A guy named Muhammed said, "God,
Must think it exceedingly odd!
Folks say I'm no prophet,
But headed for Tophet!
Why, they ought to be under the sod!"
They call it "religion of peace"
But I think we're all being fleeced.
Its pillar jihad
Is something quite bad,
And really should be made to cease.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Thoughts on China
While we're talking of thorny international issues, I have a modest proposal for the US.
The next time China whines about how international imperialism deprived it of the fair and beautiful island of Taiwan--where even those who proudly and loudly call themselves Chinese seem very wary of reunification just yet--the US needs to put a counter-offer on the table.
Let's ask the international community to de-recognize and penalize those counter-revolutionary reactionaries and running dogs of English imperialism who live north of Line Forty-nine and the Great Lakes. After all, the United States of America is the sole legitimate heir of Great Britain's one-time North American Empire. While we're at it, let's throw in Belize, the Bahamas, and all those Caribbean islands, too. Once upon a time, when we were an up-and-coming power, we truly and sincerely believed that our manifest destiny was to incorporate the whole North American continent from the Arctic Ocean to the Isthmus of Panama and from Atlantic to Pacific.
For the benefit of all those humorless liberals and others out there, I was being facetious about Canada being illegitimate. Yes, they seem to treasure their ceremonial ties to Britain, but if the hatchet got buried good and deep back in 1815, let it stay there, and let the USA, Canada, and UK take pride in keeping it there for almost two centuries. Heck, if they want an international celebration of two hundred years of Anglo-Canadian-American peace in 1815, I'll gladly march in the parade, if my arthritic knees and spine permit it. And, while I'm at it, I'm all for the continued independence of our Latin American neighbors. I'll even support Puerto Rican independence if the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to rally enough support for giving up US citizenship on that island (and, I'll gladly hang out a flag with a fifty-first star if the Puerto Rican Statehood Party gets enough support, too!).
Taiwan, when it was under the administration of President Lee Teng-hui, made it clear that it wanted a formal end to the Chinese Civil War. That was an honorable and honest stance which, if allowed, would solidify a truly pacific "Pacific [Ocean] Era". If there is no trust between two peoples with similar ethnic, historical, linguistic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, a period of separation is a must in order to build the trust necessary for future reunification. Otherwise, a forced reunification will only result in a disaffected and potentially rebellious territory threatening the stability of China and its neighbors. Since the 1920's, there has not really been "One China", and international fictions to the effect that one existed only served to encourage the stronger Chinese entity to threaten or launch civil war.
Hence, whether Taiwan [with associated smaller islands] calls itself the rump of the Republic of China established in 1911, Taiwan, Great Liuqiu, or even Bob, it deserves international recognition. If, after fifty years or so, the two sides realize that they can trust each other and reunite, fine. But let's make it clear that the world does not want the threat of hot war looming over the Western Pacific.
The next time China whines about how international imperialism deprived it of the fair and beautiful island of Taiwan--where even those who proudly and loudly call themselves Chinese seem very wary of reunification just yet--the US needs to put a counter-offer on the table.
Let's ask the international community to de-recognize and penalize those counter-revolutionary reactionaries and running dogs of English imperialism who live north of Line Forty-nine and the Great Lakes. After all, the United States of America is the sole legitimate heir of Great Britain's one-time North American Empire. While we're at it, let's throw in Belize, the Bahamas, and all those Caribbean islands, too. Once upon a time, when we were an up-and-coming power, we truly and sincerely believed that our manifest destiny was to incorporate the whole North American continent from the Arctic Ocean to the Isthmus of Panama and from Atlantic to Pacific.
For the benefit of all those humorless liberals and others out there, I was being facetious about Canada being illegitimate. Yes, they seem to treasure their ceremonial ties to Britain, but if the hatchet got buried good and deep back in 1815, let it stay there, and let the USA, Canada, and UK take pride in keeping it there for almost two centuries. Heck, if they want an international celebration of two hundred years of Anglo-Canadian-American peace in 1815, I'll gladly march in the parade, if my arthritic knees and spine permit it. And, while I'm at it, I'm all for the continued independence of our Latin American neighbors. I'll even support Puerto Rican independence if the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party to rally enough support for giving up US citizenship on that island (and, I'll gladly hang out a flag with a fifty-first star if the Puerto Rican Statehood Party gets enough support, too!).
