Tue, Sep 28/04
If you want to sing out, step off the plane please, sir

It appears that, after all that, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens was turfed back to the UK because of a spelling error — according to Yusuf Islam's rather histrionic account (free registration) of the ordeal, he was asked to spell his name repeatedly to six "puzzled" FBI agents. It's difficult to know whether there's more (or less) to this story. If it was indeed a spelling mistake, then it's remarkable that once safely on US soil, Mr Islam, in consultation with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and British consular officials, couldn't positively confirm that he was not the Youssouf Islam on the no-fly list.

Someone, somewhere, knows who this Youssouf is and why he's on the list, even (which is possible) if they don't even know what he looks like or where he's from. Thus, if a heretofore anonymous Afghani goat herder named Yusuf Islam had found himself in the same predicament, I could understand it taking some time to sort out. To state the obvious, Cat Stevens is not and never has been an Afghani goat herder. He is a man with a British passport and a birth certificate who has entered and exited the US goodness knows how many times before, not to mention the fact that he's at least a C-list celebrity.

But still, we're back at square one: either this is an A-list screw-up, or, as the National Post implied today, he really is suspected of some low-level terrorist association. (While I'm here, I'll mention that I think the Post's article today was altogether unfair: all they did was place the man at a fund-raiser for a then-legal Canadian charity (which hundreds of Canadians presumably also attended). As for the anti-Semitic comment the Post attributes to him — well, the man is a Muslim activist after all. Mad props to Israel for their secular democracy, but even as someone who predominantly supports Israel in this thing, I don't think it's fair to expect moderation on this issue even from moderate Muslims.)

Another hot button non-issue

If a bunch of hippies in Nelson, BC want to build a monument to American draft dodgers and put it on private land, there's nothing anyone can do about it, full stop. Still, we get headlines like "U.S.'s Cellucci to stay out of B.C. draft dodger monument controversy." The outgoing American ambassador in Ottawa claims to be waiting "to see if we get any instructions from Washington on that particular one." I would have liked to have seen him come out and say "In Canada, private citizens can build and display anything they like," but he's always struck me as a bit of a tit, so I'm not that surprised that he didn't.

(Sidebar: people who've never spent time in BC apparently don't realize what a running joke Nelson is. It is synonymous with "stupid, useless hippies." If we just leave them be, they won't bother us.)

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