Patio Regulars

Patio regulars are all over the map, and all but a handful are excellent people. There are various duos and trios, and a few loners; we even have a string quartet. Craig’s a loner, and so is Robert. Craig works for Amoeba Records, in Berkeley. He’s security manager, I think. He’s a guy of about my age, and just walked in one day. He noticed something on the menu about Pittsburgh, and mentioned that he was a Western Pennsylvanian. I told him I was from Pittsburgh, and that cemented the deal. Craig comes in most Fridays for a Cheese Steak Beast.

Robert works for Shakespeare & Co., a local book seller. He drifts in several times a day to smoke a cigarette, and will invariably buy a beer and sandwich every couple of days. We called him DD for a while because we couldn’t remember his name, but remembered him referring to himself as a “decent dude”.

Jasco, a Bosnian, is another regular, but I wouldn’t exactly call him a loner. He bops in almost every day, around 2:30pm, and orders a Cajun Chicken Sandwich with Swiss cheese. He’s quite gregarious, he owns a business with his Japanese girlfriend, Tomoko, and 2:30pm is when he can get free to eat lunch. There are a couple of others who come in alone—Mumbles, who has voluntarily 86’ed himself because he was caught with his fingers in the tip jar and hasn’t had the courage to return, and the Pabst Guy, who says nothing except “Pabst, please.”

Ben, Bill, and Cortez are all worth a paragraph or two. Ben is a statistical architect and a power lifter. He hides 215 pounds on a rather short frame, and is an excellent man to talk to. His great uncle was one of the WWII Hell’s Angels who also rode a motorcycle into Hollister, CA at the moment in history that was chronicled six or seven years later in “The Wild Ones”. Great family story. Ben’s a smart one. He’s a statistical architect with an interest in data sets that reveal the intersection of people, natural disasters, and interesting politics. Ask Ben about it when you’re in.

Bill’s a smart one, too. He’s in his mid-40’s, from England, and a statistician. He is also a believer in conspiracy theories, the most meaningful of which is the one that says the US government collaborated with the 9/11 terrorists. They ran war games on the same day using a hijacked aircraft as the model. As a result, so say the theorists, jets weren’t scrambled because everyone thought it was a game. You can choose to see the US as conspirators in the murder of 3,000 people, or you can choose to believe that Al-Qaeda’s intelligence is so great that they coordinated the attack perfectly with a secret war game. Bill’s struggling over the DaVinci Code, too, so he’s bitten off a lot.

Cortez is a musician’s musician. He writes charts for some big names. Right now it’s Elvin Bishop. He just retired from his own trio, but that’s a story Cortez can tell you himself. He’s a smart man, fun to talk to, knows a hell of a lot about music, and even encourages me to play my harmonicas, much to his chagrin, I’m sure. I sat in with the trio and did a James Cotton tune. People that had previously dropped money in the band’s tip jar came and got it back when I played. That’s how bad I am! Cortez is up in Mendocino, but I hope to see him soon.

Julian knows everybody, partly because he’s a rapper, but he often comes in alone. He was one of the crew who helped us by building the permanent benches and backrests. That job was mostly Julian and Basil, but Gill, Kaya, and Bird rounded out the construction team. Kaya stayed on after we opened, but he did something young and foolish and I fired him for failing to fess up when I gave him a chance. Gilligan stayed on until we were so restricted by a City of Berkeley and a partner issue that we could no longer afford to keep anyone. He was the last to go, and will be the first one back, should he be available. I think he’s got great life skills.

Bird is part of a duo and a quartet. The duo is Bird ‘n Heather. Sometimes they’re romantically together, and sometimes they’re not, but then they’re working together, or playing dominos together. They are among my favorites at The Patio, and are always very nice to me, for which I am grateful. Heather is really upbeat, and Bird is, too. Both laugh easily. The quartet I mentioned adds Steve and Frank to Bird ‘n Heather. Steve and Frank are also very nice to me, and I am happy to know both of them.

Frank’s a NYC transplant. A dark Irishman, Frank is level headed and not likely to be carried away by emotions. He is subtle. Frank’s a jeweler who makes rings, earrings, necklaces and such. He took a full time job with a well reputed jeweler with a “line”, and recently showed me a very lovely necklace he had been given at work. Kathy, his wife, must have loved it.

Steve is a budding photographer who makes a living building, and advising people on, computers. He is also very political, and currently full of admiration for Hugo Chavez, so he can’t be all bad! Steve is also a virtual authority on music, in general, and on several genres in particular. Comics too, apparently. You can’t prove that one by me because I know nothing about comics. Steve is also the only person I know who reads this blog regularly, which throws his judgment into question.

The common denominator for this quartet is dominos. They assemble around 5:30pm, get pints or pitchers of beer, and find a corner to play in, and so it goes until closing. I missed out on a lot of stuff because I never went to bars, pubs, etc when I was younger. I regret that, but I never had a taste for beer, and was a loner myself. Introvert to the edge of autistic, I’d call it, but that exaggerates it a bit. More on me later.

Very few people at The Patio make an impact like Capt. Phil does. Phil is not a captain, but a colonel, USMC (Ret.). He has a good pension, few needs, and lots of remora who feed off his generosity. When Phil’s here, people who otherwise never come in are there. I recognize them all, but all they ask for is a glass, with Phil’s approval. Phil’s seen some tragedy and is a remarkable man for working through it so well. I call a cab for Phil almost every night when he’s had too much to drink and doesn’t want to get busted for public intox on the BART or bus.

Is Kanye West still right a year later?

It was just about a year ago when Kanye West, obviously frustrated with Hurricane Katrina relief, said the now oft quoted, “George Bush doesn’t like Black people.” I believe he was right, then, and I believe he is still right. That doesn’t make George Bush a bigot. Kanye could have been talking about many white people in powerful positions. It’s just the way things seem to be. Lots of good people would feel insulted if they were called bigots, not knowing all the ways in which institutional racism conditions their behavior and makes them bigots.


I am ashamed to relate that when I was 16, I said to a black friend that my grandmother said that she would always hire a black housekeeper because “white women don’t work hard, and are too difficult to manage... too uppity.” I thought it was complimentary when I said it, but in the years that have passed I have heard it echo off what I sometimes think of as an entirely hollow cranial cavity. As a kid, I didn’t even hear that stuff when I said it. I didn’t say the “N” word, and resented it as a part of a vocabulary that was a bit too low class for me. Please understand that I never heard the word at home—not even code words. I rarely heard it in my neighborhood among the kids, and never among their parents. In fact, I had no class consciousness as a kid, and was so naïve that I didn’t even understand it when it bit me in the ass at a prep school.


Bush is probably not so different, with the exception that he was always rich, and I have never been. I imagine that he didn’t hear the “N” word at home or in his neighborhood, that he loved Motown, and admired African-Americans in some important cultural ways that would never have been personally perceived as bigoted. He would take affront to the use of such a word because he is an extrovert, a hand-shaker, and a good barbeque guest. Even the occasional off-color jokes would, to him, not seem made out of bigotry, but out of humor. Powell and Rice would seem to point to his lack of bigotry, but what could explain the lack of quick action in the wake of Katrina.


The lack of action was begun at a level way below Bush’s. Institutional racism started at the local and regional municipal levels. People were going to save the rich first, the tourist attractions second, the better neighborhoods third, and others, fourth. I can imagine the same thing happening in my own home town, Pittsburgh. It’s the way it would happen in Washington, DC, too, and DC’s as “chocolate” a city as New Orleans. Having an African-American mayor, it seems, is no protection against institutionalized racism. After all, you need to learn how to play “the game”—whatever that is—if you want to get elected. And if you get elected once, you have to play even harder to get a second term, or position yourself for higher office. If that’s true of African-American mayors, why would we expect any different from a white mayor, or governor, or president?


Today, Bush claimed full responsibility for the slow response after Katrina. That’s nice of him. It can’t hurt him because he’s not running for re-election, and it can’t help anyone because it’s just one of those hollow gestures. Bush may not like Black people, Kanye, but I’m guessing he’s insufficiently introspective to know it. He sees himself as everyone’s friend, and it would distress him to define himself in terms of bigotry. It means he would have to change, and change is uncomfortable, especially for a two term President of the United States.

The PATIO: How We Tell the Men from the Boys

The PATIO was visited by a young, well-groomed, buff, if a bit short, Berkeley student last evening. He wanted to use the bathroom. I said no, and it (as always) wasn’t good enough. The debate started…

“I really gotta go.”
“Not here, you don’t.”
“I’ll buy something.”
“Okay, so come around to the counter.””But I really gotta go!”
“Not in this bathroom, you won’t.”

Etcetera.

About half an hour later he came back. He came back to tell me that he wasn’t like those bums in People’s Park, and that he would have bought something. I told him that he was no better than the Park’s inhabitants, and that if we shut the bathroom door to them, we also have to shut the door to him. He then went on to express grave dissatisfaction about my attitude, and that’s what I’m writing about.


When you’re young, the world revolves around you. When you’re hungry, everyone knows about it. When you’re thirsty, everyone knows about it. When you need to pee, everyone knows about it. Wah, Wah, Wah! Me! Me! Me! So, when you simply can’t take no for an answer, preferring to complain instead, you’re making yourself the center of the universe. And when you come back to say you’re better than the bums in the Park, you’re the center of the universe again. And, when you lecture me on my attitude towards you, you’re the center of the universe again.


Grow up, children, because the adults are getting impatient with you and want you to begin to act like you are not the center of the universe. (And you cosmologists can grow up, too, when you’re tempted to say that we are all the centers of the universe. Don’t be thick.)

Meena #1

I’m not sure there will be a #2 or #3, but I offer the first part for all those of you who know my daughter, Meena. Those of you who have spent much time at The PATIO over the summer will know Meena as the young woman who alternately cooked, brought food, bussed tables, washed dishes, put on CDs, learned dominos, and otherwise ingratiated herself to the regulars. Non-PATIO people know her from other places and other times.


Meena leaves for Istanbul tonight, via Reykjavik, Iceland, Frankfurt, Germany, Graz, Austria, Cologne, Germany, und finally Istanbul. The incidental travel will take a week or so, and I expect Meena will arrive in Turkey without much jet lag. The Reykjavik portion is because she’s traveling Icelandic Airlines from SFO to Frankfurt.


The Graz leg is to see her “auntie’s” new daughter. Meena’s mom has an aunt in Austria whose daughter is Meena’s mom’s first cousin. In the Indian way, your mother’s cousin is like your mother’s sister, and is referred to as “auntie” by your mother’s children, or YOU! In fact, every woman older than you is likely to be referred to as auntie, up to a point. Now Meena is 23 and Shaila, her auntie, is just a tad over 30, so they’re not down with all that. Anyway, there’s a new baby and Meena wanted to see him. From Graz it’s back to Frankfurt, and then on to Cologne, where Meena will meet up with two friends – David Schneider and Thomas Vorpaul.


People familiar with San Francisco’s Zen community, which is very large and active, may know David. He is a Zen Buddhist priest and an old and respected friend of Ted’s. He wrote an excellent book called “Street Zen”, chronicling the amazing life of a Zen Buddhist leader in the San Francisco community. Very interesting reading! Anyway, maybe 10 years ago, David was given the opportunity to go to Cologne and take over the European operations of Shambala Press, which he did. He has remained there, and Meena will see him and his wife and little daughter. More important, is Thomas.


Those of you who are PATIO regulars will recall that, for a couple of months, we had three German post-graduate students as regulars. They were Thomas, Hauke, and Philip. Between the food, the beer, and World Cup football, I don’t know how they got anything else done, but they all seemed to pass their economics courses. Meena and Thomas became a bit of an item, and that’s what’s really important about the Cologne visit. She’s been working as avidly with her German phrase book as with her Turkish one, but Thomas’ English is so good it wouldn’t matter at all. My advice was only to concentrate on the Turkish, since that’s where she’ll be living for the next year (or longer?). Thomas doesn't live in Cologne, but his sister does, so that's where they decided to meet.

You might well ask what Ted got Thomas as a show of solidarity. How ‘bout a lovely Pittsburgh Steelers baseball cap! That’s right! I spared no expense! It’s black on gray, and very tasteful. Now, I have to begin to relate the ins and outs of the game to him, which will be a bit more complex. With soccer, there are basically three rules. First, don’t go offsides. Second, don’t use your hands if you’re not the goalie. Third, you can tackle if it’s clear you’re going for the ball, not the man. Okay, so there are a few other small rules, but that’s the big stuff. And depending which sin you commit and where on the field it occurred, the penalty may be a throw, a kick, or a penalty kick, all in combination with no card, a yellow card, or a red card. Now, on to American football.


There is also offsides in American football, but both sides can get called for it (encroachment and false start, typically). Then there are do-overs with penalties (e.g., kickoff is out of bounds), 5-, 10-, and 15-yard penalties for all sorts of fouls and infractions, big yardage offensive and defensive pass interference penalties, and so on. Three big differences from soccer, aside from the contact and padding that goes along with it, are (1) that specific plays get called on each down; (2) that you change players constantly, and entire teams depending on whether you are on offense or defense; and, (3) every second of time is scrupulously accounted for. And, Thomas, if you study Steelers football, you will understand both the rules, and how the game should be played.


Meena and Alex are both very important to me. I have been fortunate in having them at arms length for a pretty long time now, so I expect I’ll miss Meena. I mean, Istanbul is not exactly Western Massachusetts or upstate New York. Alex has been out of the house longer, so I guess I’m more used to him being a bit scarce. I’m looking forward to trying Skype, and I bought her a little videocam so we can actually see her. There’s some interesting technical stuff out there that I never had in India, Iran, and Saudi Arabia! Anyway, Alex and Meena have both been abroad on their own before, and I have every confidence in them both. That’s not the same as missing someone, and I’m sure to miss Meena.

Jews: Religion or Race?

Jews are ancient people. Despite the lack of historical evidence for much of what appears in what the Christians refer to as the Old Testament, it is reasonable to infer that Jews are ancient people. In their genes, of course, they are no more ancient than any other human being. But in the context of modern Western life, Jews, as an organized social group, are far older than the Christian and Muslim monotheists that followed them.

Jews: are they a religion or a race? This question is often asked even by Jews, who have probably not given the whole thing much thought. And while it can be argued that Judaism is the religion of the Hebrew Race (thus answering the question in a neat package), it is not a very accurate description when removed from its modern context. The idea of defining Jewishness is so alien that Israel had to go through a laborious process to decide who had a prima facie case to be called a Jew, and could, therefore, be awarded citizenship. It came down to having a Jewish mother. Before Israel, Jews did not need to define who was a Jew because there was no political need to do so. Hitler created his own definition a decade earlier.

Jews are a social group, no different than the rest of the people around them in the ancient world. They were like the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Hittites. How would any of these people answer the same question? All of them had rules and social conventions, civilizations, and beliefs in gods of one sort or another. I do not know their creation myths, but I’m sure they had them. These rules and beliefs were part and parcel of normative Assyrian, Hittite, and Babylonian social life. There were not 7th Day Hittites, Reform Assyrians, and Babylonian Rollers. No, there were just groups with beliefs, laws, and social structures that knit them together as a people. Some believed in, or practiced, variants of the principal (orthodox) culture, but they were undoubtedly still seen as Hittites, both inside the group and outside it. They were born into the totality of Hittite life, not as non-Hittites waiting to be baptized into Hittitedom. To separate them by religion or race was simply not meaningful.

Since the Jews are, in some real sense, a transitional people, they are different than those who came before them, and misunderstood by people who came after them. Jews were, as far as we know, the first monotheists; if not the first, then the first to exist from then straight through to now. A century after the death of Jesus, Christians were busy at the task of documenting and codifying their beliefs, organizing their communities, and distancing themselves from their Jewish “parents”. It is clear that in the act of distancing themselves, they were building a wall between themselves and the Jews, and also defining the Jews as those who rejected the new covenant with god. Note that some 600 years later, the Muslims were saying precisely the same things about both the Jews and the Christians.

Christians were not a people. They were a religion. They were Greeks, Jews, Turks, Romans, and so on. They had no shared language at home. They had no shared food tradition. In other words, they were not a social group in the same sense that the Jews, Hittites, Assyrians, and Babylonians were. They were a heterogeneous group with a common belief system. In the 14th Century, for example, Roman Catholic Christians ruled the countries of Western Europe (e.g., Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc) and most of Eastern Europe. These were not homogeneous peoples with shared customs and language. They were different peoples with a shared adherence to Roman Catholicism and the Latin of the Church.

Jews are more like Eastern peoples. Being Chinese one thousand years ago meant pretty much what it means today. No matter what individual differences existed in ritual practices (Buddhism, Confucianism, etc), the way things were done were “Chinese”, and continue to be. India had Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Totemists, and others, but all these communities did things in an “Indian” way. The same applies to the Japanese, Laos, Vietnamese, and many others. They are homogeneous in that there is such a thing as “being Chinese” and “being Indian”, even if their religious observances are different. Likewise, there is also a sense of “being Jewish”, and even Jewish atheists feel like part of the community.

I want to hit this one more time. How can I ask the question, “Is Bantu a religion or a race,” and make it meaningful of anything modern society understands of these words? Religion of the kind Christianity ushered in was virtually nonexistent before Christianity. This question asks about race and religion in a purely post-Christian context because it does not understand the integrated nature of pre-Christian societies. Muslims use the same construction for Islam, and those who believe in Allah come in as many colors and speak as many languages as do Christians, but they all call themselves Muslims. Jews never conquered people and made religious converts, but Christians and Muslims did. Jews, Christians, and Muslims may all be the sons and daughters of Abraham, but religion does not mean the same thing to Jews as to the others. As to the question of race, only aggregated social groups, like Christians and Muslims, would speak in terms of race. Under apartheid, Polish Jews are white and Falashas are black, so what race is a Jew?

So when you ask questions of Jews like, “Are you guys a religion or a race,” don’t be surprised when the answer is that the question makes no sense in the context of Jewish history. Jews are an ancient people, like the people of India and China, and are part of a whole that cannot be parsed. Jews are a small population with a common history out of which an integrated and organic religion emerged. Christians and Muslims are an aggregation of distinct peoples whose lack of shared experience created a need for a doctrine that replaced common history as the thing that defined their unity. Religion grows out of the experience of an ancient people, it is not superimposed. Christian era religious constructs are too new for Jews.

AIPAC

Those who are willing to sacrifice everything for a cause are rampant in the world today. When we think of the phrase, “Give me liberty or give me death,” we are moved by its simplicity and by its power. We value these words in the sweep of history because they were uttered by one of “us”, not one of “them”, and during a time when such words could both inspire and be treasonous. In some long ago past, others have said words like these with the same effects. People have been rallied to fight. “Don’t think small,” these words announce.

In the past century, we can readily imagine citizens and soldiers having said these words. We can hear them in India’s liberation from British rule, and in Israel’s early struggles for statehood. We can hear them in Mao’s Long March, and in Mandela’s South Africa. We can hear them today in Palestinian voices. What is common is that these people raised their voices in defense of what was, and is, theirs. It was not Stalin who spoke for Mao. No, these voices come from people who have a vested interest in a place or in a political consciousness necessary for that place.

In the 21st century, there are still some people who inspire, but most of the heavy lifting comes from institutions. AIPAC is a one issue lobbying operation in the U.S. that does everything it can to get America to support Israel, and there are equivalent lobbists for Palestine all over the Middle East. At $75.00 per barrel, and with a daily production level of, say, 5 million barrels, the revenue to the Saudis is $375 million per day. And that’s just Saudi Arabia. Iran’s production is about half of that, or around $200 million per day, or a cool $1.4 billion a week. When you talk per year rather than per day, the number would make even Bill Gates take notice. Is it unfair that AIPAC should direct its influence at Congress and exercise the sort of real power they do? I think so, but I don’t think they are more powerful or better funded than those who are carrying out the same work overseas with Saudi Arabia or Iran.

And if you don’t like things the way they are, you have only to blame the mainline Protestants like the Episcopals, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists, to name a few. It was they who founded this country, they who ruled it during its formative years, they who established its institutions and laws, and they who controlled, until fairly recently, virtually all of its economic life. If Big Steel, Big Drugs, and Big Labor can lobby Congress around very narrow issues, why not Big Jew. Jews who grew up in this country, except for, perhaps, a handful of Bal Shem Tov followers, learned the same lessons of citizenship that their brother Catholics and Protestants did. But for a long time, they and their brother Catholics were kept out of the capital mainstream and out of federal decision making. Slowly, Catholics were allowed in, and then Jews.

