sefton writes spielberg alchemicly

Likely enough, Steven, you're well acquainted with the hoary bromide: "hindsight is 20/20". Well, it's got some value in that it can feed speculation. Somewhere in the groves of academe, so I'm speculating, some aspiring psycho-historian is embellishing some thesis with a quote from your movie MUNICH. Maybe, the quote is being lifted from the scene, wherein a Palestinian "gollum" expresses the very human yearning for a homeland.

Take my word for it, Steven, good buddy, both thought and sacrifice, both in good measure along with a soupçon of chance, went into my cribbing from a fictive myth, the name of a character, ever so decidedly deserving of revulsion and mistrust and, finally, pity . . . ahnghgh, such an elongated sentence . . . more to come . . . sorry about that. In the following paragraphs, I shall intimate what alchemy must justify such pilfering.

If one's of such a mind, one may certainly call upon both theology and philosophy to posit that people as individuals can make choices, make a fatefully inescapable decision between mutually exclusive alternatives. Maybe, it's a bit of a stretch. Perhaps, one may hypothesize that religions, much like individuals, may be compelled by fate to make the occasional decision between mutually exclusive alternatives.

Thanks in large measure to somewhat bizarre tutelage, with some trepidation, I present for the dear Reader's consideration the following hypothesis. In a narrow window of the world's history, circumstances forced upon Islam the choice between mutually exclusive alternatives.

In the most exact terms, those mutually exclusive alternatives were either reach for the moon or cling to the site of a temple destroyed by the Romans, as they captured an ancient, even in their own time, city, holy to the three Abrahamic faiths.

In as much as I am unable to resist the temptation of indulgence in literary pyrotechnics, I'm now treating my numerous devoted fans to a previously planned leisurely preface. In the original plan, this piece was intended to rejoice under the title ... ah, drum roll ... "in the darkness, bind them".

I planned to start with text like so: "Between Islam and our American Pentagon, by way of fictive myth, there exists a connection. This bit of fanciful association began with televised clips of masked martyrdom aspirants in contumacious march towards murder by suicidal bombing, reveling in the cheers of their Palestinian compatriots.

For my part, I sat through all of the movie trilogy, based on Tolkien's fictive myth. Anyway, the masking and clothing of the suicide bombers reminded me of ring wraiths, entities once men debased by lust for power to ignominious and murderous servitude.

Elsewhere in pieces prior to this, I availed myself of the term "ghoul". Elsewhere, I justified to my own satisfaction the use of that concept to elucidate how, in one conspicuous instance, Palestinian adults went about processing their children into ghouls . . . ya'know, although LORD OF THE RINGS is only fictive myth, still, there's a hell'uva of commonality in essence between ring wraiths and ghouls.

I now affirm that I honestly believe one hell'va lot of alchemy went into enabling that processing. If I may, Steven, I should like to reveal how I sometimes feel about your line of work. Directing can be compared to alchemy. In that, alchemists concerned themselves not only with the reaction of the ingredients in their mortar, but also with the alignment of the stars. In your case, you have to worry about the disposition of prospective entertainment consumers.

For the big windup to delivery, I once planned to lead the dear Reader leisurely along a smooth path, as I connected Islam and our American Pentagon. Because preceding and unanticipated text has taken up so much space, I'm going with quick and dirty.

According to trustworthy sources, some group or other of islamist gollums, animated doubtlessly by the dementia senilis induced by their fetish, have as their goal the debasement of the entirety of humanity through engulfment in their psychotic manifestation of an Islam for "then and there". Not only is it psychotic, according to several authoritative scholars, it's also historically inaccurate, plus hostile to the spirit of the Prophet.

Just so happens, we have it on trustworthy authority that the intelligentsia, in the hire of the Pentagon, designates a certain portion of the world as "the gap" . . . really, those pointy-headed eggheads may just as well employ "the darkness" as the more heartfelt term of their ruminative art . . . ah, three guesses as to who are the denizens of that particular locale . . . first two don't count.

From here, let's make a leap of speculation. Let's muse about what could have motivated the Arabs, the Palestinians especially, to combat, shortly after the end of the Second World War in Europe, the migration of Jews into the Holy Land, supposedly promised to the patriarch Abraham by God. In time, one may suppose, scholars with authoritative credentials in the history of mass psychology will produce monographs and exegeses that purport to elucidate the phenomenon.

