From Beirut To Baristaville: Your Morning Edition

Thank you for these pictures & your words!
Please be careful

The Kalashnikov on the Hezbollah flag is an especially charming touch.

And here I was feeling sorry for myself because my feet are cold. Thanks so much for bringing these images to our consciousness. I will do my best to feel their impact for a long time to come.

Looks like such a nice place to live. And the child is one finger away from becoming a freedom fighter ...

On another note, although I think the pope should have a brain scan before making any further speeches, I love how the muslims reacted to the relationship made between violence and Islam with peaceful marches and pacific rhetoric.

Looks like parts of Newark!

We get your point. The Israelis are monsters in your minds eye.

Amazing that you can read his mind's eye.

boiling point, how would you like it if people from around the world judged all of the American people by the way just a slight few are represented in the media?
I would recommend that your mind reword your use of "muslim" to something more like "a small group of understandably upset people who do not represent all Muslims, but may be portrayed that way by the Western media's point of view." Otherwise you might get yourself tangled up in injustices like racial profiling and hurtful sarcasm. Just a suggestion.

The guy who....., it is very likely that the Muslims seen in riots over the Pope's remarks (which I saw as judicious and worth weighing as an opening to debate) have no idea whatsoever as to what he really said or meant.

So what scares those who use a phrase like "the Muslims" is often how easily so many of that faith can thus be manipulated. Even to such displays of "peaceful dissent" as shooting a nursing nun in the back and setting fires at the few remaining Christian churches in Islamic countries (or, as occurred yesterday in Indonesia, executing 3 Christians basically for simply being Christians).

So before you agonize merely over something you insist on seeing as "racism," you might also consider the tolerance index of the folks you're currently defending. And even, as the Pope might tell you, the history of a faith which has been committed for so long to growth via conquest and even today nurses thousand-year-old grudges, but very rarely displays genuine tolerance to those of the two other "Abrahamic" faiths in countries where it holds political sway. (As its proponents constantly indicate in such countries as the UK and Holland, too, Islam would hardly play "Mr. Nice Guy" shoud it ever achieve power in these nations.)

Fear of Islam's frequent public displays of Koranic rage does not automatically translate into "racism." Nor does a certain lack of understanding of the many admirable tenets of Islam, to be sure.

Yet even as people like your admirable self remain justifiably concerned over the issue of racism re American attitudes to Islam, the comparable truth in most of the rest of the world is that your Islamic counterparts are few in public number. Or had you perhaps forgotten how physically dangerous it is as a Muslim to urge tolerance for others upon your fundamentalist-minded brethren?

What's he doing standing in front of 21 North Mountain Ave. ?

I suppose, cathar, that you are telling me that it is intellectually dangerous to show compassion to non-radicals. Perhaps you are telling me that Patriot Act-isms like forcing 80,000 New Yorkers to be questioned and detained simply because of their Islamic heritage are fine and justifiable because a few people commited violent acts in the name of their god.
How could you say something like "tolerance index" and not have the mind to understand how subjective that term is?
I am glad, though, that you recognize how "few in public number" they are. Hopefully when more and more of the typical Muslims are exposed in the media, more people will understand that the majority of any group of people is not overtly violent or out to get anybody. I think what you said about their being few in public number is very insightful. You have also given me more questions to ponder, and I am thankful for that. Hopefully everyone can open their mind to respecting multiple points of view and challenging one's own thoughts everyday. Thanks, cath.

Just one point of clarification. Lebanon is not a Muslim country. It is a very diverse society, which thirty years ago prior to the Civil War was moving towards a secular form of government. I watched Nasrallah's speech tonight with one of the March 14 committee. He said we are stuck with a megalomaniac. Moderate Shia, Sunni, Druze and Christians are outraged about how Hezbollah has literally hijacked this country and is holding its citizens hostage. As I mentioned on another post on this site, in the village of Aitaoun I spoke with residents who told me some 45 women and children were killed there during the bombardment, yet only 4 Hezbollah fighters. That fact all alone says more about the Divine Victory and its "brave" warriors.

Guy sans humor....., my personal suspicion is that there really aren't that many non-fundamentalist Muslims out there who've been "silenced" by the vociferous violence freaks we've seen on the nightly news. Perhaps you've simply never read the Koran or the history of Islam? I'd like to be wrong, but still....I even sometimes suspect that most of them yearn for the "good old days" when they held regnance over "al-Andalus." One still, so to speak, awaits the "revolution" in Muslim theological commentary which began among Christians during the 15th century. And one is going to have to continue to wait, for the most part.

As to why 80,000 (your figure) New Yorkers (by which I assume you mean Muslim New Yorkers) may have been profiled because of the Patriot Act, I am admittedly no longer as bothered by such "ounce of prevention" moves as I would have been 5 years ago. Not when I read some of the speeches that actually come out of the mosques here serving even ostensibly "moderate" congregations, anyway.

No, they are not the "enemy." But they do have to be rather bluntly disabused of the notion that their Islamic faith thereby entitles them to special treatment (as opposed to the "notice" some have been put under of late because of their support for terrorism). Instead, Western nations give way to their innate craven-ness, seriously consider whether to allow the application of sh'aria-driven courts when treating both Muslim grievances and offenders. This is not exactly "tolerance," is it?

And it is not "intellectually dangerous" to show compassion to non-radicals. (Why, I wouldn't even mind if there was, say, a Non-Radicals World Cup!) But it is equally incumbent upon a religion to publicly and rigorously examine why it seems to breed such violent radicalism. Such examination is common among both Christian and Jewish religious leaders, rare among their Muslim counterparts.

"Moderate Shia, Sunni, Druze and Christians are outraged about how Hezbollah has literally hijacked this country and is holding its citizens hostage."

"Outraged" enough to do what, exactly? That's the question. Whether hijacking a plane or a country, the hijackers generally don't leave by being asked nicely.

I hope, for their sake, the moderate Lebanese understand the problem will not go away and this exact scenario (probably worse) will continue to periodically reoccur until their "outrage" gets turned into something more effective.

Cathar, dude, you are like a suzerain of the english language for your most-excellent usuage of the word regnance. Rock on!

Tuesday September 19, 2006
The Guardian
Only 18 months into his papacy and already Pope Benedict XVI has stirred up unprecedented controversy. As the explanations and apologies pour out of the Vatican - and thousands of Catholic churches around the world - the questions about what exactly this man intended by quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor's insult of the Prophet Mohammed have only multiplied.
Some say this was a case of naivety, of a scholarly theologian stumbling into the glare of a global media storm, blinking with surprise at the outrage he had inadvertently triggered. The learned man's thoughtful reasoning, say some, has been misconstrued and distorted by troublemakers, and the context ignored.
But such explanations are unconvincing. This is a man who has been at the heart of one of the world's multinational institutions for a very long time. He has been privy to how pontifical messages get distorted and magnified by a global media. Shy he may be, but no one has ever before accused this pope of being a remote theologian sitting in an ivory tower. On the contrary, he is a determined, shrewd operator whose track record indicates a man who is not remotely afraid of controversy. He has long been famous for his bruising, ruthless condemnation of those he disagrees with. Senior Catholic theologians such as the German Hans Kung are well familiar with the sharpness of his judgments.
But in the 18 months since Benedict was elected, the wary critics who have always feared this man were lulled into believing that office might have softened his abrasive edges. His encyclical on love won widespread acclaim and the pronouncement on homosexuality being incompatible with the priesthood (and its inference that homosexuals were to blame for the child sex abuse problems in the church) were explained away as an inheritance from Pope John Paul II's reign.
But while the Pope has tried to build a more appealing public image, what has become increasingly clear is that this is a man with little sympathy or imagination for other religious faiths. Famously, the then Cardinal Ratzinger once referred to Buddhism as a form of masturbation for the mind - a remark still repeated among deeply offended Buddhists more than a decade after he said it. Even his apology at the weekend managed to bring Jews into the row.
In fact, Pope Benedict XVI's short papacy has marked a significant departure from the previous pope's stance on interreligious dialogue. John Paul II made some dramatic gestures to rally world religious leaders, the most famous being a gathering in Assisi of every world faith, even African animists, to pray for world peace. He felt keenly the terrible history of Catholic-Jewish relations, and having fought with the Polish resistance to save Jews in the second world war, John Paul II made unprecedented efforts to begin to heal centuries of hostility and indifference on the part of the Catholic church to Europe's Jews. John Paul II also addressed himself to the ancient enmity between Muslims and Catholics; he apologised for the Crusades and was the first Pope to visit a mosque during a visit to Syria in 2001.
In contrast, Pope Benedict has managed to antagonise two major world faiths within a few months. The current anger of Muslims is comparable to the anger and disappointment felt by Jews after his visit to Auschwitz in May. He gave a long address at the site of the former concentration camp and failed to mention anti-semitism, and offered no apology - whether on behalf of his own country, Germany, or on behalf of the Catholic Church. He acknowledged he was a "son of the German people" ... "but not guilty on that account"; he then launched into a highly controversial claim that a "ring of criminals" were responsible for nazism and that the German people were as much their victims as anyone else. This is an argument that has long been discredited in Germany as utterly inadequate in explaining how millions supported the Nazis. Given his own involvement in the Hitler Youth movement as a boy, and his refusal to make a clean breast of the Vatican's acquiescence in the horrors of Nazism by opening its archives to historians, this was a shabby moment in Catholic history. Not for this pope those dramatic, epoch-defining gestures that made the last Pope such a significant global figure.
Even worse, in his Auschwitz address, he managed to argue in a long theological exposition that the real victims of the Holocaust were God and Christianity. As one commentator put it, he managed to claim that Jews were the "themselves bit players - bystanders at their own extermination. The true victim was a metaphysical one." This theological treatise bears the same characteristics as last week's Regensburg lecture; put at its most charitable, they are too clever by half. More plainly speaking, they indicate a deep arrogance rooted in a blinkered Catholic triumphalism which is utterly out of place in the 21st century.
But if his visit to Auschwitz disappointed many and failed to resolve outstanding resentments about the murky role of German Catholicism, this latest incident seems even worse. Quoting Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologos, he said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." It was a gratuitous reawakening of the most entrenched and self-serving of western prejudices - that Muslims have a unique proclivity to violence, a claim that has no basis in history or in current world events (a fact that still eludes too many westerners). Even more bewildering is the fact that his choice of quotation from Manuel II Paleologos, the 14th-century Byzantine emperor, was so insulting of the Prophet. Even the most cursory knowledge of dialogue with Islam teaches - and as a Vatican Cardinal, Pope Benedict XVI would have learned this long ago - that reverence for the Prophet is a non-negotiable. What unites all Muslims is a passionate devotion and commitment to protecting the honour of Muhammad. Given the scale of the offence, the carefully worded apology, actually, gives little ground; he recognises that Muslims have been offended and that he was only quoting, but there is no regret at using such an inappropriate comment or the deep historic resonances it stirs up.
By an uncanny coincidence the legendary Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci died last week. No one connected the two events, but the Pope had already run into controversy in Italy by inviting the rabid Islamophobe to a private audience just months ago. This is the journalist who published a bestseller in 2001 which amounted to a diatribe of invective against Islam. This is the woman who was only too happy to fling out comments such as "Muslims breed like rats" and "the increasing presence of Muslims in Italy and Europe is directly proportional to our loss of freedom." At the time of her papal audience, Fallaci's ranting against Islam had landed her in court and there was outrage at the Pope's insensitive invitation. The Pope refused to backtrack and insisted the meeting was purely "pastoral".
Put last week's lecture in Bavaria and the Fallaci audience alongside his vocal opposition to Turkish membership of the EU, and the picture isn't pretty. On one of the biggest and most volatile issues of our day - the perceived clash between the west and the Muslim world - the Pope seems to have abdicated his papal role of arbitrator, and taken up the arms in a rerun of a medieval fantasy.
An elderly Catholic nun has already been killed in Somalia, perhaps in retaliation for the Pope's remarks; churches have been attacked in the West Bank. How is this papal stupidity going to play out in countries such as Nigeria, where the tensions between Catholics and Muslims frequently flare into riots and death? Or other countries such as Pakistan, where tiny Catholic communities are already beleaguered? Or the Muslim minorities in Catholic countries such as the Philippines - how comfortable do they feel this week?
Two lines of thought emerge from this mess. The first is that the Pope's personal authority has been irrevocably damaged; how now could he ever present himself as a figure of global moral authority and a peacemaker after this? At the weekend, a message was read out from Cardinal Murphy O'Connor at all masses in Catholic churches in England; he spoke of the regret at any offence caused and urged good relations between Catholics and Muslims. For a church that prides itself on taking centuries to respond, this was unprecedented crisis management. It cannot but damage the pope's authority with the faithful that such emergency measures were necessary, and it compromises not just this pope but the papal office itself. (This is a job, after all, that is supposed to be divinely guided and at all times beyond reproach: a claim that looks a bit threadbare after the past few days.)
The second is a more disturbing possibility: namely, that the Catholic church could be failing - yet again - to deal with the challenge of modernity. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it struggled to adapt to an increasingly educated and questioning faithful; now, in the 21st century, it is in danger of failing the great challenge of how we forge new ways of accommodating difference in a crowded, mobile world. The Catholic church has to make a dramatic break with its triumphalist, bigoted past if it is to contribute in any constructive way to chart this new course. John Paul II made some dramatic steps in this direction; but the fear now is that Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of following suit, and that he has another direction altogether in mind.
More from Pope Benedict
On homosexuality
"Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living-out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not."
On Buddhism
"Auto-erotic spirituality."
The ordination of women
On the excommunication of seven women who called themselves priests: "... the penalty imposed is not only just, but also necessary, in order to protect true doctrine, to safeguard the communion and unity of the church, and to guide consciences of the faithful."
On same-sex marriage
"Call[s] into question the family, in its natural two-parent structure of mother and father, and make[s] homosexuality and heterosexuality virtually equivalent, in a new model of polymorphous sexuality."
On rock music
"[A] vehicle of anti-religion"; "the complete antithesis of the Christian faith in the redemption."
On cloning
"[A] more dangerous threat than weapons of mass destruction."

jmo
Why don't you understand that not only is Hezbollah completely responsible for this destruction, but Israelis were also the victims in being made to kill hundreds of children, as were we Americans who were forced by Hezbollah to keep the war going and to supply laser-guided cluster bombs to destroy Lebanese villages.

To Boiling Point and all the other appeasers :

On September 20, the Council on Foreign Relations hosted a small meeting of select council members with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Several members of the Nixon Center's Board of Directors took part including center chairman Maurice R. Greenberg. In his interview with National Interest online editor Ximena Ortiz, the influential business leader-now chairman and CEO of C. V. Starr & Co. and honorary vice chair of the Council on Foreign Relations-describes the session.

Q: Please give us your perspective of President Ahmadinejad's much-publicized performance yesterday at the Council on Foreign Relation, where only members were invited and no televisions cameras were present. Could we start with your personal exchange with the president of Iran?

MRG: He has been quoted many times, including last evening, that the Holocaust needs to be explored as to whether or not it really occurred. And he says, "Well you know, every time somebody tries to do that, they get imprisoned." Well, the reason some have been imprisoned is because it's against the law in some places to deny that the Holocaust occurred.

Of course it occurred. And when he said that, I responded: "Listen, I went through Dachau during the war. To suggest it didn't occur is simply a lie." So he turned around and asked me how old I was, to determine if I was old enough to have been there. And then he changed the subject.

Q: So that was the extent of it?

MRG: Yes, but then there was a lot of follow up on that. He wanted to know why there was an objection to have professors and historians explore whether or not it had occurred. The fact of the matter, obviously we said, is that it's a recognized fact that it occurred; it was 6 million Jews that perished in the Holocaust and that any single individual that denies that is not only wrong but is also trying to be revisionist of history.

Q: Was it your sense that he truly doubts whether the Holocaust occurred or was he grandstanding? He was presumably playing just to that audience because there were no television cameras there.

MRG: No, no, but there were reporters there. Look, he has said this on many occasions, not just last evening. And it's offensive. I would say that this man, he's not only out of touch, he's very clever and I worry about what he's capable of doing. And I do believe that the administration's, and the president's in particular, view of Iran and the danger that it presents to the world, particularly our country and Israel, is not only real, it reflects a real and present danger. I do not think that we can take lightly what he stands for and is capable of, if he came into possession of nuclear weapons.

Q: Give us more insight on the man himself. Clearly you feel that he's dangerous, and that the administration's characterization of him is correct. Can you elaborate? You've dealt with many foreign leaders, given your position in the business community. Is there anything in particular that strikes you about Ahmadinejad?

MRG: Yes: How a man like this came to power. He's very clever. He responds in an oblique way: never directly to the question. He changes the subject. He goes on and on and raises issues. For example, regarding those in prison in Iran, including members of the press-he doesn't answer the question. He says, "There are 3 million people in prison in the United States. What are they in prison for?" He just throws back something that he believes is improper in our country. Not on any factual basis, it's just his method of never answering the question.

The man… I wouldn't call him nuts. He's not crazy. He's crazy like a fox.

Q: So bottom line: In your view, can we do business with him or is it impossible to do so?

MRG: I think it's almost impossible to do business with him as long as he has those views. He says: "Why should the Palestinians suffer even if there was a Holocaust? What does one have to do with the other?" I mean, they have nothing to do with each other. We don't link them together. And we discussed that. They're not linked.

He thinks the Palestinians should be permitted to return, that's never going to happen. If the Palestinians returned to Israel, they'd swamp the country and there wouldn't be an Israel. But he doesn't want an Israel.

Q: It sounds like he didn't make any effort to try to reach out…

MRG: No, no. There was no effort to reach out. He's offensive. He's smug. He's a danger.

Q: Did the council make the right decision in inviting him?

MRG: I think we made the right decision to meet with him because now we have confirmed what he is. By not seeing him, what do you accomplish? Seeing him confirmed what he is. And he knew what we stand for. For him to say that we were simply mouthing the administration's positions-obviously he found that that was not so, because we had Republicans, we had Democrats, and independents in the room.

Q: You say you share the administration's characterization of the Iranian president. But do you feel that this administration is properly equipped to deal with the Ahmadinejad challenge?

MRG: What do you mean by that?

Q: Is it your view that they have the skills necessary in terms of diplomacy, and foreign policy acumen and savoir faire to counter the Iranian challenge? Are they smart enough to deal with this "crazy like a fox" character?

MRG: Yes, I think so. I don't think that's the issue. It doesn't take anybody long (in or out of the administration) to recognize what this man is and how you deal with him. [Iran is] not uninvolved with the whole Middle East, obviously, it's not uninvolved with Iraq, it's not uninvolved with the recent war between Israel and Hizballah. Unfortunately, that resulted in strengthening Iran's position in the Middle East because of their support (both financially and with weapons) of Hizballah. And the Israelis did not have an over-resounding victory. So temporarily this man is riding high. And as I said he's crazy like a fox. And do I think we know how to deal with him?

We can't deal with him. You can't deal with this guy. I do not believe that we should let him come into possession of the capabilities to manufacture a nuclear device, or achieve it by an indirect means, such as buying it from somebody else.

Q: In light of your opinions, is it your view that we have to change tack? Because there are attempts to do business with this man.

MRG: Look, I think you have to negotiate as much as you can. Because a peaceful solution is the best of both worlds. And I would never give up trying to achieve that, because we'd be criticized. We have to think about our role in the world as well, and not just about what we think unilaterally about this individual. So I would not discontinue trying to find a solution to it, via the UN or a coalition of countries that feel as we do that we cannot permit Iran to come into possession of a nuclear device. If they want nuclear power, it's got to be done in a way that doesn't permit them to be enriching material for a nuclear device. We have to keep that from occurring.

Q: And it sounds that your sense of that was crystallized after your meeting…

MRG: My sense was crystallized last evening.

To Boiling Point: My Bad. I meant to refer to the other guy (appeaser) with no sense of humour. Sorry for the mix up.

JMo, you're beginning to bear an awfully close resemblance to the early Arnold Schwarzenegger--round about the first Terminator movie, I'd say. Is that a red glow in your right eye? How do we know you didn't inflict all that damage in the background?

When are you "cahming bahk"?

To the poster ("boiling point," was it? it's too far above to bother checking) who seems to think the Catholic church has to adjust to modernity, well, no, it doesn't at all if it doesn't wish to. The Church views itself as transcendent and immanent.As permanent, too. To understand otherwise is to evince no understanding of what a church founded upon a "rock" is. (So of course the Guardian is as blinkered as ever on this one, no great surprise!)

In this respect, Catholicism is quite like Islam (which isn't exactly a "church" but is certainly a faith), just without the riots and the nurturing of terrorism. The suras of the Koran brook very little (if indeed any at all) concessions to modernity. Those Muslims who yearn for the restoration of the caliphate or who await the return of the Mahdi (which is a key doctrine), for example, understand this perfectly.

Nor does it help to throw up the name of Hans Kung or the issue of seven women who were "ordained" by some fakir who had no real right to do so in the current church (their "ordinations" have about as much theological validity in the current Church as that claimed by Sinead O'Connor). Hans Kung's equivalent will never be found within Islam, and if one would-be version ever pops up he will promptly be squashed like a bug. Ditto for those dissident women.

Even to suggest that the Pope somehow might have been better advised to dump off his remarks about Islam last week, by way of insuring the safety of his co-religionists elsewhere, that really suggests a sort of moral cowardice that this Pontiff, whatever his faults, simply lacks. The Roman Church does not murder people for their faith, those days are long gone. Whereas Islam is gleefully still at it. I, for one, was rather pleased that the current Pope thought fit, in a round-about fashion, to stress this. That the fundamentalist Muslims were not is their right, though the methods they used to make plain their displeasure were appalling, and do not (as per usual) bode well for any Christians or Jews they can ever get their hands on. So if, boiling point, you pine for what Oriana Fallaci first termed "Eurabia," you are much welcome to it. But include me out, as Sam Goldwyn supposedly once said.

What critics (within the Church) have feared about Pope Benedict has come to pass--

All organized religion is inherently ignorant and destructive. It's all nothing but cynical manipulative people controling weak, frightened and/or gullible people. Islam is presently doing the most damage, but none of it does any good.

If only we could convert Muslims to Judaism or Christianity, we could get rid of all violence in the world.

I am trying to remember the name of the Muslim country whose president told blatant lies and secretary of state presented fabricated evidence to the U.N. just a few years ago to start a war that still continues.

I could also use help for the name of the Muslim country that holds thousands of prisoners from neighboring lands, but used the pretext of two soldiers being captured to kill children, destroy a country, and create an environmental disaster in the Meditteranean.

I wish Muslims would listen to this enlightened pope when he quotes ancient texts. He is so much a man of principles that he mourns the metaphysical loss at Auschwitz, instead of being distracted by the loss of a few Jewish lives.

scared of..., I'm sure that in lieu of an exact match, Syria or Indonesia will do just fine. Or Iran. Just up the numbers involved, add the general oppression of women, sprinkle with a little official anti-Semitism, a little official anti-Christianity and, for some real fun, the lack of anything remotely resembling democratic (let alone Democratic) process, then glaze with extreme puritanism and toss. Any resemblance to Afghanistan under the Taliban, or even to Yemen, will of course be entirely accidental and coincidental.

And sleepysleek, cliches about religion won't get you very far. Because they've all been said already. That you are not a believer is your personal choice and issue. So you don't have to feign world-weariness here, really, although in your general condemnation of faith it might do you some good to consider why, goldarnit, Islam never seems to come up with a counterpart in amity to the "Prince of Peace."

Prince of Peace? You mean that short little guy from Purple Rain? What does he have to do with religion?

Cathar don't lie, stop commenting as Gitmo to compliment yourself.

This is tangential to the thread, but I want to post this somewhere while I'm thinking of it.

I recently ran across the riveting story of Sonny Trimble, the forensic archaeologist who went to Iraq & led the effort to find & analyze the mass graves from the Saddam era.

It's a long, gruesome and haunting story. You can read it here.

Jerry,

Take care of yourself over there, and thanks for the reports. Gilly and I appreciate the insight and thoughtfulness of your work.

Be well.

Liar and friends, don't worry, Cathar was not appropriating my name on that post. I'm sorry that you took it seriously. I meant for it to DRIP with SARCASM because Cathar is a jerk. He pulls out obscure terms and ideas (check his most recent post - how many people here are ready to discuss "...Muslims who yearn for the restoration of the caliphate ..." or those "... who await the return of the Mahdi (which is a key doctrine)..."
C'mon, Cathy, don't you realize what a pompous jerk you are? Go to sleep tonight knowing you have more time than the rest of us to Google search a bunch of crap in order to try to impress us. I can see it now: "Yes, Mrs. Cathar, I paid the PSE&G bill on time, but aren't you concerned about the return of the Mahdi?" Richard, as much as you don't like your birth name, you are a DICK.

... why Mr. Szathmary, after a long career of posting on many, many blogs with his real name, decided to settle into this blog with a fake identity, AKA "Cathar." Tell us, please, why you are (according to dictionary.com):
"in medieval Europe, a member of any of several rigorously ascetic Christian sects maintaining a dualistic theology" or this explanation, according to Wikipedia: "This name originates from the end of the 12th century, and was used by the chronicler Geoffroy du Breuil of Vigeois in 1181. The name refers to the town of Albi (the ancient Albiga) northeast of Toulouse. The designation is misleading (although Albi was one among several early focal points of Catharism): the movement had no centre and is known to have flourished in areas that are now parts of Italy, Germany, Northern France and Spain as well as the Languedoc." Tell me, please, why does some old conservative stiff from Clifton want to be associated with this name??

Gitmo and IM, you revel in your ignorance like pigs in a sty.

So, it seems that Gitmo and Inquiring Minds, having been bested repeatedly by cathar, now simply resort to name-calling. Class with a capital "A", that!

Why don't you guys dig deep down and engage the man point for point? He's always used an identifiable email here -- something I choose not to do because of hostile freaks like you who start cyberstalking whenever you get shown up.

No, Cathar, it wasn't my post that pined for the modernization of the RC church. My post just pointed out the Muslim reaction to the pope's remarks about Islam and violence. While I disagree with many things you say, I defer to your knowledge concerning the Islamic religion which is much greater than most "infidels" and may be superior to some muslims.

My post was just meant to point out the irony of the violent reaction to the remarks. And to those who believe that this was just a handful of Muslims, why aren't we seeing the same reaction from a handful of Catholics regarding the threats made to their pope and religion?

BP - there just ain't that many militant catholics on this planet. There were a thousand years ago, but that spooge is pretty much spent. Islam just happens to be earlier in its cycle. It's got millions of sword-waving, suicide-bombing idiots to defend it. Whereas the catholic church has a doddering old Kraut in rome, and smelly little Richard in Clifton, and that's about it.

What's a "spooge"? Sponge? What's a spent sponge?

"Islam just happens to be earlier in its cycle."

So in your last fleeting moments of final consciousness after the dirty bomb goes off, make sure to remind youself, "it's just their turn, after all it's only fair..."

RoC, you are right as always. But may I ask you a favor? Please don't use the phrase "dirty bomb." I just wee-wee'd all over myself.

on the other hand, when I hear the words "cluster bomb" and "tactical nukes," I get a boner.

This just in, cathar IS walleroo IS dating appletony. Or do the thre of them get together and talk shit about all the commentors. Are we the bain of their existances? Do you think they just took seriously the purposeful grammar and spelling mistakes I made in this post? Are they crying just reading it?

I dunno, Liar, I can't see lumping those 3 together. I get the feeling Appletony and Walleroo are comparatively normal, sane citizens who actually function daily in society. Whereas we've all learned Cathar's deal (and it's sorta sad, but what we suspected). In fact i could swear I've seen both Wall and App call Cath on his BS from time to time. But Now they're defending him because, i guess, they feel that some kind of line was crossed by the publication of his name, and the confirmation of our suspicions that he's a marginal old shut-in. And you know, I'd agree with them that crossing that line was wrong -- if it was ANYONE else. If the outing causes Rich to post here any less frequently, this will be a better blog for it.

