facing up to the truth is bitter and painful, but this is temporary bitterness and pain that soon will go away, and putting up with this is better and more beneficial than resorting to intellectual drugs and evasion tricks.

Does this mean self-hatred and shedding one’s identity and culture? This question is meaningless, because man cannot shed his skin; if he did he would turn into an appalling freak, or perhaps he would die completely, because the skin is what protects the body, and hence the soul that uses the parts of the body…if we do not change our way of thinking we will continue to repeat these saddening distractions in an absurd and tragic way.

So no matter what lie is used to cover up the past, a kind of cultural truth – call it an informed race prejudice or justifiable stereotype – remains in the present day which is unchanged and visible if one is willing to look. Arabs are still Arabs, no matter what, and Arabs still have plenty of problems. And Arabs should face them squarely because by not doing so they are hurting themselves over and over.

I feel I agree with Al-Zaydi that by facing up to the truth the bitterness behind every Arab accusation will eventually subside, leading to cultural efforts that are more constructive rather than destructive in nature. But how many Arabs actually desire this?

Serious conspiracy theorists can find an objection to any proof and keep a theory going forever. That others give them credibility is the concern, like mainstream media giving credence to the Birthists still trying to get Obama out of office in the belief that he was secretly born in Kenya, and falsified Hawaiian documents. The energy would be better spent in going campaigning on the issues in the next elections, but they are too attached to their birthing theories to realize that. Or may be they are right, because all African foreign students who are married with children at home, and from a Muslim family, who are bonking a young white girl, really want to bring her home to their 3rd world country where news travels faster than most other places, so everyone including wife, children, parents, etc can know about it. Especially when neither student has any money, and can ill afford return airfares Hawaii-Kenya. Of course all the African students I knew were most concerned that the white girl not get pregnant, and abort if she did, or just handle it on her own, but that would be reality interfering again.

As for Al-Zaydi’s impact? I think that the fact that he writes his columns for the largest-circulating Arabic language paper in the world suggests he has impact. Even if the comments to the paper are off the wall, he’s impacting at least them, even if not convincing them. Besides, how many people bother to write letters to newspaper or leave comments on websites? It’s a minuscule portion of the readers.

That from an educated person, a geologist! They can’t realize that their very comments are a symptom of the disease Al-Zaydi writes of. I suppose, then, that this column will make little or no popular impact.

Bad things happen. Sometimes they’re just bad things happening, with no larger meaning to the world at large, but significant to the ones involved.

I really do not think that conspiracy theories are going away anytime soon, especially 9/11 where specific groups have been stigmatized as “evil”.