trying to grok

Wow, then I'm liked by proxy (through #9).

You've mentioned before that both your mother and your first-grade teacher read this blog.

I presume that you'd like this to be a respectable forum for discussion of events you find worth mentioning.

How in the world do you expect reasonable discourse to happen when you include links to T-shirts that read "Six days, b****"? Or is this merely an attempt to offend anyone who might disagree with your views into disappearing into the black hole of the internet?

Do you have deep-rooted hostilities towards Arabs and the Islamic faith? Given your recurring predilection toward tarring one-fifth of the world's people with the same "terrorist"-"troublemaker" brush, I wonder how I am supposed to take the rest of your judgments and pronouncements seriously.

I think there is about one thing I agree with the current occupier of the White House about--the war on terror must not be a war on faith--or a war of faith, for that matter. You would seem to want to conflate the two. I'd love to be proven wrong about this--and if so, please feel free to correct me.

Given that the six days war was Israel defending itself against invaders, I don't see how it should offend the Arabs and those of Islamic faith, as "Can't Win" says, unless he/she is saying that all Arabs and all those of Islamic faith believe it's right to eradicate the Jews. Now *that* would be a truly offensive attitude.

"I don't see how it should offend the Arabs and those of Islamic faith, as "Can't Win" says, unless he/she is saying that all Arabs and all those of Islamic faith believe it's right to eradicate the Jews. Now *that* would be a truly offensive attitude."

Two (long) points:

[1] I don't see how you could possibly come up with that interpretation based on what I said.

As for how Arabs can find it offensive, I know people who have fought in or lived through the Six Days' War--on both. Not one of them looks back on those days fondly. It doesn't matter whether you were an Arab or an Israeli; the only sentiment common to both sides that I've heard was relief that the war was over, and that casualties weren't worse than they were. [Unfortunately, because of propaganda spread on both sides, I don't know many people of that generation on either side who can comfortably deal with the other. The resulting enmity has been passed down to the succeeding generations, which has been the greatest crime of all.]

Now, there are appropriate ways and inappropriate ways of commemorating wars. Note the (relative) decorum shown on Memorial Day and Veterans' Day in the U.S. We remember the sacrifices made--we neither glorify the war, nor make light of our opponents.

This T-shirt does both. And, given the unlikelihood that whoever designed it actually served in the war, this individual is trying to turn a major conflict into a punchline, and a rude one at that. Such behavior is reprehensible; promoting such behavior through a website--and this is what our host has done here--is similarly irresponsible.

If you feel comfortable that you could wear that shirt in front of a roomful of veterans and survivors of that war, great. But I think you'd probably rile most of the room--which is why this is so offensive.

[2] The reason that I asked about any sentiment against Arabs and/or Muslims is the cumulative weight of statements such as "It's no lie that everywhere in the world that there's conflict, Muslims are somehow involved," and her support for sentiments like this.