To Debbie Almontaser, There are certain things you don't do.

You don't tug on Superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind

You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger

And when I go to foreign countries (or a foreign culture in this country), I don't question their culture or impose my values on them. The concept "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" is almost 2000 years old and still valid.

I just watch and appreciate my culture all that more.

Trollstein:
You should read this. It'll make you mad.
Steve

Steve Brodner:
I have read the NYT article and remain calm.
(At least I got to page 4 or 5 before the subscription box preempted my further reading.)
Here are my comments:
Firstly, Pipes may have been a player in this sequence of events but according to the article, he was not the major cause of the final result. (Your MJ article pins most of the mess on him).
Next, the covering of a woman’s head IS NOT part of the Muslim religion. It is traditional Arab dress code, not associated with the Islamic prophet Mohammed--because it pre-dates his life and times. The Qur’an only says that a woman should dress respectfully and not exhibit her bosoms. The full face and full body garb comes from times when women were cattle and were bought and sold. Since many of these women had been abducted to begin with, the new ‘owners’ did not want the relatives or former husband from noticing their missing kin. Much like removing the license place from a stolen car. So much for scripture.
Also, the NY Times mentions a plethora of pipes statements but very few are in quotes. This sort of reporting bothers me and I don’t care who the referenced speaker is.
“ . . . . arguably nowhere in the United States more than in New York City.”
Almost any conservative evangelist styled community, Dallas, Phoenix, Utah, etc. etc. would make NY city seem like Arabs themselves.
“ . . . Mr. Pipes is perhaps best known for Campus Watch, a national initiative he created to scrutinize Middle Eastern programs at colleges and universities. The drive has accused professors of, among other things, being soft on militant Islam and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.”
Which they often are. The above statement is true but the subject line is also true. Generally, U.S. universities lean heavily to the left and in many cases, actually teach false (or at least incomplete) history of the Mid East—to erroneously favor the Arab cause. Why? Hard to know for certain. One possibility is that many of the hip-to-the-jive professors are banging their co-eds and can get them moistened--with radical leftist vitriol. Another possibility is that Arab oil money has found its way into the university system. Maybe both. Maybe these professors just dislike Jews. Perhaps a mix of all the above and more.
“The Stop the Madrassa Coalition”
This was uncalled for. Pipes knew better but could not resist to partake in the propaganda. The school described was NOT a “Madrassa”.
“Cynthia A. McKinney of Georgia, whom Mr. Pipes and others have characterized as an Islamist sympathizer.”
As far as I know, that is a true statement.
BTW: During the 1992 presidential election campaign, I got in some fairly big trouble for helping a Black Muslim from the inner city attend all the top level meetings and I even gave him my ticket to the convention and dinner with Clinton. Why? He was perfect. He didn’t hate anyone. The lawyers laughed and scorned. But by the 2004 Kerry campaign, these same influence peddlers were begging me to find him and bring him back. You see by then, the campaign was far too white and with no Muslims in sight.