A woman in tears is a wonderful thing. The world wavers. History awaits. No doubt mankind is a mystical outpouring of a crying female. Maria Callas is an endless memory of all beauty in anguish. The most famous opera singer of modern times, she passed in ashes cast over the Aegean. Her wish.
Maria Anna Sofia Cecilia Kalogeropoulos suffered all the agonies of supernal talent, professional drama, and womanhood. But whatever the unfathomable mysteries of her personal life, she evolved into an archetype of tragedy, and its irresistable beauty. There are critics who avow that her appeal was tragedy, more so even than her unique soprano voice. Other sopranos had more balanced voices, others had more uniform technique, but no one was in the same class as Callas when it came to the tragic. Some profound, subterranean heaving, some quintessential outcry of all flesh--a primal scream, came through in equisite form in Callas. Sorrow was never so elegant, so appealing, so triumphant.
Maria Callas
Michael White offers a fascinating account of the 2000 auction of the Callas estate, "A Life for Sale," the various remnants of a life that was notorious, exotic, tragic and apparently quite disqualified from the normal postmortem prerogative of Rest in Peace. At a 2004 Sotheby's auction in Geneva, a piece of her jewelry went for some $180k (78,000 British pounds).
Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington offered a compelling biography, Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend (1981). There have been many, many works written about the captivating siren. Of course, probably the memorable part in them all is Maria's marriage to the Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. It was naturally a wrong move, as were most in Maria's life. He of course left Callas for Jackie Kennedy. Heartbroken,Callas spent her last years living largely in isolation in Paris. "First I lost my voice, then I lost my figure and then I lost Onassis," she once said. She died in 1977, at the age of only 53.
The young Maria, with whom Sorrow was in love.
Fine art, opera, is almost always about broken hearts, tragedy, and death. As in art, so in life, at least for Maria Callas. It is perhaps a serious question whether or not professional drama is a healthy occupation. What exactly is the function of recreating reality in art? Is it some neurotic, repetition compulsion on a grand social scale? Do we think we shall master the tragedy of life by recreating it, and in a sense, perfecting it? Is that the goal?
Perfected tears, that is certainly the story of Maria Callas. She scarcely saw the light of day except through the dim veil of sadness. She died broken hearted and alone. Friends and family were never able to reach her, to enable her to recover.
So did the world use her? Is the artist indeed "for sale?" Is sorrow itself on the market?
Beethoven might disagree. He died at only 57, but his final works were of deep gratitude and praise to the Creator. This is significant. He suffered physically and emotionally all his life, being an abused child of a violent alcoholic. He became deaf in the middle of his career. Conflict was constant. But he cried out, "O friends, not these tones!" in the Ninth Symphony--and followed with the famous "Ode to Joy." And the Missa Solemnis he considered his greatest work. Perhaps he was a driven man, a marching, grinding German, and for this he never gave the impression he was lost. He looked steadfastly heavenward in the end.
Would that the moral fortitude of Beethoven could be revived in the dramatists of the world. Courge is not the exclusive right of men. Opera singers, even tragic sopranos might do well to reconsider. A fellow human being cannot heal a broken heart. That is the priviledge of the divine. That is where Beethoven turned. "All men are brothers," says the text of the Ninth. May we all therefore turn to God for consolation, and bring our crying women with us. Why leave them alone on the stage?
"Your hatred of me has given my life shape. For that I must thank you," said Kwai Chang Caine (David Carradine) to his life long nemesis. The two elderly men, Kung Fu artists, met in a final, fatal confrontation.
The shape of life, the contour of events in a life, this thought has fascinated me, for I found it to be a vital force in the potential of affection long before I saw the Legends of Kung Fu. The architecture of events gives shape to everyone's life. All are "shaped." There is no escaping it. We are to accept this, not resent it, or certainly not to fight it.
In early 1981, I discovered the most beautifully shaped life I had ever known. I became attracted to the life of Farah Diba Pahlavi, Empress of Iran. At that time, I was caring for abused children in New Haven, CT, in a place called St. Francis Home. There I dealt with the misshapen in life, the misanthropes of modernity. I was daily sharing the agony of tortured souls, of young lives completely trashed by the mania in they that bore them. It was a chaos, a never ending cycle of outrage and dismay. These children were forever homeless, in heart if not in life. I oftern prayed for them in the night, as I gazed out my upstairs bedroom window.
Then I began to notice that news of another life, far away, in a different world, a different people, and a different faith. But strangely, that life had a contour, a shape, that was irresistibly familiar to me. One so far, so grand, so majestic, had herself become an orphan in the world. The story of her husband's death was touching to me, as a cancer patient myself. I was magnetically drawn to this story, as the royal pair searched the world for a place for him to die. That was unforgettable. "The King Nobody Wanted," the children's story inspired in me, was all about tragedy, or the abuse of life, we might say.
Shah Reza Pahlavi, 1919-1980
Without knowing what Farah even looked like, I fell in love with Her life. She was an artist's paradise (pairidaeza, in Persian). It seemed to me that every sorrow in life found a place in her. Her own father had died when she was only 10. That fate would bring her such a grand man as Reza, then take him, was truly a call of transcendence. My admiration, even wonder, increased with each new word of her life. I studied her, and her country, in by 1984, I had completed Jahan-dideh ("one who has seen the world"), a collection of seven epic poems, dedicated to appreciation of her profound and splendorous life. (These poems were published, one by one, in the late '90's, in Persian Heritage Magazine.)
Ev'ry lineament of matter, shared of gypsy and of Shah
Doth institute a glory, rising of the heart in ev'ry eye.
In my upper room I lay on humble bed, long passed the day,
The warm, still night let orphans play as, dreaming out, I feign would say,
Oh ,Empress, is not this thy tree, which all delights without a fee?
Is not this Thy very limb without my window, dark and dim
yet outlined with a glowing beam of moonlight?
As I cared for the lost, I found a home in one whose own diplacement was regal. The extraordinary realm in which she dwelt made Farah to me a haven of delight. The uncertainties of my life in the children were somehow redeemed, absorbed, or wholly engulfed in the greater, grander space of her life. She was the child of Life, yet never did she offend, though sorely bowed with sorrow.
And it didn't end. Her youngest daughter, Leila, apparently ended her own life at the tender age of 31. Leila could never overcome her own sorrow when her beloved father died. She was only 10, just like her mother's father had died when Farah was only 10. Alas, Leile could not bear to live again the sovereign sadness of her mother's life.
Farah Diba Pahlavi and her daughter, Leile
Farah has remained royal, through all the affront of life. She has not hated, though rendered much hate. She has never cowered nor fled, though heavy shadows have wreaked of irony. She has but loved. She has always loved--her husband, her children, and her people. An Enduring Love was is the title of her memoirs. The Iranian story is not over yet. Let no one abandon love. There is hope.
I went so far as to poetically prophesy that, through her love, the Persians would evolve again, and the nation of Iran would be redeemed, in another time, in another realm...
And thence, they shall bear a resplendent amassing of honor and fortune, fame, fulness, and peace;
anon whence shall evolve they a fabulous city of ev'ry heart's ardour and ev'ry mind's truth;
therein never shall consciousness know of its passing save ever in greater, immortal caprice;
More momentous a race, of more excellent pity was never once found in the monarchs of earth.
My readers will kindly pardon the King James English. I'm steeped in scripture. And what other language is there when one encounters true royality?
Her Majesty, Farah Pahlavi, Empress of Iran
If a woman ever wondered why she should want to be beautiful, the answer would certainly lie beyond any beholding eye. It would be much farther and deeper in the heart. Like a revelation, it might take special circumstances to bring the answer out, but when beauty appears in a woman's face, it can shine into the darkness like the light of heaven. Hear ye.
I was once a childcare worker in a residential treatment center for emotionally disturbed children. I was a resident counsellor, one of the last of my kind. The night shift was heart-breaking, humbling, and exhausting, filled with the agonies of the abused, the dregs of a curse reborn in youth, the worst of life. It was profound, and mysterious, and depressing. No pain is more incomprehensible, yet more true, than that of an abused, abandoned child. No damage is more irreparable, nor consequence more permanent. It is sin--unforgiven.
My soul screamed to heaven for resolve. After three years of this work, I became physically sick myself. I was emotionally fatigued, with a severe respiratory infection. I had excruciating headaches, nervous shaking spells, chills, and an extended anxiety of an almost violent character. It all came with the territory, they said. Nature was very cruel in this region.
I was a former classical pianist and composer, but I had turned to religion. I had a recently finished a Yale Divinity degree, and had ended up in social work. I had left off the arts as vain, ephemeral, and self-oriented, and I indulged instead in a hot, artistic pursuit of human guilt and misery. I hadn't even allowed myself the pleasure of listening to music for several years. But, as I fell quite ill, I found myself timidly, almost clandestinely, listening to classical music on the radio. I listened to an entire bell canto opera, flat on my back. I later heard the Mozart clarinet concerto (K.622) and then Hayden string quartet (Op.76, No.3), the one with the Austrian "Emperor's" hymn. Quite innocently and curiously, musical beauty found again its voice within me. I started feeling better.
After many days, I visted the Yale Divinity Library to read some newspapers. I came upon a NYT perfume ad for "Tatiana." The woman's face bearing the romantic message also bore the most striking beauty I'd ever seen. I suddenly became wonderfully reassured of some mystery of the other world. There was a name with the face: Diane Von Furstenberg.
Diane Haflin Von Furstenberg, for "Tatiana,"
in the NYTMagaine, 1981. The fragrance was
introduced in 1975.
