Op-eds, in a word.

Geert Wilders is the leader of the Dutch Parliament's Freedom Party.  Geert Wilders does not like Muslims. He does not want any Muslims in or around the vicinity of the Netherlands.  He thinks Muslims are "retarded."  This thinking and his public expression of these thoughts has led him into some trouble with the Dutch court.  He currently faces up to sixteen months and $10,000 for his words.  Melody Moezzi is a Muslim-American.  She believes in free speech for everyone, including Mr. Wilders--despite his position towards Moezzi's culture (she does not agree with Iran's current regime, btw).  She starts off with a dose of ethos, clarifying her political and social views, as well as boasting her unique perspective as a Muslim, "outspoken writer and attorney."  Then she ends with some pathos, likening the story unto what would happen to her, should she return to Iran after speaking out against the way they run things over yonder seas.  Overall, I agree with Moezzi--freedom of speech for all.  But I don't think that Geert is crazy, well not any crazier than anyone who believes their religion is better than someone else's.  Crazy is crazy is crazy. 

Judith S. Beck has a Ph.D. in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. She deals with many people who suffer from a belief that they are, in some way, inherently wrong.  These people hate drawing any kind of attention to themselves.  They feel entitled to nothing. This makes me shudder with a sickening grief (pathos ?).  I imagine that most of us have, at some point in our lives, felt inadequate or inferior in some way. I couldn't imagine feeling like that all the time.  This idea of everyone judging everything you do is something most people ditch in elementary school or earlier.  A small degree of it stays with us through adolescence (everyone in class in watching me).  The other day I was watching this adorable kid play with one of those car-shopping cart things and I looked up to see five or six other people just staring at this kid.  He then looked up and saw six or seven people just staring at him.  He retreated between his mothers legs.  It's no wonder we grow up with the belief that everyone is watching and judging everything we do--while we're young and cute, everyone does watch everything we do. 

So Google has apparently introduced a newer version of Google search, enticingly named "Google Instant."  Bunmi Zalob doesn't think Google should "waste their time helping us waste our time."  She offers little Ethos, but tries to fill you up with a heavily sarcastic hit of logos.  It packs a wallop of laughter, I tell you what.  I chuckled anyway.  She gives one of the all-time greatest pie-graph prefaces, in my opinion: "The graph below is based on data collected from my assumptions."  This provides me with all the Ethos I needed to finish the article in a hurry and click over to the "Blogger" tab to finish this very post. Fin.