who was this Manuel II PALAIOLOGOS?
September 17, 2006 7:37 AM   Subscribe

An Online Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors quoting a Roman Emperor from the last days of Byzantium seems to be about making a larger point.
posted by hard rain (20 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: previously



 
hooboy do I got some reading to do.
thankee!
posted by Busithoth at 7:44 AM on September 17, 2006


No need to, Busithoth. You could also simply feel insulted (as a matter of principle) and throw molotov cocktails into some churches or kill some Roman-Catholic nuns.
posted by sour cream at 8:15 AM on September 17, 2006


that's not how we Jews roll.
posted by Busithoth at 8:17 AM on September 17, 2006


I presume this is about this, then... I'm not keeping up with the news, I guess, I had no idea what you were talking about.
posted by nanojath at 8:18 AM on September 17, 2006


Benedict is setting the stage for his upcoming visit to Turkey. Manuel II Paleologus fought the Ottoman Turks for the fragments of Byzantium. So, by citing him, the pope is evoking the the threat of a Turkish takeover of Christendom.

My guess is he was he was hoping the Turks would rescind their invitation, thus showing they couldn't be counted on to be good members of the European community.
posted by felix betachat at 8:27 AM on September 17, 2006 [1 favorite]


this wins an award for the most subtle newsfilter post ever ... two things

i've been wondering just how it is that what would have been an obscure lecture by the pope to a small audience became such a media phenomenon ... someone had to be monitoring closely what the pope has been saying and someone had to choose to give this wide attention ... it would be interesting to know the mechanics of how this story developed

also i think it's long past time that the islamic world got a thicker skin ... if they think what the pope said was outrageous, they should hear some of the stuff the evangelical fringe says about them ... some of which is publically available, but curiously, never gets much attention in the muslim world

of course, evangelical fringers aren't going to care what muslims think anyway, and perhaps the people who organize these protests know that ... and therefore, don't bother protesting against those who can't be manipulated
posted by pyramid termite at 8:35 AM on September 17, 2006


if they think what the pope said was outrageous, they should hear some of the stuff the evangelical fringe says about them ... some of which is publically available, but curiously, never gets much attention in the muslim world

Maybe the Muslim world isn't taking the evangelical fringe seriously. Although on second thought I guess that would be giving them too much credit.

My guess is that not a single day goes by without an effigy of Pat Robertson being burnt somewhere in the West Bank.
posted by sour cream at 8:53 AM on September 17, 2006


My guess is that not a single day should go by without an effigy of Pat Robertson being burnt somewhere in the West.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:53 AM on September 17, 2006



this wins an award for the most subtle newsfilter post ever

Well, for the week, anyhow. I've seen stuff in the blue that's been so subtle as to be simply WTF? -inspiring. This one is refreshingly oblique, though.
posted by pax digita at 10:03 AM on September 17, 2006


if they think what the pope said was outrageous, they should hear some of the stuff the evangelical fringe says about them ... some of which is publically available, but curiously, never gets much attention in the muslim world

Hmm, what is it about the pope that would make his words a bigger issue for Muslims than things "the evangelical fringe" says? Oh, right, he's the leader of a billion Catholics.
posted by black bile at 10:04 AM on September 17, 2006


For those tantalized by this tidbit, may I suggest Julian Norwich's History of Byzantium, either the 3 vol. or the abridged?

Manuel II Palaiologos was biased against the Turks, but, at least, he had reason to be. Unlike Ratzinger, who doesn't have personal experience with Turks, with the possible exception of a bad kebab.

As batshit insane as the Byzantines were about religion (they had street riots about obscure points of theology on a regular basis), at least they never made the mistake of conflating all Muslims (Turks are not Arabs, are not Indonesians, etc.).
posted by QIbHom at 10:48 AM on September 17, 2006


Double. And docked a point for not even being an honest reposting of a great site but an attempt to be clever about newsfilter.
posted by languagehat at 12:14 PM on September 17, 2006


...docked a point...

So it's at –1 now?
posted by black bile at 1:16 PM on September 17, 2006


My guess is he was he was hoping the Turks would rescind their invitation, thus showing they couldn't be counted on to be good members of the European community.

Seems a little over subtle. Does anyone in Brussels care what the Vatican has to say about anything? (Maybe they do, I just never got that impression.)

In the meantime, for those asking What Did The Pope Mean and When Did He Mean It, this could make rewarding, if not necessarily definitive, reading
posted by IndigoJones at 1:53 PM on September 17, 2006


languagehat: take it to MeTa
posted by felix betachat at 1:57 PM on September 17, 2006


Oh, right, he's the leader of a billion Catholics.

true enough, but if you go back and look at the muhammed cartoon controversy, it seems that being well-known and widely followed isn't a necessity when it comes to inspiring religious rage and demonstrations

my point being is that these campaigns of outrage tend to have targets that actually might be disturbed by the outrage
posted by pyramid termite at 2:28 PM on September 17, 2006


languagehat: take it to MeTa

Don't be ridiculous. Can you imagine what MeTa would be like if every double post was called out there? Last time somebody did that the first response was "Does your browser not support the 'flag' feature?" It's standard procedure to mention in the thread that it's a double, with a link to the original posting. And spare me the "Well, I hadn't seen it before!"—people always say that about double posts, and it's completely nonsensical. There's always somebody who "hasn't seen it before," and if Matt accepted that as an excuse he'd have to just drop the rule.
posted by languagehat at 2:42 PM on September 17, 2006


The Pope regularly issues commentary about the direction most of what I consider to be the anglo-western world (ie. Canada, Australia). Were I concerned that he had political support for his more offensive ramblings, I'd be upset.

Were I in Brazil, I'd be downright pissed: the Pope's social policies idiocy has led to some really inhumane conditions. I don't know how much governmental power he wields, but his social power is crippling his constituency by disallowing them complete support and care. Abused wives are discouraged from divorcing, incapable parents are discouraged from aborting, and in the one place the church could really be making a difference (rescuing the progency of church policy) they fail.

Guh.

Were I in the mid-East, I'd count the Pope as utterly irrelevent. I honestly don't think he has the ability to restrict the worship rites of the Muslim faithful, not in the mid-East territories.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:26 PM on September 17, 2006


If the Pope wants to go back hundreds of years to make a point about violence and religion being incompatible, he shoulda used his own church for an example.
posted by wrapper at 9:46 PM on September 17, 2006


So a former Hitler-Jugend member bashes people who are different from him?

I'm not going to dignify this sort of thing by having an opinion about it.
posted by spazzm at 2:15 AM on September 18, 2006


« Older "Be a philosopher, but amid all your philosophy be...   |   The Hippopotamus Service Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments