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Open thread 11/4/23 — 57 Comments

  1. @ Rufus T. Firefly

    • Quick Note: Caught up on my correspondence, posted a reply to your ‘Nov 1: Euthanasia in Canada’ comment.

    Again, thank you for sharing.

  2. We have been to Istanbul several times, but never again. I remember the first time coming into Istanbul by Cruise Ship. You can really see the Golden Horns of the Harbor. On the way up you go by Gallipoli. The last time we were on the Queen Victoria and they played the “Last Post” as we went by and threw wreaths overboard. I was standing next to several passengers from Australia and they were standing at attention and saluting. Very moving.

  3. I admit this song hits VERY differently after coming to learn of Turkish and Greek history, and particularly the genocides of the Late Ottoman Period. Which while they were of scarce benefit to most of the actual perpetrators is a living rebuke to “Never Again”, a silent testament known where the perpetrators – for lack of a better word – did what they tried to do and largely got away with it. Kemal may have been one of the better ones in a bad lot but he was still quite the piece of work and it is no coincidence he became an object of admiration among Fascists abroad.

    It also highlights the issue. We broadly want genocidaires to believe they will end up like the Nazis at Nuremburg, but they are gambling they will end up like the Turkish leadership after 1923. And with people like Omar Bashir around who has the better grasp on the odds?

  4. That is clearly a much earlier version of that novelty song than the “They Might Be Giants” version I know. I like the use of the Bass and that it is at a slightly less frenetic tempo than the They Might Be Giants rendition. Thank you for making it known.

  5. I like the later “They Might Be Giants” version, and its more frenetic energy, but didn’t know it was a cover – thought it was their best song! (Have been planning to sing it in karaoke, but haven’t yet, and won’t for a few months now after tearing my Achilles tendon).

    All borders are based on prior wars.

    We should be talking about a 3 state solution for Israel, to include a small Gaza Palestine country, bigger than Monaco and many other micro states, and a third West Bank Palestine country.

    Israel should occupy, strongly, the Gaza strip, and remove Hamas from power and be strict about enforcing laws to protect human rights. Instead of cease-fire, they should be asking for Unconditional Surrender – the war result that brought “peace” to Germany and Japan after those defeats.

    There will not be peace until Hamas is defeated. If Hamas fights, but do not lose power (as Saddam did not lose power after his aggression), then Hamas wins. A call for a cease-fire is a call for Hamas to win.

    Neo continues to write well about stories, most of which I’ve read by other substack linking or twitter linked accounts I follow, yet also adds personal commentary which most often agree with. Plus these cultural delights, as was the gymnastics and as are most dance pieces.

    Thanks!

  6. Tom Grey, I was thinking the same thing– but is there an opening for the PA to retake control over Gaza.

    This from a Wiki article about the Hamas-Fatah conflict:

    “According to Barakat al-Farra, the PLO ambassador in Cairo, the Egyptian US-backed el-Sisi regime, which annually receives some $1.5 billion military aid from the US,[91] will keep the Rafah border crossing closed, until forces loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas have regained control. A Hamas official accused the PA leadership of playing a major role in enforcing the blockade of the Gaza Strip.”

    Interesting that Hamas accused the PA of “playing a major role in enforcing the blockage of the Gaza Strip.”

    Is the PA ready to tacitly recognize Israel? In the past, under Arafat they obliquely did that, but have changed position with the political winds.

    Completely obliterating Hamas and allow the PA/Fatah military to firmly control Gaza might bring some stability while diminishing Iran, Qatar and Turkey influence.

    If Fatah remains on the sidelines during the Israeli war on Hamas, might that be an indication they are ok with Israel doing their dirty work? Could Israel leverage this?

    Also, for all their bluster, is Iran ready to launch Hezballoh into Israel, which would force the Biden administration to take a more hardline approach to Iran– just when the US is helping put Iran back on its feet?

  7. This song and this version was very very popular in my extreme youth. It’s one of the first pop songs I ever remember hearing, and I asked my mother what it meant. She tried to explain, not that I understood the explanation.

