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12.4.06 @ 12:01AM

BORAT-FREE ZONE
Re: Peter Hannaford's Borat the Soft Bigot:

At best, Kazakhstan is a very backward place. I work in Kazakhstan and saw very little indicating any movement toward democracy. This is shown by the housing riots in Almaty that were put down Soviet style (as was reported by the Economist and elsewhere). Recently there was a major oilfield riot where thousands of Kazakh workers attacked all of the Turks on site resulting in over 300 injuries requiring medical attention. Very many of those injured had to be evacuated back to Turkey to get adequate medical care. One of the injured was in a coma for several weeks afterward and at least one other was sodomized with scaffold pipe. This made the Turkish national news and was shown on the news for many days afterward. In the weeks following the Kazakh workers then went about intimidating the Indian and Filipino workers, resulting it half of them leaving. The Kazakhstan police have shown minimal interest in catching and punishing any of the workers responsible.

Kazakhstan has two cities that are reasonably presentable; Astana and Almaty. Other than in these two cities Kazakhstan is a backward place and is not dramatically more advanced than suggested by Borat. Kazakhstan President Nazerbayev was not initially a "good sport" about Borat and called for him to be censored in the free world, much as it would be in Kazakhstan and is in Russia.

I am withholding my name because I intend to continue to work here. Because of the terrible conditions salaries are good.
-- Name Withheld

Thank you for your article about the real Kazakhstan. I lived and worked there for a year and found it to be a very remarkable country with deep and rich heritage. The people are friendly and not backward as Borat portrays them. I was fortunate to be able to travel across the country and see the wide diversity from modern cities like Almaty and Astana to rural hamlets where life is still slow and colorful. Most American do not know that Kazakhstan is home to the Russian space center. The native food is delicious and is centered on meat, especially horse meat and lamb. I do find it appalling that a British Jewish comedian (who lives in California) decides to ridicule and make fun of a nation which has more culture and sense of pride than he will ever have.
-- Ron Hallmark
Banner Elk, North Carolina

Let me the first to say this:

The Emperor Borat Has No Pants.

There, I've said it and I'm glad.

Borat is nasty, which is different from funny, or at least once upon a time it was.

Perhaps this could be called a Garden of Eden Moment: when the collective congregation takes a good look and, despite the utter terror of Being Different, says "Hey guys, we're nekkid!"

Or, since I have never thought Borat or anyone like him was funny, let me say "Hey guys, y'all are nekkid!"
-- Kate Shaw
Fully Clothed and Not Amused in Toronto

UNLUMPED LUTHERANISM
Re: Mark Tooley's Lutherans and Mighty Fortresses:

While your contributor is a bit more nuanced, your headline lumps all Lutherans together. I was a pastor of the ELCA until about seven years ago when I could no longer square my ordination vows with the apostasy which the ELCA expected of me. I served as a pastor in a German parish for six years right on the border to East Germany. I could see East Germany from my living room window. I too am appalled by the statements of those who hijacked a church which had nourished my faith. There are many Lutherans who in good Lutheran manner do not confuse a Marxist political agenda with the mandate to preach and rightly distinguish between Law and Gospel. This is one Lutheran who saw the fence which divided Germany for the barbarity it was. I also see the Israeli fence as an attempt to humanely preserve a semblance of civility in the Middle East. Other Lutherans and I refer to the ELCA as ***A since it is no longer evangelical, Lutheran, or a church. Please don't lump us together with our persecutors.
-- Michael Zamzow

I suppose most denominations have the same thing: a general disconnect between the average believer in the pew and the leadership at headquarters far away. Indeed, while the average Lutheran is more concerned with his parish, the milieu of the ELCA leadership is at the university level where they cruise with the leadership of other denominations as well as breathe in all the enthusiasms and vapors that occupy the minds of higher education. Nothing is so embarrassing as having your denomination out of step with the latest bells and whistles of your cohorts.

As such we are bombarded with the high, almost mystical imperative to promote pathways of simultaneous peace and justice. No one explains what this is to look like. Moreover, there is little recognition that, this side of the Day of the Lord, we often can have either peace or you can have justice; but not both. For when we talk about justice, we should ask ourselves just how much can we afford? We really aren't prepared for the costs of radical justice among us. Justice is a jealous bitch-goddess that unleashes the hounds of war and demands misery, suffering, and rivers of blood.

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