Review: Roxana Shirazi’s The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage
Posted on 27 August 2010 | No responses
[ed. If anyone screams misogyny at this review I am going to scream and pull out half my beard, just read the bloody book; it's tedious to anyone with an adult attention span. Also if anyone screams hypocritical prudery, I'll tear out the rest of my beard and fling it at them. I'm not a prude, I just have standards. roftl...]
“The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage” is an autobiography, perhaps ghost-written (by Neil Straus a.k.a. Style one suspects) of an Iranian born rock groupie who in a deliberate rebellion against the patriarchal misogyny she perceived in her upbringing decided to become a Motley Crue and Guns and Roses cum receptacle, thus joining a legion of bleached blond young American neo-jawariya [*harem slave-girls, see note], from trailer parks and suburbs all across America.
(a reasonable proxy for a baby Roxana)
Reading it, I thought to myself:
“I bleed for this?”
And indeed my heart wept tears of blood, in utter boredom, as I struggled to force myself to read Roxana Shirazi multimedia personal anthem of slut autonomy (multimedia, being of text, not so sexy photos of the author in slut drag, and several noxious fumes of donkey punched, scat spread, fluid bespeckled glory, wafting up from the book. One could virtually smell the sweat and feet.)
Slut autonomy - empowerment through sexual promiscuity. I am always a little suspicious of people who have something to prove through their sexuality, especially a social or political ideology, beyond a simple, and natural, “this feels really good, and I feel compelled to do it, so hence I do it.” Aught beyond this becomes somewhat contrived.
Since the author self identifies as a slut, as her personal badge of honor, we do not insult her by calling so, and thus let us continue.
The author is a groupie, sort of like Kat Stacks, though perhaps with less taste and less honesty. Kat Stacks and others like her admit that they are essentially tricking. Though Shirazi, through her book, certainly stands to make far more money than Stacks, and one can argue that Shirazi is certainly more attractive than Stacks (though without makeup this may be debatable)
Groupies are the courtesans and concubines of our age, not quite kept women, but rather shared women, among a wealthy and - somewhat - powerful though dissolute strata of wealthy and dominant Alpha males. Remember that in history nothing really changes except the names, and the neat toys we play with. Groupie drama is fairly equivalent to concubine drama in every age that we have record of [*see my note below]
I often find that people who base a good deal of their personal identity on their sexuality are intensely boring.
Such people, with a few exceptions, are often not truly very sexy, beyond a superficial show of sexuality. There are also exceptions, I’ve met a few very interesting complex and nuanced people whose primary pride and identification in life was being a slut, but I doubt the author would be one of them. I have no doubt Shirazi would protest over-much on this point, but I’ll let the reader decided from reading her book. I personally found nothing sexy about it.
The author’s greatest pride and achievement lies in emulating a groupie lifestyle mostly aspired to, in America, by girls coming from the lowest rungs of the social ladder. I mean, Biker girls typically emerge from lower social strata, but rock groupies aren’t exactly that high up on the rung. Being a shared woman amongst Alpha male rock stars is a more socially acceptable achievement than being a shared woman amongst Alpha male bikers, or street criminals, but here Baudrillard ’s Simulacrum comes into play since Rock Stars are faux biker and outlaw rebels, and biker outlaw rebels are faux pirates and brigands, and hence their groupies are ultimately faux camp followers.
I’m sure Mongol camp wenches in Genghis Khan’s camps could out fuck Roxana Shirazi and her peers, but need we consider this much further?
This book was an immense disappointment, and consisted of page after page of somewhat poorly edited vignettes of the author’s personal debauchery fueled by a glamorized Rock & Roll lifestyle, and presented as a bombastic middle finger raised in defiant anthem against the conservative, and found by her highly stifling, moral and gender values of her native Iran.
About as puerile as flinging a bloody tampon at the Ayatollah in defiance. Wow, “you go girl…”
Hell hath no fury like a libertine who is hell bent on proving that she is a libertine. Beneath the blood, excreta, semen, broken hearts, donkey punched violent coitus, S & M, multiple swords in a single sheath, one simply has to roll one’s eyes and wonder
“Do you actually get off on this or is it all just some sort of bizarre compulsion?”
The book is as slickly presented and packaged as, and somehow manages to be even more vapid than, Neil Straus’s “The Game”- I allude and suspect that he ghost wrote it anyway. Personally I found his Jenna Jameson biography to be more interesting reading.
I would be lying if I said there were not a few incidents of amusement, and perhaps of mildly titillating value, but over-all there isn’t much here folks. Again, the book was a let-down
[* nb, the literary educated might notice my snarky usage of the term jawariya, and perhaps complain that my comparing Roxana to a harem slave girl is inappropriate, because her sexuality is consensual and freely chosen and hence empowering.
It bears noting that jariya girls in the middle east were typically free to choose lovers of their choice, this becomes very apparent when reading the literature of the period in depth. Jariyas were not necessarily forced to serve as their master's concubines, rather they could and would switch master by request, deny their favors to masters they disliked, and typically seemed to act with the drama of their modern hip-hop equivalent and actually suffered few social restrictions, other than being technically slaves.
Slave classes in that era were fairly well equivalent to the modern working class, in terms of autonomy and legal rights, they could and did often own property, leave endowments, inherit, maintain their own businesses, and apart from the legal status of being legally owned really would appear free to most modern observers. There are exceptions in history, but it bears mentioning that in the medieval middle east some slaves were wealthier, and indeed more powerful, than free citizens. Unlike in the West, where typically slaves did not end up ruling nations, or forming the elite managerial class of such states (see Mamluke Egypt and the Ottoman empire, where the Janissaries formed an elite administrative strata)
Qiyan girls were able to acquire great prestige and wealth in much the same way that modern high class prostitutes are able to. Comparing Roxana Shirazi to a Jariya would no doubt insult most Jawariya, in the sense that comparing an alley cat dragged from underneath a rutting tomcat boinking and caterwauling in an alleyway, to a well maintained house cat, could well irk the house cat;
"You compare her to me? Just... look at her?!?"
Among groupies too, there is a hierarchy.
Women have a fine and refined sense of relative comparisons between themselves and fury awaits the man insensitive to their multiple status markers...
I refer the diligent reader to al-Jahiz's Kitab al Qiyan - the Book of Singing Girls. Reading it one notices that the differences between today and yesterday are far fewer than one would imagine...]
Observation - Agave Nectar is bad for you, like high fructose corn syrup, and syphilis
Posted on 8 August 2010 | No responses
Observations and thoughts: on sugar, Agave Syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and obesity. Presented with my usual sardonic pluck, taste tested and approved.
Through most of my childhood I had a mild weight problem. Even into adulthood I carried a small, slight, paunch even when other parts of me were lean. This was annoying. Why, Allah, why I asked?
Power cleans, kettlebell swings, stair climbs and runs, I developed lean muscle and, strangely, abdominal definition on top of visceral belly fat. Quite surreal, to flex one’s abs harder than wood but still have a pot belly, however slight. After making some fundamental changes in my diet, including intermittent fasting, this belly fat is mostly gone, though it makes occasional reappearances commensurate with my consumption of ghee and sugar.
Recently I’ve come to realize some of the likely reasons for this, and much of it has to do with difficult to metabolize placements of adipose tissue (”that’s fat cells y’all”) developed from childhood on up. Diets and exercise were not able to metabolize these deposits of stored fat, and their origins lay in to excessive consumption of certain things like sugar, and to a slight degree products containing high fructose corn syrup. Now such products were rare in my youth, most sweet goods were simply sugar based, High Fructose Corn Syrup didn’t start popping up in things until I was in the 8th grade, oddly enough when my slight childhood chubbiness passed into “dude you have boy-boobs” territory.
My youthful penchant for eating cake icing out of the can, consuming Little Debbie’s by the box like they were tic-taks, and walking less than I should, while drinking too much soda pop, may have had to do something with this.
The tendency of my siblings to run around like terrors throughout Avondale, armed with sticks and rocks, and harassing other kids kept us reasonably slim. I offer no apologies for this gang like tendency, a bunch of nerdy doctor kids living on the fringes of the ghetto sort of need safety in numbers. Alone anyone could, and did, take us. Together with sticks running around like savages we found some security… and exercise.
I blew up a bit when my sister and I moved back to DC, into a nice neighborhood, away from most of our siblings. There, our only walks were to the Metro station. I did need to out run thugs on Bladensburg Rd, when cutting over to the Rhode Isl. Metro Station. But those were short runs, and I really wasn’t jumped that often. So this meant less exercise, and hence I became a chubbier kid.
7-11 Doughnuts and Fritters didn’t help, of course. But what really sealed the deal was soda. Yes, soda pop.
Uncle’s fridge was chock full of it, all of the rare brands they didn’t have in Ohio, like Squirt Soda. And who could resist Squirt?
And somehow after 9 months of steady soda drinking I found myself a very unhappy and very chubby young teenager. Not obese by any means, but possessed with fat that no jogging during soccer practice seemed to budge.
Being a chubby kid growing up in the 80’s, looking back on it and on old photos of myself I was actually almost normal by today’s standards. And this recently shocked me. As much of a fat ass bookish little nerd boy that I thought I was, I would have fit right into most middle schools today. At least here in the midwest. What I thought of as ugly, aberrant, fat when looking back at t was actually almost trimmer than some of the normal kids that I see today, especially in middle class areas of town.
I think that two things prevented me from the sort of full fledged childhood obesity that seems almost a norm nowadays. One, the fact that as Much Atari or Nintendo that I played between the 6th and 9th grades (before I outgrew video games, they just felt boring and childish after that) I got some exercise walking to the metro station, or out running mean kids who wanted to beat me up.
Two - the fact that most of my favorite sin foods back then just had regular sugar in them, sucrose, and not high fructose corn syrup.
Ok, so many of you will roll your eyes “not some sort of high fructose conspiracy theory again’ - bear with me a bit, before jumping to conclusions.
Let’s look at something else, Agave nectar. Most of the women I know are natural health food store types. NPR, Herbal Tea, Yoga classes, and of course Alternative sweeteners. Place white sugar in front of them and they turn their noses, place brown Sugar in the Raw in front of them and somehow it’s acceptable. Sucrose is sucrose baby, trust me on this one.
One spunky young thing recently told me, in bated breath, about Agave syrup. She even baked me cookies with the stuff. Since it’s bad form to reject baked goods from pretty and excited young women who simply want to please you in so many ways I, of course, accepted the offer. I am a gentleman, after all.
However something did not sit right with me. Agave syrup? What the hell are people doing using a cactus for sweetener, I thought to myself. So, intrepid, I decided to poke into a few books and articles and unravel the source of the intuition that nagged at me.
What I found shocked me. and perhaps it may shock you.
Agave nectar is unhealthy for you, like the clap or Chlamydia or other unpleasant things. However pleasant the consumption is the result is most baleful.
Agave nectar is given to us as a “health food” but it’s not.
Regular table sugar, refined white sucrose, is “better” for you by any metric than agave nectar. Look up how Agave is processed, it’s actually more processed than table sugar. THAT should tell you something. The organic stuff is just as bad. Just eat a bunch of honey or something, if you must.
Agave Nectar and High Fructose Corn Syrup suck.
Indeed, I tell you truthfully that in my more paranoid moments, which are few and far between, I maintain a healthy suspicion that this degree of sheer suckiness is actually by design.
Permit me to explain- this stuff seems almost designed to make us unhealthy. So it would be wise of you to try to avoid eating it. What follows isn’t biochemistry 101, and I admit taking some liberties with a fast and loose explanation, but I encourage you to do some research and look at multiple sides of the issue.
Most of us have the common sense not to believe the industry adverts on High Fructose Corn syrup - and indeed that stuff is really worse for you than refined sugar. But few know that agave nectar, as sold in health food stores, is as bad as high fructose corn syrup. And both are worse than sugar.
Lest pedants hit me over the head - “Worse” is a subjective appraisal on my part. “They suck” is also subjective, but can be substantiated.
The reasons why refined sugar, while not being the best thing in the world to consume (it’s better than Meth, of course) beats out high fructose corn syrup or agave nectar lies in how our bodies metabolize each.
It has nothing to do with the calories - calorie counting leads us to wrong impressions.
Calorie counting, as most people commonly understand, is a scam.
It does have to do with how Sucrose (white sugar) is metabolized and how Fructose is metabolized.
With how both are broken down into glucose, with the mechanisms by which fructose is converted into triglycerides and adipose tissue (yummy fat!)
Sucrose, table sugar, is broken down by your body into glucose, which can be used in the Krebs cycle for energy, and l-fructose, which can be further broken down into glucose, but some of it is converted into triglycerides and eventually adipose tissue. Your fat cells becomes stuffed with the stuff. Now, the type of fructose that you will consume in fruit is more easily broken down into glucose, so less of it is converted into triglycerides and stored as fat - anyway your body needs these things at some level. The problem is in excess.
The type of fructose found in Agave syrup and high fructose corn syrup is mostly just converted into fat by your body. I’ll skip the specific pathways and mechanisms, you can feel free to look that up on your own.
Basically if you eat a pound of white sugar and a pound of high fructose corn syrup and a pound of pure refined fructose (the stuff is tasty, I used to buy it at Clifton natural foods) your body will store MORE of the fructose as fat, and less of the table sugar as fat, and use more of the table sugar as energy in the form of glucose (research the Krebs cycle, or go back to your sophomore biochem course notes) and store less of the table sugar as fat.
Again, that’s a fast and loose explanation.
Fructose consumption suppress leptin secretion and insulin, when this happens your body experiences hunger pangs, because even though you are stuffing your face with enough calories to light a light bulb, your body thinks it isn’t eating - again fast and loose explanation.
Leptin suppresses our appetite. Without it we pretty much will stuff our faces because we will feel hungry. Hence we will get fatter, this isn’t biochemistry 101. I could explain how the stuff is converted into adipose tissue, how triglyceride levels increase, and explain how the Krebs cycle works, and so on, but it’s complex and you can Google it up or hit your old college textbooks.
The general point is that consuming large quantities of sugar isn’t good for you, but consuming large quantities of some types of sugar can be worse for you in subtle ways, including by increasing your appetite you end up consuming a larger quantity of food, and your body ends up storing more of it as fat, and all sorts of other nasty problems with blood pressure and so on and so forth.
Basically high fructose sugar sucks and makes us fatter, and as we become more obese we face other health problems, while the people selling us this crap to consume are laughing all the way to the bank.
Just use regular sugar in moderation. Or honey. Or maple syrup. Granted the stuff is expensive as sin.
OB disclosure: I have invested interests in sugar industry stakeholders - on a small level anyway.
I have no fiduciary interests in the honey or maple syrup industry, and I still recommend both of them over sugar anyway, so like just use honey or something.
High fructose sugar sucks, makes us obese and unhealthy, and only benefits Cargill and ADM stakeholders, it’s bad, avoid it like you’d avoid the plague, or worse syphilis, avoid it like you’d avoid fornicating in alleyways with sketchy people for free, met in dive bars after 2 AM.
Some risks are, obviously, not worth the imagined payoff - which like so many things sold to us in life, is often a massive disappointment. So like…
Just don’t do it. I mean, why consume something that tastes like sugar but destroys your body faster than sugar? Is this wisdom? Is this intellect ? No, far from it.
_EOF
Redux - comments. Climate change and the quote “..in searching for a common enemy to unite us…”
Posted on 7 August 2010 | 1 response
[ed. This is a provisional post, needing further editing and development. There are errors in grammar and fact - but the general effect should be gained, I'll get around to whittling this down later..]
Per my earlier posting a couple of quotes, from Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four [Amazon link]
I will discuss these ideas logically and soberly, I will not refer to wild conspiracy theories, just simple facts as they are known, and obvious logical implications from these facts.
First: I agree in spirit with the need for greater environmental stewardship and sustainability - our civilization wastes an incredible amount of energy and materials. This will catch up with us. The idea of sustainability is pushed forward largely by bodies and individuals responsible for the grossly unsustainable mold of our society, but even the devil utters a truth now and then.. when it’s in his interests, in furthering a larger scam..
Second: Agreeing with the need for greater environmental stewardship, I see the entire climate change discourse, as a discourse, is a hoax. It is one largely believed in, by the mass of both sides - those believing in anthropogenic climate change and those rejecting it. But it is a hoax, notice my wording. This hoax remains a hoax even if, especially if, the facts spoken of, regarding increases in average global temperature due to human activities, are true.
And I’m increasingly convinced that there is something significant to it.
A good deal of the evidence supports the general idea of Global Warming at first glance, and one can make inferences from this data to support the idea that the drivers of Global Warming are anthropogenic - human caused. There are immense problems with the data, increasing evidence that much of the data has been all but deliberately fudged, in some cases falsified, or otherwise skewed by certain biases in the collection methods. And there are immense problems with the interpretation of such problematic data.
But even with the all but fraudulent abuses of the data I still think that Global Warming can be demonstrated in the data - and therein lies a deeper issue, one outside of this little blog post.
Even with this, however, the whole matter is still a hoax. Both Global Warming advocates, and Global Warming Skeptics, are to some degree victims of a hoax. A provocative and, to some, silly claim, but lets jump to something else for a moment.
Conspiracy theories - an amusing thing is that in all Western societies, only Americans display a constant allergy to making political speculations that verge away from the standard media discourse in suggesting willful collusion by multiple people, outside of the law and in secret, to commit large scale crimes. The legal definition of conspiracy is dragged out in small scale conspiratorial crimes, a couple of mobsters shaking down shopkeepers, a few Rabbis acting out some ghoulish X-files like plot. And other fiends
Everywhere in Europe, either on the Right or the Left, it’s a given that what’s discussed in the media is likely incomplete and purposefully fraudulent, of course the left blames the right for fraud, and vice versa, but the plain fact of fraud isn’t disputed. Corruption and the use of power to skew the terms of a discourse are a given - the only thing debated are the ultimate beneficiaries and their motivations. To get around this silly allergy here, I’m stating from the start that none of this is conspiracy theory fare, where I speculate it’s on the basis of logical deductions, or inductions, from known facts.
The quote previously mentioned.
From Page 75, of ‘The First Global Revolution.’ Chapter ‘The Vacuum’
The common enemy of humanity is Man.
In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself.”
Now, many implications of this quote should be obvious to anyone who passed the 11th grade. That an implication exists does not mean, necessarily, that a writer or speaker intended the implication. But it does remain latent within the text. So we have some obvious implications.
And we have some less obvious implications, ones more subtle.
The authors explicitly state that theirs was a specific idea, within their circle of influence, an international set of stakeholders - various policy makers, business executives and investors, private persons of influence, essentially constituting what’s often called the global super-elite.
This idea of theirs was this - articulating a discourse in which the collective enemy of humanity is humanity itself. An enemy in a conflict used to harmonize and unify our human efforts and activities towards specific ends. That in order to unite humanity, or at least - one imagines - the leadership of humanity, it is necessary to present to humanity a project that is a conflict, and the enemy to oppose in that conflict is humanity itself.
The assumptions are that there is a need to unify humanity, that the only way to unify humanity is to give it an external enemy, and that the best enemy to give it is itself. This is, I think, a somewhat cannibalistic idea. There is the idea that the world, however defined, faces immense threats based on human action.
This can be debated, but I’m inclined to support it. Human activities often demonstrably impact ecosystems in a negative way, alter the balance of life, and often are wantonly destructive beyond any possible pay off.
