A Stitch in Haste

Two dispatches from the Religion of Peace:

---

ITEM: The Palestinian Authority has deployed "Ramadan police" --

One recent afternoon, vice squad Lieutenant Murad Qendah got a radio call telling him a suspect was spotted in the street imbibing karoub -- a local soft drink made from carob pods. He ordered his six-man squad to seize the man's papers pending investigation. Police say violators are usually held for 24 hours.

"If anybody violates respect for Ramadan in the street, we take their identity papers and hold them for investigation," said Qendah, 27, whose officers wear red shoulder badges that say "morality police."
...
"The duty of the morality police is to preserve public manners in public places and to preserve the feelings of the people who are fasting," he said. "Violating the holiness of Ramadan is a violation of people's freedom."

Read that jaw-dropping illogic again: Exercising one's freedom not to be a Muslim violates the rights of Muslims. Can there be a better example of why the term "democratic theocracy" is simultaneously scary and silly?


---

ITEM: What's wrong with this story --

In a recent episode of Saudi Arabia's most popular television show airing during Ramadan this month, a Saudi man of the future is seen sitting in his house as his daughter pulls into the driveway, her kids piled into the back of the car.

"Where have you been?" the father asks.

"The kids were bored, so I took them to the movies," she replies, matter-of-factly, as she gets out of the driver's seat.

A) Women are forbidden to drive in Saudi Arabia.
B) Movie theaters are forbidden in Saudi Arabia.
C) Both.

If this scenario is indeed the Saudi Arabia of the future, then it will be despite, not because of, that backward nation's adherence to Islam, which -- like almost all organized religions -- is anti-modernity, anti-progress, anti-liberation and generally anti-life-on-this-earth.