Jihad Watch: Hugh Fitzgerald explains what this site, and open comments, are for

November 12, 2005

Hugh Fitzgerald explains what this site, and open comments, are for

Recently Jihad Watch has been embroiled in controversy over the comments field. Not only did CAIR try to trump up a case against me using not my words, but those of unmoderated commenters here, but also I have been receiving a series of emails complaining about various commenters who have been banned and various comments that have been erased, and others that have not been -- with the complaint made that we favor one side of an alleged debate.

That is, of course, false. Comments, as I have said many times, are unmoderated. Anyone is free to take whatever side and to disagree with or criticize me or Hugh, as anyone who reads the comments for an extended period can attest. One can easily find in the archives many, many dissenters from our positions and even apologists for violent jihad. And, pace CAIR, I have also said many times that comments that are abusive, genocidal, paint all Muslims with a broad brush, etc., are unwelcome. Off-topic rants, politically motivated baiting, etc., are unwelcome also.

However, as I actually spend my days tracking jihad activity and writing about it, I don't have time to monitor the comments. I remove posts that are brought to my attention. Since I don't see most comments and this is an unmoderated forum, no fair-minded person can draw any conclusions about what I believe from those that remain -- although I am aware that there are many people with agendas reading the site (Hi, Hussam! Hi, Ibrahim!).

Do we ban people with whom we disagree? As Hugh wrote to me this morning, "Then we'd have to ban everyone in the world, and then you'd have to ban me, and I'd have to ban you, and the page would be blank, blank, blank, beneath the blaze of noon."

Why do we continue to allow comments at all? Because we believe that the antidote to bad speech is more speech, and that a free and open discussion of issues relating to Islamic terrorism is needed now more than ever, and is increasingly difficult to come by.

Anyway, Hugh recently had an encounter with a commenter who represented himself as a Roman Catholic and parroted many lines, as longtime readers can see, of apologists for Islamic terror. Of course, he doubtless was who he said he was, as there are useful idiots in every camp, but in any case, after receiving many substantive replies, he responded indignantly that he thought this was a place for the free exchange of ideas, and stalked away. Hugh asked me to post his rejoinder as an article, and I am happy to oblige:

"I somehow mistakenly believed that this was a forum for trading ideas/facts/arguments back and forth." -- from a posting by a wounded and disillusioned poster here
You were mistaken. This is in the main a pedagogic site, with occasional time out for paronomastic play and musings on language. Postings cannot be patrolled, though egregious examples of a lack of decorum will be removed when brought to the attention of the bouncer in the back, the one chatting up the hat-check girl. That some choose to trade insults with one another, to crudely or rudely emote, or to bite at the proferred bait of those trolling invitingly for unwary fish in McElligot's Pool, is not part of the site's intent, is not encouraged, is actively discouraged. And not only by the bouncer and that fetching hat-check girl.

There are many sites where people can "trade," as you put it, "ideas/facts/arguments" -- in short, all that Internet equivalent of the late-night discussion of such fascinating freshman dorm-room topics as "Is there a God?" and "Free Will and Determinism" and "Why Bad Things Happen to Good People" and "Why Good Things Happen to Bad People," and "Whether Pigs Have Wings." These are sites where no one really rises beyond a certain level. The cretins come to dominate, because they have the most stamina, while the intelligent, if they ever showed up in the first place, often drop out dismayed. True equality in the Great Democracy of the Internet is as much to be deplored as Democracy and Equality in any school or classroom, from that of the first-grade teacher in the hopelessly progressive school who has his charges vote on whether the next unit should be on dinosaurs or on Greek mythology, to the college teacher who glows as he tells you about how his students acquire the "Learning Experience" and complacently assures you that "I don't teach my students -- my students teach me. I learn so much from them."
Give me the sober atmosphere of the series of lectures on "Our Debt to Antiquity," delivered in 1903 by Dr. Zielinski of the University of St. Petersburg to the highest classes of that city's secondary schools, or Professor Nikolai Trubetzkoy in 1934 delivering lectures on Slavic phonology at the University of Vienna, or Dr. Yuri Lotman in 1977, in his Tartu exile, speaking on "Literature and Literariness in Pushkin" to rapt listeners who had arrived by train from Moscow and even Siberia in order to hear him speak. In each case, however passionately divine the icy intellect, human warmth heaved behind the glinting glasses. And a perfect internal thermostat, to be adjusted as needed, between that human and that divine. No nonsense, no sentimental "democracy in the classroom" or "learning" through trading of "ideas/facts/arguments," no voting by students as to whether they'd like to build models of a Triceratops this month or would prefer to draw pictures of Hercules killing the Erymanthian Boar. Spare us, please, all that yearning for earnest freshman-year exchanges of "ideas" and "arguments" -- as you optimistically call them.

There are many websites where you can engage, ad libitum, in those Yankee-swapmeets of "ideas/facts/arguments" in which you express such an interest. Your own postings offered little in the way of fact, or cogent argument, so one wonders. Exaggerated attention was given to such matters as the religious affiliation of your best friend, and the ethnic and religious identification of those to whom you are related by marriage, and you took great care to identify yourself (who cares?), more than once, as a "Roman Catholic." All of these inconsequential details -- conservative Jewish best friend, Lebanese Christian in-laws, Roman Catholic faith -- are apparently supposed to place your youth-wants-to-know disingenuous apologetics for Islam, no matter how lame or inane, as beyond criticism, because of that best friend who davens, that sister-in-law who cooks such fabulous kibbeh, and your own unforgettable if largely forgotten memorizing of the Baltimore Catechism when you were a kid and what you really wanted was to watch the Baltimore Colts on television. You have been semaphoring that not only are you most definitely not a Muslim (who cares?) but that you are surrounded by those who are most definitely not Muslims either, and that it must follow, therefore... -- therefore, what must follow?

At those thousands of sites where you can trade "ideas/facts/arguments" with the like-minded or unlike-minded, the kind of thing you have offered by way of ex-ungue-leonem sample would fit right in. And at the same sites, at no extra charge, you may exchange thoughts and feelings with others about what you think and especially what you feel, to your heart's content.

This site is not one of them.

Posted by Robert at November 12, 2005 5:43 AM
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Comments
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)

Well said, Robert. It is virtually impossible on any other forum to even raise a peep about Islam without someone complaining about "Islamophobia" or racism. Since Islam is not a race but a religion, both of these descriptions are irrelevant and are a convenient method of stifling and silencing the critics of this dangerous religion which represents the biggest threat to our civilisation since the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany.

Posted by: londongirl

at November 12, 2005 6:56 AM

Correction. I should have said Hugh.

Posted by: londongirl

at November 12, 2005 6:56 AM

"however passionately divine the icy intellect, human warmth heaved behind the glinting glasses"

what a beautiful line.

"The darkling plain, swept by alarms, which threatens to be the world of our future, is an arena in which conflicting ideas, numerous after the accumulation of centuries, are freed from the discipline earlier imposed by ultimate conceptions. The decline is to confusion; we are agitated by sensation and look with wonder upon the serene somnambulistic creations of souls which had the metaphysical anchorage. Our ideas become convenient perceptions, and we accept contradiction because we no longer feel the necessity of relating thought to the metaphysical dream." - Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences, 1948

Posted by: Rebecca JW

at November 12, 2005 7:00 AM

Robert, Hugh:

You guys must be working with lightning speed! Incredible how fast you picked that up. All that at 5:00 am, do you ever sleep?

Posted by: sheik yer'mami

at November 12, 2005 7:21 AM

It's got terribly highbrow round here. The tone urgently needs lowering. Around this time last year, mentioning The Spectator might just have done the trick, what with those dodgy carryings on, but that all seems to have burnt itself out now.

However, I'd like to mention the Speccie for another reason - it has a superb series of articles on the Eurabian nightmare, by Rod Liddle, Mark Steyn, Patrick Sookhdeo (already linked)and Matthew Parris. Online registration is free.

