foreign, and that was enough for them.)
(And me, I wish people would reread Sandman # 50, RAMADAN, and the ifrit chapter in American Gods.)