Posted by William Neikirk at 12:45 p.m. CDT
At a time of war, fear of terrorism and suspicion of other cultures, this little story reminds us that we are all human beings. I was at a Washington Nationals baseball game with some of my Tribune colleagues on Friday night when my wife called to report that my daughter had left her cell phone in the back seat of a taxi. My daughter couldn't do much about it. She was catching a train to New York.
As I fretted about the hassle of finding or replacing the phone, my wife tried a cab company that my daughter thought had dropped her off, but the company said no, it was unlikely she was a passenger since its cabs operated primarily in Virginia. As I worried about expensive calls overseas on her cell phone, my cell phone rang in the middle of the game. It was the cab driver, and he was using my daughter's phone. He had evidently dialed the last number she had used, and that was mine. Since meeting him at the stadium would be hard, I asked him to call my wife so that they could arrange for a pickup, and he agreed.
My wife called me later at the game with this report: The driver used the cell phone to call my wife to get directions to our house. He was an older man with a beard, and dressed in a long white robe, obviously Middle Eastern. She paid him for his trouble, and he asked if he could use our bathroom. Fine, she said. Then, heading out the front door, he asked if he could use our front lawn to pray. Or, if that would be a problem, he said, would she mind if he used the street in front of our house to pray? He had a rug in the cab, he said.
"Sir, you do not have to pray outside," my wife said. "You can use our living room. Come on in." He said he would get his rug from the taxi. She said no, there was a rug in the living room and he could use that. The driver went into the living room, asked which direction was northeast, knelt, and began to whisper his prayer as my wife gave him privacy. Some five minutes later, he got up, thanked my wife, and drove off.
You can wonder about such things and whether she was taking undue risks and all that, but my wife calculated it was the right thing to do at the moment. And besides, she said, it was time to pray. Amen.
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Comments
"You can wonder about such things and whether she was taking undue risks and all that..."
Um, no, I wasn't wondering any such thing - were you? If so, I'd say that's pretty blatant bigotry. Would you have wondered the same thing about a white cab driver in jeans and t-shirt? For heaven's sake, the guy went out of his way to contact you and your wife to return the cell phone - that would be a pretty novel pretext for a terrorist attack.
Posted by: Dienne | July 10, 2006 11:33 AM
Thank goodness we have Dienne, professional bigotry fighter, protecting us here in the swamp. Mr. Neikirk, I believe your post was completely respectful and it was an uplifting story to read on this blog that's usually full of partisan rants. It made my day a little brighter. Sadly, Dienne had to bring the rants back. You get out there and fight all those bigots Dienne. And while you're at it, also try to make sure someone, somewhere, isn't having a good time.
Posted by: Bill | July 10, 2006 1:02 PM
Bill,
The other day a guy came to my door and I could tell by the cross he wore around his neck that he was a Christian. Naturally, I was afraid that he was going to start prostelyzing and telling me I was going to go to hell. I was really afraid he was going to make me put up a Christmas tree and sing Christmas carols. But it turns out he was just a neighbor wanting to let me know I'd left my lights on. Then he asked if he could use my phone. I was a little nervous about it - maybe he'd be calling his fellow Christian jihadists to come blow my house up (you know, like those crazy abortion clinic bombers), but it turned out he was just calling the phone company because he phone wasn't working. You might be wondering whether I was taking undue risks, but really I felt pretty good about the whole thing.
If you don't see anything bigoted about Mr. Neikirk's post, then you shouldn't see anything bigoted about the above.
Posted by: Dienne | July 10, 2006 2:16 PM
Mr Neikirk,
You are a newsman correct? Why was your story news?
Because you daughter lost her cellphone?
Because the cab driver returned it?
Because a liberal family let someone pray inside their house?
Because the Muslim cab driver didn't blow-up your house?
Just asking?