They learned the American Capital Game—you know, the one we’re trying to teach the world—very well, and are making the most of it. The Catholics have had one President for their trouble, but the Jews aren’t there yet, despite having some Senators, Representatives, and some Cabinet-level appointees. People who don’t like the way AIPAC is playing the game should be equally critical of Big Oil. After all, aren’t some of those "watch out for the Jewish Lobby" people the same ones who say we went to war in Iraq over oil? You’re quick to say that the Jews have too much power when a Hizbollah building is bombed and innocents are left dead in their wake, but I missed the day when you protested the killing of Iraqi women and children by trading in your Hummers for bikes.

If you think I think U.S. policy in the Middle East is “fair”, I’ll be the first to tell you it isn’t. Israel gets the nod fifty times for every time Palestine does. That’s not fair. I’ve also heard that it’s not fair that 1 billion Muslims are working hard to defeat a handful of Israelis, by comparison. And here’s a real difference. Israelis are in two broad camps. The first says they want peace, and will vote that way every time. That’s about half. Then there’s the side that says they will certainly accept peace, but that there is no way the Arabs will allow it, so what’s the use of talking about it. In other words, virtually every Israeli wants peace, but half say the Arabs can’t live with that. With respect to the Arabs, I’m quite willing to believe that there’s that same 50% who want peace and will work toward it at whatever cost. Then there are pragmatists who say that the Israelis will not negotiate fairly so why should they be eager to sit down and talk. These Arab reactions reflect the two camps in Israel. What there is not in Israel is the third camp, albeit relatively small, that seeks out the total destruction of Israel. The Hizbollah, Iran’s toy, and Hamas, plus the Al-Qaeda and similar groups have that as a common aim, even if it isn’t their first aim. When’s the last time you heard any Israeli group say they wanted the complete destruction of the Palestinian people. Despite what the Palestinians believe or feel, they obviously still exist, as do the Israelis. And these two groups are the ones with a real stake in peace. The others have a stake in keeping the issue hot and destablized.

So don’t come around expecting me to take issue with AIPAC if you don’t want to talk about EXXON, or about Israel frustrating attempts at a Middle East peace if you don’t want me to talk about Hamas and Hizbollah. And, if you are a die hard supporter of marijuana legalization, don't think you're not following the same capitalist model of AIPAC, the Oil Lobby, or even the AIDS Lobby. It's a process question, not an "ends" question. The ends question is the lie you believe that lets you support one thing and condemn another. Just because you have your head up your ass doesn’t mean I have to do the same. For my money, all of them can go straight to hell, and probably will. That's an ends question not a process question.

Hizbanese and Israelis Cease Fire

Now that a cease-fire is in place (that’s how they say those things in the news), it’s time to recap what the hell went on. Hizbollah stole an Israeli soldier, and the Israelis got pissed, and then they did it again, and Israel got pissed some more. After all, who is Israel supposed to deal with in Lebanon when Hizbollah kidnaps your soldiers. If Hizbollah is the true government of Lebanon, kidnapping a soldier is an act of war. If they are not the true government of Lebanon, it’s an act of terrorism. You choose.

Either way, and whether you like Jews and Israel or not, they acted like any sovereign state would when faced with an act of war from an avowed enemy. Now, is there anybody out there who does not believe that Hizbollah is an avowed enemy of Israel? (Only the guy with the tin foil hat denies this, so I think we can go on.) Now, I know it’s tempting for Arab and Israeli apologists to say it’s in retaliation for X, Y, or Z; I mean we hear that juvenile crap all the time. Both sides have 473 pages of “I did that because you did this” lists. Sometimes you have to grow up and leave the neighborhood.

Okay, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they didn’t act like “any sovereign state” would, but they acted like America would. Could you imagine how fast Congress would line up to yell about Iran or North Korea stealing a soldier! Could you imagine that the vast majority of Americans wouldn’t urge the government to do anything it takes to get them back. If you don’t make this claim, you’re simply being disingenuous. No president could survive if diplomacy were allowed to grind on at its usual geologic rate. Sooner or later, a failure to return the soldiers would be seen as an excuse for military incursion. The only difference between Israel’s action against Hizbollah and ours against Iraq is that there was a cease-fire six weeks later. If anything, Israel is more disciplined than America in how it uses military power.

Now for the really trying question: What about all the civilian casualties? I think it’s terrible that soldiers don’t just kill soldiers. Israeli soldiers have uniforms and insignia of rank. I’m not aware of the same with Hizbollah. In this very real sense, every person the Israeli army kills is a civilian. When Hizbollah hides in the local population, it makes the innocent more vulnerable. And who are we to wax sentimentally over widows and orphans when we have done nothing to stop the brutality in Rwanda or Somalia, and do what we can to fight against properly elected leaders like Hugo Chavez, regardless of his leftist propensities. Ever hear of removing the beam from your eye before concerning yourself with the mote in someone else’s?

That’s the message I would leave all the powerful versus all the powerless. The powerful have a responsibility to look at their abuses of power and to curb them. To the extent that the Israelis can come to think of themselves as not having to act as if their very existence were threatened at every turn, they should. Lives will be saved. To the extent that the Hizbollah can come to think of themselves as citizens with things to gain from peace with Israel, they should. Lives will be saved.

British Muslim Leaders Take Responsibility?

Okay, here I go again. Responsibility, dear reader, is something one takes upon him- or herself, not something that someone assigns to another, unless the other is willing and able to accept it. Business still doesn’t understand this, but I’m a training guy so I understand lots of things about real people, who make businesses work, that CPAs and MBAs don’t.
Continuing on the subject of responsibility, Robert Barr, reporting today in the Associated Press on the new liquid terrorism issue, states, “Prominent British Muslims, including three members of Parliament, said in an open letter Saturday that ‘current British government policy risks putting civilians at increased risk both in the U.K. and abroad.’
“The letter, printed in several British papers, said Britain's intervention in Iraq and the failure to secure an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon were providing ‘ammunition to extremists who threaten us all.’
“’The debacle of Iraq and now the failure to do more to secure an immediate end to the attacks on civilians in the Middle East not only increases the risk to ordinary people in that region, it is also ammunition to extremists who threaten us all,’ said the letter, which was signed by three of four Muslim members of Parliament and 38 Muslim groups, including the influential Muslim Council of Britain.”
Now I don’t want to make it sound like Britain’s involvement in Iraq and their failure to have attempted to influence Israel and Hizbollah are nothing in themselves. The Brits must take responsibility for killing Iraqis, and for getting their own soldiers and others killed. That’s responsibility enough, I think, to take seriously and act upon. What I do not accept is that some pissed off, sexually repressed, and emotionally immature band of brothers plans to blow up a plane or two because the Brits didn’t take enough responsibility.
The Muslim leaders quoted in this article are clearly writing for their own community. They are blaming the Brits, absolving themselves, and walking a fine line of their own. That fine line is that if they are blameless, then they are sinless and crimeless. This is a big part of the responsibility problem. Perhaps these prelates should have said, “We are dismayed that we live in an environment where war and violence are the first resort rather than the last. We are further dismayed that the parents of our young people have failed to teach them that killing others is a crime that hurts them, their families, their victims’ families, and everyone in society. Finally, we urge the British community to continue to respect and value societal differences, and pledge that we will urge our own community to reject and combat any terrorist or terrorist plan we come to learn about. This conforms to the law of Islam and the law of this land.”
So, when am I gonna read that letter about taking responsibility? Maybe Bush owes us one, too.

In an article published today in the New York Times, Amelia Gentleman reports that U.S. government sources have issued an alert to Americans living in India of a suspected terrorist attack on or near the August 15th commemoration of India’s independence from British rule. Stay away from independence celebrations folks, and be vigilant because it looks like “foreign terrorists, possibly linked to Al Qaeda,” are on the hunt. Officials at several other embassies, including the British and German, said they knew nothing of the threat.

Answer me this. What’s Al Qaeda doing looking for Americans in India? And if they’re looking for Americans in India, why not just attack Bangalore, India’s Silicon Valley and home to many important Indo-American enterprises? Okay, here’s the answer: they aren’t, mostly because Al-Qaeda can find a hell of a lot more Americans to kill in the USA and most of Europe than in India. And why make trouble for the 10% Muslim minority in India, except to mobilize them. But if mobilization is what they’re after, why wait until August 15th? Why not have used Republic Day, in January?

If you’ve read Osama’s Fatwah (check this blog about 10 postings ago for an English transcript), you will see that there’s no mention of India. Osama seems clearly bent on removing all Americans from the Saudi Peninsula as his first order of business. It’s not even clear that America would be Al-Qaeda’s main target once that happened, but there’s no way the number two target would be India; not even 22. In my opinion, these links to Al-Qaeda are really what the American government says to keep the home fires burning.

Y’know, our president went to war in Iraq, with the willing and voluntary support of the vast majority of Congress, because he wanted to, and he has tried to link that war to the war on terrorism since Day One. Even today, some 40% of Americans believe there was a link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The rest of us, including those who actually study these things, mock the 40% who don’t, but that’s because we always think we’re right anyway. In this case, we are.

Bush is simply using his embassies to let Americans overseas know that Al-Qaeda is still a force to be reckoned with. Notch up the fear index a little. He does that through Chertoff at home (careful of that Oil of Olay, Mr. TSA screener… when you shake it it explodes), but all those “news” outlets overseas compete with Bush’s biases, so the embassies have to pitch in and do their part to maintain the fear level at Orange.

Al-Qaeda should not be dismissed. They are well-organized, well-funded, and capable. Neither should they be invoked. They are small, limited in scope, and they choose their targets with discrimination. Driving a car bomb to, and detonating it in, some crowded bazaar in New Delhi, no matter how big the bomb is, is still a different thing than a year of flight school and all that followed.

Bush wants Al-Qaeda on every American’s lips, not because of 9/11, but because of the America he began to create on 9/12. We should not let him, or the flock of geese in Congress, get away with it. We need to fly where we want to, do what we want to, and never be afraid of saying to anyone we meet that our government has been hijacked by the minority. Remember, Kerry-Gore won the popular vote in 2004. If you didn’t vote for Bush, at least the second time, tell everyone you meet that he’s not your president. You may still be a target for someone, but it won’t be because of anything you have done.

Marginalized Christians in America

What sort of statement does it make that so many born-again Christians see themselves as being marginalized. Marginalized is usually a word those who use it reserve for people who are so different that fitting in becomes a serious problem. A marginalized person is an adult who is illiterate and can’t even fill out the simplest form, or a woman who has a serious personality disorder but lives on the street, or a drunken Hassidic rabbi screaming in Yiddish on the 18th green of St. Andrews while holding a hockey stick and trying to drive a chipmunk down the fairway. Yes, I think that describes marginalized. So, how the hell do Christians see themselves as marginalized people in the United [Christian] States of America?

Is there one state in the country where they do not represent the majority of the population, with respect to one Christian flavor or another? Do they not also control governments from the local school board to the White House in very real ways? And don’t their biggest modernist churches rival the great cathedrals of Christendom when priests were the only means to salvation? And aren’t their numbers growing significantly with every passing day, worldwide?

And don’t many of them treat as literal the words of the St. James Bible, which is a document known by scholars to be rife with inaccuracies and exclusive of many other competing gospels? And aren’t they silly for letting televangelists lead them toward salvation based upon the size or regularity of a contribution, and for believing that the prayers from a total stranger who asks for money in return are likely to help? And why do they home school their children when half of them grow up to be either secular or otherwise horrible. Oh, I guess I’m beginning to understand. These born-again types are pretty gullible and ridiculous and, as such, maybe a little marginalized. But being gullible is not the big answer to their marginalization, no sir.

The real answer is that they are a religion of martyrs, just like Muslims. Somehow, things just don’t ring true in a Christian life unless there is an opportunity to believe that you are the object of persecution. When Muslims feel persecuted look at how they behave. More martyrs than you can find heavenly virgins for! Same with Christians! Oh they’re not waiting for heavenly virgins to screw. In fact, that’s part of what makes Christians “good” and Muslims “bad” in their eyes. No, no Christian would want virgins. All Christians want is to be treated like gods in heaven. Tell me which is the greater sacrilege: a Muslim wanting to live like a king in heaven, or a Christian wanting to live like a god there. I’d think number two, myself, but then I think it’s all so silly. If you don’t think I’m right about martyrdom, just look at Mel Gibson’s filmography. He hasn’t suffered under Pontius Pilate, but he made Jim Caveziel do it while he watched. Mel, himself, certainly has suffered under Longshanks, and at the hands of South Efricans, and as a cheap but ballsy crook in Payback. He’s also been deformed, and Mad, which are also conditions of marginalization. Yep, that’s a marginalized Christian life in a nutshell, and I think it’s time they all grew up and took some personal responsibility for the shitpile we’re living in. You to, Mel, ya creep.

Saying "no" is Easier Than Hearing It

Did you ever own or run a retail business in Berkeley, CA? One with a bathroom? Well, lemme tellya -- it's a lot easier to say, "Sorry, we don't have a public bathroom," than to get people to hear the message you have just sent. But let me get to your real question, which is, "Why do you refuse your bathroom to the ladies and gentlemen of Berkeley who express the all too common human need to use it?"

Here's why! CASE 1: A pretty young 20-something came in, asked to use the bathroom, and left it with fecal matter spread over half the room, including all over the toilet. A suicide bomber using a laxative instead of plastique? We saw her leave, so bomb, yes, suicide, no. A sorority prank? Maybe, if she was pledging Pi Crappa Delta. Not even Rod Serling's ghost, imported straight from Binghamton, NY, could nail down this one.

CASE 2: A young man who any mother would be proud to own went in for about five minutes. When he came out, he was happy as a clam on heroin. We saw the little trail of blood spatter on the wall from his hypo prick, and had to scrub the whole place down with bleach before we would let another person in. We tossed him out and told him not to come back.

CASE 3: A guy went into the bathroom and filled the toilet with so much paper that the plumber who took the bowl out said he couldn't clear the S-bend of paper. We had to buy and install a new toilet. That was the first of two. The cases go on, but they have led to an inevitable conclusion: nobody uses the bathroom but people who come in as customers (as opposed to those who say, "Hey, if I buy something can I use the bathroom?").

Now, when people come in and ask to use the bathroom before they come to the counter to order food, and I say to them that we have no public toilet, but there's one in the park, they respond in one of several ways. R1 is a look of resignation, a thank-you, and an exit. R2 is a "what-if-I-buy-something" plea, to which I say that I am sorry, but no. The exit is a little more abrupt than in R1. R3 is a look of shock and awe -- like I imagine many troops saw in Iraq in the early days of the current war. This one is a simple failure to believe one's ears. "What? I can't use the bathroom!" I'm sorry, but that's right. The exit is a "I was going to eat here, but now I'll never eat here!" My follow-on comment is usually something like, "We don't need any more customers like you, anyway." R4 is a vituperative swear-fest. R5 is a lecture. I once got the "don't you have any daughters" routine, and I said to the woman, "yeah I have a daughter and she can come over and tell you the same thing if you want." As a rule, I only exempt obviously pregnant women and women with small children from the bathroom rule. I figure anyone else can use the public toilet in the park.

Don't get me started about people who park in my parking space and glower at me when I ask them to move.

The Religious, Right?

I just heard some scholar named Balmer (at Columbia University, I seem to remember) address the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on a local NPR station. He was the patient, born-again Christian that liberals like me wish were swarming all over Capitol Hill. Instead, what we have is a bunch of insurance salesmen, car dealers, and forked-tongued white boys who think they’re better than secular humanist baby-killers like me. Well, we know that’s wrong already, don’t we. Egad, the hubris! These people are never wrong!

If they’re caught doing something foolish or perverse, they have a couple of choices from the born-again menu. They can howl like a dog with a thorn in its foot and beg forgiveness. Think Swaggart. They can deny, and then make an admission accompanied by a sincere apology. Think Clinton. They can say it’s all a lie and sit back in smarmy silence until things cool down. Think DeLay.

Okay, so I’m listening to the program and a question from the audience goes something like, “Are these people afraid of rational thought?” In fairness, my mind started whirring and I didn’t even hear the answer. What I did do is think of what to write in this small piece. My answer is, “Absolutely not; they use rational thought all the time.” What do you think? That being a born-again Christian leaves you in a permanent state of grace! That would be tantamount to referring to a quarter of the country as saints, and we both know that’s a flat-ass lie.

Born-againism needs to be seen for what it is, even when it’s genuine. It is a momentary flash of insight followed by a lifetime of failure trying to regain that instant of bliss. Thus, it exists only temporarily in its arising, then becomes a beacon seen at only a great distance. The person who has the experience is changed in religious ways, but not secular ones. Quaker peaceniks do not become Christian Right warmongers, and born-again car dealers still try to hard sell the undercoating option to little old ladies. In other words, if Tom DeLay is a prick, it’s because he was always a prick. Now, he’d just be a prick who found Jesus and lost his job.

It’s a toggle switch. The reason that “fear of rationalism” is raised as a question in the first place is because we liberals don’t understand that born-again Christians (a) are not in a constant state of grace; and, (b) do not fundamentally change their stripes from the people they were before they gained their keys to the kingdom. But in Washington, DC, everything is staged, so you don’t see the rationalism that goes on behind the scenes. All you get is the fervency and the pleas on behalf of the “partially born” fetuses (who have, incidentally, been heard to scream in over 57 languages when the malevolent abortionist plies his satanic trade).

I worked with a guy who could quote chapter and verse from the bible, who earnestly prayed before he ate, and who referred to black people as “them”. Now ask me if the white man in question is a bigoted, born-again Christian, and I’ll say, “Jesus Christ, how the f*ck does that happen! Maybe it wasn’t Jesus you saw! Did you ever think of that!”

If I Were Emperor

I used to think it would be great to be president, but I’m sure I would find it too constraining. Just look at how the Congress treated Bill Clinton. You have to line up when you’re the prez. I could never have stood for it. I would have dragged those nasty little farts out into the House parking lot and tried ‘em on one at a time. And I’d have tossed in “democrat” Zell Miller just for the kind of display that’s supposed to make me look even-handed. Yeah, I’m a sycophant – a progressive sycophant, to be sure… All this leads me to define what I would do if I were emperor of the North American continent (in the week I would serve before being assassinated by practically everyone). It also should effectively end any attempt to draft me for elective office anywhere.


My Policy on Terrorism


I really would like to find a way to get Muslims and other world faiths to meet monthly to issue position papers for their faithful designed to curb acts of violence. But being a practical guy, I would also make it clear that the next time any terrorist group attacks my empire I will throw a dart at a map of the world where their religion is in the majority and I will bomb the capital city of that country until it is flat. If it happens a second time, I will destroy their most important religious capital with a tactical nuclear weapon. Three’s the charm, where I lay waste to every country where they are a majority, thus ridding the world of the religious-based terrorist from that particular community. I’d hate to sacrifice Baton Rouge, but I believe I’m wise enough to make and implement good policies.


My Policy on Assassination


If I can substantiate that a peer ruler, elected or not, is acting in a treacherous manner toward his people, I will order his assassination. If he has an army, I will order a strike on the army. If a peer ruler orders his people or his defense forces to attack ethnically different people in an act of ethnic cleansing, I will wait until the 31st person is cleansed, then I will order his assassination and the execution of the country’s senior military officials for following an immoral order.


My Policy on Welfare


Even the poor have to eat, my friends, so I plan to give a boatload of welfare to people who need it on a variety of levels. Sick people get to see doctors; hungry people get to eat; cold people get clothing; those who want it get shelter. In return, those people do not clutter up public thoroughfares asking for spare change. Those who rant wildly get medicine or asylum housing or both. Just wait until you see my tax plan.


My Policy on Taxation


Nobody earning under $25,000 pays imperial tax. No family earning under $40,000 pays tax. Every person who earns more pays 10% on the overage until they hit $70,000, when it becomes 35%. At $100,000, the rate goes to 50%, and at $300,000, it goes to 75%. That should end the hegemony of the rich, and leave plenty of capital available for schools, teachers, shoes, food, and other cool stuff.


