It's not about the Fulbright

Today I caught my cat using my toothbrush. I'm sure he's done this before without my knowledge. Disgusting. I had a back-up, which was convenient, since my first instinct was to clean my mouth.

After reviewing my Fulbright application, and discussing ad nauseam my research proposal, Jill remarked, "I really don't think this is about you getting a Fulbright. I think you're really going for a fatwa here."

And, while giving me a healthy dose of constructive criticism, my former undergraduate advisor warned me that my proposal was border-line Orientalist.

Ha!

In other disturbing news, Jeff Stein, national security editor at Congressional Quarterly recently wrote an op-ed siting several homeland security and congressional employees who work in counterterrorism that could not answer the following question accurately:

Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'ite?

Excerpt:

I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the bureau’s new national security branch, whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. “Yes, sure, it’s right to know the difference,” he said. “It’s important to know who your targets are.”
That was a big advance over 2005. So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed.“The basics goes back to their beliefs and who they were following,” he said. “And the conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shia and the difference between who they were following.”
O.K., I asked, trying to help, what about today? Which one is Iran — Sunni or Shiite?
He thought for asecond. “Iran and Hezbollah,” I prompted. “Which are they?”
He took a stab: “Sunni.” Wrong. Al Qaeda? “Sunni.” Right.
-------------------(full article available on www.cq.com)-----------------------------

Seriously? World Religions 101. Even Wikipedia's got it pretty much down.