Weekend update (June 20, 2005)

It's been a busy weekend at The Reaction. From Friday evening through these early hours of Monday morning, there have been nine new posts, not including this one -- all in all, if I do say so myself, a fairly diverse output. The topics (in reverse order):

• Gaza settlements;
• the Supreme Court;
• the Iraqi insurgency;
• Mukhtaran Bibi;
• Tucker Carlson;
• Dick 'n' Jeb;
• religious moderation;
• Katie Holmes-Cruise; and
• the Iraq Culture Smart Card.

As always, I invite you to scroll down and read them all -- the front page of The Reaction contains all posts from the last two weeks (for more, see the archives) -- but I also invite comments on any of these topics (and, indeed, on any of my posts).

One thing I want to stress, now that I've had a couple of months to settle in, is that I'm not here to pontificate. It is not my intention to write under the presumption that I know everything that there is to know about a given topic, and I've learned a great deal from the many comments -- both positive and negative -- that I've already received, so much so that I continually reevaluate what I've written (though I won't go back and edit what I've written -- I'm no revisionist) and reconsider my views accordingly. One good example is a comment by a Pakistani, Babar Hashmi, to my original post on Mukhtaran Bibi. Although I may not agree with a number of his points, he brought a valuable perspective to The Reaction, and his thoughtful comments prompted me to think more deeply about my own views of Ms. Mukhtaran's situation (and of Pakistan more generally). In addition, I am grateful to have a number of excellent contributors who comment regularly on my posts, and I encourage you to read what they have to say.

So feel free to have your say here. I try to respond to each and every comment, and, above all, you'll be taken seriously and respectfully. Just log in (if you have a Blogger account) or sign in with your name/pseudonym (or just as "anonymous," if you prefer), and go to it. In the meantime, that's the weekend, and I'll be back with more posts later today.