Home Columns Books Papers Biography Contact

"Tradition?? The only good traditions are food traditions. The rest are repressive."

"There are two ways to think. The first is to trust to your ancestors, your religious leaders, or your charismatic professors. The second is to question, to challenge, to explore history for meanings, and to analyze issues. This latter is called Critical Thinking, and it is this that is the mission of my web site. "

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman  

December 2010

What Were They Thinking!


We are supposed to be Homo Sapiens (“thinking” or “wise” humans), aren’t we? Some of us are not, alas.

WikiLeaks.

It is astonishing that WikiLeaks and its founder, anarchist Julian Assange, have so many supporters. What kind of thinking can imagine that reading other people’s private messages and publishing them is “freedom of speech?” What kind of world do they think they will have if democratic nations cannot protect themselves from those without democratic protections? His hackers are not the only practitioners of the art. What will they think when a special computer worm will hatch that can sniff out---and snuff out all WikiLeaks transmissions?

The soldier who allegedly downloaded the State Department files and gave (or sold) them to Assange is in prison. If his actions are not treason, what is? But some great thinkers on the Berkeley City Council have declared him a hero. As for Assange, he is a devout anarchist who knows only to destroy, not how to build anything. Happily he is now in jail for another aspect of his anarchy: rape and intimidation of some Swedish women. Beyond the law, eh?

The Oregon Wanabe Terror Attack.

Does anybody really think that the 19-year-old Somali-born jihadi didn’t want to blown up a truck at a tree-lighting ceremony in Portland’s town square? Do they understand the difference between an FBI sting operation and an entrapment? How many times did the FBI (which knew his plans by tapping his communications with his controller in Pakistan) ask him if he really wanted to kill so many people, including women and children? He never flagged in his desire to murder and wound as many as possible—right up to the moment that he used his cell phone signal to detonate the (fortunately fake) bomb.

What monumental ingratitude could govern the thinking of this young man who is lucky to be living in Oregon and not in Somalia? Why would he so hate the country and people who had taken in him and his family (who are grateful)? Religious fanaticism trumps thinking.

Pakistani Court.

The supposedly “secular” court in Pakistan blocked the chance of a presidential pardon for a middle-age Christian woman accused by her neighbors of “insulting the prophet Muhammad” during a neighborhood argument. Muslim hard-liners and their rent-a-mobs in the streets are demonstrating against a Presidential pardon. They want her executed. Apparently the IQ in the street is as low as the literacy rate.

Afghan Police Training.

What kind of thinking keeps us in Afghanistan trying to train police, most of whom cannot read or write? Once again, US trainers were shot to death by a police officer they were trying to train. Apparently the man’s jihadi cult was stronger than any loyalty to Afghanistan.

An Ungrateful Prisoner.

Sometimes, no good deed goes unpunished. A 6- foot 7-inch young brute was taken to our local (Santa Cruz) hospital to have an MRI for a “sore shoulder.” He was escorted by a single guard, a woman, whom he overcame; he stole her gun and her Taser, tasered her, puncher her face, bit her, and fled. What were the police thinking! Happily, he was caught again after an afternoon of mayhem. This 24-year-old criminal has a rap sheet as long as his arm. His brain needed a CT-scan to see if anything was in there besides violence.

Incredible Stupidity.

Congressman Leo Berman, “Birther.” Anderson Cooper (CNN) had a most frustrating interview with Texas Republican Leo Berman, who has introduced a bill that will compel all candidates running for president to produce their birth certificates. This is an obvious attempt to revive the canard that President Obama is not American. Despite the facsimile of the birth certificate on line, the testimony by the Hawaiian Secretary of State and Governor that the president was born in Hawaii, Berman cannot be convinced. “I just don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t seen it.” Cooper offered to send him to Hawaii to have a look. Representative Berman may be the stupidest American I have ever seen—and he illustrates stubborn tenacity to believe what he wants to believe. Not a homo sapiens here, alas.

688 words

Dr. Laina Farhat-Holzman is a historian, lecturer, and writer. You may contact her at Lfarhat102@aol.com or www.globalthink.net.

Print