    It was apparently written for the 500th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople. Also: “Jazz historian Will Friedwald mentioned that the song is a answer to “C-O-N-S-T-A-N-T-I-N-O-P-L-E,” written by Harry Carlton and recorded in 1928 by Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra.”

  8. Re: Constantinople / Istanbul

    In 2006 someone had posted a really mealy-mouthed official statement from “His Beatitude Ignatius IV Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch and all the East” on my Episcopalian church’s mailing list.

    I replied thus:
    ___________________________________

    …this is exactly the sort of empty, misleading, diplomatic Christian rhetoric that will make no difference whatsoever in the current conflict except to delay the reformation of Islamic jihad.

    It is a polite, politic lie to state that Eastern Christians “have coexisted with Muslims in cooperation and harmony from the beginning of the Islamic message until the present day.”

    For centuries the lands of the Eastern Church were Christian. For centuries Constantinople was the center of Christianity, then after the East/West split, it was the center of the Eastern Church.

    Today, after many wars with Muslms, Constantinople is now named Istanbul in the nation of Turkey, where Christians compose less than 1% of the population.

    May Western Christians be spared such harmonious coexistence with Muslims!

  9. This song and this version was very very popular in my extreme youth.

    Likewise in Santa Cruz in 1953. We all could sing it, and somehow learned what exactly happened to make the change.

    Some credit should go to the Austrians who acted as cannoneers for the invading Turks.

  10. For centuries Constantinople was the center of Christianity, then after the East/West split, it was the center of the Eastern Church.

    And come 1955, a new pogrom, and almost all remaining Orthodox got the boot out of the former Constantinople.

  11. Brian E. –

    The PA still supports anti-Israeli terrorism via survivor benefits and the like. Putting the PA in charge of Gaza would probably reduce the severity of attacks. But they would keep coming.

    Also, the Gazans voted Hamas into power. Without a shift in attitudes by the Gazans, a long-term PA government would likely eventually find itself overthrown by more militant locals.

  12. junior:

    The PA is somewhat less religious than Hamas, but it nevertheless has the same goals and same methods, taqiyyah and terrorism.

  13. but they are gambling they will end up like the Turkish leadership after 1923.
    ==
    The Turkish leadership primarily responsible for ruling the Ottoman Empire during the time the Armenian population was so abused was a triumvirate of Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha, and Cemal Pasha. All three were dead by 1922. The ruling party, the “Committee on Union and Progress” disbanded in 1918. Kemal Ataturk and his deputy Ismet Inonu were high ranking army officers during the 1st World War; not sure, but I think during the war they were generally stationed in areas well away from where the mass deportation of Armenians was taking place.

  14. Hollywood has long ignored the rich historical material available for movies with both the Byzantines vs the Ottomans as well as the Ottomans vs the West.

  15. neo:

    How sad that some wishful thinkers think the PA is not “all in” with the “River to the Sea” genocide.

    The “pragmatists” strike again.

  16. Pingback:Gaza/Israel roundup - The New Neo

  17. Huxley,
    Good comments. I am busy right now so I am not going to look up all the individual towns, but consider that many of the churches/ towns mentioned in the New Testament were in what is now Turkey! Ephesus and Colosse literally have New Testament books named after the church people in those towns – Paul’s Epistles to the Ephesians and the Collossians. And there is the regional Epistle to the Galatians!

  18. The expulsion of Greeks accelerated under Attaturk. Today, there is some question of whether another Ecumenical Patriarch will have his seat in Constantinople/Istanbul, because Turkish law requires him to be a Turkish citizen, and there aren’t many Christians left.

  19. I really wonder how many Americans these days realize that what we now know of as the Middle East was–up until the 7h century A.D. advent of Muhammad, of Islam, and Muslim armies boiled out of Saudi Arabia to conquer a large swath of the then known world —mostly Christian, due to the peaceful proselytizing efforts of the Apostles.

    Moreover, are aware of and know about the existence of the Eastern Roman Empire i.e. the Byzantine Empire, that this Eastern Roman Empire was a continuation of the Western Roman Empire which fell in 476 A.D. and that the Byzantine Empire lasted until it was finally extinguished in 1453 by the Muslim Turks (the Turks formerly mostly Christians, until forcibly converted to Islam) of the Ottoman Empire.

    In 1453 A.D., after hundreds of years of continual attacks by Muslims, the Muslims finally succeeded in defeating the much reduced Byzantine defenders, captured Constantinople, staged a great massacre of many of it’s Christian inhabitants—including those priests, nuns, and citizens who had taken refuge in the Hagia Sophia–and renamed that city Istanbul.

    Moreover that, at the time the Byzantine Empire fell, the Hagia Sophia was the largest church in the Christian world, i.e. in Christendom, and that the Hagia Sophia was promptly turned into a Mosque, then a museum, and is now a Muslim tourist attraction.

    Thus, today’s Hagia Sophia stands as the most prominent symbol of the defeat of Christians, and of what was then called Christendom, by Muslims.

    I wonder how many of the American and other western tourists who enjoy their tour of this building know and understand what it really symbolizes and stands for.

  20. Baby steps, um, baby steps.

    What would be the least bad short-term solution?

    Was the Hamas attack timed to derail any Saudi-Israeli accord?

    On Sept. 21, regarding the normalization of relations AlJazeera news reported, “Israel’s foreign minister struck an optimistic tone, saying he expects a deal to be reached soon.

    “The gaps can be bridged,” Eli Cohen told Israel’s Army Radio. “I think there is certainly a likelihood that, in the first quarter of 2024, four or five months hence, we will be able to be at a point where the details [of a deal] are finalised,” he added.”

    Just a few weeks before the attack the Saudi’s established the first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority.

    I think most would agree the destruction of the organization Hamas would be good for the region. Other than Iran, Qatar and Turkey– other middle east countries oppose Hamas as it represents Islamic fundamentalism that in time would spread to these other countries, similar to Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS.

    Does the PA have the support (or can it manufacture it) to control Gaza? I think the Saudis consider it the only other game in town.

    Long term? I like everyone else don’t trust them. But there is no way Israel could directly administer Gaza. The knock on the PA by Hamas is they are controlled/surrogates for Israel.

    So at a time when Iran and the Saudis were supposedly burying the hatchet, Oct. 7 happens. Coincidence?

    Any normalization by the Saudis towards Israel would have huge implications that would probably spill over to the PA. After all, Saudi Arabia is home to the holiest site in all of Islam.

    Would there still be attacks inside Israel? Probably.

  21. @Art Deco

    The Turkish leadership primarily responsible for ruling the Ottoman Empire during the time the Armenian population was so abused was a triumvirate of Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha, and Cemal Pasha. All three were dead by 1922. The ruling party, the “Committee on Union and Progress” disbanded in 1918.

    I am well aware, though I would add in Abdul-Hamid II and his junta during the “Hamidian Massacres” in the decades prior. Many do not know they happened and that the Young Turks originally came to power by overthrowing Abdulhamid and claiming to stop the massacres (but alas they split).

    I also noted that the Triumvirs of the CUP- the infamous three Pashas – did not fare well (nor did many of their Kurdish Allies). I did not go into much detail but I did write:

    I admit this song hits VERY differently after coming to learn of Turkish and Greek history, and particularly the genocides of the Late Ottoman Period. Which while they were of scarce benefit to most of the actual perpetrators is a living rebuke to “Never Again”..

    Kemal Ataturk and his deputy Ismet Inonu were high ranking army officers during the 1st World War; not sure, but I think during the war they were generally stationed in areas well away from where the mass deportation of Armenians was taking place.

    This isn’t true. They were away from the epicenter of the genocides in the East but they were absolutely present and guilty of complicity in deportations and massacres of Anatolian/Ionian Armenians and Greeks (people tend to forget the fact that Armenians were just one of several target groups), and one of the much overlooked parts of the Gallipoli campaign was the “cleansing” of “undesirables” in the rear areas of the Ottoman Front in the name of national security, and while less murderous Kemal was well aware of and condoned the behavior during his Army Group command in Syria late war.

    Moreover, while the CUP Triumvirs all met violent ends (two of the three being killed by Armenians expressly for their role in the genocide) many of their loyalists found favorable terms with the Turkish Republicans and were integrated well, with Kemal interceding to help break up attempts at tribunals like on Malta. While Inonu was happy to continue persecution by means of financial extortion and slave labor in WWII, albeit not so much mass murder.

    There were genocidaires punished by the Turkish Republic, but overwhelmingly because they got on the wrong side of the power struggled and Kemal rather than any semblance of justice. Which tends to get overlooked badly and also helps explain why the Axis and Soviets were so confident in what they did and why they believed they would not be punished.

    And sadly in many ways the Turkish war criminals got a more thorough reckoning than the other Central Powers. There was almost no effort made to bring German, Bulgarian, or Austro-Hungarian war criminals to account and most of those were abandoned early on in the post war period (and if you see anyone that wants to whinge about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and why the Allies felt compelled to demand unconditional surrender, point to the farcical German internal tribunals after WWI and how almost nobody got more than a slap on the wrist even for admittedly criminal and inhumane behavior so long as they could prove they had the Kaiser’s authorization, and then realize that the Japanese were demanding similar for themselves).

  22. I do not think Israel can destroy Hamas. It appears to be too much a part of Gaza – like playing whack-a-mole. They can strike at them and wound Hamas, but ultimately I think political pressure and economics means that Isabel will have to go back behind their border fence , reenforce it, aquire more air defense systems, and deal with the next round of attacks when they come. Sad.

  23. Destroying Hamas will put a dent in the Islamist opposition to Israel. However, the CIA lists at least sixty Islamist organizations in the Middle East that are dedicated to destroying Israel and its supporters.

    All these organizations are offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood that was formed by Hassan al Banna in Egypt in 1928. They believe in strict adherence to Sharia law as promulgated by Sayyid Qutb’s
    interpretation of the teachings of Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab. These groups have different leaders, different followers, and are fluid in waxing or waning influence. They are all dangerous to Israel and the West.

    Destroying Hamas will get rid of a major threat that’s geographically close to Israel. However, peace isn’t going to break out in the Middle East.

    The Abraham Accords could be a big step forward. Solving the Palestinian problem would be an even bigger step. However, those fifty-nine or so terror organizations and Iran will still be around. The problem of fundamentalist Islamic threats to the West and Israel will still be with us.

  24. Jon baker:

    What happens with Hamas depends not just on the military campaign but what happens after, if Israel is victorious. Who will take over there, and will some sort of re-education deNazification type plan take place?

  25. Yes, the 1928 Paul Whiteman version of Constantinople (insert your own asterisks) has not only (white) jazz pioneers Bix Beiderbecke and Frank Trumbauer, but young Bing Crosby on the vocals. Amazing efforts for such a silly song.

  26. Probably not a crisis for anyone else here, but I loved Buffy Sainte-Marie and today I learned she is a fake Indian.
    ____________________________

    Folksinger Buffy Sainte-Marie got her start in the Greenwich Village scene and during the 1960s became an indigenous icon. In 1975 she showed up on “Sesame Street” proclaiming, “We want kids to understand that Indians exist. We really are real.” And as Buffy explained, “Cree Indians are my tribe, and we live in Canada.” That nation showered Sainte-Marie with awards, made her a companion of the Order of Canada, and even put her on a postage stamp.

    In 2019, St. Marie appeared at a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) music festival, where she complained about “moms who have such a pride in family, maybe patriotism and tradition,” before her performance of “The Universal Soldier.”

    Behind the scenes, the CBC was busy checking birth records, newspaper accounts, and interviewing relatives. Last month, the CBC’s 6,000-plus-word report outed the soi disant Cree from Saskatchewan as Beverly Jean Santamaria, born in 1941 in Stoneham, Massachusetts, with no indigenous ancestry whatsoever.

    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/11/still-fakey-after-all-these-years.php
    ____________________________

    At least Buffy looked reasonably Native American — unlike Elizabeth Warren.

    Apparently, Buffy had done a few Indian songs and started pushing a narrative that although she grew up in a white family, she had been adopted.

    It’s tough to make it in showbiz. Buffy was talented, but that alone is not enough. I guess the Native American claim was a good angle. It worked.

    I loved her album, “She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina,” then she found a Hawaiian surfer boyfriend and disappeared from the scene for years. I wished her well. I couldn’t imagine a happier ending than moving to the Islands for love.

    Perhaps her disappearance was in part a desire to distance herself from living a lie.

    The surfer thing didn’t work out, but later she married Jack Nitzsche, her Vanguard producer with whom she had written the hit, “Up Where We Belong.”‘ Nitzsche was a big name who had worked with the Stones and Neil Young. That didn’t work out either.

    She has done a fair amount of miscellaneous work since, e.g. for Sesame Street, but never regained her previous acclaim.

    Here’s her song, probably my favorite, to a forgotten 1970 film about an Indian massacre:
    ____________________________________

    This is my country
    And I sprang from her
    And I’m learning how to count upon her
    Tall trees and the corn is high country
    Yes, I love her
    And I’m learning how to take care of her

    Whenever the news stories are getting me down, I
    I take a drink of freedom to think of
    North America from toe to crown
    It’s never long before I know just why I belong here

    Soldier blue, soldier blue
    Can’t you see that there’s another way to love her?

    –Buffy Sainte-Marie, “Soldier Blue”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlQ-ynnidpg

  27. Neo,
    The West doesn’t have the will to ” de Nazi Gaza” . The west is too busy commiting cultural suicide. Much of the Muslim world doesn’t like Israel. I sure hope China doesn’t use this as a chance to get a hook in to that area.
    Some things just can’t be fixed. They can only be managed.
    Border wall. Air strikes. Air Defense. Occasional punitive raids.
    We spent almost two decades trying to remake Afghanistan. That didn’t stick. Islam is Islam.
    The only half way measure would be for Egypt to take over Gaza, but I think that might put the current Egyptian government in danger of being taken over by radicals.

  28. Neo, do you really think deNazification in Gaza has a realistic chance?

    Seems to me that deNazification was possible in Germany because it was compatible with Germany’s historical Christian foundation – all mankind are descendants of Noah.

    But in Gaza, deNazification will have to deny tenets of Islam. That’s a nigh-impossible dream.

  29. Jon Baker:

    Yes, the Palestinians tried to destabilize Jordan and did destabilize Lebanon. The “DeNazification” tends to go in the direction of Gazafication.

  30. huxley:

    I’ve followed that Buffy story. Sad. But I always liked her music and her very unusual style. My favorites are probably “The Piney Wood Hills” and “Must I Go Bound.”

  31. Brain E:

    The PA just isn’t as bloodthirsty as Hamas, not yet. They were doing it by onesies and twosies; by knife, suicide bomber, kidnapping and murder. A matter of degree, not intent. So keep thinking those big thoughts and being “pragmatic.”

    Israel doesn’t want Gaza, the Gazamites, nor the Hamashites. Maybe they can all relocate to Qatar, Yemen, or Turkey? They are dead to me.

    Baby steps from Brain E.

  32. Best comment from the Giants link:
    @christianlorre
    The sequel to the hit song “Constantinople (not Byzantium)”.

  33. Another, open-thread comment about something I read.

    Yesterday, CNN published an article entitled “Muslim Americans helped Biden win Michigan in 2020. Now, his Israel-Gaza response is throwing their support into question” (https://tinyurl.com/3cmssbbx).

    Okay, it’s CNN, so it’s not hard to guess their point of view, but I think they’re correct to argue that Michigan’s Muslims now play a critical role in electoral politics. It’s also true that Michigan Democrats have proven themselves adept at ballot harvesting and other, less legal forms of election fraud. Maybe that means Democrats will win, even without the Muslim vote.

    Anyway, for what it’s worth, here’s the first part of CNN’s article:

    “Muslim Americans helped Biden win Michigan in 2020. Now, his Israel-Gaza response is throwing their support into question. In 2020, Eman Hammoud was one of thousands of Michigan Muslims who helped President Joe Biden beat Donald Trump. A month ago, the Palestinian American immigration lawyer had no doubts she would support his campaign again in 2024.

    But over the last few weeks, she’s watched the Biden administration offer unwavering support to Israel after it declared war on Hamas following the Palestinian militant group’s deadly October 7 attack, with no red lines for Israel and no calls for a ceasefire, even as thousands of civilians in Gaza have been killed. Now she doesn’t know what she’ll do. ‘He’s put us in a very difficult situation,” Hammoud told CNN. “It has become almost impossible for me, morally, to vote for someone that’s taken the stances that he’s taken in the past few weeks.’

    Arab and Muslim Americans make up a small percentage of the population, but they have outsize influence in battleground states like Michigan, where the rejection of voters like Hammoud — who feel hurt and betrayed by the Biden administration – could cost Biden both the state and reelection. Michigan has more than 200,000 Muslim American voters — 146,000 of whom turned out to vote in 2020 –— according to an analysis by Emgage, an organization that seeks to build the political power of Muslim Americans. Biden won Michigan — a state that narrowly went to Donald Trump in 2016 — by 155,000 votes.”

  34. Well Open Thread Sunday, but this time it’s about Iran’s Military Strategy:

    Iran’s Military Strategy & Power Projection – Drones, Proxies & Production under Sanctions – Perun

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cy95hMoMhrY

    Timestamps
    00:00:00 — Opening Words
    00:01:26 — What Am I Talking About?
    00:02:04 — History
    00:09:24 — Position And Strategy
    00:16:25 — The Force
    00:28:47 — The Proxies
    00:38:22 — Economy And Defence Production
    00:49:40 — Production And Sanctions Busting
    00:57:37 — Missiles And Drones
    01:10:34 — Conclusion
    01:11:30 — Channel Update

  35. Cornflour:

    But what kind of Muslims are they? Antisemites through and through or the other kind?

  36. Huxley, Thanks for link to They Might Be Giants.
    I still quite like their slight change
    “Been a long time gone, Constantinople” rather than yet another
    “Istanbul was Constantinople”, as sung by The Four Lads, as well as the really really silly Bette Midler song in 1976.

    My first live concert was to see 3 Dog Night & Bette Midler in LA in summer 1973, driving the car which had been my grandmother’s.
    It leaked oil.
    On the way back, on the freeway, it ran out of oil, and I had taken a wrong freeway turn so was miles away. Calling my Dad was so so embarrassing. Never took that girl (Cathy H.) out again, never talked about it.
    We’re HS friends on Facebook with little in common, now – tho she’s a fine looking grandmother.

    Around that time, Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army was an LA thing. (Which reminds of the end of Warren Zevon’s song, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRWCK9zGynA )
    Semi-celebration of “the muzzle flash or Roland’s Thompson’s gun”, all too sadly relevant. “the eternal Thompson gunner… in Palestine and Berkeley.
    Patty Hearst, heard the burst, of Roland’s Thompson gun and bought it.”
    Somehow history rhymes.

    Also, lots of current thoughts are mixed in with many song lyric snippets.

  37. I did not know that about Buffy St.-Marie but am only mildly surprised. I always thought there was something slightly off about her. I didn’t give it that much thought or try to articulate it at the time, but both she and her music seemed too much like what an educated white progressive in the folk scene would want them to be. Exotic yet accessible, and very politically compatible.

    I’m more shocked to learn that she co-wrote that tiresome hit song. Long way from the B S-M music I heard in the mid-sixties.

  38. I’m wondering if there would be any upside for a blogger or commenter to claim ersatz exotic ancestry.

    There was a TV show on last night about Buffy-Sainte-Marie, I think it was American Masters, but I didn’t watch it. I’d heard of her & knew she was supposedly Indian, but that’s about it.

  39. Neo: Candidate for another “open” video. This is just kind of amusing. It’s about mechanism, but i think everyone can understand what he is doing, and his manner is pleasant, as well. Some will skip through it, I’m sure, but it is interesting as an idea. Very noisy, so don’t think I’d want it in my house without some substantial noise-killing elements added, but it’s still interesting…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qtcqx2pZbrI

  40. RE: Teaching the actual Qur’an, Muhammad, Islam and it’s History.

    If I had to guess how much the actual text of the Qur’an was taught, the life and deeds of Muhammad, and Islam and it’s actual history were taught–and as Muslim religious scholars and ideologues see and interpret them—I’d guess maybe 5%?

