Lies My President Told Me

One of the most outstanding developments in the USA throughout my life has been the coming forward of our most prestigious political figures as liars. Not so much bluffers anymore, as in poker. More like obsessive liars. Anyway, the present holder of office seems intent on a missile defense system in Europe to protect our European allies in Eastern Europe against attack by Iran. I seem to have forgotten when Europe was threatened by missile rattling mullahs, but it must have happened. Why the mullahs and ayatullahs would threaten Europe with atomic missiles when they are simultaneously denying any work on an atomic bomb is somewhat counter-intuitive. If our guys were smart, they would pick up on it. India has tested a missile capable of carrying an atomic warhead. This was within the past week. Thank goodness the only coutry threatened by Hindu warheads is Pakistan and not any of our European allies. At this point, one wonders if the development of this missile delivery system was included in the USA-India nuclear freebie pact. However, it seems India has been dragging its feet on the pact, anyway, so there India is: with a bomb and with a missile. The pact probably made demands upon the Indian government that it act responsibly. No wonder the pact is dying. Russia seems to think the missiles are directed against them merely because they will be located in neighboring countries. Not at first, President Putin. They will not be so directed...at first! We may always change the directional settings later, however. President Putin was talking about these missiles recently. He went through a list of negatives, then ended by saying no evil would come from all of this, because he and George Bush were such friends. BFFs, in fact. The sarcasm dripped cyrillic. When all is said and done, Iran is in the Middle East. The only enemy of Iran we can see is Israel. Iran has said a few impolitic remarks about Israel, while it hasn't said much at all about Europe. So this business about Iran is a procedure to ensure the continued dominance of the nuclear power of Israel in the Middle East. Of course, we all know this. It is talking about it that is forbidden. Haraam 'alayya, Folks!

The Road To Iran 2

The V.P., or the Notorious V.I.P. ( Vice Intensive President ), seems to see a good deal more to Pres. A. of Iran than I do. Pres. A. did not come off to well during his recent visit. Actually, nobody involved in that charade came off too well. As I said at the time, it is hard to build a case that somebody is a cunning and malevolent evil entity when said entity is acting like a dimwit. Yet the V.P. seems determined that this country Iran, a country which cannot control the distribution of gasoline to its citizens without having riots break out on every corner, is the source of all our woes.

To quote Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek:  
Stalin, Mao And … Ahmadinejad?

Conservatives have become surprisingly charitable about two of history's greatest mass murderers. Oct 29, 2007 Issue  
"Here is the reality. Iran has an economy the size of Finland's and an annual defense budget of around $4.8 billion. It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are quietly or actively allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?" 

... "We're on a path to irreversible confrontation with a country we know almost nothing about. The United States government has had no diplomats in Iran for almost 30 years. American officials have barely met with any senior Iranian politicians or officials. We have no contact with the country's vibrant civil society. Iran is a black hole to us—just as Iraq had become in 2003."

and finally  

"Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world" (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous."

More wit and comedy from the Bush White House. Seriously, if indeed we are the wealthiest and the most powerful nation in the history of mankind, is this really the best we can do? George W. Bush? Richard Cheney? And President Amedinejad was really, really - literally - going to end the world?

Th-th-that's all, folks!

Comments: A Christmas Carol

I have received information that comments...1 or 2...are not being accepted.

Well, I do not know why. I've checked everything, even sending myself test comments, filled with unstinting praise- merely as an exercise to be sure- and everything seems to work. Odd. Maybe people assume that comments are not accepted because I take my own sweet time taking a gander at them and allowing them publication. This is very possible. They are so few and far between that the mere mention that there is a comment waiting upon me in the sitting room, top hat in his hand, puts me in a tizzy. I slowly descend the main staircase and peek through the carved balustrades, quite like a child on Christmas morning early. Then silently I continue my descent.

Standing outside the sitting room door, I practice harrumphing and saying things like "bushwah!" I recall comments from the past:
"How much shall we put you down for this year, Mr. Montag?"
"Harrrumph! How much? How much, indeed! Are the workhouses not open? And the treadmill...is it not in force?"
... and so on.

Really. I mean, how presumptious can you be? I actually received an e-mail from an entity yclept The Frog Dwarf who took me to task for my opposition to gambling. And my reply that shall be a posting soon to open at your local PC. Of course, given Blogic, that subsequent posting will actually precede this one in the reading area and nothing will make any sense at all...a situation which has been asserted by past commentors to be the case most of the time. Send them to the Commentors Treadmill and get some work out of 'em!

A Wall Of Silence

There are some photos of the walls built in Baghdad to separate neighborhoods. The ones at http://nonarab-arab.blogspot.com/index.html show the Sunni Dora being separated from surrounding Shi'a areas. One must go to the site in order to be able to see the enlarged images in which the walls are quite clearly seen. The violence has decreased by separating the warring peoples. Of course, this is hardly a political solution, rather a Mural Solution...or extra-mural...or trans-mural...or cis-mural ( our side) and trans-mural (their side). I am sure Ms. Rice can come up with some brainy description. What happens when the walls go away? There is also comment of the Great New Age of Wall Tech: walls in Baghdad, walls in Israel, walls along the borders, walls between Saudi Arabia and Iraq...the new walled community of the 21st C. I find it hard to believe that the USA p'd and moaned about the Berlin Wall for so long. Then, within 20 years of its downfall, the technology loudly touted by the US government is walling areas off from others. (There is a sense of destiny, however. In my youth, I had received the nickname "Walls". My friends were "Door", and "Lintel", among others. There was "Joist" and there was "Sanitary Hook-up"...all quite inscrutable.)

Rappers' Delight

The Notorious V.I.P.

To The Soldiers Returning Home

I'm the MC that rocks tha world. I’m the V.P. that shuts you down. I’m tha V.I.P. in home and in town! Somebody's gotta die Faluuuuu-ja! If I got, you gotta go. Somebody's gotta die Faluuuuu-ja! Let the gunshots blow. Somebody's gotta die and somebody's gotta lie; Nobody gotta know That I killed yo ass in the mist, kid

What Would The American Empire Look Like?

If there is to be an American empire, it would resemble the USA.

It would grow the way the US grew. In this process, the inhabitants of the USA will see similarities to their glorious past and thus conclude that the imperial present and the 1,000 future of the American Empire will be particularly blessed by God.
There will be interludes resembling the American Wars of Indian Extermination. There will be comical sketches based on a humbug understanding of new science that will resemble the Eugenics schemes of the early 2oth century. Please recall that the earliest scheme for a travelling extermination chamber to kill undesirables was in the USA, not Nazi Germany.
There will be the insidious belief in our own rectitude and alliance with the will of God, a bit of hybris we like to do 3 times before breakfast and which will lead the USA to a spiritual vacuum where the only thing they believe in is the perverted creations of their own puny intellects, rather like the schemes of Pastor John Haggee of San Antonio. Pastor Haggee is merely the precursor of the deception.

No empire is exactly like another. Many foolishly believe America will follow Rome,...or Byzantium. No empires exactly parallel each other. We are facing a serious loss of sense of Community. We prat and chatter about being a Christian country, yet we hold all men to be islands, complete unto themselves. Our commitment to the welfare of the community is vestigial. This commitment is what Christianity is about. This commitment is what Islam is about. This commitment is what Judeaism is about.

How can Community survive in the midst of Wars based on deception, whose very being is a scandal and whose support requires a cycnicism beyond anything we had hitherto dreamed of? A War for Oil...and everyone stands in foolish crowds and moans: what of the soldiers who died? did they die for naught? How do you make evil right? By what machinations will you pervert the perversion? The soldiers say: tell them at home we fought and died here, according to their command. Our command. Our responsibility. Our evil. When the sense of being a community dies, the community itself has died, and what is left is the hulk of Imperium and Compulsion and Power and Force.

