Stupidity and Hope on YouTube

I'm finishing up the text for my book Guerrilla Tactics of the American Civil War and while eating lunch today I decided to rewatch the chapter on Nathan Bedford Forrest in the excellent series The Civil War by Ken Burns. Forrest was the best Confederate cavalry raider of that war and Shelby Foote, a historian interviewed in the series, has some interesting stuff to say about him.

After watching the segment on YouTube, I saw a link to another video about General Forrest so I clicked on it. It turned out to be a recruiting video for the Ku Klux Klan! Forrest was elected its first Grand Wizard shortly after the war but eventually distanced himself from the organization, saying it had become too lawless. That's putting it mildly.

I was really depressed to see this crap had gotten 185,000 views, so to scrub the filth from my eyes I watched will.i.am's hokey but heartfelt video "Yes We Can" about Obama. You know how many views that's gotten?

Fourteen million.

I felt better after that.

The Muslim Community in Spain

Police in Barcelona arrested nine people this week in connection with the March 11, 2004, terrorist attacks in Madrid. I'm glad they're hunting down these guys, but knowing Spain's wimpy sentencing laws I'm sure they won't spend the rest of their lives in jail like they deserve.

It's sad these idiots have become the face of the Muslim community in Europe, because all of my interactions with European Muslims have been positive ones. Just this week in Julián's favorite park he got to play with a little Moroccan girl. She had a big purple plastic hammer he liked (he's big into tools) and so she filled up a bucket with sand while he pounded the sand flat so she could fit more in. Meanwhile I shared a bench with the kid's mother, who dressed traditionally but spoke excellent Spanish.

A lot of pundits whine about Muslim immigrants not "becoming European". Well, I'm not becoming European either, and I bet these same pundits have never shared a bench with a Muslim immigrant and watched their children play together. I bet they won't report on it either.