I want to thank all the posters who wished me well. I am returning to NJ tomorrow and will be around for about 10 days then heading back to Lebanon to start production. It has been an extremely emotional few days. BTW to Ramadan poster I certainly understand your note that Hezbollah is not totally responsible,however, it was unconscionable that they started a war at the behest of Iran without informing the Lebanese government. They overreached and Israel overeacted. I will give you that. But I suggest you realize that the majority of Lebanese would have never endorsed a preemptive attack on Israel especially after the civil war and subsequent occupation which ended in 2000. And if you need further proof of Nasrallah's intent I will kindly provide and english translation of his victory speech yersterday.

liar,
Your illiteracy is laughable.

Please come back when you have an original thought.

To all you Muslim-haters.
Unlike Israel, the primary value of this country is that all men are created equal and have equal rights. It may the custom in your favorite country to treat non-Jews like second class citizens and jail and kill them on any pretext, but do not contaminate my country.

Cathar, is it true that you actually admit to be being a dick, not just a semi-educated bigot? Just too delicious!!!!!

This message is for jmo and does not need responses from cathar, right of center or any other alias for a bigot.

jmo
A few days after the war began, European newspapers reported that the Israelis had bombed coastal oiltanks and created a massive spill in the ocean that nobody was able to stop. Nothing about this appeared in the New York Times, except for a short story on page 2 of the travel section a couple of Sundays ago, about the spill destroying beaches in Byblos. Did you go to Byblos? Have you seen the spill? Is it really an ecological disaster?
Thanks

Ramadan, First of all if you are Muslim, Mubarek to to you and your family. I wish you good blessings through the Eid.

On your question regarding the oil spill, Crank posted a similar request, at the time I was not in a position to comment, since I had not been to Bylbos and had not seen the result of the spill. It is true the spill was the result of a bombing and missile attack on a power - refinery complex, resulting in a terrible ecological disaster, made all the worse since in the early days of the spill, outside cleanup help was prevented by the Israelis from attacking the spill. I did not have the opportunity to visit Bylbos, but did speak to a geography professor at AUB about it, as well as journalist at Al Nahar, and they both confirmed that it is a terrible mess. However the good news now is that there is a massive effort on both the Lebanese and EU community, with help from Kuwait and the UAE to clean up the spill. Much of the oil has settled on the bottom, and is not apparently visible from the surface. Realistic estimates put the cleanup time to be between 1 and 2 years with a tab approaching 900 Million US. I was told that there are negotiations between the Lebanese and Israelis ongoing for some compensation to be paid by Israel. If I hear anything else I will post it here. BTW if you have any interest in seeing all the images I shot while in Lebanon they can be viewed at http://web.mac.com/jmosier/iWeb/Site

Well, Ramadan, I will respond anyway. (Track me down if you wish to complain personally.)

Personally, I think the Israelis have, since 1947, pretty much earned the moral right to do almost anything they damn well please in defense of their right to exist as a nation. And that would perforce include bombing oil storage tanks somewhere near Byblos.

Have you ever been to Lebanon, "Ramadan?" I was once. Lovely country, riven by religious disputes, brigades of murderous extremist Muslim thugs are afoot who'd as gladly slit Christian throats as Jewish ones. And with a "political party" that has its own rocket launcher batteries.

Enjoy your fast. Try to use the prescribed period for prayer and contemplation to ponder why Islamic fundamentalists are so prone to such butchery, religious intolerance, sexual repression, political cretinism and sheer stupidity, all in the name of a "just" Allah.

cathar
Do you ever get sick of hearing your own voice all the time? It is impossible for there to be any discussion on baristanet without your bigotted comments on almost every post. Perhaps you would learn something if you just shut up and let other people have a discussion. I have no desire to track you down or have anything to do with a distorted and disturbed mind like yours.

jmo
Thanks for your reply. I will look at all the images when I can get more time.

BTW do you have any comment on today's Washington Post story on our cluster bombs in Southern Lebanon.

A few months ago, somebody on barsitanet, whose name I can not remember, wanted all Americans to feel culpable for the carnage in Lebanon. After reading Seymour Hersch's article in the New Yorker, it is clear that our government encouraged the carnage. Now the cluster bombs ensure that our culpability will last for a long time.