09 Wednesday Oct 2013
The Clash – Rock the Casbah – YouTube
At this point, the clip’s an historic artifact.
Curious, that Texas-borne armadillo, but less so the get-ups and the lyrics.
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Let’s add to this Billy Joel’s commentary:
▶ Billy Joel – We Didn’t Start The Fire – YouTube
I like that gravel-voiced phrase, ” . . . trouble in the Suez.”
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26 Thursday Sep 2013
Tags
Finish your supper. Don’t you know there are children starving in Africa?”
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“If you don’t finish what’s on your plate, I shall give it to your brother.
Guilt has always to do with others, some perception of their suffering, and the role we may play in aiding, alleviating, or appreciating the same in light of our own perceived better-off capabilities, luck, and comparative wellbeing.
Jealousy has primarily to do with ourselves, doubts about our grasp and power, and our worried perception of cheat and theft by assorted and presumably conspiring others.
For the most part, grammar in language refers to structural properties and rules guiding the management of the written and spoken word; however, grammar may also refer to basic sets of social and psychological instructions — count the mother’s inventions for encouraging an economical approach and value to eating (waste not — want not) among such — that once interiorized may be forgotten but quite elaborated, for in both examples, food on the child’s plate may serve as a convenient subject for an integrated cluster of ideas involving the properties of other things:
“Take care of your things because . . . ” (you are lucky to have them . . . they’re expensive . . . somebody sacrificed something else for you to have them . . . etc.) and “If you don’t take care of your things . . . ” (somebody will steal them . . . they may be ruined . . . you’ll lose the use of them . . . you’ll be found out as incompetent or defenseless or both, and so on).
I wouldn’t presume to say with authority that the two lines offered here demonstrate precisely how a binary rule may be planted in the mind.
On the other hand, I would suggest tabula rasa applies only up to the moment a child first 1) hears an adult speak and with some accuracy interpolates the meaning of adult utterance and 2) subsequently discovers surfacing in language themes that embed socially reinforced rules that will go on to influence the development of attitudes, the recognition and interpretation of emotions, and perception itself with social perception — how to perceive others; how to behave among others — a crucial part of the psychology.
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16 Monday Sep 2013
Posted in A Little Wisdom, Philology
02 Monday Sep 2013
The lie never serves the listener.
The lie always serves the liar in two ways: to conceal discomforting information or though — material that would be embarrassing, impolite, or shameful if expressed — or to manipulate the listener for gain, emotional or monetary, directly or indirectly.
Perhaps fiction serves for exception, but that entails literary invention in service to the emotional, political, social, and structural truth of a thing in aspects beyond the purview of journalism (for the journalist cannot record, for example, interior monologue).
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A Jew may suggest, and possibly should, that each time the religion was hijacked, more or less, it may have been done with less concern for those inveigled in and by the New Power (two majors and lots of lesser camps in that category). One gets a lesson, say, about snakes and devils, a fall from grace, but go back and read Genesis 2 and 3 and “The Fall” is not there — and what is there is an awakening in awareness, self-awareness, and conscience, each an aspect of consciousness and knowledge.
And while our Original Couple may “cover” with the fig leaves, it’s God who sews them clothes of skin — and clothed and conscious of their lives as human beings, out into the world they go.
What happened to that telling?
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From Adam and Eve and the charming story of their creation and birth as human beings to Bashar and Maher al-Assad would seem a stretch, but it’s not. The former emblematically tells a truth about the truth: indeed, humankind is conscious, self-conscious, and possessed of conscience; the latter symbolically tell a story about exceptional evil and how brazen, unconscious, uncaring, unconscionable, and sadistic a human or comparative handful of the same can be.
The initial mismatch involved in flying jets against neighborhoods in response to a guerrilla challenge at the low intensity level signals the delusion of grandeur in which the Assad brothers had been knocking about all of their lives. Theirs was a kingdom, never mind the exploitation, hunger, and suffering of some fair portion of their constituency.
Damascus, 30 October 2007 (IRIN) – Syria is struggling to reform unsustainable and inequitable subsidies, despite warnings from leading economists that delays increase the likelihood of drastic economic shocks and possible social unrest.
The question is how to do so without provoking sharp price increases in a country where the average state wage remains little over US$120 a month.
IRIN. “SYRIA: Economic reforms threaten social unrest.” October 30, 2007.
Ah, the good old days.
Syrians know how they lived.
Like kings, some.
Like peasants, most.
That is the way of kingdoms — and dictatorships — and they are all happy, are they not?
A more recent article in Al Monitor (“Failure of Economic Reform in Syria,” December 28, 2012) goes more deeply into the from-there-to-here aspect, but suffice it to say: all were not happy and however helped along or joined by fanatics or mercenaries, the seeds for insurrection would seem to have been homegrown.
As much, the Assad brothers would deny.
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Remember: it’s never the narcissist.
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Andrew Tabler: One of the ways the Syrian government defends itself is by obscuring everything that happens inside the country. Right now there’s a huge question about whether or not to intervene. The government can dispute whatever argument pro-interventionists have. This isn’t unusual for these kinds of regimes. Assad is a master at manipulating the press. Often times hardly anyone is even paying attention to Syria, though that’s changed now. At the time they could snow job us, but now it’s a lot harder, especially when so much violence is being captured on YouTube.
A false false-flag in which troops dress down to look like rebels and a disinformation industry gins it up to look like “the other guy” tells the character of the primary actor, and it never changes: bullies are cowards and cowards are liars always.
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This may be the last I write about language, integrity, narcissism, and political psychology for a while. It may take funding or it may be for others to do, but with so much behavioral and cognitive machinery visible, one may pursue curiosity down into the nuts and bolts of child rearing, social grammar, the drama of, say, narcissistic mortification, and experiments with and development of criminal power as the basis for political and social power across large constituencies that will pay a high price for having allowed as much to happen to them.
The civil war in Syria provides the drama of the day; violence in Islam associated with mixed ambitions provides a convenient theme: however, observations proposed or stated here may have more universal qualities.
For certain, for example, Robert Mugabe has held on to power for decades, reintroduced cholera to Zimbabwe, displaced the white farmers, destroyed the nation’s agricultural prowess, watched as adults crawled across borders for work and children sank to eating bugs, and yet, probably, he will pass away peacefully in his sleep, fulfilling the dream of every dictator who ever believed he had actually defended and saved his country, accumulated his wealth legitimately, and arrived on his death bed with as good a conscience as any.
Anderson, Hans Christian. “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.
BackChannels. “Syria – Dictators Do Not Negotiate Internal Affairs.” May 28, 2013.
Dow, Nicole. “Getting to know Syria’s first family.” CNN, July 18, 2012.
Kahn, Laura H. “Who would use chemical weapons?” Bulleting of the Atomic Scientists.” April 16, 2013.
Oppenheim Arts & Letters. “Chomsky Think.” May 17, 2010.
Oppenheim Arts & Letters. “Guilt and Jealousy in Two Lines.” February 27, 2012.
Oppenheim Arts & Letters. “Israel and the Dark Mirror.” June 25, 2010.
Oppenheim Arts & Letters. “Obama and the Double Story.” May 20, 2010.
Oppenheim Arts & Letters. “Obama’s Double Story and the Islamic Small Wars.” July 31, 2012.
Oppenheim Arts & Letters. “Ye Who Would Wish to Help Man, Write for God.” February 2, 2012.
RIA Novosti. “Moscow Concerned about Syria, Not Assad – Minister.” February 25, 2013.
RIA Novosti. “Syrian Communists Urge Economic Reforms as Crisis Solution.” February 26, 2013.
The Heritage Foundation. “2013 Index of Economic Freedom: Syria”.
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29 Thursday Aug 2013
The other great American ally in the region, Israel, has for the most part recused itself from the Syrian conflict. Its only direct action has been to strike Hezbollah supply networks that might have carried threatening missiles into Lebanon, and to shell Syrian fighters who brought their war too close to the Israeli frontier. In fact, although Saudi Arabia and Israel are technically enemies, their interests coincide very closely in Syria. Both want to see Iran weakened, neither wants to see Assad last, and neither want to see the Brotherhood or al Qaeda take control. In such a situation, a protracted war draining the resources of its enemies is not the worst thing that could happen from Israel’s point of view.
We don’t put humans in zoos (except for criminals best kept in cages): some “uncontacted people” we, well, the world of scholars, try to leave alone; some primitive tribes enjoy nominal to effective state-based protective security with freedom to choose their communal way exclusively or assimilate incrementally under their own volition.
Noting that and sometimes likening Sunni vs. Shiite strife to “two mad wasps in a bell jar,” one may well view Syria’s agony and its surround of political drivers, from the post-Soviet interest of neo-oligarch Russia to the alien-to-the-west ambitions of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as taking place in a political crucible so isolated as to be compared an island or pit expressly designed for viewing Homo sapiens sapiens at its worst.
It’s not called a “theater” for nothin’.
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Last Wednesday, in the hours after a horrific chemical attack east of Damascus, an official at the Syrian Ministry of Defense exchanged panicked phone calls with a leader of a chemical weapons unit, demanding answers for a nerve agent strike that killed more than 1,000 people. Those conversations were overheard by U.S. intelligence services, The Cable has learned.
I may disagree here with Christopher Dickey as regards the effects of a punitive strike against the Syrian military to discourage additional chemical weapons attacks: the mentality involved has long proven itself beyond criticism, conscience, and prudence.
Maher is accused of multiple human rights abuses and is considered the most feared man in Syria. Aside from the recent chemical attacks, there are several examples of horrible atrocities carried out by troops he commands. In March 2011, his fourth division lead a siege against a “group of schoolboys” who were calling for Bashar to leave. Maher ordered them all killed.
Michelson, Brad. “Maher al-Assad: Top 10 Facts You Need to Know.” Heavy, August 28, 2013.
About that group of schoolboys: Chulov, Martin. “Did Assad’s ruthless brother mastermind alleged Syria gas attack?” The Guardian, August 24, 2013.
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Theologist Thomas Berry placed man as the enabled living agent in an unfolding earth process: we’re able to live with the earth, respond to our own presence in it (as we do with anti-pollution controls, laws, and strategies). Beside that thought I would place the idea that the World Wide Web and its social networks form a nerve-type skein around the globe’s human affairs — even “human process” — too, and we know where life is burning and where it is sweet, where correction is wanted and peace is needed.
I’ve never really liked the brand name “Google” (goes with a child’s rattling toy) nor the slogan “Islamic Awakening” but ironically, oddly, both terms may refer to an organismic acquisition of a new consciousness and conscience. Not since God sewed skins for Adam and Even on their way out into their human journey has mankind enjoyed such an expansion of awareness.
I’ll spare you the “Pale Blue Dot” on this post.
What’s happening in Syria today: evil.
Whatever the cloaks and covers, the excuses and the temptations, it’s not what anyone wants or should want.
What is happening around Syria, whether with concerns for refugees, with “tracking” the conflict, with ideas in an Awesome Conversation taking place around the world in real time 24/7/365, that is what is wanted.
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
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08 Thursday Aug 2013
Posted in A Little Wisdom
Compassion because concern with the well being of another creates always a more pleasing environment between the two.
Humility because while hurtling through space on our “pale blue dot”, we may not know everything, and God forbid we ever do.
Inclusion because the more taken in with compassion, humility, and integrity, the stronger and more surviving the entire species that is Homo sapiens sapiens.
Integrity because when the lying stops, many conflicts will also, and some will be able to do more for many than is possible in decaying societies dependent on “pandering and slandering” for their existence.
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06 Tuesday Aug 2013
In the Jewish tradition,M., questioning is more than admired: it is required and it had better be tough. My rabbi and I got into it yesterday over the origins of a liberal Judaism, he arguing for 19th Century thought and forward, I for Hillel’s response to Shammai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_and_Shammai) — but just having that argument may be more within the soul of the civilizational way. Approaching your position: Felix Adler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Adler_(professor). Whether with the idea of God or a unifying natural universe or a mysterious “humanity of humanity” (a Rumiesque notion, that last), the drift toward a better world may be part of the faith and at the core of that is the consideration of others as well as ourselves.
