Is it the start of
a moral life when one really acts as though another life is just as important as one's own, or is that an obsession skirting mental illness?
posted by semmi
on Aug 10, 2004 -
35 comments
Most of us are whiners, blaming circumstances for our failings; a precious few function in a self-sufficient bubble and able to shape their circumstances, never accepting the role of being a victim.
Inder Parmar is such a man.
posted by semmi
on Jul 31, 2004 -
9 comments
Russian gas clues point to cocktail. Events show that the Russians were organized to respond to various terrorist eventualities, but not prepared well enough to take into consideration the lateral side effects. I wonder how this scenerio would have played in the US?
posted by semmi
on Oct 30, 2002 -
23 comments
If you can spare a moment from histrionic rhetorical arguments about far away places you have no real experience with to involve yourself with practical ways to stop the trend toward a fundamentalist totalitarian corporate dictatorship in this country and step by small pragmatic step reclaim democracy, a good first step is to support
Oregon's Measure 23, to promote comprehensive universal health care using a single payer public finance mechanism, or support
healthcare for everyone in your state.
posted by semmi
on Sep 30, 2002 -
37 comments
The grayest of gray Republican eminences weigh in on the Iraq Debate. Brent Scowcroft, an ex-general with the prejudices and proclivities of his scholarly peers --the nattering nabobs of negativism-- proposes that the United States forget about invading Iraq.
Henry Kissinger, one of the great American opportunists, has positioned himself as a kind of stealth critic, a loyal oppositionist who is doing his darnedest to nudge Bush in a multilateral direction.
James Baker, who is intimately tied to a wide range of allegedly satanic forces and has an incredibly long and distinguished record of public service, to chasten George W. Bush's hawkish impulses on Iraq, proposes that the administration sponsor "a simple and straightforward resolution requiring that Iraq submit to intrusive inspections anytime, anywhere, with no exceptions, and authorizing all necessary means to enforce it."
posted by semmi
on Sep 19, 2002 -
11 comments
The "merger" of the Egyptian Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad and the Saudi Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda in 2001, based on the foundation of Qutb's book "Milestones", provide outlet for those who have no other way of expressing their objections to the authoritarian regimes of the countries they live in, and the reach of American power in the Middle East.
posted by semmi
on Sep 17, 2002 -
19 comments
From Richard Wilbur: "Dear Bill,
The only thing I can say right now is this. There is no excuse for the cold inhumanity of 11 September, and there is no excuse for those Americans, whether of the left or the religious right, who say that we had it coming to us.
Dick"
posted by semmi
on Sep 9, 2002 -
23 comments
"Absence is the most natural of phenomena, in that every presence begets an absence. It's just the way things work. Yet absence is at the root of all of the hardest things we have to face deaths, breakups, any kind of separation."
posted by semmi
on Sep 8, 2002 -
5 comments
"
Babe Ruth and I were teammates on the Yankees—and lovers, too. It was no big deal back then. After Sunday games were over, lots of players and writers would come by our little flat in the Morrisania section of the Bronx for one of Babe's famous bean dinners. I also remember the evening when Babe, wearing his familiar pink housecoat, turned out a nice catfish stew for Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Everyone in baseball knew how it was with me and Babe. After the company had gone home and we'd done the dishes, he would lie in my arms and I'd whisper, 'You are my bambino.'"
posted by semmi
on Jun 30, 2002 -
9 comments
"Blow up for nothing? What is this - trading in the blood of martyrs only so that my handlers can say that they executed the operation?"
Tawriya Hamamra, a young Palestinian woman, who had barely an hour's training in preparation for a suicide bombing recounts her change of heart.
Just how much religion, politics, or personal problems motivates a suicide?
posted by semmi
on May 31, 2002 -
10 comments
"The title of my talk tonight is How to Conquer Stupidity, which is actually a pretty stupid thing to attempt. For me, anyway. One, it's not possible. Two, maybe it's not even desirable. That's probably the premise of all of my work, that I embrace my stupidity wholeheartedly and celebrate it, as often as I can."
And you can too,
here.
posted by semmi
on May 9, 2002 -
6 comments
Unlikely Allies Bound by a Common Hatred.
"Herr von Laden is an example for our children." The bridge between radical Muslims and the neo Nazis in Europe and the United States.