I had in fact rediscovered an ancient healing remedy: beauty, and it's redemptive nature, or, the saving effect of artistic perfection. That high, refined classical music I'd listened to, combined with this unparalleled visual beauty of a woman's face, somehow reached my dormant soul. I had been overcome with empathetic agony for the lost children. I had been consumed with the sorrows of this world. And now, simply with the perfected beauty of classical music and the wondrous linements of Diane, I was alive again. It was as if heaven did answer. There was resolve after all. Not all is abandoned. Some thorns have roses. There is great joy just in beauty.
I shall always remember that natural sovereignty in her eyes. The beauty of Diane surely subdued a dark kingdom in me. The iron cowl had vanished before her.
So, let every woman be beautiful. Whenever some man find himself captive by your charms, just remember the why. Whatever power you may hold, hold it wisely. Some man's well-being may be dependent on it. Be kind. Beauty is akin to redemption.
Surely doth the grandeur of her face
Fortell the perfect eloquence of Grace.
(Some years later, I created several portraits of Diane, which she was kind enough to purchase from me, so I could make the trip from my coffin in Connecticut to a doctoral program in music at the University of Arizona. The shadows of life are not lifted, but the gorgeous glare, the ensorcelling stare of the moon in her eyes has never shone brighter.)
"Ann Coulter is an anorexic harpie," said one male critic. "She's a man, a transsexual," complained another, female critic. "Her voice is low, mean, and she has a protruding Adam's apple."
Well, Ann certainly has one of the most quick and caustic tongues in the business. I'm not aware of the sexual identity of that particular talent. Being a word trickster is asexual, I would assume, although it was Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) who first made a public sport of political satire in American circles. No one accused him of being a transsexual, although Marie Bonaparte(1882-1962), Freud's French pupil, did suggest a certain latent homosexuality--something every man is accused of in psychoanalysis. But we're not really sure how the sexuality issue gets magnified in the Coulter case, other than the fact that many people consider her the epitome of the "intellectual" blonde bomb shell. Young America's Foundation even sells a lovely poster of Ann, with avid appeal to the college crowd. For that, there is a question of sexuality?
"The Beauty of Conservativsm," as the ad appropriately
proposes.
And anyone who has read any of her books and op-eds walks away staggering with an overload of word play, indeed. Yes, she has been accused of insincerety because of her incredible humor and sarcasm, but, sometimes the inimitable irony of liberal thinking can only be expressed in the obvious. Surgical sarcism is often nothing more than the plain simple truth. Ann is indeed often guilty of blatant candor, an unforgivable crime in today's political media. Her superior sense of humor, though faulted as insincerety, is simply the result of inferior liberal positions--so stated.
Ah, but whatever shall we do with Ann and her sharp edges? What of those claws, those fatal fangs? How shall we molify and ennoble this wild cat? Yea, how shall we tame the savage beast?
I say, dance. You see, deep inside Ann is a beautiful waltz. Anyone who stops and listens can hear it. It's there. But we can't simply seize upon it. We have to approach it delicately. Claude Debussy (1862-1918) will take us there. We can start with the simple Reverie. (A pianist like Francois-Joel Thiollier will suffice.) We drift into a world of unlikened charm, and our hearts are stilled by La Fille aux cheveux de lin. It is the purity, the simplicity, the gentle glory of beauty itself. Feminine, girlish lovliness. Playful, innocent, and utterly captivating. In such a primorial mood, we are ready for the grand encounter. The waltz in Ann.
La plus que lente. This is the moment everyone knows, but no one seems to experience. This is the real Ann. This is abundantly obvious to the mystics. And for this wondrous work, we need an unusual artist to perform the music. We need the unearthly earthen yearning of the fallen soul craving the excesses of joy in beauty. Speaking of sexual confusion, I beg the indulgence of Ann's critics. We need Van Cliburn, a renown homosexual, to perform the music for this waltz. His 1970 recording of La plus que lente is precisely the moment we seek. In his distracted exudations of misplaced emotion, he magically arrived at the apogee of artistic beauty and joy. With this moment, Ann is in our arms, and we waltz with a dream ever present in perfect words. This is the Ann everyone feels, but can never see or know for the fury of personal, emotional reactions.
Just think of Ann as beautiful thought. Never mind what's being said. Never mind the political meaning. Enjoy the beauty of precision. Haven't we all dreamed of waltzing in the moonlight? Let Debussy dispell the tortures of rhetoric. Let music have its charm. Then you can get in touch with the real Ann Coulter.
Then, if you dare, you can leap into L'isle joyeuse, and never come back! And, again, only Cliburn can take you there, on the old RCA recordings. Cliburn achieves something unique in this Debussy recordings, so unusual it is incomparable. I am not a fan of Cliburn, but I recognize uniqueness. The intensity of his expression in these Debussy works is beyond the pale. The key word there is "beyond." That's where Ann really is. Look beyond the surface, listen beyond the words. There is something exquisite, and more than mystical. It's real.
