For those of you confused at the title of my blog, let me esssplain. Baseball is America's most historic pastime. Terrorism in the Arab World seems to be theirs. Do I need to explain everything? : ) Baseball has Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Hank Aaron, Sandy Koufax, Jackie Robinson and many more iconic figures that are part of Americana. The Arab World has Osama Bin Laden, Sheik Abdul Rahman (the blind Arab dude with the Santa Claus hat), Mohammad Atah, Yasser Arafat, and Ahmad Yassin are the icons of the Arab World.

When there is nothing to do, you hate. We have baseball. We also have other things to do. We're too busy to hate for the most part. Plus, we outgrew our western Europe and Viking history. Thanks to the Greek and Roman cultures I must say. While the Greeks were inventing democracy, western Europe was never bathing. While the Greeks were thinking, western Europe was busy scratching their butts with axes. While the Greeks were building society, western Europe was barely saying "orf". I think orf meant "food". God bless them Greeks! They showed us the way. Our melting pot has made us advance swiftly. Adventurous people from all over the world came here, and so became our adventurous spirit. We like to have fun too. Baseball is fun. That's why it took off to such great heights. No sport has the iconic heroes like baseball does in America. These guys were real heroes to Americans. Joe DiMaggio was a hero to every Italian and Yankee fan. The Yankees have a slew of icons in their history. They are the Al Qaeda of American baseball teams. The big boys.

In the Arab World it seems they live to hate. From what I see on television, I don't buy the "it's not most Arabs" cliche. In the Palestinian areas of Israel there were celebrations in the streets when 9/11 happened. They were joyously celebrating while knowing thousands of people have just died. Arafat had his police threaten to kill members of the media who shot these celebrations on video. They didn't keep all of the cameramen from shooting, however. With that though, there were more than two-thirds of Arabs in a poll saying 9/11 was morally unjustifiable. One third is way too high still, but that's nothing like what we see. When they show Arabs on tv, they always show them with guns, swords, or burning things in effigy. There is a huge disconnect here from this poll and what I see on tv. Usually they show Arabs protesting over something either so small or totally inconsequential to their lives. "The Pope called us violent people?! It's time to kill someone!" Which they did. It seems most of them sees terrorism as their sport, and they play it well. The poll tells a completely different story.

I don't know if they work, come home, treat their wives respectfully, kiss their children, or anything we do and take for granted. I do know they wanted to kill a woman for allowing her students to call a teddy bear "Mohammad" though. I do know they have a fixation with beheading people. I know they love to treat women as poorly as possible too. How can these fathers look at their young daughters, knowing what's ahead of them, and not do everything in their power to see they are not lashed for being raped in the future? I don't know. One woman I know of in Iran was executed because she had sex with an older, unmarried man. Her name was Atefeh Rajabi and she was only sixteen years old. She claims she was sexually assaulted. They hung her in front of a crowd by a crane. While she fought for her life, with her last breaths she kept repeating "repentance". The law there states that when someone says "repentance" that they are given at least another appeal. People who are so hellbent on upholding Islamic Law broke the law. This was a young, beautiful woman who died after possibly being sexually assaulted by an older man. Sickening and intolerable.

I even see kids out there with AK-47's protesting with their fathers, wanting blood. They have no idea what they're doing. They are kids. Our kids here are playing video games, basketball, football, soccer, and yes, baseball. Theirs shout to kill people right along with their fathers. Chips off the old block. I guess soccer is big in the Arab World, but maybe it's only the moderates who are out there playing soccer. Maybe that's why their voices aren't heard. They know their idiotic neighbors are chanting for someone's death, but they'd rather play soccer. They'd rather have fun than rally against the haters. The ones who are out there protesting all of the time though have no heroes like DiMaggio, Ruth, Williams, Mays, Koufax, Ripken, Griffey, Jeter, Mantle, Robinson, or Aaron. They have no heroes. They have martyrs.