In 1991, German neo-Nazis tried to form a "Condor Legion" to fight alongside Iraqis against the U.S.-led international coalition. More recently, members of the European far right have journeyed to Baghdad to express solidarity with Saddam Hussein.
posted by semmi
on Apr 29, 2002 -
15 comments
An
Algerian defendant tells a court of his transformation from an irreligious drug dealer on the streets of Germany to an Afghanistan-trained militant, and the
psychic journey of some young Muslim slackers in England to become fighters for Al-Qaeda (NYT).
posted by semmi
on Apr 24, 2002 -
14 comments
The tendency toward
euphemism, catchwords, bites and labels displacing description of uniquicity. Battles of rhetorical titans!
posted by semmi
on Apr 18, 2002 -
5 comments
Overwhelming
nausea.
Reality is simply disregarded. The evolution of human mind is merely an elaboration of masks, and lies about primal hatred, cruelty, and violence.
posted by semmi
on Apr 10, 2002 -
37 comments
The only moral and practical answer that there has ever been to this question: partition, territorial compromise, a two-state solution, the establishment of a Palestinian state in most of the occupied territories with security arrangements in the Jordan Valley and identity arrangements in Jerusalem. An analysis that I can live with from The New Repuclic.
posted by semmi
on Apr 7, 2002 -
8 comments
Anti-immigrant parties gain support in Europe as they tap long-standing fears about security and the dilution of national identity. The deep running concern, as in Israel, is that their countries are involuntarily becoming multicultural as guest workers and refugees, mostly Muslim, establish themselves in residence. There are about 15 million Muslims in Europe, making Islam the the continent's largest non-Christian religion.
How important is national identity? What would become of democratic values in a Europeann country with Muslim population explosion? How would it affect their economy, as the immigrants are largely unskilled, heavily relying on the welfare system?
posted by semmi
on Mar 29, 2002 -
9 comments
Polls Come Under Fire.
Watchdog Group Issues Rebuke on Poll on Islamic Countries. Meanwhile, those bogus aggregates continue to circulate freely in this country and around the world.
posted by semmi
on Mar 22, 2002 -
16 comments
Islamic Republic of Great Britain? The heartland of violent Islamic extremism is now none of the official fronts of the war on terror. Its center is Western Europe -- mainly, but not exclusively, in Britain. "Al-Muhajiroun has one goal," Anjam Choudry, its U.K. chairman, told the Observer newspaper. "We would like to see the implementation of the sharia law in the U.K. Under our rule this country would be known as the Islamic Republic of Great Britain."
posted by semmi
on Mar 20, 2002 -
24 comments
Oil makes the world go round. The Senate yesterday defeated an effort to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks by 50 percent over 13 years, voting instead for a measure backed by the auto industry.
posted by semmi
on Mar 14, 2002 -
39 comments
He does return favors, but how does it affect the workers? Eugene Scalia is President Bush's nominee for Labor Department solicitor. Scalia is one of nine children of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was a driving force behind the court ruling that stopped the counting of disputed presidential votes in Florida last year.
posted by semmi
on Dec 17, 2001 -
11 comments
Just when you thought things couldn't get any more unsettling, some of America's biggest radical racists glorify Al Qaeda's grit. "I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude," says Billy Roper, a National Alliance official. White supremacists and Islamicists like Osama bin Laden just plain agree on a lot of things--in particular, that globalism and multiculturalism are the uber-enemies, and that separatism and cultural purity are the answer.
posted by semmi
on Nov 29, 2001 -
15 comments
PAX AMERICANA IN THE ARAB WORLD A calm voiced and knowledgable description with excellent links by Fouad Ajami, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
posted by semmi
on Nov 9, 2001 -
3 comments
This amazing weapon was fired by a helicopter into the third floor of a building and was so accurate it actually decapitated its target without harming the other tenants.
posted by semmi
on Aug 28, 2001 -
60 comments
The young men and women of America's future elite work their laptops to the bone, rarely question authority, and happily accept their positions at the top of the heap as part of the natural order of life. What's your experince?
posted by semmi
on Apr 22, 2001 -
44 comments
Your phone is you Before we let cellphones handle everything from opening our medical records to buying a house, we'll need to make sure people can't steal our identities.
posted by semmi
on Mar 28, 2001 -
5 comments
WHILE YOU'RE AT IT, COULD YOU REPEAL THE GENEVA CONVENTION? Bush's EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said yesterday that the Kyoto treaty on climate change was dead. She said, "No, we have no interest in implementing that treaty."
Under the treaty, the U.S. would have to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Earlier this month, Whitman signed a formal declaration with
environmental ministers from other industrialized nations pledging to move forward on the treaty.
posted by semmi
on Mar 28, 2001 -
14 comments
