Superiority and Survival
Most, if not all, reasonably intelligent humans harbor a desire to be the best at what they do, at their chosen métiers, their endeavors. The feeling that of all humans on this planet, one is truly unsurpassed in a given area must be an intoxicating feeling for that person to have. Thus, we, or at least I do, wonder what goes on in the minds of Tiger Woods and Phil Ivey, two American black men, when they are universally acknowledged the masters of their fields. We also wonder what went on in the minds of past world conquerors and religious founders.
On the other hand, we cannot help but laugh at lesser men who fancy that they are smarter or better than the rest of us, but have nothing to offer us in terms of proofs and evidence. Sure, we understand the need of humans to triumph, to assert, to excel, to crow, and to yelp and yell and call attention to themselves. Every dog wants to have its day in the sun. While all the dogs are busy barking and asserting themselves of their superiority, in a land with the shape of the letter S, the people are in dire traits and in danger of being assimilated by their historical and numerically superior foe, the Chinese.
It does not take a person with Darwin’s learning and intelligence to recognize that life is a never-ending process of struggle to survive and prosper. It goes on around us. Life is the will to stay alive and to reproduce. The inferior is being killed and consumed by the superior. Plant life takes nutrients from its surroundings. Herbivores consume plant life. Carnivores eat herbivores. Carnivores compete among themselves to be the masters of this planet. Man has come a long way ever since he ventured out of the forests in Africa and peered into the vast savannahs stretching hundreds of miles in front of him. He has arrived in all corners of the world, establishing communities and nations. In the process, nations come and go, and with them languages. Those peoples with the strongest will to survive and who know how to band together to fight their enemies are the ones who have their names recognized in the Assembly of the United Nations in New York. Those who are disunited and weak are now ruled by others and continue living in humiliation and abject slavery and are in the process of being assimilated. They eventually will disappear and their names are just footnotes in history. Ask the Tibetans and Uighurs (in Xinjiang of western China) of how they feel and you can taste the bitterness of defeat, the burning sensation of regret of not fighting when they had a chance.
We Vietnamese, the proud and ancient people, have survived for thousands of years. We once ruled the whole Indochina peninsula in 19th century prior to the arrival of the French. I had no respect for the Nguyen dynasty. Ngyen Anh relied on the French for help in the fight against Tay Son. Because of him, the French had an interest and a desire to conquer us. Ho Chi Minh, the so-called icon of North Vietnam, did exactly the same thing. Because of him, the Chinese are now the beneficiary of the brutal civil war, also known as the Vietnam War, and are now taking over our country
We are 87 million strong. We have produced many talented people in all kinds of endeavors. Are we willing and content to sit around and stand idly while the Chinese go on killing our fishermen and taking over our islands and our land, possessing our women, and teaching the products of such unions the Chinese language? Are we not the descendants of the proud people who managed to defeat the Mongols THREE times while the whole world trembled at the mere mention of the coming of the Mongols? At that time, the Mongols were numerically superior to us, too, but our forefathers had no fear of them. They were willing to fight for their pride and dignity. They did not want to live in slavery. Are we now, the descendants of such valiant people, pitiful cowards and willing to roll over and play dead facing the arrogant, expansionist Chinks of the North?
Wissai
October 29, 2009.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
True Explosions or Mere Rumblings of a Small Mind?
True Explosions or Mere Rumblings of a Small Mind?
What does the writer want to achieve when he decides to post his views on the Internet. I suppose the postings can fall under the following categories (the list is by no means exhaustive):
1. To share info and pieces of entertainment or attempts of “literary” production
2. To make trip report, announce upcoming visits, and the like.
3. To relieve oneself of loneliness by unconsciously making oneself a butt of laughter.
4. To make one’s presence known by saying anything whether it is worthwhile or not.
5. To engage in a war of words.
6. To advocate a cause or to weaken the cause adopted by others.
7. To cause explosions in the mind of the reader by adopting some controversial positions.
It is the last category that I would like to address. One person dropped a bombshell by asserting that PVL was stupid for holding NDN in high esteem for thinking that China was the ultimate threat of Vietnam and was the real beneficiary of the civil war that North Vietnam under the leadership of the “icon” HCM initiated. He went on saying NDN was a stupid politician for being murdered by his allies and underlings.
I made a comment by saying under that person's narrow definition of what constituted a stupid politician, it was hard to argue against the logic presented there. I then made a further observation that under the said person's definition, Julius Caesar, Trotsky, Sadat, and Rabin would all be considered stupid politicians. I then went on a limb and ventured an opinion that a reasonable and informed person would not consider the personages mentioned above stupid.
An ignoramus jumped in and asked the first person a point blank question if the he considered PVL and NDN “that stupid”. The ignoramus received a terse “yes”.
I then pointed out to that person in calling somebody stupid, one presupposes that one is smarter than that person. So by implication, he was asserted that he was smarter than PVL and NDN. I thus asked him to supply the members of this forum with facts and evidence to back up his plain and brazen assertion. He replied by asking me to go back and read his prior emails and if I did not get it, I did not get it.
I wrote back saying that I had gone back and read the emails of his and indeed I didn’t get it, that I was lost in the wilderness of his verbiage, and that I was left with a suffusion and surfeit of skepticism that he was smarter than PVN and NDN as he implied. I then inserted a short paragraph about language that I took from my blog.
Today, he went back to his original email and repeated the logic of his narrow definition of what makes a politician stupid, the logic I already stated that I found difficult to argue against. What interested me was what made him think or imply that he is smarter than PVN and NDN. It is my opinion that to label somebody stupid on the Internet is a daring act for which I gave him full credit for bravery. When we call somebody---politician or not--- stupid, we make a stand that we think we are smarter than that person otherwise we would not know or think the person is stupid in the first place. To call somebody a stupid politician while one is not a politician himself smacks and smells of overweening arrogance. To call anybody stupid makes a bystander wonder if the person who makes that statement is truly smart in the first place. As far as I recall, I have made several statements accusing a certain individual ignorant, but I have never posted a piece on the Internet, labeling anybody stupid. Ignorance is not a sin; it is merely a temporary condition which is easily remedied. All it takes is a simple willingness to learn. Stupidity, on the other hand, is a lasting condition; it is beyond help. It is something one is born with. It stays with the person for life. Arrogance is not endearing. Overweening arrogance is a sign of true “stupidity”.
Wissai
October 27, 2009
What does the writer want to achieve when he decides to post his views on the Internet. I suppose the postings can fall under the following categories (the list is by no means exhaustive):
1. To share info and pieces of entertainment or attempts of “literary” production
2. To make trip report, announce upcoming visits, and the like.
3. To relieve oneself of loneliness by unconsciously making oneself a butt of laughter.
4. To make one’s presence known by saying anything whether it is worthwhile or not.
5. To engage in a war of words.
6. To advocate a cause or to weaken the cause adopted by others.
7. To cause explosions in the mind of the reader by adopting some controversial positions.
It is the last category that I would like to address. One person dropped a bombshell by asserting that PVL was stupid for holding NDN in high esteem for thinking that China was the ultimate threat of Vietnam and was the real beneficiary of the civil war that North Vietnam under the leadership of the “icon” HCM initiated. He went on saying NDN was a stupid politician for being murdered by his allies and underlings.
I made a comment by saying under that person's narrow definition of what constituted a stupid politician, it was hard to argue against the logic presented there. I then made a further observation that under the said person's definition, Julius Caesar, Trotsky, Sadat, and Rabin would all be considered stupid politicians. I then went on a limb and ventured an opinion that a reasonable and informed person would not consider the personages mentioned above stupid.
An ignoramus jumped in and asked the first person a point blank question if the he considered PVL and NDN “that stupid”. The ignoramus received a terse “yes”.
I then pointed out to that person in calling somebody stupid, one presupposes that one is smarter than that person. So by implication, he was asserted that he was smarter than PVL and NDN. I thus asked him to supply the members of this forum with facts and evidence to back up his plain and brazen assertion. He replied by asking me to go back and read his prior emails and if I did not get it, I did not get it.
I wrote back saying that I had gone back and read the emails of his and indeed I didn’t get it, that I was lost in the wilderness of his verbiage, and that I was left with a suffusion and surfeit of skepticism that he was smarter than PVN and NDN as he implied. I then inserted a short paragraph about language that I took from my blog.
Today, he went back to his original email and repeated the logic of his narrow definition of what makes a politician stupid, the logic I already stated that I found difficult to argue against. What interested me was what made him think or imply that he is smarter than PVN and NDN. It is my opinion that to label somebody stupid on the Internet is a daring act for which I gave him full credit for bravery. When we call somebody---politician or not--- stupid, we make a stand that we think we are smarter than that person otherwise we would not know or think the person is stupid in the first place. To call somebody a stupid politician while one is not a politician himself smacks and smells of overweening arrogance. To call anybody stupid makes a bystander wonder if the person who makes that statement is truly smart in the first place. As far as I recall, I have made several statements accusing a certain individual ignorant, but I have never posted a piece on the Internet, labeling anybody stupid. Ignorance is not a sin; it is merely a temporary condition which is easily remedied. All it takes is a simple willingness to learn. Stupidity, on the other hand, is a lasting condition; it is beyond help. It is something one is born with. It stays with the person for life. Arrogance is not endearing. Overweening arrogance is a sign of true “stupidity”.
Wissai
October 27, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Superiority and Inferiority
Superiority and Inferiority
You no longer harbor any desire to be a superior being, the best human that ever walks on this planet, especially when it comes to metaphysics. Such a grandiose dream was a product of acute feelings of inferiority complex. You now merely want to be better than what you were of yesterday. You now wish that your mind does not deteriorate as you enter the last decade(s) of your life and that you would not fail to recognize mental infirmities when and if they in fact occur. Thus you embark on a daily exercise of putting your thoughts on paper. If one day you realize that you have difficulty of searching for words to express your thoughts, then you know the day of reckoning has arrived.
You have stopped competing with others. You now only watch others so you can learn from them. Your ego is in check. Your mind is open. And your heart is calm, free from vexations and excitations. You refrain from making unsubstantiated claims and brazen, unwarranted assertions. You stop from trying to appear smarter than you really are. You are a sensitive human being, not an ass trying to bay incessantly to make your presence known.
You try not to lapse into anger and self-righteousness when others provoke you. You’ve seen the disastrous consequences of uncontrolled rages.
Wissai
October 26, 2009
You no longer harbor any desire to be a superior being, the best human that ever walks on this planet, especially when it comes to metaphysics. Such a grandiose dream was a product of acute feelings of inferiority complex. You now merely want to be better than what you were of yesterday. You now wish that your mind does not deteriorate as you enter the last decade(s) of your life and that you would not fail to recognize mental infirmities when and if they in fact occur. Thus you embark on a daily exercise of putting your thoughts on paper. If one day you realize that you have difficulty of searching for words to express your thoughts, then you know the day of reckoning has arrived.
You have stopped competing with others. You now only watch others so you can learn from them. Your ego is in check. Your mind is open. And your heart is calm, free from vexations and excitations. You refrain from making unsubstantiated claims and brazen, unwarranted assertions. You stop from trying to appear smarter than you really are. You are a sensitive human being, not an ass trying to bay incessantly to make your presence known.
You try not to lapse into anger and self-righteousness when others provoke you. You’ve seen the disastrous consequences of uncontrolled rages.
Wissai
October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Reality and Fears
Reality and Fears
In trying to appear superior and knowledgeable, we usually end up looking inferior and ignorant. We are not that inscrutable and unfathomable as we fancy ourselves to be. The world can see through us, easily. The more we try to bark, to yelp, to call attention to ourselves, to appear clever, the more we tell the world that we suffer from an acute inferiority complex. It is stupid and embarrassing to invoke Petronius when we know nothing about the Latin language, when we don’t even know how to use properly some common Latin words that have crept into the English language, when the world know that we cannot even know how to write a decent paragraph in English after living in the States for 34 years, studying in an English-speaking country for 6 years, and having 7 years of study of English as a foreign language in high school. Yet we try hard, hemming and hawing ourselves every fucking day in a forum in order to intrude into the consciousness of others. All we can do is to copy the news and views of others and post them in the forum. Occasionally we harp on the tiresome theme of loneliness. We even indulge in “composing” inane, unrhymed, insipid “verses” about it. In some rare moments do we bravely venture our “opinions” based on undigested facts and illogical reasoning. We then see those “opinions” quickly shot down, taken apart and demolished by a gatekeeper of truth and sound reasoning.
We are known to be petty-minded, stingy, envious, and full of venom. Everybody avoids us and treats us as if we were lepers. We are social outcasts, lonely to the core, and drifting in a sea of frustrations and unfulfilled aspirations. Then why don’t we kill ourselves, to put an end to this miserable existence? The answer may be that we are not human enough, not self-aware enough. We live our lives like animals, operating on unquenchable desire to survive at all costs. We know nothing about pride and dignity, let alone self-improvement and admission of ignorance and wrongdoing when others kindly point out those errors to us.
Freud, in spite of his dogmatic pronouncements, did contribute something to the understanding of the human psyche. He advanced a view about Death Wish as opposed to the Life Force. He opined that in humans, there was a desire to debase, to demean ourselves, usually unconsciously, in order to balance out the desire to live. You submit that his view has some merit as you see some humans do engage in self-destructive habits. We smoke, drink, have unprotected sex, gamble, overeat, and use a stupid nickname Monkey (and are proud of that!). We even use vulgar terms expressing human female sex organ and acts of copulation in public and in writing. We swear and curse in our mother tongue and post them in an Internet forum. We brazenly and routinely make an ass of ourselves and then we blithely go on with our lives as if nothing has transpired. Stranger still, with all those despicable acts of ours, we absurdly demand respect from others, especially from those who are born merely two years later than us, on the principle of age seniority! How ridiculous and stupid of us! We should know, especially now we are in our 60’s, that respect is earned, not demanded or begged.
Wissai
October 25, 2009
____________________________________________________________
In trying to appear superior and knowledgeable, we usually end up looking inferior and ignorant. We are not that inscrutable and unfathomable as we fancy ourselves to be. The world can see through us, easily. The more we try to bark, to yelp, to call attention to ourselves, to appear clever, the more we tell the world that we suffer from an acute inferiority complex. It is stupid and embarrassing to invoke Petronius when we know nothing about the Latin language, when we don’t even know how to use properly some common Latin words that have crept into the English language, when the world know that we cannot even know how to write a decent paragraph in English after living in the States for 34 years, studying in an English-speaking country for 6 years, and having 7 years of study of English as a foreign language in high school. Yet we try hard, hemming and hawing ourselves every fucking day in a forum in order to intrude into the consciousness of others. All we can do is to copy the news and views of others and post them in the forum. Occasionally we harp on the tiresome theme of loneliness. We even indulge in “composing” inane, unrhymed, insipid “verses” about it. In some rare moments do we bravely venture our “opinions” based on undigested facts and illogical reasoning. We then see those “opinions” quickly shot down, taken apart and demolished by a gatekeeper of truth and sound reasoning.
We are known to be petty-minded, stingy, envious, and full of venom. Everybody avoids us and treats us as if we were lepers. We are social outcasts, lonely to the core, and drifting in a sea of frustrations and unfulfilled aspirations. Then why don’t we kill ourselves, to put an end to this miserable existence? The answer may be that we are not human enough, not self-aware enough. We live our lives like animals, operating on unquenchable desire to survive at all costs. We know nothing about pride and dignity, let alone self-improvement and admission of ignorance and wrongdoing when others kindly point out those errors to us.
Freud, in spite of his dogmatic pronouncements, did contribute something to the understanding of the human psyche. He advanced a view about Death Wish as opposed to the Life Force. He opined that in humans, there was a desire to debase, to demean ourselves, usually unconsciously, in order to balance out the desire to live. You submit that his view has some merit as you see some humans do engage in self-destructive habits. We smoke, drink, have unprotected sex, gamble, overeat, and use a stupid nickname Monkey (and are proud of that!). We even use vulgar terms expressing human female sex organ and acts of copulation in public and in writing. We swear and curse in our mother tongue and post them in an Internet forum. We brazenly and routinely make an ass of ourselves and then we blithely go on with our lives as if nothing has transpired. Stranger still, with all those despicable acts of ours, we absurdly demand respect from others, especially from those who are born merely two years later than us, on the principle of age seniority! How ridiculous and stupid of us! We should know, especially now we are in our 60’s, that respect is earned, not demanded or begged.
Wissai
October 25, 2009
____________________________________________________________
Explosions or Merely Rumblings of a Small Mind?
More Explosions or Are They Merely Rumblings of A Small Mind?
We can feel contemptuous to others and cast them as sub-humans and insects; we can regard others as festering sores of humanity. In fact, most humans at one time or another feel so and experience a sentiment of smugness and superiority. There comes a time, however, a collision with reality occurs and flashes of insights explode. That is when we realize that we have been, all along, nothing but moral lepers and a fraud. That is when there is a breakdown and suicide ensues. Such an outcome will not take place as long as we are still able to embrace self-ironies and be blind about ourselves.
Language is at once clarifying and mystifying. Written language, the last phase of language acquisition, exposes the mindset of the user. Through it, we can see the true nature of the user. The facts he employs, the arguments he marshals, and the tone he dispenses through the choice of his words and the syntax, tell us who he is and what he is made of.
Dalai Lama has been influential and respected among some informed circles because the language he employs is the language of reason, embracing understanding and forgiveness. It is the language that appeals to the nobler and wiser side of Man. He does not deliberately sprinkle his words with the Buddhist doctrines. He merely states what he thinks is useful in bringing mankind together in peace. Buddha said that he was nobody special. He was only a man who was awake and everybody else could be like him if they tried. He didn’t invoke God to make himself special and unique. Followers of Muhammad believe that he was the last prophet. Christians believe in the divinity of Jesus. Some followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam name their children, out of affection and love, after the prophets: Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Buddhists, on the contrary, don’t name their children after Buddha since perhaps they believe Buddha was a very special man, an inspiration, and a model of behavior for us to emulate, but no other man could be as understanding and wise as Buddha himself, hence no other man deserves to be called Buddha unless metaphorically.
You just received an email and it blew your mind. Your mind was so fragile. It blew up easily. Your respect for the author of the email went up sky high. The email was not about you. It was about reality. The manner it was written spoke volumes about the true character of the person. Once again, written language is powerful. Poetry is even more powerful. Poetry is the language that taps into the subconscious and reflects feelings and thinking at the most condensed and penetrating. Poetry is therapeutic and the last refuge of the troubled mind. If poetry fails, the poet kills himself. There is a high suicide rate among poets. The poem Ngay Xua Hoang Thi is immortal because it captured the universal feelings of halting, incipient feelings of first falling in love by an adolescent. All poems are personal and true in one way or another.
Yesterday a client of yours asked you to write for her a letter of denunciation to her soon-to-be-ex-husband. You refused, telling her that the request was absurd and making her look bad and low-class. We can learn a great deal about a person just by quietly observing how he behaves under stress. You don’t usually exhibit grace under pressure. You recognize your weakness and are working on it. Pride is a two-edged sword.
The sun is shining. The air is fresh. Acts of generosity and beauty abound if we care to look. You feel good, calm, and promise to yourself that today you will not let monkeys, ticks, and lice bother you. You will not scratch if bitten. You will accept them as they are. After all, they have the right to be here. Like you, they are the children of the universe. And you are not better than they are. Not really.
Wissai
October 24, 2009
_____________________________________________________________
We can feel contemptuous to others and cast them as sub-humans and insects; we can regard others as festering sores of humanity. In fact, most humans at one time or another feel so and experience a sentiment of smugness and superiority. There comes a time, however, a collision with reality occurs and flashes of insights explode. That is when we realize that we have been, all along, nothing but moral lepers and a fraud. That is when there is a breakdown and suicide ensues. Such an outcome will not take place as long as we are still able to embrace self-ironies and be blind about ourselves.
Language is at once clarifying and mystifying. Written language, the last phase of language acquisition, exposes the mindset of the user. Through it, we can see the true nature of the user. The facts he employs, the arguments he marshals, and the tone he dispenses through the choice of his words and the syntax, tell us who he is and what he is made of.
Dalai Lama has been influential and respected among some informed circles because the language he employs is the language of reason, embracing understanding and forgiveness. It is the language that appeals to the nobler and wiser side of Man. He does not deliberately sprinkle his words with the Buddhist doctrines. He merely states what he thinks is useful in bringing mankind together in peace. Buddha said that he was nobody special. He was only a man who was awake and everybody else could be like him if they tried. He didn’t invoke God to make himself special and unique. Followers of Muhammad believe that he was the last prophet. Christians believe in the divinity of Jesus. Some followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam name their children, out of affection and love, after the prophets: Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Buddhists, on the contrary, don’t name their children after Buddha since perhaps they believe Buddha was a very special man, an inspiration, and a model of behavior for us to emulate, but no other man could be as understanding and wise as Buddha himself, hence no other man deserves to be called Buddha unless metaphorically.
You just received an email and it blew your mind. Your mind was so fragile. It blew up easily. Your respect for the author of the email went up sky high. The email was not about you. It was about reality. The manner it was written spoke volumes about the true character of the person. Once again, written language is powerful. Poetry is even more powerful. Poetry is the language that taps into the subconscious and reflects feelings and thinking at the most condensed and penetrating. Poetry is therapeutic and the last refuge of the troubled mind. If poetry fails, the poet kills himself. There is a high suicide rate among poets. The poem Ngay Xua Hoang Thi is immortal because it captured the universal feelings of halting, incipient feelings of first falling in love by an adolescent. All poems are personal and true in one way or another.
Yesterday a client of yours asked you to write for her a letter of denunciation to her soon-to-be-ex-husband. You refused, telling her that the request was absurd and making her look bad and low-class. We can learn a great deal about a person just by quietly observing how he behaves under stress. You don’t usually exhibit grace under pressure. You recognize your weakness and are working on it. Pride is a two-edged sword.
The sun is shining. The air is fresh. Acts of generosity and beauty abound if we care to look. You feel good, calm, and promise to yourself that today you will not let monkeys, ticks, and lice bother you. You will not scratch if bitten. You will accept them as they are. After all, they have the right to be here. Like you, they are the children of the universe. And you are not better than they are. Not really.
Wissai
October 24, 2009
_____________________________________________________________
Thinking and Learning
Learning, thinking, reality, and humans versus sub-humans like monkeys and the rest.
“To learn without thinking is stultifying; to think without learning is dangerous.”
Confucius
I came across the above quote in a book I’m trying to digest, Disputers of the TAO, Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (A.C. Graham, Open Court Publishing Company 1989, p. 10).
The quote set off a series of explosions in my mind. That’s why I am sitting in front of a laptop, trying to do some damage control. I’m typing fast and furiously, with no particular order in mind, hence cohesiveness will be lacking.
Thinking is something I love to do, especially in my old age when death is near and vitality is draining away with each passing day. I fancy that I am still able to think with lucidity and have no problems searching for words-- not yet-- to express what I think. This delusion gives me comfort and a sense of pride, not smugness born out of ignorance and stubbornness.
I like to think of weighty matters that often come back to the nature of thinking itself. I like to get as close to reality as I can since I find that humans do have the tendency to lie to me, to keep me in the dark, to make me a slave, intellectually. Thus, I think of issues such as God and Devil, heaven and hell, good and evil, true patriotism and mere posturing, courage and cowardice, generosity and stinginess, love and hate, reality and illusion, and humans versus sub-humans like monkeys and the rest. Yes, I do think in dualism. What’s so wrong about that? That’s the first step in approaching reality. We learn by comparing and contrasting. And the world seems to operate in pairs. However, I do recognize that there’s unity in plurality.
Thinking without learning is dangerous. That’s why I respect facts and evidence and I am more than willing and happy to admit that I am wrong when somebody points out the errors of my ways. Nobody knows everything.
I respect those humans who are willing to learn, to undertake the journey from ignorance to understanding, from darkness to light. Such a journey helps true humans to differentiate themselves from sub-humans like monkeys and the rest, to distinguish between live concert and Memorex, true music and mere noise, to enjoy and appreciate true culture instead of triviality and banality.
I would like to end this rambling meditation with the words of Chris Hedges in Empire of Illusion, words that apply not only to the United States, but also to Vietnam and the microcosm called the Mitchong Forum.
“The more we sever ourselves from a literate, print-based world—a world of complexity and nuance, a world of ideas---for one informed by comforting, reassuring images, fantasies, slogans…, the more we implode. We ask, like the wrestling fans or those who confuse love with pornography, to be fed lies. We demand lies. The skillfully manufactured images and slogans that flood the airwaves and infect our political discourse mask reality. And we do not protest. The lonely Cassandras who speak the truth about our misguided imperial wars, the global economic meltdown, and the imminent danger of multiple pollutions that are destroying the ecosystem that sustains the human species, are drowned out by arenas full of fans chanting “Slut! Slut! Slut!” or television audiences chanting ‘Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!” The worse reality becomes, the less a beleaguered population wants to hear about it and the more it distracts itself with squalid pseudo-events of celebrity breakdowns, gossip, and trivia. These are the debauched revels of a dying culture.
A culture that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion dies. And we are dying now.”
What have we been really doing for Vietnam, the land of our birth where the graves of our ancestors are located, the land which is being taken piece-by-piece by the Chinese, besides talking and posturing? Self-preservation is understandable, but not laudable. Even animals know something about dying for and protecting the group. Even animals know something about tribalism. Have we, the cream of the crop, the more “educated” and informed Vietnamese, really lost all our natural feelings of patriotism, of caring, of taking responsibility? Are we willing to stand by idly and watch the Chinese take over Vietnam and then persecute and kill our fellow Vietnamese as they are doing right now to the fishermen? I know some of us are willing to be the modern day Trần Ích Tắc, Lê Chiêu Thống, and Tôn Thọ Tường, but I can’t believe most of us have no hearts for Vietnam. That’s why I am much heartened to see anh Nguyễn Hùng sticking his neck out and doing something useful with his time on this planet instead of indulging in triviality and banality and feeling smug about it. That’s why I feel honored to stand behind him and extend to him my trembling hand.
Wissai
October 23, 2009
_____________________________________________________________
“To learn without thinking is stultifying; to think without learning is dangerous.”
Confucius
I came across the above quote in a book I’m trying to digest, Disputers of the TAO, Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (A.C. Graham, Open Court Publishing Company 1989, p. 10).
The quote set off a series of explosions in my mind. That’s why I am sitting in front of a laptop, trying to do some damage control. I’m typing fast and furiously, with no particular order in mind, hence cohesiveness will be lacking.
Thinking is something I love to do, especially in my old age when death is near and vitality is draining away with each passing day. I fancy that I am still able to think with lucidity and have no problems searching for words-- not yet-- to express what I think. This delusion gives me comfort and a sense of pride, not smugness born out of ignorance and stubbornness.
I like to think of weighty matters that often come back to the nature of thinking itself. I like to get as close to reality as I can since I find that humans do have the tendency to lie to me, to keep me in the dark, to make me a slave, intellectually. Thus, I think of issues such as God and Devil, heaven and hell, good and evil, true patriotism and mere posturing, courage and cowardice, generosity and stinginess, love and hate, reality and illusion, and humans versus sub-humans like monkeys and the rest. Yes, I do think in dualism. What’s so wrong about that? That’s the first step in approaching reality. We learn by comparing and contrasting. And the world seems to operate in pairs. However, I do recognize that there’s unity in plurality.
Thinking without learning is dangerous. That’s why I respect facts and evidence and I am more than willing and happy to admit that I am wrong when somebody points out the errors of my ways. Nobody knows everything.
I respect those humans who are willing to learn, to undertake the journey from ignorance to understanding, from darkness to light. Such a journey helps true humans to differentiate themselves from sub-humans like monkeys and the rest, to distinguish between live concert and Memorex, true music and mere noise, to enjoy and appreciate true culture instead of triviality and banality.
I would like to end this rambling meditation with the words of Chris Hedges in Empire of Illusion, words that apply not only to the United States, but also to Vietnam and the microcosm called the Mitchong Forum.
“The more we sever ourselves from a literate, print-based world—a world of complexity and nuance, a world of ideas---for one informed by comforting, reassuring images, fantasies, slogans…, the more we implode. We ask, like the wrestling fans or those who confuse love with pornography, to be fed lies. We demand lies. The skillfully manufactured images and slogans that flood the airwaves and infect our political discourse mask reality. And we do not protest. The lonely Cassandras who speak the truth about our misguided imperial wars, the global economic meltdown, and the imminent danger of multiple pollutions that are destroying the ecosystem that sustains the human species, are drowned out by arenas full of fans chanting “Slut! Slut! Slut!” or television audiences chanting ‘Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!” The worse reality becomes, the less a beleaguered population wants to hear about it and the more it distracts itself with squalid pseudo-events of celebrity breakdowns, gossip, and trivia. These are the debauched revels of a dying culture.
A culture that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion dies. And we are dying now.”
What have we been really doing for Vietnam, the land of our birth where the graves of our ancestors are located, the land which is being taken piece-by-piece by the Chinese, besides talking and posturing? Self-preservation is understandable, but not laudable. Even animals know something about dying for and protecting the group. Even animals know something about tribalism. Have we, the cream of the crop, the more “educated” and informed Vietnamese, really lost all our natural feelings of patriotism, of caring, of taking responsibility? Are we willing to stand by idly and watch the Chinese take over Vietnam and then persecute and kill our fellow Vietnamese as they are doing right now to the fishermen? I know some of us are willing to be the modern day Trần Ích Tắc, Lê Chiêu Thống, and Tôn Thọ Tường, but I can’t believe most of us have no hearts for Vietnam. That’s why I am much heartened to see anh Nguyễn Hùng sticking his neck out and doing something useful with his time on this planet instead of indulging in triviality and banality and feeling smug about it. That’s why I feel honored to stand behind him and extend to him my trembling hand.
Wissai
October 23, 2009
_____________________________________________________________
About the website: http;//baotoantoquoc.org
About the website Baotoantoquoc.org
Dear sons and daughters of Vietnam:
We set up the website http://baotoantoquoc.org as a forum for Vietnamese all over the world to express their deep concern of the acute threat from the Chinese, our historical and implacable foe, who are taking a step-by-step invasion and assimilation of our fatherland.
In this forum you can articulate your patriotism, voice your resistance to the Chinese, and categorically state your intention to regain the land at the border, the Paracel and Spratly Islands, and the maritime areas that the Communist China has taken from us as a result of the ineptitude and cooperation of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), the current ruling clique of Vietnam. The VCP, in order to protect its own interests and those of its leaders, has brazenly ceded part of our fatherland to the expansionist Communist China. The leaders of the VCP are the modern day Trần Ích Tắc (late 13th century) and Lê Chiêu Thống (late 18th century).
Our ancestors successfully resisted the efforts of assimilation from the Chinese during the colonial period that lasted about a thousand years. Since then our forefathers have managed to repulse the invasions undertaken by the Chinese dynasties of Tống (Song), Nguyên (Yuan), Minh (Ming), and Thanh (Qing), and to preserve the territorial integrity of our land and sea. Now our country once again is facing the invasion of the Chinese. They have infiltrated into the top echelons of the VCP. They are persecuting and killing our fishermen at sea with impunity and are in the process of taking over our whole country by stealth without encountering any opposition from the VCP and the Vietnamese Government.
The current encroachment of the Chinese on our fatherland poses an unprecedented danger to the survival of our people because it has the tacit and undeclared support of the VCP leaders who are putting the alien and brutal ideology of Communism above the interests of the Vietnamese. That is why we have witnessed the spectacle of the current (and growing) estimated 100,000 Chinese laborers in Vietnam working in strategic mining and industrial locations where the local Vietnamese authorities are not authorized to enter, let alone the Vietnamese populace.
After taking over North Vietnam in 1954 and South Vietnam in 1975, the VCP has expropriated the properties of many common people. Many of these properties end up in the hands of the VCP leaders and their followers. Those Vietnamese who are not part of the VCP are viewed with suspicion and disrespect. The VCP simply does not care for the welfare of the common people. That is why the VCP has viewed with indifference the persecution and killing of the Vietnamese fishermen at the hands of the Chinese navy personnel. Worse still, the VCP has arrested and imprisoned those caring and patriotic Vietnamese who dared protest against the encroachment of the Chinese on our territories and their persecution and killing of our fishermen. Faced with that strange and illogical response of the VCP, we, the Vietnamese people, have to ask ourselves a question: To whom the VCP is serving, the Chinese or the Vietnamese people? Could it be that the VCP regards our fatherland as their private property and now it is repaying the Chinese of the war debts with the land and the sea that our forefathers have shed blood to bequeath to all of us?
The website http://baotoantoquoc.org belongs to all Vietnamese all over the world and across all generations. This is where we get together to fight against our perennial, historical, and implacable enemy from the North who has always been bent to conquer and assimilate us once and for all. This is where we expose the venality and selling of our fatherland by the VCP. Our fight will be long and arduous, but it is a just fight as we are fighting for the very survival of our country and our people.
We have inherited from our ancestors the unyielding, independent-minded spirit. We will not let Vietnam be like Xinjiang and Tibet. Please join us and utilize this forum as a weapon to fight for our country and our people:
1. To follow and publicize all activities of expansionism of the Chinese in Vietnam, as well as all acts of acquiescence of the VCP.
2. To follow and publicize all acts of criminality of the Chinese committed on the soil and sea of Vietnam and to expose the indifference and approval of the VCP with regard to these acts.
3. To suggest ways to counter the stealth invasion of the Chinese currently under way in Vietnam.
Our forefathers have left us with a proverb:
One single tree is not as high as a mountain
Three trees on top of one another can reach the height of a mountain
Sons and daughters of Vietnam, please join us in the fight to keep Vietnam from being a province of China. It is our responsibility to keep the land with the shape of letter S from falling into the hands of the Chinese. We have to do what our forefathers have done. They had no fear of the Chinese. They believed that it was possible to drive out the Chinese.
The time to fight is now. It is much easier to fight now than later. Look at Xinjiang and Tibet and learned from their situations. They didn’t resist when the Chinese were invading their countries. Now they are putting up some feeble resistance when they realize the Han Chinese are flooding their lands, that they are being outnumbered and assimilated, and that they have become strangers in their own lands, the lands that their ancestors have bequeathed to them
October 22, 2009
Founders of the website Preserving Territorial Integrity of Our Fatherland Vietnam (http://baotoantoquoc.org)
Le Quang Long, New Zealand
Nguyen Hung, Australia
Ngo Khoa Ba, U.S.A
Dear sons and daughters of Vietnam:
We set up the website http://baotoantoquoc.org as a forum for Vietnamese all over the world to express their deep concern of the acute threat from the Chinese, our historical and implacable foe, who are taking a step-by-step invasion and assimilation of our fatherland.
In this forum you can articulate your patriotism, voice your resistance to the Chinese, and categorically state your intention to regain the land at the border, the Paracel and Spratly Islands, and the maritime areas that the Communist China has taken from us as a result of the ineptitude and cooperation of the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), the current ruling clique of Vietnam. The VCP, in order to protect its own interests and those of its leaders, has brazenly ceded part of our fatherland to the expansionist Communist China. The leaders of the VCP are the modern day Trần Ích Tắc (late 13th century) and Lê Chiêu Thống (late 18th century).
Our ancestors successfully resisted the efforts of assimilation from the Chinese during the colonial period that lasted about a thousand years. Since then our forefathers have managed to repulse the invasions undertaken by the Chinese dynasties of Tống (Song), Nguyên (Yuan), Minh (Ming), and Thanh (Qing), and to preserve the territorial integrity of our land and sea. Now our country once again is facing the invasion of the Chinese. They have infiltrated into the top echelons of the VCP. They are persecuting and killing our fishermen at sea with impunity and are in the process of taking over our whole country by stealth without encountering any opposition from the VCP and the Vietnamese Government.
The current encroachment of the Chinese on our fatherland poses an unprecedented danger to the survival of our people because it has the tacit and undeclared support of the VCP leaders who are putting the alien and brutal ideology of Communism above the interests of the Vietnamese. That is why we have witnessed the spectacle of the current (and growing) estimated 100,000 Chinese laborers in Vietnam working in strategic mining and industrial locations where the local Vietnamese authorities are not authorized to enter, let alone the Vietnamese populace.
After taking over North Vietnam in 1954 and South Vietnam in 1975, the VCP has expropriated the properties of many common people. Many of these properties end up in the hands of the VCP leaders and their followers. Those Vietnamese who are not part of the VCP are viewed with suspicion and disrespect. The VCP simply does not care for the welfare of the common people. That is why the VCP has viewed with indifference the persecution and killing of the Vietnamese fishermen at the hands of the Chinese navy personnel. Worse still, the VCP has arrested and imprisoned those caring and patriotic Vietnamese who dared protest against the encroachment of the Chinese on our territories and their persecution and killing of our fishermen. Faced with that strange and illogical response of the VCP, we, the Vietnamese people, have to ask ourselves a question: To whom the VCP is serving, the Chinese or the Vietnamese people? Could it be that the VCP regards our fatherland as their private property and now it is repaying the Chinese of the war debts with the land and the sea that our forefathers have shed blood to bequeath to all of us?
The website http://baotoantoquoc.org belongs to all Vietnamese all over the world and across all generations. This is where we get together to fight against our perennial, historical, and implacable enemy from the North who has always been bent to conquer and assimilate us once and for all. This is where we expose the venality and selling of our fatherland by the VCP. Our fight will be long and arduous, but it is a just fight as we are fighting for the very survival of our country and our people.
We have inherited from our ancestors the unyielding, independent-minded spirit. We will not let Vietnam be like Xinjiang and Tibet. Please join us and utilize this forum as a weapon to fight for our country and our people:
1. To follow and publicize all activities of expansionism of the Chinese in Vietnam, as well as all acts of acquiescence of the VCP.
2. To follow and publicize all acts of criminality of the Chinese committed on the soil and sea of Vietnam and to expose the indifference and approval of the VCP with regard to these acts.
3. To suggest ways to counter the stealth invasion of the Chinese currently under way in Vietnam.
Our forefathers have left us with a proverb:
One single tree is not as high as a mountain
Three trees on top of one another can reach the height of a mountain
Sons and daughters of Vietnam, please join us in the fight to keep Vietnam from being a province of China. It is our responsibility to keep the land with the shape of letter S from falling into the hands of the Chinese. We have to do what our forefathers have done. They had no fear of the Chinese. They believed that it was possible to drive out the Chinese.
The time to fight is now. It is much easier to fight now than later. Look at Xinjiang and Tibet and learned from their situations. They didn’t resist when the Chinese were invading their countries. Now they are putting up some feeble resistance when they realize the Han Chinese are flooding their lands, that they are being outnumbered and assimilated, and that they have become strangers in their own lands, the lands that their ancestors have bequeathed to them
October 22, 2009
Founders of the website Preserving Territorial Integrity of Our Fatherland Vietnam (http://baotoantoquoc.org)
Le Quang Long, New Zealand
Nguyen Hung, Australia
Ngo Khoa Ba, U.S.A
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Thing Called Love
The Thing Called Love
You chuckled and cackled when reading a braggadocio of some individual that he was a champion in the Love Department. He insinuated that among the group comprising of two hundred plus members, he was the love object of many ladies (not in the group), more than any man in the group. You didn’t believe his assertion at all. He might have more money than anybody else in the group, but as for being the ladies man, he simply was not qualified. He didn’t have the right stuff.
Last night you posted the multi-media presentation of the immortal poem “Ngay Xua Hoang Thi” in the forum MC. You commented that the printed poem, the music and the photography set to the lyrics made viewing the production an unforgettable experience and that the viewers would be transported to a realm of ineffable beauty.
Ineffable beauty is what you have been after all your life. To you, few things come close to an experience of ineffable joy and serenity when somebody tells you with all sincerity that she loves you. You are now sixty three years old. Without trying hard on your part, thirteen (that's right, it's not a typo) women have told you that they loved you. Out of those, maybe two really did. There are two others who are chasing you right now. You have what commonly referred to as magnetism, a charm and a force that women are drawn to. You imagine what your love life would be if you are less diffident and more willing to spend money and time to court women of your interest. Instead, you let chance and serendipities rule your life. You drift in and out of the zone of ineffable beauty. Meanwhile you pine for long gone memories, write jejune verses of falling in and out of love and of missed opportunities, and are overcome by songs like Traces, Feelings, and Ngay Xua Hoàng Thị
You are now experiencing all kinds of ailments. Your looks have faded. Your body is breaking down. Your money is being depleted. And you are getting difficult and cranky. Yet somehow you read and fantasize about a love that transcends time and space and makes everything else in life pale in comparison. Yet you dream of a woman who would deliquesce into your arms after you touch her lips with yours, and would tell you inarticulately and passionately that she loves you with all her heart and with everything in her purse. You can dream about her. Dream is all you can do, for you are a poet, a dreamer, a romantic at heart. You can’t help yourself. Dreaming is part of your make-up, of your DNA, of what makes who you are, of making you feel alive and full of zest every morning when you get out of bed. Dreaming forces you to take care of yourself, to read, to study, and to watch your finance.
Day of dreaming.
You chuckled and cackled when reading a braggadocio of some individual that he was a champion in the Love Department. He insinuated that among the group comprising of two hundred plus members, he was the love object of many ladies (not in the group), more than any man in the group. You didn’t believe his assertion at all. He might have more money than anybody else in the group, but as for being the ladies man, he simply was not qualified. He didn’t have the right stuff.
Last night you posted the multi-media presentation of the immortal poem “Ngay Xua Hoang Thi” in the forum MC. You commented that the printed poem, the music and the photography set to the lyrics made viewing the production an unforgettable experience and that the viewers would be transported to a realm of ineffable beauty.
Ineffable beauty is what you have been after all your life. To you, few things come close to an experience of ineffable joy and serenity when somebody tells you with all sincerity that she loves you. You are now sixty three years old. Without trying hard on your part, thirteen (that's right, it's not a typo) women have told you that they loved you. Out of those, maybe two really did. There are two others who are chasing you right now. You have what commonly referred to as magnetism, a charm and a force that women are drawn to. You imagine what your love life would be if you are less diffident and more willing to spend money and time to court women of your interest. Instead, you let chance and serendipities rule your life. You drift in and out of the zone of ineffable beauty. Meanwhile you pine for long gone memories, write jejune verses of falling in and out of love and of missed opportunities, and are overcome by songs like Traces, Feelings, and Ngay Xua Hoàng Thị
You are now experiencing all kinds of ailments. Your looks have faded. Your body is breaking down. Your money is being depleted. And you are getting difficult and cranky. Yet somehow you read and fantasize about a love that transcends time and space and makes everything else in life pale in comparison. Yet you dream of a woman who would deliquesce into your arms after you touch her lips with yours, and would tell you inarticulately and passionately that she loves you with all her heart and with everything in her purse. You can dream about her. Dream is all you can do, for you are a poet, a dreamer, a romantic at heart. You can’t help yourself. Dreaming is part of your make-up, of your DNA, of what makes who you are, of making you feel alive and full of zest every morning when you get out of bed. Dreaming forces you to take care of yourself, to read, to study, and to watch your finance.
Day of dreaming.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Death of Sgt. Nguyen Khac Binh
Death of Sgt. Nguyen Khac Binh in the faraway Iraq and other thoughts
Sgt. NKB was a young Vietnamese immigrant. He volunteered into the Army so he could become a citizen in a record time in order to bring his parents and siblings to the U.S. He died in Iraq. At his funeral, there were many American and Vietnamese-American dignitaries. The Department of Defense honored his wish by bringing his family over. You wondered what his family thought of his sacrifice, just as you wondered about the “martyrs’ in Iraq and Afghanistan who blew themselves up for a cause and with the knowledge that their families would receive some monetary compensation from the “resistance movements”. A writer who signed as a woman wrote a nice tribute about him in a context of a story. If the author was indeed a woman, she displayed a tremendous empathy and imagination, with remarkable insights about life of a soldier in combat, facing death on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the author also displayed pathetic ignorance about history of Iraq and irritating bias about Islam. She made so many basic errors when commenting on events and historical facts which she knew very little about. She could have done some research.
You’ve thinking of Death quite frequently lately, of death in general and of your own pending death. You’ve thought of the meaning of life and what you’ve lived for. You thought of these issues before, but only recently do they resonate deeply with you. You suppose with all the ailments you have and all the cumulative humiliations and anger and annoyance you have suffered, you’re finding yourself on the verge of acting on your fantasies. What has held you back is your ability to articulate, to vent your frustrations.
The more you interact with humans, the more you realize that there are some monkeys you couldn’t simply stand because they are so fucking stupid and ignorant and full of inanities. They live in a safe environment whereas in some parts of the world, people are dying for no fault of their own. There are people who live in daily terror, struggling to stay sane and find food to feed themselves. Yet over here, in America, there are monkeys and animals pontificating over nonsense and displaying their ignorance and poor reasoning skills.
Some monkeys pride themselves as being clever and practical by avoiding discussions about religion and politics. You, on the contrary, are fond of these two subjects because they would reveal the level of understanding and true character of the person involved in the discussions. You find innocuous subjects such as weather and sports and even sex so fucking boring and banal. You want to talk about religion, politics, war, death, suicide, homicide, violence, revenge, and yes, peace. You want to go into depth the issues of love and hate, sex and lust, power and humiliation, the kind of issues that once you are through talking, you can’t help but think about them afterwards and find yourself changed and modified and transformed simply you have confronted yourself and others while engaging in the discussions.
Take the issue of China. Some illustrious “thinkers” of this forum have opined that China is in “crisis”, i.e., China is in danger of breaking apart due to the “uprising” in Xinjiang and the “revolt” in Tibet. Before you take apart the “argument” and demolish the “opinion” of these “thinkers”, you want to quote at length something you have read recently about the nature of opinion:
“One of the great lies woven into the fabric of our culture is the notion that everyone is entitled to an opinion. Why would that be? The very word “opinion” should have stature. It should convey that careful thought has been given, that all available evidence has been weighed, and that a conclusion has been reached.
In a court of law, a verdict is really just another word for an opinion. Suppose you’re on trial for murder and you didn’t do it. Most of us will face that situation sooner or later. Further suppose that the jury giggles, reads, and pays no attention to your trial. Four minutes following the final lawyer summaries, they return with a guilty verdict. The press interviews the jury afterwards and they say stuff like “He looked like he did it,” and “He reminds me of my uncle who had a bad temper.”
As you’re dragged to prison, pending your execution, do you think, “Well, I don’t agree, but everyone’s entitled to an opinion,” will be the words you’re most likely to utter?” (M. Caro)
Whether we’re talking about cars, sports, religion, sex, love, lust, power, humiliation, or politics, there should be no opinions until and unless all relevant facts and evidence have been weighed and examined and pondered.
Having said that, you hereby render an “opinion” that China is NOT in crisis. Rather, she is on a steady rise to be the world’s biggest economic power. With the money accumulated she is in a position to finance and invest in military matters and thus she will be a very strong military power and challenge the U.S. in Asia at first and elsewhere later. You also render another opinion that the notion that China is facing fragmentation due to the “uprising” in Xinjiang and the “revolt” in Tibet is nothing but a pipedream and a product of wishful thinking. China is firmly in control of these two regions. So far, there have been no indications that the “resistance movements” in Xinjiang and Tibet get any traction. In addition, the “resistance movements” would have any chance of success if they receive extensive and committed help from the Islamic world (in the case of Xinjiang) and India (in the case of Tibet). So far, there have been no reports of any help.
The oft-repeated notion that China might disintegrate due to the dislocation of the peasants and the disparity of progress between the coast and the hinterland has some merit, but these problems are manageable and China is addressing them.
China WAS in crisis. And that started about one hundred and fifty years ago when she was bullied and threatened by technologically superior Western powers and later by Japan. To survive and buy time, she had to cede land and ports to these countries. The history of China is replete with alternating cycles of unity and disunity. China is in the phase of unity and on a relentless rise for a conceivable future.
Vietnam is in crisis. Vietnam is in danger of being swallowed by China. The danger is getting more acute with each passing day. Some overseas Vietnamese intellectuals who should be in a vanguard to do something to staunch the danger chose to play safe and wag their tongues and spout nonsense. They even dared not put their names in a declaration denouncing the planned take-over of Vietnam by China for fear of appearing on a black list compiled by the Vietnamese and Chinese authorities, and thus would hurt themselves and their loved ones. They hid behind excuses such as the declaration was ineffective and “infertile”. They conveniently forgot that if all our forefathers were full of fear as they were, Vietnam would be now a province of China and we all speak Chinese instead of the beautiful Vietnamese language which has produced wonderful poetry and songs and jokes. Some other bright and talented Vietnamese intellectuals are behaving in a more debasing and demeaning manner. They ingratiate themselves with the Chinese and act as modern day Ton Tho Tuong. In other words, they function as Chinese lackeys and running dogs. They are traitors to their country of birth. You wonder how those Vietnamese can sleep at night. Animals, such as baboons, chimps, lions, and dogs, band together to fight against enemies. Not a single one of them has been observed to desert its troop to join the enemies.
Wissai
October 14, 2009
____________________________________________________________
Sgt. NKB was a young Vietnamese immigrant. He volunteered into the Army so he could become a citizen in a record time in order to bring his parents and siblings to the U.S. He died in Iraq. At his funeral, there were many American and Vietnamese-American dignitaries. The Department of Defense honored his wish by bringing his family over. You wondered what his family thought of his sacrifice, just as you wondered about the “martyrs’ in Iraq and Afghanistan who blew themselves up for a cause and with the knowledge that their families would receive some monetary compensation from the “resistance movements”. A writer who signed as a woman wrote a nice tribute about him in a context of a story. If the author was indeed a woman, she displayed a tremendous empathy and imagination, with remarkable insights about life of a soldier in combat, facing death on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the author also displayed pathetic ignorance about history of Iraq and irritating bias about Islam. She made so many basic errors when commenting on events and historical facts which she knew very little about. She could have done some research.
You’ve thinking of Death quite frequently lately, of death in general and of your own pending death. You’ve thought of the meaning of life and what you’ve lived for. You thought of these issues before, but only recently do they resonate deeply with you. You suppose with all the ailments you have and all the cumulative humiliations and anger and annoyance you have suffered, you’re finding yourself on the verge of acting on your fantasies. What has held you back is your ability to articulate, to vent your frustrations.
The more you interact with humans, the more you realize that there are some monkeys you couldn’t simply stand because they are so fucking stupid and ignorant and full of inanities. They live in a safe environment whereas in some parts of the world, people are dying for no fault of their own. There are people who live in daily terror, struggling to stay sane and find food to feed themselves. Yet over here, in America, there are monkeys and animals pontificating over nonsense and displaying their ignorance and poor reasoning skills.
Some monkeys pride themselves as being clever and practical by avoiding discussions about religion and politics. You, on the contrary, are fond of these two subjects because they would reveal the level of understanding and true character of the person involved in the discussions. You find innocuous subjects such as weather and sports and even sex so fucking boring and banal. You want to talk about religion, politics, war, death, suicide, homicide, violence, revenge, and yes, peace. You want to go into depth the issues of love and hate, sex and lust, power and humiliation, the kind of issues that once you are through talking, you can’t help but think about them afterwards and find yourself changed and modified and transformed simply you have confronted yourself and others while engaging in the discussions.
Take the issue of China. Some illustrious “thinkers” of this forum have opined that China is in “crisis”, i.e., China is in danger of breaking apart due to the “uprising” in Xinjiang and the “revolt” in Tibet. Before you take apart the “argument” and demolish the “opinion” of these “thinkers”, you want to quote at length something you have read recently about the nature of opinion:
“One of the great lies woven into the fabric of our culture is the notion that everyone is entitled to an opinion. Why would that be? The very word “opinion” should have stature. It should convey that careful thought has been given, that all available evidence has been weighed, and that a conclusion has been reached.
In a court of law, a verdict is really just another word for an opinion. Suppose you’re on trial for murder and you didn’t do it. Most of us will face that situation sooner or later. Further suppose that the jury giggles, reads, and pays no attention to your trial. Four minutes following the final lawyer summaries, they return with a guilty verdict. The press interviews the jury afterwards and they say stuff like “He looked like he did it,” and “He reminds me of my uncle who had a bad temper.”
As you’re dragged to prison, pending your execution, do you think, “Well, I don’t agree, but everyone’s entitled to an opinion,” will be the words you’re most likely to utter?” (M. Caro)
Whether we’re talking about cars, sports, religion, sex, love, lust, power, humiliation, or politics, there should be no opinions until and unless all relevant facts and evidence have been weighed and examined and pondered.
Having said that, you hereby render an “opinion” that China is NOT in crisis. Rather, she is on a steady rise to be the world’s biggest economic power. With the money accumulated she is in a position to finance and invest in military matters and thus she will be a very strong military power and challenge the U.S. in Asia at first and elsewhere later. You also render another opinion that the notion that China is facing fragmentation due to the “uprising” in Xinjiang and the “revolt” in Tibet is nothing but a pipedream and a product of wishful thinking. China is firmly in control of these two regions. So far, there have been no indications that the “resistance movements” in Xinjiang and Tibet get any traction. In addition, the “resistance movements” would have any chance of success if they receive extensive and committed help from the Islamic world (in the case of Xinjiang) and India (in the case of Tibet). So far, there have been no reports of any help.
The oft-repeated notion that China might disintegrate due to the dislocation of the peasants and the disparity of progress between the coast and the hinterland has some merit, but these problems are manageable and China is addressing them.
China WAS in crisis. And that started about one hundred and fifty years ago when she was bullied and threatened by technologically superior Western powers and later by Japan. To survive and buy time, she had to cede land and ports to these countries. The history of China is replete with alternating cycles of unity and disunity. China is in the phase of unity and on a relentless rise for a conceivable future.
Vietnam is in crisis. Vietnam is in danger of being swallowed by China. The danger is getting more acute with each passing day. Some overseas Vietnamese intellectuals who should be in a vanguard to do something to staunch the danger chose to play safe and wag their tongues and spout nonsense. They even dared not put their names in a declaration denouncing the planned take-over of Vietnam by China for fear of appearing on a black list compiled by the Vietnamese and Chinese authorities, and thus would hurt themselves and their loved ones. They hid behind excuses such as the declaration was ineffective and “infertile”. They conveniently forgot that if all our forefathers were full of fear as they were, Vietnam would be now a province of China and we all speak Chinese instead of the beautiful Vietnamese language which has produced wonderful poetry and songs and jokes. Some other bright and talented Vietnamese intellectuals are behaving in a more debasing and demeaning manner. They ingratiate themselves with the Chinese and act as modern day Ton Tho Tuong. In other words, they function as Chinese lackeys and running dogs. They are traitors to their country of birth. You wonder how those Vietnamese can sleep at night. Animals, such as baboons, chimps, lions, and dogs, band together to fight against enemies. Not a single one of them has been observed to desert its troop to join the enemies.
Wissai
October 14, 2009
____________________________________________________________
Friday, October 9, 2009
A Theater Review. The Craft of Acting
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: October 9, 2009
Hard-core disciples of the religion known as the Theater are scarce on the grounds these days. But two evangelists of that embattled creed have set up camp at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater to attest that the faith lives on. Portraying 1920s stage stars in the Manhattan Theater Club’s Broadway revival of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s “Royal Family,” which opened on Thursday night, Jan Maxwell and Rosemary Harris are giving the kinds of performances that turn agnostics into true believers.
Ms. Harris is Fanny Cavendish, the matriarch of an acting dynasty, and Ms. Maxwell is her daughter, Julie, the reigning goddess of Broadway. And when, in the play’s second act, this mother and daughter start to preach the family gospel to an apostate in their midst, something close to a miracle occurs.
A production that up to that point has seemed merely a handsome, stilted revival of a dated comedy (a genre all too common in Manhattan’s institutional theaters) is suffused with the radiance of the pure, inexhaustible love of an ancient craft. All the usual clichés associated with the thrill of stage acting — from the paralyzing precurtain jitters to the revitalizing embrace of an audience — are not so much spoken as exhaled, as if they were the breath of life.
That Ms. Harris, 82, played Ms. Maxwell’s role in a fondly remembered Broadway production in the mid-1970s adds another layer of sentiment. But even those who know nothing of her history may find themselves moved to tears. What is happening is a blurring of illusion and bone-deep conviction that is peculiar to live theater, as two actresses playing actresses spin hokum into moonlight, just as their characters are said to do.
As reported earlier this week, it briefly looked as if another, less felicitous, melding of art and life might have befallen Doug Hughes’s production of this 1927 comedy. Fanny speaks proudly of her husband’s performing in sickness as well as health. And in a preview on Sunday, Tony Roberts, playing the Cavendish family’s business manager, experienced a minor seizure and became noticeably ill in his first scene, causing the matinee’s cancellation. His understudy, Anthony Newfield, filled in for him for several performances, but Mr. Roberts returned to the production on opening night. (His entrance was received with hearty applause.)
Mr. Roberts, a confident veteran of stage and film, gave a likable, restrained performance at the preview I attended. But it is only when Ms. Maxwell and Ms. Harris are center stage (and this is a play in which everyone vies for that spot) that the show moves from sepia-colored past into flesh-toned present. A satire notoriously inspired by the Barrymore clan, “The Royal Family” has always been a favorite of theater folk, for obvious reasons.
Like Noël Coward’s “Hay Fever” and the musical “Kiss Me Kate,” other larky portraits of people who live and die by the theater, “The Royal Family” allows performers to caricature the narcissism, self-dramatizing and infantile craving for attention that were once said to characterize their profession (and of course have nothing to do with actors as we know them today). It also pulses with the door-slamming farcical sound and fury found in the liveliest of Kaufman’s collaborations (like “You Can’t Take It With You” and “Once in a Lifetime”).
Yet in recent years I haven’t seen a fully satisfying production of “The Royal Family.” Too often the characters become the strutting sum of their affectations, as if they themselves came out of the parody-ready melodramas in which they were sometimes reduced to appearing.
As staged by Mr. Hughes (“Doubt,” this season’s revival of David Mamet’s “Oleanna”), this “Royal Family” takes a while to find its natural rhythm and even then doesn’t always hold on to it. Not all the cast members seem equally at home in John Lee Beatty’s lush rendering of the Cavendish family’s two-tiered apartment, a deluxe playpen for grown-up babies. (Catherine Zuber has provided mouthwatering period costumes to match.)
Fun and games at the Cavendish household include boxing lessons, furniture-toppling fencing matches, random piano playing and dodging the madding crowds that assemble outside once Tony Cavendish (Reg Rogers), a childlike Lothario modeled on John Barrymore, comes home from Hollywood, trailed by a process server with breach-of-promise papers. But the favorite activity for this family’s members is emoting for and at one another, which can grow wearisome if it’s not rooted in real emotional substance.
Mr. Rogers brings a zestful touch of Marx Brothers mania to the swashbuckling Tony, and he combines worldliness with innocence in a way that makes you understand why his mother dotes on him. And the estimable John Glover (late of “Waiting for Godot”) exudes a touching, broken dignity that helps lubricate the stiff-jointed role of Herbert, Fanny’s less successful thespian brother.
But Kelli Barrett, suggesting a standard-issue ingénue from the 1970s instead of the ’20s; Ana Gasteyer, who overdoes the shrillness of Herbert’s tootsie of a wife; and David Greenspan, as the loyal family butler, all seem to have arrived from different planets. (So does Larry Pine, as a rich suitor from Julie’s youth, but then that’s what his part asks for.) They’re not bad, but they’re not credible, either. And their self-consciousness is fatal to farce. (In fairness, I don’t think anyone could do much with the lovers’ dialogue between Ms. Barrett and Freddy Arsenault, as her society swain.)
Ms. Maxwell, whose supporting performances were the best things about the Broadway productions of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and “The Dinner Party,” gets the star role she has long deserved and fills it to the fingertips. Like Fanny, this Julie turns the hackneyed notion of “theater in the blood” into biological fact. Both women are wonderful paradoxes, people for whom artifice is truly natural, and as mother and daughter they communicate in a perfect private language to which we are allowed privileged access.
Fanny and Julie are poseurs, for sure, but there is real feeling not just behind but within the poses. As satire, “The Royal Family” is not deathless. But the passion at its heart, as Ms. Maxwell and Ms. Harris make so movingly clear, is forever.
Herta Muller, Romanian-German writer, winner of 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature
By MOTOKO RICH and NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: October 8, 2009
Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist who writes of the oppression of dictatorship in her native country and the unmoored existence of the political exile, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
Herta Müller, 56, emigrated to Germany in 1987 from her native Romania.
Reviews
Richard Eder on ‘The Appointment’ (September 12, 2001)
The Sunday Book Review on ‘The Appointment’ (October 21, 2001)
‘Traveling on One Leg’ (February 2, 1999)
‘The Land of Green Plums’ (December 1, 1996)
Additional Excerpts
‘Nadirs’
‘The Passport’
‘The Land of Green Plums’ (Google Books)
‘The Appointment’ (Google Books)
‘Traveling on One Leg’ (Google Books)
Ms. Müller is a relative unknown outside of literary circles in Germany.
Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy described Ms. Müller as a writer “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.” Her award coincides with the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism in Europe.
Ms. Müller, 56, emigrated to Germany in 1987 after years of persecution and censorship in Romania. She is the first German writer to win the Nobel in literature since Günter Grass in 1999 and the 13th winner writing in German since the prize was first given in 1901. She is the 12th woman to capture the literature prize. But unlike previous winners like Doris Lessing and V. S. Naipaul, Ms. Müller is a relative unknown outside of literary circles in Germany.
She has written some 20 books, but just 5 have been translated into English, including the novels “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment.”
At a packed news conference on Thursday at the German Publishers & Booksellers Association in Berlin, where she lives, Ms. Müller, petite, wearing all black and sitting on a leopard-print chair, appeared overwhelmed by all the cameras in her face. She spoke of the 30 years she spent under a dictatorship and of friends who did not survive, describing living “every day with the fear in the morning that in the evening one would no longer exist.”
When asked what it meant that her name would now be mentioned in the same breath as German greats like Thomas Mann and Heinrich Böll, Ms. Müller remained philosophical. “I am now nothing better and I’m nothing worse,” she said, adding: “My inner thing is writing. That I can hold on to.”
Earlier in the day, at a news conference in Stockholm, Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Ms. Müller was honored for her “very, very distinct special language” and because “she has really a story to tell about growing up in a dictatorship ... and growing up as a stranger in your own family.”
Just two days before the announcement, Mr. Englund criticized the jury panel as being too “Eurocentric.” Europeans have won 9 of the past 10 literature prizes. On Thursday Mr. Englund told The Associated Press that it was easier for Europeans to relate to European literature. “It’s the result of psychological bias that we really try to be aware of,” he said.
Ms. Müller was born and raised in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf, Romania. Her father served in the Waffen-SS in World War II, and her mother was deported to a work camp in the Soviet Union in 1945. At university, Ms. Müller opposed the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu and joined Aktionsgruppe Banat, a group of dissident writers who sought freedom of speech.
She wrote her first collection of short stories in 1982 while working as a translator for a factory. The stories were censored by the Romanian authorities, and Ms. Müller was fired from the factory after refusing to work with the Securitate secret police. The uncensored manuscript of “Niederungen” — or “Nadirs” — was published in Germany two years later to critical acclaim.
“Niederungen” and other early works depicted life in a village and the repression its residents faced. Her later novels, including “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment,” approach allegory in their graphic portrayals of the brutality suffered by modest people living under totalitarianism. Her most recent novel, “Atemschaukel,” is a finalist for the German Book Prize.
Even in Germany, Ms. Müller is not well known. “She’s not one of these public trumpeters — or drum-beaters, like Grass,” said Volker Weidermann, a book critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper. “She’s more reserved.”
Ms. Müller also has a low profile in the English-speaking world, although “The Land of Green Plums” won the International Dublin Impac Literary Award in 1998.
Writing in The New York Times Book Review in 2001, Peter Filkins described “The Appointment” as using the thuggery of the government as “a backdrop to the brutality and betrayal with which people treat one another in their everyday lives.”
Lyn Marven, a lecturer in German studies at the University of Liverpool who has written about Ms. Müller, said: “It’s an odd disjunction to write about traumatic experiences living under a dictatorship in a very poetic style. It’s not what we expect, certainly.”
Michael Naumann, Germany’s former culture minister and the former head of Metropolitan Books, one of Ms. Müller’s publishers in the United States, praised her work but said she was “not a public intellectual.”
She has, however, spoken out against oppression and collaboration. In Germany, for example, she has criticized those East German writers who worked with the secret police.
A spokeswoman for Metropolitan, a unit of Macmillan that released English translations of “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment” in the United States, said the publisher would reissue hardcover editions of those books. Northwestern University Press, which published the paperback version of “The Land of Green Plums,” said it was reprinting 20,000 copies.
In Germany, Ms. Müller’s publisher, Carl Hanser Verlag, was also scrambling to reprint more copies of “Atemschaukel,” as well as other titles from her backlist. Asked whether winning the prize while relatively young could hurt her work, Ms. Müller said: “I thought after every book, never again, it’s my last. Then two years pass, and I start writing again. It doesn’t feel any different after I’ve won this prize.”
The awards ceremony is planned for Dec. 10 in Stockholm. As the winner, Ms. Müller will receive 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.4 million.
Motoko Rich reported from New York, Nicholas Kulish reported from Berlin. Also contributing reporting was Victor Homola in Berlin.
Published: October 8, 2009
Herta Müller, the Romanian-born German novelist and essayist who writes of the oppression of dictatorship in her native country and the unmoored existence of the political exile, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
Herta Müller, 56, emigrated to Germany in 1987 from her native Romania.
Reviews
Richard Eder on ‘The Appointment’ (September 12, 2001)
The Sunday Book Review on ‘The Appointment’ (October 21, 2001)
‘Traveling on One Leg’ (February 2, 1999)
‘The Land of Green Plums’ (December 1, 1996)
Additional Excerpts
‘Nadirs’
‘The Passport’
‘The Land of Green Plums’ (Google Books)
‘The Appointment’ (Google Books)
‘Traveling on One Leg’ (Google Books)
Ms. Müller is a relative unknown outside of literary circles in Germany.
Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy described Ms. Müller as a writer “who, with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed.” Her award coincides with the 20th anniversary of the fall of Communism in Europe.
Ms. Müller, 56, emigrated to Germany in 1987 after years of persecution and censorship in Romania. She is the first German writer to win the Nobel in literature since Günter Grass in 1999 and the 13th winner writing in German since the prize was first given in 1901. She is the 12th woman to capture the literature prize. But unlike previous winners like Doris Lessing and V. S. Naipaul, Ms. Müller is a relative unknown outside of literary circles in Germany.
She has written some 20 books, but just 5 have been translated into English, including the novels “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment.”
At a packed news conference on Thursday at the German Publishers & Booksellers Association in Berlin, where she lives, Ms. Müller, petite, wearing all black and sitting on a leopard-print chair, appeared overwhelmed by all the cameras in her face. She spoke of the 30 years she spent under a dictatorship and of friends who did not survive, describing living “every day with the fear in the morning that in the evening one would no longer exist.”
When asked what it meant that her name would now be mentioned in the same breath as German greats like Thomas Mann and Heinrich Böll, Ms. Müller remained philosophical. “I am now nothing better and I’m nothing worse,” she said, adding: “My inner thing is writing. That I can hold on to.”
Earlier in the day, at a news conference in Stockholm, Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said Ms. Müller was honored for her “very, very distinct special language” and because “she has really a story to tell about growing up in a dictatorship ... and growing up as a stranger in your own family.”
Just two days before the announcement, Mr. Englund criticized the jury panel as being too “Eurocentric.” Europeans have won 9 of the past 10 literature prizes. On Thursday Mr. Englund told The Associated Press that it was easier for Europeans to relate to European literature. “It’s the result of psychological bias that we really try to be aware of,” he said.
Ms. Müller was born and raised in the German-speaking town of Nitzkydorf, Romania. Her father served in the Waffen-SS in World War II, and her mother was deported to a work camp in the Soviet Union in 1945. At university, Ms. Müller opposed the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu and joined Aktionsgruppe Banat, a group of dissident writers who sought freedom of speech.
She wrote her first collection of short stories in 1982 while working as a translator for a factory. The stories were censored by the Romanian authorities, and Ms. Müller was fired from the factory after refusing to work with the Securitate secret police. The uncensored manuscript of “Niederungen” — or “Nadirs” — was published in Germany two years later to critical acclaim.
“Niederungen” and other early works depicted life in a village and the repression its residents faced. Her later novels, including “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment,” approach allegory in their graphic portrayals of the brutality suffered by modest people living under totalitarianism. Her most recent novel, “Atemschaukel,” is a finalist for the German Book Prize.
Even in Germany, Ms. Müller is not well known. “She’s not one of these public trumpeters — or drum-beaters, like Grass,” said Volker Weidermann, a book critic for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper. “She’s more reserved.”
Ms. Müller also has a low profile in the English-speaking world, although “The Land of Green Plums” won the International Dublin Impac Literary Award in 1998.
Writing in The New York Times Book Review in 2001, Peter Filkins described “The Appointment” as using the thuggery of the government as “a backdrop to the brutality and betrayal with which people treat one another in their everyday lives.”
Lyn Marven, a lecturer in German studies at the University of Liverpool who has written about Ms. Müller, said: “It’s an odd disjunction to write about traumatic experiences living under a dictatorship in a very poetic style. It’s not what we expect, certainly.”
Michael Naumann, Germany’s former culture minister and the former head of Metropolitan Books, one of Ms. Müller’s publishers in the United States, praised her work but said she was “not a public intellectual.”
She has, however, spoken out against oppression and collaboration. In Germany, for example, she has criticized those East German writers who worked with the secret police.
A spokeswoman for Metropolitan, a unit of Macmillan that released English translations of “The Land of Green Plums” and “The Appointment” in the United States, said the publisher would reissue hardcover editions of those books. Northwestern University Press, which published the paperback version of “The Land of Green Plums,” said it was reprinting 20,000 copies.
In Germany, Ms. Müller’s publisher, Carl Hanser Verlag, was also scrambling to reprint more copies of “Atemschaukel,” as well as other titles from her backlist. Asked whether winning the prize while relatively young could hurt her work, Ms. Müller said: “I thought after every book, never again, it’s my last. Then two years pass, and I start writing again. It doesn’t feel any different after I’ve won this prize.”
The awards ceremony is planned for Dec. 10 in Stockholm. As the winner, Ms. Müller will receive 10 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.4 million.
Motoko Rich reported from New York, Nicholas Kulish reported from Berlin. Also contributing reporting was Victor Homola in Berlin.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Blasphemy
“Blasphemy uttered by great minds is more pleasant to God than the interested prayers of the vulgar man”.
Renan
Apparently the above quote resonated with somebody. That was why he included it in his partial translation of the French language diatribe against Radical Islam. I, on the contrary, found the quote repugnant and redolent of sophistry and elitism. The quote was used to support the provocative portrayal of Muhammad in a cartoon as a “terrorist”
Assuming that there is a God with all the attributes ascribed to Him, would any human with a functioning brain really believe that God would find blasphemy uttered by great minds is more pleasant to Him than the interested prayers of vulgar men? I submit the answer is No. Renan twisted the sentiments around to please himself and then sophistically ascribed the sentiments to God. In other words, Renan viewed himself as God. Renan had the right to view himself in whatever terms he likes, but at least he should have been more honest. That is why I despise sophists with a passion.
I am not against blasphemy per se. I am not a follower of any religion. I am an atheist. What I am interested in is truth. Now, there are two types of blasphemy: gratuitous blasphemy and a blasphemy based on facts. I am only against gratuitous blasphemy. And I hold an opinion that the cartoonists committed an act of gratuitous blasphemy when depicting Muhammad as a “terrorist”. Contrary to popular misconception, truth is not as pernicious as lies. Lying enrages and infuriates humans more than telling the truth. Muslims throughout the Islamic world were enraged and infuriated with the cartoon because the deeds and actions committed by Muhammad throughout his life did not support the allegation that he was a “terrorist”. On the contrary, he had a reputation of being fair when he was a caravan leader. That was why he was often chosen as an arbiter whenever there was a dispute among fellow traders. When he became a founder of Islam and also assumed the positions of military leader and administrator, he conducted himself with fairness, firmness, and mercy, not wanton cruelty. History textbooks have never lumped him into the same company with Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot. Only diatribes written by Christian bigots and Zionists would descend to the level of deliberate debasement of the man.
If there is a God, I would think that God would be moved by the prayers and entreaties of vulgar men since they are sincere. He would treat any utterances, blasphemies or not, of great minds with amusement and bemusement, and not with any true pleasure.
The gentleman who gave us the quote indicated he was no longer interested in religion and that he found the arguments against the existence of God of the illustrious Bertrand Russell shallow even when he (the quoter) was only fourteen when he read the collection of essays, Why I am not a Christian. If he read Russell at that tender age in the original English and not in French translation, then I would submit that he was indeed precocious and quite a prodigy in languages.
Roberto Wissai
October 07, 2009
____________________________________________________________
Renan
Apparently the above quote resonated with somebody. That was why he included it in his partial translation of the French language diatribe against Radical Islam. I, on the contrary, found the quote repugnant and redolent of sophistry and elitism. The quote was used to support the provocative portrayal of Muhammad in a cartoon as a “terrorist”
Assuming that there is a God with all the attributes ascribed to Him, would any human with a functioning brain really believe that God would find blasphemy uttered by great minds is more pleasant to Him than the interested prayers of vulgar men? I submit the answer is No. Renan twisted the sentiments around to please himself and then sophistically ascribed the sentiments to God. In other words, Renan viewed himself as God. Renan had the right to view himself in whatever terms he likes, but at least he should have been more honest. That is why I despise sophists with a passion.
I am not against blasphemy per se. I am not a follower of any religion. I am an atheist. What I am interested in is truth. Now, there are two types of blasphemy: gratuitous blasphemy and a blasphemy based on facts. I am only against gratuitous blasphemy. And I hold an opinion that the cartoonists committed an act of gratuitous blasphemy when depicting Muhammad as a “terrorist”. Contrary to popular misconception, truth is not as pernicious as lies. Lying enrages and infuriates humans more than telling the truth. Muslims throughout the Islamic world were enraged and infuriated with the cartoon because the deeds and actions committed by Muhammad throughout his life did not support the allegation that he was a “terrorist”. On the contrary, he had a reputation of being fair when he was a caravan leader. That was why he was often chosen as an arbiter whenever there was a dispute among fellow traders. When he became a founder of Islam and also assumed the positions of military leader and administrator, he conducted himself with fairness, firmness, and mercy, not wanton cruelty. History textbooks have never lumped him into the same company with Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot. Only diatribes written by Christian bigots and Zionists would descend to the level of deliberate debasement of the man.
If there is a God, I would think that God would be moved by the prayers and entreaties of vulgar men since they are sincere. He would treat any utterances, blasphemies or not, of great minds with amusement and bemusement, and not with any true pleasure.
The gentleman who gave us the quote indicated he was no longer interested in religion and that he found the arguments against the existence of God of the illustrious Bertrand Russell shallow even when he (the quoter) was only fourteen when he read the collection of essays, Why I am not a Christian. If he read Russell at that tender age in the original English and not in French translation, then I would submit that he was indeed precocious and quite a prodigy in languages.
Roberto Wissai
October 07, 2009
____________________________________________________________
Reactions to Khan's Article
REACTIONS TO THE ARTICLE OF KHAN
A Poet’s work
To name the unnamable
To point at frauds
To take sides
To start arguments
To shape the world and stop it from going to sleep
Salman Rushdie
A Long Introduction:
You are breathing hard. You are excited. You feel engaged and alive as you are typing these words. You then have an insight that all those poses, those insipid jokes, those pitiful lame attempts of poetry writing, those inane comments (including your own) are just pathetic strivings to be human. A man totally cut off from his fellow men cannot be a real human. Only when he is in communication with others, even in miscommunication, can he become himself. Man is a social, communicative being. Yet he feels alone and lonely throughout his life. That’s why sex and love are powerful drives. He has a strong need to be understood. He needs to be joined with others. During sex, he has an illusion that he is joined physically and, hopefully, emotionally with somebody. (Therefore, it does not take much imagination to think that sex with a prostitute is an empty, lonely act). It takes a very strong man to be indifferent to the drives.
On this planet, everything is evanescent, is subject to dissolution. What’s about God? Well, the reality of the World has an evanescent existence. Contrary to common beliefs, “God is invisible, inconceivable, and unthinkable. No symbol or metaphor can describe Him and none may take His place. All metaphysical representations of God without exceptions are myths, meaningful as such when understood to be hints and parallels, but they become superstitions when taken for the reality of God Himself ” (Karl Jaspers). To talk about God is tantamount to talking about the origin of the Universe. We know the how but not the why. We know about the Big Bang, but we don’t know, at least not yet, why the Big Bang occurred. Those who talk about God as if they understand Him all engage in wishful and delusional thinking. Man is the only animal who is big on delusions and illusions. This paragraph is perhaps the most profound and insightful of the whole essay. We can tell how smart and honest a person is after he expounds his beliefs and ideas about the concept called God. We can tell if he has done some serious thinking or merely parrots what he has been taught and heard.
Likewise, Man can only be experienced and not totally understood. Each man is an island. And Life is a journey of a sailing ship among the islands. Most of the journey is at night amidst rain and howling winds. Occasionally the ship sails in bright sunshine and balmy weather. That’s when life gives you a glimpse of the grandeur and joy life can be. You wonder why the ship can’t cruise during the day and in the better weather conditions more often. The answer lies in the fact that Man likes to do things the hard way. He likes to overreach himself, to go beyond himself. He is never satisfied. Those who are satisfied are not quite human enough. Man, by definition, is a work in progress, not a finished product.
Sooner or later, every man asks himself the questions: Who am I? What can I know? What do I live for? Selfishly for myself or for my family and my fellow countrymen? Am I a real man or merely a monkey in disguise? When I die, am I proud of the way my life has been?
Article by Khan:
The long introduction is necessary to explain why I deign to take the time to write. I have no means to verify if all the allegations made by Khan in his article are true. About four years ago, I checked out a book about Islam from the library. I did read about the killing of the Jewish tribes after they broke the covenant with Muhammad and joined Muhammad’s enemies to attack him and his followers. If I were Muhammad, I would do the same and rightfully so. From what I read, Muhammad, after conquering Mecca, instead of ordering wholesale slaughter of the male inhabitants as it was the CUSTOM in that region , Muhammad spared their lives. This behavior earned him much gratitude and respect among the Arabs and soon many Arabs joined his cause.
I have a distinct impression that Khan has an agenda and that is to combat Islam as a whole, not just the contemporary extremist elements. We, the alleged university-educated members of the human species, have to maintain intellectual vigilance when coming across articles and books peddled by Khan. We have to watch if they are written with the truth in mind or with political aims in their hearts and thus facts are distorted and exaggerated in order to besmirch the entire religion which is followed by more than one billion people. If Muhammad indeed was such a blood-thirsty and vengeful person, instead of a fair and merciful religious founder, military leader, and administrator, he could not have commanded such fierce loyalty and love from his followers. Also, history textbooks would expose his alleged brutality if indeed it was true.
Islam spread like wild fires for the following reasons, from what I have read and from memory (you just have to take my word for it):
1. Byzantine Empire rule was harsh and many of its subjects were glad to join Islam.
The zeal and pride of the new faith. Islam unified the Arabs and channeled their energies into outward expansion instead of fighting among themselves.
Islamic conquerors treated conquered peoples fairly. New converts were exempt from paying certain taxes. Those who were not willing to convert were left alone to practice their religions. If Islamic conquerors were indeed as harsh as Khan alleged, there would be constant revolts and uprisings and the history textbooks would mention about these.
Islamic rulers utilized the talents of the conquered subjects. Scholars from Persia and Greece and other lands flocked to the capitals (Baghdad, Damascus, and Grenada) and contributed to the learning and knowledge during various reigns of the Islamic dynasties.
While it is not enlightened to counter the claims of extremism with another example of extremism, we must remember the current extremism practiced by the fanatical elements of Islam-- which are the minority and in response to the humiliation and grievances suffered by the Muslims after centuries of Western imperialism and domination—is by no means the sole province of these fanatical elements. Those extremist elements of Christianity must also bear responsibility to the following well-documented atrocities:
1. The barbarity and brutality committed by the Crusaders against Muslims and Jews.
2. The wholesale expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain after Christians reconquered Spain after seven centuries of Moorish rule.
3. The ruthless and unconscionable mistreatment and genocidal practice against Native Americans.
4. The harsh exploitation of colonies by Christian countries, starting with the sixteenth century until well into the 1950’s when most colonies gained independence. The exploitation still goes on in some former colonies via economic means instead of naked outright military force.
5. The slaughter of the Palestinians in Lebanon refugees camps by the Christian Falangists after the Israeli invasion in 1982.
Conclusion:
Culture in some Christian countries is obviously showing signs of decadence: drug usage, rampant sexuality and lack of modesty in attire, family ties and work ethic are weakening, materialism, alienation expressed by widespread appearance of graffiti, tattooing, and body piercing. Islam, even among the moderate elements, is viewing these examples of degeneration with disgust and is thus trying to protect their young ones against the “values” of the decadent West. If practitioners of Christianity view Islam as an enemy, they will be in for a nasty fight. In my view, the morally superior and ardent and committed people will eventually win the fight. Technology superiority has its own limits. Witness the failures of the British, the Russians, and now perhaps the Americans in Afghanistan. [Perhaps the following custom of the Pashtuns, constituting the majority of the Taliban, and living in south of Afghanistan and northwest of Pakistan, is something to reflect upon: the custom is called Pashtunwali, an ancient traditional code of conduct and honor. I read it in the Economist a few years ago. If anybody, even a stranger, seeks shelter in a home of a Pashtun, he is obligated by custom to provide him the shelter and protection. It is thus no surprise that the Pashtuns (28 million according to 2005 census, second-largest ethnic group and prominently represented in the military) living in Pakistan are helping their brothers (14 millions according to 2009 figure) in Afghanistan with their own lives in the fight against the Americans. So, the war in Afghanistan, for all practical purposes, is now expanded into the Northwest of Pakistan].
Bigoted followers of Christianity should learn to accept others as they are and stop viewing Muhammad as a false prophet and Islam as a false religion. Times for holding exclusivity claims are long past. It’s time to examine the soundness of their own religious beliefs in light of common sense, logic, and scientific knowledge. It’s time to stop being holier-than-thou and start asking questions and doing some hard thinking into the nature of reality, truth, and the like. Maybe the truth is that the Zionists are using Americans to fight for them.
Roberto Wissai
October 6, 2009
A Poet’s work
To name the unnamable
To point at frauds
To take sides
To start arguments
To shape the world and stop it from going to sleep
Salman Rushdie
A Long Introduction:
You are breathing hard. You are excited. You feel engaged and alive as you are typing these words. You then have an insight that all those poses, those insipid jokes, those pitiful lame attempts of poetry writing, those inane comments (including your own) are just pathetic strivings to be human. A man totally cut off from his fellow men cannot be a real human. Only when he is in communication with others, even in miscommunication, can he become himself. Man is a social, communicative being. Yet he feels alone and lonely throughout his life. That’s why sex and love are powerful drives. He has a strong need to be understood. He needs to be joined with others. During sex, he has an illusion that he is joined physically and, hopefully, emotionally with somebody. (Therefore, it does not take much imagination to think that sex with a prostitute is an empty, lonely act). It takes a very strong man to be indifferent to the drives.
On this planet, everything is evanescent, is subject to dissolution. What’s about God? Well, the reality of the World has an evanescent existence. Contrary to common beliefs, “God is invisible, inconceivable, and unthinkable. No symbol or metaphor can describe Him and none may take His place. All metaphysical representations of God without exceptions are myths, meaningful as such when understood to be hints and parallels, but they become superstitions when taken for the reality of God Himself ” (Karl Jaspers). To talk about God is tantamount to talking about the origin of the Universe. We know the how but not the why. We know about the Big Bang, but we don’t know, at least not yet, why the Big Bang occurred. Those who talk about God as if they understand Him all engage in wishful and delusional thinking. Man is the only animal who is big on delusions and illusions. This paragraph is perhaps the most profound and insightful of the whole essay. We can tell how smart and honest a person is after he expounds his beliefs and ideas about the concept called God. We can tell if he has done some serious thinking or merely parrots what he has been taught and heard.
Likewise, Man can only be experienced and not totally understood. Each man is an island. And Life is a journey of a sailing ship among the islands. Most of the journey is at night amidst rain and howling winds. Occasionally the ship sails in bright sunshine and balmy weather. That’s when life gives you a glimpse of the grandeur and joy life can be. You wonder why the ship can’t cruise during the day and in the better weather conditions more often. The answer lies in the fact that Man likes to do things the hard way. He likes to overreach himself, to go beyond himself. He is never satisfied. Those who are satisfied are not quite human enough. Man, by definition, is a work in progress, not a finished product.
Sooner or later, every man asks himself the questions: Who am I? What can I know? What do I live for? Selfishly for myself or for my family and my fellow countrymen? Am I a real man or merely a monkey in disguise? When I die, am I proud of the way my life has been?
Article by Khan:
The long introduction is necessary to explain why I deign to take the time to write. I have no means to verify if all the allegations made by Khan in his article are true. About four years ago, I checked out a book about Islam from the library. I did read about the killing of the Jewish tribes after they broke the covenant with Muhammad and joined Muhammad’s enemies to attack him and his followers. If I were Muhammad, I would do the same and rightfully so. From what I read, Muhammad, after conquering Mecca, instead of ordering wholesale slaughter of the male inhabitants as it was the CUSTOM in that region , Muhammad spared their lives. This behavior earned him much gratitude and respect among the Arabs and soon many Arabs joined his cause.
I have a distinct impression that Khan has an agenda and that is to combat Islam as a whole, not just the contemporary extremist elements. We, the alleged university-educated members of the human species, have to maintain intellectual vigilance when coming across articles and books peddled by Khan. We have to watch if they are written with the truth in mind or with political aims in their hearts and thus facts are distorted and exaggerated in order to besmirch the entire religion which is followed by more than one billion people. If Muhammad indeed was such a blood-thirsty and vengeful person, instead of a fair and merciful religious founder, military leader, and administrator, he could not have commanded such fierce loyalty and love from his followers. Also, history textbooks would expose his alleged brutality if indeed it was true.
Islam spread like wild fires for the following reasons, from what I have read and from memory (you just have to take my word for it):
1. Byzantine Empire rule was harsh and many of its subjects were glad to join Islam.
The zeal and pride of the new faith. Islam unified the Arabs and channeled their energies into outward expansion instead of fighting among themselves.
Islamic conquerors treated conquered peoples fairly. New converts were exempt from paying certain taxes. Those who were not willing to convert were left alone to practice their religions. If Islamic conquerors were indeed as harsh as Khan alleged, there would be constant revolts and uprisings and the history textbooks would mention about these.
Islamic rulers utilized the talents of the conquered subjects. Scholars from Persia and Greece and other lands flocked to the capitals (Baghdad, Damascus, and Grenada) and contributed to the learning and knowledge during various reigns of the Islamic dynasties.
While it is not enlightened to counter the claims of extremism with another example of extremism, we must remember the current extremism practiced by the fanatical elements of Islam-- which are the minority and in response to the humiliation and grievances suffered by the Muslims after centuries of Western imperialism and domination—is by no means the sole province of these fanatical elements. Those extremist elements of Christianity must also bear responsibility to the following well-documented atrocities:
1. The barbarity and brutality committed by the Crusaders against Muslims and Jews.
2. The wholesale expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain after Christians reconquered Spain after seven centuries of Moorish rule.
3. The ruthless and unconscionable mistreatment and genocidal practice against Native Americans.
4. The harsh exploitation of colonies by Christian countries, starting with the sixteenth century until well into the 1950’s when most colonies gained independence. The exploitation still goes on in some former colonies via economic means instead of naked outright military force.
5. The slaughter of the Palestinians in Lebanon refugees camps by the Christian Falangists after the Israeli invasion in 1982.
Conclusion:
Culture in some Christian countries is obviously showing signs of decadence: drug usage, rampant sexuality and lack of modesty in attire, family ties and work ethic are weakening, materialism, alienation expressed by widespread appearance of graffiti, tattooing, and body piercing. Islam, even among the moderate elements, is viewing these examples of degeneration with disgust and is thus trying to protect their young ones against the “values” of the decadent West. If practitioners of Christianity view Islam as an enemy, they will be in for a nasty fight. In my view, the morally superior and ardent and committed people will eventually win the fight. Technology superiority has its own limits. Witness the failures of the British, the Russians, and now perhaps the Americans in Afghanistan. [Perhaps the following custom of the Pashtuns, constituting the majority of the Taliban, and living in south of Afghanistan and northwest of Pakistan, is something to reflect upon: the custom is called Pashtunwali, an ancient traditional code of conduct and honor. I read it in the Economist a few years ago. If anybody, even a stranger, seeks shelter in a home of a Pashtun, he is obligated by custom to provide him the shelter and protection. It is thus no surprise that the Pashtuns (28 million according to 2005 census, second-largest ethnic group and prominently represented in the military) living in Pakistan are helping their brothers (14 millions according to 2009 figure) in Afghanistan with their own lives in the fight against the Americans. So, the war in Afghanistan, for all practical purposes, is now expanded into the Northwest of Pakistan].
Bigoted followers of Christianity should learn to accept others as they are and stop viewing Muhammad as a false prophet and Islam as a false religion. Times for holding exclusivity claims are long past. It’s time to examine the soundness of their own religious beliefs in light of common sense, logic, and scientific knowledge. It’s time to stop being holier-than-thou and start asking questions and doing some hard thinking into the nature of reality, truth, and the like. Maybe the truth is that the Zionists are using Americans to fight for them.
Roberto Wissai
October 6, 2009
Muhammad
Muhammad, a Terrorist?
I was offended by the email written by the professor from Michigan and the circular mail campaign in support of the position of the professor. I was offended by the sheer hypocrisy and ignorance of both the professor the circular writer.
The professor claimed that he was soft-spoken, but the tone and content of his email was strident and provocative. In other words, he was a hypocrite. On top of that, he was an ignoramus, outside of his field of specialty which was mechanical engineering. Let me explain why I hold such dim view of this creature.
The Muslim Students Association (MSA) at Michigan State University (MSU) lodged a protest against the Danish cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, as a terrorist. The MSA complained that the cartoons constituted “hate speech”. The professor didn’t find the cartoons offensive. Instead, he listed a litany of acts committed by the contemporary extremist elements of Islam and found them deeply abhorrent. Mind you, these acts were not committed or sanctioned or supported by the MSA, and had nothing to do with the subject of complaint by the MSA. Then incredibly the professor used the gutter language and described the students at MSA as “dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and slave-trading Moslems” and labeled their protests as “infantile”. He concluded his hate-filled email missive with the words “If you do not like the values of the West –see the 1st Amendment—you are free to leave. I hope for God’s sake (sic!) that most of you choose that option”. He then signed “Cordially” and added his name.
His email was not cordial. He should have signed as “Sincerely”. His English is somewhat deplorable. “First” in the First Amendment should be spelled out instead of being abbreviated. The students at the MSA might be dissatisfied and aggressive, but there were no evidence to support the allegation that they were “brutal and slave-trading Moslems”. Their protests were not “infantile”, but mature, responsible exercise of their right of free speech, unlike the manner chosen by the professor. The professor also imposed his own religious beliefs by invoking the phrase “God’s sake”.
Now any fair-minded individual would find any cartoons depicting the founder of a religion which has more than one billion adherents, as a terrorist offensive, but the professor would not think so and he stated clearly his view. That would lead us question the fairness of the professor. He never explained why he agreed with the cartoons. From the manner exhibited by the professor, the reader would infer that he is a Christian, not a fair, forgiving, charitable Christian as exhorted by the founder of his religion, but an unfair and uncharitable one. He joined many other like-minded Christian bigots in hurling venom at Muhammad who is loved and revered by all Muslims, regardless of the sects involved. In fact, Muhammad who learned about religions from Christian and Jewish preachers, recognized Jesus and other Jewish prophets and told his followers to respect these individuals and their followers. I have not heard of any instance that a Muslim newspaper publishing any article or cartoons denigrating Jesus or Moses or any prophets mentioned in the Bible.
Muhammad was a remarkable man. He even at one time asked his followers to head in the direction of Jerusalem when praying in homage of the intellectual debt that Islam owed to Judaism and Christianity. Only after he was betrayed by certain Jewish tribes that he commanded his followers to pray in the direction of Mecca. There are passages in the Koran which urge of tolerance of other faiths. There are also passages which ask for the defense of Islam, by force. The latter passages are there because Islam was almost snubbed out before it had a chance to flourish. Muhammad and his small group of believers were brutally attacked by Arabs who practiced polytheism and Jews alike. It was largely thanks to the sheer force of Muhammad personality and leadership that Islam survived.
We all know that Christianity and Muhammad were the offspring of Judaism. Unlike the woolly and wild claims taken by Christianity regarding the Immaculate Conception, birth, and divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, Muhammad’s religious claims were much more modest and not totally divergent from Judaism which, after leaving certain far-fetched exclusivity claims, is quite logical. Islam is gaining more adherents than any other religion and has many good things to offer: charity, no usury, no collection of interests, no elaborate hierarchy (unlike Catholicism), no consumption of alcohol, modesty, etc… It is the extreme elements of Islam which gives Islam a bad name. Islamic extremism is a reaction against Western imperialism and American unstinted support of Israel and Zionism.
The circular campaign spoke of the political correctness as old and injurious to the interests of the United States. It is the ignorance and lack of respect for Islam which hurts the interests of the United States. If ignorant bigots think that by taking on Islam straight on, they will win the war, they will be sadly mistaken. Islam was forged by fire, born in adversity, and their followers are imbued with a messianic and religious fervor and solidarity which is not shared by the followers of Christianity.
Roberto Wissai
October 2009
I was offended by the email written by the professor from Michigan and the circular mail campaign in support of the position of the professor. I was offended by the sheer hypocrisy and ignorance of both the professor the circular writer.
The professor claimed that he was soft-spoken, but the tone and content of his email was strident and provocative. In other words, he was a hypocrite. On top of that, he was an ignoramus, outside of his field of specialty which was mechanical engineering. Let me explain why I hold such dim view of this creature.
The Muslim Students Association (MSA) at Michigan State University (MSU) lodged a protest against the Danish cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of Islam, as a terrorist. The MSA complained that the cartoons constituted “hate speech”. The professor didn’t find the cartoons offensive. Instead, he listed a litany of acts committed by the contemporary extremist elements of Islam and found them deeply abhorrent. Mind you, these acts were not committed or sanctioned or supported by the MSA, and had nothing to do with the subject of complaint by the MSA. Then incredibly the professor used the gutter language and described the students at MSA as “dissatisfied, aggressive, brutal, and slave-trading Moslems” and labeled their protests as “infantile”. He concluded his hate-filled email missive with the words “If you do not like the values of the West –see the 1st Amendment—you are free to leave. I hope for God’s sake (sic!) that most of you choose that option”. He then signed “Cordially” and added his name.
His email was not cordial. He should have signed as “Sincerely”. His English is somewhat deplorable. “First” in the First Amendment should be spelled out instead of being abbreviated. The students at the MSA might be dissatisfied and aggressive, but there were no evidence to support the allegation that they were “brutal and slave-trading Moslems”. Their protests were not “infantile”, but mature, responsible exercise of their right of free speech, unlike the manner chosen by the professor. The professor also imposed his own religious beliefs by invoking the phrase “God’s sake”.
Now any fair-minded individual would find any cartoons depicting the founder of a religion which has more than one billion adherents, as a terrorist offensive, but the professor would not think so and he stated clearly his view. That would lead us question the fairness of the professor. He never explained why he agreed with the cartoons. From the manner exhibited by the professor, the reader would infer that he is a Christian, not a fair, forgiving, charitable Christian as exhorted by the founder of his religion, but an unfair and uncharitable one. He joined many other like-minded Christian bigots in hurling venom at Muhammad who is loved and revered by all Muslims, regardless of the sects involved. In fact, Muhammad who learned about religions from Christian and Jewish preachers, recognized Jesus and other Jewish prophets and told his followers to respect these individuals and their followers. I have not heard of any instance that a Muslim newspaper publishing any article or cartoons denigrating Jesus or Moses or any prophets mentioned in the Bible.
Muhammad was a remarkable man. He even at one time asked his followers to head in the direction of Jerusalem when praying in homage of the intellectual debt that Islam owed to Judaism and Christianity. Only after he was betrayed by certain Jewish tribes that he commanded his followers to pray in the direction of Mecca. There are passages in the Koran which urge of tolerance of other faiths. There are also passages which ask for the defense of Islam, by force. The latter passages are there because Islam was almost snubbed out before it had a chance to flourish. Muhammad and his small group of believers were brutally attacked by Arabs who practiced polytheism and Jews alike. It was largely thanks to the sheer force of Muhammad personality and leadership that Islam survived.
We all know that Christianity and Muhammad were the offspring of Judaism. Unlike the woolly and wild claims taken by Christianity regarding the Immaculate Conception, birth, and divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, Muhammad’s religious claims were much more modest and not totally divergent from Judaism which, after leaving certain far-fetched exclusivity claims, is quite logical. Islam is gaining more adherents than any other religion and has many good things to offer: charity, no usury, no collection of interests, no elaborate hierarchy (unlike Catholicism), no consumption of alcohol, modesty, etc… It is the extreme elements of Islam which gives Islam a bad name. Islamic extremism is a reaction against Western imperialism and American unstinted support of Israel and Zionism.
The circular campaign spoke of the political correctness as old and injurious to the interests of the United States. It is the ignorance and lack of respect for Islam which hurts the interests of the United States. If ignorant bigots think that by taking on Islam straight on, they will win the war, they will be sadly mistaken. Islam was forged by fire, born in adversity, and their followers are imbued with a messianic and religious fervor and solidarity which is not shared by the followers of Christianity.
Roberto Wissai
October 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
A film review of "A Serious Man"
A Serious Man (2009)
Wilson Webb/Focus Features
A Serious Man opens on Friday nationwide.
October 2, 2009
Calls to God: Always a Busy Signal
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: October 2, 2009
Did you hear the one about the guy who lived in the land of Uz, who was perfect and upright and feared God? His name was Job. In the new movie version, “A Serious Man,” some details have been changed. He’s called Larry Gopnik and he lives in Minnesota, where he teaches physics at a university. When we first meet Larry, in the spring of 1967, his tenure case is pending, his son’s bar mitzvah is approaching, and, as in the original, a lot of bad stuff is about to happen, for no apparent reason.
At work, Larry specializes in topics like Schrödinger’s Paradox and the Heisenberg Principle — complex and esoteric ideas that can be summarized by the layman, more or less, as “God knows.” Because we can’t. Though if he does, he isn’t saying much.
Larry, played with poignant, brow-furrowed deadpan by Michael Stuhlbarg, does not exactly fear the divinity whom he, like other devout Jews, calls Hashem (“the name” in Hebrew). It’s more that he’s puzzled, beleaguered, perplexed. What does God want from us? What should we expect from him? As weird inconveniences spiral into operatic miseries, Larry dutifully searches for clues, answers, signs. He talks to learned rabbis and listens to recordings of famous cantors. What he encounters, apart from haunting music and drab suburban sacred architecture, is silence, nonsense and — from that metaphysical zone beyond the screen, where the rest of us sit and watch — laughter.
“How odd of God” goes an old bit of doggerel “to choose the Jews.” And how perversely fitting that Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote and directed “A Serious Man,” should elect to examine the deep peculiarity and calamitous consequences of this choice. The vein of fatalistic, skeptical humor that runs through so many of their movies has frequently had a Jewish inflection, both cultural and metaphysical. Here, that inheritance, glancingly present in movies like “Barton Fink” and “The Big Lebowski,” is, so to speak, the whole megillah.
“A Serious Man” begins with a narrow-screen, Yiddish-language dramatization of an ersatz folk tale about a tzadik (Fyvush Finkel) who may or may not be a dybbuk. (A righteous man who might be a ghost. You see how much is lost in translation?)
The story is at once hilarious and horrific, its significance both self-evident and opaque. The same could be said of most of the Coen brothers’ movies, in which human existence and the attempt to find meaning in it are equally futile, if also sometimes a lot of fun. (For us, at least.) Their insistence on the fundamental absence of a controlling order in the universe is matched among American filmmakers only by Woody Allen. The crucial difference is that the Coens are compulsive, rigorous formalists, as if they were trying in the same gesture to expose, and compensate for, the meaninglessness of life.
So a question put before the congregation by “A Serious Man” is whether it makes the case for atheism or looks at the world from a divine point of view. Are the Coens mocking God, playing God or taking his side in a rigged cosmic game? What’s the difference?
The philosophical conundrums in “A Serious Man” can be posed only in jest — or, at least, in the cultural tradition of Ashkenazic Judaism that stretches from the shtetls of Poland to the comedy clubs of the Catskills, that is how they tend to be posed. But a deep anxiety lurks beneath the jokes, and though “A Serious Man” is written and structured like a farce, it is shot (by Roger Deakins), scored (by Carter Burwell) and edited (by the Coens’ pseudonymous golem Roderick Jaynes) like a horror movie.
Everything that happens to Larry takes on a sinister cast. A student (David Kang) protests an “unjust” grade and tries to bribe him. Someone is sending letters to the tenure committee smearing Larry’s good name, while the Columbia Record Club peppers him with dunning calls. His brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), at work on a mad mystico-mathematical text that will unlock the secrets of the cosmos, has moved into Larry’s ranch-style house, taking his physical and mental health issues with him.
And in that house there is sibling warfare (between the bar mitzvah boy, played by Aaron Wolff, and his older sister, played by Jessica McManus), poor reception on the television and, all of a sudden, a collapsed marriage. Larry’s wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), has taken up with an older widower named Sy Ableman (the splendidly unctuous Fred Melamed) — allegory, anyone? — who pompously lays claim to the movie’s title role.
Forget plot summary, though. “A Serious Man,” like “No Country for Old Men” and “Burn After Reading,” is fundamentally a shaggy dog story. But while it is funnier than either of those movies, it also has more gravity to it. This is not just because it represents something of a homecoming for the brothers, who grew up in the heavily Jewish Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park in the 1960s. They are hardly the kind to be sentimental about the old neighborhood. But in that milieu their smart-alecky nihilism feels authentic rather than arch — you understand, maybe for the first time, where they are coming from.
“A Serious Man” continues their nonsequential, decade-by-decade, movie-guided tour of American history. And, as usual, a lot of history is left off screen: the ’60s is pot, the Jefferson Airplane and a slight shift in attitudes toward what Judith calls “whoopsie-doopsie.” But if they are diffident about the politics of the time — or perhaps just cleverly oblique —their sociological sense is unusually acute, if also exaggerated. Apart from a Korean student and an unfriendly neighbor, Larry lives surrounded by his own kind: lawyers, dentists, doctors, colleagues, a too-friendly neighbor. His world is a suburban shtetl on the edge of the prairie.
And the local details are, in the end, incidental. “A Serious Man” is, like its biblical source, a distilled, hyperbolic account of the human condition. The punch line is a little different, but you know the joke. And it’s on you, of course.
“A Serious Man” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has drug use, swearing and the repeated violation of Commandments 3, 5 and 7 to 10.
A SERIOUS MAN
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Written, produced and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; director of photography, Roger Deakins; edited by Roderick Jaynes; music by Carter Burwell; production designer, Jess Gonchor; released by Focus Features. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
WITH: Michael Stuhlbarg (Larry Gopnik), Richard Kind (Uncle Arthur), Fred Melamed (Sy Ableman), Sari Lennick (Judith Gopnik), Adam Arkin (Divorce Lawyer), Aaron Wolff (Danny Gopnik), Jessica McManus (Sarah Gopnik), David Kang (Clive Park) and Fyvush Finkel (Dybbuk?).
Wilson Webb/Focus Features
A Serious Man opens on Friday nationwide.
October 2, 2009
Calls to God: Always a Busy Signal
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: October 2, 2009
Did you hear the one about the guy who lived in the land of Uz, who was perfect and upright and feared God? His name was Job. In the new movie version, “A Serious Man,” some details have been changed. He’s called Larry Gopnik and he lives in Minnesota, where he teaches physics at a university. When we first meet Larry, in the spring of 1967, his tenure case is pending, his son’s bar mitzvah is approaching, and, as in the original, a lot of bad stuff is about to happen, for no apparent reason.
At work, Larry specializes in topics like Schrödinger’s Paradox and the Heisenberg Principle — complex and esoteric ideas that can be summarized by the layman, more or less, as “God knows.” Because we can’t. Though if he does, he isn’t saying much.
Larry, played with poignant, brow-furrowed deadpan by Michael Stuhlbarg, does not exactly fear the divinity whom he, like other devout Jews, calls Hashem (“the name” in Hebrew). It’s more that he’s puzzled, beleaguered, perplexed. What does God want from us? What should we expect from him? As weird inconveniences spiral into operatic miseries, Larry dutifully searches for clues, answers, signs. He talks to learned rabbis and listens to recordings of famous cantors. What he encounters, apart from haunting music and drab suburban sacred architecture, is silence, nonsense and — from that metaphysical zone beyond the screen, where the rest of us sit and watch — laughter.
“How odd of God” goes an old bit of doggerel “to choose the Jews.” And how perversely fitting that Joel and Ethan Coen, who wrote and directed “A Serious Man,” should elect to examine the deep peculiarity and calamitous consequences of this choice. The vein of fatalistic, skeptical humor that runs through so many of their movies has frequently had a Jewish inflection, both cultural and metaphysical. Here, that inheritance, glancingly present in movies like “Barton Fink” and “The Big Lebowski,” is, so to speak, the whole megillah.
“A Serious Man” begins with a narrow-screen, Yiddish-language dramatization of an ersatz folk tale about a tzadik (Fyvush Finkel) who may or may not be a dybbuk. (A righteous man who might be a ghost. You see how much is lost in translation?)
The story is at once hilarious and horrific, its significance both self-evident and opaque. The same could be said of most of the Coen brothers’ movies, in which human existence and the attempt to find meaning in it are equally futile, if also sometimes a lot of fun. (For us, at least.) Their insistence on the fundamental absence of a controlling order in the universe is matched among American filmmakers only by Woody Allen. The crucial difference is that the Coens are compulsive, rigorous formalists, as if they were trying in the same gesture to expose, and compensate for, the meaninglessness of life.
So a question put before the congregation by “A Serious Man” is whether it makes the case for atheism or looks at the world from a divine point of view. Are the Coens mocking God, playing God or taking his side in a rigged cosmic game? What’s the difference?
The philosophical conundrums in “A Serious Man” can be posed only in jest — or, at least, in the cultural tradition of Ashkenazic Judaism that stretches from the shtetls of Poland to the comedy clubs of the Catskills, that is how they tend to be posed. But a deep anxiety lurks beneath the jokes, and though “A Serious Man” is written and structured like a farce, it is shot (by Roger Deakins), scored (by Carter Burwell) and edited (by the Coens’ pseudonymous golem Roderick Jaynes) like a horror movie.
Everything that happens to Larry takes on a sinister cast. A student (David Kang) protests an “unjust” grade and tries to bribe him. Someone is sending letters to the tenure committee smearing Larry’s good name, while the Columbia Record Club peppers him with dunning calls. His brother, Arthur (Richard Kind), at work on a mad mystico-mathematical text that will unlock the secrets of the cosmos, has moved into Larry’s ranch-style house, taking his physical and mental health issues with him.
And in that house there is sibling warfare (between the bar mitzvah boy, played by Aaron Wolff, and his older sister, played by Jessica McManus), poor reception on the television and, all of a sudden, a collapsed marriage. Larry’s wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), has taken up with an older widower named Sy Ableman (the splendidly unctuous Fred Melamed) — allegory, anyone? — who pompously lays claim to the movie’s title role.
Forget plot summary, though. “A Serious Man,” like “No Country for Old Men” and “Burn After Reading,” is fundamentally a shaggy dog story. But while it is funnier than either of those movies, it also has more gravity to it. This is not just because it represents something of a homecoming for the brothers, who grew up in the heavily Jewish Minneapolis suburb of St. Louis Park in the 1960s. They are hardly the kind to be sentimental about the old neighborhood. But in that milieu their smart-alecky nihilism feels authentic rather than arch — you understand, maybe for the first time, where they are coming from.
“A Serious Man” continues their nonsequential, decade-by-decade, movie-guided tour of American history. And, as usual, a lot of history is left off screen: the ’60s is pot, the Jefferson Airplane and a slight shift in attitudes toward what Judith calls “whoopsie-doopsie.” But if they are diffident about the politics of the time — or perhaps just cleverly oblique —their sociological sense is unusually acute, if also exaggerated. Apart from a Korean student and an unfriendly neighbor, Larry lives surrounded by his own kind: lawyers, dentists, doctors, colleagues, a too-friendly neighbor. His world is a suburban shtetl on the edge of the prairie.
And the local details are, in the end, incidental. “A Serious Man” is, like its biblical source, a distilled, hyperbolic account of the human condition. The punch line is a little different, but you know the joke. And it’s on you, of course.
“A Serious Man” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has drug use, swearing and the repeated violation of Commandments 3, 5 and 7 to 10.
A SERIOUS MAN
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Written, produced and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen; director of photography, Roger Deakins; edited by Roderick Jaynes; music by Carter Burwell; production designer, Jess Gonchor; released by Focus Features. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
WITH: Michael Stuhlbarg (Larry Gopnik), Richard Kind (Uncle Arthur), Fred Melamed (Sy Ableman), Sari Lennick (Judith Gopnik), Adam Arkin (Divorce Lawyer), Aaron Wolff (Danny Gopnik), Jessica McManus (Sarah Gopnik), David Kang (Clive Park) and Fyvush Finkel (Dybbuk?).
Holes in My Heart
Fall is here. Leaves of deciduous trees are changing colors. Some members of the human species wax poetic of the changing season, prompted by the colors and the drop of the temperature. You are a child of the season. You were born in the middle of October, smack right in the middle of fall. Whether that fact has any bearing on your personality and moods, you don’t know for sure. One thing you know for certain is that every year, when fall arrives and the winds from the north begin howling, you feel lonely and forlorn, as if the winds blew through the holes in your heart.
It began as a matter of chance. One late evening in the fall when you were a mere lad of fifteen, an age when sex hormones began raging throughout your body, you stood by your bedroom window in the second floor of your house in the dark, watching the rain falling down and lightning flashing, and listening to the symphony of rain drops on the tin roof of the house, when suddenly your eyes caught the movement of somebody in the bedroom of another house, also on the second floor, across the street. The curtain was not closed, very possibly by some providential act of forgetfulness. The light was very subdued. The room was dimly lit by a low wattage bulb meant to help the occupant navigate the room at night when answering nature’s calls. She was undressing. Her back was in your view. For a brief two seconds, you caught the sight of a magnificent pair of buttocks. Then she disappeared, possibly lying down in bed for the night. The scene was not repeated. For weeks and months afterwards, the curtain remained closed at all times. It was the daughter of a vendor of rice noodles. She was about your age, not very pretty, but certainly her derriere inflamed your imagination ever since. You had never talked to her. You were busy at school. For years you had not applied yourself at school. Now you were catching up. The war was going in with a ferocity that scared you. You were afraid to be drafted into the army if you flunked the compulsory national exam when you turned seventeen. You had seen young men in your neighborhood went to the war and didn’t come back whole. Some of them didn’t come back at all. The war was absurd. You began to taste the absurdity of life, of human actions. So you suppressed your burgeoning sexuality. You sublimated your desires. You put all your energies into school work. You wanted to survive. You began reading philosophy. You did not talk to the daughter. You stayed out of her sight. You were suppressing, suppressing. Meanwhile you felt a nagging loneliness. The first hole in your heart appeared.
For the next two years, you did nothing but studied. You didn’t even look at girls on the street. You were fearful of distraction, yet inside you there was a gnawing emptiness. You passed the national exam with some flying colors. Your parents were relieved and so were you. Then just before you turned seventeen, you met Agnes while you were applying for an exchange student program whereby you would spend one year in America, living with an American family while attending the senior year in high school. Both she and you were accepted into the program along with twelve others. Agnes lived with a family in Iowa. Your host family was in Wisconsin. You had her address, but you controlled yourself. You didn’t write to her though you really wanted to. Once again, your studies came first, you told yourself. You didn’t go for any dates during your stay in America. You just studied and studied, determined to improve your English while you had the chance.
You met Agnes again in New York prior to the flight back home. You just exchanged a few words of greetings with her, but inside you waves of excitement flooded your heart. During the long flight back home, you sat in the row behind her. She was sleeping most of the time. She sat in the window seat. You were directly behind her, so near and yet somehow you felt there was an unbridgeable chasm between you and her.
You enrolled at college, majoring in English (how presumptuous of you! Your family tried to dissuade you from pursuing such a useless major. You resisted. You somehow just wanted to improve your English. You were naïve and stupid. You knew nothing of the real world). For the next few months you saw Agnes now and then. Another hole in your heart appeared. It got bigger with time. One day, you couldn’t face the distractions anymore. You must concentrate at school. You stopped seeing her, at your own initiative. It was a good decision, as subsequent events proved to be so.
You were a risk taker, even with your life on the line. You never played safe. There was a foreign language requirement in the first year in your college. All students were required to take a beginner’s course in French, Chinese, or German. French would be a piece of cake for you because you already had three years of French in high school and you happened to be first of the class in the subject. In retrospect, you should have taken Chinese since it would be more useful for you, but you were then keenly interested in the Western world, so you opted for German. The professor conducted his lectures in French! Most of the students in the class were lost, including you. You were aware that if you flunked the final exam, you ran a risk of getting drafted, but you hung on. You didn’t switch to French as you should have. Somehow you passed the exam. You were awfully proud of yourself. You didn’t run from adversity. You persevered and you triumphed. French was the language Agnes was very comfortable with. Unlike you, she grew up speaking it at a very young age. Because of Agnes, you didn’t neglect French. You kept working at it on and off all your life.
Near the end of the first year of college, Fate intervened into your life. A strange-looking student one day came to you to borrow your lectures notes because she was sick for a week and had to skip classes. Thus began the biggest hole of your heart. Laura was her name. Like Agnes, French was the language Laura learned when she was in kindergarten. Laura happened to be very good at English as well. In fact, throughout college, her grades were consistently higher than yours. However, you have a feeling that perhaps now you have surpassed her, finally. You didn’t feel like going into detail your relationship with Laura. Not anymore. Not here. Not yet. Suffice to say that you loved her with all you heart and you thought she loved you, too, but you were sadly mistaken. You were merely infatuated with Agnes, but definitely were in love with Laura. There was no doubt about that. Laura was a very unusual woman. You once thought she was an angel, but now you realize that she is merely a mortal like everybody else.
It is late at night now. Winds are howling in earnest. What you are writing is not a story; it is not a memoir. You are merely weaving words together to protect you from the howling winds of memories. You feel compelled to write, to keep the memories at bay.
After Laura disappeared from your life, you got to know many, many women. One thing you finally realized was that women were different from men. Really smart and insightful of you, heh? Their values are different. They are more practical, cunning, and ruthless, generally speaking. Your friends at the golf club confirmed that. Last month, Jay told you he was filing papers for divorce because he caught his Vietnamese wife sleeping with his neighbor who is a fireman. She told him she was bored with him. She found the neighbor full of fun and virility! Jay has two kids with her. Because of them, he doesn’t want to kill her. Anyway, Jay is a mess now, full of anger and bitterness. His golf game deteriorates, needless to say. You are acting as his counselor, but even so you find his harpings tiresome. You told him:
“Listen, Jay, listen carefully. What more can I tell you? Either you accept reality or you do not. Either you move on, learn to accept the reality that there are women out there like Jade, your wife, who would cheat and sleep with neighbors, or you do something if you don’t accept that reality. If you want to kill the bitch, go ahead, but please don’t talk about it. Talk is cheap, you know. It degrades you, really. It’s not like the first time in human history that you discovered that a woman was capable of fucking the next door neighbor because she was tired of her husband whom she found boring and lacking zest. Welcome to the club. Things like that happen all the time. It is not so much what happens to you, but how you cope with it. The more you live, the more you will realize that humans are the strangest animals on this planet. We are capable of anything and everything. What we can imagine, we can do it. We are only limited by the limits of our imagination. There’s one more thing you probably know already. There are not two, but three kinds of people. Those who are smart and know they are smart. Those who are stupid and accept they are stupid. These two groups are the easiest people to live with. And then there are those who are stupid but think they are smart. It is this third group whom I am fond of labeling Monkeys which account for all kinds of strange behavior among humans. These Monkeys invent concepts like God, believing that God takes care of them and that they will to heaven after they die. These Monkeys are self-righteous and smug and selfish and full of poses. Yet, somehow they subconsciously do things that debase themselves like writing cheap, unrhymed poetry or posting sex-laden materials on the Internet, thinking those materials are of interest to other people or engaging in sophistical thinking, trying to appear smart and profound and cryptic and sole possessor of the truth.”
Jay was perplexed. He blinked his eyes and sheepishly asked you: “So, what advice you are giving me? You talked around and around. I am lost.”
You stood up, walked around the desk, came over to Jay, put your arm around his shoulders, and said: “You are the master of your own body, your own life. Don’t let anybody having power over you, over how you can think, how you can feel. You have to accept the consequences of your actions. Think through before you act. Meanwhile conduct yourself with dignity. No more crying over your wife cheating on you. No more feeling sorry for yourself. Be more careful and selective with your next woman.”
Then all hell broke loose, Jay burst out crying: “But, Roberto, you don’t understand. I did love Jade. I loved her very much. I don’t think I can love another woman. I cannot take this hurt anymore. It’s killing me.”
You seized his shoulders and looked straight at his tears-drenched eyes and softly sighed, “I understand, my friend. I also once loved a woman deeply. Her name was Laura. And I have tried to kill her in my mind for over thirty-seven years with words, to no avail. The biggest debts are those of the heart. I know all about emptiness inside, the hole in the heart”
You then walked Jay out of your office and saw him shuffling and wobbling out of sight. In the reception area, Michael Atkins was reading the National Geographic magazine. He looked up and you signaled him to come on into the inner sanctum of your alter ego.
“Hello, Michael. I am quite surprised to see you. Everything’s Ok?” said you. “Hello, Michael. I am quite surprised to see you. Everything’s Ok?” said you.
“This isn’t a social call. No, everything is not Okay” Michael grumbled.
“Go ahead. Cry your heart out. That’s what I am here.”
“Okay, wise guy. You know about the woman living in California whom I told you the other day, right?”
“Yes, you seemed to be proud of her and everything. What happened? She gave you herpes?”
“Roberto, cut the crap out, will you? I’m being serious here,” snarled Michael.
“Sorry, please tell me what I can help you with.”
“The bitch and I no longer see each other. We broke up last week. Roberto, I think I’ve been had. I lent her $10,000 two weeks ago. Now she stopped taking my calls. The bitch also said goodbye to me two days after I treated her to a nice birthday dinner and an expensive present.”
You shook your head slowly and you stopped listening to Michael because flood of suppressed memories rose up inside you and choked you. You felt suffocated and angry. Blood was rushing to your head.
“Roberto, you look funny. Are you listening to me? Roberto?”
You snapped back to the present. You were breathing hard.
“Michael, tell me exactly what happened. Why the fuck you lent her $10,000 for? You just knew her for two months.”
“But I thought she loved me. Besides, she didn’t seem to be that kind of girl. She seemed to have money. A nice house in Huntington Beach and a condo in Scottsdale, for Chrissake. She said she would pay back right away within five days. Five days! She needed ten grand to take care of some business. I kept asking what kind of business, but she accused me of not trusting her. Now I am out ten fucking thousand dollars. I’m mad as hell.”
“Don’t get mad. Get even. All it takes is a little courage. Have some balls. Are you up to the task?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I mean. Are you willing to use force to get your money back since it looks like talking get you nowhere? She doesn’t even answer your call.”
“Stop beating around the bush. Spell it out.”
“You came to me because you want a solution to your problem. On your own you can’t solve it. Now I suggest that if you have balls, show up to her house, demand the bitch give you back the money right there and then, if she refuses, blow her fucking head off. If you want somebody to do for you, it costs you more than ten grand. It’s up to you.”
“Jesus, you are some kind of a counselor. I am surprised you still have the license to practice.”
“That’s right, buddy. That’s who I am. If the state of Arizona knows about this conversation, you are about as good as dead.”
“Let’s me think about this.”
“Sure, think about it. Think with your head, the one on top, not the one in you pants. That’s the problem with you. You see an attractive woman and all you want to do is to jump into a sack with her. I am different. Let me tell you a real story. Hard to believe, sounds like I’m making it up, but it’s fucking true, man. Last week, a woman came to me with a marital problem. I gave her some advice. She looked at my hair and said that she had a good friend who was a hair stylist. Since she liked my advice, she wanted to be nice and treated me to a nice haircut, courtesy of her friend. I said fine, figuring I had nothing to lose, right? So I showed up at her friend salon. And it was a nice salon and a spa, too. Her friend was a few years younger than me, but still a knock-out, with very nice tits, natural way, not man-made and she didn’t mind displaying them. She had a low-cut shirt. She also had a nice figure, not fat, not thin, and a nice firm ass. She took a long time to cut my hair, talked with me, asking me all kinds of personal questions, acting a bit coquettish and all. She gave me her business cards and asking me to refer my friends to her. Everything seemed fine and dandy. I gave her my cell number since she asked for it. Guess what? Two days later, she called me and said if I would like to escort her to a trip to Vegas, using my own car. She would pay for the gas, the hotel, and the meals. All I needed was to show up at her house at six in the morning in my car and away we would go. I was flabbergasted, not flattered. I smell something rotten in the state of Denmark. I hemmed and hawed and said that I needed time to think about this because it was so unexpected, so sudden. She said she needed to know an answer before midnight. Two hours later, around 4pm, I called her back, saying I was not comfortable about the idea. She was surprised at my answer. Within thirty minutes, Oanh, the woman with the marital problem, called me and said that I was a calculating and stingy man who was concerned about the wear and tear on his car. Would you believe that? What a fucking world we are living in, man. I’m more concerned on the wear and tear on my dick than anything else. I’m concerned about my life, about the disappearance of my car. I’m not kind of a guy who would pant and have my tongue sticking out and be ready to pull down my pants just because some woman wiggling her nice tits in front of me. I’ve had my share of women. I’m no stranger to female anatomy. What I need and want is true love, not a quick lay. I know all about the emptiness inside, the holes in my heart. I don’t need to explore the orifices of anyone else.”
Michael looked at you as if you were an alien, a kind from Mars, not Mexico, and shook his head. “You’re fucking strange, man. Bring me to the hair salon. I’ll tell her I am her chauffeur anytime she wants. Shit, I’ll even pay for the gas and the motel.” He then got up and walked out of your office.
There was nobody waiting in the reception area. You checked the appointment book. For the rest of the day, nobody was scheduled to ask for help, to sort out the entanglements in his mind.
Your night job didn’t begin until three hours later. You didn’t feel like going home and then drove another 15 miles to work. You decided to stay in the office till it was time to go to your night job. So, you leaned back in your chair, put your feet up on the desk, and took a nap. As you were dozing off, a wave of loneliness hit you. You recognized the irony of your situation. You dispensed advice and counsel to people in emotional distress, yet to whom would you turn for comfort? Nobody. You couldn’t even turn to God because you didn’t believe in a higher power. All you had was your own little self. Your mind was drifting, dredging memories and recollections. This morning while checking the email, you came across an instance of incorrect usage of the word “jurisdiction”. The Monkey, as usual, betrayed his ignorance whenever he attempted to use big words. He should have simply used the expression “area of expertise” or at least the word “bailiwick”. Neither did the Monkey seem to understand that the expression “Down Under” was used to express Australia, not Down and Under. Up above, down under (or below), but up and away. English is tricky. It takes a lifetime of devoted study to understand it a little bit. His friend was not an administrative, legal, or political entity; thus, he had no jurisdiction over anybody or anything. You felt intensely lonely when you forced yourself not to point out to the forum the ignorance of the Monkey. You were trying to get a better handle of yourself. The Monkey is beneath you, anyway. There is no point to indulge in gamesmanship with him.
As your mind was playing back the tape of memories and petty annoyances while you were drifting towards sleep, you reached for the radio and instantly love ballads in Spanish comforted and soothed you and made you feel good about yourself.
You dozed off for a couple of hours. When you woke up, it was time to go to the evening job. You felt physically recharged, but somehow a feeling of melancholy took over you. Job hazards, you told yourself. Although you watched yourself and braced yourself from being contaminated by all those tales of woes from your clients, you now found yourself affected strongly by those tales. You became more pessimistic and increasing viewed women with jaundiced eyes. Then bam! The songs of Traces and Feelings on the radio hit you hard on your way to the work. You realized you were just fooling yourself, thinking you could get over her. You did not. You merely suppressed your feelings. You were doomed with a lifelong sentence of sorrow and sadness, starting the day she walked away and leaving you with the biggest hole in your heart.
Roberto Wissai
(To be continued)
It began as a matter of chance. One late evening in the fall when you were a mere lad of fifteen, an age when sex hormones began raging throughout your body, you stood by your bedroom window in the second floor of your house in the dark, watching the rain falling down and lightning flashing, and listening to the symphony of rain drops on the tin roof of the house, when suddenly your eyes caught the movement of somebody in the bedroom of another house, also on the second floor, across the street. The curtain was not closed, very possibly by some providential act of forgetfulness. The light was very subdued. The room was dimly lit by a low wattage bulb meant to help the occupant navigate the room at night when answering nature’s calls. She was undressing. Her back was in your view. For a brief two seconds, you caught the sight of a magnificent pair of buttocks. Then she disappeared, possibly lying down in bed for the night. The scene was not repeated. For weeks and months afterwards, the curtain remained closed at all times. It was the daughter of a vendor of rice noodles. She was about your age, not very pretty, but certainly her derriere inflamed your imagination ever since. You had never talked to her. You were busy at school. For years you had not applied yourself at school. Now you were catching up. The war was going in with a ferocity that scared you. You were afraid to be drafted into the army if you flunked the compulsory national exam when you turned seventeen. You had seen young men in your neighborhood went to the war and didn’t come back whole. Some of them didn’t come back at all. The war was absurd. You began to taste the absurdity of life, of human actions. So you suppressed your burgeoning sexuality. You sublimated your desires. You put all your energies into school work. You wanted to survive. You began reading philosophy. You did not talk to the daughter. You stayed out of her sight. You were suppressing, suppressing. Meanwhile you felt a nagging loneliness. The first hole in your heart appeared.
For the next two years, you did nothing but studied. You didn’t even look at girls on the street. You were fearful of distraction, yet inside you there was a gnawing emptiness. You passed the national exam with some flying colors. Your parents were relieved and so were you. Then just before you turned seventeen, you met Agnes while you were applying for an exchange student program whereby you would spend one year in America, living with an American family while attending the senior year in high school. Both she and you were accepted into the program along with twelve others. Agnes lived with a family in Iowa. Your host family was in Wisconsin. You had her address, but you controlled yourself. You didn’t write to her though you really wanted to. Once again, your studies came first, you told yourself. You didn’t go for any dates during your stay in America. You just studied and studied, determined to improve your English while you had the chance.
You met Agnes again in New York prior to the flight back home. You just exchanged a few words of greetings with her, but inside you waves of excitement flooded your heart. During the long flight back home, you sat in the row behind her. She was sleeping most of the time. She sat in the window seat. You were directly behind her, so near and yet somehow you felt there was an unbridgeable chasm between you and her.
You enrolled at college, majoring in English (how presumptuous of you! Your family tried to dissuade you from pursuing such a useless major. You resisted. You somehow just wanted to improve your English. You were naïve and stupid. You knew nothing of the real world). For the next few months you saw Agnes now and then. Another hole in your heart appeared. It got bigger with time. One day, you couldn’t face the distractions anymore. You must concentrate at school. You stopped seeing her, at your own initiative. It was a good decision, as subsequent events proved to be so.
You were a risk taker, even with your life on the line. You never played safe. There was a foreign language requirement in the first year in your college. All students were required to take a beginner’s course in French, Chinese, or German. French would be a piece of cake for you because you already had three years of French in high school and you happened to be first of the class in the subject. In retrospect, you should have taken Chinese since it would be more useful for you, but you were then keenly interested in the Western world, so you opted for German. The professor conducted his lectures in French! Most of the students in the class were lost, including you. You were aware that if you flunked the final exam, you ran a risk of getting drafted, but you hung on. You didn’t switch to French as you should have. Somehow you passed the exam. You were awfully proud of yourself. You didn’t run from adversity. You persevered and you triumphed. French was the language Agnes was very comfortable with. Unlike you, she grew up speaking it at a very young age. Because of Agnes, you didn’t neglect French. You kept working at it on and off all your life.
Near the end of the first year of college, Fate intervened into your life. A strange-looking student one day came to you to borrow your lectures notes because she was sick for a week and had to skip classes. Thus began the biggest hole of your heart. Laura was her name. Like Agnes, French was the language Laura learned when she was in kindergarten. Laura happened to be very good at English as well. In fact, throughout college, her grades were consistently higher than yours. However, you have a feeling that perhaps now you have surpassed her, finally. You didn’t feel like going into detail your relationship with Laura. Not anymore. Not here. Not yet. Suffice to say that you loved her with all you heart and you thought she loved you, too, but you were sadly mistaken. You were merely infatuated with Agnes, but definitely were in love with Laura. There was no doubt about that. Laura was a very unusual woman. You once thought she was an angel, but now you realize that she is merely a mortal like everybody else.
It is late at night now. Winds are howling in earnest. What you are writing is not a story; it is not a memoir. You are merely weaving words together to protect you from the howling winds of memories. You feel compelled to write, to keep the memories at bay.
After Laura disappeared from your life, you got to know many, many women. One thing you finally realized was that women were different from men. Really smart and insightful of you, heh? Their values are different. They are more practical, cunning, and ruthless, generally speaking. Your friends at the golf club confirmed that. Last month, Jay told you he was filing papers for divorce because he caught his Vietnamese wife sleeping with his neighbor who is a fireman. She told him she was bored with him. She found the neighbor full of fun and virility! Jay has two kids with her. Because of them, he doesn’t want to kill her. Anyway, Jay is a mess now, full of anger and bitterness. His golf game deteriorates, needless to say. You are acting as his counselor, but even so you find his harpings tiresome. You told him:
“Listen, Jay, listen carefully. What more can I tell you? Either you accept reality or you do not. Either you move on, learn to accept the reality that there are women out there like Jade, your wife, who would cheat and sleep with neighbors, or you do something if you don’t accept that reality. If you want to kill the bitch, go ahead, but please don’t talk about it. Talk is cheap, you know. It degrades you, really. It’s not like the first time in human history that you discovered that a woman was capable of fucking the next door neighbor because she was tired of her husband whom she found boring and lacking zest. Welcome to the club. Things like that happen all the time. It is not so much what happens to you, but how you cope with it. The more you live, the more you will realize that humans are the strangest animals on this planet. We are capable of anything and everything. What we can imagine, we can do it. We are only limited by the limits of our imagination. There’s one more thing you probably know already. There are not two, but three kinds of people. Those who are smart and know they are smart. Those who are stupid and accept they are stupid. These two groups are the easiest people to live with. And then there are those who are stupid but think they are smart. It is this third group whom I am fond of labeling Monkeys which account for all kinds of strange behavior among humans. These Monkeys invent concepts like God, believing that God takes care of them and that they will to heaven after they die. These Monkeys are self-righteous and smug and selfish and full of poses. Yet, somehow they subconsciously do things that debase themselves like writing cheap, unrhymed poetry or posting sex-laden materials on the Internet, thinking those materials are of interest to other people or engaging in sophistical thinking, trying to appear smart and profound and cryptic and sole possessor of the truth.”
Jay was perplexed. He blinked his eyes and sheepishly asked you: “So, what advice you are giving me? You talked around and around. I am lost.”
You stood up, walked around the desk, came over to Jay, put your arm around his shoulders, and said: “You are the master of your own body, your own life. Don’t let anybody having power over you, over how you can think, how you can feel. You have to accept the consequences of your actions. Think through before you act. Meanwhile conduct yourself with dignity. No more crying over your wife cheating on you. No more feeling sorry for yourself. Be more careful and selective with your next woman.”
Then all hell broke loose, Jay burst out crying: “But, Roberto, you don’t understand. I did love Jade. I loved her very much. I don’t think I can love another woman. I cannot take this hurt anymore. It’s killing me.”
You seized his shoulders and looked straight at his tears-drenched eyes and softly sighed, “I understand, my friend. I also once loved a woman deeply. Her name was Laura. And I have tried to kill her in my mind for over thirty-seven years with words, to no avail. The biggest debts are those of the heart. I know all about emptiness inside, the hole in the heart”
You then walked Jay out of your office and saw him shuffling and wobbling out of sight. In the reception area, Michael Atkins was reading the National Geographic magazine. He looked up and you signaled him to come on into the inner sanctum of your alter ego.
“Hello, Michael. I am quite surprised to see you. Everything’s Ok?” said you. “Hello, Michael. I am quite surprised to see you. Everything’s Ok?” said you.
“This isn’t a social call. No, everything is not Okay” Michael grumbled.
“Go ahead. Cry your heart out. That’s what I am here.”
“Okay, wise guy. You know about the woman living in California whom I told you the other day, right?”
“Yes, you seemed to be proud of her and everything. What happened? She gave you herpes?”
“Roberto, cut the crap out, will you? I’m being serious here,” snarled Michael.
“Sorry, please tell me what I can help you with.”
“The bitch and I no longer see each other. We broke up last week. Roberto, I think I’ve been had. I lent her $10,000 two weeks ago. Now she stopped taking my calls. The bitch also said goodbye to me two days after I treated her to a nice birthday dinner and an expensive present.”
You shook your head slowly and you stopped listening to Michael because flood of suppressed memories rose up inside you and choked you. You felt suffocated and angry. Blood was rushing to your head.
“Roberto, you look funny. Are you listening to me? Roberto?”
You snapped back to the present. You were breathing hard.
“Michael, tell me exactly what happened. Why the fuck you lent her $10,000 for? You just knew her for two months.”
“But I thought she loved me. Besides, she didn’t seem to be that kind of girl. She seemed to have money. A nice house in Huntington Beach and a condo in Scottsdale, for Chrissake. She said she would pay back right away within five days. Five days! She needed ten grand to take care of some business. I kept asking what kind of business, but she accused me of not trusting her. Now I am out ten fucking thousand dollars. I’m mad as hell.”
“Don’t get mad. Get even. All it takes is a little courage. Have some balls. Are you up to the task?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I mean. Are you willing to use force to get your money back since it looks like talking get you nowhere? She doesn’t even answer your call.”
“Stop beating around the bush. Spell it out.”
“You came to me because you want a solution to your problem. On your own you can’t solve it. Now I suggest that if you have balls, show up to her house, demand the bitch give you back the money right there and then, if she refuses, blow her fucking head off. If you want somebody to do for you, it costs you more than ten grand. It’s up to you.”
“Jesus, you are some kind of a counselor. I am surprised you still have the license to practice.”
“That’s right, buddy. That’s who I am. If the state of Arizona knows about this conversation, you are about as good as dead.”
“Let’s me think about this.”
“Sure, think about it. Think with your head, the one on top, not the one in you pants. That’s the problem with you. You see an attractive woman and all you want to do is to jump into a sack with her. I am different. Let me tell you a real story. Hard to believe, sounds like I’m making it up, but it’s fucking true, man. Last week, a woman came to me with a marital problem. I gave her some advice. She looked at my hair and said that she had a good friend who was a hair stylist. Since she liked my advice, she wanted to be nice and treated me to a nice haircut, courtesy of her friend. I said fine, figuring I had nothing to lose, right? So I showed up at her friend salon. And it was a nice salon and a spa, too. Her friend was a few years younger than me, but still a knock-out, with very nice tits, natural way, not man-made and she didn’t mind displaying them. She had a low-cut shirt. She also had a nice figure, not fat, not thin, and a nice firm ass. She took a long time to cut my hair, talked with me, asking me all kinds of personal questions, acting a bit coquettish and all. She gave me her business cards and asking me to refer my friends to her. Everything seemed fine and dandy. I gave her my cell number since she asked for it. Guess what? Two days later, she called me and said if I would like to escort her to a trip to Vegas, using my own car. She would pay for the gas, the hotel, and the meals. All I needed was to show up at her house at six in the morning in my car and away we would go. I was flabbergasted, not flattered. I smell something rotten in the state of Denmark. I hemmed and hawed and said that I needed time to think about this because it was so unexpected, so sudden. She said she needed to know an answer before midnight. Two hours later, around 4pm, I called her back, saying I was not comfortable about the idea. She was surprised at my answer. Within thirty minutes, Oanh, the woman with the marital problem, called me and said that I was a calculating and stingy man who was concerned about the wear and tear on his car. Would you believe that? What a fucking world we are living in, man. I’m more concerned on the wear and tear on my dick than anything else. I’m concerned about my life, about the disappearance of my car. I’m not kind of a guy who would pant and have my tongue sticking out and be ready to pull down my pants just because some woman wiggling her nice tits in front of me. I’ve had my share of women. I’m no stranger to female anatomy. What I need and want is true love, not a quick lay. I know all about the emptiness inside, the holes in my heart. I don’t need to explore the orifices of anyone else.”
Michael looked at you as if you were an alien, a kind from Mars, not Mexico, and shook his head. “You’re fucking strange, man. Bring me to the hair salon. I’ll tell her I am her chauffeur anytime she wants. Shit, I’ll even pay for the gas and the motel.” He then got up and walked out of your office.
There was nobody waiting in the reception area. You checked the appointment book. For the rest of the day, nobody was scheduled to ask for help, to sort out the entanglements in his mind.
Your night job didn’t begin until three hours later. You didn’t feel like going home and then drove another 15 miles to work. You decided to stay in the office till it was time to go to your night job. So, you leaned back in your chair, put your feet up on the desk, and took a nap. As you were dozing off, a wave of loneliness hit you. You recognized the irony of your situation. You dispensed advice and counsel to people in emotional distress, yet to whom would you turn for comfort? Nobody. You couldn’t even turn to God because you didn’t believe in a higher power. All you had was your own little self. Your mind was drifting, dredging memories and recollections. This morning while checking the email, you came across an instance of incorrect usage of the word “jurisdiction”. The Monkey, as usual, betrayed his ignorance whenever he attempted to use big words. He should have simply used the expression “area of expertise” or at least the word “bailiwick”. Neither did the Monkey seem to understand that the expression “Down Under” was used to express Australia, not Down and Under. Up above, down under (or below), but up and away. English is tricky. It takes a lifetime of devoted study to understand it a little bit. His friend was not an administrative, legal, or political entity; thus, he had no jurisdiction over anybody or anything. You felt intensely lonely when you forced yourself not to point out to the forum the ignorance of the Monkey. You were trying to get a better handle of yourself. The Monkey is beneath you, anyway. There is no point to indulge in gamesmanship with him.
As your mind was playing back the tape of memories and petty annoyances while you were drifting towards sleep, you reached for the radio and instantly love ballads in Spanish comforted and soothed you and made you feel good about yourself.
You dozed off for a couple of hours. When you woke up, it was time to go to the evening job. You felt physically recharged, but somehow a feeling of melancholy took over you. Job hazards, you told yourself. Although you watched yourself and braced yourself from being contaminated by all those tales of woes from your clients, you now found yourself affected strongly by those tales. You became more pessimistic and increasing viewed women with jaundiced eyes. Then bam! The songs of Traces and Feelings on the radio hit you hard on your way to the work. You realized you were just fooling yourself, thinking you could get over her. You did not. You merely suppressed your feelings. You were doomed with a lifelong sentence of sorrow and sadness, starting the day she walked away and leaving you with the biggest hole in your heart.
Roberto Wissai
(To be continued)
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