The House of David

Thursday, March 31, 2005

With Teeth

I went to Houston's seediest - and longest-lasting - clubhouse last night: Number's on Westheimer just west of Taft. They promised to start playing Nine Inch Nails' With Teeth at 10 pm, in advance of its 3 May release.

They didn't allow recordings or cellphones, so I took a pen and paper.

start Okay, we have a bass-heavy, quietish start. And now this must be the loud chorus. This song isn't a dance song; its beat is too irregular. I can't figure out what the song is about.
6 min Disco interlude. LOL, cool. "Why do you get all the love, in the world". So I guess it's about God.
8 min This will be the second song. Fast mosh, piano / yelling chorus. I go to the bathroom, aka The Dirtiest Toilet In Texas ^TM.
11 min Third song. I decide that I'm not getting the most of the music by standing at the bar so I go to the floor to hear it clearly. The song wants to be an anthem, but each line in the chorus is needlessly separated from the others. The chord progression reminds me of that "Final Destination" song.
15 min Song 4. The DJ announces something about a "video". This one succeeds as an anthem. "Will you bite the hand that feeds you, will you stay down on your knees". NB, 11:15 pm The DJ played this again with video. This must be the current single.
19 min Song 5. A quieter song, doesn't quite coalesce for the chorus. I can see where Trent wanted to go with this from the backing tune behind it. But maybe it would sound better in the center of the floor.
22 min Song 6. Strings lead in, and then that dentist-drill noise comes in. This song's pretty good. "used to have a voice; now I don't make a sound" - an unfortunate lyric from this master of writer's block. It's essentially Trent mumbling over a bassline, and then whining intensely for the chorus.
25 min I notice a piano playing. Eh.
27 min Song 7, I think. Bass + drum, and guitar too. Seductive. A much more original layout than that last one.
30 min It went quiet. Just whisper + bass.
31 min HARSH drum! Yikes!
33 min Song 8 Its beginning reminds me of the intro to the Village People's "YMCA" - don't ask me why. We've got a 1980s sound to this. It's danceable. Trent's voice isn't making this as tuneful as it should me - ohh NICE chorus: "There is only me There is NO FUCKING YOU There is only me". THIS will piss off your parents.
36 min Kazoo interlude, channelling Weird Al's Smells Like Nirvana. Okay it stopped - now the song's stopped. I think we have a contender for best song on the CD.
37 min Song 9. Fast beat & guitar.
40 min Song 10. Another dirty dance song. Bass & drum & murmur.
41 min He sounds like he's singing right into my lap. Pardon me while I get vulgar - If Closer was the song to play while doing your girl from behind, then this one is the song to play while she is riding your face. I bet Trent even wrote it from that position (although I'm tying my brain in knots figuring out the mechanics of it). The song's good enough that I doubt his partner minded.
45 min Song 11, thankfully breaking up THAT chain of thought - Trent is screaming about something over a drum + bass, but there's no real tune or bassline yet. The chorus is ripping off "La Mer", itself a ripoff of "Hurt", but faster than both. NB. Next day ASV has heard and likes this song. This isn't even on my top five from the album. The fanbase is, I think, going to be happy with the CD.
46 min It's growing on me. There's more chorus.
49 min Song 12, I think. A feedback loop is winding down into a bassline. The crowd seems to like this song.
51 min The song devolves into ambience. I go to the bar to write out more thoughts. WHOA! This is some SERIOUS darkwave / wailing! Nice. Yeah, this is definitely original and the crowd does like it.
54 min Song 13. Piano and singing. The crowd is clapping along - LOL they're dancing in a circle.
58 min Loudness, softness again. Trent's voice is clearer now - "If you lose yourself, would you find yourseld afraid to see".
59 min I start clapping. Everyone joins in. I guess that's the album.
Haha, they're topping it off with Manson's cover of Personal Jesus. Perfect.

I found the Track listing after the fact. It turns out that I got the 13-song organisation right, at least :phew:

As for the album over all - It's not a concept album like The Downward Spiral nor The Fragile; it's more like Pretty Hate Machine in that it is a collection of songs.

I expect it to get a lot of 4/5 and 8-9/10 summaries in the rock mags. It is after all better than The Fragile, which I'd have rated a 7/10. I'm guessing Trent used that sixth year to pare the sucker down to the space of an hour. It's his most listenable album, but not his best album - as if anything could compare with The Downward Spiral.

Standout tracks: "Only", "Sunspots", "Beside You In Time", and "Right Where It Belongs". Plus "The Hand That Feeds" works as a single. The author of this review is not to be held liable for any lost teeth / dislocated jaw / suffocation caused by playing "Sunspots" in private to the wrong person.

posted by Zimri on 11:10 | link |

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Hadith qudsi

yâ rabb 'alamîn, some people are just greedy.

Like take this one rabble You once had to put up with. They asked for a whole valley-full of riches - but they'd prayed extra nicely, and since You're a nice cosmic deity You offered to hand one over - but was that enough for them? Of course not. They wanted a second, and then a third...

On that topic, that Shu'bah < 'Asim project got me thinking about other occurrences of its "Vale of Gold" / "Ibn Adam" verse, or perhaps "verse", which is after all half the story (although I blew it off at the time). It certainly doesn't belong in sura 98. Yet it is very very common all over the hadith.

So here is another project, building on Harald Motzki's work on the Ibn Jurayj < 'Atâ b. Abî Rabâh < Ibn 'Abbâs < Muhammad (pbuh) isnad. Or maybe I just enjoy typing & - A - circ; more than is healthy.

I give You - and you, dear readers: Ibn 'Abbâs and the Vale of Gold. (Very alf layla wa-layla, lâ?

posted by Zimri on 12:15 | link |

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Do not invade

Natalie Solent quotes "JEM", who quotes Field Marshal Montgomery on the top three rules of war for western Europeans:

1. Do not invade Russia.
2. Do not invade Russia.
3. Do not invade Russia.

Natalie correctly points out that this does not apply to invaders from the east, e.g. the Mongols and Huns. But history has taught ambitious easterners a parallel lesson:

HUNS, 451 AD: At a time when the Roman Empire was dead in the west, but as yet unburied, Aëtius managed to scrape up enough western Europeans to kick Attila the Hun out of France / Gaul at the Battle of Chalons.
MONGOLS, 1242 AD: Their horsemen beat the eastern Germans at Liegnitz and then beat the Hungarians, but got recalled before facing the forests and mountains of western Germany. A Mongol incursion into the Teutoberg Forest would have been... amusing.
TURKS, 1529 AD: Sulayman the "Magnificient" proved to be not quite magnificent enough to take Vienna. The Turks would fumble this ball again in 1683.
SOVIETS, 1918-89 AD: The attempts at fomenting local revolutions failed; the invasion of the Nazi empire had to stop when the Brits, Yanks, Aussies, and Canadians met them halfway; and the Cold War ended in economic collapse. But we will give them credit for tenacity.

To this we could add invasion attempts from the south, like the Arabs in the 700s and the Spaniards in 1588, but I'm trying to hold the topic to the eastside / westside beef.

I am not counting less-ambitious groups like the Hungarians themselves, who were sensible enough to find a corner of Carpathia and to refrain from further attempts westward. I'm also not counting groups like France or Germany - or the Slavs in Serbia - for the same reason I don't give Kiev and Moscow credit for conquering Russia.

So, to our esteemed neighbo(u)r Vladimir Putin -

1. Do not invade Europe.
2. Do not invade Europe.
3. Do not invade Europe.

posted by Zimri on 18:00 | link |

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Pseudo-Methodius, v.2

I'm still interested in Pseudo-Methodius; although I'd been doing much to hide that interest, up to removing the hyperlink to that project from the Islam index. Someone wrote in and said they liked that page. Accordingly I have revised it. I've twiddled the main page and the Islam page accordingly.

It's good to get mail! - Well, that sort of mail anyway...

posted by Zimri on 19:05 | link |

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Living Church, death cult

Two weeks ago, at the Living Church of God in Brookfield, WI, sinister minister Randy L. Gregory preached that the end of the world was coming. That is, apparently, what the North Carolina-based denomination does for its daily bread. Here is a look at the Living Church of God.

Yesterday, a member of the congregation shot Gregory dead.

Well. I guess prophecies do come true.

Other end-o'-duh-world churches, in view of this, might consider psychiatric help for any member of their congregation who might be showing signs of mental strain. First symptom - they're attending an end-o'-duh-world church.

The sinister minister, and the mountebanks in charge of his organisation, have been playing their congregation's disaffection into a pretty decent living. They as good as pulled the trigger themselves. Their church is a Christian Hamas and it ought to be treated as such.

