Followed, but not by a Moonshadow

Daily Kos has the story and links regarding Yusef Islam's (aka Cat Stevens) short stay in Bangor, Maine.

Check out the link to The Independent if you want to read about the comedy of errors when the crew began to "explain" why they were in Bangor instead of the scheduled destination of Washington, DC. It was weather--no, wait, it was fuel--no, wait, um...well, the guy who wrote "Peace Train" is a security threat.

And yeah, I know about Yusef endorsing the fatwa against Salman Rushdie--in fact, years ago I got into a discussion about this with someone who told me I resembled Mr. Steven's (I was a LOT younger and had much longer hair back then).

The Independent's article alleges that Islam donated lots of money to Hamas, which is probably why he's on the list (he was denied entry into Israel a few years back amid these allegations). Islam maintains he "never knowingly gave money to any terrorist organization."

The whole thing sounds more punitive than effective in terms of Homeland Security. They've managed to prove that they can recognize and deny entry to someone who is relatively high-profile and therefore unlikely to be any sort of genuine threat. You know, I don't recall any of the nineteen hijackers of September 11th being former pop stars.