And while we're at it, while we're featuring feminine appeals, let's be sure to recognize the complete incongruity, the audacious irony, the hideous hypocrisy of Pamela Anderson and her feigned morality for animals, while she propagates blatant immorality for human beings.
The "Give Fur the Cold Shoulder" ad, made in China, which was duly
censored by the Chinese government, much to PETA Pam's chagrin.
So, take your pick. Ann or Pam. Truth and sincerety or fraud and fakery? I think truth and sincerety require an intellect. You needn't have the intellect of Ann Coulter, but you still need truth to really experience beauty. Pam, on the other hand, is about coercion. No intellect involved. Pam therefore never achieves real beauty. As Edgar Allan Poe said, vice is ugly, and beauty is founded on truth. (See, The Poetic Principle; cf. Philosophy of Composition.)
Ann Coulter has never been decribed as elegant, or even lovely. I propose that she is both, and deeply so. It is a matter of values, really. Artistic values, maybe. Well, that's my background. But I also have a divinity degree. Mabye that's why I hear Debussy, I feel a waltz, I sense a greaty beauty--beyond her words. She has fun with politics, true. But that's the epidermal realm. The very verbal abrasions bespeak but the sweetest charms within.
Whatever fantasies comprise the 'first love' experience between a young man and a young woman, they are something real enough to be enshrined as an eternal metaphor of divine love. The relationship between Christ and His bride, the people, is just too special to describe, much as is that 'first love' between a boy and a girl, a young man and a young woman. It's just too wonderful for expression.
Romeo & Juliet, by Sir Frank Dicksee, 1853-1928.
To the congregation of believers in ancient Ephesus (on west coast of Asia Minor, or modern Turkey), Jesus cries, "Thou has left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou are fallen, and repent." Revelation 2:4,5.
This is remarkable. Romantic love is known the world over for its immaturity, and rash, irrational judgment, and for its endangerment of the very two lovers sharing it. Romantic love is impetuous, insistent, irresistable, and irrevocable. It is impatient, it is passionate, it is unforgettable.
"Thou has left thy first love," Jesus says to His people in Ephesus. How touching. How utterly touching.
To what emotions does He speak? When a person comes to know the Lord, when a person first experiences the awareness, even the Spirit, of the very love of God, is that romantic love? Is that really similar? Selah.
Note that the ancient city of Ephesus was a cultural center for institutionalized, culturalized "love." Diana, the moon godess, was enshrined there. This city knew all about human passions. This ancient "Hollywood" was a center for the study of human emotion. A new body of believers had developed there. They had espoused the living God, with remarkable realism. Yet, something had grown routine, or "luke warm" as we say.
"Thou has left thy first love." What an indictment! Where is that glorious feeling, that wondrous emotion, that inimitable passion? Don't forget about that! Don't let your relationship with the Lord become a ritual, a routine, a mere round of habit. Where is your heartfelt love?
Well, we all grow older, and perhaps less irrational. We come to understand things we didn't know before. We are more realistic. The hormones settle down a bit. What can we do?
Jesus said just remember the old days. Remember the first love. Repent of your hollow routine. Recover the living God in your soul.
Now, this is one case where the Italian woman can't help you out. Whatever arts she has for keeping you interested, or 'turned on in the flesh,' it is only the Spirit of God that can truly keep your soul alive. Evidently we are all liable to grow a little weary. We are all likely to fall from that first glory of being in love, and to lose our passion for that prima amica, that first ragazza del suo cuore. But, very much like an Italian woman, the Lord won't have it. We need to get ourselves back in gear for real and effective love.
Apparently, all we need to do is take the time to remember our first love, and recognize that we have grown away, and the Spirit will return to us in great and life-giving love once again.
Happy Valentine's Day to you, and yours.
Sophia Villani Scicolone, de Pozzuoli, Campania, Italia.
Al Gore is round about in the world condemning America. He just spoke to Saudis (in Jiddah, Saudi Araba), assuring them that the Bush administration is evil, and the American efforts in Iraq are virtually satanic, Christians are like Islamic terrorists, and that "the worst thing we can possibly do is to cut off the channels of friendship and mutual understanding between Saudi Arabia and the United States." Of course, Gore was just rehashing his popular anti-American stance. Anti-American speeches are popular, especially in anti-American environments, and especially in places where the Leftists Americans are trying to make sure that anti-Americanism prospers.
Al Gore, professional anti-American
Just when Bush has vowed to cut America's dependence on foreign oil, Chevron's Peter Robertson said, "This notion of being energy independent is completely unreasonable." Of course, Chevron is one of the "American" energy compies more deeply involved in Saudi Arabian oil--about 3 billion barrels worth. Robertson spoke at the same anti-American forum Gore did, Saturday, February 11, 2006.