I just wish the state of Wisconsin had shot the sinister minister before this tragedy occurred. The church's holdings ought to be raided, confiscated, and/or incinerated. And all those who actually attend such poisonous services need some serious intervention.

posted by Zimri on 18:55 | link |

Saturday, March 12, 2005

An outstretched arm slowly disappears

LGF has footage of the Spain bombing of last year. The Spanish media don't show said footage because of "respect for the victims".

Always looking for attention
Always needs to be mentioned
Who does she
Think she should be ?
The shrill cry through darkening air
Doesn't she know he's
Had such a busy day ?

Tell her ... sshhh
Somebody tell her ... sshhh
Oh, no way, no way, there's no movement
Oh, oh, hooray
Slowest ...

It was only a test
But she swam too far
Against the tide
She deserves all she gets
The sky became marked with stars
As an out-stretched arm slowly
Disappears

Hooray
Oh hooray
No, oh, oh, woh, there's no movement
No, oh, hooray
Oh, hooray

Please don't worry
There'll be no fuss
She was ... nobody's nothing

(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)

When he awoke
The sea was calm
And another day passes like a dream
There's no ... no way

(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)
(What's your name ?)

(Steven Morrissey)

posted by Zimri on 02:05 | link |

The blogger petition

As an often-political blogger I went ahead and signed up for The Online Coalition.

posted by Zimri on 00:45 | link |

Thursday, March 10, 2005

The meaning of "disproportion" in Spanish Sunnism

Upcoming is the first anniversary of the "3/11" train bombing in Madrid.

I notice (through G.R.) that Sunni imams in Spain are denouncing Bin Laden by fatwa. I agree that this is a good start. But I am not as optimistic as California Yankee.

Simultaneous with this fatwa, the Spanish imams put out a document thanking the Spanish people and their government for their actions post-3/11. In it, the imams imply that the USA has acted in "disproportionate" fashion, and that the Spanish people have not.

Since 9/11/2001, the USA's response has been to topple the Taliban and Saddam, to chase after al-Qaida's leadership, and to encourage democracy in the Near East. Since 3/11/2004, Spain's response was to vote out the leadership which had supported the USA in this, and then to provide political cover for Saddam, Islamists, and all the other tyrants making life a jahannam in the Near East.

So how is one nation's reaction proportionate, and the other not; and against what is the reaction proportionate, or not? Since it was Sunni Muslims who have provided us with these terms, we need to find out what Sunni Islam means by them:

Sura 5 is one of those literary descendents of Deuteronomy which hold to "life for life" (compare Deut 19:21 with Q. 5:45). This was also the practice of Caliph 'Umar according to hadith (Y Dutton, The Origins of Islamic Law, Routledge, 2002, pp. 137-9). Under Islamic law, one may respond to an injury but only with similar injury. If al-Qaida attacks the US, and the US reacts by upending Islamic rule in Afghanistan, then the US has acted with "disproportion". The actions against Saddam, and continuing attempts to establish the rule of law in his land, are likewise "disproportionate". For Spain, "all the victims of terrorism" include those killed or overturned as a result of the struggle against it.

It is important to note here the internal debate among Sunni scholars concerning Bin Laden. The imams have tested Bin Laden's orthopraxy in the balance of the sunna and Qur'an, and found that the evil he did (as defined by Sunni sunna) has indeed outweighed the good he did. As a result, Sunni scholars are currently free to denounce the Bin Laden of 9/11 and the copycats inspired by 9/11. But Bin Laden has recently accepted Sunni jurisprudence and has been toeing that line over the past year. Unlike before 9/11, he plans to deliver advance warning next time. At that point he may not be in violation of Sunni fiqh anymore...

It is possible that Bin Laden will issue an epistle proclaiming his apology, and pleading for mercy from the Merciful. He will be able to find an imam somewhere willing to forgive him bismirrahmân. When he strikes again his action will be then in accord with Sunnism, or at least will be plausibly so to the Spanish.

Spain earned its thanks from the 'ulema through capitulation to Islamist demands for the Islamist-defined "proportionate" response (in this case, to do more damage to the US and to worldwide democracy than to the terrorists). The USA continues to "disproportionately" make life hard for said terrorists and so, in the opinion of Spanish Sunni Islam, the USA remains fair game for attack. Attacking it would in fact be a duty.

posted by Zimri on 19:40 | link |

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Arzawa updated

I'd alluded to my Arzawa Page while discussing Qatna, but otherwise you'll notice I've kept quiet on the subject since before I even started this blog. That's because (1) I was unforgivably too lazy to clarify what I was saying and (2) I didn't have the primary sources. I could hardly recommend it in that state.

Now, thanks to Amazon, I was able to pick up a book on Hittite Diplomatic Texts by Gary Beckman. It has the full "Indictment of Madduwattas", a historical overview that quotes ancient treaties; and it has treaties that cite ancient history. So it was a huge help. I've really got to apologise for not buying it at the time I bought Trevor Bryce's Kingdom of the Hittites.

It wouldn't have been possible without the Society for Biblical Literature of the 1990s. Also, I dedicate the updated page for all those who wrote emails to me saying you liked it. Without you I would've kept blathering about Arabic texts or (worse) politics. So thanks!

posted by Zimri on 23:45 | link |

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

"The religion with God is Hanifism"

In a new Orientalist webpage, The Hanifiyyah, I track down one of the noncanonical variants of sura 98. It was first published by Shu'ba of Basra early on in the 'Abbasid period. If you're into that sort of thing, the new project has the Arabic text of the four earliest witnesses I could find, plus some relevant commentary quoted from elsewhere on the 'Web.

posted by Zimri on 23:50 | link |

Sunday, March 06, 2005

80s cat fight

Boy George is mad at Madonna. Since the early 1990s or so Madonna has made some serious $ off the "bi-curious" aspect of public exhibitionism. More recently she's also been taking Kabalah lessons. Kabalah holds that homosexuality is abnormal and not to be recommended. Ergo, sez George, Madonna is hypocritical.

George's stake in this is that he is gay himself. He doesn't want people converting to sects that follow that part of the Torah. Any sect that claims to follow Torah - which includes all the mainstream in the "Abrahamic" family of religions - cannot get around Leviticus 20:13. Kabalah tries to interpret homosexuality's punishment "symbolically", but it is still stuck with its background assumption - that the practice is wrong. Madonna's endorsement of it, thinks George, is bad news for gays.

George is right, of course, but he barely even scratches the surface of Madonna's character. Madonna is one who will say and do pretty much anything for money and fame. (I suspect it was similar for George Michael, before he got caught.) Her song "Material Girl" wasn't, when it comes down to it, a joke. It wasn't much of a feminist statement either but that's all by the way.

It's not like I'm a fan of Boy George, either; as far as gay bands are concerned give me the Pet Shop Boys any day :P

posted by Zimri on 19:00 | link |

How one might distinguish campaign spending on the WWW

Here's a point that brings together all the more recent posts:

Good campaign reform (i.e. not that proposed by McCain) should restrict shills. If Fred Durst is being paid $20,000 to promote some politician on his website, www.chubbyfurrybelly.com, then he is ethically bound to disclose that. However, it shouldn't restrict hacks. Fred should be able to spout off whatever partisan or biased nonsense the libel laws will let him get away with.

Well, Durst probably wasn't a good example. It's about time I dropped the subject.

posted by Zimri on 18:15 | link |

Friday, March 04, 2005

The LA Times and its dictator problem

LGF accuses the LAT of shilling for Kim Jong Il.

What the LATrine reporter Barbara Demick had actually done, was to relay the shilling of a NoKo "businessman", who of course can be no such thing in a Stalinist regime - "mafioso", maybe. Demick was playing Tabari to NoKo's Sayf bin 'Umar. The shilling seems to have devalued some since last I was in England (okay, that pun was probably uncalled for...)

I am not sure that Demick becomes a shill just for relaying a shill; if there was actual corruption in the LAT, I'd hope we'd know about it by now. But it certainly makes her a hack, and of the lowest order; as I'd say of Tabari (and of Sayf).

Hugh Hewitt is on another crusade, and this time he's non-hackworthy. I have to agree that there isn't any excuse for printing an enemy's propaganda as news and uncritically; especially not in a newspaper that claims to be impartial and in the national mainstream.

posted by Zimri on 18:30 | link |

Expensive pr0n

Fred Durst wants $8.0 x 10⁷ for that tape of his "O" face. It was after all an invasion of privacy. (link from DrudgeReport.com.)

Well, it was an invasion for him. As we've all seen, the other party on that tape didn't get invaded, much; Fred's not exactly a Gannon in the trouser department.