Posted by: Terry | July 10, 2006 8:55 PM
Keep fighting the good fight out there Dienne. Make sure no one ever has any untoward thoughts whatsoever. Or, perish the thought, ever honestly admits it. It's thought police who like you who will keep this fascist kindergarten, err, I mean country, safe.
As usual, Dienne, you're missing the point. Neikirk stated "You can wonder about such things and whether she was taking undue risks and all that." Wonder implies the simple idea of undue risk might enter your head at some point during this whole situation.
To paraphrase the immortal bard his act did not o'ertake his bad intent and must be buried as but an intent that perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects, Dienne, intents but merely thoughts.
As for why such a thought might enter a person's head during such in obviously peaceful situation? I'm not going to even address your laughable assertion where you try to flip the roles. I can give you a list of reasons that you'll no doubt find inflammatory and it will probably ruin the very civil discourse we're having on this thread. But I'll run that risk, since I think it's important to let you know that there are plenty of us out here who haven't forgotten these things and take them very seriously.
1.) The hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73, 1986.
2.) The bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex, 1996.
3.) The bombing of U.S. embassies in East Africa (1998) that killed 220 people.
4.) The suicide bombing attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors in addition to the two assailants, 200.
5.) Sept. 11, 2001 nearly 3,000 dead.
This is the short list, too, I could go on and on with a much longer list of terrorist attacks that killed U.S. citizens all perpetrated by radical Islamists. I know the teachings of Islam value peace and the jihadists are a radical sect of a millions strong religion, but you certainly can't argue that radical Islamists aren't dangerous and might cause an untoward thought to pop into someone's head and then be quickly dismissed. I don't call that bigotry. I call it reality.
Posted by: Bill | July 11, 2006 12:02 AM
Bill,
Timothy McVeigh and Eric Rudolph were both Christians. I'm sure if I cared enough I could find many more examples of modern Christian terrorists, and if you want to go back through history, we could talk about the Holocaust, the Salem Witch Trials, the Inquisition, the Crusades, etc. So does that mean that its natural for untoward thoughts to pop into one's head if someone is openly Christian?
By the way, how many of the terrorist acts that you list (or that I list, for that matter), were proceeded by altruistic acts of good samaritanism? What makes Mr. Niekirk think that the cab driver would bother to go out of his way to return the cell phone just because he had bad intentions? Does Mr. Niekirk think that his house is somehow worthy of being a terrorist target? Narcissism on top of bigotry.
Posted by: Dienne | July 11, 2006 10:33 AM
Dienne,
No, the crusades are not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about very recent history of radical Islamists using terror as a political tool. Here's an even more recent example:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-india-train-explosion,0,2381675.story?coll=chi-homepagepromo440-fea
I know you have no respect for Christianity but Eric Rudolph was no Christian and neither was Timothy McVeigh. They weren't a part of an international movement of jihad! They were acting on their own. Al Qaeda is just one of many Islamo-fascist organizations that want to topple governments to bring in their own theocracy and use any means necessary to do it. If you don't believe me, go to India today.
The Salem Witch Trials, the Inquisition, those were truly heinous acts perpetrated in the name of christianity. But I doubt you'd see any christian group advocating suicide bombing or any of the other common tools used in this day and age by radical Islamists.
And like I said, I don't know what Bill Neikirk thought, I can't get inside his head, but I don't find anything wrong with simply admitting to thinking something might be amiss and then dismissing it and doing the right thing. On top of all of that, you don't have the right to go around calling people bigots because of something they thought and then admitted. For the last time, you're not the thought police.
Posted by: Bill | July 11, 2006 12:04 PM
Here's an example of what I mean by multi-organization international group all fighting the same jihad:
The terror attack on Mumbai trains was carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and local Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists and was designed to trigger communal conflagration in the country's financial capital, intelligence sources said.
While I agree with you that Eric Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh were disgusting terrorists, they were not a part of an international movement that disregards all human life and uses terror as a political philosophy.
Posted by: Bill | July 11, 2006 11:19 PM