Results tagged “islam”

Senator Joseph Lieberman discussed the Fort Hood shooting on Fox News yesterday and said he would launch a Senate investigation, noting there were "strong warning signs" that suspect army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan was an "Islamist extremist." The Independent Democrat from Connecticut added, "If that is true, the murder of these 13 people was a terrorist act and, in fact, it was the most destructive terrorist act to be committed on American soil since 9/11."

The Daily News follows up on the Muslim woman who slashed her husband's throat, apparently over his lack of devotion to Islam and his forcing her to eat pork, wear short skirts, and drink. Rabia Sarwar's handwritten confession stated, "I did not sleep. I started thinking to kill him," and then she went to the kitchen to get a knife.

A Staten Island woman was charged with attempted murder, assault and criminal possession of a deadly weapon after slashing her husband's throat with a knife. The police say the devout Muslim woman was upset her husband did not follow Islam strictly, allegedly making her drink alcohol, dress in short skirts, and eat pork.

The lovely-looking restaurant and bar The Breslin begins lunch service tomorrow, and co-owner Ken Friedman (The Spotted Pig) is planning on serving alcohol despite objections from the Masjid Ar-Rahman mosque across the street. Earlier this month the mosque’s leaders called a meeting with Friedman at The Ace Hotel, where The Breslin is located, and asked, "Can you move the bar?" Friedman's response makes us want to hurry over to The Breslin right now for a dram of Laphroaig to show our support (and drown out the voices):

          

President Obama delivered a speech about the United States' relationship with the Muslim world from Cairo University in Egypt, telling a worldwide audience, "I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles — principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings." Full text here and video after the jump, but here are some excerpts:

America is not and never will be at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear. But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire...

Continue reading "Obama Asks For A "New Beginning" With Muslim World"

The Sun reports Mayor Bloomberg doesn't think Muslim holy days should become school holidays. His reason? "The truth of the matter is we need more children in school. More, not less."

Over the weekend, a jury found a black man guilty of second degree manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon in the August 2006 shooting of a 17-year-old on Long Island. The defendant, John White, grabbed a pistol when a group of teens (who were white) swarmed around his home. The teens were angry at White's son and in the standoff, White shot Daniel Cicciaro in the face.

A look at some of this week's noteworthy television:

A look at some noteworthy television this week: Lincoln Center Tree Lighting 2007 (Monday, 5:30 p.m, WABC 7) Good Morning America’s Sam Champion and WABC’s Sade Baderinwa host the first televised tree lighting of the season. There will be some performances by Lincoln Center’s resident companies and some guest’s from channel 7’s owner Disney on hand for entertainment for the 8th annual Lincoln Center Holiday Tree lighting. America at a Crossroads (Monday, 9:00 p.m &...

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

Yesterday, six men were arrested for plotting to attack Fort Dix in NJ and other targets in the area. The men, Muslims from (the former) Yugoslavia, Turkey and Jordan, were apprehended after the FBI conducted 14 months of surveillance and infiltrated their group.

A look at some noteworthy television this week:

Given that Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese-Christian poet and artist, whose family moved to Massachusetts when Khalil was young and he learned English in a Boston school, the name for the Academy seems apt for a place that will emphasize bi-lingualism. Almontaser is planning to open the school in September, but is meeting resistance from the current users of PS 282 in Park Slope, where education officials suggested it be located. Parents of PS 282 students are worried about locating older kids (the Khalil Gibran International Academy will begin at the 6th-grade level) with their younger children and fear the new school could be a security risk.

The Pentagon released a transcript where Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has confesses to planning the September 11 attacks, as well as other terror attacks, during a tribunal hearing. The NY Times notes that the hearing "also summarized some of the evidence the Pentagon says supports the designation of Mr. Mohammed as an enemy combatant." Mohammed has been in U.S. custody since his capture in 2003.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: A large fight in the Bronx, an unusual MVA in Manhattan and a "Jet Blue aircraft disturbance" at LaGuardia - Gate B5
• Promises from the Department of Transportation mean nothing, even after two children die
• Activists want tax-paying immigrants to have the right to vote; immigrants did vote in national elections between 1776 and 1926

THEATER: Pot-au-Noir (The Black Hole) is a retelling of the story of Cain & Abel "through the lens of the Great American Myth -- combining images of Hollywood Film Noir, the Gold Rush, the Dust Bowl, and Manifest Destiny with a story that is at the core of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and, therefore, America." Jake Hooker’s new production promises lyrical text, contemporary dance and live music to tell a story of lies, deceit, jealousy, lust, revenge and, finally, murder. - John Del Signore

For various reasons we here at Gothamist have been lightly sidestepping around the current crisis in the Middle East. Luckily there has been a fair amount of news here in New York to keep us busy. And anyway, posting about such a volatile subject seems to just be asking for trouble. Well, here we go trouble. If you've already heard about this, forgive us we were distracted by the blackout. This past Tuesday there was an anti-Israel protest in front of the Israeli mission to the U.N. here in Gotham. At said protest there were signs like these, signs which make us very nervous:

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scenei. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorrito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers.

Whoa-- the New York State Liquor Authority has issued a fatwa against a bunch of bars on West Broadway in Tribeca. Their crime? Apparently they are located a little too close to a low-profile mosque located in one of the nearby buildings (the Sufi Masjid al-Farah at 245 West Broadway.). The SLA has issued summons to The Bubble Lounge, Cercle Rouge, and the Tribeca Tavern. Another bar, The Liquor Store, has already been denied a liquor license, preventing it from reopening after an ownership change last year. The Tribeca Tribune broke the story:

In August, we told you about the Vendys, the first annual streetfood awards sponsored by Streetvendor.org. The awards are a wonderful idea-- they celebrate the hard working people that produce some our city's most delicious food, and help dispel those old notions that everything you buy on the street is poisonous, tastes bad, or both. From the looks of it, the four finalists are tightly matched:

There's a really strange case about two 16 year-old girls being held because the federal authorities are suspicious that they might be suicide bombers. First reported in the NY Times yesterday, there are very few details, just that the two girls, one Bangladeshi, the other Guineanese, were arrested last month and have been held at a Pennsylvania detention center, and that they girls were Muslim and sympathetic to Islamic culture and causes. The Daily News reports that one FBI official says, "We've got a lot of dots that people shouldn't be connecting," but other officials say that when the Bangladeshi girl's parents filed a complaint against her (they were worried she was running away to get married), the girls were already under investigation.

Al Sharpton will host Saturday Night Live on December 6. This, plus Tucker Carlson's Esquire essay about visiting Africa wtih Sharpton, Cornel West, and some members of the Nation of Islam (Carlson finds himself actually liking Sharpton), is the mainstreaming of Al Sharpton. We can't wait for the sketch set at his beauty parlor where he gets coiffed. He will definitely be wearing curlers in his hair at some point.

Who the hell are these idiots? Some drunken idiots beat up a Sikh cab driver and his family in Woodside, Queens, outside their apartment. The thugs yelled at the turbaned cabbie, "Get out of here, bin Laden, go back to your country or we'll kill you." Passing pizza deliveryman Gregory Hodge yelled at the drunks to stop; Hodge tells the Post, "You see this a lot in this neighborhood. You get a few drunk guys and they get beer muscles."

That's the problem with the major organized religions like Christianity, Judiasm, Buddism, and Islam- they never go out and do anything wacky like trying to clone Jesus. NY Times: Religious Sect Says It Will Announce the First Cloned Baby: A religious sect that contends that space travelers created the human race by cloning themselves said yesterday that it would announce today that the first cloned human baby had been born.