rapid city IV: the time of killing

The latest issue of Harper's features an interview with Omar Bakri Muhammad, the head of London-based radical Islamic group Al Muhajiroun. Much of it is depressing fundamentalist tosh, the sort of stuff you can't believe adults are capable of spouting. One answer is instructive:

Is terror the only way to make people aware of [the disparity between the value of Muslim and non-Muslim lives to the Western media]?

Terror is the language of the twenty-first century. If I want something, I terrorize you to achieve it. To support George Bush is a kind of terrorism. To support Al Qaeda is the same. Everybody is involved. Every Muslim is a terrorist, every non-Muslim is a terrorist. This is the "time of killing".

I thought about this at Mt. Rushmore, watching the tourists take their photos. Men in wheelchairs, women strolling with oxygen canisters, old geezers in straw hats, bikers with leather chaps and long braided hair. I took photos of children with Rushmore T-shirts and disposable cameras. I took a photo of some asshole posing with a bunch of adenoidal Eagle Scouts. I kept imagining a jet plane slamming into Jefferson's face.