Hero/Hack
My heroes this week are moderate Muslims around the world.
I've been lamenting that there is no moderate Muslim voice, just organizations like CAIR. Well, first elections in Iran posted losses for Ahmadinejad's faction, and while these officials have no national policy making power (and Iran is really run by the final word of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), it still shows that Iranians wish for more reformist leaders like Khatami. And I think this could be a good sign:
My hack this week is TIME magazine for their 'Person of the Year.' While I'm glad to have won, and will promptly be adding it to my resumé, this dumb gimmick is just too...well, gimmicky to work. If they wanted to single out content generators, why not Instapundit, Ze Frank, or other well-known internet types? It just seems like they couldn't be bothered, and it just screams laziness. From an interview with Stephen Koepp, TIME's deputy editing manager:
Remember, I am still taking submissions for Hero and Hack of the Year! And I guarantee it will be better than TIME's Person of the Year!
I've been lamenting that there is no moderate Muslim voice, just organizations like CAIR. Well, first elections in Iran posted losses for Ahmadinejad's faction, and while these officials have no national policy making power (and Iran is really run by the final word of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), it still shows that Iranians wish for more reformist leaders like Khatami. And I think this could be a good sign:Local Muslim leaders lit candles yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis, in a ceremony held just days after Iran had a conference denying the genocide.
American Muslims "believe we have to learn the lessons of history and commit ourselves: Never again," said Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, standing before the eternal flame flickering from a black marble base that holds dirt from Nazi concentration camps.
. . .
"The issue here is: There might be somebody from X and Y country, a Muslim, saying the same thing," Magid said. If anyone wants to make Holocaust denial an Islamic cause, he said, "we want to say to them: You cannot use our name."
My hack this week is TIME magazine for their 'Person of the Year.' While I'm glad to have won, and will promptly be adding it to my resumé, this dumb gimmick is just too...well, gimmicky to work. If they wanted to single out content generators, why not Instapundit, Ze Frank, or other well-known internet types? It just seems like they couldn't be bothered, and it just screams laziness. From an interview with Stephen Koepp, TIME's deputy editing manager:
It came down to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran and in this issue we have an exclusive interview with him. But we felt and ultimately decided the way the news is being reported these days, the culminations of citizen journalism and its relationship to digital democracy, was the important issue of the day.Look at that last sentence: "citizen journalism," "digital democracy." Hooray for corporate buzzwords that don't mean anything!
Remember, I am still taking submissions for Hero and Hack of the Year! And I guarantee it will be better than TIME's Person of the Year!
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