Gore went on to clearly imply that Iran is justified in it's course of action, America is evil for its "unconditional" support of Israel, and America has committed high crimes against Arabs people living in America. Arabs in the United States had been "indiscriminately rounded up, often on minor charges of overstaying a visa or not having a green card in proper order, and held in conditions that were just unforgivable." Blast those 9-11 Saudi Arab hijackers! Just look at the prejudice they've created.
"Unfortunately there have been terrible abuses and it's wrong," Gore said. "I do want you to know that it does not represent the desires or wishes or feelings of the majority of the citizens of my country." What country is that, Al? Most citizens of "my country" want to preserve America. Al's "majority" is an anti-American Leftist fantasy.
But that same group has Hollywood reps over in Turkey dramatizing anti-American sentiment to frightful degrees. A new movie, Valley of the Wolves (opened in Turkey, Feb. 3, 2006), is designed to provoke the most visceral hatred of American soldiers and American Jews yet. It stars Billy Zane as a murderous rogue US soldier who slaughters innocent Muslims, and Gary Busey as a Jewish doctor who harvests organs from Muslim prisoners and sends them to America. (Ironic, since Busey usually plays a Teutonic-type criminal.)
Gary Busey, criminal character for hire, together with anti-American role model, Billy Zane
How noble, then, that Americans are over in Muslim countries lending a hand to the anti-American image. How transcendent, that they should sympanthize with the enemy, offering aid and comfort in the grandest manner. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Perhaps the all reality does involve a dualistic set-up. There must be enemies. There must be conflict--from within, as well as without.
But, social philosophy is useless except as a guide--which function it rarely achieves in tactile reality. We're talking about nationalism here. We're talking about love of country. The Muslim sympathizers clearly disdain America, and serve the enemy. Regardless of any philosophical explanation for such social, ideological contradiction, unless the country is preserved, there is no occasion of philosophical reflection. The way to deal with traitors is not philosophical explanation for their existence, but revoked citizenship, deportation, and/or fine if not imprisonment.
This isn't a matter of a wrong word or two, here and there. The traitor is characterized by his habitual disposition, his career direction, and the tenor of his long term thoughts. No witch hunt is necessary. The traitor is obvious. He announces his position on a daily basis.
Alas, we're getting to the point now in American history that we vote for the lesser of two traitors.
It's the magic word, "offended." If you claim you are offended, you have the attention of the universe. All you have to say is, "I'm offended," and all the world stops in its tracks. Everyone expects to see Heaven rain down justice in your behalf. All the world will indeed seek justice for you. You have the moral advantage.
"I've been wronged." "I am hurt." "I'm a victim." The song has many variations. Right now the Muslims sing it in the key of Cartoons. Why does this dirge have such power? How did this style come about?
Isles of the Immature, on parade. What is the lure of anger? Simply raw egotism. It
seems like fun. It makes you feel powerful and important. A little help from the media,
and you're suddenly significant. AP Photo/Mahmoud Tawil These are Hezbollah hellions
in Beirut, February 9, 2006, protesting cartoons, things that make mature people laugh.
Humor is evil to Leftists of all brands. (That's why they hate Anne Coulter, too.)
It started in the '60's, in American social history. "I'm offended" is the theme of the American Negro, a lamentation well-orchestrated and inculcated by Communist racial agitators. Civil Rights was it's name of the number. Other minorities joined to swell the chorus of criers. And now the Muslims add their screeching voices, only the Muslims are not a minority. They merely appear to be, by immigrating to non-Muslim countries, and demanding observerance of all their customs, and demanding respect. With the universal threat of bombs behind them, the world bows in submission. This is the plan. Submission to Allah, to the demonic mullahs that is, all on threat of death. They are succeeding at this point. Jimmy Carter calls it "human rights," an ideology he advanced to a global level in the late '70's.
The fists raised in 1969, at Rutgers University, under the auspices of the
'sensitive' administration.
"Don't you dare offend me," is just another way of saying, "You do what I say, or I'll kill you." This isn't about respect or equality. This is about tyranny and cruel control. This is the way of Communism, and the reason articles have been written that point out the relationship between Communism and Islam. Muslims have become the most 'useful idiots' in the history of Communism. They are now the most willing slaves in the history of oppression.
The American legal profession, together with its modern progeny, the Senate, or Congress, have also waxed fat on the fodder of "offense." If someone is offended, a line of attorneys await the opportunity to file suit in his behalf. Perpetual immaturity and greed have been promoted by law, by the logistics of the profession as a competetive business. Never before was the United States government so wholly alienated from the people it professes to represent. America has hood-winked itself, by it's own ideologies, by it's own laws.
