Reading "The City and the City," by Mieville, is like walking into a dream.  Stark realism and a vivid murder investigation starts the tale off as James Patterson might.  The story builds with the investigation, the police-life in the Eastern European country of Beszel and subtle details about a bordering country that is off limits to everyone in Beszel. 

The horrific murder mystery swirls amidst stranger circumstances that build on top of one another bewildering the tenacious Inspector Borlu.  The reader is taken from a point of detailed city cop life to something that is hazy and does not quite make sense in Beszel, though it is not clear just what that is.  It is exactly like being dropped into a dream.  The underworld of the city is exposed in all of its scarred detail, but there is more going on just beyond...there is something weird about the bordering land...

I've just learned of the Christian priest who is holding a Burn the Quran day on 9/11.  What a genius this Christian must be!  As a raised Christian, myself (in the US), I am offended by this whole notion.  The right/white Reverend Terry Jones wishes to invoke the infamous NAZI imagery of book burning, ignorance over understanding, and many Christians have been sending him copies of the holy Islamic text to use as kindling on the painful date of the terrorist attacks on the US. 

Here's the kicker folks:  these Christians fight loudly to offend and demonize the extremist fundamentalist Muslims who take various passages of the Islamic holy book and literalize them in order to justify battling, murdering and preaching against Western culture, Judaism and Christianity; but these Christians are loudly proving that they themselves are ignorant fundamentalists who use the Bible as their tool to condemn everyone that is not God's "chosen people" and proclaim them as sinners who are going to Hell, and therefore, have the "god-given" right to burn another people's holy book in order to provoke/offend the scapegoats of Western culture, the Muslims (including the majority who, unlike the bulk of Christians, are NOT fundamentalist egotists - does anyone remember Mohammad Ali who was stripped of his Title because he would not fight and kill, because of the vows of peace he took from the Quran?).

Here's a question, utilizing the ability to empathize:  how would we, the Christians, feel if our holy Bible was being used as fuel for a Nazi-like bonfire?  Would we become offended and violent?  I wonder...

For those of you who know me, please understand that this greatly upsets me.  I think that religion, including Christianity (of which I was raised a Catholic), can provide very good things for good people.  HOWEVER, just because this is true does not give anyone the right to judge and condemn others because of a difference in Faith.  I find it hard to believe that Jesus Christ would have simply told St. Peter:  "Listen, only Catholics get in this gate...you understand, Pete?"  There are different strokes for different folks, and that is the way God made all of us.  Before attacking others look in the mirror and make damn sure that you are not attacking the very thing that resides in yourself.  I love people and this book-burning-ignorant mentality, that Christianity preaches right along with other ignorant sects of other Faiths, causes more violence and death than does Cancer and AIDs.  Think on it.