I do not dispute this in itself. The Club of Rome believes that material over-consumption and growth produce certain phenomena, such as water or food shortages, that is famines, they also mention Global Warming. I think that it is closer to the truth that the genesis of these problems lie less with humanity itself, and more with specific segments of humanity, essentially a managerial class, to which the authors of this report actually belong.
Frankly none of you out there, readers and commentariat, nor myself, are capable of marshalling the resources to dam an entire river and build a hydroelectric project. Our individual impacts on the environment are small. In totality, as an aggregate mass, yes our collective impacts matter greatly.
However do we hold primarily responsible a crew of sailors on an ill fated voyage, or the Captain and command staff? Responsibility is firstly directed at the top of the chain of command, not firstly at the base of schmucks largely carrying out Command’s commands.
In other words “blame yourself schmucks, point your finger at me and I’ll poke your eye out with it.”
Now it is, I admit, far more complex than this. The broad mass of humanity, when human nature is allowed its course, will, and do, consume in excess of its actual true needs. Some over consumption is no vice, after all humanity has never sought just mere survival, but rather some degree
The problem is gross excess and stupidity.
There is a more elitist and egotistical way of seeing things, and a less elitist and egotistical way of seeing things.
Both have some basis in truth, and are really just a matter of seeing the same things through different lenses.
First the snarky elitist view:
Walk through a shopping mall or on a busy street, and the conclusion that we live in some semblance to idiocracy cannot be avoided. When looked at narrowly, at first glance, there are a lot of folks alive who really seem to be little other than extras on the set. And bumbling, annoying, loud, uncouth, coarse, and frankly sheep like extras at that.
Now the less elitist and more sympathetic view:
Is it not possible that such matters are not accidental? That to some degree certain things may be by design?
That a populace is deliberately kept somewhat in the dark and given open access to the most base amusements and entertainments as distractions.
Isn’t it the case that, given the amount of string pulling that goes on today, it’s a miracle anyone keeps some degree of reflectiveness?
A more sympathetic, and less elitist view could see that, by in large, most people just pursue the ideals their culture and society gives them. A society’s leaders espouse certain ideals as molds, the broad mass subscribes to such molds. Such are taught to us as truths from an early age and reinforced constantly.
[I refer you to Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt 'deliberate dumbing down of america' or any of John Taylor Gatto's writings. Muslim readers, in particular, may want to examine Hamza Yusuf Hanson's talks on education and home schooling. He and Gatto did a nice joint symposium available from Zaytuna.]
I think that, in large, most people just want to survive, stay out of trouble, and follow their natural inclinations without interfering with others.
That, really, most people just want to get by and cause no trouble to others. Humans crave comforts and so will pursue comforts given to them. Most people are not given a broader context into which the small particular facts of our lives can be placed. Lacking such a matrix it is difficult to see where and how our actions affect the totality of society or the world.
Furthermore certain ideals of behavior and aspiration are given enormous emotive weight , from childhood on up. Romanticized, glamorized, when they intersect with our emotional makeup, especially in areas like sexuality or food consumption, our reasoning takes a back seat and our emotions take a front seat.
None of this is rocket science and is easily observable, go with your best friends to a mall, then to a night club, and then to a bikini beach, and watch the changes in their, and your, expressed personality. Pay attention to your own hopes, your own cravings, your own desires, and your behavior, and then watch the behavior of your mates.
So, all of that meandering and waffling crap out of the way, let’s jump forward.
Thesis: no matter what the observed facts are, in the Climate Change debate, the whole debate and its terms are a fraud, or more to the point, a hoax.
And now, my comments - this is simple folks, distance yourself from emotions to see the matter clearly:
It matters not whether or not there has been an overall increase in measured average global temperatures - as caused by human actions - the anthropogenic Global Warming/Climate Change hypothesis.
And it matters not whether or not there has been - as some of the Climate Change skeptics, so-called “Global Warming Deniers” assert - an overall decline in average global temperatures, e.g. Global cooling.
It is the discourse itself, on Climate Change, on both the Left and Right, which is stilted in such a way as to be the perfect hoax.
Read that again with care, I said the discourse. A discourse is independent of the facts discoursed. The hoax lies in the discourse itself, there could also be a hoax in the factual situation as well, but let’s focus on one thing at a time.
It matters not whether either phenomenon exists, in the past or present, or has quickened, slowed down, or ceased. The rhetorical and propagandist use of the theme is alone what concerns us.
As my friend Abu Abdullah likes to point out, there is one tell tale sign of a perfect hoax - not only non falsifiability, but non verifiability. If data verifying or denying a thesis is kept closed, selectively released, if private discussions are made public regarding proposals to alter such data, “fudging” for any reason whatsoever, this shows that the discourse is only secondarily about science, and primarily about political or ideological agendas, and hence enters into the realm of emotions and rhetoric.
The anthropogenic Global Warming thesis could be factually correct based on the data recovered and yet the whole discourse still simply be a fraud.
This is counter-intuitive, most people are accustomed to thinking of a fraud in either or categories, true or false. Things are not this simple, which no doubt facilitates fraud greatly.
I will explore this theme in more depth shortly, for now just mull over that possibility.
The conclusions you are able to draw from the data, and the actual significance of the data in itself, may not match what the discourse is bearing. You can draw significant conclusions from meaningless or nonsense data, or data only relevant in a narrow domain.
The significance of conclusions drawn from a data acquired from a limited number of temperature readers and collection stations can be questioned. Heck, it’s actually all but meaningless. This is the scam, such conclusions are discussed outside of their proper domain without the full context of the situation being mentioned.
Here is a blindingly simple fact - the earth has a given landmass - around 510.000 million sq km - and each square km, each square meter, each square inch even, is subject to random temperature fluctuations between a few fractions of a degree or more even, due to a bewildering variety of reasons.
Temperature collecting stations are placed in certain specific areas, some rural, some urban, at varying distances from each other. Their output only has significance within a certain range - short of all sorts of monkey business involving certain types of statistical normalization, because I can assure you that the number of temperature readers, and where they are placed, comes nowhere near to covering enough area of the earth to give statistically meaningful data when applied to the earth at large. Huge temperature variations from an average norm exist everywhere. In fact the fluctuations experienced even in a small area, take 1 square KM, are significant enough to belie real trends occurring on a macro scale.
Mongolia is on the verge of utter poverty and economic collapse due to “the white death” an unusually horrible winter. Scotland, England, a good deal of the US east coast have all recently seen bizarre cold spells, though not as horrible as Mongolia.
And right now some areas are in veritable heat waves, yesterday many areas in California has temperate weather, in the 60’s, while more northern areas in the middle of Ohio has baking heat.
The models used to extract meaning from a statistically meaningless blizzard of numbers collected from a paucity of locations and hence entirely non-representative of the world at large, can only give us just so much information that’s useful.
The truth that everyone is afraid to admit is this - we have no bloody idea, we are effectively blind, honest scientists have admitted, and will admit, this when not faced with social opprobrium.
This is the hoax - we could be facing environmental catastrophe next year, and we have no way of knowing this, and we could simply be in a normal stable period of average temperature variation, and we have no way of knowing this, because as many thousands of temperature data collection stations as there are out there, they only give us a peephole, a small peephole, in what’s going on.
They are worse than misleading. Again everyone with a reasonable degree of scientific training and an IQ over 110 knows this, if pressed against the wall, they simply don’t like it and find it distasteful. Because we have an innate need for certitude, and we have none here.
That is the hoax. Consider yourself warned. You are the subject of a very bad and distasteful joke, you can either exercise some personal responsibility, learn more, and god forbid think for yourself, or you can choose not to. Your life, not mine.
_EOF
Reviews - Let’s read about Sex - some books on Sexual History and Anthropology
Posted on 7 August 2010 | 2 responses
Fascinating reads, our sexuality is an extremely intimate thread in human history, in fact sex is the foundation of most human social institutions, the family itself is a unit whose main purpose is ensuring and perpetuating specific sexual arrangements.
Of all worldly pleasures and urges, sexual desire motivates in a half hidden, half seen, way that colors and affects most of our activities, our yearnings, our quests.
Knowing about the history of sexual arrangements in society helps us better understand ourselves, how we got here, and where we came from. The benefits are too obvious to bother mentioning.
Here are three reads I’m finding valuable and interesting. You can order them from Amazon or simply check them out in your library
1. Pricy, but a very good read, Libertine Enlightenment: Sex, Liberty and License in the Eighteenth-Century. is a book chock full of information on a little considered memetic aspect of Enlightenment era europe - the sexual ideas and construction of the Rake and the Libertine. It’s an academic work, but a stimulating one.. at times.
Kindle Version
Rakes do make for interesting reading, sans descriptions of venereal disease. Being a rake is an interesting experience, but the returns are far more modest, mediocre, and damaging than some would admit. Included among the risks is a certain insipid boredom with things that once were fresh, wonderful, and amazing.. and a certain disillusion. That and non-sociable diseases.
There are better occupations for men.
2. Also pricy, but a classic and indispensible, though quite rare now and out of print: Abdelwahab Bouhdiba’s Sexuality in Islam. - it’s simply one of the best books exploring the historical and theological issue of Sexuality in Islam.
Bouhdiba’s view is highly idiosyncratic and debatable, but he gives an interesting read and displays a fidelity to both the actual textual sources of Islam and an understanding of the social practices. His greatest strengths seem to be the sexual history of the Western lands of Islamdom, North Africa, Spain, Sicily and so on.
3. Finally Sexual Encounters in the Middle East: The British, the French And the Arabs This is an interesting source book with some analysis - and deals with colonialism to some degree, and the ways in which questions of sexuality actually affected the history of the Middle East.
The book also discusses issues like clothing and gender differences, with europeans and native Arabs, also of interest are the ways in which Westerners projected certain attitudes or desires on their encounters with Middle Eastern social institutions.
Sufism in Chains - an anonymous warning on Globalists
Posted on 6 August 2010 | No responses
What cancer is there like globalism?
Please read the piece below, and consider it’s words with care. The author wishes to remain anonymous, but I can vouch for his integrity. He has had considerable opportunity to observe the developments spoken of herein.
What follows is a critical call, made at the eleventh hour. It would be wise to consider these points well. There is a covert pincer movement trying to co-opt the folk, the fuqara and travelers on the path, while also co-opting more exoteric, traditionalist and political Islamist organizations.
The situation grows more critical by the day, much of the violence and confusion we see in the world today is simply the action of the forces some have termed the counter-tradition or the counter-initiation. In fact, what is happening is far more insidious than just a simple attempt by certain globalists to pacify and make a ’safe’ version of sufism. Both sides are played against the other while a co-opting effort takes place at the same time. To what ends, the reader can use his or her intellect.
I cannot and will not speak for the author, but am posting this piece for wider distribution. The message needs to be heard.
SUFISM IN CHAINS
Dear Friends:
Asalaamu alaikum. I have sent this “report” to every Sufi group I could locate in Britain, Australia and North America. As you continue to read, you will understand why I have chosen to remain anonymous.
If tasawwuf in the west is going to retain its independence, it will have to sever ties with the national governments and globalist organizations that are presently exercising control over it, groups whose influence is deeper and more widespread than many suspect. The goal of these forces is to groom Sufism as an alternative to “fundamentalist” Wahhabi/Salafi Islam, an alternative that will hopefully be more passive to control by the West and/or the Globalists. Certain Sufis may naively think that there is nothing wrong with playing this role; after all, haven’t they been oppressed by these fundamentalist/Islamicists? And aren’t they now collecting powerful allies at last? Success! It is unfortunately the case, however, that certain Islamicist groups are also being supported by the West and the Globalists; their support and funding of Sufism is more-of-less open (except for their CIA contacts and things of that nature), their support for Islamicist groups clandestine. It is common knowledge, however, that the CIA all but founded the Taliban, that the bin Laden family had/has cordial relations with the Bush family—ex-president Bush also being past head of the CIA—and that the major “ally” of the U.S. in the Muslim world, Saudi Arabia, is also the stronghold of the Wahhabis. Those western military forces presently fighting al-Qaida and the Taliban may know—or their leaders may know—that they can’t “win”. But they also know that they can create chaos and accelerate the dissolution of traditional dar al-Islam; perhaps that is their real goal.
Why would the powers that be support both sides? Easy: the powers that be always attempt to control both sides so they can “play both sides against the middle”, the middle in this case being traditional Sufism and traditional Islam. The West and the Globalists are dedicated to busting dar al-Islam, both by military force and by cultural/spiritual infiltration. They want to destroy Islam as a religion because it is one of the main obstacles to their plans for a One World Government. And they have realized that the best way to do this is to separate batin and zahir and set them at war. The more violent the Islamicist terrorists become, the more vulnerable the Sufis become to co-optation and control by those forces who oppose the Islamicists on one level, attempt to control them on another level, and are actually behind some of them on a third. The co-optation of tasawwuf, the spiritual heart of Islam, by these forces leaves the remaining zahiri Islam just that much more vulnerable to radicalization; if hearts are veiled from true remembrance of God, all that people can see any more is al-dunya, the world of politics and its “imperatives”.
The following “items” are in no way an exhaustive report on the co-optation of Sufism, just a guide to what is clearly visible on the internet, to a mountain of evidence that demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt just how far the powers that be have gone in controlling tasawwuf and using it for their own ends.
But who exactly are these “powers that be”? The best book I or my colleagues have found to answer this question is The Committee of 300 by Dr. John Coleman, late of British Intelligence (http://www.coleman300.com/). The Committee, which has been in operation for the past 150 years, is the closest thing that yet exists to a global “shadow-government”, based in the English-speaking world but exercising its influence on a much wider scale. Dr. Coleman lists its members; some you have likely heard of, many you have not. I have no independent way of verifying Dr. Coleman’s assertions, which seem at least to be well researched—but when I ran down the list of “organizations directly controlled by the Committee of 300″ (italicized and underlined below) and searched them on the internet, over 1 in 4 of them proved to be involved in some way with Sufism! And that’s just the information that’s publicly available!
The matter is put succinctly on the website of The Council for Foreign Relations—which, though it appears to disagree with the policy of the western powers to groom Sufism as the spearhead of anti-Islamicist “moderate” Islam, treats this policy as common knowledge. Here is the summary of the article in question as it appears on the website:
State-Sponsored Sufism
Author: Ali Eteraz
June 2009
Why are U.S. think tanks pushing for state-sponsored Islam in Pakistan?
Once certain ideas go mainstream, it often takes a pretty big flop to disprove them. The United States was supposed to be hailed as the liberator of Iraq, just as it was going to be easy to turn Afghanistan into a democracy. Well now, according to commentators from the BBC to the Economist to the Boston Globe, Sufism, being defined as Islam’s moderate or mystical side, is apparently just the thing we need to deal with violent Muslim extremists. Sufis are the best allies to the West, these authors say; support them, and countries as diverse as Pakistan and Somalia could turn around.
The Sufi theory has a lot of variations, but at its core, it’s pretty simple: Violent Muslim extremism, rather than having material and political bases, is caused by certain belligerent readings of Islam usually associated with Salafism, a movement that attempts to resurrect the Islam of the prophet Mohammed’s time, and Wahhabism, a similarly conservative branch. If Muslims can be indoctrinated with another, softer, interpretation of Islam, then the militants, insurgents, and guerrilla fighters will melt away. http://www.cfr.org/publication/19959/fp.html
Some of you have not even suspected that you are vulnerable to such forces. Others are uneasy, but unsure as to how they might find out more. Still others know quite well already. And Allah most certainly knows, and has known, from all eternity. He will be the final judge, and no human being or jinn can avoid being brought before his Bench at the end of time, or simply at the end of his or her short life. If only we truly feared Allah! If we did, then the fear of al-dunya, which is always hidden under some sort of glamour or blandishment or bribe, would have no power over us.
The following findings are simply the product of two or three says in the internet. I simple googled Dr. Coleman’s list of organizations plus the word “sufi”, and noted the first one or two entries that confirmed my suspicions; in some cases the entries contained new research leads, but I didn’t follow them up in any great depth: the globalists are so confident of success in their attempt to co-opt Sufism, and have already been so successful, that they hardly bother to hide their plans. The URLs below ought to give anyone interested in such information many leads for future research. Some of these connections may be harmless, or relatively so, and in many cases the Sufis involved undoubtedly entered into them innocently enough. Others show an undisguised will on the part of the western powers and the globalists to co-opt tasawwuf; they are as follows:
The Aspen Institute sponsors a Sufi gathering: http://www.sufism.org/society/articles/Gathering%20the%20Spiritual%20Voices.htm
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation gives an award to a Muslim filmmaker for a film on the environment:
http://www.icnyu.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=179&Itemid=183
This article contains mention of a Rand Corporation study of the effectiveness of Sufism in promoting moderate Islam:
http://equal-life.blogspot.com/2010/04/sufi-teachings-in-algeria-how-islam.html
Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization by Sufi teacher Nahid Angha, published by the Brookings Institution Press:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=Brookings+Institution+Sufi&btnG=Google+Search&rlz=1R2RNTN_enUS372&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=Brookings+Institution+Sufi&gs_rfai=Ckfl1_g5bTLyAPYmgjQOpw8H5CAAAAKoEBU_QlsLv&fp=d9804d37b84b33a1
The article “Salman Ahmad: Turning a Whisper in the Heart into Sufi Rock Music” appears on the website America.gov:
http://www.america.gov/st/peopleplace-english/2010/April/20100420120112kJleinaD0.7894251.html&distid=ucs
The article “Understanding Sufism and its Potential Role in US Policy” appears on the website of the Hudson Institute:
http://www.hudson.org/files/publications/Understanding_Suffism.pdf
The pro-Sufi, anti-Taliban article “Radio-Free Swat Valley” also appears on the Hudson Institute site:
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=6128&pubType=Eurasia
This Bilderberger-watchdog website has much to say about all about Prince Charles and Rumi; (According to Dr. Coleman, Charles’ mother the Queen is on the Committee of 300; some claim she is their chairperson): https://secure.gn.apc.org/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=5296&sid=ea7eff518a5c02a10f8127cf8de94253
TIME Magazine article: “Can Sufism Defuse Terrorism?”: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912091,00.html
Qawwali: Sufi Music Of Pakistan, 1998 Nonesuch Records, manufactured and distributed by Rhino Entertainment Company, a Warner Music Group Company:
http://www.rhapsody.com/sabri-brothers/qawwali-sufi-music-of-pakistan
Fox News reports on Sufi music festival:
http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/entertainment/music/new-york-sufi-music-festival-20100719-akd
Cathedral of St. John the Divine co-sponsors Sufi teacher: http://www.sufifoundation.org/about.htm
The Cini Foundation sponsors a concert/seminar From Shamanism to Sufism: Music
and Spiritual Practices in Central Asia:
http://www.cini.it/uploads/box/5214c64037f87a86d7eab7257901d648.pdf
The Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences prepared an early draft of the book A History of Islamic Societies by Ira Marvin Lapidus, which has much to say about Sufism: http://books.google.com/books?id=I3mVUEzm8xMC&pg=PR24&lpg=PR24&dq=center+for+advanced+study+in+the+behavioral+sciences+sufi&source=bl&ots=0VzWW1zlmP&sig=8XEGsVeBbLdBL8A0q2q8rJPmzNY&hl=en&ei=01pQTMz2HsGJnQfx9pzADg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CCwQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q&f=false
An article from Psychology Today about Idries Shah which claims that he was a founding member of The Club of Rome:
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/suf-shah2.html
Kalki Gaur, who identifies himself as a Neo-Conservative, claims that the Neo-Cons support mysticism, including Sufism:
http://sites.google.com/site/kalkigaur/38
Indian Express article about the ASI Sufi Fest, partly funded by the Ford Foundation: http://sjpaderborn.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/indian-express-asi-sufi-fest-finds-way-into-city%e2%80%99s-cultural-calendar-aktc-jashn-e-khusrau-a-festival-of-poetry-and-music-as-part-of-delhi-urban-renewal-rrogramme/
Also funded by the Ford Foundation: Sufism and the ‘Modern’ in Islam By Martin van Bruinessen & Julia Day Howell:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Oj21I-zWWgIC&pg=PR8&lpg=PR8&dq=Ford+Foundation+sufi&source=bl&ots=q1iz8OV-_n&sig=Wf_-u3U9zgeZLKONoDOy81Kia-U&hl=en&ei=cpNRTKP-IcL_nAeKiLH5Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CB0Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=Ford%20Foundation%20sufi&f=false
Fordham University sponsors Sufi Circle’s Interfaith Conference on the Abrahamic Prophets:
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=Fordham+University%3A+Sufi+Circle%27s+Interfaith+Conference+&rlz=1W1RNTN_en&aq=f&aqi=m1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=C_QI2pgtbTI7uIIfAzQTfk9GqCgAAAKoEBU_QbxsS&fp=d9804d37b84b33a1
Harvard University is host to the Pluralism Project, which profiled The House of Sufism, located in Boston, on its website:
http://pluralism.org/profiles/view/72202
The BBC website, dated Wednesday, 19 July 2006, has an article entitled “Minister Backs New Muslim Group”, the Sufi Muslim Council:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5193402.stm
The World Council of Churches website has an article “Islam and Violence”, by Imam A. Rashied Omar, who quotes both Jalaluddin Rumi and former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at CIA, Graham Fuller:
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/interreligious/cd39-06.html
According to Dr. John Coleman in The Committee of 300, the royal family of Jordan is under the direct control of the Committee. The Royal Islamic Institute for Strategic Studies, under the patronage of the King of Jordan, publishes every year a book entitled The 500 Most Influential Muslims, which list includes a number of Sufis:
http://www.rissc.jo/
The website of The Strategic Studies Institute of the United States Army War College features an article by Dr. Jonathan N. C. Hill, “Sufism in Northern Nigeria: A Force for Counter-Radicalization?”:
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=989
Some of you may feel that to refuse to take sides against the Islamicists, no matter who one must ally with to do so, is to lend them support: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. However, the actual situation may be more on the order of “The enemy of my enemy is also the friend of my enemy, and therefore both my friend and my enemy at the same time”. Some groups may be in a sufficiently desperate situation that they must accept any help that offers itself, no matter what strings may be attached. But any Sufi tariqa that can maintain true independence from political influence of any kind—which is still more or less possible in the west—should, in my opinion, not throw this opportunity away while it still exists.
In conclusion, I would advise:
1) Never accept funding or patronage from a group, foundation, or interfaith organization whose background you have not thoroughly researched—and even then be wary. Be especially wary of any group that approaches you.
2) Be extremely wary of the interfaith movement; it is one of the main vectors of globalist control over the world’s religions. (For an exhaustive analysis of this from the Christian perspective see False Dawn: The United Religions Initiative, Globalism and the Quest for a One-World Religion by Lee Penn; www.falsedawn.us) Many local interfaith groups are sincere, but often they have never thought to question the motives and hidden agendas of the groups and foundations who support them. And if our central duty is to remember God, why do we need to spend a lot of our precious spiritual attention dialoguing with people from other religions? We certainly ought to familiarize ourselves with the basic tenets of the other religions, but beyond that, why dialogue? In specific instances, when difficult community relations are involved, or when a pressing need appears to diffuse potential interfaith violence, such dialogue may have a place. But if we are reasonably sure that no-one from the other religions in our community plans to bomb our mosques and dergahs and zawiyas, just as we have no plans to bomb their churches or synagogues, or even to speak disparagingly of them either in public or behind their back, then let us turn our attention to Allah and how he is dealing with us in our own lives, and forget useless dialogues that at best are a waste of time, and at worst may be preparing the groundwork for the syncretic One World Religion that the globalists ultimately wish to impose on all of us, which will without a doubt be the religion of al-dajjal.
3) Beware of the desire that “Sufism take its place on the public stage.” Beware especially of public demonstrations of any kind, especially if they are organized by groups you don’t know! Don’t militantly demonstrate for peace—BE peace. Realize the nafs al-mut‘ma’inna. And be willing—not just willing, I would say, but eager—to embrace anonymity, marginalization, irrelevance—irrelevance to anything but the eternal destiny of your soul, and the souls of your brothers and sisters. It is through this alone that you will serve Islam and humanity, more deeply than you can possibly know before the Day of Resurrection. According to the hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, “Islam began in exile and will end in exile; blessed are those who are in exile!”
Yours Truly,
Anonymous
More quotes than you can shake a crutch at - 3 August 2010
Posted on 4 August 2010 | No responses
“the average nerd’s fantasy woman behaves like a sex-starved player in her dealings with men. She is violent, vulgar, boorish, and ball-breaking. In other words, she is Lara Croft. The most obnoxious grrlpower stereotypes in the media are found in nerd-targeted media for a reason…” - ferdinand at In Mala Fide
“Just as most genetic mutations are useless, most original things are useless” - Erranter commenting on Harold Bloom and his lack or originality
“..it doesn’t do any good to blame the people or the time - one is oneself all of those people. We are the time.”
-James Baldwin, in Another Country
“..Eastern despotisms have arrived nearer the idea of equality and fraternity than any republic yet invented.” -Sir Richard Francis Burton, in 1886, commenting on the character of the Arab per his experiences in the Middle East as an explorer.
What is the sound of one hand hitting our head?
Posted on 2 August 2010 | No responses
“Kemal, rule one. The Scheming never ends”
Abu Abdullah rolls his eyes, dumps more sugar in his coffee, and stirs it.
“Take a Celeron CPU, after all it’s a lobotomized Pentium. Can you believe it, it actually takes more money to make A Celeron, but it’s the cheaper CPU chip ! How much sense does that make?”
Kemal lazily tries to flag down the Barista, but her back is turned, idly picking at the peeling paint on the table, he notices the somewhat surreal, or rather hyper real in congruent assemblages of flea market tables, half broken chairs, frayed sofas, and cobwebs that made up the 40 year old presence of the Café.
No one ever dusts here, it’s probably last been cleaned in 1985.
Godflesh - In All Languages DVD
Posted on 2 August 2010 | No responses
I just picked up a rather old release from Earache Records, a DVD compilation of early 1990s Godflesh videos.
Titled, In All Languages, the disk was composed of 5 Songs, all simply crushing.
The videos are well choreographed, and the music well mastered. Each piece was visually interesting, while the sonic effect of the music was brutal. These are not my favorite Godflesh cuts, but I enjoyed the disk all the same.
Basically they are the videos I wish I’d seen in high school - but of course MTV never ever played Godflesh, excepting one or twice in Headbanger’s ball whenever Ricky Rattman got sick of rotating he poseur hairband friends..
The strongest video on the CD was Crush my Soul, directed by Andres Serrano. Starting with a cockfight scene and proceeding to a disturbing symbolic sacrifice scene.
The least strong video was for Slave State. Christbait Rising and Avalance Master Song were visually interesting, but Crush my Soul stood out the best.
The DVD was included with a purchase of Songs of Love and Hate in Dub, a CD I’d love to review however it seems not to play in my CD player, endlessly skipping even though the CD itself physically looks flawless. I am too lazy to return it, but might simply give it away as a gift to someone.
_EOF
Links of the Day 2 August 2010
Posted on 2 August 2010 | No responses
Things I found interesting this morning
Totally unexpected, I never would have suspected this
http://hanopolis.com/?articleNo=1142&story/Unmasking-the-myth-Asian-American-Women-STDs
This is kind of odd too
http://hanopolis.com/?articleNo=23256&story/White-guys-and-the-new-Arab-fetish
Wikileaks Insurance file?
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/wikileaks-insurance-file/
But is it what it seems?
http://cryptome.org/0002/wl-diary-mirror.htm
And also from Thule..
http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-01-11/homemade-tongue-piercing-fatal.html?utm_source=2leep&utm_medium=2leep&utm_campaign=2leep
Google’s Wi-Spying and Intelligence Ties Prompt Call for Congressional Hearing
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/googles-wi-spying-and-intelligence-ties-prompt-call-for-congressional-hearing-98769559.html
Ancient Human Metropolis Found in Africa
http://viewzone2.com/adamscalendarx.html
(Still interesting, but I’m convinced the dating’s off, there is no bloody way it could be 200,000 years old and a product of homo sapiens, homo sapiens didn’t even develop the capacity for this kind of thought until 50,000 - 40,000 years ago)
A tide turns
http://www.economist.com/node/16590867
Human Trafficking In The U.S.: One Woman’s Story
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128873444&ps=cprs
Savages, pure barbarity.
Feature Story: Russia’s Sex Slave Graveyard - By Yasha Levine & Alexander Zaitchik - The eXiled
http://exiledonline.com/feature-story-russias-sex-slave-graveyard/
Also utterly barbaric
Baltic girls forced into sex slavery
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4287432.stm
Funny how the words we use reflect the realities we do not face.
Posted on 30 July 2010 | No responses
Remember when you were a kid, and you did something really naughty, your teachers used to always threaten you with:
“Now that’s going on your permanent record !”
Now here, I am dating myself a bit. I have no idea if teachers still say this, but the generation of schoolmarms, god bless their hearts, who first lay a paddle on my rear end, before my parents yanked me into a catholic school, used to run around saying that all of the time.
They were, of course, somewhat correct. Each of us more or less has a permanent dossier, or rather a distributed meta-dossier. From primary school to secondary school, high school’s records to university, university to employee, to employee, tax agencies, health agencies, insurance agencies, private and public.
A web of data flowing back and forth, like ethereal arteries. Their lifeblood being the stuff our identities are composed of, in modern society.
But did it ever dawn on any of us to ask a fundamental question..
Why in the deuce do we even have a “permanent record” to begin with?
Just something to ask yourself now and them, now let’s return to basking the joys of a managerial society.
_EOF
A project worth supporting
Posted on 27 May 2009 | 2 responses
My friend Anna Kipervaser, is an artist of great talent, who is working on a film with her partners at On Look Films.
The movie is called Voices of the Adhan: Egypt, and it aims to be a sensitive look at aspects of the culture and Islamic religion in Egypt involving the “adhan”, the daily call to prayer that is an ancient tradition.
Her work deals with issues of the underlying humanity we all share, exploring issues that she and her family faced as Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, who experienced suppression for generations. She explores lessons from her past in moving to the United States at a very early age, integrating and trying to see beyond the issues of discrimination they faced as individuals.
Her work is focused on transcending and piercing cultural barriers, finding cross-cultural connections, and exploring with sensitivity that which is common, and unique, in the human condition. This is done from the perspective of a white US citizen, with an Eastern European Jewish background, with a love for the Arab culture. A belief that “uniting cultures can only occur when people put themselves on the line past the fear that has been created by popular media” is her ethos, and the ethos of her partners and associates at On look films.
I really believe this film is worth supporting . Good art helps melt the barriers between us, and open us up to or basic common humanity. Please consider visiting their websites at:
http://www.onlookfilms.com/
http://www.onlookfilms.com/donate.html
“Not between the left and right” - the man does have a point…
Posted on 8 May 2010 | 6 responses
Whatever your opinion of a man, hos words should be weighed and considered. I found this quote to be interesting, to say the least.
Source: Larry Flint, “Common Sense 2009” writing at the Huffington Posty
“…Instead, Obama wants toincrease the oversight power of the Federal Reserve. Never mind that it already had significant oversight power before our most recent economic meltdown, yet failed to take action. Never mind that the Fed is not a government agency but a cartel of private bankers that cannot be held accountable by Washington. Whatever the Fed does with these supposed new oversight powers will be behind closed doors.
Obama’s failure to act sends one message loud and clear: He cannot stand up to the powerful Wall Street interests that supplied the bulk of his campaign money for the 2008 election. Nor, for that matter, can Congress, for much the same reason.
Consider what multibillionaire banker David Rockefeller wrote in his 2002 memoirs:
“Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure — one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
Read Rockefeller’s words again. He actually admits to working against the “best interests of the United States.”
Need more? Here’s what Rockefeller said in 1994 at a U.N. dinner: “We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis, and the nations will accept the New World Order.” They’re gaming us. Our country has been stolen from us.
Journalist Matt Taibbi, writing in Rolling Stone, notes that esteemed economist John Kenneth Galbraith laid the 1929 crash at the feet of banking giant Goldman Sachs. Taibbi goes on to say that Goldman Sachs has been behind every other economic downturn as well, including the most recent one. As if that wasn’t enough, Goldman Sachs even had a hand in pushing gas prices up to $4 a gallon.
The problem with bankers is longstanding. Here’s what one of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, had to say about them:
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their father’s conquered.”
We all know that the first American Revolution officially began in 1776, with the Declaration of Independence. Less well known is that the single strongest motivating factor for revolution was the colonists’ attempt to free themselves from the Bank of England. But how many of you know about the second revolution, referred to by historians as Shays’ Rebellion? It took place in 1786-87, and once again the banks were the cause. This time they were putting the screws to America’s farmers.
Daniel Shays was a farmer in western Massachusetts. Like many other farmers of the day, he was being driven into bankruptcy by the banks’ predatory lending practices. (Sound familiar?) Rallying other farmers to his side, Shays led his rebels in an attack on the courts and the local armory. The rebellion itself failed, but a message had been sent: The bankers (and the politicians who supported them) ultimately backed off. As Thomas Jefferson famously quipped in regard to the insurrection: “A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Perhaps it’s time to consider that option once again.
The real war is not between the left and the right. It is between the average American and the ruling class. It’s time we took back our government from those who would make us their slaves….”
FIN
Some good off season Kenneth Cole and Old Navy
Posted on 12 May 2010 | 10 responses
I like good quality off-the-rack clothing, and when I can actually afford it I certainly like bespoke, or made to measure, items as well. Sometimes I discover gems in the rough, very nice items where you wouldn’t expect. Away from the usual boutiques and in plainer locations.
I decided to mall hop yesterday. I enjoy people watching in general, the cute mall-brat girls half my age are pleasant distracting eye candy, the rural families coming in from the sticks, eyes open in wonder at the consumerist glory of it all are interesting to watch, the serial shop-lifters and their patterns, the Israeli girls hocking Dead Sea Salt (on the side, for those interested I have a warehouse full 0f Dead Sea Salt available wholesale, FOB point Amelia Ohio, 200 lbs minimal order quantity - email me for details), the Israeli part-time art student guys selling weird trinkets, the Punjabi Jewelry and diamond sellers, the bored Chinese kids manning belt kiosks, the human painting before me. I like mall hopping and seeing which way the wind blows. I only do it infrequently, though.
Yesterday, I discovered, to my surprise that last season’s stuff seems nicer than this seasons. I also discovered that I’d lost far more inches off my waist that I’d remotely expected. Which amused me. I blame it on kettlebells and Intermittent fasting. Reining in my white sugar addiction may also have played a role.
Shirts:
I stumbled on a few Kenneth Cole shirts at Dillard’s. I actually started out at Macy’s dress and club shirts were nice, there was a pretty good selection of Calvin Klein. Hugo Boss wasn’t too bad. A few of the Alfani’s were nice (though most were obnoxiously male peacock wear, stuff resurrected from the worst cutting-room floor discarded scenes of Miami vice. I did like some of the iridescent ones though. The DKNY stuff was crap. There were a few twill iridescent pattern Tasso Elba Shirts that weren’t too over the top, they fit well enough, and could actually be worn in an office (you’d get a few stares though)
I swung by Express and a few of the other smaller boutiques, nothing they had for this season impressed me. So then I made my way to Dillard’s and stumbled on a few awesome Kenneth Cole shirts. What shocked me was that the cut, and quality, was better than Calvin Klein or Hugo Boss, the men’s slim shirts have a nice athletic fit, a trim and tailored look but not gaudy. The shirts were very well constructed and fit me much better than other counterparts. Kenneth Cole’s production quality, in their men’s shirts at least, seems to have gone up over the last few years.
Weirdly enough their solid slim fit seems to fit my shape very well, in spite of my slight paunch. Their athletic cut for some reason or another is more natural than Calvin Klein’s. Calvin Klein looks good on me, but there is something too sharp to the look, and it feels artificial. The Kenneth Cole shirts were tailored in appearance and fits me very well, but feel natural, they move with my body. Better, the nicer colors and selections were on discount.
How lucky can a guy get? Because the discounted 2009 stuff is more to my taste anyway, as far as color and fabrics are concerned.
From what I see of the ‘10 Kenneth Cole dress shirts, the quality is just as good, but the colors are softer this season. I gravitate towards dark clothing, black, or midnight blue with black stripes or patterns (herringbone, piques, etc.) so the happy happy pastel stuff doesn’t quite appeal to me.
Same cut and same quality though. There are also a few metallic satin like patterns that are appropriate for office wear but also look great outside of the office.
Pants:
I later stopped at Old Navy - and picked up a few loose Men’s striped dress pants and herringbone khakis. For some weird reason Old Navy pants always fit me extremely well. I have some Calvin Klein’s and they are uncomfortable. I also have some more formal suit pants that fit me well, but the super 120 wool stuff needs too much caring.
I need cotton pants that can take a bit of a bruising and yet still look nice. Old Navy - low end as they are - didn’t let me down last year, when I picked up some 2008 grey Herringbone pants.
They fit me like a dream, but are now a bit loose in the waist (though they’ve held up well) - I liked them so much I decided to return - and return I did. Beyond the rash of unsolicited complements I got on the ones previously picked up, they simply felt naturally comfortable.
Old Navy’s “loose” patterned dress pants and Khakis really are not “loose” - they just simply are not scandalously and effeminately skin tight. They are also not Khakis or Chinos, the fabrics are cotton, and they are constructed like flat-front Khakis but they have a bit more of a dress flair. Back to the fit, they have a natural and somewhat athletic feel to their fit.
Last year I picked up some of the 2008 discontinued size 33 and 32’s - they fit me well, but this spring these are simply too loose and bunch up with my new belt. So I decided to try out a size 31 and 30. Both fit me naturally, like a dream, they are comfortable, and look quite flattering. Also they are not over-tight - though my observing friend did inform me that the size 30 pants - while a perfect fit everywhere else - seriously bulges in a scandalous way at the crotch. Which simply will not do.
I took my friend’s advice and just bought the 31s. If I do lose any more weight off the waist I’ll probably just have the 31’s taken in instead of buying 30’s. The last thing I need at work is flaunting an obscene man-bulge. That would be bad, and gaudy. Downright tacky.
So I like these pants. They are dressy but not in an over the top, overly formal way. They have a somewhat casual and relaxed edge at the same time. Not that I remotely care, but the unsolicited complements today do seem to indicate that my appraisal of their fittingness was correct.
These pants wear nice with blazers and suit separate jackets, and nice without them. If they had an affiliate program I would probably hock them on my blog like a cheap pitchman, but they don’t. Yet I still say “gentlemen, buy them. They will look good on you and are a huge upgrade to the typically boring khaki chinos your office expects.”
And predictably enough Old Navy discontinued them. The same as with their unwashed hard shiny indigo dye jeans, they discontinue the best items and keep the ones appealing to 19 year old frat boys.
Bloody tossers, the lot of ‘em.
In any case this means these items are shoved in the discount racks for the rest of the season, a perverse joy - their best ‘09 items are marked down next to nothing while their worst ‘10 items are still premium price. Strange.
_EOF
Poetry notes: tricky using Arud Bahr meter in English Ghazals and Ruba’i - Part 1
Posted on 16 May 2010 | No responses
I want to talk about the Ghazal, and Rubayyat. But first, you may reflect on this.
It’s all about the rhythm. This is true in love, and it is true in verse.
The cadence, the motion, the rocking of sounds.
The Sex, whether gentle lovemaking, or passionate sweaty dual, all is rhythm. The motion in the ocean, the rhythm.
Sleep, whether hurried and disturbed, or smooth and deep, is rhythm. Breathing, hard and shallow after a workout or run, or soft and deep in moments of relaxation and contemplation, is rhythm.
In all traditional religions, before they lost formal rites, the rites themselves are rhythmic. In Islam what stands out par excellence is the daily Salat rite, but also the invocatory dhikr (zikr), in Hinduism the ejaculatory Japa Yoga is similar, in which traditional mantras were recited in a strongly rhythmic manner. The Greek Orthodox rites, some of them anyway, have similarly rhythmic natures to them.
Meter, or metre, is simply the art and science (both) of rhythmic language arranged in an order. Now we often misunderstand this, it doesn’t have to be a perfectly regular anal-retentive order, in fact the best metre has variation in it, sometimes intense variation, but still an underlying framework and order.
Many poets see themselves as free spirits who are suffocated underneath rules. But the greatest artists were people who first mastered the rules and then transcended them, who mastered the forms so well that the underlying reason for the forms because crystal clear. Then what they created was brilliant.
Modern poetry was caught up in a battle between formal verse, and “free verse” which really was mostly actually a form of prose poetry. Some modernist masters, like T.S. Elliot, were actually formalists who transcended the forms - Elliot’s poetry if full of formal verse techniques but cut out, moved around, re-used in new ways. Pound was like this, and even to some degree (though it’s harder to recognize) William Carlos William.
At the same time the traditional tools of verse never went away, it just went underground - since high art abandoned them, the humble lyric took residence with the people.
The ballad became the pop song, country Western lyrics have more in common with the traditional ballad than most people realize, only far more simple.
Take even Rap - much derided by many traditionalists - it has more in common with traditional English prosody than much of today’s high modern poetry. For rap is often a tetrameter or pentameter, with four or five strong stresses, on a line that is actually a disguised distich - often unknown to some MC’s themselves, the Rap Bar is a distich in which each two or three stresses is separated by a caesura.
Just like Beowulf, but much less complex.
The understanding and knowledge of meter is critical to modern song writers, even if what they churn out sounds puerile and silly to purists, the reason they have such force with popular audiences is because of meter and rhyme. Manipulate meter is critical to song writers and rappers. This is because it is the meter that enables the flow.
Let’s play a little game, all of these lyrics - recite them, out loud or to yourself. Do it normally, in your normal speaking voice, but not a monotone. Vary it like you would naturally vary the words.
Then - if you’ve heard the songs before imagine the singer’s or mc’s voice singing or rapping them to you.
Then yourself recite them as if you were reciting poetry. I don’t care about the content of the lyrics, insipid or inspired, we are looking at rhythm and stress .. and to a lesser degree rhyme.
When we finish, as you and I will both see that meter of some sort - either iambic accentual syllabic, or Strong stress based prosody, is still alive and well in pop music - even if it’s been abandoned by much of Western high poetry.
Why? Because it bloody well sells, why ? It’s what makes pop music so popular because it moves people emotionally and physically, when combined with lyrical meaning the flow that meter creates is extremely suggestitive, but we will explore this in a bit right before we get to the Ghazal and Rubayyat.
Do me a favor.
Imagine, in your head, the sultry voice of Shirley Mansion singing - “Dog New Tricks”
“I wish I had not woke up today
Everyone mistakes the things you say”
Here is our little scansion of the verses / means a strong stress - means a weak or no stress.
/-/-/-/-/
/-/-/-/-/
It’s not perfect, English actually has about 4 levels of accentual stress in most dialects, of which prosody only considers strong or weak. The rest of the song has the same pattern more or less. Garbage’s lyrics are pretty regular, in most songs. tetrameter, no caesura, trochaic or iambic straight ahead.
The rest of these verses scan similarly in the song
“Take the simple truth and
Twist it all around
Make it sound important
Make it seem profound”
/-/-/-
/-/-/
/-/-/-
/-/-/
Now, let’s look at Rap - take Nas “New York State of Mind“
“Bulletholes left in my peepholes
I’m suited up in street clothes
Hand me a nine and I’ll defeat foes
Y’all know my steelo with or without the airplay”
/-//–/-
-/-/-/-
/–/-/-/-
//-/—-/-/-
Irregular? Yes. Highly. Most rap is - why, because it’s not an iambic or trochaic prosody. In fact, there is some accentual strong stress here, Nas has a hidden caesura in most of these lines. And there are either 4 or 5 stresses.
When there are three stresses there is sometimes another lurking fourth stress that could be elevated through accent. It’s an intuitive prosody basic to English, pre-iambic - nursery rhymes have it. Beowulf has it, but in a far more sophisticated way. English folk poetry has it. Good rappers with good flow have it, bad rappers predominate because everyone and their cousin all want to be MC’s (is there anything more absurd than the pretentious spelling of MC as Emcee?)
Now, take nine inch nails - “Closer”
“You let me violate you
You let me desecrate you
You let me penetrate you
You let me complicate youHelp me; I broke apart my insides
Help me; i’ve got no soul to sell
Help me; the only thing that works for me
Help me get away from myselfI wanna fuck you like an animal
I wanna feel you from the inside
Sexy, isn’t it. Anyway - notice the stresses, and the unstressed syllables.
It’s iambic with variants initial spondees every single line except the refrain
“You let me..” / / -
“Help me I..” / / -
now look at
“penetrate you” /-/-
“complicate you” /-/-
“I wanna feel you from the inside” -/-/-/-/-
Now, are you hot and bothered yet?
Back to rap. But something more sophisticated than American Hip Hop, Tricky dropping some lines with Massive Attack in Eurochild.
“Hell is round the corner where i shelter
Isms and schisms we’re living on a skelter
If you believe i’ll deceive then common sense says shall you receive”
/-/-/-/-/-
/–/–/—/-
-/-//-/-/-/-//–/
More regular,
“Let me take you down the corridors of my life
And when you walk, do you walk to your preference
No need to answer till i take further evidence
I seem to need a reference to get residence
A reference to your preference to say i’m a good neighbour
I trudge so judge me for my labour
I walk in a bar and immediately I sense danger
You look at me, girl, as if i was some kind of a
A total stranger”
–/-/-/-/–/
-/-/ , –/–/-
-/-/- , /-//-/-/
-/-/-/- , –/-/
-/-/ –/-/ -/ /–/- (reference and preference can be pronounced in two syllables, colloquially it often is - in some bizarre sort of elision that only we English speakers can muck up)
-/-/- , /-/-
-/–/ , /-/-//-/-
-/-/- , -/–//–
-/-/-
Now, here is real fun. Recite - say it out loud - Ministry - “So What“. The meter should become as clear as a jackhammer.
In some ways, Al Jorgensen’s actually a brilliant lyricist - not something to impress a classicist traditionalist, but there is brilliance behind his bombast - and it can be seen in how his lyrics physically moves listeners violently, viscerally. Like many other Aggro or post-industrial music artists there is a good deal of loose experimentation with basic lyrical forms, deconstructed. Quite post-modern.
But there is some serious art underneath it when you look.
I’ll refrain from getting all “woo woo” on you, like that guy who wrote the book comparing Punk Rock to dada (a gift from Santiago in Second story books back in 1990 - that book changed my life man, if you are out there.)
“So what, it’s your own problem to learn to live with
Destroy us, or make us slaves
We don’t care, it’s not our fault that we were born too late
A screaming headache on the promised age
Killing time is appropriate
To make a mess and fuck all the rest, we say, we say
So what? So what?”
// /-//–/-/-
-/–/-/
/-/-/-/ , -/-/-/
-/-/—/-/
/-/–/-/
-/-/-/–/-/-/
-/-/
Now, Massive Attack again and then Ice Cube with NWA
3d in Massive Attack - “Inertia Creeps”
“Recollect me darling raise me to your lips
Two undernourished egos four rotating hips
Hold on to me tightly I’m a sliding scale
Can’t endure then you can’t inhale
Clearly
Out of body experience interferes
And dreams of flying I fit nearly
Surrounds me though I get lonely
SlowlyMoving up slowly
Inertia keeps”
Notice the hidden caesura - just about everywhere. Again, like most massive attack stuff very regular, it SEEMS iambic but it’s actually a looser strong stress three or two stresses, pause three or two or sometimes four
Unstressed syllables can fit anywhere.
/-/-/- , //–/
-/-/-/- , -/–/
-/-//- , /-/-/
/-/ , /-/-/
/-
/-/- , -/-//-/
-/-/- , /-/-
-/- , /–/-
/-
Now to something less sophisticated, Ice Cube in NWA’s “I Ain’t the One”
“I ain’t the one, the one to get played like a pooh butt
See I’m from the street, so I know what’s up
On these silly games that’s played by the women
I’m only happy when I’m goin up in em
But you know, I’m a menace to society
But girls in biker shorts are so fly to me
So I step to em, with aggression
Listen to the kid, and learn a lesson today
See they think we narrow minded
//-/, -/–/–/-
/-/-/,–/-/
–/-/, -/–/-
-/-/-/-/-/–
/-/, –/—/–
-/-/-/–/-/
/-/-/, /-/-
/—/, blah blah
Again, because the song’s, like, kinda funny.
“Run out of money, and watch your heart break
They’ll drop you like a bad habit
Cause a brother with money yo, they gotta have it
Messin with me though, they gets none
You can’t juice Ice Cube girl, cause I ain’t the one”
-/-/- , -/-//
-/- , /-//-
–/–/-/ , -/-/-
/-/– , -//
-////- , -//-/
Irregular, usually 4 or 5 stresses to line, but more freely added elsewhere. But the medial pause, a caesura. usually weighted after two or three stresses. Characteristic of most Rap. Especially early Hip-Hop, or English trip-hop. Modern Gangsta Rap structurally is often pretty idiotic.
A lot of Old School rap was surprisingly regular and well structured - the important thing in rap is the overall flow, and how the stresses accomplish it. So the scansion, where it looks like stresses are irregular, they are actually placed where it is felt they facilitate the flow of the lyrics.
Now - a bit more sensitive - let’s briefly bounce to MC Kayne
“how do i feel about you, well here’s what i’ve got to say.
hopes are sky high but my expectations are concave.
truth be told i just hope i can just once watch you sleep.
/–/-/-, -//-/-/
/-//, –/-/-/-/
Irregular, but the caesura’s in the middle he’s got 3 stresses before each caesura, and 4 after
So, let’s move on to something more serious, shall we? All that I want you to do is to keep in mind the rhythm, tap your fingers or toe, count the pulses. The pulses are your friend. The ebb and flow, the rise and fall, the inward and the outward, the exhalation and inhalation, the penetration and the withdraw, the attack and the retreat.
Rhythm.
Poetry notes: tricky using Arud Bahr meter in English Ghazals and Ruba’i - Part 2
Posted on 16 May 2010 | 5 responses
In the last century many modern poets rejected traditional tools of meter and line form, tools poets have used for thousands of years, because they found them limiting and enslaving. Modernism was about rejecting enslaving old authority and tradition, and creating new seemingly liberating art. But modernism itself because a canon and an enslaving authority of its own.
But there is something to the modern complaint, what I want is to re-claim traditional tools and devices because of their sheer power and beauty. That and their rigor. It takes intelligence and effort to use these tools well. Modernist free verse is often beautifully inspired, and brilliant.
But what did they throw away, to gain freedom? A freedom that now enslaves many poets and requires them to re-learn basic things to take their art to another level.
The chains of formal meter are less chains than a lover’s silk scarves, tied about the wrists and bedpost. It is not slavery, or if it is it is a pleasant one. In reaction to the past I think we often lose sight of this.
And this becomes a tragedy. There is a pleasure to well crafted formal verse with prosodic meter that can be felt in the body and mind. It’s not just intellectual.
Shopping in Kroger’s with Abu Abdullah Maghribi, he hit on part of the key : “Kamal, it’s about the heartbeat. Seriously, meter imitates the heartbeat”
Recite strongly metered poetry and there is an entraining of rhythm, of motion. English metered poetry does this crudely, the metered poetry in other languages like Greek, or Arabic, or Persian, or even Latin, does this in a more subtle way.
I’m also personally convinced that other body rhythms are involved, like brainwaves. The same rhythm that lulls a babe to sleep in a rocking basinet, is what sooths our excites, stimulates or quells, our hearts when we read or hear certain words.
My problem is that high modernist poets, and the post modernists that came after them, often essentially created poetry that was esoteric, obscure, and lacking in rhythm. They threw the baby and the bathwater out from a 15thfloor penthouse.
The problem is that by the Victorian era English poetry and prosody had become moribund under conventionalism. There are some modern formalists today who seek to react against this but much of their work has been trite.
There are, however, a few examples of modern neo-formalist poets who accomplish great things. One is A.E. Stallings who I truly think is one of the most talented formal English poets today. She manages to use meter and rhyme while maintaining the light conversational tone, even when dealing with mythic topics, that modern Western poetry often prizes. There are others.
William Carlos Williams, a high modernist, tried to find a uniquely American prosody. I don’t think he fully succeeded though his poetry is brilliant and often moving. He certainly did help re-mold American poetry in different directions.
Exotic foreign forms - Ghazals and Rubayyat:
Recently English language poets have been increasingly enchanted by the Ghazal, a poetry form innovated in Arabia but quickly transplanted to, and mastered by, Persian, Turkic, and Hindustani poets. The Ruba’i also has been with us for a couple of centuries.
Before exploring them, there is often some resistance to looking at foreign forms. As if our own native language forms are “not good enough” well the reality is that a massive amount of the English poetic tradition was inspired by, and borrowed from, outsiders.
True past traditionalists had nothing against this, in the past Westerners were able to look at art forms of other cultures and see their beauty as inspiring, some things fit Western tastes, other things didn’t - but what characterized the Occident during its rise a few short centuries ago was an openness to the outside world.
English poetry has always been invigorated by foreign poetic and literary forms, something excessively conservative pseudo-traditionalists often gloss over.
Indeed what allowed the British and French to rise as Imperial Civilizations - while much of Europe remained closed to other cultures as a backward barbaric and stagnant area - was a new found cultural openness to the outside, and curiosity.
When the Occident threw off some of the Church’s old strictures that kept it an inward looking and culturally barren feudal mass, and embraced some degree of “cultural miscegenation” the Occident ended up with neat things like soap, baths, popular garden parks, tea, coffee, rhyming poetry, multi-course meals, anti-skeptics, and other nifty things. What preceded Western advance was a change in attitudes towards the outside world, and openness to other civilizations that preceded the latter attitudes of hardened arrogance and self-sufficiency that characterized later stages of Occidental civilization and Empire building
And as they say, the Pride before the fall.
So it is a strength to be able to look at other artistic and poetic forms and benefit from them, taking what works in one’s culture and making it one’s own. Exploring new forms and other culture’s forms strengths native forms, this is a type of cultural hybrid vigor - done with the best of others, not the worst. This discernment and discrimination are needed.
What can be more British than the Sonnet? Yet the Sonnet as we know it is a corruption of an Italian form, and the high Italian Sonnet itself derives from a specifically Sicilian form that evolved in the Arabized milieu of Fredricki Sicily from the Spanish Arabic Zajal and Muwashshah.
These two Muslim forms, enthusiastically embraced by Spanish Jews and Christians also molded Troubadour verse in Occitan and Province and led to the development of numerous other lyric and ballad like forms.
Western Arab poets who developed the Muwashshah and Zajal were in turn influenced by Spanish Christian folk poets, and took certain basic forms as a rebellion against the Ode (Qasida) of High Classical Arabic, which really wasn’t well suited to a poetic conversation with common people, and also made lyrical love poetry difficult (though the Ghazal came to dominate this for Eastern Muslims).
Many traditional English forms were borrowed or improvised based on foreign inspiration - even in prosody where the accentual syllabic Iambic Pentameter metre was inspired by French counted syllables - combined with the traditional Teutonic prosody of four Strong Stress on a line - with a backward inspiration from Classical Greek quantitative meter. But, in turn, French syllabic poetry is an artifact from the Troubadours who used it to approximate Arabic metre as learned from (and the point of my wandering and tiptoeing around) Spanish Muslim and Jewish poets.
Quantitative prosody does not work very well at all in French, but simply counting out Syllables and intuitively finding a rhythm in it does. It works a little better in English and considerably better in Spanish and Italian, but still not well enough to be used on a systematic way.
So the compromise, was to take the Greek and Roman foot forms, the Iamb, Dactyl, Trochee, and so on, and use them but apply them to accent, based on the stress we give words. Read this paragraph out loud in a natural way and you will notice - clearly - levels of stress and accent, some words naturally fall from your lips and strong bright little pearls, clear and standing out - other words or syllables are muted, or eaten up partially. This is because English and German is naturally iambic -
We have an intuitive understanding of when an utterance has too many or too few syllables.
The prosody of most modern European languages, especially Germanic ones, is quite different than the prosody of older Indo-European and Semitic languages. Accent plays a strong role in these languages and regular long syllables are not often to be found, often where there is accentual stress you will find a long syllable, but so too at times you won’t.
Arabic, Latin, Greek, and Persian poetry all use a quantitative meter based on Long and Short Syllable weights. The syllable weight is independent of the actual accent placed on the syllables.
French and English are somewhat incapable of this type of prosody, though the few experiments made with it have produced interesting and subtle effects. English long and short syllables are too unpredictably placed, and the mono-syllabic nature of the basic Saxon structure of Language, with the bi-or tri-syllabic nature of much of its romance borrowings makes the longer foot lengths of some quantitative prosodies difficult.
So we come back to the Ghazal and Rubaiyyat
The Ghazal is like the Orient’s version of the Sonnet, it is the form of love poetry bar none, but it can also be used for metaphysical poetry, and even nationalist and patriotic poetry in some cultures has found a home in the courtly Ghazal.
Agha Shahid Ali, a Kashmiri-American poet, has guided many English language poets in exploring the Ghazal though it’s to be noted that American poets have occasionally explored the Ghazal going back a hundred years, and Goethe himself wrote several German ones.
The Ruba’i, a specific Quatrain, also has been with English poetry lovers since the late 18th century. FitzGerald’s mis-translations of the Rubayyat of Omar Khayyam (a mistranslation that often projected Fitzgerald’s anxieties and interests as a secular and atheist early Modern Britisher on Khayyam) did, at least, open the form of the Ruba’i to English writers.
Ruba’iat are similar to Ghazal verses in that there is a discontinuous nature to them, this irritates some westerners though post-modern Westerners, Germans, Americans, and English mostly, are better able to appreciate the Ghazal’s unique gift that the Victorians and Edwardians of the Previous century.
Ruba’iat are able to express philosophical and metaphysical concepts, as well as erotic and amorous feelings, and even simple folk wisdom, in a highly concentrated form, Ghazal verses (called Sher in Hindustani, Misras in Persian, and Bayts in Arabic) are also capable of this but the Ruba’i allows more complex treatment of one topic.
The basic tools of the Ghazal can be pulled off in English verse, the Matla, the Takhallus, Qafiyya (rhyme) and the Radif (Refrain) but what eludes many English poets, the few brave, or crazy, enough to try it, is the meter.
Ghazals and Ruba’ia must be done in one meter through the whole poem. Fair enough, but every past culture that borrowed the Ghazal and it’s cousins also borrowed the whole system of prosody. Of course, they made it theirs just like English and American poets bade the Greek and Roman Iambs and Trochees work for them, but the metre system that governs the Ghazal is considerably more complex than the prosody most modern English speaking poets are used to.
For inspiration I flipped through a couple of 19th century manuals of versification and prosody, and was shocked at how little modern poetry sources teach things that were basic features of Victorian age versification. Some of the more complex 3 and 4 syllable feet - borrowed from the Greeks to apply to English verse, do fit the more complex quantitative metres. Reading through a Missionary Society translation of a book on Persian prosody by Jami set some thoughts rolling in my head.
The most common metres used in Urdu/Hindustani and Persian Ghazals and Ruba’ai are often variants of the Hazaji meter. The meter used in Mathnavis is mostly a Hendecasyllabic meter with 4 variable syllables that can be long or short, and a few set ones that are always long. The Greek Sapphic meter is an example. It’s been successfully done in English verse countless times.
The key to adopting the rhythmic possibilities of the type of longer Quantitative feet used in Persian, Urdu, and even (though more difficult) Arabic poetry - not to say Greek and Latin -s the Amphibrach.
Yep, the little known but highly useful Amphibrach. It’s like an iamb with a tail. In fact some verse explicitly written as Amphibrachic is often mistaken for a pentameter with iambs and trochees. It takes some practice spotting amphibrachs. I used to use them all the time without realizing it, you have to think of the foot length - not syllable length - of the line, and then count groupings. For example an amphibrach is -/- so if you have
-/–/-/- this might get mistaken for an iamb, anapest (oh my dead Annabel lee!) and an iamb with some syllable sticking out. it’s not, it’s
amphibrach, amphibrach, trochee. 3 feet
The spondee is useful. // so mix spondee’s with amphibrachs.
//-/–/-//
Use them.
Pyrrhic’s are also useful –
Now, in order to approximate the meters of Persian, Hindustani, or Arabic (much less than Greek) you will also need to use these two feet, at times.
A choriamb /–/ e.g. “What a mistake” is a choriamb, it’s essentially a trochee /- followed by an iamp -/ but considered as one four syllable foot.
An amphimacer or cretic /-/ e.g. See you Later, /-/-
Alligator /-/-
Here you have an amphimacer followed by an unstressed syllable, but there are additional things to keep in mind, just reflect on them and soak them up. Combining an iamb with a spondee or pyrrhic may be necessary, or even getting OUT of the framework of conventional Western prosody metrics, and doing something like -//-
e.g.
“and Shall I remind you” -//- /-
It takes motivation, but the benefit is musicality and subtle regularity - exotic foreign meters add something to English verse that traditional staid iambic of trochaic pentameter lacks. Regularity and movement, but with variation, felt excitement. Also fidelity to a form. But how to pull this off?
The REAL key is word order, poetic diction isn’t supposed to sound like a reasonable orderly conversation if the poetry is rapture’d passionate and inspired. The even orderly iambic pentameter of classical English verse reflects an excessive preoccupation with perfect orderliness. But the best poetry often has an inspired diction, inverted word order, substitutions.
Just wrapping our head on diction, different ways to say what we want to say, opens up to our hearts and minds new possibilities. Think it over.
Now, where this comes handy. There are specific meters in Urdu, Hindi, and Persian that are commonly used for Ghazals and Ruba’i.
The reason these meters are used is the emotional effect of the rhythm on the reader or listener. The actual meter compliments specific concepts and ideas or imagery. Also, boring conservative tradition dictated using the same formal meters for centuries. But it originated in the emotional effects.
The challenge of making meaning fit in a strict meter scheme is what adds to the brilliance of the poetry, it is a difficult intellectual task and requires a sharp mind and contemplation.
Since these meters originated largely in Arabic a Semitic language but were most highly developed by Persian and Urdu (though in Africa, Hausa and Fulani both re-worked and developed many of these meters), highly dissimilar Indo-European languages, the intellectual effort of making them fit into their languages suggested new ways of expression, of saying things to convey meaning.
The very act of trying to meter something or searching for rhymes often activates a hidden process in our heads in which complementary meanings just seem to “come to us” taking our verses in strange directions, suggestion new lines of conversation and thought.
Post modern poets, many of whom write in really artificial free-verse forms themselves, are often somehow put off on the “artificiality” of meter and rhyme, this is a nonsense objection - it’s poetry, poetry is by its nature artificial, different from normal speech, the form in poetry molds the meaning intensely. The main reason objections like this are sincerely put forth by talented poets who sincerely mean them is that somewhere, a long time ago, a contrarian decided to simply just be contrarian, and it became a fad, and people followed it.
I’ll probably poke around a bit more on specific Persian, Urdu, and Arabic meters that can be highly useful in English language poetry sometime.
Tips from a Consultant on the edge
Posted on 21 May 2010 | 9 responses
Things I’ve learned over the last 15 years of consulting in fields as diverse as Business IT, Network analysis, Importing, and Product liquidation, from Universities, to Small Businesses, to mega corporations, to sketchy scrap metal and demo companies owned by Roma who walk around talking about vague ties to Russian Mafya (Roma = Gypsies - oh did I tell you how much I like Gypsies? They have the strangest and most funny stories, often about purchasing brides and strange strip club antics)
0. As a consultant you are expendable.
1. Corporate Procurement is your friend. Never tick off the folks in procurement, especially purchasers. If asked by a client or superior “how long before our order fulfillment, yada yada” simply respond (and bcc a friend in Procurement for kudos)
“Procurement replies to all inquires in the order in which they are received, since they handle requests on an Enterprise wide basis - including two continents 0- I cannot force them to reply quicker than they are humanly capable. I did emphasize the urgency of our request, they said there are only 250 requests in the queue before ours and are expediting matters.”
2. Office ladies ply you with doughnuts and candy. This is a sign of affection, some are very affectionate and attractive and are willing to ply you with even sweeter things, irrespective of their single status it is a bad idea to take such affection beyond the water cooler, just bask in their femininity, enjoy their pleasant chats and flirtation, and leave it at that. Never double dip thy pen in the company ink, no matter how pretty the ink is.
3.Corporate IT - also your friend, see remark one.
4. Purchase orders are binding contracts. Therefore respect them. Dig it? Legally so are offers, quotes are not feel free to use quotes as wallpaper or paper airplanes. Always read the fine print on Purchase Orders.
5. Any overseas supplier asking you for an “ICPO” - a dumb monkey. ICPO means irrevocable purchase order, legally Purchase Orders are binding on acceptance anyway. No one uses the term ICPO except a few confused Russian export salesmen, and hordes of confused brokers. If they ask you for an NCND and LOI then they aren’t suppliers, they are confused pseudo-Brokers and will waste your time.
6. FOB in the USA - it means something quite different than FOB everywhere else in the planet. We Americans are creative with our interpretation of “FOB” and “FOB Points” - however we are laughed at for the creative ways in which we interpret FOB. If you are ordering from a foreign supplier they use Incoterms, learn them, learn them better than your supplier that way you can make them feel like confused Muppets when you dictate logistical terms
7. Terms, sneak them in there. Because once your vendor accepts your Contract or PO they are bound by your silly terms. NO EXPLANATION NEEDED - but for giggles, consider this e.g.
“Disc: 3%
Terms Disc: 3% 15 days/net 30
Disc days due: 15
Requested for delivery: totally like tomorrow”
Disc means discount, they should be clever enough to catch this, espescially when your payment arrives 15 days later with exactly 3% chopped off the top.
If they are silly enough to accept your terms without thinking them over then you get your nifty discount if you pay in 15 days, assuming you already have terms? No you say? Yes, I say. Remember PO’s are binding - if they don’t check with corporate credit to see if you guys still have terms in good standing then, well, whatever.
8. Doughnuts will make you fat. So will cookies, and so will candy, and yes offices are chock full of them.
Intermittent fasting, coffee, long walks at lunchtime, and fish oil capsules, are partial penance. Most of your physique is diet related, exercise plays a role in body composition, but if your physique is not quite what you want it to be, cut back on the sugar.
9. Financial controllers and accounting managers are your friends, don’t tick them off.
10. Corporate badges frequently get you discounts. At health clubs and sundry other places, if the corporation has the net-worth of the GDB of your average Eastern European country. Discounts are always good.
11. Nothing beats drinking black coffee, staring at the wall, and feeling mean. But you’ve gotta do real work. It’s a zen like state - drink the coffee, and assault your work, pounding out aggression, channel your obsession, feed it with coffee.
_EOF
Poetry notes: Once more into the breach - on using Arud Bahr meter in English Ghazals and Ruba’i - Part 3
Posted on 30 May 2010 | No responses
[ed. tightened up a few things 6/10..]
So, welcome back. I wander and meander, so let’s wander back, and eventually touch on the actual aim of these postings - exploring how to adopt the meters used in Ghazals, Ruba’iat, Qasidas, and all sorts of other wonderful “Oriental” forms of Persian, Hindi, Urdu, Turkish, and Arabic verse.
To explore these things, and see whether or not, and if so how, they can re-inspire us in our English poetry, just as Eastern forms actually once did, long ago. Since I’m fond of meandering we will meander to this, soon.
But first more wandering in the deserts of the real.
It’s funny - like, don’t you just hate it when you start to write something, and you find yourself on a roll, and then *pow* it gets deleted by mistake, leaving you forced to start again from scratch?
So, I started this piece again from scratch, and was forced to re-examine the whole thing.
Perhaps there is something providential in this, for us to reflect on. Like everything that comes to us, it may be a matter of perspective. Seeing the mercy inherent in the things that prick us takes maturity.
Lest anyone get the wrong idea, I’m not one of those pedantic formalists, decrying the e’er so ugly destruction of the e’er so noble classical Occidental, and in particular English, poetic tradition by bands of feckless, reckless, bohemian, “SWPL“, self-hating post-modernist barbarians.
After all, I do not worship shibboleths, or at least certainly not for their own sake.
I’m a traditionalist in some ways, nor is this out of simple sentiment, or mere reactionary stance. What I admire in tradition are real and essential things transmitted from a higher source and nature.
But I do not just worship things that seem to be hallowed by the past. I neither worship, nor seek to destroy, sacred cows as an end in itself, and if I keep a sacred cow in my pasture, or if I slaughter the poor thing and make sausage out of it, in both cases this is but a means to an end I’ve chosen.
I do not worship forms, so let’s not, us together, worship form and let’s not worship meter. Rather, let us find in both form and meter things highly useful, things highly beautiful, and things highly interesting.
Since words have meaning, and one definition of verse from time immemorial has included meter, or at least some form of prosody (there is a subtle difference) throwing the baby with the bathwater out the alley window means throwing verse itself out, and simply renaming something that isn’t quite verse, as verse. Some people think this attitude is “limiting”
I wonder what’s wrong with limiting things, at times? Life, on this changing shifting world, is finite and short. What lies behind her veil may be eternity, but what terms we spend here may either be hoarded like a miser, wasted and spent in frivolous pursuit of the non essential, or perhaps better than both, wisely spent and enjoyed on what matters. So finding what matters, and what is essential, at a given time requires limiting things. Filtering things out.
Among the Arabs and Persians the very concept of poetry itself was explicitly defined as speech with meter and rhyme (’arud wa qafiyah) - others like the ancient Greeks may not have used rhyme, but they certainly cultivated meter. In fact almost all ancient peoples used a prosody of some sort that involved some sort of metrics (there are exceptions, I admit)
So I think that we should re-examine it, and it’s relation to verse, and poetry.
The word poetry, much like the word art, has all sorts of add on connotations to us, nowadays. Anything pretty, or sublime, is often called a sort of “poetry”, you have poetry in motion, programmers call elegant code poetry, I could say of a particularly elegant girl “she’s pure poetry”
Interesting, that we don’t creatively re-construe and reify the word “verse” as much. Perhaps this is because “poetry” sounds prettier than “verse” and it certainly almost alliterates with pretty.
To me Meter is important, because of its immense power and beauty, and to throw it out without understanding it is to make a mistake. But so too, to worship it without understanding is a mistake.
T.S. Eliot once wrote that a poet’s duty was to “purify the language of the tribe” at best this is what we seek.
Contrary to delusions perpetuated by some pseudo-occidental-philes [pseudo because do they really love the Occident? Or is it their love of an imagined construction of the occident, in their imaginings, their phantasm] Westerners have always been very open to artistic and cultural forms from other cultures, and much of Western high art is built using others forms as building blocks.
This was one of the strengths of Western societies after the High Middle Ages, the curiosity of a young culture coming out of barbarism growing into real civilization, and the willingness to examine the new, the exotic, and the foreign. The West only became a civilization by openness to the Orient, moving beyond the closed, the particular, the provincial.
When I say the West I exclude Greece and Rome, Western civilization may have been heir to the Hellenic civilization, and the Hellenes may have civilized the Westerners, but for most of Europe to claim the legacy of the Greeks and Romans as theirs is demonstrable plagerism. Why more Greeks and Italians do not press this home is beyond me. Western civilization grew out of the remains of a Europe molded by classical antiquity.
Every civilization is like this, at first, you inherit, or adopt, or plagiarize and steal, or are inspired by, and you make it your own unique and molded to your ethos.
And over time, pedantic and sentimental fools will misconstrue your experiments and make them into established canon, and the process repeats in which one generation’s rebels become another generations undisturbed canonical saints.
I believe that writers like Eliot, Pound, Joyce, and other modernists of their ilk were rebels. But not rebels for rebellion’s sake, they were seeking a greater freedom and ability to find and express truth. Yes they felt suffocated by the current artistic scene of their age, but unlike little Emo kids in high school slitting their wrists to “make a statement” they aimed at something heavy and deep. Making a statement isn’t an end in itself, it is a means to an end.
Previously, we looked at meter a little bit, and the idea of metre being a codification of rhythm in verse. I personally feel that good poetry, and good verse, must have rhythm. Otherwise, what is the point?
If we want to write pretty, interesting, ugly, or beguiling prose, we should write, respectively, beguiling, ugly, interesting, pr pretty prose - and call it prose.
There is more to poetry and verse than just rhythm, but it’s to be noted that most good free-verse is already so rhythmic that calling it free-verse is really just a stance, and statement made. It’s really just highly irregular verse. If it were true “free verse” it would basically be prose. Like a textbook. In which case our little conversation would be over.
But the Modernists, and even some post-modernist poets (many of whom are not just being silly for silly’s sake, but are actually trying to make a point, and I respect this) are right in pointing out the problems with traditional English prosody, or versification.
For one, English prosody was never truly traditional to begin with.
It’s always been contentious.
Alan Holder demonstrates this, strongly, in his “Rethinking meter: a new approach to the verse line” - professor Holder wrote this as a serious critique of the entire notion of English meter and prosody. It’s one of those books that the formalist in me wishes I could dislike.. but can’t, because frankly the guy throws a rock through a house made of glass.
English prosody, mainly since the 1500s, has basically been based on a convoluted set of abstractions taken from classical Greek and Roman poetry. The Romans appropriated the concept of the verse foot, the iamb, the trochee, the dactyl, hexameter, and pentameter, etc. from the Greeks.
However, just as their later heirs, the English, had to adapt a foreign system to their own dissimilar native language, so too the Romans had to clobber Greek ideas of prosody to fit their own language. The same thing happened when the Persians and Turks encountered Arabic prosody, they had to re-work the affair into their own native rhythms.
The result worked, in both cases, and well, some may say. Roman poets used the Greek system of prosody (as they understood and were able to adapt it) for centuries and its forms are still the bane of many a Latin student’s existence.
The English did the same, under a triple influence. Two they acknowledge, and one they keep as the poor malnourished step-daughter hidden up in the attic of history. Let’s deal with this poor waif first, for it’s high time that she be, at least, acknowledged.
It is a fact that Arabic verse powerfully affected European verse in general. It’s indirect influence hit English poetry both in the matter of rhyme - for ancient Celtic and Germanic peoples didn’t use end rhyme, though they did alliterate - which is a sort of front initial consonant rhyme, and the Celtic genius made significant use of assonance, a vowel rhyme sound - something that much old Irish and Welsh poetry is rich in. True Rhyme arrived to Christian Europe via the troubadours, who learned it from the Muslims of Andalusia.
Meter as well shares part of this heritage, English versification without a doubt owes most of it’s structure to Graeco-Roman antiquity. However there was an Arabic influence as well that pre-dated the borrowing of Hellenic structures.
The system of al-Arud with its Bahar of meters, 24 in all (give or take) is very similar to the Greek and Roman system of quantitative prosody, though in some ways it is far more complex. It works well in Arabic, and it worked well in Hebrew, when Spanish Jews adopted its use. Persian poets somehow, by some amazing feat of genius manages to fit its feet fittingly into their own poetry. Hindustani poets adapted the Persian modified system, as did the Turks.
It is possible that both such quantitative systems could have been made to work for the Proto-Spanish Romance dialects of Andalusia, or Old French. After all they are based on Latin - Latin managed to adopt the system of the Greeks, with powerful effects. But for some reason known to posterity they didn’t. Perhaps this is because of the syllabic irregularity of the vernacular dialects in use - the Romance vernaculars from which Spanish and French evolved were an irregular mix of street Latin, and what little survived of Gaelic tongues, with a dose of Germanic Frankish and Visigothic.
But what the genius among early Western poets did was to take the notion of syllable counting. While the exact long and short sequences of Arud wasn’t implemented in a quantitative sense, and Spanish and French largely lack the sort of accent that would allow an accentual meter in their poetry (though Spanish is richer in accent than French, perhaps it could be pulled off in Spanish) simply counting syllables was more viable. So a poet adopted a line of 10, or 11 or 12 syllables.
This was the system that Italian sonnets used, when they were first developed in Sicily. Italian meter for sonnets tool 14 lines of 11 syllables each.
English prosodists took this idea, but married it to the native Strong Stress type of prosody. This is the native meter of Germanic poetry, a line, divided into two, with a certain number of stressed words, and an irrelevant number of unstressed ones. So the total number of syllables meant nothing to Old English poets, just the stresses. Some stresses were hyper-stressed through the use of alliteration. I’ll demonstrate this soon, to avoid confusion..
The line of verse itself is a Long Line, a distich - which is equivalent to the Arabic bayt, the Persian misrah, and the Urdu/Hindustani Sheer.
The two halves of the distich line are hemistiches, divided in the middle by a caesura, a pause. When written this pause is separated by a space. Readers of Arabic or Urdu poetry will sometimes see something similar.
What matters in this early English verse are lifts, basically beats.