Well, according to one, most likely now deceased, insalubrious progeny of wretched canine maternity, it's all so simple. Those migrating Jews reeked with a scent that alerted Arabs to something profound. No, those were hardly the sort of the former that the latter had, for centuries, known and tolerated as neighbors, occasionally respectfully, often derisively . . . ah, yes, my chick-a-dees, this marks the beginning of that alchemy.

Decades earlier, the German philosophy Friedrich "Fritz" Nietzsche remarked with wholehearted admiration the élan vital of European Jewry of his day. One might, if one were of such a mind, posit that the experience of near annihilation must surely intensify to white-hot heat just such a visceral drive.

If so, then one might conjecture that the sheer preternatural wherewithal the migrating Jews brought into Palestine was awesome. Taking all that just one step further, one might reasonably surmise that they were presenting Islam with a "once-in-a-millennium" opportunity.

Elsewhere, I've written about what I mused could've followed, had Islam seized that opportunity. Likely enough, I wrote, only God could say for sure. Maybe, instead of a Neil being the first human being to walk on the moon, it might've been a Mohammed . . . cuhd'ah bin a con'tend'ah!.

Instead of accepting like manna from heaven those bearers of that preternatural wherewithal so necessary for an ascent to greatness, the Palestinians undertook the project of driving the Jews into the sea. That project forced the Israelis to thwart through bloodshed or vulpine guile, or both, various attempts to annihilate their state or engulf their children.

And all the foregoing back and forth did wonders for the alchemy that eventually produced the gollum multitude, so marvelously represented by that Palestinian in that movie.

. . . oh, by the bye, it's an axiom of Newtonian physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Well, taking that axiom as a clue to what may lie within the human heart, one may reasonably infer that the average Israeli would prefer passing on the question whether the average Palestinian has the soul of a gollum.

Quite likely, the average Israeli would be too embarrassed to answer in the affirmative, too self-respecting to answer in the negative.

From a recent event in India, one finds a hint to what, deep down inside, could've motivated the Palestinians. For a few centuries, a mosque stood on the site the mass of Hindus considered sanctified by the birth of one of their deities. It must be those Hindus resented very much the existence of that mosque, because a swarm of them demolished that mosque.

According to that, now most likely deceased, insalubrious male progeny of wretched canine maternity . . . at least, from what I glean from the bits and pieces of my encounters with Avram Beilitzsyn, I mean I can recall clearly enough to fashion into a whole . . . deep down inside, Palestinians as Muslims suspect that Jews resent the formers' appropriation of the Temple Mount, which was done without so much as a "by your leave" asked of the latter.

Likely enough, for all the former may conjecture with trepidation, the latter migrated to the allegedly promised land with an eye towards reclaiming the Temple Mount.

. . . . DID IT HAVE TO BE THAT WAY? . . .

So far as I'm concerned, I have neither the credentials nor the temper for such speculation. Elsewhere, I've written that I am adamantly adiaphorestic. I go so far as to compare theological argument to arguing about how many match sticks are in a matchbox that nobody has, whereabouts unknown, the very existence of which nobody can, with any certainty, confirm.

In spite of all that, I am so lonely that, for the sake of simple conversation with other human beings, I'll . . . OCCASIONALLY . . . tolerate speculation that involves ethereal matters.

In his STEPPING STONES, the author tried to alert the world to the preternatural wherewithal the survivors of the coming Holocaust would be bringing to their promised land. Upon being welcomed as siblings through the patriarch Abraham, the Jews would go about expending their internal treasure in wonders that would rival . . . heck, maybe, even dwarf . . . the pyramids.

Likely enough, as I've written earlier in this piece, only God could say for sure. Maybe, instead of a Neil being the first human being to walk on the moon, it might've been a Mohammed . . . cuhd'ah bin a contend'ah. In return for that, Islam would allow the Jews to reclaim peaceably their Temple Mount.

In spite of my being adiaphorestic, this I know all too damn well. For such to occur, the general run of humanity would necessarily have ascended to a far more elevated plateau of spirit. Quite candidly, I profoundly doubt such an ascension should even be attempted . . . just ain't feasible.

Trying to elevate the general run of humanity to such a plateau, in my considered opinion, would be like trying to set up a do-it-yourself koi pond on the summit of Mount Everest. Quite frankly, one would be doing the general run of humanity dirt by even pining aloud for such an ascension.

On the obverse of the coin, only gollums could expect the general run of humanity to cheerfully accept being bound in the darkness of the sort Tolkien intimated.

. . . oh, one final tidbit . . . elsewhere I wrote about how historians might compare the pair of negotiations undertaken between the Israelis and successive Palestinian authorities. In comparison with the negotiations, which circumstances will, sooner or later, compel whatever empowered Palestinian authorities to undertake, those negotiations undertaken by their predecessors were a piece of cake.

Turns out, I was wrong. Those predecessors enjoyed a seven-course meal at a five-star Parisian restaurant. And this was for a very simple reason. Circumstances allowed them to keep the Temple Mount off the table.

toodles
...../
.he who is known as sefton


well, I gotta add a correction of sorts ... I was told by a colleague blogger that the Temple Mount belongs exclusively to the Muslims by the order of Mosche Dayan . . .

oh, alright (!) already, so it's a very discourteous comment . . . still, in as much as I describe myself as "adamantly adiaphorestic", it behooves me to affirm the essence of what I've written elsewhere with the following compound sentence, which is in quotes . . .

"show me that sapsucker who rejoices in the ownership of a consolation prize, and I'll show you one 'sorry ass' loser" . . .

oh, yeah, please be sure to look for "Greg", which is the hyperlink to that colleague's blog, in the fourth comment down . . .

mope approaching heroic

If we were of such a mind . . . "we"is meant as a polite nod . . ., Jimmy's soul could be evaluated with a scale that stretches from "mope" to "hero". Occasionally, I patronize the Depot restaurant on Susquehanna Depot's secondary main drag. By the bye, their corn chowder approaches "to die for". Sometimes, while I tend to a peckish pang or two, I espy a small man shambling about, clearing just relinquished tables.

Out of the way, unoccupied, Jimmy's red mechanized wheelchair is seen. . . . ah, just as an aside among you and me and the gorpe, who's peeking over your shoulder, I reckon Jimmy gets a little tense, whenever curious small children pole around his mode of personal conveyance.

In any case, it takes little thought to infer that he relies for support and mobility on the cart, into which he piles soiled dishware. In or out of his wheelchair, little of his appearance is, well, remarkable. Whenever he stands unaided on his feet, however briefly, his height comes under five foot. He's so scrawny as to seem vulnerable to a sudden gush of wind.

As if God decided Jimmy could stand living with another handicap, he wears spectacles. As if our postprandial restoration technician decided he should shorten his stay on earth, he smokes. For no particular reason, it's easy to doubt Jimmy can afford more than a pack a day.

And for no particular reason, I find myself wondering how Jimmy would describe himself. I surmise he would sneer at "physically challenged". Here in deep Susquehanna County, menfolk refer to implements for terrestrial excavation as shovels . . . "spades" does duty for African Americans. Likely enough, Jimmy would accept "crippled", could tolerate "handicapped". No disrespect meant, but I surmise "incapacitated" would send him to Funk & Wagnalls.

At the beginning of this little essay, I mentioned a scale that stretches from "mope" to "hero". As likely as Jimmy is to sneer at "physically challenged", he would be even more likely to sneer at "heroic". Truth be told, I would consider his being so disposed as a point to the good, with regard to "authenticity".

It's no wonder that he'd comport himself that way. Deep down inside, he believes he's just one more guy, doing his best to make his way in the world. And that's not all that's in his favor.

Somewhere, within his being, there exists a grain of good sense. From what I can tell, our man came to a few sensible decisions. One being, he would eschew fighting his incapacity. Here's what I mean.

If he felt like it, he could utilize his metal crutches in getting from point A to point B. Sometimes, doing so would take only several minutes . . . other times, an hour and more. Whenever it would take an hour or more by his crutches, Jimmy gets into his mechanized wheelchair, and gets where he has to be in under fifteen minutes.

Instead of fighting his incapacity, Jimmy lives with same. And so far as I'm concerned, his compliance with that grain of good sense merits a salute.

toodles
..../
.he who is known as sefton

note to Press & Sun-Bulletin in "Greater Binghamton"

Talk about stupidity! In this instance, it plummets below flabbergasting, and into bone-freezing. Some Central Intelligence Agency employee got recently fired for cause of "leaking" to our national media the existence of that agency's "gulag".

oh, br'dah, as if that terminated employee were the solely possible source for a leak . . . .

