I dream of a day when "mushroom cloud" will mean a savory precipitation of delicious morsels.
I am reading A.J. Jacob's The Know It All, a diary of his musings while reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And, ironically enough, it's given me a new way to enjoy the Wikipedia. When I want to learn more, I can type the word "claque" into my PDA and learn that canned laughter precedes the TV, and then learn of the sokaiya, "a form of specialized racketeer unique to Japan, and often associated with the yakuza. They typically prey on shareholders' meetings, disrupting them (and causing the company a great loss of face) until their demands are met."
If I wanted to make this into work, I could also compare the Wikipedia entries and Encyclopaedia Britannica entries, maybe even improve any deficiencies in the Wikipedia, but I'd rather just enjoy myself for now.
The events surrounding the publication of cartoons offensive to Muslims has precipitated much loathing in me of Islam -- not something I was fond of in the first place. Nor am I fond of my reaction. I know the emotional response is not one of wisdom, but of aversion and fear. As I watched news reports yesterday with my stomach in knots I declared to Nora with a vehemence that surprised and saddened me: "I'm a cultural racist." I believe culture is one of the most profound forces in human life, it shapes our sense of self and the ways in which we join and act with others. And I believe there are cultural features that are positive and negative. And ideologies, on balance, can have a preponderance of one or the other. People, who I do not discriminate against on the basis of biology and geography, have fallen prey to a fundamentalist culture that seems, simply, to me to be sick ... and spreading.
For the past two years I've really tried to positively engage the Muslim faith and read from the Quran and Hadiths. Not surprisingly, I found the Sufi tradition most inspiring. But the Sufis are only a tiny minority, and the subject of attack by other Muslims. I've read various apologists, such as Feisal Abdul Rauf, I learned much and appreciate the effort. But for every positive thing I read, I encounter many negatives. Perhaps the embracing of a moderate Islam is the only way forward, but I also think the particular socio-cultural structure of the phenomenon we are facing, (a fundamentalist culture without a living tradition of pluralistic democracy and civil rights) is resistant to such attempts. (Such an attempt would've been better than the asinine Iraq War in any case.)
This week's Frontline on the sex slave trade centered in Turkey noted the strong demand for "white" women. (And, there is, sadly, a strong supply in many of the ex-Soviet republics.) Perhaps this speaks to the desire for the exotic other, which is not unique. Yet I couldn't help but also think it speaks to the macho but inferior sense many commentators speak of when explaining these Muslim men rioting in the streets over comics. Or, perhaps while their veiled wives are tending the home the men justify the use of these women as part of a cultural tradition that is long standing: slavery.
A litmus test for any religion is its treatment of women, and I'm instantly skeptical of any ideology that was started by a man who afforded himself special sexual privileges such as Muhammad -- or Joseph Smith.
I don't put the latest tunes on my MP3 player. Those go into a special triage folder that I play when at my desk and filter the good from the bad. The MP3 player has favorites, songs that I've listened to hundreds of times, providing me with calm, or joy, or energy. At the same time in which I've been following Matisyahu's rise on MTV's T-Minus Rock (now at #4), I noticed many of my favorites are similarly "spiritual." King without a Crown is favored among favorites:
Strip away the layers and reveal your soul
Got to give yourself up and then you become whole
You're a slave to yourself and you don't even know
You want to live the fast life but your brain moves slow
Last week when I copied CocoRosie's Noah's Ark on to the player, this tendency became clear:
Thank you God for this fine day
And bless all the children all over the world
Thank you for the plants and the animals
Oh bring me sweet dreams tonight
And help me be good tomorrow
So, when I carefully considered the lyrics of some of the other songs on my player:
In the tower above the earth,
There is a view that reaches far
Where we see the universe,
I see the fire, I see the end.
I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
a-travelin' through this world of woe
but there's no sickness, toil, or danger
in that bright land to which i go
Hope there's someone
Who'll take care of me
When I die, will I go
Hope there's someone
Who'll set my heart free
Nice to hold when I'm tired
i jumped in the river and what did I see?
black-eyed angels swimming with me
a moon full of stars and astral cars
all the figures i used to see
all my lovers were there with me
all my past and futures
and we all went to heaven in a little row boat
I realized all these latter songs are about death. These are the songs I often listen to before going to bed... I suppose it's like that old prayer, "If I should die before I wake. I pray the Lord my soul to take."
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