My good friend the Muslim

A presidential candidate advocates precise tracking of American Muslims (Donald Trump); another, the bombing Islamic State terrorists in Syria until the "sand glows" (Ted Cruz; does this sound like using nuclear weapons, and if the result is glowing sand, would he not think that innocents could be harmed, too?); and also banning Muslims from traveling to the United States (Trump again). Bernie Sanders seems a little flummoxed by the whole Islamic thing.

Trump doesn't even have the after-thought and perhaps insincere decency to follow up his remarks, as he did a few months ago when he uttered his opening racist comments about Mexicans, by saying of Muslims in general, or even more particularly of American Muslims, ". . .and some of them are good people."

Public figures are saying things about followers of Islam that are, frankly, stupid, mean, hurtful and unfair.  Would it be surprising if an American Muslim were to say "Gee, I feel as if other people are looking at me like they don't trust me or they just don't like me?" I would be surprised if there were not a lot of that feeling going around right now.

Which makes me wonder something: