To my readers
As I mentioned in a comment to the last post, I will no longer be updating this blog.
While that is of course a tragedy to none, I was touched by those who commented, or e-mailed, asking me to continue. Alas, my schedule makes that infeasible; Sirocco has to call ... The Muhammed saga continues
I’m a pompous theocratic fool
His eminence Grand Sheik Sayyed Tantawi of the al-Azhar in Cairo — the most respected religious authority in the Sunni Islamic world — won’t let go of the Muhammed caricatures. In an interview with Berlingske Tidende he now condemns their publication nearly a year ago as ... Zapffe on the mystery of existence
Peter Wessel Zapffe. Drawing: Finn Graff
So we are supposed to believe that President Alberich is reading Camus and has conversations on the origins of French existentialism. Yeah, fine, whatever. The more he and his ilk are abusing this precious planet, the more I am drawn to an existentialist who makes ... Suckers
Is someone feeling stupid?
A compromise agreement now being hammered out between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government would allow the Shi’ite guerillas to keep hidden weapons in south Lebanon, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported on Tuesday.
While Hezbollah would need to keep the weapons it possesses south of the Litani River hidden, ... Supersheik
BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah declared Monday that his guerrillas achieved a “strategic, historic victory” against Israel.
Nasrallah, speaking on the day a cease-fire took effect - ending 34 days of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel - called Monday “a great day.”
“We are today before a strategic, historic ... Observation
The calculation behind the wasting of Lebanon was akin to supposing that, upon 9/11, Americans would turn on the US Government and demand the disarming of the US military.
Poems for our times
The first two of the poems below were contributed in comments by my friend and reader Gal. Wislawa Szymborska, with whom I was unfamiliar, won the Nobel Prize in Literature 1996. Naomi Shihab Nye is an American poet of Arab descent. Thanks again, Gal.
The third inclusion is the epigraph ... Des Diktats von New York
Let the devil take tomorrow
Many politicians are notorious for preferring short-term considerations over a long-term view. Examples abound of the dangers of such myopic policies. From Munich in Europe of 1938 that set the stage for World War II, to Oslo in 1993 which brought Arafat and his cohorts from ... Gaarder clarifies view on Israel, Jews
When I posted my unauthorized translation to English of Jostein Gaarder’s essay ‘God’s chosen people’, I had no idea of the amount of international attention it would attract. Had I known that it would be quoted in Haaretz and, in a crossposted incarnation at Booman Tribune, quoted and linked to ... Darfur vs. Lebanon
While Israel, a rogue state, is reducing its northern neighbor to a failed state, Sudan already is both. The escalating disaster in the west of that giant country, larger than Western Europe, is being totally eclipsed by the Lebanon war:
Since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in July, foreign newspapers have ... Preventive peace
So British police has foiled a major international terrorist plot.
Said plot aimed to blow up as much as ten commercial airliners en route from the UK to the US. Most of the around 21 suspects are British born Muslims. Not Saudi born. British born.
Does this ring a bell? The ... The Israel lobby at work
Shimon Samuels, Director for International Relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Paris division, goes into a frenzy over the essay by Jostein Gaarder:
Jostein Gaarder, the author of the literary chef d’oeuvre, “Sophie’s World,” has become seriously ill, either with malice or, perhaps, Alzheimer’s, or both.
Translated into 53 languages and with ... The Gaarder essay: final thoughts
Andrew “Flytrap” Sullivan slams Jostein Gaarder as an anti-Semite calling for the “obliteration” of Israel and for Jews to “surrender.”
These are certainly misinterpretations of the furious, fire-and-brimstone essay I translated. The prophetic voice, speaking in the first person plural, explicitly recognizes the “internationally lawful” Israel of 1948.
True, the voice ... An unfunny cosmic joke
This isn’t funny anymore. Actually, it ceased to be so quite a while ago.
After some 3,149 Iraqis were killed in June alone and 20,000 citizens of Baghdad — mostly the last tattered remains of the middle class — were driven out by militias during the last ten days of July, ... Where freedom reigns
Nearly three out of four Americans think Iraqis are better off now than before the invasion, a survey shows.
Iraqi blogger Riverbend might beg to differ. She describes how Baghdad’s middle class is being expelled by Mahdist goons:
Summer of goodbyes…
Residents of Baghdad are systematically being pushed out of the city. Some ... Of Arab bombs
However much Israel’s war of choice is sold to its Jewish majority as a war of necessity, this doesn’t work with Arabs. Least of all with Israel’s own 1.3 million Arab citizens, many of whom are also victims of the increasingly savage missile attacks, and nearly all of whom watch ... Olmert’s deviant logic
Olmert applies avant garde logic to the Kosovo conflict in order to defend his pointless atrocities:
“Where do they get the right to preach to Israel?” Olmert said when asked about criticism from European capitals of Israeli military operations that have led to a heavy civilian toll.
“European countries attacked Kosovo and ... Israel: a dire prophecy
Jostein Gaarder, the author of the global literary phenomenon Sophie’s World (printed in 26m copies in 53 languages), launches a scorching attack on Israel in Aftenposten, Norway’s paper of record. Gaarder, a historian of ideas, describes himself as a friend of the Jewish people but doubts whether Israel truly is ... Democrat, thy name is frailty
Besides Digby, my favorite American blogger these days is Billmon. As am I, he is giving up on the spineless lickspittles known as the Democrats.
I had hopes once that the Democratic Party could be reformed, that progressives could burrow back in or build their own parallel organizations (like MoveOn.org or ... Why the coming occupation will fail
When the dust has settled, the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon will commence. It will soon become the IDF’s waking nightmare, to be inherited by any international stabilization force dumb enough to venture in.
Why? The short answer is that occupation of a hostile territory always is hell. The somewhat ...
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