Idealism, without innate exceptions, is at best a cruel deception. The most fundamental of human relations bear this out. A parent raising a child knows how often inconsistency seems inevitable. The parent often cannot answer "Why?" Exceptions have to be made now and then. The parent simply sees the greater picture, and must control the child, even though the child can't understand. But American idealism today has become like a very bad parent, who will not act unless the child's questions are satisfied. A child in such a situation rules the parent, becomes more dissatisfied than ever, and rebells all out. The American government is tempting the American people even now to do the same.
There are exceptions to right, to equality, to, justice. Someone has to be in charge. To put the "offended" in charge is letting the child rule.
"Wo unto thee, O land, when thy king is a child." Ecclesiastes 10:16
There are limits to what a person can expect out of life. This is a lesson to be taught in childhood. If it isn't, then society becomes a horde of irascible hoodlums, like the Muslims. The Muslims are the caricature of Islam, and the mirror of the Left, held in the face of a deluded American Congress.
Of course, no one wants to be criticized or condemned, or even made sport of, for things he can't control, or had no control over, like his race, his gender, or his religion, or his country of origin. Yes, people are born into these things. To a certain degree, elements can be altered. But where choice is, the individual has no right to claim "offense." Where no choice is, a person needs to develop a thick skin. Life is brutal. Life is war. To act like it isn't is to surrender to the nearest bully.
America is burdened with combersome complexity and debate, all in the name of unnatural equality--a fabricated, Communist materialism, where equality is measured only in material things. Enforced material equality is a profound perversion of what American values really are. Freedom to compete, in one's own pace and place, is all that the Constitution offers. But that all should have universal honor for personal offense is a bizarre mutation. "I'm offended" is a self-righteous fetish, created by the Communist power brokers, who then in turn enforced all the kow-towing to the offended. This is endless, as well as silly, as well as lethal. It must end. Now.
You can't say "Negro," you can't draw "Mohammad, can't hire the best worker, can't be efficient, can't excell or you'll leave someone behind. As an Indian, I say, call me SAVAGE. Let the world breathe again.
Another guest post from Beakerkin, of The Beak Speaks blog. Many thanks, Beak.
American Indian patriots ought to have a magic bullet to slay Ward Churchill and Russell Means. The search for this bullet, however, reveals ammunition that all truth-seeking people should have. There is a core issue in this American Indian patriot mission. Causes and careers can be confused. Churchill and Means chose loyalty to the Left for the sake of their own cause, their careers, rather than to expose the truth about the Left. They are obviously not American patriots, but they also betray the Indian cause, in the end. Certainly Churchill does.
The story of Ward Churchill, Russell Means and the Sandanistas is a story of who betrayed whom. The Sandanistas were a classic group of class-based international Marxist thugs. Ward Churchill and Russell Means are from the Marxist corollary of the Frankfort/ Marcuse variety. Means and Churchill were betrayed by their comrades on the left but returned to their familiar places on the left to advance their personal careers.
Russell Means, still unwilling to denounce the Left? He supported
Republican John Thune in the 2004 senate race that ousted Tom
Daschle. That says something. Photo, 2000 by R.L.Jones
For those unfamiliar with Marcuse, the best source to learn about him is Daniel Flynn's Intellectual Morons (2004). Marcuse realized that the workers would never rise up in Revolution so he advocated that disgruntled minorities replace the workers in the new Marxism.
The best David Horowitz book is the one you will never find. The Second Thoughts conference was a collection of speeches by former Leftists who walked away from the left. Michael Medved, Julius Lester, Ronald Radosh were among the participants. Each told a moving story of why they walked away from a left that failed them. Interestingly, one of the greatest critics of that Conference was Christopher Hitchens who has also walked away from the far left.
Most of us think of our political beliefs in a rational, coherent paradigm. However, when dealing with the far left one is essentially dealing with a faith. Most of us are aware that there is no such thing as Eden, Salvation or Utopia in this world. However Marxists are utopians and readily pile up bodies in a Don Quiote like attempt to create this Utopia that never comes to fruition and is as real as Sponge Bob Square Pants.
Marxists need to destroy the existing order to create chaos so they can take the reigns of power (--the current tactic of the mullahs in Tehran). Thus we have such oddities as Gays championing the Palestinian cause (Richard Rosendall FPM 02/02). Prominent Gay apologists for Muslim atrocities include Dennis Raimondo. One can see the comedic rationalizations of Gay leftists in an early classic on my blog, Gay Rights, Israel and Muslim Nations Comparedcompared. Feminists have been eerily silent on the human rights of Muslim women.
The question is why Jewish deranged Leftists like Noam Chomsky and Norm Finklestein fail to identify with their ethnicity and serve as front men for the vilest types of anti- Semitism. The far left had a pipe dream that Israel would turn into a Middle Eastern version of Cuba. However after 1967 the nexus of the argument changed from Pan Arabism to the creation of an ethnicity with zero basis (David Yeagley, American Indians are not like Palestinians, FPM). Israel and Jews were not considered victims of the Marcusian far left and thus were readily betrayed by Jewish leftist seeking credibility. This should hardly be a surprise as many Jews remained loyal to the Communist Party after the Hitler-Stalin pact.
Means and Churchill never left their faith and were betrayed by traditional leftists like Chomsky who still praise the Sandanistas today. The real crime of Means and Churchill was placing career ambitions ahead of the truth. Churchill and Means returned to their far left faith when the smoke had cleared. Sadly, both still make common cause with those who still readily rationalized the slaughter of Miskito Indians today.
by BEAKERKIN (The Beak Speaks.)
The Muslims of the world are showing new depths of immaturity and social pathology. They demand respect for their murderous, pedophilic icon Mohammad, in whose name they set out to mutilate and murder others, as well as themselves. Alas, the "good" people within the Muslim faith have not succeeded in changing the world image of Islam from any but the most vicious and vile of world faiths. Islam appears nothing more than a cult of blood and violence. How can this image be changed, when Muslims continue to intensify it?
Demonstrators set fire to the Danish embassy in Damascus on Saturday. Bassem Tellawi/Associated Press
Like undisciplined children, like thugs, like mob mentality pathogens, the mad Muslims protest a few cartoons, and set out to burn down the nearest manifestations of Western civilization. Because a few cartoons about Mohammad were printed in European newspapers, embassies of Norway and Denmark were torched in Syria. Sweden has expressed objection to the juvenile behavior, but all the Norwegian newspaper editor Vebjoen Selbekk could express was regret that he reprinted the cartoons. Of course, the Saudis claim a new era of pride has emerged in Muslim land. "Stand up and protest those cartoons!" What glorious patriotism and mature political insight. The eminent government of South Africa has barred the cartoons, in an act of supreme and lofty responsibility, naturally giving the right to a small foreign minority (that's right--Muslims in minorities in all countries but their own) to rule the nation. The poor Christian minority in Iraq are now fearful that they will be attacked for the cartoons! No minority rule there. (Muslims reserve the right of minority rule for themselves, as all Leftist minions and 'useful idiots.' They have the right to destroy all others, majority of minority, if it isn't Muslim.)
And there's always the report of 'sincere' Muslims, who claim to identify with the foreign country in which they have settled. There are wondrously appealing essays on their deep struggles with their faith and the customs of their 'adopted' country. That's supposed to make everyone feel better, and to somehow respect Islam, or at least its followers. But this is a mistaken expectation. If their faith causes them a problem in their new country, let them go back to their own country. If their presence is disruptive to the country which they have "invaded," then let them respectfully repatriate themselves anon. None of this "stuggle" routine. It is a predicament of their own choice and devising. It is their mission to spread Islam. It is their purpose to dominate. Be there no mistake about that. Let none be deceived. It is nothing but a ploy that Muslims claim to have any national loyalty. It's against their religion to have such!
Rushy Rashid, shown at City Hall in
Copenhagen on Thursday, is a writer who
identifies with her Danish citizenship and
her Muslim faith.
John McConnico for The New York Times
I wonder why the Leftist Indians haven't joined in the fray? Who protests caricatures more vehemently that those brave warriors like Ward Churchill (the non-Indian), Russell Means, anti-man feminist Susan Harjo, and the rest? Why, Leftists are missing out on a great opportunity here. "Muslims are people!" "Muslims are not mascots!" Perfect slogans for Lefitst Indians to support. All the psychology work has already been done, by non-Indian Leftists. Cartoons are degrading. Caricatures are hurtful, harmful. In fact, they are hate speech. Yep. That's what this is. Nothing but hate speech. Go for it, Russell Means. Defend those poor murderous Muslims.
BadEagle pointed out long ago that cartoons are simply something Europeans do. They've been doing it since the days of medieval woodcuts. (15th century illustrations of Dracula may be among the first examples.) Europeans make caricatures of themselves, and of everyone else. Americans have caricatures down to a science! It is a most cherished element of communication and fun.
Ah, but it takes a big person to be able to smile at himself. Muslims are the smallest people in the world. It is truly a pathetic spectacle they create. Now, Americans are also the biggest people, because they like to give space to ethics and justice, and rights--to a fault. Already there is a great debate on the ethics of the Mohammad cartoons. Already the US State Department has defended the right of the Danish newspapers to publish the cartoons. That's all well and good. Moral debates are a great American pastime.
In the meantime, Scots are apparently content to let the English continue to use them as the mascot of Britain. The Black Watch is always on the frontlines whenever England goes to battle. And the great Scotland Yard, (now called the Metropolitan Police), one of the most elite investigative agencies in the world, has nothing to do with Scotland. The British prefer to use the power in the Scottish name and emblem.
No Indian support of any Scottish protest there, either. I'm really disappointed in Indian Leftists. They are so terribly narrow minded. No sense of Communist brotherhood at all.