My Policy on Handguns


I get them all. If anyone kills anyone else with a gun, they get killed by the victim’s family any way the family wants to do it. If they can’t do it because they are faint-hearted, then the killer just goes to solitary confinement in the Yukon for exactly 20 years. No TV, no radio, just the classics of literature translated into a readable language. If the prisoner is illiterate, teach him to read first.


My Policy on Drugs


Increase DUIs to a mandatory one year of solitary in the Yukon (as above). As for all other drugs, my empire will decriminalize all of them and distribute them through shops designed for that purpose.


My Policy on a Higher Power


As emperor, I do not recognize any higher power. Nor do I presently recognize one, except for the overhead phone lines.


My Policy on Dopes


Keep sending them to Washington, hoping that I’ll make good on my threat to bomb the capital city of the country where the religious zealots are liable to plan and carry out a terrorist act.

Islam, the Law, and the 21st Century

In the weeks and months following the attack on the World Trade Center buildings, Americans began to question why we, of all people, were so doggedly the targets of groups that seemed based in, or allied with, the practice of Islam. What had we done to deserve this? Actually, this was the second modern large-scale attack on America that evoked these attitudes, the first being the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, in the late-‘70s. I worked in Iran during the mid-‘70s, and was trying to study international affairs in graduate school during that period. Those of us who were interested in the event came to understand that there were both political and social causes for it, and the latter, it would seem, have been completely forgotten by our political establishment from the President on down.

We are not the country that divided the Middle East into unrecognizable bits and pieces in the last century – that was England. We didn’t have political outposts all over the world for four hundred years like England, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and Portugal did. Today, however, we are at the forefront of a cultural revolution that needs only television and a local marketplace, not troops and fortresses. It’s partly what’s under the burka that is causing the problem, and I don’t mean the women. I mean the labeled clothing, accessories, styles, and other outward symbols of what Muslims see as decadent intrusions into their homes from outside their community. So, Usama bin Laden attacked us for some of the same reasons that the Iranians had when they stormed the U.S. Embassy. He doesn’t like our politics, to be sure, but he didn’t target America for political reasons. He hates us for our ability to influence Muslims to desire things, think things, and behave toward things more like us and less like him. Then there are all the political reasons.The politics were always easier to understand than the social causes. It’s easy to understand that people despise you because your CIA helped oust their elected leader and install a replacement that was more to your liking. It’s a bit harder to understand that the symbols of your power – not your army, but your product marketing – were intruding on the one area that all people regard as sacrosanct: the home. Any of us might feel the same way if a cult ideology began creeping into the lives of our children. While it may be an imprecise analogy to American cultural power, it conjures up the idea of something that’s sinister, often beyond our control, and which might provoke anger, fear, and hostility in us. Seeing it that way may help us to answer the question, “Why us?” What the question it does not answer is, “Why Usama bin Laden?”

There is an enormous void in Islamic religious law that enables virtually anyone to gather an army and wage a religious war by binding the cause, no matter how tenuously, to Islam. A broader body of religious law, under regular exegesis, would otherwise inform potential followers of people like bin Laden of their deviant behavior, labeling them as flawed, or worse, heretics who think of themselves as superior to Islam. Usama bin Laden prospers not because Muslims think he’s either right or good, but because there’s nothing in Islamic law that defines him in any terms whatsoever. Exegesis began early in the formation of the three principle monotheisms, but continues into the present by scholars and intellectuals in both Christianity and Judaism, worldwide. Perhaps the Muslim idea that it is the unchanging “seal” of God’s revealed truth to man influenced the law makers to stop tampering with perfection. It did not seem to stop the others, however, who largely felt the same way in their own formative early centuries.

The evolution of Islamic law (shari’a), began with the Angel Gabriel, who recited the words (Al Quran) of God to the Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad, in turn, had the revelation written down, and began attracting followers to it. As Max Weber, the German sociologist, tells us, there’s little need for any codification of a new religion as long as the charismatic leader is still alive. Little beyond the Quran was formally committed to writing or codified during the Prophet’s lifetime, except perhaps for specific rituals like those of bathing before prayer, rules for praying, and other practices that would have been developed as a way to create a shared set of ritual duties and obligations among believers.

Upon Muhammad’s death, the Quran, already established as the permanent, central spiritual resource of the faithful, was joined by other “lesser”, but still very important, resources. Among these were the sunna, or traditions of the pre-Islamic bedouin Arabs of the Hijaz (the heart of what is now Saudi Arabia), and the remembered words and actions of the Prophet, as articulated by his “companions” and “followers”. It was all of these resources that Islam drew upon to create its shari’a, or body of religious law. The sunna of the bedouin largely accounts for subsequent law established under what is called the "sunna of the Prophet", which displaced, but did not totally replace, the former. Christian scholars will see obvious similarities in the development of the gospels, including the conscious decisions about what to keep and what to reject.

Over the first three centuries of Islam, the main four schools of law were actually established and codified (winnowed down from seven or so), and all debate about the linkage of the law to the Quran or the sunna of the Prophet stopped. Thus, for a thousand years or more now, no broad intellectual discourse on the law has been seen as necessary. This is called "closing the gates of ijtihad” (independent reasoning). Muslim scholars and intellectuals were forever enjoined from meaningful exegesis in Islam (except for times where reform movements have sprung up). The definition of “reform” is also up for grabs. Some reformers may interpret this as a broadening of Islam, and others may see it as narrowing. The distinction between scholarship and intellectualism is germane, for contemporary Islam is full of Muslim scholars who can be said to be anti-intellectual partly due to the limitations of ijtihad, and full of intellectuals who can be said to be anti-Islamic because they are proponents of social change. This is also the case among fundamentalists of other faiths, which is not to say that a devout Muslim cannot also be an intellectual; all people adhere to some overarching core principle of life that cannot be established as “fact”.
In Islam, the practice of praying, alms giving, and other long-standing pillars of the faith are rooted in the consciousness of the community of Muslims as a whole, like similar practices of Christian and Jewish communities. Muslim practices were developed in the Hijaz, but traveled well because Islam recognized early on that the shari’a could be more readily accepted if applied in very narrow areas. It was Islam that was to be spread, not bedouin customs. This was imperative for successfully integrating conquered peoples into the fold. Islam did not want to control the mechanics of everyday life, but to control religious practice – to create a world of brother Muslims, not brother (e.g.) Arabs. That distinction is important when considering the current rise of totalitarian Islamist states like Iran, or groups, like the Taliban, or even Al-Qaeda and Hizbollah, who apparently all want to regulate every moment of a believer’s life.

