Monday, January 2, 2006
I'm not sure you can expect much more from an outlet that basically republishes CAIR press releases, but this piece in the St. Petersburg Times is a case-study in know-nothing puff journalism.
Successful efforts to expose the Muslim American Society's use of a Florida Presbyterian camp ground for a New Year's retreat by recounting the statements of some of the speakers there (see this previous post for background: Presbyterian Campground to Host Jihad Camp), resulting in the camp's closure have organizers -- suprise -- screaming victim, and blaming blogs and other meanies for the unfairness of it all.
Blogs, threats force Muslim meeting to relocate by S.I. Rosenbaum
A friend had e-mailed her a blogger's article. It described Carnes as a supporter of terrorists, a fan of suicide bombing.
Her friend thought the article was a joke.
"No, dude," Carnes said. "This is really serious."
Carnes, a Chicago resident who converted to Islam 11 years ago, was scheduled to speak at a spiritual retreat for Tampa Muslims this weekend.
But after bloggers alleged that the event was a thinly veiled terrorist indoctrination, anonymous callers bombarded the Muslim American Society of Tampa with death threats and curses.
The director of the Lithia church camp that was to host the event decided to close the camp for the weekend after she, too, received threats.
So when Carnes finally faced a small audience of adults in a block building in Temple Terrace on Saturday, there was an urgency to her words.
"Since everything that's happened, this is the right time for me to talk about who we are," Carnes told the group. "There are a lot of people out there who want to define who we are for us."...
Let's be clear about one thing at the outset. If the camp or anyone else received physical threats then that's right out, wrong and inappropriate. It's wrong on principle, and it's wrong because it hurts the cause by the risk of making sympathetic figures of people who probably don't deserve it.
That said, it's a separate issue from the substance of the concerns over this group. The article focusses on one of the subjects of Joe Kaufman's original FrontPage piece, Chantal Carnes, resulting in a superficial profile attempting to portray Carnes as just your average Jane American who happens to be Muslim. Meanwhile, the question is begged without being asked, did she or did she not say the fawning things she is alleged to have said about the Muslim Brotherhood and Hassan Al-Banna? Does she believe the things alleged in the original article?
If so, then that would rather throw a rock in the gears of any attempt to portray Carnes (who, judging her by her photo accompanying the Times article, apparently believes the hijab is a requirement of her form of Islam) as an exponent of a moderate form of Islam at peace with American values and modern conceptions of human rights. The article tells us Carnes digs skiing, soccer, and Nickelback. So what? Does she also dig the Muslim Brotherhood? The penetrating journalism of the St. Petersburg Times appears uninterested in the answer.
Here's from an MAS email sent out over New Year's. A big deal? Maybe not, but a data-point nontheless:
Good to read that good deeds are the most precious thing to God according to the MAS...or are they?
Here's a link to the AP piece that the St. Peterburg Times piece was based on:
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/newjersey/story/5800622p-5816929c.html
It's not much better than the Times piece. They don't discuss the Kaufman piece at all either, which is nuts. But, then I guess their goal was to slam the evil, misguided bloggers that wrote about this subject, rather than actually doing the topic justice.
I also find it comical that Chantal Carnes thinks listening to Western music means anything, since Al Qaeda has been instructing their minions to try to blend in to Western society as much as possible as far as dress, music etc. is concerned.
Grats on the mention. Heh.