Fox News has done a great thing for the West. This evening, that unreliably conservative ststion showed the contraband "Muslims Against Jihad", which was to be part of the PBS series "America at a Crossroads". As is reported on a website by the film's producers, PBS believed a conservative bias had infiltrated the documentary, and decided not to air it.
Well, Fox News has. Featured on the film were Islamic terror cells in Europe (and Canada and even the United States), recruiters for the Iraqi insurgency, incidents of wife beating, and of honor killings- the usual canon- and those moderate Muslims willing to stand up to them. Causes for despair and hope were to be found, although (along with everything else I've read on the subject) I believe the former outweighs the latter threefold.
At least Islam has left no presence in Northampton yet! Thusfar, I have only met three Muslims, two in high school [a Pakistani immigrant and a convert], and one who will go to Assumption [an Iranian immigrant- who, too bad for orthodox Catholic me, is the prettiest and most decent person I've yet met in the Class of 2011]. And none of them are at all so radical as all those pesky Muslims radicals we hear of in Europe. In fact, only one of the two women wears a headscarf- with a slightly reflective Calvin Klein logo, and much more like the Roman Catholic mantilla than the ridiculous coverings above pictured.
I see this not as a reason to sit back and think, 'Ahh, jihad will only consume the cesspool of Europe; we are quite safe here'. That Islam is here less rooted than Sikhism is a missionary call. As with all lies, I hate Islam, and wish for all Muslims to willingly reject it. But naturally, the greater motivation must be from the love of Jesus Christ and His Church- the desire to instruct that One is Three, and that "an offering worthy of God can be none other than God Himself"- of the Real Presence in the Blessed Sacrament [quote St. Leonard, The Hidden Treasure].

We often despair, but we ought not, so long as He is at the center of our lives.