the happening world / bonzer

TOLERANCE ALERT! Believe it or not, today's Tolerance Alert is actually a genuine example of tolerance. I give you this report from today's zenit.org feed as evidence:

The Australian Federation of Islamic Councils is praying for peace and harmony among all people of good will during the World Youth Day activities in Sydney.

President Ikebal Patel sent out a statement this week in which he extended "sincere greetings to the Catholic community of Australia on behalf of the Muslims of Australia."

He continued, "I take this opportunity on behalf of the Muslims of Australia to also extend our good wishes to all Australians of all faiths on this auspicious occasion of World Youth Day and pray for peace, harmony and goodwill among all Australians and peoples all over the world.

"We also take this occasion as Australian Muslims to welcome His Holiness Pope Benedict as well as all other pilgrims to Australia."

Patel also mentioned that he is "particularly proud" that the Catholic Church accepted the offer of the Malek Fahd Islamic School in Sydney to host 350 pilgrims during the festivities.

Some Muslim school students will take part in serving the pilgrims, and the school will hold an interfaith event during the week.

On Thursday, Benedict will meet with 40 representatives of other faiths including Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu leaders.

More than 340,000 Muslims reside in Australia.

Father Mark Podesta, a World Youth Day spokesman, said the involvement of Islamic schools "is an opportunity to show the rest of the world that people of different backgrounds and different beliefs can live alongside one another in peace and goodwill and harmony."

I hope with all my heart that he's right.

May our Catholic youth be shining example of Christian charity to Ozzie Muslims, and everyone else Down Under as well.

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Video: Portrait of a bank run, Los Angeles, 2008.

Not good, folks. Not good at all. The days when banking customers could count on George Bailey handing out his honeymoon money at the teller window are long gone, Keep an eye on your own bank.

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The Jesse Jackson story just gets better and better. Jonathan Martin at politico.com serves up a tasty, tasty tidbit of news in an entry today:

It turns out Jesse Jackson whispered something even worse than his desire to cut off Barack Obama’s manhood.

On an unaired portion of the tape, Jackson uses a vile racial epithet.

It turns out that what he actually said was: “See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based – I wanna cut his nuts out. … Barack – he’s talking down to black people -- telling n[igger]s how to behave.”

The longer exchange was first reported by TVNewser.com.

Mmm, rich racist goodness — and from the mouth of Mr. Hymietown himself! It is so delicious to watch these Crow-Jim race haters out themselves. Preach on, Rev. Jackson — only you have a right to be "telling niggers how to behave"!

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