The practice of Islam essentially dislikes treading on the customs of brother Muslims. Local customs, therefore, were not brought under the shari’a, unless they contradicted the Quran’s teachings or some other revered source. Pork, for example, was forbidden to all believers, but the Arabs of the Hijaz, who may also customarily disdain dog meat, would not expect Muslims in Nigeria or Indonesia to do the same. That the practice of Islam essentially dislikes treading on the customs of brother Muslims is, in itself, commendable. It is also problematic when seen from a modernist judicial point of view developed out of the creation of shared customs.

As illustrated, respect for customs plays an important role in the coverage, or saturation, of Islamic law in Muslim societies. In essence, it limits coverage. The Western experience is quite the opposite. Western traditions and customs tend to be incorporated into the religious canon (a word actually from the Arabic "kanun"). The civil code is largely derived from the religious canon and assists us to interpret religious law as a component of civil governance. In Islam, for example, a thief’s hand can be cut off (an example of “hadd”, or fixed punishment) under the shari’a. Islam did not insist that Indian Muslims cut the hands off thieves in India, but it also did not codify under the shari’a any other laws to stand as substitutes.

We, in the West, have employed such punishments over our histories, but the development of a civil law code often replaced the old punishments with new ones, like imprisonment, or probation, or fine; many countries also abolished capital punishment. We did not replace the original religious sanctions against theft, but we established new laws that better suited our more modern political and social environment. This feature of Western civilization has served to broaden the civil code over the centuries. Islamic law’s attention to customary differences has served the purpose of limiting the extent of the shari’a, thereby limiting the growth of a civil code in Muslim society. The result has left large areas of interactions between the People and the State outside the framework of a civil code derived from the shari’a. That leaves open the door for those like Usama bin Laden to walk through, creating their own law as they go. (I hasten to add that it was in the modern, Christian West that the Nuremberg laws of the Third Reich were enacted.)

This makes the successful pursuit of democratic (or even some modern) institutions problematic because the final arbiter of the shari’a is the worldwide Muslim community, not the Saudis, Iraqis, Turks, Persians, or even the chief religious authority in Mecca, or his counterpart at the Al Aqsa Mosque, in Cairo. The community has practice norms that, in the final analysis, must be shared under the shari’a. The extent to which customs are shared between the Arabs, Persians, Turks, Indonesians, Pakistanis, and the Newly Independent States (Khazakistan, etc.) is very narrow, as regards anything we might call a civil code that can be developed from the shari’a. Try as they might, “Islamic States” -- entities with a civil code developed out of a narrow range of religious law -- are unlikely ever to democratize in a way that the West can recognize. Civil laws in Muslim countries can be promptly dismissed as non-binding by those who label them anti-Islamic. That is why tyrants and fanatics find it so easy to co-opt Islam and angle their ideologies to suit the situation they strive to create.The term niyya, or the intent of the act, is an important feature of Arab culture that must be discussed in any discourse on the power of Islam in the world. An observant Muslim must not only observe the ritual of prayer, but the intent. Only he or she knows whether it's simply a formal, repetitive social act, or whether it is truly an intentional act of submission to Allah’s will. This has repercussions in contract law under the shari’a, where certain contracts involve a statement of intent (niyya), while others are simply documented on paper in varying levels of detail. Those involving a statement of intent are almost impossible to undo, perhaps analogous to a Will. This is illustrative of the power of an oath in Islam. The oath (a statement of intent) matters more, and an action (the written contract) matters less. The Muslims of the Arab world recognize, in an oath, the magical effect of the right words. In fact, when Malcolm X went to Mecca on hajj, the Muslim authorities were ambivalent as to whether to let him participate. According to his own account, it was not until he recited the shahada, the profession of the faith, that the religious authorities decided – by this oath -- he was a Muslim, and allowed him to complete his pilgrimage.

Middle East analysts have often referred to “Arab hyperbole” as a feature of political life. For many years since the creation of Israel, we have heard many such oaths from Palestinians and other Arabs. Normally, these oaths involve “driving the Israelis into the sea”, or similar sentiments. Israelis know Arab customs better than most, and have always used these oaths as a basis upon which to garner support against “hostile” neighbors. They have also known, up to the immediate present, that these are mere exhortations that require no follow-up – no action.
Unfortunately, all that has changed in the past few years where acts have, indeed, followed words. Human beings are now strapping on bombs and pursuing paradise in an orgy of hatred, and the reactions to such acts are equally bloodthirsty and relentless. We are living in dangerous times. We are seeing the confluence of the American culture of rugged individualism and personal action, as sold by Hollywood and the advertising industry, with the passion of the Arab oath. The hybrid is an impassioned threat to action resulting in violent death. Since both “sides” created important limbs of this monster, perhaps it would be good to seek an alternate message that transcends Arab, Jew, Christian, Muslim, and American. We must all take responsibility, not revenge.

What’s the Matter with Mel!

Mel Gibson, apparently driving with a blood alcohol level of .12 (12%), reportedly went on an anti-Semitic tirade when a cop pulled him over. What did he think? That the cop was a Jew? Mel, dahlink, Jews live in Malibu, they don’t patrol it. One of my great-grandfathers was a Jewish cop in Pittsburgh, PA back in the 1880’s. Of the four great-grandfathers I had, two were Jews and two were Roman Catholics, and only one, so far as I know, was a cop. He was also a miserable bastard, according to my grandfather (his son), who ran away from home and joined the army. The Spanish-American War was apparently preferable to living with an abusive Jewish Pittsburgh cop. If you had made anti-Semitic remarks to that bastard, even his own wife and kids wouldn’t have made a peep. That covers the cop connection.

Fortunately, alcoholism does not run in my family, so I can’t relate to Mel that way. Let me repeat for you, Mel, what the ancients knew: in vino veritas – in wine there is truth. Plato, I think it was, said that he would never let his daughter marry anyone he hadn’t drunk with, ostensibly because he couldn’t be sure that the guy wasn’t an abusive pig until he had seen what he was like with a grape high on. And since I run a pub, I guess I generally agree that true colors come out when enough alcohol goes in. Let me sum things up for you, Mel. You’re a goddamn anti-Semite, so be proud of it.

Real anti-Semites like you shouldn’t be browbeaten by the press into apologizing for the stupid things they say. Aw, hell no, boy! Stand tall! Your old man grabbed the family and ran to Australia where he could live like a 10th century Catholic, believing in magical elixirs and alchemy, and rejecting folk-singing anglicized masses. No wonder you’re the same stupid anti-Semite your probably alcoholic father probably was. Genes? Yes, for the alcohol. Examples? Yes for the anti-Semitism.

You earned your DUI, boy, so when you next go to confession, don’t admit a damn thing! Oh, they’ll demand that you give them something, so be prepared. Those dudes in the black cassocks are still called priests, but they represent a modernist movement that has bankrupted the ancient teachings of the Church. They aren’t to be trusted or respected by real Catholics like you and Pops. No, Mel, just hop in your anti-Semitic time machine and whisk yourself off to the world where Jews start all wars. In that world, Mel, you’re a hero. If you like it well enough, maybe you should stay.