For some time now, the C I A has, overseas, been clandestinely seizing people, with alleged connections to terrorist organizations. Those people are then, clandestinely, spirited away to clandestine prisons, and held stringently incommunicado, in fact, even denied access to legal representation.

One gets the impression that those, who manage the agency, must believe that those so imprisoned, somehow, beamed down from Mars, about five minutes being taken into custody. Well, that's hardly the case.

For the moment, let's put aside the allegations that those unfortunates have connections to this or that terrorist organization. For the moment, let's consider far more likely circumstances.

Thanks to their being human, those people held in clandestine incarceration have family such as spouses, siblings, , children, parents . . . cousins, even. And those later people have got to be wondering what could've happened to those so mysteriously vanished. Again, for the moment, let's put aside the allegations of connection to this or that terrorist organization.

It's a good bet, some of those family members contacted their local bureau for missing persons. In short order, those people complied with regulations, and filed reports, listing such items as name and description of missing person, plus place last seen. Well, there's one source, if not dozens of such, for a "leak" about vanished people with alleged connections to terrorist organizations.

Ah, yes, let's consider the people, who are employed by the Central Intelligence Agency to manage and maintain those prisons. Well, somebody has to prepare the food that's consumed by those clandestinely imprisoned. Somebody has to enter those prisons to perform the duties of custodial technician. And let's keep in mind that somebody has to guard the prisoners to ensure continued incarceration.

Funny thing about people, they talk. And they talk. And they talk. I mean the average kitchen colander's got fewer leaks. And the word gets around. My five doughnuts to somebody's three, the average Mongolian yak skinner heard about the American gulag a year . . . at least . . . before the good people at FOX so-called NEWS.

The wonder is not so much that the leaks finally reached the American media. The wonder is that it took so long.

toodles
....../
.he who is known as sefton

rehabilitation of and by and for the right wing

Lemme say this up front. For the past seventy (70) years, the right wing has been trying to rehabilitate one-term President Herbert Hoover. Dear Reader, think (?) I'm pulling your leg, jerking your chain, joshing, maybe ticking the little man in the boat! Nothing could be further from the truth.

With your permission, I shall now adduce one salient fact for corroboration, specifically, the HOOVER INSTITUTE. If I so desired, I could tick off the names of several other such entities that are deliberately modeled after the aforementioned. And there are a couple other clues that illustrate this tendency of the right wing to rehabilitate their fallen champions. One such being, the frequent appearance of former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich on the FOX cable so-called news channel.

Over the years, this project has comprised some pretty strange subsidiary efforts. I reckon that, among the most outlandish, has been incessantly spoon-feeding the American public the canard that "it makes no difference who's president of the United States". No doubt about it, the right wing was awesomely successful in getting the American public to swallow that poppycock hook, line and sinker.

By the way, I'm not indulging in hyperbole with that "awesomely". During the presidential election just previous to the last, the presidential candidate for the Green Party justified his campaigning in certain critical states, by blithely parroting that equivalent to some punch line for a markedly putrid specimen of defecatory humor..

One of the ultimate results of that numbskull's buffoonery being, the ground for any sort of third party will be poisoned for the next forty (40) years . . . at least. eYep, it's gotta obvious . . . the author of UNSAFE AT ANY SPEED ain't no hero of mine.

oh, yeah, we shouldn't overlook another strange subsidiary effort, which among several others, constitute the right wing's project to rehabilitate Hoover. For the past 70 odd years, the right wing has been intensely supporting the peddling of domestic economic policy that made Hoover a one-time president. One prime example being, the AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE. Talk about wacko!

If that policy failed to win a second term for Hoover, what (?) on earth makes the right wing think that relentlessly peddling that policy will, somehow, rehabilitate his presidency. Quite frankly, I think the right wing has been doing Hoover dirt. Instead of trying to rehabilitate Hoover the president, the right wing would've done far better by the man and the country through commemorating Hoover the engineer. As engineer, he enhanced the country's economy by promoting the standardization of measurements in use by plumbers, and other tradesmen.

One might presume I'll soon animadvert to current events. However, I'm not in the mood. I'd rather continue with my musing about the right wing's obsession to rehabilitate the Hoover administration. In several instances, it was hilarious about how the right wing through the years went about that endeavour.

For example, during the Eisenhower administration, the Finance Reconstruction Corporation was abolished, with its assets and responsibilities transferred to other government agencies. Several right wing pundits and even a few members of the Eisenhower administration welcomed this development as erasing that "socialist" experiment, foisted upon God-fearing Americans by the administration of "F D R".

Funniest thing, the Finance Reconstruction Corporation had been set up during the Hoover administration, the object being salvaging banks and ONLY banks. During the succeeding administration, it proved very useful in the recovery of the national economy. In THAT instance, the object was salvaging PEOPLE. What's more, it continued to be so useful, in that way, that the Truman administration retained the agency.

Wood'jah (?) buh-leave! There's a connection between General and later President Eisenhower to Emmett Till. Who's Emmett Till?

Well, I just googled that name, and discovered that the Public Broadcasting System once aired a program titled, THE MURDER OF EMMETT TILL. Here let's slash to the cheese. Photos of that African American adolescent in his coffin were grisly enough to fill that racial powder keg, whose fuse was it by some middle-aged seamstress with tired feet.

At one point, President Eisenhower ordered 101st Airborne Division paratroopers to facilitate, as ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States, the desegregation of a high school in the capitol of Arkansas. Just about anybody, who regards that president as a hero, would sing his praises for forestalling anarchy.

And yet, I wonder.

In the uproar that was ignited by those photos of Emmett, one or two embarrassing matters came to light. For several years, his mother had been receiving monetary payments from the federal government, by reason of her husband's death during the Second World War.

During that time, she was led to believe that his death had been somehow related to combat in Europe. Instead, his death had been ordered by court martial . . . under questionable circumstances. What's more, there were quite a few other executions of African American soldiers, likewise ordered by court martial, likewise under questionable circumstances.

Maybe, the commander of American forces in Europe was unaware of those questionable circumstances. Maybe, the general, who later succeeded Truman as president of the United States, was not. By the bye, somebody is supposed to working on a book about those executions . . . should make for interesting reading.

oh, well, conscience doth make cowards of even our most illustrious . . . .

oh, well, we have it on the word of President Abraham Lincoln that execution is the worst use that can be made of a soldier.

What (?) about that refuge for left-wing kooks, flaming liberals and "gay marriage" freaks, in other words, the Democratic Party. By way of metaphor, I would say they've been trying for the past sixty (60) years to conduct a mass seance, in an attempt to channel "F D R". Here's a nice clue.

When Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy was campaigning in 1960 for president, just about all of his campaign literature was emblazoned with "J F K". No doubt, that was a deliberate effort to appeal to older voters, who fondly remembered that late president, who had guided the country through depression and world war.

Quite in contrast to the HOOVER INSTITUTE at Stanford University in California, there's the KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT at Harvard University in Massachusetts.

DID I FLY OFF ON A TANGENT?!

oh, well, I did.

Somehow, in their effort to rehabilitate a years-dead one-term president, our right wing installed a nincompoop in the White House. And the amount of national treasure that will be required to repair the consequent damage is going to be humongous, no doubt.

In a way, the right wing succeeded, by way of the negative, in the rehabilitation of one-term President Herbert Hoover . . . at least, among our future historians. It's a reasonable bet that a few will write something, perhaps in more formal prose, something like so:

. . . "ya'know, compared to the 'dum'ass botch', who misled the nation into an unnecessary war, the guy F D R evicted from the White House actually approached, as president, mediocrity . . . darn, if only his skills at engineering could've been applied to governance" . . .

EPIMETHEAN APPEAL TO WHATEVER PROVIDENCE ACTS ON APPEALS

somewhere within my adiaphorestic being, some part of me is quivering with urgent desire to broadcast from one end of the universe to the other . . . :

. . . "please, oh, please, spare us and our posterity from any attempt by the right wing to rehabilitate that 'dum'ass botch'" . . .

toodles
...../
.he who is known as sefton


EPIMETHEAN COMMENT
(added the evening of 2006/05/02)

First off, I should like to acknowledge that I try to catch both The DAILY SHOW with Joh Stewart and The COLBERT REPORT, which are staples on the COMEDY cable channel. In fact, they're the primary reason for my buying a D V D recorder. I guess which broadcast I favor depends mostly on my mood.

At the recent Washington Correspondents' Dinner, master comedian Stephen Colbert performed magnificently. With the rapier of wit and the mace of truth, he respectively skewered and censured the presidency of "dum'ass botch".

Talk about wonderful lagniappe! Mr Colbert made that nincompoop's lap dogs in our national conventional media run for cover with their tail between their legs. And that's not all our man accomplished.

Tucked away in his address to the dinner's flabbergasted attendees, like a ticking time bomb, there was an "easter egg", which we had absolutely . . . here "we" is a polite nod . . . NO right to expect. Like the Easter Bunny in a mischievous mood, Mr Colbert camouflaged a bon mot, so profound as to approach philosophical.

oh, before I reveal Mr Colbert's casual accomplishment, I should like to preface with a caveat. The appropriate interpretation of that remark requires sagacity and rectitude and certitude . . . and now, tah dah! . . . here's the remark:

*REALITY HAS A LIBERAL BIAS*

bullets, whiskey, women's tears, Palestinians

"Women's tears have killed more men than bullets or whiskey."

From what western oeuvre that quote is drawn from, I've forgotten. However, I do remember its being uttered with disgust with a dash of regret, sure to follow complying with such motivation. For the sake of civil discussion, I'll allow there's at least one grain of truth in that comment.

For my part, I take a somewhat more expansive view of motivation that gets people killed for no good reason. From out of nowhere, like a bolt out of the blue, like compulsory divine revelation, it came to me.

However many have died, due to being moved by women's tears, that number is dwarfed by that of those, killed by asinine expectation . . . oh, yeah, dear Reader, you read it right . . . "asinine expectation".

Lean a little closer to your monitor screen. This is strictly between you and me . . . oh, yeah, likely enough, we should also take into account that pinhead, who's peeping over your shoulder. Eventually, so I'm promising you and peeper, we'll get to the crux of this post.

For now, I would like to relate the sad case of a young woman, who on a dare dove headfirst into a swimming hole of some sort. While in the local Intensive Care Unit, she discovered she was paralyzed from the shoulders on down.

Whatever was available in state-of-the-art medicine and physical therapy, she was afforded. For quite a while, she underwent the best regime for physical rehabilitation. One day, a weary nurse took hold of both of the unfortunate's hands and lifted them. "It's hopeless". Customarily, nurses are supposed to eschew pessimism.

For the woman, who would spend the rest of her earthly days as a quadriplegic, it was liberation. She had been cut loose from asinine expectation. What physical capacity she had left, she turned to art. Subsequently, I received by snail mail a packet of greeting cards. Each card was decorated with a design she had created . . . cute little woodland creatures, and other such. Holding a brush in her mouth, she had moved her head, up and down, side to side, and daubed away.

True enough, her creations fell far short . . . oh, alright (!) already, Ziggy had nothing to worry about. And yet, somehow, the provenance of her art was touching. And now, get ready for a rhetorical question.

"What does asinine expectation have to do with Palestinians?"

I say plenty. I'll say it plain. Time and time again, they've allowed themselves to be taken in charlatans, peddling asinine expectation. Their latest folly was their yielding what little sovereignty they had to "bedbugs", masquerading as political liberators.

Supposedly, the more rational and better and more sensitive folk among those bedbugs would like nothing more than a state, in which Muslims and Jews and Christians would live together and work together, harmoniously, prosperously.

What a coincidence! Somewhere in this blog, I mention one Avram Beilitzsyn, a Jew, who could read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, the New Testament in the original koinonia Greek, and the Koran in the original classical Arabic. Just such an aforementioned state was his dream. So confident was he that it would arise, he predicted it in STEPPING STONES.

As I remember the text, Avram's "Shaloam" resembles more closely an ideal Islamic state than an ideal Jewish state, and more closely an ideal Jewish state than an ideal Christian state. He sank a truckload of money into having copies printed. With the outbreak of the Second World War just a few years away, he sank another truckload of money into setting up promotion and distribution. And then it happened. To safeguard good ol' American decency, agents of the United States Postal Service burned all the copies they could lay hands on.

And yet, he had hope that his state could still emerge. He was sure Islam would never pass up a "once-in-a-millennium" opportunity. If Avram is to be given some credence, the opportunity did exist for only a brief period between the end of the Second World War in Europe and the United Nations' partition of Palestine. Here's what made him so sure.

Thanks to Public Broadcasting Systems, most of the public is aware of how Mohamed won over the people of Mecca, after their defeat by his Faithful to end a brutal war. Instead of slaughtering his defeated enemies, which was the custom at the time in Arabia, he secured his status as Prophet by ordering the smashing of their idols.

Here's where Avram clued me into something that gets ignored by the vast majority of scholars, who specialize in Islamic history. At the time, Mecca contained Arab Christians and Arab Jews. Somewhere in the Koran, the Prophet urges the Faithful to have good relations with Christians and Jews. So, Avram was positive the Prophet ordered his Faithful warriors to leave standing churches and synagogues.

I guess one Muslim adage, in particular, impressed Avram . . . "those who ask Allah for nothing insult the Deity". Speaking for myself, I don't think I could be accused of insulting the Deity. Whenever I buy a Powerball ticket with Powerplay, I'm sure that, somewhere within my adiaphorestic being, some part of me is praying for winning numbers.

For the heck of it, let's take that adage just a little further by way of inference. If God gets insulted by those who ask the Deity for nothing, then the Deity must get royally roiled by those, who slight the unrequested gifts given by the Deity in the spirit of generosity.

Maybe, Avram was right. Between the end of the Second World War in Europe and the United Nations' partition of Palestine, his "Shaloam" was a possibility.. Seems like irony now. when Islam blew off that aforementioned opportunity, that expectation that the bedbugs have just recently successfully peddled to the majority of Palestinians.seemed reasonable. By the way, the first attempt to realize that expectation failed.

In doing their best to keep that expectation alive, the Palestinians helped land the commander-in-chief of the Egyptian military in some pretty awful circumstances. Hoping for a miracle to salvage victory, the man threw Arab unity out the window. As the Israelis were making hamburger, kosher, of course, of his military, he lied through his teeth to the monarch of Jordan. Get in on this glorious Arab victory, so the monarch was urged, attack the Israelis. That attack was repulsed, and the Israelis had their excuse for seizing more Arab land.

No doubt about hindsight is 20/20. The monarch should've been told the truth. What's more, the man who lied to him should've comported himself as the exemplar of Arab unity. In truth, instead of urging the Jordanian monarch to attack, that person should've counselled avoiding military conflict with the Israelis. Knowing the truth, the monarch would've known to keep out of the Six Day War. In that way, he would've deprived the Israelis of an excuse to seize Jerusalem and the West Bank.

After the failure of the third attempt, in the words of Nixon's Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, "without Egypt, war is impossible." Evidently, the Israelis are willing to live in interminable war with Syria..

The head bedbug now in charge of the Palestinian polity reminds me of the character that Kevin Kline portrays in the movie A FISH CALLED WANDA . . . "Don't call me stupid!" That bedbug failed miserably to do his constituents any big favors by offering the Israelis ten years of truce in exchange for the land, "stolen" during the Six Day War.

Here's the thing about the "eternal people". Their history stretches back to the pharaohs. That conditions them to have long memories. Once already, so they remember, they came to agreements with the Palestinian leadership. If the intent on the Palestinian side had been pure, that would've meant exorcising that asinine expectation. Likely enough, many Israelis felt that the Palestinian leadership at the time avoided undergoing the required change of heart. What's more, many Israelis suspected the sole purpose of those agreements was temporizing.

When sufficient evidence that those suspicions were valid had been adduced, the Israelis came down on the Palestinian signatory to those agreements like a ton of bricks

Circumstances, so the Israelis now believe, compelled the predecessor of the new head bedbug in charge to the negotiating table. Likely enough, the Israelis are speculating that circumstances will eventually compel the successor to the negotiating table. Whoever will negotiate for the Palestinians is in for a rude awakening. By comparison, their predecessors enjoyed a piece of cake.

No doubt about it, the people at the other end of the table will be extremely wary, and will have no humor about temporizing.

toodles
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.he who is known as sefton

serious litmus test 4 lou dobbs

With this post, I hope to expand on the post that's located just below this one. First off, I realize now that I should've animadverted to consequences that may well flow from rescinding the citizenship of "anchor babies".

Let's suppose numerous such children, especially those now in their teen years, are deported, along with their parents, to their country of origin, say, Mexico.

In that case, we should prepare ourselves for some "future shock". When those deported anchor babies reach adulthood, they may, very likely, make Fidel's Cuban revolution feel like, in terms of "REALPOLITIK", a paper cut.

Not too long ago, our government under both President Eisenhower and his successor J.F.K expended much time and effort to engineer Fidel's overthrow. Nowadays, our college students find it difficult to believe that had to lead up to both this country and Russia avoiding "nuclear winter" by a whisker.

That said, I should now like to animadvert to protocol that, I am sure, shall do much to extirpate the incentive for aliens to enter this country as illegal immigrants. Before I reveal the protocol, I believe it behooves me to impart to you, dear Reader, a heads up. If this country adopts this protocol and then zealously implements same, howls will be raised by organizations, whose raison d'être is the civil rights and liberty of humanity.

. . . let's put it this way, if you think these United States of America is a world-class pariah, because of the hard-to-justify invasion and occupation of Iraq, br'dah, you ain't seen n't'n yet.

Here's half of the genesis for the protocol I have in mind. Social Services in the District of Columbia was being over-whelmed by the number of children, being born out of wedlock to women, who were already receiving welfare payments. To stem the tide, a requirement was imposed upon those women, if they wanted to continue receiving welfare payments.

They had to subject themselves to the hypodermic implantation of a capsule. Once implanted, the capsule would then dispense, over the following six months or so, a fluid that would forestall the attachment of a fertilized egg inside the uterus.

No, it doesn't take that much sagacity to suppose that requirement was dropped in a hurry.

Now for the succeeding half, that came by way of a 24-hour-news cable channel. For both convenience and enhancement of access security, a couple techs underwent . . . allegedly VOLUNTARILY . . . a procedure, which is similar to that mentioned in a preceding paragraph. In this latter case, no contraceptive fluid is dispensed. Instead, the capsule in question broadcasts identifying data, when stimulated by a certain radio frequency. When the appropriate module receives the relevant identifying data, access is granted to the tech, so identified.

It's a good bet that some of my more sagacious readers are already inferring the destination for this train of thought.

Let me begin by asserting that these United States of America is a nation that is governed by law, rather than by human caprice. To the extent that is true, some sort of judicial determination is necessarily involved. First, there must be judicial determination that a person, in custody, is indeed an illegal alien, who is either residing or working illegally in this country. Provided that no other charge can be levelled against that person, the relevant authority should begin deportation.

Okay, here's the pay-off.

Prior to being sent back to country of origin, the person being deported undergoes implantation of a capsule that is similar to the one, mentioned in a preceding paragraph. Besides identifying data, the capsule in question broadcasts personal history, relating to deportation.

True enough, once back in country of origin, it would be possible to remove that capsule. However, I surmise our anatomists can recommend surgical procedures that can readily implant the capsule, in a such a way that removal would require major surgery.

Over time, after the adoption of that protocol, it would become very easy for law enforcement, with the use of proper equipment, to "finger" people, who were previously deported.

. . . call it "idle speculation, if one must . . . still, I can envision certain fines being levied upon those, who employ previously deported illegal aliens. In this case, the fines might used to defray the national debt.

oh, yeah, I'd better put all my cards on the table, in as much as I'd like the voters in this Commonwealth's Tenth Congressional District to consider voting for me.

If elected to Congress, no and no again, I shall not introduce any bill that institutes the protocol. And I will refrain from doing so for very good cause. Truth be told, I am not foolhardy enough. The time for my doing anything like that was back at Penn State, when I started having doubts about the war in Vietnam.

. . . that reminds me . . . truth be told, I wouldn't mind the appearance of photos that show me at the head of a protest parade in Portland (OR).

Anyway, the way I understand the constraints within my circumstances, should I win election to the House of Representatives, I would be restricted to defending myself against verbal assaults by grievously offended talk radio magpies.

To all that, I say "Binghamton Fire Department" . . . bring'em on!

toodles
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.he who is known as sefton


epimethean comment -

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oh, well, one may as well be hanged for a wolf as for a sheep . . . so, lemme cause the delicate souls amongst us to toss and turn, while in thrall to bad dreams. I shall now pose a horrible question . . . ah, after a little preparation.

During the Second World War, the German military put up one hell'uva fight. Despite all that effort required to conquer Europe and battle Russia, the Germans could still murder some six million (6,000,000) Jews plus millions of other victims such as Gypsies, homosexuals . . . and the list goes on.

By comparison, the United States has a much smaller task, with regard to stiffling islamic "bedbugs".

Okay, now for the horrible question.

If the Germans could murder six million Jews, why (?) should the Americans be incapable of deporting some eleven million (11,000,000) illegal immigrants!