Jihad And Revolution

If we ask whether Jihad is an integral part of Islam, are we being serious? I do not think so. We should first address something we are more familiar with: is revolution an integral part of Christianity? We might start of with the Magnificat: He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly; He fills the starving with good things; sends the rich away empty. All the pundits out there, tell me. I cannot wait to hear what you have to say. If you diminish revolution in Christianity, why do you magnify jihad in Islam? Explain the one and then the other. I await.

Damien?

In Ha'Aretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/915701.html Rabin assassin's wife: Yigal Amir sacrificed himself for his people The pregnant wife of Yigal Amir, the jailed assassin of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, said Monday that she intended to tell Amir's future child that his father had "sacrificed himself for his people." ... and so it goes.

Politics

I caught the Republican debate at Mrs. Robinson's house last Sunday. I was impressed by them all. There was one whom I had never heard of before, a Mr. Hunter. He did not seem to be a real candidate and said a lot of non-sequiturs that seemed to be solely for the audience in Florida where the dabate took place. I assume he was the local US Rep or some other lowly life form. Ron Paul was not overwhelmingly popular. When Mr. Paul observed that 70% of the populace was opposed to the continuance of the war in Iraq, there was disbelief and displeasure expressed by the audience. Mr. Paul's observation that pursuing some ideal of an American Empire would bankrupt us financially and morally met a similar response. I really do not know quite what to make of the Republican Party. Other than kissing up to groups that label themselves "values voters" and purposely avoiding debates or symposia held by Black Americans...and making a rather large point of not mentioning George W. Bush by name, I do not understand them. I mean, once Roe vs. Wade is reversed, what are you going to do? You spend like drunken sailors, your conception of the world is on the level of trailer park trash, your works of charity are scripted by CPAs...you are a beautiful and wealthy corruption.

Then we turn to the Democrats. Tell me the names of the wealthy Armenian backers of Nancy Pelosi. There must be a couple who have an idee fixe about the Armenian Genocide. Nancy Pelosi did not come up with this on her own, although we had hoped that it would not have been beyond her faculties to perceive that it was not a good idea. What's wrong with a resolution condemning Armenian Genocide? I am reading a book titled Halsey's Typhoon. It takes place in World War II and features Admiral Halsey and General MacArthur. Now I am doing this from faulty memory, but I seem to recall that in giving a short bio of General MacArthur, there was a run through of the life of MacArthur's father. I seem to recall that the book stated that the senior MacArthur was in the US Army in the western part of the country in the late 19th century. Now at that time, since the Indian Extermination Campaign was coming to an end, he had to make a decision about his future. Indian Extermination Campaign??!! Well, I have not heard it called that in a while. Maybe never. That was the only reference to it in the book, as the book was focused on WWII. Ahhh...the panoply of pots and the treasure cache of kettles!...and the blackness thereof!

The Night Of Long Memories

The Notorious V.I.P. has rapped a rap Sunday past about Iran. "This same regime that approved of hostage-taking in 1979, that attacked Saudi and Kuwaiti shipping in the 1980s, that incited suicide bombings and jihadism in the 1990s and beyond, is now the world's most active state sponsor of terror" 1979?! Well.....I am down with Notorious V.I.P, but magis amicus veritatis: I am more a friend of truth. It sounds a lot like Marc Antony at Caesar's funeral. When all else fails, welcome Octavian!

Gambling

"If you give a man enough rope, then he will hang hisse'f (thereby saving the county the cost of incarceration)." Judge Roy Bean Gambling is neutral. It's all what you do with it. The hybrid of gambling and capitalism is abhorrent. The embrace of gambling by our state and local governments argues a spiritual and ethical vacuum of profound depth. There is NO Choice. Once gambling becomes big business, there is no choice. We pretend there is, but that's because we are all of us...essentially...idiots. Business has found that advertising will sell products, even things we have no need of. By the lure of sexuality or power or all the other appetites we are lead to consume and partake in the feast of 21st century capitalism. We pretend there is a choice. Even we who do not gamble say there is a choice: we choose not to gamble. No. It is merely not the correct vice for us. By our neutrality in not condemning gambling, we enable it to continue until there are only (1) Gamblers, or (2) Enablers. We have lost the choice of being neither !!!!!! Capitalism seeks to lure you with a feast of "choices". If these choices in no way improve the quality of your individual life nor the life of the community, then they are not choices, they are enticements to sate appetites which work against the social good. If I am grossly overweight and am presented with a groaning board of delectable sweets all high in trans and saturated fats and sugars, am I to choose for myself? Or am I to destroy myself? If all the "choices" are bad and I am very hungry, is it a choice? Or is it not the case that I have - all my life- been led down the garden path of obesity by Big Food business and become inordinately fond of certain combinations of fats and sweets and carbohydrates...all of which leads to my hubritic indulgence...NOT a choice! Which is it? When there is another gun crime, we hear that no one forces anyone to bear a gun: it is a choice. And we are all rational enough to make choices. We also hear that if you give a man enough rope, then he will hang himself. The latter maxim is not a choice. Popular wisdom as summed up in the above recognizes that there sometimes is choice and sometimes there is not. We had better wake up to the fact that many of our choices are forced and compelled.

Peace Fasting And Poetry

New poem at http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/ Very gingery...spicey...cumin and cardamon...exotic odors and a thick paste of love.

Give Democracy A Chance!

My favorite memory of the attacks of 9/11 was the President of the United States of America addressing the nation. It reminded me of past presidents. It brought to mind FDR addressing Congress after 12/7 (1941), "...a day which will live in infamy." George W. Bush told the American people to go shopping. I'm serious. Look it up. The entire populace was to go to the Mall and go shopping. This was our bit in the war on terror. We were not supposed to bother our dainty little minds with things like big, bad old Sammy B. Laden. We were to shop. Probably with the extra money from the tax cuts. In essence, leave the big work to the big guys: Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Mr. Wolfowitz, Ms. Rice...the entire rougues gallery together with their enablers in the Congress who also gave up any meaningful role and went shopping. Now look where we have gotten to. After six years we are not only in a much tougher situation, we ourselves have committed crimes on a scale that even Sammy Bin Laden never dreamed of. In a democracy, the sleep of the people that form the nation gives birth to monsters! Give Democracy a chance!

Why I Do Not Believe, Rather I Expect

Earlier I wrote that I do not believe in God. I do expect God, however. I expect Him to be around every corner and to fill every niche. This is what God is: that which is always expected and welcomed. Mankind has believed in God as long as we can tell. Mankind has not believed in some emotional nonsense, rather they have beheld the presence of God in the vestments of what we consider Good and Evil: that which overwhelms us with Love and that which overwhelms us with Fear. God cannot be trapped with words. Only silence. Some fear the silence of meditation, fearing that the mind empty of words and chatter will be filled by the tempting of the devil. It is possible that silence will be terrifying. God can be overwhelming. We must learn to deal with our Fear just as we do with our Love. God exists in between time space. He is the great fullness and the great emptiness; the plethora and the void. He is the great yawning gap between the Creation and the fullness of the moment. "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace."(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8) The world swings between Love and Fear; building up and tearing down. It is not necessarily the way God is. Ecclesiastes does not attempt to describe the mind of God as being committed to the coincidence of opposites: it is how we understand things. Thus, by using the opposites, such as peace and war, we show that God covers the entire range of creation. Some have used the above to argue that God wants war. God does not WANT anything. Mankind wants war when it tires of peace, and it will continue to do so until it stops living in the allegories of its minds. When mankind tires of its logic and its paradigms, maybe they will be silent and listen once more, just as the great ones of old did. So...I do not believe. If I believed, you would insist that I tell you what I believe! What an inane question: what do you believe? I am living in God's presence. I expect God at any moment. I await my good and my bad, the love and the fear...even though I pray to be free from fear. I never say what God should be. I accept God's creation; I accept myself; I accept life. To believe in something allows that it may be false. God is not subject to the logic of what is true and what is false. To expect is neither true nor false, for expectations may be infinite in length.

Philosophers Read Cal Thomas

I know one who does. This was the event that made me realize even Socrates may say something quite stupid. Ask Xanthippe if you do not believe me. Anyway, Cal Thomas has written an article called: The Same God? and I picked it up from a site called Townhall.com.
Now the article is embraced by a picture of Ann Coulter on the right side. She is looking alluringly sluttish as is usual. She is a regular Right-Wing incubus...or succubus...or Wraith. Quite the picture. Amazing, isn't it, that the Bush-type conservatives ( i.e., interventionism, the heck with fiscal responsibility in government, etc.) discovered that Truth may be subliminally associated with almost bared breasts.
There is a photo of another young girls chest, suitably covered with a T-shirt with some slogan that passes for witty. Beneath that, there is another young girl in some sort of office milieu wearing extrememly short shorts. The camera is at floor level and aimed upwards. Since the article itself is about God and whether the Christian God is the same as the Muslim God...( I have not gotten to the punch line yet.)...there is also a picture of Palestinian women demonstrating for Palestinian unity. They are dressed conservatively Muslim and do not seem to be saying anything about Allah, at least according to the description under the photo. More subliminal stuff: Christian God is frat boy, Allah is kill joy ? It really is worth a look.
Here's the url: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CalThomas/2007/10/09/the_same_god?page=full&comments=true

Anyway, Cal Thomas starts:
 
"Whatever else his critics say of him, no one can fault President Bush for failing to go the extra mile in his efforts to show that neither he, nor the United States, is opposed to the Islamic faith, or to Muslim nations."

Yeah. Right. Right on, Cal. He differentiates between the "Gods" of the two religions:

"God calls himself "I Am" and says He is one, but with three personalities. Muslims believe God's name is Allah and reject the Trinity."

THREE personalities!!?? As if the Christian God were Sybil!?

"The president can be commended for sincerely reaching out to Muslims, but he should not be commended for watering down his beliefs and the doctrines of his professed faith in order to do so. That's universalism. There are "churches" that believe in universalism, his Methodist church does not. No Christian who believes the Bible believes in universalism. And No Muslim who believes the Koran does either. President Bush is wrong - dangerously wrong - in proclaiming that all religions worship the same God."

Here we have the observation that "watering down beliefs"= "universalism", and churches that believe in universalism must be churches that need to be spelled with quote marks= "churches". He depicts the admirable cognitive states existing is modern day Christians and Muslims as if (1) he were exhaustively familiar with them, and (2) these benighted souls were the paradigms of belief. A true buffoon is Mr. Thomas. Fit reading for any philosopher. Actually, he is quite fit and proper for the modern age of Neoconservatism.

The Road To War With Iran

It is not easy. President B wants war. President A. sez things like Jews should live in Canada and Alaska. It's hard to create a spectre of a terrible threat when the opponent acts rather childlike.

Vampire Economics 2

OpEd News has a piece on Vampire economies! Will species extinction be the scientific effect of elitist greed? http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/opedne_w__chris_071007_will_species_extinct.htm Yah! This reminded me on my post: Vampire Economics 101 http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2007/07/vampire-economics-101.html I would like to say that my genius feeds the fertile minds of other wits, but the notion of Vampire elites is much too obvious and, truth to tell, we are pretty much all aware of it. We grin and bear it, just like Mina's friend, Lucy...a rather ghastly grin, come to think of it.

Does Sarah Silverman Suck Lemons?

I saw the headline just as it is above, only I added the word "lemons" since they had obviously forgotten it.

When I was young, saying something "sucked" was not merely an abstract concept for "not up to snuff, mediocre" and the like. The article was in AlterNet and I forgot to get a link for you, so you are on your own. Ohh, wait. the link is below:  
Does Sarah Silverman Suck?
By Kera Bolonik,
TheNation.comPosted on October 6, 2007,
Printed on October 6, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/64563/  

"Is she or isn't she funny? Is she genuinely mean, or is she making a commentary about American ignorance? Any confusion I had over these questions was cleared up by her monologue at MTV's Video Music Awards, during which she unrelentingly reamed Britney Spears's God-awful performance and referred to Spears's two little boys as "the most adorable mistakes."

There is no Britney Spears. That's what Sarah is pointing out to us had we but the intellect to understand. There is actually one blonde girl who drinks a lot and does drugs and she is hired on to "play" Britney, Lindsey, and Paris. Impossible? Please note that never but never have these 3 been in the news as a main attraction at the very same time!!!! Paris goes to jail...Paris gets out...not a peep from the other 2. Then, when Paris is below the horizon, Lindsey kicks ass. Lindsey becomes yesterday's news and Britney goes to jail. They have never shared the main spotlight.  

"If comedy means pissing people off and loving that about oneself, appearing more self-entitled than self-aware and spearheading an even more discomforting subgenre of comedy -- then Mazel Tov, dahlink! "

Actually, that is what comedy is.
The fact that people are offended and hurt deals more with what the people are than what Sarah is. If you are offended by being photographed drunk driving, then you have a number of options available to yourself. Take them.

Lily Tomlin once said something to the effect that the more cycnical she became, she always was less cycnical than warranted by society's foibles. Sarah Silverman is not only funny, she is quite stunning, appearance-wise. I think she is rather beautiful, but I also think Ms. Spears is rather commonplace. I am at odds with the rest of you.

--

Peace Fasting and Poem October 5, 2007

The poem for the week is up at my other site: http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/ This should also be the first link in the link column.

Ann Coulter Talks, But...

...I started to read it, then did not. All the newspapers that have been filled with all the nonsense Ann Coulter speaks would wrap a lot of Fish and Chips.

SCHIP

Mr. Bush vetoed the SCHIP bill because it was fiscally irresponsible!!!??? Who is kidding whom, Mr. Bush?

We refer to an earlier post here, relying on the site Jewschool: http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2007/07/thrifty-george-w-bush.html Mr. Bush, we may have eaten this particular plate full of offal from your White House kitchen 6 years ago, but not now. The rest of your term will be interesting, estranged even from your own party on important issues. Very interesting. note: William Kristol of The Weekly Standard , one of the great intellects behind the Iraq Crime, thought the veto was good for a laugh and proceeded to joke about it on national television. I guess the viewing public gets what it deserves. Since Mr. Kristol was influential in starting a long term war that will cost trillions based on disinformation and distortion and laughs at a pittance for children's health care, we offer a jolly paraphrase:

Billy Kristol:

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The SCHIP is broken on the rack, the prize we sought is won;

The Great Wonders Of The American Empire (3): Deputy Assistant Undersecretary Debra Cagan

Deputy Undersecretary Debra Cagan

It is unusual for one of the wonders of the civilized world to be a human being, but some entities are so strange and the stories so compelling that the usual methods of selection must be held in abeyance and our overwhelming sense of awe and amazement just lead us to give the treasured place on the list of wonders to a human being...but not just a mere human being. As far as I can tell, all this is true and the pictures were not taken at a fun house. Ladies and Gentlemen, we present the seventh wonder of the world: Debra Cagan, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to Defence Secretary Robert Gates.




Daily Mail I hate all Iranians, US aide tells MPs
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=484762&in_page_id=1770
"Britsh MPs visiting the Pentagon to discuss America's stance on Iran and Iraq were shocked to be told by one of President Bush's senior women officials: "I hate all Iranians." " "The MPs say that at one point she said: "In any case, I hate all Iranians. Although it was an aside, it was not out of keeping with her general demeanour. "

The picture above was taken at a gathering covered by several blog reports: Sadly, No! http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/7354.html

We met...this crazy woman in a leatherette tunic, she gave us her business card, and was drinking heavily and dancing like a dervish. She tried to befriend us, but as she is obviously insane, and SCARIER IN PERSON THAN IN PHOTOS, we kind of slipped away. We thought from her rambling discussion that she was an arms dealer, she had just returned from what sounded like a sex junket to our fighting boys in Iraq. She was telling us how sexy the front line guys were, and the whole live for today ethos that prevails in the Green Zone. A truly, truly mad woman, and now Gates’ right hand man (she really looks like a bondage dude). and "...could the Republican party be a bigger freak show ...?"

Cagan in Iraq

--

 

ps.

Wearing her cross in the first photo, she unfortunately resembles someone from World War II.

Desmond Tutu Among The Vultures

The Catholic University of St. Thomas in Minnesota has dis-invited Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu to appear and speak. The University adminsistration seems to have pressured by persons unknown. Bishop Tutu was held to have said Israel=Hitler or some such fantasy equation of fools. We shall give you some background and you can make up your own minds. First, the report from the Minneapolis-St.Paul newspaper: The Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1463394.html From Tikun Olam: Tikun Olam-תקון עולם http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/10/03/university-disinvites-tutu-for-allegedly-likening-israel-to-hitler/ and http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/10/04/jta-publishes-zoa-fraudulent-tutu-quote/ We give the original 2002 report from the BBC: http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2007/10/04/jta-publishes-zoa-fraudulent-tutu-quote/ We have been an admirer of Israel forever. We have spoken of the fact that Israel is not perfect, nor necessarily the closest thing to perfection: Israel is a nation of human beings just like any other nation. After President Ahmindinejad first uttered his views on whether the Holocaust took place or not, there was a good deal of discussion. We have found a growing understanding among the people we have talked with that the Holocaust is historically accurate, but the importance of the Holocaust varies from intense to nothing; President A. probably meant to say that Iran has had its own slaughtered millions and the Holocaust of the West is nothing to Iran, except as far as you keep shoving it down our throats. Exerting pressure is AIPAC's game. They are big boys. If people start to get tired of them, they will try something else. I love Israel, but I love other nations, too. I do not love fairy tales being foisted on adults. I do not love being pressured. I do not love having my arm twisted by another Big Brother. I have lived long enough to see my native country turned into an object of scorn because of a government of people who believe smoke and mirrors to be true and fairy tales to be real McCoy and intelligence to be a matter of uninformed opinion. They have even created their own disingenuous fairy tales for a credulous populace, meanwhile undermining every good and noble institution of the land. I shall not accept the distortions of fools any longer. The University of St. Thomas could at least have pulled a Lee Bollinger and act the role of Tom the Fool from King Lear, dancing while some else pulls their strings and the voice of the Ministry of Truth provides their voice.

The Second Visit To The Empress

She-who-must-be-obeyed dragged me to a Chinese Opera on Sunday. What fiendishness! You know, if memory serves, this is the same pillar of society who demurrs attendance at Opera because it is too-o-o-o long! Well, if The Barber of Seville is too long, what does one expect from The Second Visit? (I don't recall whether I mentioned we saw the New York Metropolitan Opera production of Barber last fall? It was so good that I almost cried at the end of the first act. Then, if memory serves, just recently I saw a Simpson's episode where Homer sings the role of Dr. Bartolo! ) I absolutely loved the Chinese Opera. Now I have to find where there is more. Chinese Opera takes about 12 minutes of getting used to. Then the story goes as effortlessly as the flight of cranes. Duke Xu and General Yang, we loved you.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: The Next Chapter

Clarence Thomas has published his memoirs. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001509.html?hpid=moreheadlines&sid=ST2007092900506 If any doubted that Mr. Thomas floats on an even keel, doubt on, for he decidedly does NOT. Mr. Clarence Thomas is a man who inhabits a fantasy realm - a hyperreality - he has cunningly created. I may remember public figures who spoke at length about their indebtedness to the influences of many heroic figures, real and fictional, but I can only think of a few that see themselves as fictional heroes writ large upon the stage of history. Fictional heroes, by definition, are greater than life. The are immortal symbols. And here Clarence Thomas sees himself fitting into the realms eternal by his Iconic Participation with figures of Black Literature: Tom Robinson of To Kill a Mockingbird and Bigger Thomas of Native Son. Please recall that when Justice Scalia was asked to distinguish between his conssrvative philosophy of jurisprudence and that of Clarence Thomas, Justice Scalia ended his remarks by saying that his philosophy was very conservative, but he (Justice Scalia) was not " a nut". What Justive Scalia meant to imply by this is up to the reader.

Clarence Thomas intends to be the biggest domestic problem for the next 20 years. It will be a long row to hoe, and a heavy chiffereau to heft. Plans should be made accordingly. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those "I told you so" things.

Peace Fasting

New poem for last week - I am a week behind because I've fancied myself an important voice in the world of poetry - is at the other site: http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/

Mr. Bush's Climate Summit

In the BBC this morning: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7019346.stm US President George W Bush infuriated his critics by professing world leadership on climate change at his meeting of the top 16 world economies - while offering no new substantive policy and implicitly rejecting binding emissions controls. ...some visiting delegates were outraged by what they said was a stream of spin running through the speech. One (who understandably asked not to be named) said: "This is a total charade. "The president has said he will lead on climate change but he won't agree binding emissions, while other nations will. "He says he will lead on technology but then he asks other countries to contribute funds, without saying how much he'll contribute himself. "It's humiliating for him - a total humiliation." Some delegates were particularly upset by the extravagant invitation by Mr Bush for other nations to follow the US lead in cutting emissions while increasing the economy. Emissions did indeed buck the upward trend by dropping a fraction of 1% in the US during 2006 - but even the American government admits this was due to a warm winter, cool summer and an oil price they considered far too high. And some said it was useful - albeit tedious - to hear American officials lecturing them with the very facts of climate change that they had been ignoring for years. Mr Bush himself says he is organising a summit of world leaders next summer. Privately, some European delegates are already saying they hope their political leaders are not invited. The leader of the Free Daft World. If we had only left him as the owner of the Texas Rangers Baseball team, we could be amused at his pixillated behavior. By teaming him up with George Steinbrenner, we could laugh at their over-the-top antics and giggle at their massacre of the English language. Not since Charley Finley, we would say, have we seen such... idiosyncratic behavior. Then we would smile and watch the October Classic.

Autumn 1

I went to visit my brother and give him some money. He needs ID. His PO has been after him to get his ID. He said it was something to do with his DNA test. "DNA test?", I said. "Why a DNA test?" I was wondering just how frivolous one can be with one's money. "Anybody with a felony conviction gets a DNA test", he said. "Oh," I mused, wondering at the marvelous technology and the cesspool of the Justice system. One gets a lot on information and hands it over to creeps. His PO says that if he does not get his ID, then it will be a misdemeanor. "Oh...," I decided to be willfully obtuse. "...perhaps they'll give you another DNA test for that." "Yeah," he laughed. It was debated whether he should bring it up to his PO, something like saying that he knew he needed another DNA test for failing to procure ID, producing a plastic specimen cup, brandishing it in her parole official face, and asking for a Playboy. His PO was a good looking lady. I saw her once. Twice actually. Well, more like 11 times, if the truth be told. And that omits the glimpses in the rear view mirror. This all came about one afternoon earlier in the year, in the summer of 2007, when I had taken him to the store. He has no car and no driver's license ( a piece of ID). My job is to help, I guess. So as we were finishing getting the necessities, I asked whether he needed some beer. "Sure," he said. "That always comes in handy." He's not supposed to drink. Whether that is court mandated or comes from his history of hepatitis C, I do not know. I just know he does, and why make him walk to The Licker Locker after I go? Furthermore, he lives, as it were, in the sights or cross hairs of three bars or liquor service restaurants. He is firmly triangulated and they have him cornered. So we got a 12-pack of suds. We checked out and took the groceries to the car, baking in the sun, where we put the bags in the back seat and the beer in the front seat, between us, in order to keep it cool when we drove and the A/C was working. As we arrived at the parking lot by his abode, I turned the car in and noticed two ladies standing in the thoroughfare and talking. "Gosh," I said. "It's nice to see two ladies who aren't talking on cell phones." "Gadfrey," he said. "That's my PO!" Now he said this with a bit of warmth, leading me to conclude that this was not an opportune crossing of paths. He threw his left arm over the 12 pack, trying to obscure its cover, a cover painted and inked with vibrantly cool propaganda. "You don't want her to see the beer?" I asked. "NO." So I ducked down a side aisle and began crusing the parking lot, up and down, back and forth, just as I usually do looking for a meter with time on it. Fortunately, the lot was just big enough that the ladies did not eventually decide that they needed to unlimber their MACE cannisters on us. They were both blonde. Well, who isn't these days? I mean, who of their age and in Port Desespoir. The were paradigmatic emblems of the femme d'affaires; no-nonsense women of the world. Certainly the one called " my PO " must be. I kept trying to get a gander of her in the rear view. I couldn't approach too close. Crash...or Clunk actually...the 12 pack fell forward off the seat. "That ought to be fizzy enough." I said. My brother scrabbled the cube of liquid delight back onto the seat. "Why don't we drive by and pop one open and spray them?" I said. He laughed. Then the A/C quit. It had always been iffy. I usually did not use it. I think what happened is that the freon that was left decided it was time to join its brothers and sisters up, up, way up there in the Green Pastures of the Ozone Layer. So the beer was not only stirred and shaken, but it was now going to warm up. We drove. After a while, I began to wonder what happens to a 12 pack in critical condition. Would it eventually explode and take out half on downtown? Bullets of sweat began to form upon our troubled brows. Finally, the gab fest ended. The two blondes lionesses shook their manes, and each strode off as regally as Aiyesha, looking for men to enslave and yoke to their chariots. Slowly, we crept around a corner, watching the PO get into her car, fiddle with the seat belt, pick up a cell phone, then think better of it, and start the engine. Her red back ups glowed promisingly. I came up slowly, looked around, saw she had 1 hour left on her meter, and slid the 1991 Marquis into the spot as gracefully as a yeoman guiding the USS Forrestall into dry dock. Actually, I think the Marquis has more "flight deck" than does the Forrestall. We slowly got out of the car. The coast was clear. I carried the loot to the front door of his building. It was a close call. Back to the present. We talked about the weather. Since the weather is snafu, I asked whether he'd had any tornado warnings in Port Desespoir. "No," he said, adding "The power went out, though." He sit silently for a moment. "We had two, no, three tornado warnings," I said. " You had a power outage?" I asked, remembering the big outage of 2000 or whenever it was...already forgotten and the power grid is just slightly better than Baghdad's. "Yeah. You know, when there's an outage, the first thing you think is 'Did I pay the bill?' " I pondered. "Yeah. Same with a tornado..." He waited and I wondered how I was going to finish this bit of fancy. "...you see the tornado and you wonder if it's the REPO tornado, you know, if you didn't pay the bills..." He laughed. "Yeah. Gonna take you, your car, your furncher...gonna take your whole house! and repo 'em!" "Like Oz...and dump your sorry ass just over the county line...good riddance." We laughed. We talked a bit more. It was late, so I gave him some currency as well as the check I had delivered. He would not get to a bank until morning. I thought he might need money. He smelled strongly of beer and its by-products. He would probably wish to have another drink. We parted. I did not cry. I did not cry because I had already cried. I had paid my crying forward, as the snappy phrase goes. It is Autumn and one expects to cry. Not as much as at Christmas, of course, because holidays are just made for crying and depression and fighting. In Autumn I regret the passing of time. I only yearn to hold on due to my mistakes, the loves I screwed up, the friends I messed with, the children I let down... If everything was perfect, I'd go right now.

Thrilla in New York: President A versus President B

The president of Iran and the president of the USA were both in New York. How did it come out?

Columbia's President, Lee Bollinger, invited president A. to Columbia apparently in order to have a foil to spar with verbally. Under much criticism for having president A. on campus, Mr. Bollinger caved in the best American tradition by dressing up in his uniform of suit and tie and character assassination.
It was very well done. So much so that it passed everyone's attention that Mr. Bollinger was treating president A. as if the president had been at the head of Iran's government for 30 years or so and was the prime motivator behind the return of the Ayatullah and everything since.

President A. was uninteresting, but I assume he was on the ropes and stumbling from Bollinger's diplomatic hatchet-job.

At Columbia, it was apparent that President A. has 2 approaches to the Holocaust:
(1) it did not happen, and
(2) it was not an important moral or spiritual issue to Iran.

Obviously, he should stick to (2), but he was not elected due to his intellectual smarts.

At the UN, President Bush got my very close attention. I was getting my hair cut and beard trimmed at the local tonsorial salon, Edward Scissorhands, when he mentioned that he was recommending changes in food aid programs, specifically an emphasis on buying food from local farmers in regions which are recipients of food aid programs.
"CARE...!" I said.
"I'm being careful," my barber said. "You have a difficult head."
"No," I replied. "He's implementing the recommendations of CARE...the food aid group C.A.R.E. They stopped receiving federal monies because of...FFs." (FF is an acronymous designation we use locally to indicate " Federal F...." where the last "F" is pronounced as in the word "SNAFU".)
"I listened on C-Span...there was a recommendation for this local buying of food, " I continued.
"Mmmm...?" intoned the snip-meister.
"Well, you can imagine how imported free food sort of works against the local farmers...sort of like well...if you give a guy a fish, he can feed his family for one day; if you teach him how to fish, he can feed his family forever, and if you import free fish from the USA bought by the government of the USA from your rich backers in the fishing industry, you can destroy a local economy as well as diverting a large portion of those free fish to enrich corrupt local politicians."

By this time, metal had been used to trim my eyebrows and bad luck was in the cards for an undetermined amount of time. I was upset. The barber said it was not his fault because my spiel was so-o-o interesting.
Anyhow, so President Bush actually sounded pretty good. I was amazed. Then I remembered he used to be an O.K. guy. Then he criticized somebody there about human rights violations...somebody here...everywhere a somebody who was being undemocratic and he underscored this concern by saying that nothing was said about all this at the UN, but they did criticize Israel...Israel who, by implication, was a stellar example of implementing human rights, and so on.

Well, that did burst my balloon. President Bush is not bad on his own. It's when he says things that so-called conservative intellects tell him to say that he stumbles. Case in point: The Jewish National Fund, founded in 1901 and an emblem of Jewish life in Israel, recently has decided or been forced into a limited trial period during which it will actually consider selling land to non-Jews. This was announced Monday, September 24, 2007, in advance of a High Court discussion on three petitions calling on the Israel Lands Administration (ILA) to stop restricting public tenders for JNF land to Jews.
I still like Israel. I really like Israelis...though not Bibi Netanyahu. However, using Israel as an EMBLEM for human rights does not have quite the effect neocon clowns seem to think it has. Israel can be a symbol for a lot of things, but it is not a great choice for a symbol of the extension of human rights to minorities within its power.
Neither are Arab countries, even though certain minorities are Dhimmii, a word which translates as " the people of (our) protection".  
If you do not believe me, ask Daniel Pipes. He has written much about the minority Arabs in Israel, referring to them as a "time bomb", thereby implying that their mere fact of existence is a terrorist threat !

If the president of Iran had said that, how would Lee Bollinger have reacted?

At the end, it seems the consensus of the limp minds that run Cable News that President A. is insane. How insightful.
Many people have said that President B. is deranged. How cogent.

