But no religion is inherently violent or peaceful; people are violent or peaceful.

Excerpts from How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror by the brilliant, articulate, and really quite good-looking Reza Aslan.

To the extent that the War on Terror has, from the start, been posited as a war of ideology—a clash of civilizations—it is a rhetorical war indeed, one fought more constructively with words and ideas than with guns and bombs. The problem with the ideological War on Terror is that ‘terrorist’ is a wastebasket term that often conveys as much about the person using it as it does about the person being described….


It is easy to blame religion for acts of violence carried out in religion’s name, easier still to comb through scripture for bits of savagery and assume a simple causality between the text and the deed. But no religion is inherently violent or peaceful; people are violent or peaceful.



This book is, above all else, a proclamation: the War on Terror, conceived by the previous American administration as a cosmic contest between the forces of good and evil for the future of civilization, is over. It is time to strip this ideological conflict of its religious connotations, to reject the religiously polarizing rhetoric of our leaders and theirs, to focus on the material matters at stake, and to address the earthly issues that always lie behind the cosmic impulse. For although the grievances of the hijackers may have been symbolic, though they may have been merely causes to rally around, to the hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who watched the towers fall—who were, in fact, the intended audience of that theatrical display of violence—they are nonetheless legitimate grievances and must be addressed as such. The Palestinians really are suffering under Israeli occupation. Arab dictators are in fact being propped up by US policies. The Muslim world truly does have a reason to feel under attack by a ‘crusading’ West. Addressing these grievances may not satisfy Osama bin Ladin and his fellow cosmic warriors, who sights are set beyond this world. But it will bring their cosmic war back down to earth, where it can be confronted more constructively. It will take away the appeal of the Global Jihadist movement and loosen the ties that have bound so many young, disaffected Muslims together under a master narrative of oppression and injustice. Most of all, it will deny Jihadist ideologues their principal argument that the War on Terror is, in fact, a war against Islam. Because in the end, there is only one way to win a cosmic war: refuse to fight in it.

Birthday girl.

Ask this one about dinosaurs.

So, I know it's been months, but this is still basically the best thing to come out of SNL since Dick-in-a-Box.

My twenty-second birthday is a week from Sunday. I don’t really care for my birthday very much. I haven’t had a birthday party since I turned thirteen, because I love parties, but not parties where I’m center-stage, you know? I like parties where I fetch people drinks and distribute generously-sized slabs of cake, and meet new people and get engrossed in conversations, parties where all the presents and attention are reserved for someone else. Even a party-free birthday can be an anxious experience for me. I feel like everyone’s happiness rests on the decisions I make—“It’s your birthday… what do you want to do?” I don’t know. Normal things, nothing special… what do you want to do?

But I do love that lilacs are always in full bloom on May 17.

Party pooper, I said.

I know quiet hours start at midnight, but that doesn't mean that you need to get drunk right underneath my window and blast god-awful rap music and scream drunkenly for three hours (with no end in sight) right now. Some of us actually have exams tomorrow morning. Early tomorrow morning. Exams we have not had time to study for or even think about because of other claims on our time. I am reading about Kang Youwei and trying to remember why I care about Kang Youwei, and this passage leaps out at me for some reason: "The Empress Dowager ended the 100 Days reforms and ordered Kang executed through death by a thousand cuts." The thought of ordering death by a thousand cuts holds strange appeal at the moment. I can't explain it.

I do not ask him to dance but to sit down.

I—who like all others want to be recognized—feel pure in you and am drawn toward you. I am drawn to where I feel pure. It was not my formulas nor my reasoning that taught you what I am. It was the acceptance of what I am that made you indulgent toward my formulas and my reasoning. I am grateful to you for accepting me at my face value. Of what use is a friend who sits in judgment of me? If I invite a friend to join me for a meal and he’s limping, I do not ask him to dance but to sit down.

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY.

Incandescently.

I feel slightly more settled tonight for no obvious reason, though I think spending all day in the sun helped. Walking all day in the sun leaves me tired all the way through, but in a contented way.

I want to be in love with someone who turns me into the person that I can be. My dad told me today about a little girl he saw who reminded him irresistibly of me—a fearless, blonde toddler with a big vocabulary and a bright smile and a hunger for everything. I want to be fearless like I was when I was small. I want to keep feeding my curious spirit as long as I’m alive. I want to be my best self, someone I haven’t met yet. I want someone who can draw me out when I am unnecessarily cautious and egg me on when I hit my stride. I want someone I want to impress.

I want to lie on a bed with tangled sheets and a boy and a map—an old Rand McNally road map or a National Geographic fold-out. And I will say, “Have you ever been to _________?” You know I want to go to England and Scotland and Wales, and also Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Croatia, Montenegro, France, Austria—all around. Vancouver. Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece. Australia. Really, the only place on the map I have no interest in is Antarctica, though someone should look out for those ice shelves. I want to talk about these places, even just the way their names look printed on a map. I want it to be okay if we don’t go any of these places. I want someone I can live a simple life with, too. In my mind, this boy plays the guitar and rides a Schwinn and has an inventive, mechanical mind. I can improvise a recipe and sew straight seams and write decently, but I don’t have an inventor’s mind; I appreciate it in others. Whoever he is, he should love to be outside on days like today. On sunny days, it pains me (really, physically) to be trapped inside. On a warm day, I want to wander around tirelessly, revisiting old haunts and scouting out undiscovered corners of my adopted city. People change in warm weather: they tilt their faces upwards and smile easily at strangers. I love staking out a sun-warmed bench to watch the fascinating variety of people. I never listen to music outside of my bedroom. I want to hear everything and miss nothing. So many people walk around with cellphones stapled to their ears, or iPod earbuds in place, and they isolate themselves from their surroundings. I imagine it’s possible some people have gone years without hearing a bird and a distant train or an amusingly out-of-context snippet of someone else’s conversation. He should like to immerse himself in the everyday, the grind of gravel underfoot and the way light dapples through tree canopies. I am such a little kid that way, and he should be, too. I love swings and big friendly dogs and the most basic sounds of the city—the wail of sirens and the soft whirr of tires spinning on wet pavement.

I want someone I can be quiet with—all my silences now are loaded and heavy. I want quiet, reverent silences.

I saw a boy on a bicycle with a guitar slung across his back today. He was only passing, but I liked him immediately.