Taiwan, when it was under the administration of President Lee Teng-hui, made it clear that it wanted a formal end to the Chinese Civil War. That was an honorable and honest stance which, if allowed, would solidify a truly pacific "Pacific [Ocean] Era". If there is no trust between two peoples with similar ethnic, historical, linguistic, cultural, and religious backgrounds, a period of separation is a must in order to build the trust necessary for future reunification. Otherwise, a forced reunification will only result in a disaffected and potentially rebellious territory threatening the stability of China and its neighbors. Since the 1920's, there has not really been "One China", and international fictions to the effect that one existed only served to encourage the stronger Chinese entity to threaten or launch civil war.
Hence, whether Taiwan [with associated smaller islands] calls itself the rump of the Republic of China established in 1911, Taiwan, Great Liuqiu, or even Bob, it deserves international recognition. If, after fifty years or so, the two sides realize that they can trust each other and reunite, fine. But let's make it clear that the world does not want the threat of hot war looming over the Western Pacific.
A Dreadful Middle Eastern Imbalance
Now that Premier Abbas of the Palestinian Authority has called on President Obama to impose a two-state solution, it seems that the armies of brave jihadis out to martyr themselves to liberate al-Quds are probably incapable of the task without American help. But this is not the only obscene imbalance between Israel and its neighbors.
A far more serious one is that after four generations in camps, the Palestine Arab refugees of 1948 and their offspring are not citizens of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, and other Arab states. This population has voting, property-rights citizenship only in Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel itself. Worse, this is a situation aided and abetted by the international community, including the United Nations. It serves no other purpose than to keep a raw wound raw.
Some argue that the Palestinian Arabs want their olive and orange groves between the Jordan and the Mediterranean; or that Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, lacking oil wealth, cannot absorb this population. This is utter nonsense. Palestinian Arabs who ended up in the United States have become citizens, despite the vast linguistic difference between the President's English and Levantine Arabic. As for lacking oil wealth, many more millions of refugees were displaces at roughly the same time by the partition of British India, yet they and their descendants are no-questions asked Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis today. This situation has reached the point where Lahore-born Manmohan Singh could sit down with Delhi-born Pervez Musharaf to discuss defusing tensions between India and Pakistan. Yet the resettlement and absorption of the millions of displaced Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians from East Bengal, West Punjab, and Sindh and that of displaced Muslims from the Gangetic Plain went on without a penny of oil wealth to aid it.
Further, those descended from the ancient Jewish populations formerly living in lands from Iraq to Morocco and from the Hauran to Yemen, expelled and dispersed with no more than the clothes on their backs, are today no-questions-asked Israelis. And, it is worth noting, these populations predated the Arab presence in all of their lands of domicile prior to the Islamic conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. Indeed, the prayer of Qol Nidre was probably heard and recited throughout Babylon every Yom Kippur long before the Arabic Azan was ever dreamt of. Yet today, Iraq, the second homeland of Jewry, which held large and thriving Jewish communities since the sixth century B.C. (I unapologetically write as a Christian) and where several of the Old Testament prophets are buried, is now Judenrein. The same can be said of Egypt, where a prominent Jewish community lived since shortly before the Babylonian exile, and where the Greek Septuagint, the first major translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, was produced. Yet where is the world's outrage over the destruction of these communities, whose contributions to civilization worldwide, were immense?
Further, there are many, many Greeks whose grandparents speak Turkish, whose family memories go back to the lands that were once Proconsular Asia, Pontus, and Cappadocia; and numerous Turkish families whose ancestors once lived in Thessaly and Crete. Countless states with seats in the United Nations--and others without--which have absorbed many more refugees than those displaced by the establishment of Israel in 1948. It is time to make the naturalization and permanent resettlement of the Falastin refugee population in the Arab countries--which, after all, share a language and religion with the majority of Palestinians--part of a permanent Middle Eastern settlement. That the United States has not made such calls loudly and persistently is the shame of our diplomacy. That the Arab states--apart from Jordan--have not taken steps on their own to do such a thing is their own lasting disgrace.
A far more serious one is that after four generations in camps, the Palestine Arab refugees of 1948 and their offspring are not citizens of Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, and other Arab states. This population has voting, property-rights citizenship only in Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, and Israel itself. Worse, this is a situation aided and abetted by the international community, including the United Nations. It serves no other purpose than to keep a raw wound raw.
Some argue that the Palestinian Arabs want their olive and orange groves between the Jordan and the Mediterranean; or that Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, lacking oil wealth, cannot absorb this population. This is utter nonsense. Palestinian Arabs who ended up in the United States have become citizens, despite the vast linguistic difference between the President's English and Levantine Arabic. As for lacking oil wealth, many more millions of refugees were displaces at roughly the same time by the partition of British India, yet they and their descendants are no-questions asked Indians, Pakistanis, and Bangladeshis today. This situation has reached the point where Lahore-born Manmohan Singh could sit down with Delhi-born Pervez Musharaf to discuss defusing tensions between India and Pakistan. Yet the resettlement and absorption of the millions of displaced Hindus, Sikhs, and Christians from East Bengal, West Punjab, and Sindh and that of displaced Muslims from the Gangetic Plain went on without a penny of oil wealth to aid it.
Further, those descended from the ancient Jewish populations formerly living in lands from Iraq to Morocco and from the Hauran to Yemen, expelled and dispersed with no more than the clothes on their backs, are today no-questions-asked Israelis. And, it is worth noting, these populations predated the Arab presence in all of their lands of domicile prior to the Islamic conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. Indeed, the prayer of Qol Nidre was probably heard and recited throughout Babylon every Yom Kippur long before the Arabic Azan was ever dreamt of. Yet today, Iraq, the second homeland of Jewry, which held large and thriving Jewish communities since the sixth century B.C. (I unapologetically write as a Christian) and where several of the Old Testament prophets are buried, is now Judenrein. The same can be said of Egypt, where a prominent Jewish community lived since shortly before the Babylonian exile, and where the Greek Septuagint, the first major translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, was produced. Yet where is the world's outrage over the destruction of these communities, whose contributions to civilization worldwide, were immense?
Further, there are many, many Greeks whose grandparents speak Turkish, whose family memories go back to the lands that were once Proconsular Asia, Pontus, and Cappadocia; and numerous Turkish families whose ancestors once lived in Thessaly and Crete. Countless states with seats in the United Nations--and others without--which have absorbed many more refugees than those displaced by the establishment of Israel in 1948. It is time to make the naturalization and permanent resettlement of the Falastin refugee population in the Arab countries--which, after all, share a language and religion with the majority of Palestinians--part of a permanent Middle Eastern settlement. That the United States has not made such calls loudly and persistently is the shame of our diplomacy. That the Arab states--apart from Jordan--have not taken steps on their own to do such a thing is their own lasting disgrace.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Another Version
WIth fannies high, Obama's marching minions
Go prancing down America's main drag!
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in blog, in airwaves, or in mag! (repeat last line)
The media, subservient and gaga
Care not that Geitner cheats the IRS
Of cunning pol's tale they have made a sacred saga--
"Messiah'a come!" They loudly doth profess. (repeat last line)
Our youth will be regimented and vapid,
The better formed to serve our leader's will.
Social transformation will be sudden and quite rapid
Till all us Yankees live on trash and swill (repeat last line)
Can you name that tune?
Go prancing down America's main drag!
It's time to pack up all your un-PeeCee opinions,
Whether in blog, in airwaves, or in mag! (repeat last line)
The media, subservient and gaga
Care not that Geitner cheats the IRS
Of cunning pol's tale they have made a sacred saga--
"Messiah'a come!" They loudly doth profess. (repeat last line)
Our youth will be regimented and vapid,
The better formed to serve our leader's will.
Social transformation will be sudden and quite rapid
Till all us Yankees live on trash and swill (repeat last line)
Can you name that tune?
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Some Thoughts on Religion
Moderns, with great consternation,
Despise Calvin's predestination.
For economics, we know
Or our genes run the show
Of our lives. This we call "liberation".
A guy named Muhammad said, "God
Must think it uncommonly odd
That the Christians and Jews
Greet my message with boo's,
And the Qureysh want me under the sod."
Despise Calvin's predestination.
For economics, we know
Or our genes run the show
Of our lives. This we call "liberation".
A guy named Muhammad said, "God
Must think it uncommonly odd
That the Christians and Jews
Greet my message with boo's,
And the Qureysh want me under the sod."
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