Real Time with Bill Maher

I've been watching Real Time with Bill Maher a lot lately. I think it's a great show if you wanna watch something both interesting and intellectual. Bill Maher basically invites a new panel of three guests each week, and engages them in debates about various current events.

Bill's a pretty smart dude, and his arguments are usually always quite logical...he doesn't resort to dirty rhetoric just to get in the last word, and most of the time, really does have oomph behind whatever he says. However, the problem, which to some extent I think was unavoidable, is that the show is not completely unbiased. Bill is quite anti-republican (particularly anti-bush, but then again who isn't) and he's also to a very large extent anti-religion. He believes that religion and state should not be combined, and touts this as being one of America's greatest achievements. I guess it is, although I think Bush relies more on faith than logic to run the country. But sometimes I get the feeling that Bill Maher crosses a line, from freeing oppressed minds to oppressing free minds. And the worst thing is that he bases this on what he tries to vanquish - prejudice.

Consider what he said on one of his recent shows, and I quote, "it (Islam) was extremist to being with...Mohammad was a warrior."

Let me get one thing clear before we delve any further. There is a distinction between Islam and Muslims. Islam is a religion revealed to the Prophet Muhammad, and as such covers the era in which the Prophet was alive. I say Islam, and I mean Islam as revealed in the Prophet's time. I don't mean Muslims today. But they're one and the same thing, you might say? Well they're not necessarily, and there are a multitude of reasons why, but the biggest one is that, over time, religion gets mixed with culture.

Everything in the Quran has to be studied in the light of the Prophet's life and teachings. That's the ground rule! It's not enough to glance at the life of a Muslim today and declare that whatever he does is Islamic. You wanna learn about Islam? Get Muhammad by Martin Lings, a biography of the Prophet. It's a beautiful book, and it's very unbiased, mainly because its author was a professor at a US university. Read about the Prophet's life, read Quran in the context of that era.

Muhammad was a warrior? Islam was extremist to begin with? Is that why the Prophet used to try his utmost to avoid war until there was no other way out? Is that why he had strict ground rules for engaging in combat, such that the elderly, women and children were to be protected? Is that why in the conquest of Makkah, not one life was lost? Not one!

There are so many misconceptions about Islam that it's not even funny. One thing that's gotten a lot of bad press is the Islamic law to cut off a person's hand if he steals. How is that not extremist, people argue? Isn't that barbaric? Prehistoric? By cause and effect, isn't Islam a religion of the dark ages, of the sword, of bloodshed? If you're fervently nodding your head, then you're a moron. lol...sorry, but it's true...and you'll know its true if you read the biography of the Prophet and find out how peaceful the Muslim society was. Because of a mixture of faith, conscience, respect, and obviously a fear of punishment, people very seldom committed crimes. If a) I have faith in God, b) I respect the sanctity of the society I live in and c) I know my hands going to get cut off if I steal something, chances are I'm not going to steal. It's as simple as that.

So I say this to you Bill. Read the Prophet's life...then if you say that Islam is "extremist" I'll bow my head and respect your opinion. But damn it, for crying out loud, don't declare your opinions based on pure prejudice! On hearsay! On your discussions over a drink at the bar! You're watched by who knows how many viewers all over the world...do you know how much power you have? Do you realize how many people probably absorb your words as if on a plate, without even bothering to analyze them? Your words become their knowledge. Don't prejudice people any more than they already are man. You have a fricking responsibility.

I chose this comment of Bill's to pick on because a) I'm a Muslim...if I don't clear misconceptions up, who will? and b) I'm a fan of Bill Maher! (if nothing else, he's a fellow Cornellian...boo ya!). But the same argument applies to every other medium, whether satirical or not. People of the press, you're our eyes and ears to whatever goes on in the world. Make the walls between races, religions and people fall...don't stack them up even higher. Don't blind us...educate us. Teach us.

After all, it's your moral obligation

The Hurdy-Gurdy Man

Just saw Zodiac yesterday. It's a movie based on an actual killer by the name of Zodiac, who haunted San Fransisco in the 70's. The movie was good...very watchable, although I'm sure some, if not most, might disagree. It's directed by the same guy who made fight club and seven...both awesome movies. Frequently in the movie (starting from about ten minutes into the damn thing), I had no idea what was going on. As it turned out, I wasn't alone...my friends didn't get a lot of parts either. Outside the theatre, I tentatively asked them a question about the movie, not wanting to look like the guy who's the slowest in getting the film. I needn't have worried. My question sparked a whole melee of questions. Basically, to summarize, all of us loved the movie, but nobody understood much of what had happened between the beginning and the end.

But that doesn't matter. It's a good movie - the kind you'd want to get on dvd and go over a few times just to nail down the sometimes scene-to-scene epiphanies that the main characters have. I think it deserves being watched over and over. Like Memento. Or fight club. Or Mulholland Drive. Or the few dozen other classics that make you feel like you have the IQ of a cabbage the first time you sit down to them with a huge bag of popcorn in your lap.

Anyway, coming to the title of the post, and the main reason for this blog, the hurdy-gurdy man is one of the songs in the movie's soundtrack, and I fell in love with it the first time I heard it in the movie. It's a 60's song, and it's got such a fantasy-world, trance-like feel to it.

'Twas then when the hurdy gurdy man
Came singing songs of love
Then when the hurdy gurdy man
Came singing songs of love

It must be fun being the hurdy-gurdy man - the one oasis of sanity, love, and all other values we platonically hold dear to us. I really want to be there when he finally comes walking down the road like the pied piper, making heads turn in wonder. I want to be in the crowd that gathers behind him, letting him lead the way down whichever paths he divines. And I want to learn his songs - the hurdy-gurdy songs of love.