Koran Desecration Problem

Submitted by Chris (United States), May 20, 2005 at 12:27

Mr. Pipes,

Skeptic that I am, I first want to know if Ms. Basarudin was influenced by another recent news report: the story of the woman who claimed to have found a fingertip in the bowl of chili she bought at Wendy's not long ago.

Frankly, Ms. Basarudin's claim seems apocryphal to me. While it is certainly possible the volume of the Koran she received was defaced by someone -- possibly the person who packed and mailed it -- the ambiguity of the circumstances lead me to suspect she performed the handiwork.

Whenever I encounter the expression "Death to all (fill in the blank)", I first think how the phrasing is not common to American speech. Americans would start the phrase with a verb, as in "Kill all the (fill in the blank)" or "Bomb them back into the Stone Age", neither of which is my desire, by the way. Or, more cheerfully, "Save the whales".

My built-in lie-detector says something is fishy here. And I would have felt that way even without knowing anything about Ms. Basarudin's personal connections to the Islamist world.

Keep up the good work.

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