Anti-wacko

Rick and I were chatting about religion after the show and we agreed that if everyone followed the basics of any of the major world religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc, the world would probably be a nice place, with the whole "do unto others thing". We also agreed that we weren't anti-religion - just anti-wacko and there sure are a lot of wackos out, sullying the name of Islam especially. I thought the Dr. Jamal Badawi hour was incredible and so interesting to listen to. I mean, I admit, my mind gets tainted sometimes by the constant media reports about suicide bombers and all the conflict in the middle east. Thank God Dr. Badawi was here today to remind us of many important FACTS about the religion and not myths. I mean, we have to remember it is Christian Americans who invaded Iraq and that fundamentalists in any religion cannot be the spokespeople or hallmarks for those religions. He made these excellent points about associating criminals with a religion:

-people who killed doctors who perform abortions didn't taint all of Christiantiy
-the Crusades, hello!
-the conflict in Northern Ireland
-normal crime in Christian countries - are all Christians considered murderers because there is a high rate of murder in the U.S. - the answer is clearly no.

As Dr. Badawi stated in Chapter 5, verse 32 of the Qur'an, if you take someone else's life, you are essentially killing all of humanity, so Islam very clearly does not condone suicide bombers. I thought the translation or mistranslation of the word "infidel" was so fascinating. We hear the world infidel quite frequently, but Dr. Badawi says the concept of an "infidel" as reported in the media doesn't exit in the Qur'an, same with the concept of milk and honey and 72 virgins. He says righteous people get into heaven, not suicide bombers. I completely agreed with him when he said humans have the ability to justify wrongdoing - and it's so true, and very sad. In fact the root of Islam, the actual word, means to achieve peace! I want to thank the professor for coming in and really opening my eyes - hopefully you felt the same way! There are good seeds and bad seeds everywhere, it's so important not to paint everyone with the same brush.

Onto the other big topic of the day - taxis and possible deregulation. I totally agree with Rodenhiser!! Before the holidays we heard that Bob's and Bluebell had this thing where they would pick you and you could also get someone to drive your car home at the same time, you paid a double fare. Well, that's all well and good unless you're in Halifax and you can't call a Dartmouth taxi over to Halifax. I remember last summer filling in for Deb and calling a taxi @ 4am and they told me flat out - there's no one on the road. Well, that's just great isn't it? I agree, at some points in the day it is impossible to get a taxi. You also can't reserve taxis, trust me I've tried before I had my car and needed to get out of work right afterwards and get somewhere fast. I don't know what Councillor Pat Murphy was smoking today, but I really liked his idea of dropping the zones during certain times, but what was he going on about with the cache of secret secret squirrel numbers he has that he can get a cab at any time? Good for him, but most of us aren't VIP taxi passengers, we pretty much dial the number and have the reasonable expectation that a cab will be there in due course. I just thought that comment was out of line and didn't help contribute to the solution of the problem, you know what I mean? He talked about planning, but you can reserve a taxi, so what can you do???? I know you can reserve a town car or a limo in advance, so that's what my boyfriend does when he has to catch an early flight to travel on business. That's much to the chagrin of the taxi industry, that doesn't like the fact the fares are the same. The taxis can't have their cake and eat it too, it's getting out of hand and the customers are upset. I'd love to see Metro Transit expand service, I'd much rather take the bus than deal with the aggravation of getting a taxi in this town.

When Rick briefly chatted with the VP of Operations for the Boston Red Sox he says the marketing territory for all of Canada belongs to the Toronto Blue Jays. So, if you're a Red Sox fan, Tigers fan, or Mariners fan, you're going to have to search for deals to go to those games yourself! That's shocking - pushing the Jays on us just because we're Canadian?? I grew up in Windsor, Ontario - Tigers all the way!!!

Speaking of Windsor, a new high temperature yesterday - 14.2! We can't complain about the temps here though - a high of 10 today.

Have a good one!

Cheers,

Amber