So there was a meeting of mad men in New York. It was reported by Cable News and commented on by the unintelligent. As a result, the great drooling hoards momentarily interrupted their hunt, sniffed the air, then growled.
A Mr. Daniel Jackson (not the Daniel Jackson of Stargate!) was in an Eye Clinic in Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan, USA when President Ahmedinajad was speaking at Columbia. During the speech, Mr. Jackson commented " Get a tie!"
Little did Mr. Jackson know that he was parroting something Tucker Carlson once said. This is the same Tucker Carlson who tried to engineer intellectual acumen by propping a bow tie on his collar. (this news article was from News of the Dim and Not-so Dim)

--

The Long Term Occupation Of Iraq: The South Korea Model

In case you are not aware, Mr. Bush had found an idea to characterize the connection between the USA and Iraq in the future: that existing between South Korea and the USA. As mentioned earlier, one of the main differences is that in the earlier conflict- more than 55 years ago and still US troops are there-North Korea invaded South Korea, whereas it was the USA itself which invaded Iraq. Thus, we may wonder if there are to be other such South Korea models: invaded, de-stabilize, stay a few decades. If you want a long, extended article about this, you will have to find it elsewhere. I shall tell you what it would be: It would be perfectly similar to a species of enslavement. This form of slavery will try to prop up a puppet regime. After the passage of enough time, it may even try to re-institute some form of Iraqi Authority and set up a new Raj in Iraq. The people of the USA will do what they do best: talk about it, do nothing, and listen to cable TV. They will emulate the British public of the 19302 reading of the exploits of Mr. Gandhi. Gad,sir! they will expostulate. Can't anything be done about this little fakir in a dhouti??! It will be: don't those Iraqi sand monkeys know their place??! The USA will dominate Iraq by force ( as evidenced by the War) or by domination and humiliation (as evidenced by Abu Ghraib). The conflict between the peoples who image the situation in terms of Dar al Islam and Crusaders will exacerbate and effectively reduce security from terror. In this period of time, constant strife and warfare will show up the ineffectiveness of whatever Iraqi government is in charge. Potential Iraqi leaders will be trained in the markets of war. In the end, 100,000 troops will not prevail over millions of Iraqis. The newly trained Iraqi leaders will tend to employ brutality, for they will have been trained in eras of discord and uncertainty. (Citizens of the USA are fond of envisaging the new leaders of new democracies as being foreign examples of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, et allii. These august personages did go through a War of Revolution. However, the important difference is that these people were born, brought up, and trained within a stable environment...not in an unstable zone of constant turmoil.) In the end, the USA will leave. Whether it leaves with honor or not is totally up to the people of the USA.

Welcome To Weimar...?

Congressman Moran has said something unflattering about AIPAC. Steny Hoyer has condemned the congressman's remarks, apparently believing that not only does the State of Israel need a big brother to fight its fight for it, but the AIPAC lobby needs a big brother to fight its fights. Now pay close attention: someone was called "Hitler" and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was mentioned. You have no idea how unsettling it can be to be in the midst of a good afternoon's cup of tea and have one launched back in time to 70 years ago ( "La Jetee"-ish). I mean, Hitler. And Streicher. And Brownshirts. Just how long does an historical period last...after all the principals are dead? Now, if I were to say "I really detested Meir Kahane." would I be liable to the claim that I fully supported the Kristallnacht? Would I be actually claiming to believe with all my heart that Van der Lubbe started the Reichstag fire, not Goering? If I were to say "I really liked Yitzhak Rabin." would I also be claiming that I loved all the productions of the Jewish Theater that starred Molly Picon? I suppose life is a cabaret, old chum. Then, after this bit of nonsense has passed through, sweeping all sense of decorum after it, I was at the computer with the TV blatting behind me and Mr. Bush was speaking. Now correct me if I am wrong - and I wasn't exactly listening directly to the TV - but I heard something like "Where is Mandela?" ...and I thought "Mandela? Winnie Mandela? Nelson? Why is South Africa in the news? Are they finally going to look into the Stompy Stompie incident?" ...then ( from behind me ) I heard "Mandela's dead....Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas." I do not know how it is with you, but my cranium usually tries like heck to make sense out of what I am hearing. I immediately repeated the notice of Mandela's death - issued by Mr. Bush-and cast in into a Joseph Conrad form, "Mistah Mandela, he dead!". Then some nonsense like "where have all the Mandelas gone?...long time pa-a-a-ssing...". Then, since Saddam Hussein was, for all practical purposes, dead himself, I was startled and sweat burst out on my forehead at the picture of the long hand of Saddam Hussein reaching from beyond the grave and cutting down Nelson Mandela. Now, at this point one had to make a hard decision: have we actually slipped dimensions and entered some parallel brane-universe where all this made some sense, or had Mr. Bush-or myself-entered into a state of dementia praecox? It was later offered to me as a potential explanation that Mr. Bush was speaking allegorically. He had meant to use Mr. Mandela ( or Winnie, or both. It really had not been made clear.) as an allegory for something: 1) race relations? No. There was no substantial African population in Iraq since the Zanj wars. 2)imprisonment? Mr. Mandela had been imprisoned. However, Mr. Hussein did not kill all the prison population. 3)a political leader who, after years of trial and hardship, comes forth to lead his country. This last one made a certain amount of good sense, even though to achieve this level of understanding, the original statement would have to be seriously restructured into something like" " all the potential Mandelas were killed by Mr. Hussein." However, even this interpretation is dubious. I mean, how would Mr. Bush know? If our intelligence cannot keep track of things like Weapons of Mass Destruction...things which are rather large and hard to miss...how do they keep track of potential Mandelas? Furthermore, I am sure both Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney would have been and are much more congenial with Roelof "PIK" Botha than with Nelson Mandela. In fact, if we were to go back and check the record, I am sure that we would find more allegorical support for apartheid than for the ANC. Of course, Mistah Pik, he dead; couple years or so. However, as I mentioned, the mere brute fact of death does not seem to inconvenience us too much anymore when there is a political allegorical point to be made. So, what did that statement mean? Even a cabaret has to make sense, admittedly an disco-testosterone-frenetic-dancing-oligical sense, but sense. Perhaps das Leben ist nicht ein Kabaret?

Petraeus et alii

Thank goodness I have the luxury of waiting a bit before I utter opinions.
The Cable News people do not and we all see the baneful results of having the unperceptive lecture to the ill educated. There is something about Cable News, whether CNN or Fox or MSNBC, that strikes me as a bit like the old nostalgie be la boue: sort of "Hi, out there! I used to be a shlub like youse! Now me a celebrity!"
You sense they observe us as they would the old urban neighborhood from which they fled soon after college with a mixture of fond memory and repulsion...mostly the latter. Now, General Petraeus and MoveOn.org. Saving my own precious time, I shall let others speak for me.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II14Ak02.html  
Petraeus out of step with US top brass By Gareth Porter

 " WASHINGTON - In sharp contrast to the lionization of General David Petraeus by members of the US Congress during his testimony this week, Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (Centcom), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad in March, according to Pentagon sources familiar with reports of the meeting. Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that," the sources say. {added emphasis mine; extra scorn Admiral Fallon's} That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior. That extraordinarily contentious start of Fallon's mission to Baghdad led to more meetings marked by acute tension between the two commanders. Fallon went on to develop his own alternative to Petraeus's recommendation for continued high levels of US troops in Iraq during the summer. "

That's quite a quote. Forget about General Betray-us, I am going to run an ad in the New York Times that says: "General Ass-Kissing Little Chickenshit!" I am not sure what kind of picture I shall run with the ad. ( I mean no disrespect for General Petraeus. I do intend disrespect for the entire situation.)
If you read the article, you will get the sense that Admiral Fallon agrees with Sun Tzu that protracted operations do not benefit an army. The army is not a police force. The army is a strike force whose success is measured by striking hard, striking fast, and getting the job done with the least casualties.