And the Metropolitan Police of London (Scotland Yard) even offers a Duke of Edinburgh Award to encourage young people in social service. That's like offering the Chief Sitting Bull award to immigrant Croatian youth in America. Leftist Indians would certainly protest that. But no word for the Scottish mascot issue.
So Muslims can't take a cartoon; Indian Leftists are blind to opportunities; and the Scots pass on the mascot issue. This is a strange inconsistency. Muslims are nasty children; Indian Leftists are weak cripples; and Scots are apparenlty too strong to care.
Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur and poor Kate Moss
What a world. What a world. And just to tip this off with a cherry on the whipped cream, the Special Crime Directorate of Scotland Yard (Metropolitan Police) is currently headed by an Assistant Commissioner, one Tarique Ghaffur, most recently noted for his appeals for Kate Moss to return to England for questioning in the case of her cocaine abuse. Bets on Ghaffur as a Muslim? The news calls him "Asian," rather than Middle Eastern, so that may mean he's Hindu or Pakistani. That should be a wonderful comfort to all. Well, we have this assurance: The Muslim Safety Forum (on the advisory board of the police department) has rebuked Ghaffur for his insensitivity to Muslims. They accuse him of contributing to Islamophobia, no less. Maybe he's a Zoroastrian. Then again, maybe he doesn't practice any religion.
In anticipation of the new BadEagle.com site, in which guest blogs and articles will appear, Bad Eagle proudly presents here a piece by well-known blogger, Beakerkin, of The Beak Speaks. In recent blogs he has noted the uniqueness of BadEagle, in some unique commentary. We thank the Beak for his interest and contributions. This is a pace-setting type of entry.
The far Left claims to care about Indians, Blacks, Gays and others. However, while paying lip service and co-opting causes they ignore abuses that do not fit into the grand scheme of the Marxist Revolution.
During the Contra War, a typical Leftist slurred Ronald Reagan as being like the men who killed the Indians. However, if one knows the actual history of the Contra War it was Ronald Reagan who came to the aid of the Miskito Indians. The darlings of the Left the Sandanistas were massacring Indian tribes on the coast. The story can be found in the Black Book of Communism, p.668. The media ignored the ethnocide of the Indians while hyping the death of four nuns in El Salvador.
Ward Churchill, in the perfect glamor shot in the '60's style.
(Did he ever pull the trigger?) Ward got his BA and MA in com-
munications and was a photographer for a stint during the Vietnam
war. To badhe didn't get scratched. He could give Kerry a good run
for office.
The familiar voices of Progressivism did nothing to aid the Indians. Moreover, they made every effort to impede the aid to the Contras. Ted Kennedy, Kerry, Harkin , Rangel , Dodd and Tip O' Neil were obsessive in the anti-Contra campaign. Some Democrats even had a hard time admitting the Sandanistas were Communist. In the familiar parade of Hollywood Leftists Ed Asner and Mike Farrel were just some of the celebrities spreading Sandanista propaganda as the Indians suffered. An array of religious Leftists, notably the Maryknoll nuns, served as the PR wing of the Sandanistas as the Indians were fighting for their homes.
Even Ward Churchill (along with his bud Russell Means) could not stand by and watch the senseless slaughter of the Indians. Ward Churchill apparently was employed by Soldier of Fortune Magazine and arch anti-Communist publisher Robert K Brown. Twenty years later, some on the far left are still bitter about Wards temporary break with the darlings of the Left. However it was not Ward Churchill who betrayed his people. His Marxist friends abandoned Indians in the name of Marxist Revolution. Churchill chose to be faithful to his fake Indian identity.
Today's Churchill is a creation of academia's desire for a cigar store Indian. Ward merely filled the role that was expected of him by his peers. Churchill is a man of adventure and seems to have an almost narcissistic need for attention. I can think of no other reason why a Marxist would go on assignment for the most anti-Communist man on the planet Robert K Brown. Churchill's shoddy scholarship and fake credentials were less important then the reality of a mentally unbalanced attention hog. The more outlandish his statements the greater his celebrity until he made statements that even his most stalwart Marxist friends could not defend. Ward Churchill was a creation of the cult of expectations of the academic far Left. The fact that the package was bogus mattered not, since the cause is greater than facts or reality itself.
I contrast the deification of a fake Indian with the shoddy treatment of a genuine Comanche. Dr David Yeagley is a Native American scholar who was denied tenure and run out of Academia because he is a patriot. He didn't teach victims studies, but the quotas in Academia must only be reserved for Marxists. I would like to know how many Native Americans are on the staff of the English departments of NYU, Columbia and CUNY. There seems to be plenty of jobs for academic Marxists but none for those who think for themselves. Dr Yeagley is his own man and will not sacrifice his ideas to satisfy the casting couch requirements of academic airheads.
The fact that Churchill pulled off this charade for so long shows just how out of touch higher education is. The Cigar store pipe dream was revered more then the genuine article.