MY ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN QUESTION

Wanna be cowboy and atheist Jew Antony Loewenstein, interviewed by Castro-admirer Cameron Reilly on The Podcast Network, outlines his credentials as a Middle East commentator (this occurs in the middle of a rambling monologue on what makes him different as a journalist):

Yes I like to think I have some experience in this issue. I write a lot about Israel and Palestine and I spent a long time in the Middle East. So yes, I like to think I have more knowledge than the average person, that's true, but I like to think also that I'm happy to be enagaged and provoked and challenged on these kinds of issues equally and the reality is that the majority of journalists are not.

Loewenstein's desire to be "enagaged and provoked and challenged" does not extend to his blog however, which is tightly moderated to exclude difficult comments.

Anyway, here's my question for the best-selling author: exactly how much time have you spent in the Middle East over your entire life? There's no way he's going to answer because doing so would wreck what little credibility he has, but there's no harm in asking.

Update: A quick review of Loewenstein's latest potential best-seller, The Blogging Revolution:

I had a very brief look at this dude’s book last night. It looks like shite.

Yep, same as the last one.

Update II: Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of the Loewenstein-promoting Global Voices, knows how to make us all get along:

So here’s the question I’m interested now: how do we build real, productive connections with people across national, cultural and linguistic boundaries… without putting people on airplanes? Or trains? How do we efficiently manufacture xenophiles?

And since you guys can’t answer, I’ll go ahead and offer one solution that works really well - intermarriage. If you fall in love with someone from a very different culture, you’ve got a strong incentive to connect with that person’s family, learn their culture, change your perspectives. And while I’ve thought about this, it’s even harder to figure out a scheme to make intermarriage mandatory on a massive scale than it is to figure out how to put a substantial fraction of the world’s population on airplanes.

Forced marriage is one thing; hopefully the uniform won't be mandatory.