If war is seen to be a last and ultimate option, Admiral Fallon's viewpoint holds sway. If war is seen to be an opening gambit or mid-game strategy - or just a what-the-heck type of lark- then you have the Bush Administration viewpoint.
Now the MoveOn.org advert shows why I shall be getting out of the political comments soon. I only started because I felt I had to express my condemnation of this war in the most obvious manner. I actually agree with Mr. Bush on somethings. However, the strain to create a long term state of war as shown by the War on Terror is an incredibly stupid act. So much is it inimical that it deluded its creators into thinking that they stood against an organization Hordes United Against USA-Stuff instead of approximately 3,000 to 6,000 Beards and Moustaches ( Lihyaat wa Shawaarib, Inc.). Once Sammy B. Laden had escaped, we turned to the dark side...and the rest is ongoing history. I believe one reason why the present President has placed long term restrictions of his papers after he leaves office is that these papers would make it clear that the Administration was not acting in a responsible manner.
 From the American Conservative: http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_09_10/cover.html The Once and Future Christendom  

From death of the West—to knights of the West by James P. Pinkerton An article that's very creative. It is formed within a vision of society that is based on the Shire from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Of course, I like the snarky parts best, so here is one: "...But Tolkien once confided, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” That is, Catholic in the sense that reality and history are complicated, that the world is rich in majesty and mystery, that human nature is but a poor vessel. In his world, the Shire is Christendom, and Christendom is the Shire. Yet more than three decades after Tolkien’s death, new universalisms—new all-encompassing ideologies—have gained prominence, vexing, once again, tradition and difference throughout the world. One such universalism is capitalist globalism. In the late ’80s, Francis Fukuyama published his legendarily misguided piece “The End of History?” suggesting that the West had found The Answer. Madeleine Albright expressed similar hubris when she declared that America was “the indispensable nation.” And Thomas Friedman has since argued that everyone has to submit to “golden handcuffs,” managed by planetary financiers, even as the wondrous force of capitalism “flattens” the world. But of course, it took Paul Wolfowitz to bring Rousseau to life in another century: Uncle Sam would force people to be free. And how are these bright bold visions working out, in the wake of 9/11, in a world that includes IEDs, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Jazeera? " 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HL12Aa02.html
BOOK REVIEW  
A new Jerusalem in sub-Saharan Africa  

The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South by Philip Jenkins Reviewed by Spengler "...Both Christian and Muslim sources, it appears, agree that Christianity is winning the battle for souls in Africa. David Barrett (in the World Christian Encyclopedia, 2001) projects that the count of African Christians will rise to 634 million in 2025 from 360 million in 2000, while the number of African Muslims will rise to 519 million from 283 million - increases, respectively, of 49% against 40%. One Muslim cleric asserts that 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity each year. [2]... "

This morning I have read an article that said that the Muslims are winning the conversion race, and then I have read this article which takes a slightly different tack. Good luck at trying to know what's going on. There is no surrogate for finding out yourself. I mean, how can any self respecting citizen of the USA in the 21st century actually hope to LEARN something from the NEWS Media? I need to know: I shall turn on Bill O'Reilly??!! I shall have recourse to Sean Hannity, the sage of sanity??!! I shall purchase a book written by Al Franken??!!

Anyhow, if we are to believe that the Christians tortoises are actually outstripping the Muslim hare in this footrace for the souls of humanity, the reasons put forth in the book appear to be a bit flimsy. I am quite certain that it is the Wahhabi type of Islam that is the turn-off. Bring back the influence of Sufism and it would be a whole new ball game. As we go into the last innings with Team Dar al-Islam a couple million runs behind, bringing in the retired Sufi influence as a new striker would reap incredible...benefits. This makes one wonder how Team Christianity would respond. It certainly wouldn't send in 23 South Koreans for an innings. It might remove the old Christian Zionist bowler from the game and send him to the New Jerusalem showers...who knows? man yar'if?

Our Lives In The Bush Of Ghosts 4: Abu Risha

(My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is the title of a novel by Amos Tutuola. We adapted it for use to describe our nightmare.) Abdul Sattar Abu Risha was killed less than a month after meeting with Mr. Bush. We here know that feeling of the Bush Jinx. I wonder how Mr. Abdul Sattar got his nickname "Abu Risha". The name "Abdul Sattar" I assume is "Abdul Sattaar ( 'aa' being a long 'A')" which means "servant of the Veiler". "Veiler" is one of the attributes or names of Allah. "Abu Risha" could mean "father of the quill", a meaning which leads me to wonder if he wrote books. It could mean "father of the feather" which after viewing photographs of him, I would interpret as possibly meaning "plumage = fancy or expensive clothes". Anyhow, Mr. Abu Risha became a casualty. He had been briefly lionized as the hope of Anbar province. He was a Sunni and fought for the Sunni people of Iraq. He did not want the American occupation to continue. It has been suggested that once he had formed the Sunni group in Anbar opposing Al Qa'ida, his usefulness to the US occupation was over, especially since he did not support a continued American presence in Iraq. Man Ya'rif? He was killed by a roadside bomb near his dwelling. It has all the appearances of a well carried out attack. Assume one is in an all out civil war, assume one has a l role of leadership, assume the enemy hates your guts...how does the enemy infiltrate right next door - as it were - and leave a bomb on your doorstep without the security forces of your own and your allies knowing anything at all? I mean, I could understand how a sniper could shoot one from afar, but not how the Al Qa'ida essentially came right up the driveway. He was our ally on the force of the old maxim: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. His life has underscored the truth of the whole situation: the enemy of peace is AL QA'IDA !! It always was and continues to be so. It was not Iraq under Saddam Hussein! Our expensive detour into Iraq is an unmitigated human disaster, not only for the quick and dead now, but for the future, for those crippled by war, for those who do not have services it is the duty of a government to provide because the money has been squandered...for the children of these and for their childrens' children. Excoriate the names of those responsible.

The Big Pay-Off

Everything to do with money and finance is sooner or later seen to be branches from the same tree. Everyone is free to join in the wealth of America, but remember that there are also Darwinian processes to cull out the "unfit": sub-prime mortgages being only the most recent. Sub primes will destroy the mortgager and the last mortgage holder- being essentially a game of musical chairs that, when the music stops, the bomb in the bag goes off and the guys left holding the bag are removed from the competitive field. Campaign Finance is obviously the buying of influence. It is also, therefore, the peddling of Influence. It is clear that since the middle class and poor have no funds of money to buy influence, the influence being bought will only represent their interests by a happy accident. The clearly observed road of the last quarter century has been that Politicians have been purchased by groups that wish (1) increased military activity, and (2) decreased social programs of any nature to assist the less wealthy. Thus we had Katrina in 2005. Read Mr. Houssein-zadah's article Hurricane Katrina and War-what Is the Connection? http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_ismael_h_070914_hurricane_katrina_an.htm "...It is true that some disasters cannot be prevented from occurring. But, with proper defenses, they can be contained and their destructive effects minimized. Katrina was not; it was not “because of a laissez-faire government that failed to bother to take warnings seriously,” and because of a skewed government fiscal policy “that is stingy when it comes to spending on public goods but lavish on armaments and war.”[1] More fundamentally, because, driven by powerful special interests, the government has since the advent of Reaganomics in the 1980 been steadily diverting non-military public spending to military spending and tax cuts for the wealthy, thereby bringing about a steady erosion of the infrastructural defense systems against natural disasters." "...Not only did the Bush administration and its corporate allies in the Congress not finance urgent requests for the repair of the deteriorating public infrastructure, but at times the administration even punished dedicated civil servants who insisted on the necessity of such repairs. For example, Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, “was forced to resign in 2002 over budget disagreements with the White House.” Parker drew media attention (and the White House's ire) in 2002 by telling the Senate Budget Committee that a White House proposal to cut just over $2 billion from the Corps' $6 billion budget request would have a "negative impact" on the national interest. After Parker's Capitol Hill appearance, Mitch Daniels (former director of the Office of Management and Budget, which sets the administration's annual budget goals), wrote an angry memo to President Bush, writing that Parker's testimony "reads badly . . . on the printed page," and that "Parker. . . [was] distancing [himself] actively from the administration." Parker “was forced to resign shortly thereafter.”[4]" "...Champions of war and militarism tend to justify their capricious escalation of wars of choice on the grounds of “national security.” Yet, by hollowing out national treasury in favor of military spending at the expense of non-military public spending, they have created enormous economic insecurity and social vulnerability in the face of natural disasters, as painfully experienced by the victims of Hurricane Katrina. They have also created more political insecurity, both at home (by creating an atmosphere of fear and anxiety akin to an emergency or national security state) and abroad (by creating more opposition to the imperial policies of the United States and, therefore, adding to the ranks of Al-Qaedeh, for example). The fundamental moral of Katrina disaster is unmistakable: contrary to the dogma of neoliberalism and/or supply-side economics, governments bear vital responsibilities. These include provision of essential services and critical public goods that individuals and the private sector would not provide. They also include the building of a robust public infrastructure that is necessary for a vibrant economy and a civilized society." Someone said this was Bush-bashing. I mean, how can one be accused of bashing someone like the President? I suppose if one ran on and on about this and that, a little war here, a little oversight there, a little Harriet Meyers on the Supreme Court over yonder, one might appear to be bashing Bush. I think the record speaks for itself. I think Mr. Bush's acts speak for themselves. I think Mr. Cheney's acts speak for themselves. There is no ambiguity, there is no obscurity; we know them for what they are.

