London imam seriously injured in brutal attack; castrated, stabbed 13 times, set on fire while still alive.

Muslim attacked; eyes gouged out, castrated, stabbed, burned to death, and hardy a peep from the press. Truepeers picked up on part of this story recently, and now there is more after the killing:

Three members of the gang ran away to Pakistan when they heard that police had arrested the 4th gang member. Our "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" Home Secretary Jack Straw has no plans to attempt to extradite them.1.

One of the imams of the London's Central Mosque is in serious condition in hospital following a brutal attack by a white man of Irish origin, the Muslim News has exclusively learnt. 2.

The crime which was to shock all Scotland was discovered the next morning by a car salesman cycling to work. At first thought he was seeing a dead animal on the track. 1.

A police spokesman told The Muslim News that a 40-year old man had been arrested and charged with grievous bodily harm and assault. The spokesman said that he was not charged with a racially aggravated offence, but the Director General of the mosque, Dr Ahmad Al-Dubayan, suspected that the attack was religiously motivated in the current atmosphere of growing hostility against Muslims. 2. Swearing revenge and threatening to "cut up the culprit and take out the person's eyes", X amassed a five-strong gang of armed helpers, including Zahid, to prowl the streets in a stolen Mercedes looking for his attacker. 1.

He accused the media of creating "an atmosphere of Islamophobia" that led to this and other attacks on mosques.2. So there you have it, a native Scotsman (boy) can be tortured to death in the most hideous of ways (tongue cut out, eyeballs gouged out, castrated, stabbed 13 times, and finally set on fire whilst still alive) and the media and Government go out of their way to cover it up and allow the killers to remain free.1.

The Muslim Council of Britain also said it is the latest example in a string of anti-Islamic crimes in Britain. "There is clearly a growing anti-Muslim climate in this country and it has some very worrying implications for all of us," an MCB spokesman warned.

Dr Al-Dubayan said that the 58-year old imam, who did not want to be named, was attacked on Friday morning after the man, who was wearing a cross, entered the mosque claiming that he wanted to be converted to Islam. The imam offered him dates and explained to him about Islam and suddenly the man threw himself on the ground and began saying something the imam did not understand. Then he suddenly got up and began punching the imam on his forehead until the imam fell on the floor. The man then stood on top of the imam and began poking into the eyes of the imam with his fingers, damaging them badly. The imam tried to defend himself but could not free himself. The imam began shouting and the security came and called the police. The man was apprehended after much difficulty as he resisted the arrest. 2. Kriss was held down while he was stabbed. He was then laid on a pile of newly-felled logs, doused with petrol, and set on fire, before his attackers drove away. A horrified jury heard how the youngster, with blood rapidly draining from the severing of three major arteries, rose from the logs in flames and crawled towards the river, leaving a trail of burnt clothing and scorched grass.Kriss never reached the water. He collapsed in a rain-filled depression, rolling in agony in the mud to try to douse the flames, before succumbing to his terrible internal injuries and burns. 1.

The violent assault comes after an increase in attacks against Muslims and mosques since the recent failed car bombings in London and at Glasgow airport. The Muslim News editor Ahmed Versi called on the Government and the police to ensure that Muslims and their places of worship are protected in the current hostile climate. "Such Islamophobic attacks should not be tolerated. There are causing further alienation in the community and add to the dangers of radicalizing young people." Versi warned. 2. At first thought he was seeing a dead animal on the track. 1.

1. http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2004/11/racist_coward_h.php
2. http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/index/press.php?pr=246
****
As might be obvious from the confusion of the story above, it's from two separate assaults. Below is the story of the first. If this weren't already lengthy I'd have included the story from France of the Jewish kid, Ilan Halimi, who was lured into a ghetto where he too was tortured, castrated, and then burned to death by Muslims. This is not to rile the masses against Muslims, but ask why Muslims are not criticized for murders and tortures but are cast as victims of Islamophobia when people do get riled. It does no favors to Muslims to pretend they are victims when it is too obvious they are often terrorists and murderers. If our intelligentsia continue to play down the culpability of Muslims who are killers and to continue to play up the convenient guilt of the general society and blame them for Muslim criminality and terrorism, then there will be a genuine back-lash by those who simply hate the intelligentsia and who will not listen to reason any longer, turning on the innocent Muslim as well as the guilty indiscriminately. The intelligentsia will lose what little authority and credibility they now still have, and the people will simply attack the nearest Muslim out of unrestrained hatred of the past atrocitiies, whether the individual is guilty or not. It is usual for people to respect authority; but it is not unconditionally given; and the way our intelligentsia conduct themselves and our public affairs it is nearly certain that they will find themselves cast over in favor of the maddened. Stop the lying or face the wrath of the enraged. Muslims must demand it or they will suffer.

Evening Times (Glasgow),

A CALLOUS thug who helped in the abduction and slaughter of school- boy Kriss Donald has been found guilty of Scotland's first race murder.

A jury at the High Court in Glasgow unanimously convicted shopkeeper Daanish Zahid, 20.

The killing was a revenge attack stemming from an incident the night before when a person, who can only be referred to as X for legal reasons, was attacked with a bottle in a Glasgow night spot.

The attacker, a white youth, belonged to a group called the McCulloch Street Team.

Swearing revenge and threatening to "cut up the culprit and take out the person's eyes", X amassed a five-strong gang of armed helpers, including Zahid, to prowl the streets in a stolen Mercedes looking for his attacker.

Innocent Kriss, 15, was last seen alive as he was bundled into the Merc near his home in McCulloch Street, Pollokshields.

He had been heading with his pal, Jamie Wallace, 20, to play computer games. He was targeted for no other reason than he was white and lived in the area.

The next day Kriss' body, naked save for the charred remains of his underpants, a sock, and a trainer, was found on the Clyde Walkway in Parkhead, Glasgow.

In a crime which shocked all Scotland, he was stabbed and set alight with petrol while still alive.

During the trial the court heard Zahid claim that he did not brutally plunge the knife 13 times into defenceless Kriss' stomach, back and arm. Nor did he set him on fire.

In court, Zahid, 20, admitted staying with Kriss during a 200-mile terror journey, buying the petrol used to torch him, and disposing of weapons.

He said that as Kriss was being horrifically murdered, he sat in the car, watched—and didn't do anything to help the stricken boy.

But yesterday a jury found Zahid guilty of Kriss' racially-aggravated abduction and murder.

A member of the victim's family whispered "Yes" as the verdict was read out.

Zahid was also found guilty of racially-aggravated assault on Kriss' pal and attempting to defeat justice by torching the abduction car.

The judge, Lord Philip, told Zahid the price for his participation would be a life sentence.

Because Zahid, of Shields Road, Pollokshields, Glasgow, is a first offender, Lord Philip, told the jury he was obliged to call for reports before sentencing him and calculating the number of years he should serve before being allowed to apply for parole.

In the dock with Zahid was 20-year-old Zahid Mohammed, also of Shields Road.

Mohammed was also originally charged with abducting and murdering Kriss, but on the first day of the trial, prosecutor Mark Stewart accepted he was not guilty of murder because he left the car hours before Kriss was killed.

Mohammed, however, admitted abducting Kriss and attempting to defeat justice by asking a friend for an alibi.

He then went into the witness box to give evidence for the prosecution and told why he left the others.

He had been sentenced to wear an electronic tag on his ankle for carrying a knife, and had to be home for 7pm when his curfew began.

Lord Philip called for reports on Mohammed who will be sentenced along with Zahid at the High Court in Edinburgh on December 16.

The judge told the jurors it had been a "distressing, harrowing, and demanding" case for them, and said they wouldn't have to sit on a jury again for 10 years.

Zahid, who ran his family newsagents business in East Kilbride, had denied while acting along with others, abducting Kriss in Kenmure Street, Pollokshields, Glasgow, on March 15 this year, driving him to Strathclyde Park, Motherwell, Dundee, and then back to Glasgow, and murdering him at the Clyde Walkway near the Celtic Supporters Club in Glasgow's east end.

The Crown claimed that the abduction and murder was racially aggravated.

Zahid lodged a special defence incriminating X and another person who cannot be legally identified.

During eight days of harrowing evidence the jury heard that Zahid, Mohammed, X and the two others, set out to find the youth who had attacked X the night before in Victoria's night club in Glasgow.

When Kriss and his pal, Jamie, were spotted, X said: "They'll do", and ordered the car to be stopped.

X and the others, including Zahid and Mohammed, jumped out, and as Jamie tried to defend himself and distract the attackers from his friend, Kriss was punched and kicked and bundled into the Merc.

He was heard to plead with his captors: "Why me. I'm only 15."

The schoolboy was then taken to Strathclyde Park in Motherwell where Mohammed got out and returned to Glasgow by taxi.

During the journey. Kriss, face down in the well of the rear seat, listened in terror as X phoned friends to ask for a flat where he was to be tortured for information.

But when nobody was willing to help, X ordered the Merc to be driven back to Glasgow. On the way, they stopped at a filling station and Zahid was ordered to fill a canister of petrol which he put in the boot.

Terrified Kriss was then driven to a deserted and dark walkway on the banks of the Clyde.

The court heard that for a minute Kriss thought he might survive the ordeal when X told him: "You're all right. It's your friends I'm after."

Zahid told the court X ordered the youngster out and followed him with two others to the rear of the car.

He claimed he remained in the front passenger seat and told how he heard screams and then saw a fireball. When X and one of the others returned, their hands and clothes were covered with blood.

The prosecution said Zahid must have seen the slaughter because bloodspots on the bonnet and wing of the car proved Kriss had been stabbed at the front of the vehicle.

Kriss was held down while he was stabbed. He was then laid on a pile of newly-felled logs, doused with petrol, and set on fire, before his attackers drove away.

A horrified jury heard how the youngster, with blood rapidly draining from the severing of three major arteries, rose from the logs in flames and crawled towards the river, leaving a trail of burnt clothing and scorched grass.

Kriss never reached the water. He collapsed in a rain-filled depression, rolling in agony in the mud to try to douse the flames, before succumbing to his terrible internal injuries and burns.

The crime which was to shock all Scotland was discovered the next morning by a car salesman cycling to work.

At first thought he was seeing a dead animal on the track.

In the meantime, a drug dealer who supplied X and the gang with cannabis, was ordered to buy petrol. Zahid met him at a prearranged spot in the west end of Glasgow, took the can of petrol from him and left a bag containing a knife and a hammer in the back seat of his car.

The Merc was then torched in nearby Granby Lane.

During his evidence, Zahid spoke weasel words to Kriss' mum, Angela, and his sister, Samantha, who had sat feet away from him throughout the trial.

He said that he prayed for Kriss and his family every day, and he apologised for doing nothing to help him.

Zahid claimed he went along with the episode because he was terrified of X, and of being "done in".

He also claimed that the murder had been committed on the spur of the moment by X, described by defence counsel Ian Duguid QC as a "psychopathic lunatic" and that it could not have been anticipated.

But Mr Stewart told him he was guilty because he had participated at "every gruesome stage" of Kriss' ordeal, and had failed to take advantage of endless opportunities to get away.

After the verdict, when asked about continuing police inquiries, detective superintendent Elliot McKenzie said: "The job is only half done as far as we are concerned.

"The Crown and the police will not rest until those others have been brought to justice."

Original article

(Posted on November 22, 2004)

http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2004/11/racist_coward_h.php

I found this story in this form at American Renaissance. I have to wonder why I had to find it there and not in a standard press.

Sunni side of don't know shi'ite

There must be 70 ways to use the toilet...

Apparently, in his view, to make the world safe for white underwear.

"Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid: Western 'Beasts' Use Colored Underwear to Conceal Their Filth," from MEMRITV:

Following are excerpts from an interview with Saudi cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid, which aired on Iqra TV on July 26, 2007:

Sheik Muhammad Al-Munajid: This is a nation of monotheism, and this is the Islam that Allah wants to spread throughout the world, and to rule the land it its entirety. Allah wants this. He sent down the Koran and the hadith for that purpose.

[...]

Humanity can have no happiness without Islam. Humanity can enjoy no goodness, unless the sun of monotheism, the Koran, and the Sunna shines upon it. The world without the sun of the divine revelation is a place of eternal darkness, as we can see today – a world of frustration, collapse, injustice, arbitrariness, and wrongdoing. The world today is a jungle – a world of barbarism of all kinds. People in many parts of the world are not happy, because they do not walk in the path of Allah.

[...]

There are rules of shari'a in everything. We have counted almost 70 rules about how to urinate and defecate. In contrast, how do those beasts in the West answer the call of nature? They stand in front of other people, in toilets at airports and other public places. They do not care about covering their private parts. Even their underwear is colored and not white, so it can conceal all that filth. We are a nation that has long known the meaning of cleanliness, what to do when nature calls, and what the rules of hygiene are. The others, to this day, live like beasts. To this day, many of them are not circumcised, even though the World Health Organization has advised to circumcise people as a treatment for AIDS, because it has been scientifically proven that circumcised people are less susceptible to AIDS, and are less likely to spread it than uncircumcised people.

Comments galore at: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017819.php#comments

Leave comments here if they aren't dirty.

What are you praying for?

I've been puttering about for a day or two wondering what to write to announce our weekly meeting, every Thursday, 7-9pm in the atrium of the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library, in front of Blenz Coffee. Please join us if you can and would like to discuss the renewal of the Canadian covenant.

I've been trying to decide if I want to make anything of the seemingly small matter of our local university's recent gesture of "welcoming diversity," particularly to the extent it is focussed on members of a certain authoritarian politics/religion. Muslim Footbaths at University of BC growls one headline from a notoriously "Islamophobic" blog, going on to quote from our local tabloid:

“It’s no different from upgrading washrooms to accommodate transgender students or students with disabilities,” said UBC spokeswoman Janet Mee.

The plans stemmed from a consultation last December in which UBC asked students how to improve washroom facilities. “We approached [the Muslim students association] to ask them what their ablution needs were,” Mee said. “We included that in a project that we were working on around accessible, gender-inclusive family friendly washrooms.”

Alsalaman said his association and the university have a very good relationship that includes the creation of the prayer room and the installation of a lock to the room after a dark brown patch was discovered on the floor of the room late last year.

“The footbath installation will not be difficult and not cost very much,” Alsalaman said. “We are asking that it only be in the two washrooms near the prayer room. It’s not that big of a deal and is very important to us. We feel more welcome.”

It's a little thing but it raises the question if, on principle, state-funded Canadian universities have any business paying for religious facilities (religious denominations do fund their own institutions on various Canadian campuses, including UBC). I remember a controversy at McGill recently when the university, whose charter affirms it to be a secular institution, refused to create a permanent prayer room for Muslims, not that it refused to allow them to pray in makeshift settings. I can understand how UBC might have felt that all the foot washing going on in regular washroom sinks was creating a mess and it's better to create a special place for this sort of thing. After all, UBC like many universities with their post-national liberal elites in charge, is now in the business of trying to attract money from all over the world and there is a lot of money in the Arab oil states flowing into Western universities (money which many argue is accepted with the implicit understanding that criticism of the Islamic totalitarian religion/politics will be muted in these universities). Anyone who has checked out the building boom at UBC - which includes many multi-million dollar condos that seemed to me on a recent visit to have several owners from mainland China (how many people working in the Canadian economy can afford such homes?), and thus presumably with connections to the highly oppressive Communist Party oligarchy without which it is rather hard to get rich in China - might come to the fast and easy conclusion that UBC is not too particular about the people and values it welcomes to campus in the guise of "welcoming diversity".

Don't get me wrong, I too have connections with connections to the Chinese Communist Party, and I derive some (small) income (not to mention other social benefits) from them. In business today, most people can't avoid trade with China, just as we support the promotion of Wahabi Islam every time we buy gas to support our own economic activities. But at the end of the day, one has to put business partners and friends aside and remind oneself of his own ethical values and his nation's. And one kind of hopes one's local university will take a lead in reminding him of what Canada has, in the past, stood for: the sacralization of the individual as above the claims of the group, including religious groups.

This has meant we have created public institutions that pay attention to the promotion of individuals in public and economic life, while keeping the claims of specific religions or special interest groups carefully circumscribed. We can't of course entirely separate the individual from his religion but traditionally we have made universities and other institutions places where you go as an individual, and member (or visitor) of the Canadian nation, and not as an active representative of some other kind of sub community. In the past, Muslims have made their way through the system.

And we don't expect that all taxpayers should have to pay for special interests that go beyond providing services in order to foster the growth of individuals, indeed to free them from the bounds of traditional, group-centred, restraints. With some exceptions, e.g. the state support for Catholic schools in Ontario and Quebec, we have generally felt that the promotion of specific religious or political interests should be the duty of individuals who want to make such a commitment. And keep in mind that Islam is both a religion and a traditional, authoritarian, political system.

So what to make of UBC's director of access and diversity, Janet Mee, proclaiming:

"The university is absolutely keen and willing to consider any request that comes forward from the Muslim Students Association."

Is Mee unaware of the kinds of radical political positions that Muslim Students Associations promote at various universities? Does she not see any essential difference in using public monies (the university is in large part publicly funded) to a) support a specific religious-political movement and b) guarantee that all students can be respected as individuals with a basic human right to safely use a washroom for its standard purpose:

Bathroom needs became an issue last year after members of the university's Pride association, representing gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered students, raised safety concerns with Mee's department.

She said transgendered students have reported feeling harassed or embarrassed when forced to use traditionally segregated bathrooms on campus.

From this specific concern, Mee took an opportunity to mix things up and moved on to a much vaguer justification for providing, among other things, religious facilities:

"I hope it says that we want to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students"..."It has to do with a greater awareness of the needs of diverse students and probably a greater desire on the part of large institutions to understand their students," she said.

Janet Mee, UBC's house mother of diversity, reminds me of a great article by Thomas Bertonneau

The politically correct university, under the domination of the primordial mother, becomes affective and jealous in its basic structures; it replaces the individual (because he is individuated, hence a priori outside her realm and a threat to it) with the group. "If the person can substitute a group identity for an individual one, social organization becomes possible at the level of the group [and] an ideal of oneself as a member of a group can serve as one’s ego ideal" (121). The individual who rejects identification with a group now becomes the focus of the group-consciousness, of the collective narcissism, and indeed, by constituting such a cynosure, actually permits mediation among groups which might otherwise experience destructive friction. Each group depends on the primordial mother to keep at bay the individual renegade; at the same time, they look to the primordial mother for the sustenance of their collective ego-image. She answers the demand through "the idea of the child who needs love the most, the one who has been least loved in the past, the victim" (121 [emphasis added]). The "marginalized" minority is diversity’s unwanted child in the collective plural. Hence the incessant clamor by this or that demographic segment of the university’s enrollment for favors and privileges—and for punishments to be meted out to those who deviate from the one path:

Decision making in the PC university loses even the intention of being rational. Argument about possible courses of action no longer involves consideration of the actual effects policies will have. The process turns instead to the competitive avowal of one’s goodness and the imputation of badness to one’s opponents. But that is only the beginning of the matter. The separation of decision making from the consideration of results, together with the a priori establishment of some views as morally good while others are morally bad, has other consequences. It leads to a situation in which the intentions of the actor, and, indeed, often only the purported intentions of the actor, are the only matter of importance, removing the means from moral consideration. (124)

The politically correct university is not only, as Schwartz notes, a "psychological regression" (159) into infantile narcissism, it is likewise a cultural atavism, a relapse into archaic, indeed sacrificial, forms of communal organization that belong more properly to the Stone or Bronze Age than to the twenty-first century of the Christian Era. I return here to the work of Gans, who argues in Signs of Paradox that the Holocaust represents a cultural turning point in the Western moral imagination, by verifying in a massively empirical way the essential Christian revelation that communal solidarity based on persecution and victimization is evil. "Our ideal moral certainties are re-grounded in the opposition between (Nazi) persecutor and (Jewish) victim" (188). But it is really a good deal more complicated than this, because:

The descent of the absolute into the empirical world is the moment of its undoing. As soon as we posit an absolute difference between victim and persecutor, the underlying symmetry of their relation reasserts itself. When the SS torturer becomes the villain of the war film, he is turned into a sacrificial figure, a scapegoat, [a] structural equivalent of the Jud Süss in Nazi cinema. In the already tiresome clarity of this asymmetry, culture has been abandoned to youth; adults are too world-weary to participate wholeheartedly in the eternal and now transparent structure of victimary resentment.… Group resentment has replaced individual resentment —the point of essential difference between the high and the popular—as the primary object of cultural deferral. (188-189)

Gans remarks how

a long-lost Dionysian frenzy reappears in the ecstatic forms of postwar popular culture, in its music and dance, the audience of which more than that of any other popular form incarnates "the people." These central dramas of the youth-culture are not coincidentally the most subject to black and other minority influences. The rhythms and chord progressions of popular music dissolve individuality in a real or imaginary group movement that is the historical heir to sacrificial ritual. They create, in an imaginary context, the resentful unanimity of the sparagmos. (189).

Schwartz’s "Revolt of the Primitive" and Gans’ atavism of a minoritized "youth culture" are, I believe, aspects of the same epochal cultural transformation. The primordial mother is the ringleader and youth (always in a rainbow coalition of sexually ambiguous misfits) are her press gang. Schwartz interprets the phenomenon more pessimistically than does Gans, who notes, but does not particularly stress, the sacrificial character of the new, resentment-driven forms of collective identification. Yet Gans does admit that "what is new in our era is the promotion of non-integrative local theories…. as though they were the only theories conceivable and it were no longer possible for the human community to think of itself as a whole" (198). He also notes how "feminism and other minority approaches, which maintain their link with universal thought only through the unacknowledged mediation of the Christian centralization of the victim, are fast driving out other forms of cultural interpretation" (198). Gans’ "non-integrative local theories" are nevertheless deeply troubling, not least because their most recent prototype appears to lie exactly in the ferocious biological dualism of Hitlerian anti-Semitic policy, as "non-integrative" as you can get. Paradoxically, of course, the proliferating new Übermenschen find their superiority to all others in their own alleged victimization, which then becomes the pretext to victimize all who would deny the in-group’s special (mother-authorized) victim-status. The lèse, as it were, proves the majesté. Where the lèse does not exist, which means just about everywhere, it is necessary to invent it. There is much burning of the Reichstag. Schwartz catches the same paradox, noticing that the eidos of women in the regime that they now obviously control is a contradictory one, simultaneously a picture of "passive, hopeless victim" and "exemplars of the primordial mother" (158).

Am I blowing a little foot shower out of proportion? Maybe it all depends on whether you think the Muslim Students Association will now happily go its way, keeping their religion/politics - focussed on Jihad and Sharia - a private matter, or, on what you think they are going to demand next. Maybe they will declare some visiting speaker, a "homophobic" Jew, say, a threat to their sense of security.

Catfight brewing between PETA and Hamas?

Finally, the animal lovers of the west, or at least the true believers who belong to PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), have become outraged at the barbaric evil being fed to palestinian children by their elders.

What was the tipping point that sufficiently ruffled PETA's feathers to prompt them to send an indignant note to Hamas, over the vile content of the palestinian terrorist organization's television programming for children?

Was it this video, showing 11-year old girls proclaiming their eagerness to blow themselves up, prefering murdering others over "peace and full rights"?

Might it have been this one, showing a music video designed to encourage young palestinian children to learn how to kill?

Sadly, Haaretz reports that PETA's concern is not over palestinian brainwashing children to hate and kill, but over this video's images of cruelty to cats:

Animal rights group slams Hamas TV clip of man abusing cats, lions

International animal rights group PETA on Wednesday condemned a "shocking and sickening" video clip produced by a Hamas-run TV station and posted on the YouTube Web site that showed the abuse of animals. PETA said it would protest to the TV station over the program that showed animals being abused as part of a program aimed at teaching children not to hurt animals. The clip prompted scores of complaints from viewers worldwide.

"It's shocking and sickening," said Martin Mersereau, manager of the domestic animal abuse division of U.S.-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Mersereau said PETA was drafting a letter of protest to the Gaza-based Al-Aqsa television station. ...

An official at the TV station declined immediate comment. ...

It is nothing less than heartbreaking to watch the culture and value system that these palestinian children are exposed to, day after day, their entire lives. What possible excuse could someone who loves children offer, to justify the depths of the evil the palestinians poison their kids with?

With the cross-breeding that occurs within left-leaning groups, with members belonging to several alphabet soup organizations at the same time, I will allow myself a small ray of hope that somewhere within PETA's membership there are honest people with honestly held beliefs of right and wrong, with whom I can share the horror I feel when watching these videos. Such members may begin to honestly question their other beliefs, whether on Israel in particular, or on a comparison between the Middle East and the West in general, and like I did a few years ago, adapt old beliefs to accomodate new revealed facts.

Such members won't agree 100% with everything that I agree with, but we can still come together on the one, shared issue, that cursing children's futures while simultaneously stealing their childhood is pure evil.

SCO, Linux, and an Impersonal Jihad against You.

Over the past five years or so there has been going on a court battle between SCO, a computer company of some sort, and a company in support of Linux operating system users. I'm one of the latter, and to me this case is of some vague interest, not so much because of the computer o.s. I use but because in this case we can see a similar battle being waged in our world, the battle between the Left dhimmi fascists and their Islamic proxies and the rest of the world.

As I understand it, Microsoft slipped SCO 16.5 billion bucks to stall and screw around with Novell computer company. Years in court, tons of cash down the drain, and the "Big Guy" comes out the winner, Novell. I look at this case and see a nothing company, SCO, one that seems to make its profits by suing and settling out of court, and I see them backed big-time by Micro Soft, and I see the little guy, SCO, taking the "Big Guy" to court. SCO lost their case, such as it was.

"SCO investors saw few positives. The stock lost 72% of its value Monday, falling to 44 cents a share."


The market kind of gives away the truth of the story here. SCO didn't have a case from the start, and they weren't, it seems, meant to have one. It was a scam. It scared a lot of investors and users away from Linux. SCO made 16.5 billion dollars, and what did MicroSoft get for their money?

"Microsoft makes [billions of dollars] a year on Windows ... any minute, second, or day they can slow a competitor is good for them."

Here's a bit more on this from a computer geek site:

Linux proponents are turning their attention to Microsoft as the next front line in the battle to protect Linux, she [Pamela Jones] said.

"Microsoft is the next SCO. They positioned themselves that way with their patent saber-rattling," Jones said, referring to Microsoft's claims earlier this year that Linux violates more than 235 patents it holds.

Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, agreed that Microsoft will continue to be a thorn in the side of Linux.

"I don't expect these questions around legal issues to go away, but I do expect people to see it for what it is, which is FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) fostered by competitors of the platform who have a lot to lose from Linux's success," he said. "Microsoft makes [billions of dollars] a year on Windows ... any second, minute, or day they can slow a competitor is good for them."

Zemlin also reiterated what some in the industry have already suggested, that Microsoft's $16.6 billion licensing deal with SCO over Unix, an OS that Microsoft has never offered commercially, was to fund SCO's lawsuit against IBM to spread FUD over Linux. Microsoft has denied these claims.

****

This is the nature of things. I don't take it personally. In fact, were I to have myself beheaded by crazed jihadis I wouldn't take that personally either. Why? It's my head, my life, and my miserable end, but it's still not personal in any real sense because life goes on regardless of individuals, and it goes on in predictable patterns one can follow with ease if one knows how to spot them.

Microsoft hires SCO to tie up Novell and Linux users.
Saudi Arabia hires jihadis to tie up Western Hostages.
Shi'ites hire Paleostinians to tie up Israel.
European neo-feudalists hire Lefties to tie up Europeans.
American Left careerists hire naive students and Death Hippies to tie up the American working classes.
Third-World dictators hire anybody at all to tie up anyone they can.

FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.

Any second, minute, or day they can slow a competitor is good for them.

I take all this seriously, but I don't take it personally.

You might notice that Ayan Hirsi Ali hasn't had her head cut off but that Theo Van Gogh did (nearly enough.) You might notice that Salman Rushdie didn't get stabbed, shot or burned to death but that many of his editors and translators from Norway to Japan to Turkia did. You might notice that Daniel Pipes is still speaking but that commuters in London are blown to bit on the bus or on the tube train. dose this tell you something, dear reader?

It tells me that were I to think this is in some way about me I would be mistaken. It's about the power plays. All the screaming and hatreds of the Left dhimmi fascists amounts to some small satisfaction for the ones who make it all happen. Ask" Did a dozen Danish cartoonists get beheaded? Ask: Did embassies get burned all across the Middle East? Ask: Did the French State pay dearly for the scum kids who burned to death fleeing the police? Who does the dirty work, who do they do it to, and who benefits from it all? Blow up yourself for allah, or go scream at Jews at the local university or whatever, and then ask yourself how it is you came to be doing that. What's in it for you? Then think FUD. FUD on you, friend. They're having you.

It ain't poisonal, and even if you get your head cut off it really doesn't mean anything much, it being the nature of the game.

Bishop urges Dutch Catholics to pray to allah

Every group tends to have its black sheep; it’s an inevitable challenge to working as a team. Every family seems to possess its black sheep as well, which helps us develop the grace to live with disappointments, and accept the reality that not everything (or everyone) will always go our way.

What is to be done, however, when the black sheep is actually the shepherd in charge of the flock..?

A controversial Dutch Catholic Bishop, Tiny Muskens, who has previously raised eyebrows with his decidedly un-catholic pronouncements on the acceptability of using condoms, is back in the news, this time for asking his fellow Dutch Catholics to appease muslim immigrants to Holland, by praying to allah.

From Radio Netherlands:

The Bishop of Breda, Tiny Muskens, wants people to start calling God Allah. He says the Netherlands should look to Indonesia, where the Christian churches already pray to Allah. It is also common in the Arab world: Christian and Muslim Arabs use the words God and Allah interchangeably.

Speaking on the Dutch TV programme Network on Monday evening, Bishop Muskens says it could take another 100 years but eventually the name Allah will be used by Dutch churches. And that will promote rapprochement between the two religions.
...
"Someone like me has prayed to Allah yang maha kuasa (Almighty God) for eight years in Indonesia and other priests for 20 or 30 years. In the heart of the Eucharist, God is called Allah over there, so why can't we start doing that together?"
....
[Several years ago the bishop] also suggested abolishing Whit Monday as a national holiday in favour of an Islamic religious day.

Are we going to start seeing a schism within the Catholic Church similar to the one brewing in the Anglican Church over doctrinal issues? Are Catholics in store for a modern-day Avignon Papacy? Or is Bishop Muskens a lone wolf in sheep's clothing?

Reasonable people are perfectly willing to accomodate reasonable requests by reasonable guests, but adopting the arabic name of God is not an accomodation that many traditionalist Catholics are likely to follow.

Bishop Musken, I think your recommendation pushes your diocese One Bridge Too Far.

Death threats for Christian convert in Egypt

I heard Dennis Prager discussing this case on his program this morning, and it riveted me in place, as I tried to imagine how I would act were I to find myself in this man's place. Could I live up to his humbling example? Well as of now matching his bravery would be just a bit easier to imagine, since I am now armed with this amazing Christian's example to live up to.

An Egyptian Muslim, Mohammed Hegazy, converted to Christianity from islam 9 years ago, and now wants to change his "national ID card" to reflect his proper religion. He's had to go into hiding due to the amount of death threats he has been receiving from followers of the religion of peace:

...
"I know there are fatwas (religious edicts) to shed my blood, but I will not give up and I will not leave the country," the 25-year-old Hegazy told The Associated Press from his hideout Thursday.
...
Hegazy said he received telephoned death threats before he went into hiding in an apartment with his wife, a Muslim who took the name Katarina when she converted to Christianity several years ago. She is four months pregnant.
He said he wants to change the religion on his ID for two reasons: to set a precedent for other converts and to ensure his child can openly be raised Christian. He wants his child to get a Christian name, birth certificate and eventually marry in a church. That would be impossible if Hegazy's official religion is Muslim, because a child is registered in the religion of the father.
There is no Egyptian law against converting from Islam to Christianity, but in this case tradition takes precedent. Under a widespread interpretation of Islamic law, converting from Islam is apostasy and punishable by death though killings are rare and the state has never ordered or carried out an execution on those grounds.
...
Most Muslims who convert usually practice their new religion quietly or leave the country. Egypt is overwhelmingly Muslim. Only 10 percent of the 76 million population is Christian and converts are typically ostracized by their families. If the conversion becomes known, they may receive death threats from militants or harassment by police, who use laws against "insulting religion" or "disturbing public order" to target them.
...
"I started readings and comparative studies in religions," [Hegazy] said. "I found that I am not consistent with Islam teachings. The major issue for me was love. Islam wasn't promoting love as Christianity did."
...

What a brave, inspiring man. Who among us in the west can say they live in so full a manner the courage of their convictions. We may day-dream of ourselves as rebels, particularly when we are slouching through our self-absorbed young adult years, draping ourselves in black as we mourn lost childhood innocence; how puny this supposedly rebellious stance becomes, when placed in the light alongside persecution on such a scale. Who can pretend to even be having a truly bad day, after reading the fearful trials this poor man is suffering for his beliefs?

While Mr. Hegazy demonstrates an inconvenient courage for the hollow rebels of the west, it is even more so for the jihadists at war with the west and its values. Every breath he takes as a convert blows away the hypocracy masking the value system of islamists who invoke peace and mercy while threatening death and intolerance for those, like Mr Hegazy, who are willing to live through hell in order to assure their most treasured wealth, their families, can live closer to heaven.

God bless him for the strength he finds in his new faith, and the example he serves for the rest of us, seeking to live a modest life devoted to Truth, Liberty, and Justice. Words that must have a special meaning to Mr. Hegazy, in his struggle to find all three in the islamist world.

teaching palestinian children about cruelty

Hamas' notorious kiddie television show, "Pioneers of Tomorrow", teaches palestinian children to not be cruel to animals... through the dubious lesson of providing very clear examples of how to be cruel to real animals.

For the sake of those readers who are justifiably reluctant to watch videos of deliberate cruelty to animals, allow me to describe the short clip for you:

Nahool, the martyr-in-training, is visiting the zoo, where we see him enter into a cat cage and throw cats around by both their tails and the scruff of their neck (mostly one poor white cat). There's some half-hearted attempts to do some kicking as well. Then he sees some lions in a rather small cage, and proceeds to torment them by relentlessly pelting them with stones. This visibly upsets the lions; they lash out at the bee, who torments all decent viewers by remaining just out of the lion's vengeful reach.

Back in the studio, we discover that all these demonstrations are actually supposed to serve as examples of what **not** to do..! This has got to be one of the most ineffective and probably counter-intuitive means of teaching values that I've ever seen.

As one commentor at the youtube thread remarks, "I wonder who they're going to listen to, the stupid bee or the little girl at the end."

Melting slavery in Mauritania

"Truth and justice make their best way in the world when they appear in bold and simple majesty."

So spoke Elizabeth Heyrick, an English Quaker devoted to ending the evil of slavery in the early 19th century. Her anti-slavery views inspired the more famous American abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, to shift his own activism away from "gradualism", a search for a gradual elimination of slavery, towards "immediatism", the demand for immediate and full emancipation.
"I saw that there was nothing to stand upon, if it could be granted that slavery was, for a moment, right... no valid excuse can be given for the continuance of the evil a single hour."

His uncompromising stand against the continuance of slavery in the United States cost him some support, for there were many abolitionists who felt his goal of complete and sudden change would bring as many new problems as they solved. Any appeals to temper his absolutist position with “practicality” would always be countered with a demonstration of how intolerable it should be to allow slavery to exist in a Christian America built to advance and preserve individual freedom.

Garrison’s immediatism echoes this week within the Islamic republic of Mauritania, in north-west Africa.
I have blogged before on Mauritania’s continuing problem with slavery, and how their newly-elected president, Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, promised to see their nation finally confront this ever-present evil in their midst. This isn't kidnapping or trafficking we're talking about; this is chattel slavery, human beings born as slaves, living as property.

This week Mauritania has passed a law promising jail time for slave-holders, “…calling for prison sentences of up to 10 years for people keeping slaves, along with fines for slave-holders and reparations for those who have been enslaved."

What’s particularly noteworthy is the scope of the law’s attacks on slavery:

…
“In an attempt to change cultural norms, the new law also makes any "cultural or artistic work defending slavery" punishable by two years in prison, and makes it an offense for governmental authorities not to pursue slave-holders.
The law will make invoking common proverbs — such as "One should not buy the slave without the stick" — a punishable offense, said Sidi Mohamed Ould Maham, president of the legislature's justice commission.
"This law is going to cause problems for people who are used to talking with impunity, who hold close our people's ancient oral traditions," said Abdou Ould Sidi….”
…

In Garrison’s time, his immediatism tended to scare away potential allies because it didn’t seem to offer long-term solutions for the slaves themselves, just short-term relief. After all, what would happen the day after emancipation..?

We see these historical concerns echoed this week as well:

"There are slaves who hold onto being slaves because they have no way of changing their situation," said Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, a lawyer and human rights activist in Nouakchott.
"It's essentially an economic problem," he said. "I'm am completely against these people remaining slaves, but you can't sanction and criminalize slavery without creating projects to help the poor of this country."

Like the abolitionists of the 19th century, today’s good people ultimately search for the lesser of evils. Befitting humanity’s fallibility, it is a search plagued with stumbles and maddening uncertainties. In trying to do good, do we instead bring injury, and greater misery, rather than progress? Are there cases where stability, inactivity, and toleration of the status quo, are themselves the lesser of evils? Any honest attempt at progress measures both sides before taking action.

Slavery is wrong, such a stain on human dignity, all the more when considered that it can somehow exist **today**, alongside all the freedom and individual liberty that we take so for granted in our daily lives, that for me I can only share Garrison’s, and Mauritania's, immediatism, and applaud what I consider to be rare good news in the world today. In solving one problem, the scourge that is slavery, no doubt other problems will rise in its wake; as a comparatively small point, is it necessary to punish someone for using a proverb..?

Then I am reminded of a conversation William Lloyd Garrison once had with an anti-slavery colleague. His friend tried to convince Garrison to soften his fiery rhetoric, and to moderate his all-or-nothing stand. Garrison looked his friend square in the eye, and replied:

“I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt.”

Covenantal Integrity

I'm sorry I haven't written much this week. But I just want to get out a quick post to announce our weekly Thursday meeting in the atrium of the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library - the commercial part of Library Square that isn't closed by the civic workers' strike - 7-9pm. We meet in front of Blenz Coffee, often with blue scarves, and discuss the political covenant that is Canada, what we can do to insure for each other the freedoms and civil exchange without which the covenant cannot continue to grow and avoid a collapse into some neo-tribalism or totalitarian empire.

One thing I read this week that I thought usefully touched on this theme was an argument by Richard Landes: On Just What Not to Do: The Honor-Shame Logic of Walt-Mearsheimer. Thinking more broadly about the covenant among Western nations, the responsibilty each free nation has to act as a guarantor for other nations' freedom (however much they compete with and resent other free nations), to uphold a system that guarantees the freedom of national self-rule in face of forces like the anti-national Jihad (with its dreams of a renewed Caliphate) and the imperious, leftist "internationalist" Utopias (whose promoters actively seek to regulate and destabilize free nations, and to exacerbate conflicts like those between Israel and the Arabs, or Canada (with NATO) and the Taleban, in order to increase the market for their - necessarily incoherent - utopian internationalism). Landes points out clearly why it is both our responsibility and self-interest as free people in self-ruling nations to defend Israel's existence, whether we think Israel is special because it is the first nation and the Biblical or historical guarantee of the possibility of realizing later covenants in the cause of shared freedom, or whether we see that Israel as just a run-of-the-mill little nation with corrupt politicians and foolish intellectuals, etc. If we cannot stand up for the first and for the ordinary Western nation, we are basically saying we no longer have the resolve to defend any part of Western national freedom from those who resent it and who dream the impossible dream that human conflict (which is part of freedom) could somehow be ended if we all just bowed to a common God.

It all boils down to a question of our own moral integrity, something a covenant zone exists to encourage by bringing people together so that they may realize good faith is not something an individual has on his own but is only good to the extent that it is shared with others in a common religious or political (national or truly inter-national) cause to expand the possibilities of a freedom we must share with each other, those we often resent, while avoiding the totalitarian political and religious systems and fantasies that would dictate to all if only they ever could:

Israel’s problems with Jihad (the problem from the beginning, not Palestinian nationalism), are our problems with Jihad. Israel’s experience of “withdrawing and conceding and apologizing” are keys to what we can expect when, for example, we leave Iraq, or we grant autonomy to majority Muslim cities and zones in the West.

Right now, despite the perverse fantasies of the moral relativists and their demopathic partners among the Muslims, everyone, at some level of consciousness, knows that the West is morally superior in its values and actions than the Jihadis and the corrupt Muslim regimes around the world. This includes the Muslims, who use Western values to make their demopathic case; and the “radical leftist” Westerners who would never chose to live in a Muslim country unless they had the privileges of a traitor to their own culture. By calling on the West to sacrifice Israel to their honor demands, Muslims have set up a moral test they hope — and expect — we’ll fail.

We dare not.

In the world of honor and shame, wisdom and sanity demand that one stick by one’s friends and confront one’s enemies. The Arabs and Muslims know that Israel is part of the Western world — one of the main reasons they hate it — and they are on the other side. And will respect us for acting accordingly, no matter how much it might anger them. And if we remain firm in these commitments, we have a real chance to provoke genuine and desperately needed self-criticism on the other side. Only by behaving with such integrity does the West stand a chance to survive; indeed, such integrity may mean more than survival. It might mean inaugurating a dynamic that will lead to a peaceful 21st century.

Ironically we come to the moral dimension of the realist argument. By behaving immorally (realistically in Walt-Mearsheimer terminology), we lose our status and our ability to make any demands of our foes. It is in the nature of “constructivist” as opposed to “realist” political science that moral discourse plays a key role. One does not rise from prime divider societies to civil ones without moral commitments, among them, putting aside the “dominating imperative” of “rule or be ruled.” And when civil societies are in conflict with prime divider ones, the most critical capital the former can lose is the “moral high ground.” Only fools and moral equivalencers would think we’ve lost that ground. And once we really do lose it, by doing something so irreversible as sacrificing Israel, we’ll know what it means to have really lost it.

Our move.

A Trick Question.

Who you gonna believe? Do you believe the rantings of a hate-mongering Rightwing religious racist? or the musings of a university professor? In "The power of understanding," Asim Esen, a professor of genetics and molecular biology in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech, writes:

I was brought up in a Muslim household and community. Islam is absolutely not what Bowen thinks it is. The Quran teaches peace, justice, fairness and friendship to those who accept and believe it, as do the Torah and the Bible. The Quran says killing others and oneself is sin; only Allah gives life and ends life, not mortal beings.

Historically, insulting and slandering other religions, especially Islam, has been a ritual for certain Christians and their followers. Rarely will you find a true Muslim disrespecting other religions, especially Judaism and Christianity, which are religions based upon holy books (Tevrat and Incil or the Torah and the Bible, respectively). In fact, there is a saying, "A Muslim is a Jew and a Christian." This is so because Muslims accept Moses (Musa) and Jesus (Isa) as prophets who preceded Mohammed, the last prophet. The only fundamental difference between Islam and Christianity is Muslims do not believe in the Holy Trinity. Muslims believe Jesus was a mortal messenger of God chosen for a special mission. Musa, Isa, Yusuf (Joseph) and Meryem (Mary) are all common Muslim names. Does anyone know a Christian or Jew named Mohammed?

I've heard many ordinary Christians, popular Christian talk-show hosts and Christian clergyman call Islam "a wicked religion" and the Prophet Mohammed "a child molester." The worst name-calling you will hear from a Muslim is probably "kaffir," meaning infidel or nonbeliever. I have never heard from a Muslim, even from the most religious ones, a derogatory or disrespectful word in reference to Jesus, Moses, the Bible and the Torah.

[....]

After all, Muslims are not responsible for starting the Crusades; enslaving Africans; exterminating Native Americans and their culture; starting World Wars I and II, and killing millions of Jews; invading countries based upon lies and fabricated evidence for their oil; dropping cluster bombs on helpless civilians; and committing the Abu Ghraib atrocities and the massacres in My Lai, Cambodia and Bosnia.

And more, all of it sweet reason and pure light unto the masses.

JTA has this piece, published: 08/08/2007, a view somehow at odds with the one above:

An extreme right Dutch member of parliament called for banning the Koran in the Netherlands. Geert Wilders, head of the Freedom Party, on Wednesday called the Islam holy book “fascist” and compared it to Adolf Hitler's infamously anti-Jewish book “Mein Kampf.” Wilders wrote in the newspaper De Volkskrant that the Koran urges Muslims "to oppress, persecute or kill Christians, Jews, dissidents and non-believers, to beat and rape women, and to establish an Islamic state by force." The lawmaker's statement was condemned by the Dutch government, which said Wilders had hurt community relations in the Netherlands and was an insult to the majority of Muslims who eschew violence.

What are we to make of it all?

Our own to open and close.

When I was a boy the library was a portal to worlds I could never have imagined from my redoubt in the forested mountains. Librarians were Goddesses to my small mind, purveyors of food for thought, of Life itself. Heroes, fearless and grand.

To my amazed wonder I found there were libraries beyond my horizon, waiting only for my presence to open their doors and their covers for me to enter in. And the Earth itself its all its fearsome beauties lay open for anyone to find and claim a part of it if only it were known. Yes, even ones own steps and footprints along the banks of the Orinoco River. The high walls of Tripoli from which the unfortunate fall. Starborn cats above the Yellow Sea. Yes, the dead, the guides to the future, mirror-holders of the ages, Virgils and wanderers. Further, farther.

Let me sail, let me sail,
let the Orinoco flow,
Let me reach, let me beach
On the shores of Tripoli.
Let me sail, let me sail,
Let me crash upon your shore,
Let me reach, let me beach
Far beyond the Yellow Sea.

From the North to the South,
Ebudæ into Khartoum,
From the deep sea of Clouds
To the island of the moon,
Carry me on the waves
To the lands I've never been,
Carry me on the waves
To the lands I've never seen.

I await my visa to the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns. I can't go there well unless I have a mind open to the new. Many don't seem to like the new, perfering the stale and the trite, an evening with the perky and the peppy, an evening with Enya rather than a time where one looks back to Indians dying by the riverside, drowned, snake-bitten, wasted from jungle fevers. No, none of that in the suburbs. It's a crazy life. Who could have dreamed all this to be possible? And what a shame to see those who can't see it is.

The sun is shining, the berries on the bushes are ripe, I have my bucket. I said "O, what is this life?"

She said:

I owe no librarian. Sail away.

Who says Islam cannot adapt to global modernity?

It seems Bill Gates & Co. has put ol' truepeers on an Islamic scam spam email list. As the victims of these scams multiply, how might they and other experiences of modernity, reshape the fatalistic culture of Islam?

THE ISLAMIC EMAILS INTERCONTINENTAL LOTTERY.
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REF NO:FI/550/05ES.
BATCH NO:6677-05734.

DEAR WINNER,

MAY THE BLESSINGS AND THE PEACE OF ALMIGHTY ALLAH BE UPON YOU.

The lslamic emails lottery happily announce to you the draw of our emails lottery programs held on 3rd AUGUST 2007 IN ( AMMAN- KINGDOM OF JORDAN).your email address attached to ticket number:56475600545/188 with serial number 5388/06 drawn the lucky numbers:31-6-26-13-35-7.have won you the 1st ever conducted lslamic emails lottery.you have therefore been approved to claim your prize at the sum of ( US$1,000,000.DOLLARS) in cash credited to file:(KPC/9080118308/02/FLC).this is from a total cash prize of (US$10 MILLION DOLLARS)shared among the ten lucky winners.this is the 1st lslamic emails lottery and the biggest to be conducted in the lslamic world.please note that your winner number falls within our asian booklet center as indicated in our play coupon.please contact our customer services center for the released of your winning prize.all the lslamic participants were selected randomly from world wide email sites through the computerized system with the help of (MICROSOFT CORPORATION).the lslamic emails lottery takes place periodically.for security reasons,you are advised to keep your winning lnformations confidential to avoid double claims.this lslamic emails lottery is to encouraged muslims world wide to use lnternet and promotes computer literacy in the lslamic world.... [signed]
T.Q
MALLAM ABDULLAH ALI
SECOND SECRETARY
ISLAMIC FOUNDATION UNITY

A couple of days ago I also received this email:

- Dear Beloved Christian, Calvary greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!! I am Mrs.Maria Igwe, a widow of 73years old suffering from cancer of the breast, My husband and my only son were killed last year during the UK terrorist Attack when we visited London for holidays. My condition is serious and according to my doctor, he said it is obvious that I may not survive. I have some funds that my late husband WILLED to me in cash; the sum of $5,900,000.00 United States of American Dollars. I packaged it in consignments and deposited it with a finance house. After my prayers, I searched a Christian site in the internet, I found your email address and I decided to contact you for the usage of the funds in your Ministry. Therefore, child of God, if you are honest and faithful enough to use this fund strictly for the work of God, your response will be highly appreciated.Email: maria_ig_01@yahoo.com Yours in His Vineyard,Mrs. Maria Igwe.

Is nothing sacred, or is everything sacred?

Heroes and villains

We sure had a shocking contrast in front page stories today in our major daily newspapers; human experience was personified in two extremes, one in heroism and the other in villainy.
First the good news, as reported in the Vancouver Sun:

A Kamloops man is being hailed as a hero for saving the life of a 12-year-old boy who was attacked by a cougar …
Colton Reeb was camping with Marc Patterson and his wife and daughter on the Patterson property.
Colton was walking to the outhouse after dinner at 6:30 p.m. when a male cougar weighing about 30 kilograms jumped him from behind.
Patterson, who had been sitting on a picnic bench outside the cabin, said "suddenly we heard a deathly scream." He said his daughter Larah, 12, went to investigate.
"She said Dad, there's a cougar on him.' I just got up and ran all the way down there. There was a lot of blood absolutely all over the kid's head," Patterson said.
...
"Patterson said the cougar had Colton's head in his mouth and his paws around his neck "like a kitty cat would play with a ball."
Not knowing what else to do, Patterson ran toward the cat and kicked it five times in the head but it didn't flinch. He then knelt down and put his knee on its back and wrapped his hands around the cougar's neck, choking it with his bare hands.
"I squeezed as hard as I could and after five seconds or so, he let go," Patterson said…
As he stood, the cougar stood about a metre from him, his ears flattened and his eyes huge, ready to attack again, Patterson said.
As Colton ran, Patterson lifted his arms and growled at the cougar "like a grizzly bear," giving his family and the injured boy a chance to reach their truck.
…
Patterson said he had a few scrapes on his leg but otherwise was all right. However, he was just starting to feel the shock Thursday night. He hadn't slept since the attack.
"It was a horrible sight to see," he said. "I said earlier I was scared, but I was just pumped. It was survival time. I didn't know what it was . . . but I wasn't going to let that boy die."

From that act of selflessness we turn to the front page of the Vancouver Province for a story of another predator, this one a disgusting display of ingratitude and selfishness:

Vancouver police have made an arrest in the attack and robbery of an elderly man as he left Vancouver's Holy Rosary Cathedral Wednesday morning.
Darcy Lance Jones, 43, is facing a charge of robbery, and remains in police custody.
…
He is known to police and familiar to many in the area, and calls himself a "professional panhandler."
Witnesses to the attack say a bearded man who regularly panhandles outside the church attacked the longtime parishioner in what police called a "heartless and shocking" assault.
The attack, caught on surveillance video, shows the victim being knocked to the ground before the suspect takes off with the contents of his wallet.
The 79-year-old victim had given the panhandler $5 every day that week, but when he tried to give him the money on this occasion he was assaulted instead.

That is such a beautiful church; I've attended Mass there, and I believe I even recognized both victim and attacker from the video images released through the media.

I've written sporadically over the months about seeing beggars routinely standing right outside these, and other, church steps, and what I read into that choice of theirs. Whether they are addled by drug addictions or not, they know enough to know that those entering or exiting the church feel as though the experience within is of help to them. The beggars may be brain-damaged from alcohol abuse, but they know enough to know that many people are helped to become better people by attending the Masses that take place inside that building behind them each and every day.

So why stay outside? Why not accept tendered invitations to join us inside, and sit a while? and listen to what we hear when we are on the inside. Can humbling yourself to confess that you sin through your own fault, be such a fearful admission to consider? Can accepting the duty to be of service to others, through being of greater service to yourself, be such a frightful obligation to embrace?

What's scarier, facing a cougar or facing your own mistakes, and trying to change for the better?

For one "professional panhandler", I think we know the answer.

Where you going, covenanter?

This week we had some reason to give a little thought to what we're doing, because someone wanted to know. Just to anticipate our meeting tonight - as every Thursday, 7-9pm in the atrium of the central branch of the Vancouver Public Library, in front of Blenz Coffee (look for the blue scarf) - here's a couple of samples of what was said:

1) we want to build a network of people who can help each other on various projects for renewing our stakes in Western culture and combating nihilism and relativism. Starting with ourselves: we meet every Thursday to motivate each other to avoid despair and cynicism and uncreative anger, to figure how to make our minds, faith in humanity, and arguments for them, stronger. This means we do not have any narrow agenda or political objective. It means we are always trying to defend the openness of our political and cultural system, and to prove ourselves trustworthy, disciplined, deserving of attention and compacts from others.

2) Increasingly I don't feel that the meetings have to "launch" something, or exist as planning platforms for "covenant zone events". I view them as similar to going to church: I will be with like-minded people engaged in pursuing a shared long-term objective and the meeting allows me to affirm my individual commitment to seeing things through despite the scale of the odds against us, while providing a much-needed dose of intellectual ammunition to draw upon when acting on my own outside of meeting times.

I agree with the need to discipline our writing to greater effect on the blog. I am so in love with the image that Hirsi Ali projected in her interview, and I try, vainly, to prop it up as a guide. Just compare the emotive ramblings of her inquisitor, that [Avi] Lewis guy, to the becalmed grace and tact she calls up to deliver her responses; that's a role model we can all learn from. **How we say** what we say is more important and consequential than what we say. I mean the style is more important than the substance. If i was a lewis fan I think I would have to harbor second thoughts now about the righteousness of the lefty cause, in the face of such unflappable self-control on the other side. Lewis won't change, but his fans might; when we get trolls, they won't change, but more moderately-leaning lefties may be enticed more to start entertaining our point of view, if we ourselves are viewed as more entertaining.

So, as the truth of freedom, our shared covenant, can be made entertaining....

Minnesota nightmare

When I got home from work tonight, the first thing I saw on the internet was this yahoo story on the bridge collapse in Minneapolis.

My first thought, was: I hope James Lileks and his family are okay.

It's funny how we can feel so connected to each other, even when such threads are tied across the ether of the internet. I've read his daily blog for so many years now, that I have grown to sincerely care about what happens to him, despite his being a total stranger to me.

We can look at the ruins of this bridge, and imagine ourselves in one of those cars buried underneath. We can shake from the horror of picturing ourselves standing on its periphery, waiting for news of loved ones trapped within the rubble. It may be different families, in a different city, in a different country, than our own, but somehow it is still us; we are still connected.

We are one. We see the tragedy, and it touches us, in our shared humanity.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to you, from Vancouver Canada.