"Dressed in a leopard print hijab she darted into the white shingle house to collect some belongings and her pet cat..."

I see you've got your brand-new leopard skin print hijab....

It's Katherine Russell, the widow Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  "She was just this All-American girl who was brainwashed by her super-religious husband. Nobody understands what happened to her." She was the daughter of a Rhode Island doctor and nurse. She "dreamed of going to college and joining the Peace Corps."

Brainwashed. Are you buying that or do you think that Peace Corps aspirationalists are just the kind of American kids who feel drawn to the idea of becoming the other?



I tend to think people are responsible for their own choices.

"I’m proud of my dad, not necessarily because of where he is now on marriage equality (although I’m pretty psyched about that)..."

"... but because he’s been thoughtful and open-minded in how he’s approached the issue, and because he’s shown that he’s willing to take a political risk in order to take a principled stand. He was a good man before he changed his position, and he’s a good man now, just as there are good people on either side of this issue today. We’re all the products of our backgrounds and environments, and the issue of marriage for same-sex couples is a complicated nexus of love, identity, politics, ideology and religious beliefs. We should think twice before using terms like 'bigoted' to describe the position of those opposed to same-sex marriage or 'immoral' to describe the position of those in favor, and always strive to cultivate humility in ourselves as we listen to others’ perspectives and share our own."

Dad = Rob Portman.

ADDED: Clicking "edit" on this post, I said: "Do I have a 'humility' tag?" Then, laughing: "No, I only have a 'humiliation' tag." I love adding tags that I've already made, but I resist making new tags. Having "humiliation" but not "humility" strikes me as funny, but on further thought, I do have a tag for humility, which is "modesty." You don't want a lot of synonyms in the tags. "Modesty" is close enough — even if it sweeps together things as diverse as World Hijab Day and the judicial philosophy of Oliver Wendell Holmes.

"Officials said a woman in a Muslim veil had taken the girl out of class..."

"... while posing as her mother, who wears the chador and niqab."

Philadelphia police have arrested the alleged kidnapper of a five-year-old girl whose report of a talking bird helped lead them to the suspect....

Police say the victim was brought to a nearby home where a man was waiting.... The girl was found 18 hours later at a nearby park, shivering and wearing only a t-shirt. She told her rescuer: "I've been stolen."

In this story, we see 2 distinctive risks. The real mother, by wearing a veil, created an opportunity for a villain to impersonate her. The villain, by keeping a talking bird, created an opportunity for a tiny child to track her down.

"World Hijab Day calls on non-Muslim women to try out life under the traditional head scarf."

BBC reports:

[Jess Rhodes, 21, a student from Norwich in the UK] was concerned about the reaction, but after eight days of wearing the headscarf she has actually been surprised by how positive it has been.

"I can't explain it really but people have been really very helpful, especially in shops," she says.... I will wear it from time to time...  I'm saying to the world, my beauty is for my family and my partner. Any woman can wear this."

So let's assume you are a woman with no religious basis whatsoever for wearing a headscarf, but you wear one because of World Hijab Day, and you find yourself receiving more respect and more deference from strangers. Rhodes says she got more help in shops, but when she talks about wearing it in the future, she doesn't refer to an interest in getting better treatment from others, but in expressing something about excluding them from her beauty. Of course, there are all sorts of clothing items that can be worn to exclude others from your beauty. Why — if expression is key —adopt an item of clothing that is read as an expression of belief in a religion that isn't yours?

"Saudi school books feature women’s photos for the first time."

"Although the women appearing in photos in the books are veiled, the step is still regarded as a major change since only drawings of women were permitted in school books before."

An English book, part of the third year of high school, contains a picture of a nurse wearing a headscarf and a medical mask while preparing an injection. The exercise accompanying the photo asks students to discuss the changes in the percentage of men and women in traditional occupations.

There is also a photo of a girl standing in a lab. The woman was apparently not veiled in the original picture and an additional part was added in the school book to cover her face.

STEM careers for women... we still struggle with that in the U.S. (where there are plenty of photos of women).