Richard Cheney Observes 2

http://fatherdaughtertalk.blogspot.com/2007/08/richard-cheney-observes.html The Vice President did some odd things with mortality statistics in the above post and we had to have recourse to the actual figures to make sense of things. That is one thing I have noticed about Iraq death figures: they rarely are consistent from one source to another in as much as one figure will lead to widely differing interpretations, so much so that I have frequently had the experience of being mystified and wondering what was going on. Richard Cheney had that effect on me for he said that the "Surge" ( "Il Surgiamento") was working and the proof was that July, 2007 had the lowest number of deaths since January, 2007. Then the very next day I read that July, 2007 has the HIGHEST number of deaths for any July in the war! So off to the casualty figures. Today I see in the Progressive Review a graph of the figures, clearly showing the increases of 2007 over 2006: http://prorev.com/index.htm

This chart, prepared by Angry Bear, shows that GI Iraq fatalities in 2007 have exceeded those in 2006 each month so far.

Note that the estimated figure for August, 2007 is 107. My estimate was 101. Thanks to God, it was only 84. I think we may safely conclude that: The Surge is working to reduce the greatly increased Mortality of 2007 over 2006, and trying to keep it under control.

Miscellanea Islamica

1 A young lady of my acquaintance has discovered the Home of Sufism. She may visit the Islamic Center, and then the Sufis. The influence of Sufi thought was great and only began to change when the oil money began to flow into Arabia. Then rose the Wahhabis with their fundamental strictures and the mystically tinged Sufis were swept from many areas of Islam. To get an idea how different they were, in Arabia the Saudis destroyed architectural remains linked to the Prophet and the family of the Prophet lest the people of Arabia fall into idolatry and saint worship - much like the Shi'a whom the Saudi Wahhabis despised. The Sufis gave us the Mullah Nasruddeen. The Saudis gave us oil and the 19: the Tis'asher. 2 Daniel Pipes believes that teaching Arabic is the route to extremism. I suppose so. I suppose teaching Hebrew was the route that led to the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946. In a way, it was. http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/42501.html "...Only in the case of the Iris Becker Elementary School in Dearborn, Michigan, is the Arabic-language program not obviously pursuing a political and religious agenda. Its program may actually be clean; or perhaps the minimal information about it explains the lack of known problems."

3 Juan Cole on who delivered Iraqi into chaos: http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/42581.html "...With regard to the recent dust-up in the pages of the NYT between Bush and Bremer over the dismantling of the Iraqi Army, Ward Harkavy at the Village Voice reminds us that the mystery has already been solved by former British Home Secretary David Blunkett. He revealed in his memoirs that Cheney and Rumsfeld were the ones pushing for dismantling the Iraqi army, much to the dismay of the British. Bremer was taking orders from Rumsfeld, but being a good soldier has all along declined to blow the whistle on the Neoconservatives who ordered him to do implement several disastrous decisions. My guess? Dismantling the Baath army and the professional bureaucracy was intended as a way of ensuring there were no obstacles to putting corrupt financier Ahmad Chalabi in charge of Iraq (that was the Rumsfeld- Wolfowitz- Feith plan). What they didn't know was that Bremer had been charged by his old boss, the State Department, with derailing the Chalabi conspiracy and ensuring that the US ruled Iraq directly for a year or two." 4 CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Representative Charles Boustany ( R-LA) on progress in Iraq: "BOUSTANY: We’re clearly seeing some major improvements. Clearly in the Anbar Province, we’ve seen significant improvement. We were able to walk the streets of Fallujah. Sectarian deaths are down.[…] BLITZER: And Congressman Boustany, you say that the number of casualties is going down. But we took a closer look — and The Los Angeles Times did as well — citing Iraqi Health Ministry numbers. In June, it was 1,227 civilian deaths in Iraq. In July, it went up to 1,753 civilian deaths in Iraq. And in August, the month that just ended, 1,773 civilian deaths in Iraq. Those numbers are going in the wrong direction. BOUSTANY: Well, Wolf, I want to point out that just two or three months ago, I would have never thought that four members of Congress would be able to walk through the streets of Fallujah. That’s a major… BLITZER: But you had a lot of security with you. You had a lot of U.S. military protection. BOUSTANY: We had a platoon of Marines. BLITZER: Yes, well, a platoon of Marines is a lot of Marines to walk through Fallujah. . .

Why I Don't Believe In God

There was a philosophical type johnny very much full of the grey matter who observed that even though he had never met his mail man, he did believe in the mail man; i.e., that the mail man actually did exist and mail did not magically appear in his post box everyday.

If you ask me whether I believe in God, I probably would deny you an answer. If pressed, I would say that I expect God.
I do not "await" God in the sense that some await the second coming or the end of days.

This type of watchful waiting implies that the awaited event is not present or has not occurred and is , thus, somehow separated in time and space and spirit from us now. I am not waiting...not for Godot nor for GOD-ot ( as some wits have read Beckett's title). If I were waiting in that sense, it would be a problem. I would tend to say things of a trivial or embarrassing nature, such as are in the Left Behind books, and there would be a divine presence sort of harrumphing or clearing its throat and saying, "Hey, I'm right here, you know. You're talking about me as if I weren't here!"

I do not wait for something which is not here. I do not hope for something promised yet not fulfilled. I do not deem, think, suppose, nor reckon on something problematic. I expect that which is here yet not immediate in my ken; a promise which is a memory and an anticipation. As far as thinking about God or knowing about God, thinking's for the birds.

The Greek word is " ELPIS " and it means all that I mean and do not mean; a wide ranging word of hopes and expectations. Instead of Theology, I shall speak of Elpidology. When people ask me, the foremost Professor of Elpidological studies, what is the nature of God, I shall pull myself up to my full, impressive height, look sagely into some distant horizon, and then say: "I expect God!" I shall say with a booming tone of wisdom. Then I shall look at my watch.  

" In fact, He should be here shortly. I shall let Him answer your question." 

--

Fast Day 14 September 7, 2007

I shall have my official report on the effectiveness of fasting for peace at the end of September. Meanwhile, there is: http://peace-weaving.blogspot.com/2007/09/fast-day-12-august-31-2007.html morning fishermen wear hats and warmer gear as we rush to autumn. poplars hoist their yellow flags; saffron pennants and emerald’s memory. there are a million mirrors upon the river’s face filled with summer’s audit. changing times and promises and newer things and a great foreboding. I’ve been away for 2 days to make a buck and she works this afternoon. I am struck by how the place is filled by her, absent, though with promise.