Give the Mufti a TV program....
 Following a few more highlights from last night's dinner panel hosted by Madeleine Albright's (see "Eddie Lampert asks a question" below for more....) The scene: Former Secretary Albright sits to the far left on stage, a large presence, but significantly smaller, physically, than than the Grand Mufti of Bosni and Queen Noor to her left. The Mufti owes his stature in part to a bright white cylindrical hat, while Queen Noor is simply sporting the sort of lofty hairstyle that only a Queen could get away with, and she does. ALBRIGHT opens with strong point of view that wins applause. "I believe the United States needs to have a moral foreign policy. Now, that's a little different than a moralistic foreign policy where we're telling everyone else what they should believe." Eventually, she cedes the floor to the Queen Noor, and then the Grand Mufti who takes the "corporate" group as far back as 1289 -- when the last Caliph was killed in Bagdhad -- in laying out his analysis of the various paths that Islam has tried in its attempts to modernize. The Mufti is clearly a charmer, confessing his ignorance of business repeatedly: "The corporate, you have surplus in your material goods. We have surplus in our spiritual goods. We should do a trade."  IGNATIUS follows the Grand Mufti and gets right to the point: "I saw quite a few Hollywood people in the audience, and I'm thinking someone ought to sign the Mufti up for a TV show." Eventually, it's time for the Q&A. (The main course has yet to arrive, but the clatter from dishes being served is rising.) Before Eddie asks his big question, Narayana Murthy gets in a good one. Murthy is the Chairman and "Chief Mentor" (read founder) of Infosys, the giant Indian tech outfit. Murthy wonders why he has not "come across a single Indian Muslim" involved in global terrorism of the sort committed by al Queda. Queen Noor's answer make very good sense: "India is a live democracy -- one that is allowing political space for dissidents." This is not the case in the Arab world, she says. Photo by Yunghi Kim 
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