COURAGE

When England is attacked, I feel as if my family is being attacked. Today is not the first time London has been bombed. George Barker (1913-91) wrote this wonderful poem about his mother holding fast during the World War II blitzkrieg over London.

To My Mother

Most near, most dear, most loved and most far,

Under the window where I often found her

Sitting as huge as Asia, seismic with laughter,

Gin and chicken helpless in her Irish hand,

Irresistible as Rabelais, but most tender for

The lame dogs and hurt birds that surround her, --

She is a procession no one can follow after

But be like a little dog following a brass band.

She will not glance up at the bomber, or condescend

To drop her gin and scuttle to a cellar,

But lean on the mahogany table like a mountain

Whom only faith can move, and so I send

O all my faith, and all my love to tell her

That she will move from mourning into morning.

NASIKH

Today the usual suspects are casting blame for this atrocity on everyone but the bombers, undoubtedly Muslim extremists. I believe in everyone owning their own feelings and actions. The West can't make terrorists feel bad unless they agree to feel bad, but terrorists can kill us without our agreement (sticks and stones etc.), and have been doing so sporadically for more than a decade.

And today is a good time to introduce a new vocabulary word, "nasikh". Nasikh in Arabic refers to a principle in interpreting contradictory passages in the Koran. Where later writing (it was written over a couple of decades) contradicts earlier passages, the later text abrogates (supersedes, replaces) the earlier. Because the Koran is not arranged chronologically, it's hard to know, without a concordance, which is which. Here's an example:

The Sword verses: the Call to "fight and slay the pagan (idolaters) wherever you find them" (sura 9:5); or "strike off their heads in battle" (sura 47:5); or "make war on the unbeliever in Allah, until they pay tribute" (sura 9:29); or "Fight then...until the religion be all of it Allah's" (sura 8:39); or "a grievous penalty against those who reject faith" (sura 9:3). These all contradict "There is no compulsion in religion" (sura 2:256). Note here that sura 9 was one of the last suras to be "revealed to Muhammad". Logically, it should abrogate "there is no compulsion in Islam". [emphasis added]

Mohammed began his career in relative peace (the Meccan period), but as he gained power and followers (the Medina period), became increasingly violent toward Jews and anyone else who would not convert, and his writing became more warlike. No doubt many Muslims who are not Koranic scholars just want to live in peace. But the Muslim terrorists can't be said to be extremists; they are simply strict practitioners, acting on a non-negotiable principle, one that cannot be resolved with the usual diplomatic, political, or economic negotiations.

DIVERSITIES

From Oxford University Press – USA, Garner's Usage Tip of the Day

"Cultural diversity" [says Garner] can mean either (1) diversity within a culture; pluralism; or (2) diversity among cultures. The phrase often masks this ambiguity. Some have argued unconvincingly that sense 1 represents a self-contradiction. An English professor, for example, argues that a culture is based on shared values and beliefs. That is, culture is what brings us together and makes us one, while diversity is what separates us from one another. So people who share values and beliefs, the reasoning goes, are not diverse, and a culture made up of unshared values and beliefs is not a culture. See David Pichaske, "There Is No Such Thing as 'Cultural Diversity,'" Monitor, (Minn. State Univ. Student Ass’n), Feb. 1995, at 9.

This reminder that a culture is made up of shared values, aesthetics, and habits took me up short in the same ~ yet opposite ~ way as when a Western scientist working in India questioned the inevitability of monotheism as an evolution in religious thought.

"GOOD" AND "OTHER"

Bill R. said about "issues":

This is similar to what I found the ah-viators doing in the Navy ~ they divided the world into "good" and "other".

My bro Sam used to work with a guy who pretty much divided the world into "sucks" and "doesn't suck". Some people see the glass as half full, others see the glass as half sucking.

DOUBLE POINTS

The following TV news report combined two least favorite journalism fads ~ lack of a real verb, and reporting in the present tense: "His wife giving birth to a new baby yesterday." Let's add a verb and some punctuation. How about, "His wife, giving birth to a new baby yesterday, screamed."

WHAT IS LOVE?

Maybe there's room for discussion here, but can anyone really think the movie Basic Instinct qualifies to air on the Encore Love cable channel? Shouldn't it be on the Encore Lust and Murder channel?

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