If Fred promises to shave down there and do some ab crunches, maybe then he'd have a case. As it stands, he should probably settle for $100, tops.

posted by Zimri on 18:15 | link |

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Shills and hacks

I've been reading with some amusement Slate's definition of bullshit. In similar vein, Harry Reid, Senate minority leader, considers Greenspan a "political hack". I'm not sure what this means, either, but I'll take a crack at it:

Words like "hack" and "shill" get thrown around a lot, and I've been known to throw them around too; for example, I flung some at that whine-amic duo, Judis and Teixeira, some years ago. So I thought I'd say what I mean by such name-calling.

A "shill" is a propagandist who pretends to be impartial. My understanding is that the word comes from three-card monte games: the shill would stand there pretending to "win", scream out "woo-HOO!!1", and then watch as all the suckers crowd around to get a piece of the action while (most important!) he tries to keep a straight face. But to be a proper shill you have to be working for some person in particular. Armstrong Williams got paid, and so was a shill for Bush, until he got caught. Being a shill, and employing a shill, constitute bad ethics for both. (Doubtless this last post will be counted as illegal "political spending" in the near future. See ya in jail!)

The common definition of "hack" is "mediocre writer"; but I don't much like that definition, as it is subjective. John Judis writes much better prose than I can, but I still consider him a hack. I consider a "hack" to be a blinkered writer, who has acquired those blinkers from personal bias. The hack is an improvement over the shill in that he has ethics. Townhall.com's other Williams probably isn't getting a check from the Daughters of the Confederacy by bashing Lincoln; and since we have no evidence he's a shill, we have to assume he believes it. In his case, that article of his denouncing the man who saved this nation qualifies other-Williams as a hack.

I know of two species of hack: partisan and ideological. Hugh Hewitt is a partisan, for the Republicans, and proved himself a hack when he wrote on behalf of Arlen Specter against Pat Toomey - Toomey was more conservative and probably would have won and got Bush his home state, but Specter was more electable and had an "R" by his name. Jeff Gannon, meanwhile, is an ideological libertarian conservative and not partisan, which he proved when he asked Bush "pointed questions from the right" (and so he's not a shill either, btw). However since Gannon worked for a smaller-than-is-usually-given-access news agency / website, called "Talon", he's been treated with disdain - like a hack.

The ultimate proof of shillery is when the shill gets busted. The proof of hackery is when the hack's eloquently-argued, extensively-footnoted proofs get reduced to smoking craters by events. So Judis's party keeps losing elections, and Hewitt's candidate wins but at the cost of a reliable vote in the Senate, of a useful Judiciary Committee, and of 20-odd Electoral College votes that year. At this point, Windows users consider it standard procedure to employ that little feature called the "alt-F4" sequence, to tune those fools out and read a non-hack instead.

Which brings us to Greenspan; who as far as I know doesn't publish in opinion columns much and certainly doesn't earn his living by it. What Harry Reid imagines about Greenspan can't be partisanship, because Greenspan went to the mat pretty hard for Clinton back in the 1990s. He might be ideologically for American prosperity, but that would seem to make him one of the good guys. And he's clearly not made the mistakes of a Hewitt or a Teixeira.

So I don't see how Greenspan is a "hack". I could however see that about certain Senators.

posted by Zimri on 22:05 | link |

Turn off your blog or we'll send you to prison

Well, it looks like the Feds have saved me an aeroplane ticket to Tehran - they've brought a little bit of it right here to the US.

Blind Mind's Eye predicted this last year and voted Libertarian against Bush. People laughed at him then.

Viewing his post with hindsight, I'd say that he should have forseen that the constituency for McCain-Feingold to shut down your blog wouldn't have been, and isn't, "the" "Left". The real left wing in this nation includes Kos and Atrios, and they're bloggers themselves. The whiffle-ball tyrants who want the end of blogs are the old skool Congressional incumbents, the old skool bureaucracy, and the old skool media. They're the self-styled "centrists" - Daschle and Kerry, Time and Newsweek, Jennings and Brokaw. They'd run the show for half a century, give or take, and now they're losing it to the Right - and also to the Deaniac Left.

The Left can see this as well as us doctrinaire Libertarians, and for that matter as the Right. Blind Mind's Eye, in the process of saying "I told you so", has links. Both sides of the aisle, with some voices from the rafters.

posted by Zimri on 20:55 | link |

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

Terms of engagement

Re "the Heidi Hubby", I've posted here and here, saying a number of intemperate things about a commenter's posting style, and little about their substantive arguments.

I recognise that my posts look like "ad hominem" and that I look like an obsessive jerk. I am sure that this poster does not deserve it as a person, and that if we were discussing something like, say, the "Da Vinci Code" then we'd even be in agreement. I'm picking on "him" not to pick on him, but to criticise his post, and that much really only because that was the post closest to hand. Could have been anyone else, believe me.

I've had run-ins with the Christian literalist movement for almost 20 years now. I have not always been able to hold mine own in such confrontations. I am trying to teach myself the difference between good arguments they provide (say, debunking newly-uncovered texts that are too-good-to-be-true forgeries), and rhetorical tricks. It's very possible that some of the tricks are by now so far ingrained into them that they now consider them common sense.

My point is not about personal attacks. It's not even, primarily, about that one post. It's about laying down the ground rules for a discussion, any discussion. This should apply to everybody. Even to me.

Peace upon you.

posted by Zimri on 20:40 | link |

Modern critics vs. ancient sources

Back to the infamous comment war of 19 February - one objection stood out for me: "The whole of the Scriptural writers were not aware of information which far more wise 18th century German rationalists knew."

I could nitpick that he's certainly thinking of Julius Wellhausen, but he was born in 1844; and that we're not talking about "the whole of the Scriptural writers" but are narrowing it down to the final editors of Genesis to 2 Kings, plus the odd Prophet. But that's all by the way.

The real issue is that the author - or, rather, the author's target audience - respects a simple, pious patriot. He doesn't respect a university-raised, cold rationalist with dubious loyalties to the common man.

I sympathise with this; I've registered my disdain for academic snobs on an occasion or two myself. (This is me looking a mite sheepish.) However, even if Wellhausen were an outright Communist who wrote about Marxist revolution in his spare time, those aren't the books of his to which I'm referring when I talk about the J/E/D/P hypothesis.

The issue is the Heidi Hubby's invocation of relative "wisdom" between the ancient authors and Julius Wellhausen. Wellhausen's "wisdom" isn't at issue here. The relative knowledge between the parties, of history and language, is at issue. And in that respect, Wellhausen had a far more panoramic view of the Near East available to him than had the Biblical editors and the authors which preceded them. The late nineteenth century was, after all, the age after the translations of Akkadian and Egyptian. And since the late 19thC, our knowledge of the time and place has only improved (lost cities of Ugarit and Qatna; more Egyptian papyri; the Mesha stele; and all manner of archeological finds to name a few).

The Heidi Hubby fudged "wisdom" - which he assumes the Biblical authors possessed, at least for the purposes of this argument - with the empirical fact-finding of Wellhausen and his successors. I've conversed with, read the books of, and looked up the websites for many a fundamentalist of whatever religion who does the same as a propaganda tactic. Whether or not this commentor meant it as such, it would have that effect on his audience.

I would ask anyone who comments on such a topic to read what it is they say, and not to change the meanings of words around to "win" against the opposition. To manage that, dear readers - now that is true wisdom.

posted by Zimri on 20:15 | link |

Thank you, Adam Sandler

Adam Sandler went to the Oscars wearing an American flag. GayPatriot says no other actor in attendance did, but if I find out otherwise I'll thank them too.

posted by Zimri on 19:50 | link |

KookPundit

Mike Gallagher isn't the kook; he's just a middle aged guy of above average intelligence who hasn't yet learnt all the lingo. He thinks "blog" means "hastily written hobby web page". Recently he insulted a bunch of bloggers and he just had to apologise for it.

I suppose most blogs are hastily-written hobbyhorses - certainly the one you're reading is - but some are more considered than that; and more importantly "blog" really refers to a medium rather than a mindset. I suspect you have to start your own blog before you realise how blogging differs from updating a web page; I learnt the difference pretty late in the game (March 2002 I think).

Anyway, Gallagher had run afoul of a nutblogger and now the nut is stalking him. This stuff was always bound to happen. What we've found with that insalubrious "Jeff Gannon, Pork Cannon" affair is that a hobby horse with maybe 1000 readers can claim press credentials, and there's always an ignoramus at the gate willing to wave him on in. So Gallagher lost his cool at this kook, and took it out on everyone; that's what stirred up a blogswarm/-storm against him.

I really don't think Gallagher losing it is that big a deal. I'm more worried about the kooks and potential violence. Can't known psych cases be put on a media blacklist?

posted by Zimri on 18:45 | link |

The first neocon myth

This talk of Sayf b. 'Umar and his fictitious "'Abd Allah b. Saba'" got me thinking, how exactly to label his brand of libel where it impacts the Jews...

Sayf was a Basran of the Banu Tamim; and so descended from 'Adnan, one of the great-xn-grandboys of Ishmael son of Abraham. That makes Sayf, in short, a Semite. So whatever he said about the Jews, it's hard to say that he was being an anti-Semite.

His Ibn Saba' was an archetype, a superhuman puppeteer who singlehandedly tossed the Caliphate into a civil war and nearly destroyed it; and in the end, or so he claims, Ibn Saba' created Shi'ism, which helped end the Umayyads. Who knows what Ibn Saba's motives were; perhaps mischief for its own sake, perhaps vengeance, perhaps a hope to foist the Children of Israel upon the Ishmaelites as a ruling elite, perhaps even a play for the Temple in the fluid pre-Dome-of-the-Rock days of 657 AD. It really doesn't matter all that much.

The Ibn Saba' of Sayf's imagination shares much with the Wolfowitz of Buchanan's.

Neocon myths were bogus then, of course, and are just as bogus now; and *our* neocons have actually been doing pretty well lately from what I've seen of the news in Lebanon and Egypt. But some people need to have outside forces to blame. And if they are facing a race of cosmic evil then it's not really their fault if they lose out in the present.

If the Ibn Saba's of the world didn't exist, one might say, someone would have to invent them. I guess that point is proven...

posted by Zimri on 01:30 | link |

Sayf bin 'Umar

I figure it's been over a year since I last dipped into the murder of 'Uthman, so I'll give it another whirl...

As mentioned before, 'Uthman's untimely death was a martyrdom for Umayyads and a bit of a problem for the Shi'ah 'Ali. It was most problematic for those who hoped to claim all the above luminaries for their own - those about to become Sunnis. Tabari, for whatever reason, decided to whitewash the unhappy event and blame it on someone else. I've gone into all that already.

Except that Tabari wasn't the first and he didn't do it alone. He quoted from Sayf b. 'Umar. His work deserves a little more scrutiny...

According to A Shi'ite Encyclopedia (Abdullah Ibn Saba, parts i-v), Sayf was considered a notorious liar even in his own day; and of all the historians who ran across him, only Tabari gave him the legitimacy of a quotation. Other Sunni historians of the 'Abbasid era, like Baladhuri, reject Sayf (and Tabari's use of Sayf) and start from the beginning.

There's also an article by the late Martin Hinds, "The First Arab Conquests in Fars", which compares Sayf's account of the Persian wars from 640-650 CE with the accounts of Baladhuri et al. This can actually be had in cheap-ish book form, in "Studies in Early Islamic History", where it comes with studies on early Kufan political alignments, the real cause of 'Uthman's death, the edited Siffin Arbitration Agreement and other goodies. At any rate, Hinds showed that Sayf didn't suddenly turn into an honest man when he got off the topic of Shiism and moved further East. In short, Sayf made up all sorts of rubbish - mostly claiming that Basra spearheaded the eastern conquests from the start, which it didn't until 650 CE - that have to be set aside before you can study the period.

So, I hear you saying, why does this matter? You can't buy a book by Sayf like you can of Hinds or even Tabari, no honest man takes Sayf seriously, and the guy's writing about topics that don't matter. It'd seem like a loser of a topic opportunity.

The problem here is twofold: first, Tabari uses Sayf a lot; and second, historians use Tabari. Tabari was lucky enough to have lived soon after the Muslims had agreed to start copying manuscripts instead of relaying oral tradition, and his work was marginally more acceptable than Sayf's (or Abu Mikhnaf's, another historian with a no-longer-extant book that he quotes a lot of). Also, Tabari's been translated into English and Baladhuri hasn't been. So, by default, Tabari is the launching pad for Umayyad students - and therefore so is Sayf.

Another problem is that anti-Jewish conspiracy theories about Shi'a are useful to such Sunnis as don't like Jews and like Shi'a even less. Sayf's lies are, amazingly, current; it's just that the conspiracists quote "Tabari" when they use 'em.

posted by Zimri on 01:15 | link |

Society Of Not Being Able To Read Biblical Literature

Geddaloada this codswallop -

The United States election of 2004 witnessed the emergence of "values," often referred to as "Christian values" or "biblical values," as key political issues. The "values" most commonly identified in public debates were the issues of gay marriage, abortion, and stem-cell research.
The Society of Biblical Literature, which is the largest international, professional association of teachers and scholars of the Bible, calls attention to the fact that the "values" so prominently and divisively raised in this 2004 U.S. election are not major concerns in the Bible, and in fact are not even directly addressed in the Bible. Rather, they tend to reflect the underlying problems of homophobia, misogyny, control of reproductive rights, and restraint of expression (including scientific research) in U.S. society today.
With over 7,000 members representing a broad range of political and religious leanings, the Society of Biblical Literature has fostered discussions of such fundamental problems against the background of biblical ethics and respect for all human beings. As many of our members have indicated in publications and lectures, the moral issues dominating the biblical texts focus instead on concerns such as the well-being of individuals, the integrity of community, care for the powerless and the vulnerable, economic justice, the establishment of peace, and the stewardship of the environment.
The Society of Biblical Literature urges citizens and political agencies to direct their energies toward securing these goals and values of well-being and responsibility.

I've rarely seen a more self-satisfied and hypocritical document, but that much I should have expected from an echo chamber of spoilt children. What I couldn't expect is how far it's abused its mission to make such points.

The undersigned "scholars" take most pride in numbering 7000 people who span a "broad range" of political leanings. They celebrate diversity! I mean, except that they have all signed onto a document that attacks three positions of the Republican side and none of the Democratic side. So maybe it isn't that diverse after all.

Well, they do at least do that publish-and-lecture thing. So they must be smart. Or they would be, if they cared about their mission - Biblical literature - more than they cared about abusing it to score ideological points. As of now, this society can no longer honestly call itself a society for Biblical literature. I don't know what the hell it is now, but it can't be that.

Start with gay marriage. You may be for it or you may be against it. But what you can't be is one who claims that Biblical literature is for it. If you're for the Bible, you're for heterosexuality as the norm. Preferably with only one wife, although those guidelines get a little lax for chosen prophets like, say, Jacob and Ishmael. Now, I'm not saying the SBL need keep closeted on this. The SBL does have a few valid options. It can go against gay marriage (taking the Bible's side). It can go for gay marriage (arguing against the Bible). My preference is that it offer its take on what the Bible says about it (impartiality). What it can't do is to breach scholarly ethics in favor of whatever point by telling lies about the text that defines their whole field - and that's what the 7000 undersigned snotnoses just did.

The "A" word - well, here, in a primitive and brutal fashion, they have a point; the Torah's take on it is that the life of the child is its parents' and village's to control until the age of majority (at least). If the village cannot raise the child then the child must die. If the child grows up with sociopathic tendencies then the parents will have to stone the brat to death (c.f. stoning in the Bible). Bronze Age Canaan did not leave margin for error; contrariwise, worries about losing one's trim figure or about having to take a year off the lecture circuit - or even damnation to CostCo hell - aren't on this level. The Biblical ideal is victory for YHWH's Chosen and that means new life loyal to this God. If That Which Shall Not Be Named can be avoided, then YHWH demands you avoid it: Thou Shalt Not Murder. But again, the Bible is fudged by the professional illiterates at the SBL, who think that "control of reproductive rights" belongs in the Ten Commandments instead.

And who's against "stem cell research"? Not Kerry. Not Bush. Bush had the edge here only by restricting experiments on embryonic "stem cells" (meaning: embryos themselves). It looks like the SBL's signatories are generalising experiments on human embryos under the rubric of all "stem cell research". I see two possibilities: (1) they don't know the difference or (2) they do. Either way, the signatories to this are not fit for college. I am very serious. Anyone that morally and intellectually obtuse doesn't deserve even a high school diploma. To think that 7000 postgraduate Biblical scholars could sign onto this in all earnestness beggars belief. They shouldn't be censured; they should be expelled.

The tragedy of it all is that there are points the SBL could and should make in a debate about "Biblical values". They're the ones best positioned to understand of what said values actually meant in their own context, and to extrapolate their ethics into today's environment. But they've blown it, naturally, by proving themselves yet another horde of tax-and-tuition-guzzling leeches on a body politic that they despise.

Every man and woman who signed onto the SBL before it issued that statement, and stayed on to that organisation after knowing what it has proclaimed in his or her name, ought to be ashamed. That statement is an affront to scholarship and an offense to scholars.

posted by Zimri on 00:20 | link |