Pro Palestine Protestors Block Philadelphia Pride Parade

[DFW]

48. I wasn't equating the types of churches, but rather their penchant for using one phrase to mean another

I agree that the Muslims of the Middle East are hardly the ones to boast of tolerance and acceptance. It didn't use to be that bad, but it's nothing some conveniently pushed animosity won't cure. I have met Muslims from the Philippines and Indonesia, and they are nothing like that. Fifty years ago, my brother and I stayed with a Balkan Muslim family in Dubrovnik, and their daughters were getting dolled up and going out to discos just like the rest of the locals, and with their family's blessing. They made no more of their Muslim ancestry than someone in the States saying they were Irish-Italian. I can only wonder how they fared in the Balkan conflict twenty-plus years later, or if they were still welcome in Croatia, which they always considered home. They used to chide me for preferring to listen to Croatian tambouritsa folk music, thinking I was crazy when such "wonderful" music as David Bowie was out there (I never liked David Bowie). I rhetorically asked "zašto (ZA-shtaw=why)?" and they would smile sweetly and just answer, "zato(ZA-taw=because)!"