Iraqi restaurant window smashed. Veterans hold "eat-in" to show support for Iraqi refugees.

[video link] Faith in humanity status: restored. They're from Veterans for Peace. There's an article about the incident in the local paper, here.

Babylon Restaurant, the business targeted in the possible hate crime, was featured in this Boston Globe article just one month ago. If you're in Massachusetts, maybe go have a meal there sometime soon and tell them Boing Boing sent you. Some good Yelp reviews on their falafel and grape leaves! (via @adlangx)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: iraq • peace • racism • veterans for peace • war

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The Snowden Principle

ffabian

American Dream? What dream? That everyone has the chance to get abducted, tortured or spied on?
- kevinv
  
  That’s the american reality. many still dream our country can be better than that.
- marilove
  
  Yay for negative tangents on an otherwise very positive story. Ugh. Cynical people.
  - flosofl
    
    There’s always one, isn’t there?
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Well, technically the video itself is a positive spin on a negative story.
    
    So I guess it’s all about perspective.
- http://twitter.com/GideonTJones Gideon Jones
  
  I think the owners of that restaurant would probably laugh at you and the utter ridiculousness of your dismissal of the American Dream were they to read it.
  - http://mychemicaljourney.blogspot.com The Chemist
    
    Speaking as an Arab-American with more than a passing acquaintance with Arab immigrants (and other immigrants more generally)- my experience is that they’re not so starry-eyed about America as most immigrants are made out to be.
    - juepucta
      
      Precisely. I’m an immigrant myself and there’s a Canadian Dream, Italian Dream, UK Dream, Swedish Dream… this notion that USians have is why they don’t get how hilarious exceptionalism looks.
      - Mister44
        
        I think I’ve had that Swedish Dream before…
Brian Sprague

I’m in that area fairly often and I think I’ll check it out. They’ll be hard-pressed to beat the falafel at Iraqi-owned Star East in Portland, Maine but I’ll give them a shot.

Also, the Lowell police superintendent thinks it was simple vandalism and not hate-related. (Below link posted on Babylon’s Facebook page.) Hope he’s right, although that doesn’t really make the crime any more forgivable.

http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_19718719
- http://www.xeni.net/ Xeni Jardin
  
  thanks, added a link.
- SomeGuyNamedMark
  
  My motto: Don’t assume nefariousness when stupidity can explain it.
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Ye my first question whenever I see a story like this is along these lines.
    
    There are a lot more stupid, inconsiderate people than there are hateful people.
orwell

nice to hear some good news…
Spriggan_Prime

Oddly coincidental considering I just read Tom Robbins’ “Skinny Legs and All” today

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinny_Legs_and_All_%28novel%29
UstinJay

I would tell them BB sent me, except I read this story on Reddit, about two hours before you posted it.
- http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
  
  BB is a very good reddit filter though. Sometimes reddit makes me feel a little queazy with all the hugging and faux internet love – it’s a tad saccharine for this Englishman’s taste.
http://twitter.com/Soul_Surfette Christine

Good job to all involved!

(Even the rock throwers. They enable us to band together and prove a point we won’t put up with their crap.)
EdA

Been meaning to head up there with some Iraqis I know, and now with a 3-day weekend upon us!!!… @google-3d2b288473bf2e055bbc80ac08052e45:disqus thanks for the tip in Portland also!
http://celesteagnes.blogspot.com/ Sekino

I don’t care whether there was ‘hate’ involved in the crime or not, or what is says or doesn’t say about America…

Some people got victimized and scared; other people got together and showed them kindness and support. That’s just plain wonderful.
http://funisforassholes.com/ funisforassholes

Supported the coalition? I think he’s guessing that part. The rest of us weren’t so sure.
- Marko Raos
  
  Imo he meant “were nice and sympathetic to locally deployed coalition soldiers who were almost as much victims of “the coalition” as the iraqis were”
  - http://www.nathanhornby.com/ Nathan Hornby
    
    Almost as much victims of?
    
    They weren’t forced to join the killing squad you know, it WAS a choice. Please don’t insult real victims of war with ridiculous statements.
peterkvt80

I did meet a guy in Georgia, your average John Deere driving hunter, who made a joke about Iraqi men wearing diapers on their heads. With that level of understanding you can see why some idiot broke the window.
I recommend trying Iraqi food and I haven’t found anything that I didn’t like, even though with names like “foul medames” you do wonder what is going to arrive at your table.
dioptase

Ah, the hubris of building such a mighty restaurant. You can’t get to heaven serving humus. It just won’t pile high enough.

You have to admit, if you walked into a restaurant speaking one language and left speaking a different language that no one else understood,you might be inclined to express your dissatisfaction with the place using the unambiguous “rock-through-window” message.

It’s only happened to me twice. And they avoided the rock by giving me some free falafel.
bklynchris

Thank you for the soul bandage. I needed something after the story about the developmentally challenges woman being hit by a cop in LA.