    From the clueless discussions–online and elsewhere–about these topics, I’d assume that all of the above subjects are either not taught at all, or are taught with a very thick sugar coating.

    We wouldn’t want to offend anyone, would we?

  41. @Snow on Pine

    Young enough to be able to confirm that’s true, and frankly might be even a bit too high. You will all but never hear criticism of Islam or Muhummad, essentially zero about the tenets of the religion, or “spicy” stuff like the long delay in transcribing the Quran and Hadiths, stuff like Muhummad being a rapist and pedophile, or the disasterous fitnas and coups.

    Granted on some level that’s to be expected given muh secular education and how lethally important topics like the Council of Nicea and the Nicene-Arian and Gnostic conflicts aren’t covered, but it is especially telling in this case.

    I don’t think like some do that Muhummad or Islam were invented generations later by Arab conquerors trying to legitimize themselves. For starters no previous Arab leaders had done so or conquered half as much as they did, and we also have substantial non-Arab non-Muslim references to Muslims citing Muhummad and Islam that are more contemporary, and at a minimum there’d be a “Muhummad-shaped-hole” in the history otherwise. But he was a thoroughly vile, foul human being who was far worse than the likes of the early Mormon leaders. But good luck getting half as much criticism as is levied at them at the “Perfect Man” of Islam.

  42. its curious, that tom holland did an extensive review of all three religions, Islam Christianity and Islam, guess where he got most flak, about, even though he was as scholarly, as that highlight reveal that was the pretext for the multiple strikes of which Benghazi was only one instance, the Bastion and the American school in Tunis, Islam of course.

  43. Around that time, Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army was an LA thing.
    ==
    A couple of their major crimes were committed in Los Angeles, but they were primarily holed up in the Bay Area.

  44. Re: “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner” by Warren Zevon

    Tom Grey:

    Big Warren Zevon fan here … but I’ve never made my peace with the Roland song, especially the last verse which you partially quote.

    The song is about a mercenary who works for the CIA in Africa, but is betrayed and has his head blown off. Then, headless, he becomes a supernatural scourge who travels the trouble spots of the globe, dealing his own brand of justice.
    _________________________________

    The eternal Thompson Gunner
    Still wanderin’ through the night
    Now it’s ten years later
    But he still keeps up the fight
    In Ireland, In Lebanon
    In Palestine and Berkley
    Patty Hearst
    Heard the burst
    Of Roland’s Thompson Gun
    And bought it.

    –Warren Zevon, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4pXkyWKe0U

    _________________________________

    For years I’ve assumed that Roland shot Patty Hearst in the song, but since she was never shot in reality I wondered what that meant.

    On the web there are those who argue that Hearst wasn’t killed, but persuaded of the virtue of revolutionary violence.

    OTOH, Zevon says:
    __________________________________

    In 1974 I ran off to Spain and got a job in an Irish bar called the Dubliner, in Sitges, on the Costa Brava. The proprietor was a piratical ex-merc named David Lindell. He and I wrote this song at the bar one afternoon, over many jars.

  45. Most Muslims have to rely on Muslim authorities to tell them what to think about Islam or Muhammad, since modern Arabic is not the same as the classical Arabic of the Qur’an. The average Arabic speaker, even if reasonably educated, can’t just pick up the Qur’an and read it with understanding. Some standard phrases, yes, but they couldn’t do Qur’an study the way Christians do with Bible translations. The Qur’an is only valid in the original, they are taught. This means Islam is whatever their imam says it is.

  46. Sounds like an opportunity for Google Translate: Classical Arabic

    Who would win in that battle, Google & anonymous surfers, or the imams?

    Nothing like having your sources laid bare to all the kafirs out there…

  47. Huxley, the ancient vs. modern portrayals of famous persons or mythological ones is kind of fun.
    I liked the one for George Washington, but would also have been happy for a Thomas Jefferson to be President today.
    The modern Zeus representation seems too close to a younger man to be a “mature” god – basically a 24 year old with a 3 year old beard?
    Hercules did not strike me as particularly semi-divine, either. Maybe I was hoping for Victor Mature?
    On the rest, I have no strong views.

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