In 2005, I started blogging a series of emails I sent to friends in the wake of September 11. You can find links to the earlier editions by clicking on the Lu Report tag at the bottom of this post).
Here's the next edition.
From: kenlu@mit.edu Subject: [LR] Indians, Due Process, Scientology, Berkeley, and the World Date: September 19, 2001 Welcome to the September 19, 2001, Early Morning edition of the Lu Report! In this issue: 1. Why Indians are actually being targeted more than Arabs, even 2. "What do you mean I have to have EVIDENCE to throw someone out the country?" 3. Yet another reason Scientology is evil 4. Gotta love Berkeley... 5. Photos of support from around the world ***** 1. Why Indians are actually being targeted more than Arabs, even As you probably know, there's been a lot of anti-Arab violence. I'm glad Bush spoke out against it, and I guess it's to be expected, but I still think it's really sad. One interesting aspect of it is that much of the anti-Arab violence has been directed toward Indians, which may seem confusing at first. From someone on a chat group at MIT (the war.d zephyr instance): > Indians are getting targetted more because > 1) On average Indians have darker skin than Arabs and therefore are more > likely to look foreign. Many people from Lebanon, Syria, and Palestine, and > also some North Africans can pass off for white. > 2) A significant portion of the Indian community in the US is composed of > Sikhs, who by their religion are forbidden to cut their hair and thus have > long beards and Turbans. Very few American Muslims or Arabs wear Turbans and > beards so they don't get attacked as much. ***** 2. "What do you mean I have to have EVIDENCE to throw someone out the country?"http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52767-2001Sep18.html[That link is dead now, so try this Independent article instead. Feb-2008] The Justice Department wants Congress to pass legislation allowing them to deport suspected terrorist aids WITHOUT EVIDENCE. This includes not only visitors, but LEGAL permanent residents with green cards. (This is even worse than legislation passed in 1996 that allowed the submission of "secret evidence" to the court that would not be shown to the suspect.) I mean.. do I really need to point out why I think this is horribly wrong? ***** 3. Yet another reason Scientology is evil http://www.xenu.net/archive/events/20010911-tragedy/ Some of you may have had the *ahem* pleasure of listening to me rant about how evil the Church of Scientology is. If you haven't, and would like to, please let me know. (Also feel free to visit http://www.xenu.net/ for info.) The Church of Scientology, which sees psychology as evil, is actively diverting psycholgists from the scene at the World Trade Center by bombarding them with questions and by using other techniques. They are also masquerading as secular mental health help! They tricked Fox News into displaying their "National Mental Health Assistance" phone number onscreen for several hours. (This was meant to be confused with National Mental Health ASSOCIATION, which in turn was not amused.) The intercepted internal emails in that link are truly frightening, talking about how happy they were to divert some "psychs" and how religious ministers have "shown their true colors" by working with the "psychs". In the interest of fairness, they do defend themselves, saying that they wear jackets with "Scientology Volunteer Minister" written on them in 4-inch letters:http://www.sacbee.com/news/calreport/data/N2001-09-17-2015-0.html[Again, link is dead. This NY Times bit about Scientologists at Ground Zero is the best free article I could find. Feb-2008] (Pardon me if I wonder if they ever took those jackets off, though...) I mean, trying to convert people in times of grief is nothing new, and it's something members of other religions use, too, but to masquerade as secular help, and to actively tie up other workers... I mean, the Church of Scientology has ruined people's lives before, but I doubt on this kind of scale. ***** 4. Gotta love Berkeley...http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52813-2001Sep18.html[Fixed WaPo link, or try this Daily Cal article. Feb-2008] Barbara Lee, House Rep. from the district that includes Berkeley and Oakland, CA, is the sole member of Congress to vote against authorizing Bush to use military force. The vote was 98-0 in the Senate and 420-1 in the House. She's had to shut down her phone due to angry calls, obviously. (She DID vote for the bill that condemned the attack and authorized $40 billion for recovery.) See article for details on what she says. ***** 5. Photos of support from around the world These rather speak for themselves: http://www.employees.org/~bandy/thankyou/thankyou.htm (Think about how many of those embassies usually have rocks thrown at them instead.. well, I know the Beijing one did only a year or two ago, if you'll recall Kosovo...)
(I actually already linked to that last page, and even made a collage of the images, in Lu Report Retrospective Volume 2.)