"... Do not therefore grudge me this little earth that covers my body"*

In the big-media news, what attention given to the government of Iran focuses on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's posturing or on concerns of war. Much of the news seems colored by the media's distaste for our current President.

Many of the really news-worthy things happening inside Iran are barely acknowledged, if not completely ignored. There is the popular hatred of the Modesty Police (or the fact at all, that women are treated this way in Iran... ed.), or the student uprising against an Ahmadinejad appointed chancellor at Shiraz University.

Though I have heard of the following from a neighbor, who moved to the US from Iran many years ago (and is a naturalized citizen), how much have you heard in the news about the Mullah's war on non-muslim Iranian history?.

The Iranian government has tried to bulldoze Persepolis, a World Heritage Site. They were stopped only because brave Iranian citizens stopped the equipment by literally standing in the way. The proposed Sivand Dam would flood 130 known archaeological sites, and could flood both Persepolis and Pasargadae, an ancient capital of the Persian Empire, and site of the tomb of Cyrus the Great. The destruction of the tomb of a great historic figure would not bother the Iranian government in the least. In Kashan, the tomb of Firuzan (Abu-lolo) has been destroyed. Abu-lolo lived in the 7th century. The original date of the tomb is not known, but it is known that it was restored in the 14th century.

The Medo-Persian empires are arguably as important to Western Civilization as the Greeks. Without the Edict of Restoration by Cyrus, there would have been no return of the Hebrews to Jerusalem to build the Second Temple. Cyrus was one of the first rulers to create and enforce policies of religious tolerance. The survival of Jewish culture into Roman times assured the survival of the Mosaic Code, which is one of the cornerstones of the ideals Western law and justice.

Iranian scholars have filed complaints in the International Criminal Court charging the Iranian government with "crimes against humanity" for its treatment of these World Heritage Sites.

Much grist for the news-mills was made over the looting at the National Museum of Iraq, which, though very tragic, was greatly exaggerated by the press (one wonders if this was because it made the military and the Bush Administration look bad, ed.). Authorities, including the FBI, are still investigating, and those responsible will be held to account. It is believed that roughly a third of the objects (around 5000) taken from the Museum have been recovered.

The loss of 15,000 cultural objects (and subsequent return of 5000) is a matter of great importance to the civilized world. How much more so the systematic destruction of history on a scale that amounts to Cultural Genocide?



* the title is a translation of part of the epitaph of Cyrus the Great, as recorded by Plutarch and Strabo

Saddam Supported At Least Two Al-Qaeda Groups: Pentagon Report

When the mainstream media reported earlier that "Report Shows No Link Between Saddam and Al Qaeda" were they reading the same Pentagon report as everyone else?


How can you tell when a Network News reporter is lying? Their lips are moving.

Blasphemy!

Interesting bit of synchronicity...

Watching PBS, the Secret Files of the Inquisition, while reading this on the recent decision by the Tufts disciplinary board at Tufts University.

Boston, the birthplace of freedom...

The Compassion...

...of the religion of peace, or maybe it’s the International Left. This one could be either or both. But compassion is the obvious underlying motivation of someone calling themselves "Crackers_Child Turkish Defacer" who today has hacked the State of Maine page of the website of The Homeschool Magazine. Wonderful compassionate four letter epithets about President Bush, and other pleasantries. I won't link to it, because it's not work safe, and is obviously not what the site is really supposed to be about. Thankfully, The Homeschool Magazine is a website for parents seeking support and information for schooling their kids, and not a site for kids themselves.

Apparently another part of the site was hacked back in February.

Oh yeh, we want to be tolerant, all cultures are morally equivalent, they only want peace, they have very strong family values, they have stronger moral values than the decadent West...how long before these lies get called out for what they are. Both the Left and Radical Islam shout down and intimidate the truly moral and moderate members of their communities, and the rest of us all just smile and nod, grasping desperately a the illusion of peaceful co-existence.

I get pretty hacked off at cowards who think insulting families from the safety of some apartment 10,000 miles away and think that they're part of some "spiritual battle."

Come into my neighborhood and say this kind of garbage to my kids or my neighbor's kids and you'll get your spiritual battle.

Stupid punks!

I had the pork chop

Well, this stinks!

"YouTube: ... the Google property has recently banned the popular atheist commentator Nick Gisburne. Gisburne had been posting videos with logical arguments against Christian beliefs; but when he turned his attention to Islam ..., YouTube pulled the plug, saying: 'After being flagged by members of the YouTube community, and reviewed by YouTube staff, the video below has been removed due to its inappropriate nature. Due to your repeated attempts to upload inappropriate videos, your account now been permanently disabled, and your videos have been taken down.' "

Glenn Reynolds notes that Mr. Gisburne is up and running again.

Like another blogger that Mr. Reynolds mentions I find this appalling. To those of you who read here, I obviously don't agree with Mr. Gisburne's views on religion. However, atheism is not an incitement to violence, nor is it pornography. What was done to Mr. Gisburne is censorship, pure and simple.

It would be bad enough if YouTube had pulled his account because he was making atheistic statements. The fact that they caved because of pressure from one partictular imperialistic religion (he was quoting from the Koran, and not adding any commentary) is totally craven.

Mr. Gisburne replys to Google If they can remove MY account (I don't think you can call me the most controversial atheist here!), which atheists are next?

Frankly, the question is not just about atheists, but is who else of us is next?

Suppression of Freedom

Puppet Show and Islamism, Heretical Librarian discusses how an ancient art form is being slowly forced out of Malaysian society.

After the Danish Cartoon Controversy a long but worthwhile read on the genesis of the brouhaha in Europe, at the Middle East Quarterly. (H/T LGF)

See-Dubya, guest blogging at Michelle's, reports on Iran's arrest and holding of a number of Christian converts, apparently to suppress their Christmas celebrations.

These are only three examples of the strangling nature of radical Islamism, not to say anything of the honor-killings, beheadings in public squares, the killing of homosexuals, the fatwas calling for the death of Muslims who convert to other religions et cetera.

Meanwhile, books are being published warning of the eminant takeover of America by Christian Fascists. That's because, as R.J.Dunn points out, the tens of millions of people who died in the 20th Century under the fists of Pentecostal dictators or in Evangelical gulags.

Bruce Thornton uses the reactions to Saddam's execution to illustrate the vacuousness of the modern Left.

Read, and be assured that there is some sanity in the world.

Must-Read Article at The American Thinker

Amil Imani posts an important essay, Iranians Are Defiant over at The American Thinker.

I completely support the military effort in Iraq. In fact, before 9-11 I thought that military action against Saddam was overdue. The agreements he had signed after the first Gulf War clearly stated that a military response was the punishment for failing to comply with the UN's stipulations. He clearly failed to comply. For the UN to ever have any credibility, or for it to ever be able to prevent any other nation from committing genocide or war crimes, there had to be action behind the threat. Anyone who has ever had to confront a schoolyard bully knows this. "Stop, or I shall say 'Stop!' again," is a Monty Python routine, not the action of a government that wants to be taken seriously.

Just because military intervention in Iraq was the best and only option at the time, does not mean that it is the best option at all times. The mullahs have never really had a grip on the population like that which Saddam had developed. The Iranian people are not cowed under the heal of a Fascist machine, but are still a proud and independent people.

It's time we supported them.

What kind of actions could be taken diplomatically to make the regime an international pariah? What pressure could be put upon their trading partners to cease trading with them? Could the government of Iraq, which has no reason to wish Iran to be dominant in the region, offer to fulfill the oil contracts that Iran has with China. This would protect China's energy supply, and give the Chinese government the opportunity to defend its own sovereignty. Iran's long-range missiles could reach into China, and another nuclear nation in the East would change the balance of power and could seriously hinder China's plans. Not to mention that China has its own problems with radical Islamic factions.

Has anyone got any plan for leaning on the mullahs?

Now would be the time, guys.

The Underlying Cowardice of the Arts

For as long as I can remember artists (in fact, the Arts as a whole) have styled themselves as "the Brave Little Tailor" to the big bad giant "Censorship." There is a pantheon of demi-gods in the art world, Arthur Miller (for 'the Crucible'), Andres Serrano (for 'Piss Christ', which I blogged about here), chocolate covered Karen Finley, Chris Ofili (for what is often called the 'Dung Madonna') and many others. Most of these demi-gods, with Arthur Miller being the exception, are so puerile that simply ignoring them would have been sufficient. They will be at most footnotes in Jansen's History of Art in another twenty-five years. And sadly for Mr. Miller, "the Crucible" has been so overplayed as to become trite.