The beats are created by stressed syllables. For the earliest Anglisc poets, each hemistich must have two strong stresses. So the whole line, the whole distich, has 4 strong beats
An example, in Beowulf:
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
The only unstressed word here is Oft (often)
Scyld, Scefing, Sceathena all alliterate there is a front Rhyme
monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,
Pretty easy to see. Line 11
gomban gyldan þæt wæs god cyning
Here gomban gyldan all alliterate with god, clever poet cyning is articulated from the same place of the mouth as cyning so this is a subtle playing with the rhythm.
From another Old English poem, the battle of Maldon
Hige sceal þe heardra heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare þe ure mægen lytlað
Some more complex examples can be found in other German tongues, the cousins of the Anglish and Saxons, in frozen northern Thule, developed this art of alliterative accentual meter to greater heights than the English. The Norse had many separate meters based on this system, that included syllable counting. In some of this the caesura dividing old English poems seems missing, the lines themselves become very short. The alliteration scheme is far more complex than in Old English, and all of this is essential to their prosody.
An example, from Glymdrápa - a poem written and dedicated to Harald Fairhair
Gerði glamma ferðar
gný drótt jöru Þróttar
helkannanda hlenna
hlymræks of tröð glymja,
Gerthi and glamma alliterate, gny in the next line almost does, helkannanda helenna, and in the next line hlymraeks alliterate.
This, then, is the essence of the Barbarian poetry of Northern Europe. What the Middle English did was to marry this, with a syllabic counting obtained from the South. Chaucer was the first, I think, to definitively write in Iambic Pentameter in English, the poets immediately before his generation were doing something like this
This is an example from a poem by William Langland, somewhere between the 1360s and 1390s
A feir feld full of folk fond I þer bitwene,
Of alle maner of men þe mene and þe riche,
Worchinge and wandringe as þe world askeþ.
Since the spelling is pretty close to modern English we won’t bother with a translation, the rough meaning should be pretty evident ( a fair field full of folk, found I there… of all manner of men, it’s not too complex and we needn’t waste time. Just stare at it funny for 60 seconds and the meaning becomes clear)
You can see the monosyllabic nature of English at its root here. A bit of Romance French slips in, but this is mostly cleaned up, or simplified, Saxon.
Now this strong stress prosody is essentially an accentual meter, the Celts used something similar - though more highly developed than the Anglo Saxon and the Norse poets (though some Norse skaldic poetry comes close to the Celtic brilliance)
The common thought is that Chaucer and others like him just decided to borrow Greco-Latin poetic feet, chiefly the iamb.
Holder shows that this is not quite the case, other writers also have clarified this. If you look at older English Iambic pentameter a few things jump out. In many cases, it’s not really pentameter. E.g. in many cases there are not 5 equal beats in a 10 syllable line e.g. ./ ./ ./ ./ ./
sometimes you have ./ ./ ../ /. ./
or another variation.
Later day prosodists take various other Greek feet, like the trochee or the dactyl and say “see, this is what they were consciously doing.” Others do something silly like blatantly mispronouncing the line to make it scan as even iambic pentameter. What some later critics, Holder amongst them but there are others, do is to point out that something more complex is going on here.
You may have an even number of total syllables, but when the stresses, the beats, vary in their placement do you really think the poet was just sticking in an amphibrach or a trochee or a spondee, or perhaps was he doing something much more… subtle ?
Let’s leave on this note. But let’s get more interesting, real sure.
Like Ghazals, and Arud for real.
-to be continued
Monkeys, meanderings, bodies exhibits, and Bill Manchester was a real man. Are you ?
Posted on 20 June 2010 | 4 responses
Caveat lector..
“..Truly created beings are meanings set up in images.
All who grasp this are among the people of discernment..”
Ibn Habib: al-Maghribi. Gnostics see from the heart, which is the intellect’s seat.
‘ahlil ‘ibar - people of discernment, people of discrimination.
I discriminate.
“..Smash the control images. Smash the control machine…”
William S. Burroughs: Gentleman Junkie? Slacker? Poet? Insane and gibbering broken shell who shot his wife in the head while drunk somewhere south of the border? A bit of all, or a bit of none.
William Manchester: fueled by yogurt and brief naps, withstood 50 hour writing sessions, but yet succumbed to grief stricken inability to concentrate on even a simple Television Program.
“What a Mensch !”
Fucking A.
Men don’t really seem to exist, ’round these parts, anymore.
We’ve sort of been killed off. So me, myself, I’m going on vacation.
Prince of those with faith, Ali Abu Talib’s son
Once observed, something obvious to one,
with eyes.
“Every time I argue with a fool, I lose..”
Credibility, a precious gem, given rarely. If you lose it,
that which is not given lightly, it is gone forever, when lost.
Hard Corps, is not spelt hardcore. Civitas Dei, is lost.
Commonwealth? A fraud. Lionel Curtis? Mendacious twit.
There is no commonwealth, only empire. Your perceptions otherwise
are an administrative error. Ask Harry Buttle.
Empire: it requires self-medication. Try consciously living in it.
Addiction? Is a symptom, for our lusts but mask our pains. What I seek and gain from arms soft and perfumed, and lips moist, is but a simple numbing.
But this is need, and need be weakness. But how I enjoy such weaknesses..
Be those dammed? Who fail to heed their intellect?
I do not know, fa la yaqiluun. Fa ‘ayna tadhhabun…
I just realized, with a shudder, how corrupt my soul and mind..
Bodies: pickled in plastic resin, art fit for slaves detestable.
Who fail to realize, the bodies seen, hanging in museums,
were once loving, fearing, curious beings, with life in veins,
they loved, they hated, they feared. Courageous, were some. The stains
of a humanity, too debauched to see their ends,
entombed in resin, on display, to gawking rubes,
too stupid or heedless to see, those bodies were once, you and me.
Gawking gimps staring at pickled bodies on skateboards, this is art indeed.
For people with weak minds, and no discernment or creed,
worthy of respect.
Fundamental to human psychology, is a dissonance.
A failure to realize, we are each other’s reflection,
so when we murder others, by means direct, or indirect,
we actually murder our selves. Everyone who has killed,
or who has witnessed death
has some inkling of this intuition
though they deny, though we deny.
So to vote for one man’s accidental murder, is to slay him yourself.
So to knowingly elect a criminal, is to participate in crime yourself
So partisans pigeonhole reality, or at least tend to.
They should bend over and kiss their pigeonholes.
For this will, at least, keep them occupied, while the rest of us persist
in life.
To remove God from the world, is to place a hole, a hole in reality itself.
Most Christians and most atheists alike, are united on one affair
Single affair - they know not what, or who, God is
and they know not what, or to whom, reality points.
Nota beni: exceptions exist. Generalities can be useful at times.
No offense: I like Christians, they have soft hearts, and are often full
of love. Many, anyway.
Atheists, I like some. By in large, they have sharp minds.
In analytics, they tend to excel. Christians, they tend to be intuitive, in a fuzzy warm, Oprah like way.
Caveat lector: There are, of course, exceptions.
The heart without the mind, is useless.
The mind without the heart, is useless.
Both are blind, by themselves.
No man chooses an ideology out of sincere conviction by reason,
there is always emotion, we judge the world by our pains.
Subjectivity always colors objectivity, for the finite cannot compass the infinite. Erudition gives you options, though not always sexy to the fairer sex, often.
Some facts are manifest, to those who contemplate, though you wish
to deny. I respect your wishes.
Ibn Habib, once wrote:
“..If you were to reflect on physical bodies and their marvelous forms
and how they are arranged with great precision, like a string of pearls;
And if you were to think about the mysteries of the tongue and speech with it, and how it articulates and conveys what you conceal in your breast;
And if you were to think about the secrets of all the limbs and how easily they are subject and in thrall to the heart’s command..”
And if.. and if. Reality can be observed, by those with insight and discretion. Discretion is discernment, and discrimination. To discriminate the real from the unreal, is a science known to few. Often the real causes pain, and fantasy balms. But I swear to God, the real’s delicious, water iced in crystal glass, beneath the sun’s heat. The sun punched out of the clouds, in a pale grey sky.
In a static grey sky.
Under a grey sky.
Cast not pearls before those who believe they are swine, and are unwilling to consider the manifest fact, of their humanity.
Cast not pearls before apes flinging turds, and painting their walls with the black fertile earth. Monkeys surpass men in physical strength. In main and might, a bitch chimp can pull half a ton.
A man, maybe 100 pounds. On juice, and cretine.
Exceptions exist, the lesson is, don’t piss off monkeys, they can rip your arm off
and beat your head with it, and then fuck you in the ass with it when they are done.
Then, they shall smear you with poo. Why?
Because they are monkeys. Silly. Goose.
And that’s what monkeys do. Monkeys are monkeys, white or black, some baboons look gray. Yellow or red, monkeys all. Do not feed the monkeys.
Because they can rip your arm off and sodomize you with it. Simple lesson.
Have you ever observed that monkeys in cages behave in most eccentric ways. Surpassing the strangeness of monkeys in the wilderness?
What we call civilization, is a cage. It has some uses, I’ma utilitarian.
But call it what it is. Mendacity annoys me. Perfidy annoys me. And now I’m off, to flirt with the Barrista.
“The perceptive man is he who knows about himself,
for in self-knowledge and insight lays knowledge of the holiest.”
Khushal Khan Khattak:knew a thing or two…
Some thoughts on writing, speaking, manipulation and influence
Posted on 26 June 2010 | 2 responses
A few thoughts off the top of my head.
William S. Burroughs had interesting things to say on the idea of language being a virus from outer space.
It would be naive to take him at face value. Actually, it would verge on insanity.
It would be equally naive to simply assume he was being cute, provocative, or “symbolic” - he was trying to make a point, an interesting point I leave to you to distill (his writings are as fascinating as they are obscenely.. weird)
We can observe something, in every discourse and every human transaction, there is a front door and a back door.
If we do a literature review on the topics of influence and persuasion, from marketing, public relations, propaganda, we can go beyond conventional treatments of the matter and look for deeper insights from disciplines like social and mass psychology, behavioral psychology and conditioning, linguistics and neurology.
My impression, and yours may differ, is that this becomes clear - from the end of the 19th century to the dawn of the 21st century, a veritable explosion of technique has occurred, concerning mass manipulation and influence of opinion, and the regimenting of tastes and opinions in both free democratic societies and totalitarian ones.
We are, perhaps, a long way away from Aldus Huxley’s speculations on the necessity of making people love their servitude.. but it is clear that there has been a coup of sorts in the ability to order and mold mass opinion, and that modern techniques easily allow the co-opting and redirection of even fringe views.
Of course we have that cliché - that everything old is new again. There is a very difficult to obtain, mid 20th century, review of hypnotic techniques observed in old poetry. (Whitman as good at this) The author seems to express some surprise that certain things, seemingly only recently discovered, were performed by certain poets (either consciously or unconsciously as a byproduct of craft and art) for centuries. Specifically trance inducing techniques.
Certain “tricks” of Erikson can be observed in disparate sources as far removed as Shakespeare and Hafez.
Is there anything wrong with this? No, language is a tool, a wonderful tool, much fun can be had shaping and using language.
Language is the vehicle of expressing meaning.
Something spiffy was once said by Hamza Yusuf Hanson, Imam of the Zaytuna Institute, and much derided by certain right wing, so-called “anti-jihadists” as being a crypto-evil Muslim fundamentalist terrorist agitator in drag
“Poetry is a breeze from one heart blown into another by the force of its meanings”
It sounds artsy, but there is a secret hidden in this, for those with perception.
(ironically, real so-called “jihadists” also condemn Shaykh Hamza as a manufactured, peacenik, Rand Institute produced, pseudo-Imam designed to lull the Muslims into enslaved conformity to the new world order.. it really does seem like you can’t please everyone !)
You can observe the following; naming things influences how we perceive them.
Once you put a name on something, this allows you to dismiss it, for you have simplified it’s complex reality into a byte, or bite, sized plaything to throw in the scrap heap. Ideologues do this a lot.
Observe anyone reducing someone’s thoughts and ideas by calling that one by an emotive label. Read a bunch of HBD, radical feminist, leftist, or right wing blogs, and you can observe creative use of such rhetorical techniques…
Another neat trick in naming a thing, is that you can, instead of dismissing it, elevate it to a sacred cow.
Much formal rhetoric (both classical Greek, neo-Classical Western, and Classical Islamic Balagha) has strong resonance with techniques of modern persuasive speaking and communication.
It is possible to stumble on something that William Blake, for example, happened to do and say “Ah, he’s trying to hypnotize us and perform a Ericksonian re-frame” - but by doing so you have partially cloaked the reality of William Blake.
Techniques are independent of intent, the excessive use of a technique by an individual displaying one intent does not disqualify the possible alternative usages of that technique.
There is a matter of not seeing a tree, but instead counting every pine needle. True art requires craft, craft is composed of technique, technique is independent of worldview or intent though bodies of technique, imposed into the framework of a discipline, reflect often, in subtle ways, the biases and worldviews of the founders of that discipline.
An example, speaking is a component of “Neuro-linguistic programming” 
[which as an interdisciplinary body of technique may possibly have some real and useful insights into how language affects human psychology - in spite of having a bad reputation among cheap used car salesmen and dubious Ross Jefferies inspired "pick up artists"]
From this should we conclude that speaking is evil, because cheap salesmen use it to sell clunkers and manipulative emotionally damaged creeps try to pick up waffle house waitresses?
Something that you might want to pay attention to, however, is this -
Inherent in studying a body of technique, is exposure to the expectations and assumptions of those who codified that body.
For how things are articulated affects how we conceive of them - how a body of theory and technique are articulated can color our worldview, depending on - of course - how conscious we are at reading sub-texts “between the lines”. and on how vigilant we are in our reading.
Modern techniques of manipulation are the equivalent of the sorcery of old. This isn’t a metaphor, it is more true to the fact than you might want to imagine.
Something that you may want to do, is to make a careful study of the propaganda techniques of every single totalitarian regime in the 20th century (some techniques were actually more crude and less effective versions of techniques employed in peacetime in Democratic free regimes)
In society, we are constantly trying to persuade others, inform others, articulate our views, and generate support for them. At work you have a project or a proposal, you have a view you want others to adopt, you suggest, to state, you demand, or you insinuate.
You want to influence your child not to touch a hot stove, if you do not then may well be a fool. You want to influence your child into not running into traffic to chase a ball. The reasons are obvious.
In some sense influence, or seeking to influence, is timeless and as old as human speech.
However there are two ways that one may persuade, two approaches, and one is through the Front Door, and the second is through the Back Door.
If at times, in life, it is necessary to convince others, to present our opinions and views to them, we should do so with facts. But people are not primarily rational, often. It is well known that emotive appeals trump well reasoned arguments.
Misogynists are fond of pointing out that this is the case with women, well know this - so too is this the case with the vast majority of men. Look into the lives of most men that you know, their decisions and why they made certain decisions, and you will see more often than not an emotive motivation underneath the seemingly rational.
My primary motive triggers are emotive, and I bet yours are too.
I do not think that people are primarily rational, in the narrow sense, we have reason, we use it, but a lot of what motivates us is emotional, and concerns our hearts.
When we try to motivate others or convince others, we should do this by going in through the front door, and not the back door. This means using facts, and reasoning with people. If you have to make an emotive appeal do not subtly coerce them, but back up your appeals with facts.
The trouble with learning about back doors is that it can actually become a mortal danger to your soul. Some types of knowledge can transform you and your perceptions, and in doing so leave a treacle like tar over your heart. If you are not careful, you can gradually be influenced yourself, along lines of the framers of the methods of opening backdoors.
If a guy looks at Gonzo porn all day long, he will eventually start to see women in a certain way, even his own sisters and mother. This is important to understand. If a man sits around several hours a week, looking at young looking girls with bukkake on their face, this may subtly influence his sexual tastes.
What we consume conditions us. what we take into our bodies, and into our minds, conditions our bodies, and our minds.
You are free to doubt this, but I recommend considering the point and thinking it over well, before you throw it in the scrap heap.
None of this is difficult to understand. F. Nietzsche once said something pithy.
“..when you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you..”
Consider yourself warned.
Again, it is unwise to dismiss some quotes as simply figurative language. But it is wiser for us to consider them, think them over, mull them in our mind, as we observe people around us.
There is a word in Arabic and Persian - Adab, it expresses a concept of etiquette, however one that goes beyond social niceties and encompasses active ethics. In many matters it just is not a good thing to go around skulking through back doors, no matter how noble your intent.
Or as the Quran puts it:
“It is no virtue if ye enter your houses from the back…. Enter houses through the proper doors” (Surah Baqara : The Heifer, 2:189)
This verse has never been interpreted just in its outward sense. Except by children, and those lacking imagination.
I contend that it is always “better” to go through the front door. Now better does not mean more effective, but I’m not a utilitarian. I think there are many things important in life beyond just “getting ‘er done”
Going through the back door is a sign of being a coward and a thief. It exposes you to getting your eye poked out or getting shot.
Adopting rhetorical techniques in presenting facts, or opinions honestly presented as opinion or interpretation, is one thing.
Because rhetoric and the craft of meter, metaphor, analogy, adopting specific structures of argumentation, are intent neutral. They are technique, part of craft, and one of the most naive things that occurs in writers heads nowadays is that technique is artificial. Well so is text, a fact concerning which they seem blindingly unaware. Artificiality is not, in itself, a bad thing. Anyone reading this on a computer who has a bone to shake against the artificial is not exercising her discernment.
Certain techniques in the crafts of speech and writing are mostly lost arts (except for PR and marketing folks, speech writers, professional speakers, or propagandists well steeped in their tradecraft) - partially because, by and large, our education system today displays certain deficiencies, and partially because of an engrained fear of technique and the artificial among the writing classes today. Poets and prose writers alike should reflect on the fact that artificial technique has underlain poetry and prose alike for about 3000 years, and even our objections to this are artificial.
A different matter is adopting techniques to manipulate, coerce, or control others. Now, covert verbal coercion cannot be placed on the same level as overt physical coercion, because the later is backed by the threat of force. I think it’s stupid to place them on the same level.
Each, however, can be very “bad” as I see it. Sometimes physical coercion is needed. I lean towards a libertarian view on society but it seems clear to me that physically coercing violent criminals is a good thing.
Rapists and murderers, or those intent on committing rape or murder, should be physically resisted and coerced by whatever means necessary into abandoning their course of action, where such coercion does not create greater harm than it would avert.
But you and I are not criminals, and if our thoughts and beliefs are criminalized by society or the state, then society, or the state respectively, itself has gone rogue and criminal. And this means that it need not enjoy our allegiance any longer.
That is a dangerous thought, but consider it. Some coercion must be regarded by as as simply unjust and tyrannical. And injustice perpetuated on us removes from us the ethical necessity to abide by the sources of our injustice.
If others around us seek to coerce us for their own advantage, then they have overstepped their boundaries and should be resisted and told to shove off. You have one life on this mortal coil, it is stupidity to abide by those actively trying to destroy us when we were not at fault. If we overstep boundaries and oppress others, then we have earned coercion to push us out of the way of those we seek to hurt, but if others oppress us then all bets are off.
Retribution for our own crimes and evils is just, oppression when we are blameless is unjust, our support of injustice or the unjust places us in their category by proxy, our rejection of the unjust and those coercing others spares us from what they deserve..
Which is a swift kick in the arse.
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A site I just discovered
Posted on 30 June 2010 | No responses
“..Without knowledge action is useless and knowledge without action is futile…” Abu Bakr
I recommend this link.
http://www.strongerman.com/
I am not an affiliate, nor have I commercial interests in this site. The guy behind it has some useful instructional quick videos on various Kettle bell based conditioning workouts - basically just working the ever so humble swing.
Myself, I’m more of a fan of the AKC tradition - authentic Girevoy sport - style of lifting. However the RKC “Hardstyle” - which Girevoy sport purists always take pains to emphasize is not “real” kettlebell lifting - does have its real uses, in particular it’s a great conditioning tool, though not very gentle for extremely high repetition lifting.
What’s illustrated, by the gentleman at the above linked site, are typical “hard style” swings - which again, though are not quite authentic Eastern European Girevoy Sport lifting, are a form of kettlebell lifting with many advantages.
If you have an AKC certified coach in your area do make the effort to pay for at least a couple of sessions of coaching, the style of Kettle bell lifting taught by the AKC is traditional Girevoy sport lifting, which involves among other things high volumes of timed sets lifted for time, not exactly reps, e.g. you are lifting at a rate of x reps per minute per Y minutes, not just “50 reps”.
Russian style Girevoy sport is a competitive sport style of lifting and should not be underestimated by any means, it confers superb conditioning, it is also what the entire world pretty much seems to mean by “Kettlebell lifting.
The RKC “hard style” seems favored by American combat artists, and should not be underestimated. The RKC approach taught by Pavel Tsatsoline is a hybrid, no doubt, of tradtional Russian Girevoy lifting with insights gained from other branches of sports and medicine.
The polemics between both camps seem rather silly, and it’s interesting to note that Pavel Tsatsoline himself is always extremely deferential and humble in reference to lifters like Valery Fedorenko. This is professionalism.
Though by no means an expert, nor an athlete by any stretch, my personal experiences have brought me beneficial results either way. I will say that getting some coaching in Girevoy sport style lifting enabled me to work much higher rep sets with much less lower back pain. I support the AKC’s attempts to spread the art and science of girevoy lifting in America and think that anyone out there seeking their coaches will get a good solid foundation of safe and effective lifting principles.
General advice, it’s good to use lower poundage bells in high rep sets. If you intend on churning out 500 reps a day and are not built like the guy in this video don’t be ashamed to use a 16 or even 12 kg bell, you would be shocked at how effective of a conditioning workout you can get with lighter bells in good form with massive sets.
You want to work your way up to higher volumes of lifting, if you can’t lift in correct form a certain weight for a real length of time don’t just up the pounds because “I’m a real man dude, I can lift a 45 pound ball”
Also to be noted the AKC coach I ran into, at least, emphasized to me that Swings really aren’t the essence, snatches and jerks done to time are, swings in eyes seem to be more of a warm-up type of exercise. In the RKC approach high volumes of swings are deliberately cultivated as conditioning tools with a harder style of breath control and muscular tension.
Both actually have their advantages, the advantages of the AKC approach are more subtle and someone used the the RKC approach may not fully see them.
The right tool for the right task, anything else becomes fanaticism. Gain the knowledge and put it into action in a way relevant to your life and circumstance.
But cultivate the knowledge, and gain it from those who have it. Books and videos can only take you so far.
Then practice what you have learned. It’s the same thing with everything in life.
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Pashtunistan and Kurdistan
Posted on 1 July 2010 | 5 responses
This is a hypothetical exercise. Do not misconstrue it. It’s a mental exercise fleshing out some controversial ideas, that are very open to criticism.
I am considering the idea that a formal greater Pashtunistan should be considered among geo-political thinkers.
The same with Kurdistan, for while I do not think turkey’s territorial integrity should be compromised, I do think there should be a formal Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan as its own state ruled by the Kurds.
I’m an odd ball of course, I believe the Ertugrul Osman Khan (Sultan Ertugrul II), the last Ottoman scion, should have been given a formal honorary position by the Turkish government. Sadly he has passed on so this position is simply academic.
Of course there is still His Imperial Highness Bayezid Osmanoglu Khan, may the house of Osman continue to bloom. Adding to his distinction, Osman Khan is a US Army vet. I have a feeling he would be good in Turkish politics. In any case, I stray from the point.
In any case, back to the Pashtuns. There has always been a lived reality of a geographic area dominated by the Pashtuns - this was historically known as Pakhtunkhwa and modern Afghanistan and Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province(very recently re-named Khyber Pakhtunkwa) are newer veneer on top of the region.
It is my opinion that Pashtuns and Kurds both should have their own respective States. In the Pashtun case, roughly encompassing the NWFP as well as a substantial portion of Southern Afghanistan. Modern Afghanistan itself is an artificial state, a substantial core of which is Pashtun.
While the Northern areas are heavily Tajik and Uzbek Southern Afghanistan is substantially Pashtun and always has been. In fact the word Afghan has been used as a synonym for Pashtun centuries ago.
I think that the map of the region should reflect this reality.
Swat, Chitral, Gilget, even some (not all but some) of Baluchistan should be part of it since these areas all historically have had a heavy Pashtun component.
This should be done while instituting a Jirga based form of government.
Terrorists and brigands should be executed due to their many vile and cowardly crimes against the people, sowing instability and corruption against the people.
Of course those terrorists working for States are harder to deal with, but that’s for another day.
Exception should be made for those brigands and terrorists who agree to be reconciled and peacefully settle and support the new regime prior to their capture. That is, they demobilize and pledge allegiance to the State of Pashtunistan and turn themselves in voluntarily. They should be reconciled with peacefully and with honor - those who reconcile and atone for their crimes and subject themselves to the authority would be subject to Pashtun justice and retaliation, or forgiveness, by the relatives of the people their crimes affected, as their tribes see fit.
But there should be talk and discourse, it is always better to be talking to a former enemy who is now your friend, sometimes former enemies make the best friends and those who realize this not have no insight into matters of strategy, and they typically have no sense.
Every attempt at integration of all discontent elements into a new society under a responsible Pashtun leadership should be allowed, and by jirga they should collectively determine the form of government the new region of Pashtunistan would take. Expecting a Western style democracy to work in Afghanistan is the height of naive stupidity
If this can be done without oppression or endangering the rights of historic minorities there it should be done.
Will it be done? No. This is a hypothetical exercise.
Look, I think one factor complicating the current wars in the East lies in the fact that the people typically looked at as black hat “bad guys” have very deep roots in the area and far from xenophobia, simply see themselves as offended parties defending the lands of their grandfathers, great grandfathers, and great great grandfathers.
There are multiple groups, and individuals, with competing and multiple agendas, some reconcilable others not, what they want primarily is freedom to practice their own religion and follow their own leaders on their own land without foreigners manipulating them as proxy war fighters, which is what has been going on for 30 years now - multiple foreign governments have been using Afghanistan as a site of proxy warfare. The far too facile way in which our media is accustomed to labeling complex realities should be resisted.
A gretaer Pashtunistan is a far more sensible idea than the “Mughalstan” idea floated around in some quarters. Mughalstan was an imposed entity, however successful it was for centuries, by a Turki dynasty on a mostly Indic populace. Pashtuns however have been in their region from the earliest ages of civilization in the region.
The Pashtuns have been in their region for thousands of years, they are the remnant of the original Indo-Iranian tribes who migrated to the sub continent millennia ago. These are the people Alexander the Great had to fight to get to India, they see themselves as having a deep connection with their land, a land watered both by their blood and the blood of their enemies.
They do not respect the current borders and geopolitical realities and see the wars there not only as matters of life or death but as matters of honor. Honour is something that looses a lot of currency in the modern world today, but among the Pashtuns their honor, their ancestors honor, and their religion’s honor, are literally life or death. Their code of honor, Pukhutnkhwa, is probably more than 3000 years old, their way of life not only pre-dates Islam but predates Western Civilization in its oldest sense.
It is unwise to not consider these facts, I believe that the Pashtuns are a people among whom are elements who will not stop fighting as long as their honor is slighted and the destiny of the lands their great grandfathers tread is under their control.
It is unwise to fail to consider these points.
The Kurds are a similar case, though honestly I have far less tolerance for many of the Kurdish parties, who have made themselves into utter a-ses for decades. But the basic idea of a Kurdistan, if done in a way that does not destroy Turkish territorial integrity, is an idea that should be explored and considered. The Kurds and Pashtuns are nations unto themselves, not just ethic groups. They should have nation states if this is their desire.
Of course the situation is far more complex than this, again this is simply a hypothetical exercise on my part, more of amusing out loud.
_EOF
the lying filth who plot suicide bombings
Posted on 2 July 2010 | 2 responses
Are not only hypocrites and evil sedition planning assholes of the highest degree, but they simply are not remotely anything truly resembling Muslim.
The very Sharia most of these guys claim to uphold actually calls for the execution by summary crucifixion of people carrying out these horrible crimes.
But enough of village idiot pseudo-Molvis in turbans that hide their real reality.
I wrote a several page post on a few topics here, but then decided to erase the whole thing, as prudence overcame me.
So I will simply suggest a few things, and invite you to consider a few things in greater depths, possibilities not conclusions.
I think that as we think things over, and watch the state of our country and world over the next few years, it will increasingly occur to us that few things are ever what they seem to be, on the surface. It’s not unlikely that 20 years from now, information may emerge about some matters in the world today that will make the few of us still around, and still paying attention, actually cry when we realize what our action, and our inaction, allowed to be brought forth.
No one realizes the threads they are spinning are going to be woven into a noose in the next room, and that at the end of the day it’s possible our own necks may fit into it.
This analogy must be thought through with some care.
I think that all of us sometimes have the impression that we are, all of us, simply pieces laid out on a chess board - a game far larger than any of us are comfortable imagining, played for stakes that most people are simply unable to imagine by their very constitution.
Through most of life our imaginations, and worldviews, are rather small and even when we try to broaden our horizons certain things escape us.
Contentions to consider:
-The ISI and RAW both, far from being stakeholders in the game, are actually just pieces themselves, more akin to Rooks. Unable to see off the board, though each side essentially does its job - being seeing to the geo-strategic imperatives of the nations they serve. In dialectical opposition both RAW’s and ISI’s operations actually fit into a larger logic.
- The CIA and FSB, possibly, and other similar agencies may have a larger view of the board than the ISI or RAW - but again are serving what they perceive to be the interests of their respective Nation States in a narrow sense, and are more like Bishops in the game, wider range of operation and a wider view of the field, as their movements suggest, but still operating in a certain set of dialectical constraints limiting the vision of larger ends.
- All agencies and institutions worldwide serve larger ends by the very operative logic dictated by their structure and history, the bigger picture is often harder to see when you are inside the box.
-Anyone may want to consider a small hint, just a bare hint not even covering details or depths, of what might be behind the scenes of some things. Just a suggestion, contemplate the phrase “strategy of tension’ very, very, carefully.
And then NOT jumping to conclusions, just explore various ideas that surface when considering the phrase, one after the other, and in your head check off what seems likely, what seems unlikely, what seems preposterous, what seems realistic. Dance with multiple scenarios and see how they fit all visible players at work here.
- The Taliban are not whom others claim them to be.
- Mullah Umar is not what others claim him to be. And it is quite likely that if anyone happened to guess what his real role was, they would simply dismiss the thought from their heads as too fantastic.
-The Left with its facile and simple (though not without a degree of truth) party line of “it’s about the oil” is wrong. So too with the lies of the Right’s party line (though again, with some echo of truth as well).It’s not about democracy or oil, or freedoms, or several other shibboliths, a more complex set of geostrategic set of equations are at play.
Consider multiple options and see if you can start to see an angle, consider the distinct possibility that both you and I have been had, and played for fools - but not by the usual suspects that we’d normally rise up and blame.
Open your mind to consider multiple scenarios, who benefits, on what level, on what degree, are tehir open actions commensurate with the payoff we see them benefiting from, if not then what is missing from the picture?
What is not being spoken of by either side, left or right?
What terms are missing from the discourse but leaving an imprint whose rough, and fuzzy, outline can be barely felt, but not fully perceived?
Questions to think over.
Links that made me think - Saturday 17 July 2010
Posted on 17 July 2010 | 5 responses
Readings I found interesting this week:
A word on Culture Vultures
http://maysaloon.blogspot.com/2010/06/word-on-culture-vultures.html
Brilliant - there is a method and logic to this, even if you are not paying attention. Some, who do not pay attention to the real game, can feel free to playing racial and ethnic nationalist games, in arenas built to occupy you with non essentials. More on this at a later date
Rich countries to pay energy giants to build new coal-fired power plants (it’s not “rich countries” it’s the UN giving your billions, while you’re in a financial depression, to build plants in China and India
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/14/un-carbon-offset-coal-plants
Who was the fluffer?
London hospital ‘hired out ward for porn film shoot’
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23853101-big-budget-porn-movie-filmed-in-london-hospital.do
eek ! hmm.. also interesting.
More women lured to pornography addiction
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/11/more-women-lured-to-pornography-addiction/
And on that note, this link provoked thought in me
A new light on the harms of porn
http://www.blogistan.co.uk/blog/mt.php/2010/07/04/a_new_light_on_the_harms_of_porn
On Stoic Virtue
http://www.amerika.org/2010/science/on-stoic-virtue/
Who Would Maintain Roads Worse Than the State?
http://c4ss.org/content/2961
The horrors of Eurarabia? Oh no !?! Not more hordes of m0slems
Do Muslims Have More Children Than Other Women in Western Europe?
http://www.prb.org/Articles/2008/muslimsineurope.aspx?p=1
Well. Fear tactics do have their rhetorical and propagandist uses…. Perhaps this, here, is something Europeans and Westerners should be actually worrying about, or at least those few with a mind with which to perceive.
China Posts A MONSTER Trade Surplus, As Exports Surge 44%
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-posts-a-monster-trade-surplus-as-exports-surge-44-2010-7
Does anyone recall Jim rogers’ rants a couple of years ago?
There is a logic to this, we have to look at things from multiple perspectives, put aside our biases and knee jerk conditioned responses, and examine certain issues from many directions…
To see clearly you must clean your lens and put all emotion aside, and look at every issue from as many angles as possible.
24 multinationals move HQ to Shanghai
http://english.cntv.cn/program/bizasia/20100715/101006.shtml
Video - on multinationals move to Shanghai
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/video/2010-07/15/c_13400384.htm
Oh.. how the “mighty” fall (bow bow, tchicika..)
“Ferris Bueller” Actor Fails to Register as Sex Offender
http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-ferris-bueller-actor,0,5654866.story
This next article, I see his point and while not offering a critique, would say that success is highly context dependent - what is success to one may not be success to another. Maintaining a lineage is important, going extinct is without a doubt a failure, and yet there are other factors . Interesting reading though, short and sweet.
Failed Kings and Queens
http://www.xamuel.com/failed-kings-and-queens/
Authoritarianism, Democracy, and Current Situations
Posted on 21 July 2010 | 4 responses
First things first - Authority and power compels submission.
When submission is given willingly without coercion, or even if by coercion but under contractual terms of mutual advantage, in a transaction - let’s say my submission to your authority in exchange for this and that - by recognition of the authority submitted to, you could argue it is just.
Anti-authoritarians would argue that all authority is unjust. The point is we can at least debate about it.
But when the submission is coerced without consent then we enter into a different zone. Though coerced submission can occur in the furtherance of justice, if the ones coerced were previously in the commission of injustice and their surrender was necessary to check their injustice.
Often, the compelling of submission will be seen as unjust and unfair by most people. There are exceptions. history is full of them. The submission of the chaotic slavic tribes on the Volga to the reign of Rus overlords, by their own invitation, is one example. Anyway, I have no desire to argue with ideologues on he particular details, we can all find common ground from which to proceed further.
By definition, authoritarianism is social control, compelling a strict obedience to a governing authority.
Such authority could be a State and its governing apparat, non state institutions, or persons, also operating as authority.
Authoritarianism is not totalitarianism, the two concepts are different, though related as a fruit, leaves, and branches from a tree are related things.
Totalitarianism is authoritarian governance intensified, often Statist (though in theory it’s possible to conceive of supra-state totalitarianism, in the case of supra-state governance regimes) . In totalitarianism a state, or a governer, concentrates control over virtually all aspects of a society. This includes means and modes of production, child bearing, family composition, health care, social mores and values, the media, public gathering, war making, and so on. Total social control by the state, or at lest near total.
From cradle to the grave, virtually total social control and observation of the controlled.
The excuses given for the necessity of such control are irrelevant, the control itself is relevant.
For example: Kemal Attaturk and Franco were authoritarian, Stalin was totalitarian.
Now - between leaping to paranoid delusion, and sticking heads in the sand before obvious political realities, is a middle ground.
I say obvious, because they are obvious political realities, which often are commented on by an increasing number of professors, political activists, and journalists, and even made into Ph.D thesis material by budding scholars.the realities can be spun by the right or the left, but they remain what they are.
There is a middle position - simply recognizing the truth to a set of affairs and adjusting our lives as best as we can to living in an increasingly “interesting” world.
And maybe, for those with some balls or guts, something increasingly rare in our age, speaking up about things. And deeds to help those in need around us, and for those with faith prayer before, and on top of, these deeds.
Here is a controversial opinion, to be sure. Some say that in our lifetime we are witnessing “the Stalinisation” of American society, while most lack the courage to acknowledge it or do anything about it in what little time remaining.
This is debatable and contentious, and may strike one as paranoid. But there IS something to the idea that our society is growing increasingly authoritarian, in ways undreamed of by our grandparents generation. None can deny this, they can say that such authoritarianism may be needed, for our security, but none who are honest and informed can flat out deny it.
A man (once called by Bob Dillan “the most interesting man alive”) who is somewhat controversial is the Dervish Shaykh and thinker, Ian Dallas, Abdul Qadir al-Sufi.
He has a quirk of putting realities, both political and spiritual, into words that can cut through to the chase, and “get to the straight dope.” sometimes this becomes tedious slogans, but often he comes up with remarkably lucid and cutting observations.
Below, he makes a very interesting point about how recent developments here, in the USA, seem to mirror some aspects of Stalin’s regime. it would be stupid to overstate this past it’s point of legitimacy, he’s not saying that we live in a collectivist regime of terror. Only those incapable of reading nuances would leap to that conclusion. But what he is saying is that you really cannot deny the degree of authoritarianism entering democratic societies - he looks at Pakistan firstly, but he hints that the analogy also fits for Anglo-American societies. To quote:
“…What we are now witnessing is the Stalinisation of the formerly democratic state.
According to an NKVD (former KGB) directive: “To have had relations with an arrested person constitutes a sufficient reason for that person to be arrested in his turn.” For example: the arrest of the chief political administrator Andrei Khromov was directly motivated by this brief note sent by Malenkov to Stalin: “Here is someone who is without doubt close to Iakovlev (the Commissar of Agriculture who had just been arrested ten days before), for Iakovlev has recently recommended him for a post of responsibility.” Twenty four hours later Khromov was arrested.
Another Stalinist doctrine was ‘passportisation’ as a means of netting unwanted elements and having them removed. The compulsory issue of identity cards was considered a threshold move to total police control of the urban population.
Another doctrine was the plan to ‘disgorge detention centres’ – as prisons became overcrowded there had to be an emptying out of prisons with transfers to ship-prisons and secret remote centres. Suicides were useful, also.
According to the Russian secret police a vast conspiracy of terrorist organisations threatened the State. The Report stated that “these terrorist elements supported from outside the country were recruiting young men, unemployed and socially dissatisfied to participate in terrorist acts, industrial sabotage, and the use of chemical weapons as well as bacteriological ones.”
In 1935, 8,300 families plus 41,000 people were forcibly deported from the region of Kiev to allow the police to eliminate undesirable elements said to be hiding among them.
That is Stalin’s Kiev in 1935 not Zardari’s Swat Valley in 2009. “
END QUOTE.
Again, this isn’t muddled conspiracy thinking, he’s making a fairly lucid historical comparison, and a point about modern politics, and one that should only be disregarded by those who truly trust our governments and leaders.
And do you trust them?
I don’t.
If you do trust them, then may I ask, why?
Dreams, Memes, and the movie Inception. Foresight, and a story Part 1
Posted on 22 July 2010 | No responses
“..In itself, the word “propaganda” has certain technical meanings which, like most things in this world, are “neither good nor bad but custom makes them so.” Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an enterprise, idea or group.
This practice of creating circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions of persons is very common. Virtually no important undertaking is now carried on without it, whether that enterprise be building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing a moving picture, floating a large bond issue, or electing a president. Sometimes the effect on the public is created by a professional propagandist, sometimes by an amateur deputed for the job. The important thing is that it is universal and continuous; and in its sum total it is regimenting the public mind every bit as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers…” - E. L. Bernays, social scientist, professional propagandist, and seminal public relations expert. In his 1928 book Propaganda.
Some random thoughts, sketched out, inspired by watching the movie, Inception.
A long time ago I saw a movie that haunted me intensely, it was Until the End of the World.
I first saw it in the early 90’s and the themes in the movie gnawed at my mind for years. One of the themes in particular fascinated me.
Is it possible to grow addicted to dreams?
Is it possible, that our dreams and fantasies may become almost like drugs to us. In fact, is not one reason to take certain drugs simply to dream, to find a world of fantasy, to escape? What motivates many junkies, feeling good, feeling cool and chill, but what is it ultimately that smack, dope, pretty much anything offers?
Escape. And a forgetting. Is this not sad, that we need to consume something to escape or forget? Ah, we at least still have our dreams, we still have sleep. And what if I could offer to you your very dreams, vivid and boiling with color and sound, in a box, to you, whenever you wanted it? Or, at least, pleasant dreams of others?
Delusion is the misperception of reality, believing to exist what, in fact, does not exist.
This can be concrete, or it can be abstract.
You know, Reality is a pretty important. It’s a big deal. In fact, to Muslims, or at least educated ones, Reality is God. Allah is a pretty abstract concept, formless, essence, setting into motion and forming all things, and is not one of Allah’s chief names al-Haqq?
al-Haqq literally means the Real, it also means the Truth. Haqiqa is a reality.
Foresight. It is not as common as we may think.
In business the ability to see past the next couple of quarters is rare, most people react. A good chess player may be able to imagine a couple of moves in advance, but how many can imagine 3, or 4, or more? Foresight is a precious gift, those who underestimate it underestimate the source of much good.
Escape, people seek escape from suffering. What is mild suffering to one person may be debilitating to another, depending on how strong or weak we are in certain areas.
Some suffering is unavoidable and endemic to a specific place and time. Other suffering may be avoidable with foresight. Being grateful for not having to endure some suffering is a pretty good idea…
Some human situations appear to be dreams of unimaginable beauty, while others appear to be literal nightmares of suffering.
It’s popular to use the suffering of others as a guilt inducing flail. What people tend to call “a guilt trip”
I don’t. But I do like to cultivate an awareness of both the felicity, and the suffering, or others. Awareness is pretty important in the world, and to me some sense of compassion and understanding is critical.
Empathy is a high human ability, in fact I would say without empathy you lose much of what it means to be human.
Who is so inhuman that they cannot find in their hearts compassion for, say, an Iraqi woman, formerly educated and of a good family, suddenly poor beyond belief, her husband and son slaughtered, forced to pass through checkpoint after checkpoint, forced to begging or prostitution just eat.
Or a man who is arrested, kidnapped in effect, for speaking out against some government. Thrown into prison and isolated, his manhood electrocuted with jumper cables and a 12 volt battery, assaulted and raped by the guards with broken bottles, made to witness his family daughters and wife beaten in front of him, and raped in front of him, while he is helpless beaten and in chains. All for articulating dissent against injustice, and the while world stands by mute against his plight.
Or a child born sickly and diseased, her mother feeds her what little formula she can afford but mixed with water tainted by industrial waste, dumped in their village’s lake by entities who know full and well the effects, but simply do not care, born in a land of endemic starvation, her country’s elites consuming millions of dollars of aid sent to help little girls like herself, by idealistic well meaning people elsewhere in the world, her country literally looted by a regime of elites actually put in place and maintained by the governments of the very people who are kindly donating their money in the first place.
When you look at the world in a certain way, it really does look like a scam. A con job. A massive fraud.
This isn’t the only side to it. It is unhealthy to over focus on some things and not others. Either focusing exclusively on the positive, or the negative, is a diseased state. For it is delusion, an unwillingness to perceive reality as fully as we are capable.
Inception, the movie, was released last Friday. I decided to go see it after reading a couple of web based reviews.
It was very interesting and well done, I recommend it. There is something that flew over the head of just about everyone who reviewed it.
One basic premise of the movie is simply Memetic engineering. A couple of bloggers picked up on this, but no one seems to be looking at it in depth. Because it’s a complicated and dangerous topic I will not look at it in depth, but I did see fit to at least mention it to you.
Before I talk about it, let me tell you of a little story. I find it quite interesting. Before telling it I must warn you about the power of words, for they can reveal meanings, and conceal meanings, and especially with English words bear emotional connotations that can obscure their literal meaning and affect how we see things.
The story has validity - and the points in it can be worded in many different ways.
The power to name things - choosing the words I use to describe something can cause you to perceive it differently. I can describe something in one way, and you would perceive it scientifically, or another way and you would perceive it mythically, or rather mytho-poetically, another way and you would perceive it emotionally.
Put on your poker face, observe the minute details, and see the movement of the hands as the little walnut shells are moved in circles in front of you. What are you focusing on..
And what are you not focusing on, but should be?
There is a story - it’s an allegory don’t take it literally people - that Idries Shah retells, about a mighty King, a great Padishah whose dominion is spread over many lands.
Behold - the story:
This King is very skeptical man, but it is a surface only, ordinary, and somewhat conditioned knee jerk type of skepticism.
The King doubts that certain possibilities in life are even possible, a dervish arriving at his court weaves a sort of spell on the man, he finds himself in another country, having been bewitched (or so he thought) out of his court. He wanders around and discovers to his great horror..
That he has become a woman. Albeit a rather beautiful one. Disconcerted and confused he experiences many strange adventures, though from the vantage point of a woman (something of course that the King never would have been able to experience or consider) and eventually finds himself accustomed to his new fate, marries a poor man, becomes pregnant, bears a generation of children.
40 some years pass for him in this state, until he could no longer remember his former life as a King, That life became unto him as a dream, distant and hazy, something he recalled in flashes of memory but being too improbable, too unrealistic, to entertain. For after all, she was a simple mother and housewife, how could she have possibly been a king, in the prime of his maturity, master of a mighty kingdom.
And then, the situation changes once again. Something pulls him back into the palace where he finds himself, a King once more, in his court, surrounded by courtiers and the Dervish, whereupon he flies into a rage.
Wroth, he towers over the dervish, accusing him of sorcery, and moreover of injustice. Of destroying his life, and sending him into exile for a lifetime. And, of course, making him into a woman.
The Sufi then points out to the King that he must be deluded, after all, it has only been a few moments since they started to talk. He then suggests that there are things in the world far more profound, or strange, than the King would think, and that perhaps what the King thinks of as his life, is somewhat limited. Whereupon the dervish employs the science of “folding space” (ilmu tair al-makan) and literally steps off the tale, leaving we readers mystified.
Metaphor is important, whether the mystical science of “folding space” really exists is irrelevant. It makes a nifty literary conceit in Persian stories.
What goes without saying, though not mentioned in the account, is that there is more than one way to skin a cat..
Or a dervish. Or, for that matter, a king.
My favorite line from the movie - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus:
“There’s no black magic, only cheap tricks”.
Of course, what the clever Dervish induced in the King done can easily be performed with a few words, a few suggestions, and more easily with a few pharmaceuticals easily administered in a handshake, or a drink, or by other means.
“..There are more things in heaven and earth..”
But who is to say how what happened, in the logic of the tale, really happened? The how is open, the meaning is what is important.
Many of us, among the population in general, are highly suggestible. We often routinely slip in and out of mild trance states even whilst awake. What do you think is happening to you, after all, when you daydream? For a humanity lacking TV and movies, and the externalization of the imagination that occurs thereby, it is possible that profound dreams and fantasies can be verbally induced, especially with a drug or two slipped to the recipient.
Not everyone is that suggestible. In fact a certain ratio of the population are almost impossible to put under trance, and are only suggestible under the most extreme of conditions.
This is a statistical constant among people, a certain percentage are easily suggestible under the most trivial circumstances, a certain percentage need certain stimulus and conditions, but still may be put under a trance, and their perceptions managed, molded, hypnotized, and suggested with some ease, and a certain minority will always be very difficult to perform hypnosis on.
It has little to do with their native intelligence, of course. for some of the most brilliant people may be the most suggestible people, and some of the most dumb as rocks ones may have a very strong common sense insusceptibility to suggestion, AND vice versa.
Never make the mistake of thinking that by knowing how something might be done, you necessarily know how it was done, in a particular case. It does give you more room to speculate of course..
Once you think you know how a trick is done, you may be able to follow the trick, but since there are more than one way of skinning a trick, you can miss the point entirely.
Sometimes the medium is the message, or at least part of the message.
Lets speculate a little bit more.
Few consider that Erickson’s insights into conversational hypnosis aren’t new, they are simply re-discoveries (if even, Erickson was a profoundly well read man) of old knowledge of the human psyche. Many things modern thinkers think are knew, may actually just be re-discovery of things once taken for granted, that somehow slipped off the historical record.
..and what follows….
Dreams, Memes, and the movie Inception. Erickson, slipping you a mickey, and dangerous dreams Part 2
Posted on 22 July 2010 | 5 responses
Felicity lies in knowing what is important, when, and where, and to what degree.
On that note, do not make the mistake of assuming this is all fru fru, “woo woo” (how often inarticulate syllables substitute for speech today) incoherent New Age flakage. Some things are better spoken if using metaphor, or similitudes. Other things are clearly not. Do not confuse levels of meaning.
Dreams are important, in that the inner dynamics of your mind are important. Focus too much on them and you fall into a subtle type of escapism and an evasion from the real circumstances of your life, but ignore them and you place yourself in a situation of ignorance.
Evasion. Escape. So often from ourselves.
How often do we slap ourselves on the forehead and say “I should have seen that coming”?
The words we use often illustrates our perception of things we may not consciously be aware of.
This is a sort of tacit knowledge. But if you can’t articulate it consciously, what good is it, in terms of usefulness?
In our dreams, the emotions we repress, the knowledge we hide, the reasons we evade, can haunt us, and our ignoring these things can cause us great suffering.
But a tangent, before we return to Inception:
Some people are fond of pointing out the low IQ of the gypsies, irrespective of the throughly horrifying historical circumstances that often befall them. Many Europeans have tremendous bigotry towards the Roma, it’s often forgotten, and almost impossible to dig up without considerable research, the fact the Roma discovered, or somehow learned, certain metallurgical crafts kept secret, including a way of welding copper on a large scale basis.
This secret craft of theirs kept them busy in the 18h and 19th century with a monopoly on working on large scale industrial copper vats. Roma “Travelers” in England basically helped enable the industrial revolution by a jealously guarded science, or rather craft and art. Later developments in western metallurgy rendered them and their techniques obsolete, and later generations of gypsies forgot this skill. It wasn’t marketable any more, they had no monopoly.
Speaking a spell around our perception:
There is an extremely difficult book to obtain, written in the early 20th century (and ironically enough, re-printed in the 1970s by Idries Shah’s own press, Octagon Books) that covers seemingly hypnotic techniques in old poetry. Whitman, it seems, is full of such techniques. Now, when you call something by a name, you condition how your listener perceives it. If you call poetry “enchanting” this is perceived differently than calling it “hypnotic”
The point of course is that in ordinary conversation, one who knows how can be remarkably suggestive, and it is entirely possible to trigger visionary states while awake, or while near sleep.
But knowing the mechanics of how something may be done, of course, does not guarantee that you know how something is done in every case. You can’t always take apart a fly and discover it’s secrets of flight. Reductionism is a technique, hence it is a tool. Techniques are multifold, and of course:
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy..”
So, back to Inception.
The process the movie labels as “inception” and given some Hollywood flash is actually performed on a daily basis by PR firms, propaganda departments, and even our peers and co-workers. The idea of incubating the seed of an idea in someone and letting in sprout is something that is actually a finely refined science, and a bit of an art.
Albeit one highly morally dubious.
Much of what people think of as Spiritual development really isn’t, it often is simply development, hyper-development at times, of various aspects of the ego and psyche. Sometimes in our sincere attempts to arrive, we wander in confusion and end up in a deeper, though prettier, web than what we initially sought to escape.
Another aspect of the movie that was interesting was the “is life a dream” aspect.
Basically how do you know if you are sleeping, or awake.
The “theater” in which the movie unveils are a set of intense lucid dreams. This aspect - of multiple imaginal worlds within imaginal worlds - was interesting, but nowhere near as interesting as the memetic engineering aspect.
The character has an intense existential crisis, brought on by his wife’s perception that the world they shared was nothing but an illusion, a dream from which they needed to wake up.
And his intense guilt at having perpetuated this state. A guilt that led both of them to terrible destruction.
One of the themes of the movie was self-forgiveness and redemption, and the terrible toil that our own psyches can extract from us if we hold on to certain things.
Lucid dreams are interesting, our dreams can certainly say many things relevant to us, and expose things about ourselves that we would rather have buried, but in the act of burying them we may do damage to our own lives.
I have experienced very interesting waking visionary, and lucid dreaming states, off and on at various times in my life.
The most interesting ones occur during Ramadan, the first was a highly symbolic and somewhat disturbing dream of the Prophet Muhammad as a young man, I had as an undergrad. I shared it with Seyyed Hossein Nasr and he gave me an interesting interpretation of it. But on reflection years later, I could see his interpretation but also some additional things that I should have been aware of myself.
Sometimes a dream is like a letter and a large sum cheque sitting unopened in a stack of mail. The recipient not deserving it, by his own inactivity..
I’ve experienced intense “dreams within dreams” - with each level intensely realistic and solid, but always with something unusual going on. At times I have panicked trying to wake up from one dream, only to find myself in another, and so on constantly. it is difficult to describe the utterly real, or at least solid, intensity of these types of dreams
Some intense dreams may come unsought, or in strange circumstances (sleeping in a friend’s strange house or apartment, or sleeping in close proximity to someone with an unusually high, and often chaotic, degree of activity and psychic disturbances.)
However some such states can occur due to deliberate incubation and sometimes, but not always, precipitated by certain practices or “spiritual exercises” - for me, ones that I should not have been messing around with at the time.
One unfortunate condition today is that we are too prone to playing around with loaded guns, when all that we really need to do is cultivate some sincerity, hone our reason and logic, find the secret to prayer, and perform the fulfillment of ordinary duties life.
The psyche can be like a vast desert, or ocean, and it is possible to become trapped, and even to drown, in its depths.
It is unwise to cultivate certain sorts of intense lucid dream states and even classic “out of body” experiences. Because they lead to a preoccupation with the word of dreams, and pull us away from our waking reality here and now.
At best they cultivate an awareness of the somewhat dream like nature of the world in which we are in now, an awareness of its protean nature, but as the movie suggests - being lost in layers of perceived realities is in which I was jointly conscious of being physically asleep, the weight of the sheets around me, the position of my body, whilst also being conscious of being present at another location in the immediate vicinity of my sleeping body.
I had a “meeting” with someone quite unexpected, and somewhat unpleasant, that I am convinced was, in some way, “real” that is outside of juts my subjective experience, and reflecting something objective about the world.
That I truly encountered someone I knew, under unpleasant conditions, and that particular someone was, perhaps, more surprised than I was of meeting me..
The one thing I have taken home, from an awareness of dreams, is that as “real” as they seem, waking life has a coherence and order to it that even the most hyper-real dreams do not, because waking life deals with the physical hear and now, which is our normal order of being in life.
The dunya may, from a certain perspective, be an illusion, but from another perspective it is quite real. If you doubt me on this, touch a candle flame. You will quickly remember “what is real, and what isn’t”.
The main theme of inception is the tragic set of consequences that can result from forgetting what order of reality you happen to occupy. Life may be a dream from a perspective
“Man is asleep, and when he dies he awakens” - Ali bin Abi Talib
But this life, if it is a “dream” in some way, and if it is an “illusion” in some ways, is also utterly real..
And deadly in the terms of its rules.
It is the “dream” within which you are home, it is the “dream” that is real to you, and failure to realize the realness of what some see as a waking dream can have fatal consequences.
The coherence of waking life may seem to waver as we pay more attention to it and become more mindful, but this is a mistake. it is actually more coherent, we are simply just noticing the nuances that we previously filtered out.
Some “games” have incredible stakes, and this life is one such thing.
For once you leave, you never return. Our bodies do not blink out like a video game character, and we do not return to this level, no matter how much some may believe the case to be.
When we step off this mortal coil, you step off for good.
No second chance, no instant re-wind, like that interesting plot conceit in the Prince of Persia, the sands of time, the ability to return and undo the deaths of those you love..
We can choose to believe otherwise, just as we can choose to believe delusions..
Or we can cleanse our lens, and embrace perception of our situation here, and now.
Foresight and wisdom are our time machines, if you will. With foresight we can go forward, and trace things, those whose intellects and imaginations are able to virtually “travel forward in time” by putting together the pieces, connecting the dots, between traces of phenomena, in effect reading the negative space of life by perceiving the general context around the letters, the sensible.
This is using the seen as a support to induce a perception of the unseen, and seeing the consequences of actions through the their mind.
It is the ultimate use of reason and intellection.
Your intellect is the ultimate “time machine” - foresight is wisdom, the ability to see consequences from actions, to think a step or two ahead.
Lacking foresight is the fate of the vast majority of humanity, who see the words on the wall, so to speak. But are unable to “read” them.
This perhaps is a matter of dhawq, that is of taste. Experiential. It can be cultivated, and to some it is given naturally, but those of us who have to cultivate it have to struggle daily.
Dreams speak the language of emotion:
If we are divorced from our emotions we will not understand the language through which our dreams speak to us.
People are accustomed to making a division between emotion and reason, head and heart.
It is unwise to allow the way in which something is worded to influence you, and to sway you, without looking at the field broader.
It is wise to find a mastery of our emotions. Our emotions are important. And realize that your emotions are from your mind. So how can there be an opposition between our emotions and our mind?
Unless we are wording the situation the wrong way.
Those who are closed to their emotions are closed to a world of cognitive reactions. Emotions, like reason, are of our mind.
My buddy, Abu Abdullah likes to point out that Emotional thinking in itself is a form of reasoning.
A form of reason. Few people are capable to see that there is a reason within emotions. We are accustomed to thinking of emotions as irrational, I suggest a broader definition or “rational”.
Emotions occur in reaction to stimulus as perceived by our minds, and our mind is the seat of emotion.
We feel emotions in response to something we experience or learn or hear. This is a cognitive reaction.
Felicity lies in knowing what is important, when, and where, and to what degree.
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