Boom, Shake Shake Shake the Room.

OK, so I know that I've been roughly completely derelict here ... but if van Gogh (rhymes with "cock") can die an unknown pauper, then it would suggest that many great artistic endeavors start slowly. Ergo, as Senor Wakamole suggested, better than never.

(Of course, I think I actually have posted here before, but the mere fact of my uncertainty thereof, and my general lack of follow-through to test said hypothesis, leaves me, at the end of the day, here.)

Right.

So I understand that there's a general moratorium, implicit or ex-, on Events of the Day in our present forum. We're not members of that Drudgery that is known by the witerati as the blogosphere. (Derived, painfully, from the logosphere of Mikhail Bakhtin, despite what the Intarweb would have you believe.)

But, see, here's the deal ...

I have relatives in Glasgow. I have relatives in London (though, since we ain't rich, nowhere fucking NEAR Piccadilly). In fact, I have a family reunion scheduled on the west coast of Scotland next spring -- a reunion which, my darling Scots aunt has charmingly intimated, will result in my public castration and resultant expulsion from the family if I fail to attend.

Now, lemme state for the record that I'm not overly worried about my family. We're tough bastards, and most of us live in the countryside anyway. And this whole freakin' al-Qaeda thingy would be solved in about 90 seconds if Osama had the supreme misfortune to meet my aunt, who is the most righteous bitch of a woman Allah ever saw fit to catheterize the human race with.

(I love her madly, of course, and she easily sees me as her favorite nephew, even if, as I recall, she referred to me as "that stupid degenerate American" the last time I saw her, which just so happened to be at my grandmother's funeral. Classy lady, my aunt, and a mean drunk.

She fucking rocks.)

But I'm mortal, and I'm human, and despite all evidence to the contrary, I do have a soul. So when some psychotic dickholes decide that the illusory promise of spending all eternity with 72 virgins is more important than preserving the blessed sanctity of life as granted by the one God whom Muhammad prophesied, I object. And when these ecumenical Mongoloids commit this prideful heresy in such a manner as to endanger my family, however unlikely that scenario may actually be, I react.

Which is to say, I'm fucking angry. I'm not sad. I'm not scared. I want to hit somebody, anybody, in the mouth. Hard. Many times.

I know this is not the proper definition of Christian love. I don't particularly care, being (a) a misanthrope, and (b) not Christian. I know this is not liberal, or peacenik, or Quaker. Again, my general response is on the order of "fuck off". I'm not a conservative. But I'm also not a pussy. My theory is, you want to take me out, then you fucking bring it to my door, 'cause you better damn sure believe I'm gonna bring it to yours.

That said, despite my redneck origins, I don't even remotely blame any particular ethnic or religious group. I will formally state the platitudes that Islam is a religion of peace, but really, it boils down to the fact that I'm not that stupid. If Islam as a religion wanted to wipe us out, we'd be dead. There's almost 2 billion Muslims. There's 300 million of us. Even adding Europe in, and even including European Muslims, that still only gets us to about 1.1 billion. It's simple math. Head-to-head, they win.

(This is also further evidence that we really, really, really need to cater to Catholic Latin America and Hindu India to strategically combat Islam, China, and Russia over the next 100 years. But that's another post.)

My point is, the vast majority of Muslims just want what we want -- to be left the fuck alone.
And you can't really blame some of them if they get pissed off when they're NOT left alone. You stir up a hornet's nest, you might get stung, and in all honesty, you probably deserve it (Dick Cheney, I'm looking at you).

But see, here's the thing -- as we used to say in the neighborhood I grew up in -- hey man, I ain't sayin' shit. Which, roughly translated, means that my government doesn't necessarily speak for me, just as Ahmadinejad doesn't speak for probably 70% of Persians, Musharraf CLEARLY doesn't speak for about 80% of Pakistan, and nobody has a goddamn clue who speaks for Lebanon or Palestine. (Sorry, the Gaza Strip, since saying "Palestine" apparently makes me an anti-Semite.)

Sorry. Seriously, I'm sorry. (Not about the Palestine thing, I really couldn't care less.) I jumped on here needing to spit some lyrics freestyle, which necessarily means that it's a wayward narrative -- even more so than my usual, which Commodore B-square can attest is Byzantine at best.

But know this -- I'm fucking pissed. I will continue to be pissed. The next time this happens, either in Glasgow, London, DC, or wherever I feel I have a right to habitate, I'll be even more pissed. And I'm not about to join the military, or take up vigilantism, or vote for a xenophobe. What I WILL do, and what I have done for several years now, is rededicate myself to helping my country behind the scenes, developing tools and techniques that provide some level of assistance, however indirectly, in helping to preserve and protect this country's citizens and, more importantly, its state of mind. Because I believe with every fiber of my being that, despite our current miserable state and quality of governance, this is the greatest nation on the face of the Earth, and I'm both proud and grateful as hell to be lucky enough to be a part of it.

Again, I'm sorry. I doubt y'all read this far. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak my mind, and I encourage you to do the same, as you see fit.

Assalaam Alaikum.

God Bless America.