Slavery in Africa lecture tonight

Attending a lecture tonight on the long and continuing history of slavery in Africa (primarily of black Africans by Arabs) sponsored by Maranatha_Christian_Fellowship at the U of M.

Here's some background:

Slavery is a very old human institution. Its end in the west was spearheaded by
William Wilberforce of Britain. This is a very interesting article on the
subject: The_Scourge_of_Slavery .
Now naturally we think of a cruel and inhuman institution that was mainly
American. This due in no small part to our civil war. And then I began
reading. Of all the slaves shipped to the western hemisphere less tha 5% went to
North America (mainly the American Slave States). I found out that the
slave trade to the west comprised about 10% of the trade. The vast
majority went to the countries of Islam. In transporting the slaves to the
Americas about 10% died in transit. In transporting slaves to Muslim
countries 80% died in transit. Although the slave trade has ended in the
west it still continues in Islam...

More later.

Got to the Gold Nugget / Lakeshore

Took Marty up on his review of the Gold_Nugget burger joint out in Minnetonka a couple days ago. Too bad it has now closed for 18 months while it prepares to move across the street... dang fine atmosphere, service and burgers.

So after that, I went to the Lakeshore_Learning_Store in St._Louis_Park to pick up some English picture cards I'll use to continue teaching a few Tibetan Buddhist monks in Minneapolis ... o' course eating meat is one of the reasons why I'm only a semi-practicing Tibetan Buddhist...

New Anti-Slavery blog

The American_Anti-Slavery_Group (AASG), one of my favorite non-profits, has a new blog.
They're one of the few organizations that have brought light to the genocide in the Darfur province of Sudan.
I hope to add their link to my sidebar when I get enough HTML knowledge.

Update: Rony_Abovitz posts on a lack of Arab-American protests against Sudan.

+ some more Sudan blogs I might add to my sidebar:

Sudan:_The_Passion_of_the_Present , and

coalition_for_darfur

Heard Hugh_Hewitt interview some folks who worked on ABC's The_Path_to_9/11 yesterday.... Former Clinton officials are not_happy with how they're portrayed in the miniseries....

I remember defending Bill Clinton in a call in to local radio talk show host Jason_Lewis in the late '90s during the Chinese_spying_scandal . Not so sure I'd defend Clinton now, but I now use the same arguments to defend Bush, Jr.- that it was more a case of bad intelligence (like an imcompetent CIA) than gross negligence by our chief Executive...

Any comments?

UPDATE: Roger_L._Simon has more...

A Buddhist "threat" to Islam?

Dang- First it was the Taliban blowing up centuries-old statues in Afghanistan, then it was separatist Muslims in southern Thailand beheading monks and now this (via POWER_LINE ):

"It is time for the unbelievers to discard these incoherent and illogical beliefs," he said. "Isn't it the time for the Christians, Jews, Buddhists[?!] and atheists[!!] to cast off the cloak of the spiritual darkness which enshrouds them and emerge into the light of Islam?"

As a semi-practicing Tibetan Buddhist (and atheist) myself, I think it's time for the Dalai Lama to retract his statements earlier this year referring to Islam as a "religion of peace".
I dunno...maybe ol' Tenzin Gyatso wants to have solidarity with the Muslim Uygurs of Xinjiang/East Turkistan...