FACING FACEBOOK (video)

This video was made before I finally pulled myself together and FACED it! Yow! I'm facing it, but nobody told me there's a lot to learn.

THE VEIL

In France and Belgium, they are banning "burgas" (the veils that Muslim women wear). Burgas are banned in Turkey, in their schools. Politicians are trying to get burgas banned in Italy. The Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria, also four states in Germany ban them. (I think they're banned because the veils make people uncomfortable.)

Women wearing them, or NOT wearing them, is becoming a very big deal. People wonder if Muslim women wear veils because their men want them to, or because they want us to respect them as Muslims.

More and more, young Muslim women argue that they have the right to be what they are, and affirm their faith.

The general public (everyone who isn't Muslim), is divided. Some people loathe the full body veil as dehumanizing and oppressive. (I find it scary.) Some people feel it's an abomination from the Middle Ages. Others feel a legal ban denies Muslim women their rights as women to wear whatever they want.

There are different types of burgas. The "burka" (often spelled burqa), covers the body with mesh over the eyes; a "niqab" covers the whole body with a slit for the eyes; the "chador" covers the head and body but the face is not covered; a "haijab" covers the hair and neck.

In America, wherever the veils are seen there's discomfort. There was controversy at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Education and its branches in Boston, Worcester and Manchester, New Hampshire. The administration's new rule that banned students from wearing veils created a furor.

The college, accused of discrimination by students claiming the rule was connected to the arrest of a Muslim student suspected of planning terror attacks, finally added a "religious" exemption.

The incident was actually a minor incident. Only 2 -- just 2 of the College's 4,000 students wear burgas, but it's the first significant flare-up in the United States since 2002, when a Florida woman sued the state for refusing to allow her to wear a veil in her driver's license photo. (She appealed and lost.)

Oh dear ... is this where we're heading? Will various states make rules about veils? If so, are we going to have rules about bikinis, excessive cleavage, skinny and skinnier thongs revealing "vajayjay" (the latest Hollywood style -- wearing genital sequins), gleaming beneath tight and tighter, short and shorter skirts?

The more I learn about burgas, the more concerned I am -- not for women's rights, not for college kids being restricted by unnecessary rules -- but by walls going up, fences being nailed into the ground.

Those restrictions that immigrants are facing in Arizona, the idea that we are now identifying people but how they look is ... whoa Nelly ... we can't let that happen in America ...

Lets not start warring with immigrants, or women in veils, when we're warring with serious enemies all over the world.

Repeal that damn Arizona law! Let women wear what they choose to wear, and don't make laws they'll want to break!

Hey, I've got an idea -- Arizona cops have NOT been told stop Islamic foreigners -- tell the Mexicans, the Latino immigrants to don burgas -- niqabs, even haijabs might do the trick!

A GOOD BAD IDEA

I think paying kids to learn is wrong. And yet, educators, and teachers say it's a good idea. Carola, a brainy, sensitive relative, read the post I wrote in March, "Paying Kids to Study" and said, "But it seems to work, Em. As long as we don't have the solutions to make schools better, then maybe some hazard pay is called for."

"But it's not good for kids, Carola," I replied. "Paying them is teaching them that earning money is the most important thing in life."

"Do you think that earning money for basic living expenses is what life is all about? Even if a person tithes, donates dollars to help the poor, and pays taxes that support many of the good things in America -- is that what life is all about?"

I knew Carola didn't think so, and I certainly don't.

Research was published, saying that Texas school kids earning cash for passing exams got better grades, and in college, had better attendance -- statistics in the study showed that it helped Black students more than whites -- 10 percent were more likely to enter college, and 50 percent more likely to stick around till graduation.

The researcher who did the study for the National Bureau of Economic Research said, "It (paying kids) gives cool-minded kids an alibi for success --'I don't like math but I'm saving for an X-box.'"

That's what's bothering me, Mr. Researcher. Kids learn what life is all about from what they do and see. School opens their eyes to ideas. Discovering a new idea excites a kid, and that's IT -- it can be sports, art, teaching, writing -- or the bible, an adventure story, an historical character, a teacher, whatever ...

School days are so brief, such a small part of your life, and school is the time to look around, to dream and dare to wonder, picture, feel out what you would like to do.

If you're paid, the PAY is probably going to be what inspires you -- money becomes IT, the thing you want more than anything else.

I can't help thinking, based on my life and lives of others whom I admire, that the most important thing in life is what you do.

Attention researchers, educators, experts, and Carola -- instead of paying kids to study, use that money to pay the teachers to study, think up new ways to influence and intrigue student -- get the teachers inventing projects that'll capture their students' imaginations -- challenge the kids, get them doing more.

Doing gives you energy, and courage to do more, and more.

It gives you a powerful sense of yourself.

To do, is to be alive.

WHO, WHAT. WHERE -- WHY SHOULD I CARE?

There was a coup, a serious rebellion and a close a call in Kyrgyzstan. The violence that gripped Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, forced President Bakiyev to flee for his life. 85 people were killed, and 1500 needed medical aid.

Most pundits agree the big loser is the U.S.

I don't know about you, but I am derailed when I see -- keep seeing yet another unpronounceable name -- Kyrgyzstan.

Sure, I have an atlas, and I found it. It's the bright green color on the map. And Google got me to a audio dictionary.

The NY Times educated me -- this country (5 million people) is on mountain, bordering China, bordering other unpronounceables -- Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The mellow voice pronouncing these new names on my TV made the area sound calm, moonlight mellow, but it isn't -- nothing there is stable -- all these places need us, want American money-money-money, and U.S. protection.

Today, Kyrgyzstan is back in the news. In Bishkek, the former chief of the President's staff, Kanybek Zhoroyev, was arrested and is being held for some reason. President Bakiyev's hiding out some place in the area, that Russia and Obama arranged.

Is your head spinning? Mine is. I'm worried about Arizona stopping people who don't look like they belong in the state. And the Arizona guy trying to get a seat in the senate, and McCain, all het up, revving up a major attack on the White House's ideas about immigration.

Trying to figure out who, what, and why, I came across a picture of pretty school girls studying in Krygyzstan. (Pretty pink, and no faces -- is UN pretty to me.)

Years ago, when I was a child, I recall hearing lots of talk about "isolationist America."

There has always been a strong isolationist streak in American political life. President Washington, then Adams, then Jefferson, each of them (in different ways, for different reasons) kept us from getting entangled, and when President Madison got us involved it was almost a disaster -- so the idea of staying out of European Wars became an accepted principle for us.

Anyhow, (I'm saying this in a whisper), I wish we were able to turn back the clock, ignore the unpronounceables -- all those ?-?-stan places. The only people I know, who know all the names and can pronounce them in a mellow, moonlit tone are Obama, Hillary, (and probably Valerie Jarret).

(Gee, I'm still never quite sure how to pronounce or spell Al-Quaeda or Osama bin Laden.)