So lighten up, okay!

My font of wisdom from the other end of the continent checked in with this bit of amazement today, cautioning that before long somebody's going to pull it down for one reason or another. Muslim scolds Muslim. It's amazing that this sort of common-sense rant was allowed on TV, even on Al Jazeera. The speaker is Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychologist from Los Angeles.

Strange thing is, this wouldn't air on US TV, despite the fact that she hammers Islamic violence without noting that Western response is economically self interested and equally violent. But I imagine in her world, the West gets slammed from all sides routinely and her point is that history didn't begin yesterday -- a fair message for all concerned. Likewise, all the Western science she praises is based (if you go back far enough) on Arab math and science. (Inventing the zero while the rest of us were trying to add XVI and CCXXXVII was no minor accomplishment.) But any long-view lopsidedness aside, that's a pretty courageous scolding and definitely a voice that needs to be heard.