The fact of the matter is the world is a dangerous and wild place full of invention and never more so than where people are isolated from one another by either natural features or social processes. I’m coming to think that the ideas planted in a mind by either an oral or written tradition may serve as barbed wire fencing too.
That “language has a power” is given.
That it’s power is to dream us, if you will, into cultural and personal self-concepts suspended in space and time with others may be less remarked.
Those noises we make and on which we agree in the world’s separable “mouth –> ear –> mind –> heart systems” become also the essential music of the cultural mind.
We love our litanies — those stories we tell ourselves about ourselves each morning; those legends and poems we believe to be ourselves — although some may not have been devised to love us back.
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28 Friday Jun 2013
To teach well or learn, one asks not for flattery but rather to hear the worst from one’s critics.
I’ve quoted myself recasting an ancient commonplace, but not that I’m stuck on myself: there’s plenty to be quoted from others in relation to the above trope.
With friends like Melanie Phillips, who needs enemies? Articulate and useless.
Melanie Phillips writes in her latest column, entitled The British government’s jihad against free thought, “I do not support the approach taken by either Geller or Spencer to the problem of Islamic extremism. Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic.”
What “other groups” is she talking about?
Geller, Pamela. “With Friends Like These . . . .” Atlas Shrugs, June 28, 2013.
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PVV: England once again pleases Islam by silencing its critics
The British government shows itself once again to be made up of Islamophiles by objecting to speech by critics of Islam. It shows the weak knees it showed in 2009 when turning down Geert Wilders for entry into England; this time, the U.S. critics of Islam Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are banned.
Indeed, the British nanny state seems quite unconcerned with stepping in to “protect” its children’s ears and minds from comprehending a broad and complete argument.
One understands this process.
Maybe.
In deference to my Muslim friends on Facebook, I have judiciously (but not consistently with others) restrained myself from sending a friend request to Tom Trento, thereby forestalling my endorsement of his Christian agenda. Nonetheless, he’s a well studied critic of Islam armed with points difficult to dislodge and impervious to ad hominem attack.
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So let’s recap: Geller and Spencer banned for blogging critically about Islam. Al-Suleiman and Al-Arifi given free passage despite actively fomenting sectarian divisions and endorsing terrorism.
I think I’m beginning to see how this all works…
Considering the conclusion drawn by “Media Hawk”, one might find the backstabbing dismissals preceding it both absurd and compromising, as from the top, Hawk states, “Let me clarify something from the outset of this blog, so you are not confused by what I am about to say. I am no fan of Pamela Geller (Sorry Pam).”
Indeed, Melanie Phillips does the same thing when she too rises above it all with, as quoted above by Geller, “Both have endorsed groups such as the EDL and others which at best do not deal with the thuggish elements in their ranks and at worst are truly racist or xenophobic” (Phillips, Melanie, “The British government’s jihad against free thought,” blog, June 27, 2013).
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For the record, I endorse both Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer for their possession of a great ethical and moral center and vision in relation to their critiques of Islam. Where I differ involves the political topology involved, and the significance of the presence of my Muslim friends who repudiate Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban and all similar others, as they often do and with passion.
When the same promote out of their own soulful existence a contemporary Islamic humanism, I believe them.
The want to trim away “extremist elements” all around, whether those bloodying the Ummah with anti-western swagger and sectarian violence, or those espousing an absolute stance in the west (by typing a few hours about Islamic extremism and, perhaps, going out for lunch afterward) runs headlong into the absurdity just implied (in the preceding parenthesis) on three counts: 1) the “extremist” critics have something of merit to discuss, 2) do not incite or promote violence — neither Geller nor Spencer should be backward-linked to yobs who brings themselves to political movements of every kind — and 3) they might be right.
Fear of the argument — fear of criticism — produces the muzzling that has today degraded British expectations about what may be said and discussed in public.
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“There must have been pressure . . . .”
BackChannels 