Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators at a July 14 rally in Murfreesboro TN to protest building of a mosque.
Does anyone realistically expect that this isn’t going to get worse? Nope, it only takes one moron to start a chain reaction and the odds are in favor of increasing violence as long as we have Fox News egging people on:
Federal officials are investigating a fire that started overnight at the site of a new Islamic center in a Nashville suburb.
Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.
Special Agent Andy Anderson of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told CBS News that the fire destroyed one piece of construction equipment and damaged three others. Gas was poured over the equipment to start the fire, Anderson said.
The ATF, FBI and Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office are conducting a joint investigation into the fire, Anderson said.
WTVF reports firefighters were alerted by a passerby who saw flames at the site. One large earth hauler was set on fire before the suspect or suspects left the scene.
The chair of the center’s planning committee, Essim Fathy, said he drove to the site at around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning after he was contacted by the sheriff’s department.
“Our people and community are so worried of what else can happen,” said Fathy. “They are so scared.”
The fire was smoldering by the time Fathy and the center’s imam, Ossama Bahloul, had arrived. Fathy was told that responders had smelled gasoline near the fire.
It rained for the first three days, so mostly I read and watched a lot of DVDs (including a pretty bad Robert Downey Jr. one called “Restoration,” which you may safely leave off your list of movies to see before you die.) My last night there, watched “On The Waterfront.” There’s a reason Marlon Brando is a legend. And I finally got through the first season of “American Dreams,” which I got last Christmas, I think.
My friend Michael drive up from D.C. to visit. He called before he left and asked me what I forgot to bring. (He knows me so well.) I told him I forgot to bring my laptop — although there’s no internet connection, I had my tunes on there — and that I would kill for a shower cap.
Turns out he went to three different stores to try to find a shower cap — now, that’s a good friend. He also brought along a portable speaker for my iPhone, which solved the music problem.
We finally had a couple of good beach days at the end of the week, so I got to go swimming.
Mostly, I discovered that it’s still possible for me to do one thing at a time. And that my arms hurt just as bad as if I’d never gone away at all. Oh well!
P.S. Michael brought his iPad and got me addicted to Angry Birds.
Glenn Beck, a right-wing rodeo clown whose main agenda is to fill his own pockets, isn’t fit to mention his name in the same breath with Martin Luther King Jr.:
