I'll admit, sometimes I live in a cave and miss stories. Somehow I missed this one, well, until I heard a blurb about the court case on NPR: "Runaway Ohio Girl to Remain Free of Muslim Parents".

Any time you think you have problems, think of this poor kid.

More at the Columbus Dispatch: "Counseling next for Rifqa, family".

Labels: Islam, Ohio, religion

So Sundance Twenty-Ten kicks off tomorrow.


I generally don't care much for the indie crap that litters these festivals, but then I read this blurb about a film this year:

Could there be a more hot-button topic than terrorism these days? Although it is historically the subject of serious documentaries and intense dramatic films, renowned British comedian Chris Morris finds the humor (and ultimately the humanity) in this extremist world.

Four Lions tells the story of a group of British jihadists who push their abstract dreams of glory to the breaking point. As the wheels fly off, and their competing ideologies clash, what emerges is an emotionally engaging (and entirely plausible) farce. In a storm of razor-sharp verbal jousting and large-scale set pieces, Four Lions is a comic tour de force; it shows that—while terrorism is about ideology—it can also be about idiots.

Based on three years of research and meetings with everyone from imams to ex-mujahedeen—not to mention a wealth of surveillance material from major trials, Four Lions plunges beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien or evil. Instead, it portrays them as human beings, who, as we all know, are innately ridiculous.

I don't know British comedian Chris Morris from Alan Partridge, but this sounds quite interesting.

Labels: comedy, film, Islam