Scrapbook
Scrapbook Albert of Arabia Remember how, in the days following 9/11, Arabs living in the United States were "indiscriminately rounded up," typically on "minor charges of overstaying a visa" or...
...As he informs one of the "others" prior to beating him to a bloody pulp, "I was 23 years old when the Americans came to my country...
...I was a good man...
...When the questioning turned toward Israel, and "several audience members criticized the United States for what they described as 'unconditional' U.S...
...Reflecting on the bishop's surprise announcement, his assistant, the Rev...
...Security forces arrested and detained reformers, some of whom continued at year's end to seek an open trial...
...Most trials were closed, and defendants usually appeared before judges without legal counsel...
...V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, has entered a treatment center for alcoholism...
...But according to former vice president of the United States and current cable TV executive Al Gore, who uttered the statements quoted above, that's exactly what happened...
...The Government continued to discriminate against women, ethnic and religious minorities and to impose strict limitations on worker rights...
...There was little government transparency, especially notable in official budgets, and with no laws providing the right to access government information...
...According to that day's program, Gore's speech was supposed to be on the "IT Business," which we thought stood for information technology but maybe is Saudi shorthand for infidel-trashing...
...Robinson well in his course of treatment, from the sound of things, he seems to have the therapeutic lingo down already...
...In November, he traveled to England to meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to debate at Oxford University, and be interviewed by the BBC...
...Remember the climate of retribution and hate-mon-gering that pervaded the land in those terrible days...
...You see...
...support for Israel," according to AP reporter Jim Krane, Gore dodged the issue, saying only, "We can't solve that long conflict in exchanges here...
...Number one: a former vice president painting a melodramatically invidious picture of the United States in a paid speech to an audience of foreign nationals—all without ever mentioning the decidedly real human rights abuses occurring at that very second in the country writing his check...
...Since his appointment in 2003, which put the worldwide Anglican communion in an uproar, Bishop Robinson seems to have spent considerably more time making public appearances as the Gay Bishop than ministering to the spiritual needs of the 49 congregations in the New Hampshire diocese...
...The worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States...
...Fine company Gore is keeping...
...But Bishop Robinson, as the Times lede put it, is no typical clergyman...
...While we certainly wish Mr...
...Ordinarily, such news doesn't make the pages of the Ne-w York Times, or attract the attention of The Scrap-BOOK...
...Remember how these newly captive political prisoners of the United States government were subjected to "terrible abuses...
...Gore leveled these accusations against his country on February 12, in Room "Al Qasr 1" inside the Jeddah International Exhibition Center in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he was a headliner for the seventh annual Jeddah Economic Forum—a sort of Davos for the burkas-and-beheadings set...
...Oh, and there's an Iraqi torturer stuck on the island who was taught his monstrous trade by American troops during the first Gulf war...
...You want to know who I am...
...Although none of his colleagues had seen evidence of alcohol abuse, or knew of any "precipitating event" that would drive Bishop Robinson to seek treatment, he said in a message to his diocese that he has chosen "to deal with my increasing dependence on alcohol . . . which, for years, I have thought of as a failure of will or discipline on my part, rather than a disease over which my particular body simply has no control, except to stop drinking altogether...
...Immense, perhaps, but also self-generated...
...Accompanying Gore on the dais was "Moh'd Sayed Ismail from Multimedia University in Malaysia" and moderator Omar Khalifati, the "Chairman, Xenel & Computer Associations (Xeca), Saudi Arabia...
...Finally, Gore criticized immigration policies targeting countries suspected of connections to Islamist terrorism— countries like Saudi Arabia, where 15 out of the 19 9/11 hijackers had coinci-dentally been born...
...Referring to the above-mentioned terrible crimes to which Arabs in America had been made victim, Gore assured the crowd, "I do want you to know that it does not represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of the citizens of my country...
...If Bishop Robinson were to recline on The ScRAPBOOK's couch, we would suggest that he read his public message back to himself, substituting "being the Gay Bishop" wherever the words "alcohol" and "drinking" appear...
...Saddam's Republican guard was not full of psychotic, torturing madmen until the Americans showed up to teach them the tricks of the trade in 1991...
...Bishop Robinson Update THE SCRAPBOOK couldn't help but notice that the Rt...
...From the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for the Kingdom of Saud, 2004: The Government's human rights record remained poor overall with continuing serious problems, despite some progress...
...Neither do we...
...For the next six years, I did things I wish I could erase from my memory— things which I never thought myself to be capable of...
...In a flashback during last week's episode, we learn that our sympathetic Iraqi character was forced by an American soldier to torture a fellow Iraqi for information about a downed American chopper pilot...
...Tim Rich, said that "the pressure of the last three years has been immense...
...I was a soldier...
...Citizens did not have the right to change their government...
...My name is Sayid Jarrah...
...And when they left—I was something different...
...In the words of the Ne-w York Times, he has "marched in gay parades and received honors at conferences...
...The Government reportedly infringed on individuals' privacy rights...
...Security forces continued to abuse detainees and prisoners, arbitrarily arrest, and hold persons in incommunicado detention...
...The thoughtless way in which visas are now handled— that is a mistake," he said...
...Get Lost The tropical island at the center of ABC's hit show Lost features a number of curiosities: Polar bears appear and disappear, a group of mysterious "others" are slowly picking off the survivors of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, and a sinister black cloud races around the island, terrifying our protagonists...
...The Government continued to restrict freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, religion, and movement...
...Sounds like Al Gore's been moonlighting as a screenwriter...
...THE SCRAPBOOK can think of a lot of even worse things than that, actually...
...And I am a torturer...
...He is "the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church...
...There was widespread public perception that corruption by some members of the royal family and in the executive branch of the Government was a serious problem...
...Somewhere during the Q&A with the 2,700-person, majority-Saudi audience, however, Gore decided to play to the gallery...
...That may not be the kind of therapy he's seeking, but it might remind him of the duties of a priest and bishop before the next parade invitation arrives...
...There were cases in which Mutawwa'in continued to intimidate, abuse, and detain citizens and foreigners...
...Scrapbook Albert of Arabia Remember how, in the days following 9/11, Arabs living in the United States were "indiscriminately rounded up," typically on "minor charges of overstaying a visa" or "not having a green card in proper order," then "held in conditions that were just unforgivable...
Vol. 11 • February 2006 • No. 23
