I was thinking this morning on my way to work that there are no shitty sitcoms which deal primarily with the Arab and/or Muslim experience in America. Why? Most other minorities are represented with shitty sitcoms. Well, I guess black and latino are. And latino also recently, it seems like. I guess there aren’t really any Asian-based sitcoms, except for that short lived one with Margaret Cho, who I always hated. And also, there has been no Arab equivalent of Ricky Martin or Jennifer Lopez - people who have culturally crossed over, helping to generate an influx into mainstream American culture. But who also stand for cultural fusion, and striving for acceptance by white America. I think that movie with Jennifer Lopez as a maid, who falls in love with that rich white guy, and then whatever happens - I don’t know I didnt see it. But I saw a lot of billboards. And it seemed like it was all about this sort of fairy tale image of acceptance into and success within mainstream white culture. But it seems like most Arabs on tv & movies are still working out this stupid terrorist image, which stands for a denial of white American mainstream culture, rather than a striving for acceptance. I actually feel like this is a significant, if unexpressed, reason why the United States went to war in the Middle East - to culturally colonize the region even further. I actually had a short but interesting conversation with a taxi driver about this one time in Baltimore. We were talking about how instead of bombing them, we should be inundating them with our movies, music & tv - that is, if we’re trying to get them to accept our economics & culture. Of course, they shouldn’t have to, but it’s an interesting point nonetheless.