Submitted by Usefulid, Sep 17, 2007 16:34

Somehow I managed to read this entire article without fleeing to something better. The author's direction and argument require the reader to look at this article with a magnifying glass as this is more of a rant than a story or essay. My rebuke to this article is not that there is a failure to understand but that we do not use our reason within the context of our understanding with cultures other than ours. Of course other cultures seem different and at times outright strange. That is the beauty of culture! The key is to come to a middle point with these different peoples, NOT to change them and also for them not to change us. While we will have differences with each other's beliefs (which is ultimately inevitable), at least we can understand where they are coming from and perhaps alleviate the distress by performing such idiosyncrasies in an alternative method. It is appalling that so many people think the same way that this author feels and that a jump to conflict is their first and only reaction to something different. The result of this type of thinking will mark the fall of this once great nation.

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