Artists have shown their 'bravery' for years by tackling religious sensibilities. The target has often been Catholicism, because I suppose, the thrill of challenging the Inquisition. However, unlike Francisco Goya who actually lived and worked in Spain during the Inquisition, they have acted in a vacuum when it comes to persecution.

Now, as Roger Kimball points out in today’s Opinion Journal, artists are censoring themselves (with no sense of irony) at the mere suggestion that Islamic Fascists might be offended by their artwork.

Yoo-hoo! Big brave Artists! Where are you?

These artists show real bravery, but they are mostly forgotten in the Salons of the West.

Mr. Kimball asks
Poor transgressive rebel artists! How are they to shock the middle class anymore?

and The Glenn answers
They may have to go back to actually doing work that's, you know, good.

More comments by Ann Althouse.

The Crutch

As a Bible believing Christian, whom some would call fundamentalist, others, evangelical, I have become used to two main replies in any conversation bordering on religion. "I'm all set," and "The Bible is full of contradictions."

Well, after nearly fifty years of life with a marriage and three kids and a midlife career change I can tell you that I am not 'all set.' For those who say that religion is a crutch I easily reply that yes, I am lame. If you are not lame in some part of your life then more power to you. You will need it.

I have been on this chosen road of faith for twenty years. As Jacob said to Pharaoh, "My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers." [1] I have nothing to brag about, or to complain about either. In all that time of reading and studying the Bible, I have not found it to be self-contradictory (only contradictory of many of my choices and actions). The trope, "the Bible is full of contradictions," has always struck me as received 'knowledge' handed down from cynical adult to cynical child and never investigated.

The most often cited example of a contradiction I have heard is the wars of Israelites and the loving nature of God. Considering that the Israelites are repeatedly described as the chosen children of God, and that God foretold Abraham that his descendants would return to Canaan (from Egypt) after many years of slavery "...for the sin of the Amorites has not reached its full measure." [2]
So, even though God knew that the Amorites would do evil, he still gave them many years to choose to repent and do what is right. Then he gives the Israelites the right to defend themselves against evil as they claim their homeland.

How many times have you heard, "How could a loving God have let this happen?" when some great evil has goes on in the world? Well, he didn't want to let any evil of the Amorites or surrounding peoples happen to the Israelites. It seems to me that the contradictions involved here is in the minds of people who would rather not believe (and thus be challenged in their lives and character) than in the Bible itself.

There are other 'examples' but they all play out much the same way.

Still, the devoutly secular repeat with great conviction that the Bible is full of contradictions.

So tell me, where are these devout declarations in the face of Islamic Fascism and Muslim expansionism?

We are told "Today humanity passionately craves commitment to the truth, devotion to God, quest for justice, and respect for the dignity of human beings. Rejection of domination and aggression, defense of the oppressed, and longing for peace constitute the legitimate demand of the peoples of the world..." by the President of Iran. The highest Muslim cleric in Saudi Arabia (in response to Benedict XVI commenting on violence and forced conversion in Islam) tells us that "The prophet (Muhammad), peace be upon him, came as a mercy to the world." Yet nuns are shot in the back, honor killings are common and the primary victims of Islamic violence are Muslims.

Islam itself claims Jesus as one of its prophets but not the Messiah, yet Jesus called himself the Son of God [3], and based upon his teachings the apostle John described him in Revelation as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and end [4]. If Jesus is not the Son of God and Messiah, then he is a liar and can not be a prophet of God and a teacher of the truth, as his claim to sonship is central to his teaching. So here is a verifiable contradiction in Islamic belief.

Where are all the proud secular voices, the speakers of reason? Where are those who, proud in their own self-sufficiency declare the contradictions of religion? Where are those who decry the fettering of the mind, the opiating of the masses?

Why do these strong willed, free-minded people not declare the obvious fallacies of the branch of Islam inhabited by nihilistic, murder-threatening, head-chopping fanatics?

Oh...

[1] Genesis 46:9 b (NIV)
[2] Genesis 15:16 b (NIV)
[3] Luke 22:69, 70
[4] Revelation 1:8, 21:6, 22:13

The Glenn Says that the jihadis nihilism is like the Ghost Dance, with its dangers, but not on the level of the dangers of the Cold War.

I'd like to think he's right, and I have respected his views and analysis and copious links for five years now.

Somehow, a non-state ideology, with thousands of adherents on whom the sun never sets, who have no fixed industrial or cultural targets and have nothing to lose, and furthermore who think that heaven awaits them if they die killing their enemies with a plane ticket and a box cutter; this strikes me as infinitely more dangerous than a third rate industrial power run by old men yearning for their dachas.

I guess this shows my fears more than it proves my point over Mr. Reynolds.

Do you fear more the rabid dog, or the patient and poisonous black widow spider?

the Long Kiss Goodnight vs The Lord of the Rings


One is a fantasy, and one is emblematic of the post 9/11 world.

Which one we as a civilisation choose to be which may define whether we survive or not.


(Edit Note I originally used The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe instead of LOTR, but I think the latter is a more compelling example of the individual's responsibility to face the truth and to fight evil, and now you obviously know my view of the above comparrision.)

(Edit Note 2 After talking to two friends, it is apparent that my choice of 'the Long Kiss Goodnight' was more than a little arcane. The specific reason for using TLKG is the following exchange, between Samuel L Jackson's character, Mitch (supporting to Geena Davis's leading role) and the Director of the CIA, Leland Perkins.

Mitch: "Your telling me that you're gonna fake some terrorist thing just to scare some money out of Congress?"
Leland Perkins: "Well, unfortunately I have no idea how to fake killing 4,000 people - so we're just gonna have to do it for real. Blame it on the Muslims, naturally. Then I get my funding."

The premise behind the central conflict of the movie sounds so much like the wingnut conspiracy theories behind 9-11 that it could almost have been lifted whole-cloth and dumped onto Indymedia.)

9/11 coverage

Before the time that the first plane hit, in the coverage of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, ABC has already taken a dig at the Iraq War (a reporter in Iraq talking about the mission there and saying that some of our troops don't support the war, I missed getting the exact quote) and Tom Brokaw on NBC has questioned whether "we are fighting the last war."

It would make no sense to compare Iraq 2 to Afghanistan or to Iraq 1, so I can only think that he meant Vietnam. I had to turn the TV off.

It's probably better that the TV's off now. This would probably be too much for the kids. They are still to young for the emotional weight of this.

However, in my opinion they are more mature than many reporters.

Children's Lessons for Adults



Dr. Suess political cartoon August 13, 1941


For those who think that there is no real fascist threat from the minority radical strains of Islam, a lesson of history from the good Doctor.

Appealing to the good intentions of those who have admitted their goals of wiping Israel off the map and killing as many Americans and other westerners as they can is impossible. Those who choose to believe such an appeal is possible need a children's author to explain reality to them, since they seem unwilling to listen to adult sources.

H/T Charles Johnson via Sissy Willis.



Dr. Suess political cartoon July 3rd, 1941

Thoughts for today...

Today, everyone has been talking (with good reason) of the foiled terror plot in Britain.

I have nothing to add. If you want information see Michelle Malkin or Charles Johnson for roundups, links and commentary.


With the president of Iran making repeated existential threats towards Israel, and the Jihadis' view of the US as the Great Satan to Israel's little satan, I would like to bring your attention to the artist Samuel Bak.

Bak has been an artistic hero of mine since I first ran across his work at Pucker Gallery almost fifteen years ago. His work is intensely spiritual, and revolves around his Jewish heritage and his survival of the Shoah (the Holocaust). He was only eleven at the end, when the Soviets liberated the 200 survivors of the 70 - 80,000 Jews that had been in Vilna before the Nazis came. Now he lives and paints in Boston.

















(images and text from the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies)

Now to a few thoughts about my "ongoing journey" through the difficult terrain of art that stems from, and relates to, the Holocaust. Years ago, when my art had reached something of its present form, I was nonetheless plagued by an incessant feeling of contradictions and shied away from admitting a direct connection with the Holocaust.

I feared that a Holocaust-related interpretation would narrow the meaning of my work. After all, I am trying to express a universal discomfort about our human condition, and the experience of the Holocaust, which sheds such a cruel light on the entire catalogue of human behavior, is specific, despite the vastness of its lesson. Wouldn't it become a factor of limitation? Being a survivor, I was familiar with the world's reluctance to listen to our harrowing stories. People needed time to study the Shoah and to grasp all its implications.

This reluctance to expose ancient wounds might also come from a fear of being thought to solicit commiseration. We live in a society that hungers for sentiment – worse, sentimentality. And sentimentality perverts truth. Furthermore, most of the art that I then encountered on this theme, art produced in the sixties and seventies, was to my eyes less than acceptable. Surely, some powerful works must already have existed, but I was unfamiliar with them.

Fortunately, the situation has changed. At present, the challenge of anchoring art in meaningful themes does not scare away talented artists. And the present conference is proof of a substantial change of attitude.

In 1978 a retrospective of my work was planned to take several years and to travel through a number of German museums. I was torn between two opposing feelings: my willingness to grant permission to show the work, and my reluctance, or rather my total unwillingness, to bring myself to revisit Germany. I never made it to Heidelberg's museum to attend my show's debut, and it took me months to decide to come to the festive opening in Nuremberg in the German National Museum. Nuremberg, a city in which the ghosts of my murdered father, grandparents and decimated family clung to me with an uncanny force. It wasn't an easy task, but this time I made it!

The day after the opening, when revisiting my show and stumbling on a visit of high school youngsters, I learned something of value. Listening to a capable instructor and to the young people's interaction with him, I understood how important it had been to bring my art to that place. I was witness to a process of their coming to terms with a terrible past. It was a courageous course. Not too many people in other European countries have been up to it. Suddenly, letting my work be seen explicitly in the context of the Holocaust made a lot of sense. To my personal view the walls of the German National Museum transformed my paintings, and I realized that my artistic choices "worked."

As you have seen, my work refrains from imagery that is overly explicit. Everything in it is transposed to a realm of imagination. This transposition must have echoed in the souls of the young Germans to whom -- as I have described -- it gave access to a past that was loaded with guilt. To a painter who creates in the solitude of his studio, such an expression of solidarity is a blessing.



What an irony, and at the same time what an emblem of the extremes of human behavior –and yet also of coming to terms, of accepting change, even, if you wish, of redemption. (speaking, I believe, of the cross in the painting)







The Jewish People faced one genocidal threat in the last century from a tyrannical philosophy bent at dominating the world. Now we have the Mad Mullahs and the Jihadis.


Mark Twain said "The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

Those who do not learn history are forced to repeat it.

"In these troubled times, when political and economic misunderstandings are erecting barriers between nations, as effectively preventing the interpenetration of ideas as if war had closed the frontiers, it is more than ever important that nations should think of each other in terms of some enduring aspect of the spirit which remains constant and free from the transitory confusion of current problems."

Thus begins the foreword of the exhibit catalog for "German Art From the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Century, an Exhibition of Paintings, Water Colors and Drawings Held Under the auspices of the Oberlaender Trust (and) the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation, 1936-1937." which I recently aquired. Though I haven't found definitive information, I strongly suspect that at least one of the works in that show had been aquired by one of the participating German museums through a forced "Jew auction" (where the Nazis forced Jewish citizens to sell off their art and antiques at bargain prices).

I would love to find out that this exhibit was 'lilly white and pure' but given the history of that time, I have my doubts.

Even with the growing evidence of Nazi excesses, ill treatment of the Jews, agression and violation of treaties, inflammitory rhetoric from Hitler, the exodus of Jewish people and intellectuals, and the Nazi envolvement in '36 and '37 in the Spanish Civil War, there was still a great portion of the West that wanted only to "think of each other in terms of some enduring aspect of the spirit."

The result of that wilful blindness was over fifty million dead across Europe and the Pacific.

Will my grandchildren look back at some of the things written now about the need to 'understand and cross cultural barriers' and wonder how we could ignore the religious facism of Radical Islam?

Yes, Germany in 1936 had a long and glorious art history which had contributed greatly to the culture of the world. That art did not save the millions who died as a result of Hitler's madness.

Yes, Islam and muslims have done many beautiful and meaningful things in the arts, in mathematics, and many other areas. Dwelling on such things will not defend us from a Nuclear Iran or from 'home grown' Wahhabist terrorists.

I hope that there will be grandchildren to look back and wonder at how foolish we were.

Read The American Thinker for insight and ideas. No country should be forced to censor its own people to please another country's religion.

UPDATE: Vive La France!