Charles Moore, who also has some pertinent comments to make on a related topic in The Telegraph, states bluntly in the Spectator's Notes:

Any European country with a large Muslim population faces serious unrest at present.

Remove the words 'European', and 'at present', and he scores 100%.

Posted by: Interested

at November 12, 2005 7:59 AM

Even if many of us did refrain from the more 'extreme' statements, the likes of CAIR would still be happy to take it all out of context.

By the Way- which one of you is the bouncer? I have, oddly enough, always gotten the impression that Hugh is at least the Taller of the two...

Posted by: Gary

at November 12, 2005 8:15 AM

RE: Truth and occasional ridicule is an essential component of the war on islamofascism. We are in a cultural war as great or greater than the military war, and to allow the supremacist rantings of madmen go unchallenged is validating their evil ideology.

With respect to the above post, one must also realize as we focus on Islam, that "evil" manifests in many ways.

The cultural war has manefested in America on the college campuses with their "speech codes" and discrimination against those faculty and students who do not agree with the "leftist idiots"

And yes, I call them "idiots", but the credit goes to Stalin and Lenin, as they said that "the leftists in America will make "useful idiots". Shouldn' that set off alarm bells?

Was it an idle boast when Krueschev stated "we will bury you from within" His boast has materialized in America, as the Russian subversive campaigns started in the '50's and we now see the results. The Democratic Party has many prominent "leftists idiots".

This war on evil has many fronts. What makes it so difficult to identify and deal with as their are many whom are unwitting participates.

The very first component is to recognize that all things spring from the spiritual and it is either good or evil.

Posted by: learjet0450

at November 12, 2005 8:15 AM

This site is like oxygen for people who are fed up with PC.

We need it.

Posted by: rocky

at November 12, 2005 8:21 AM

For the new reader here: Sites that inform on the very multi-kulti pc stuff that goes on in our colleges (at least in the US):

http://www.thefire.org/

http://www.frontpagemag.com

http://www.campus-watch.org

http://www.techcentralstation.com/index.html

http://www.townhall.com/

(And we are off look at houses, stay safe everyone!)

Posted by: Gary

at November 12, 2005 8:46 AM

In case anyone was wondering:

paronomastic: a play on words, punning.

marivaudage: preciosity, too much refinement.

(There's 5 minutes of my life that I won't get back! Just thought I'd share in the pedagogy)

Posted by: Archimedes

at November 12, 2005 9:47 AM

Is the hat-check girl wearing a hijab?

Posted by: Mad_Jack

at November 12, 2005 9:52 AM

"marivaudage: preciosity, too much refinement"
--- from a poster above

No, that is an early definition of marivaudage (from Marivaux), its pejorative sense. I was using the word in a later, entirely un-pejorative sense. For those who might have thought I was deprecating, rather than praising, the botta-e-risposta that sometimes goes on at various threads between a very few (usually two) participants, and which never has anything to do with the main matter at hand, and remains unnoticed by all save those immediately concerned, is a discussion in French (which there is no time to translate) of "marivaudage" that carefully distinguishes the two meanings:

"Dès le XVIII siècle, le mot marivaudage a donc un sens péjoratif: il ne désigne pas seulement le style de l’écrivain, mais aussi cette forme d’analyse morale et psychologique raffinée à l’excès que Marivaux met en pratique dans ses romans, dans ses comédies et dans ses essais. À la fin du siècle, dans son Lycée ou Cours de littérature ancienne et moderne, La Harpe résume ce double sens du terme, en insistant sur le mélange des registres opposés

“ Marivaux se fit un style si particulier qu’il a eu l’honneur de lui donner son nom ; on l’appela marivaudage c’est le mélange le plus bizarre de métaphysique subtile et de locutions triviales, de sentiments alambiqués et de dictions populaires.

Le mot va ensuite devenir positif et prendre un second sens plus général : il décrit un certain type de dialogue amoureux (dont les comédies de Marivaux offrent le modèle), il renvoie à une certaine façon de vivre l’échange sur le mode de la galanterie et du badinage. C’est dans ce sens large que le mot est de nos jours le plus couramment employé pour désigner une atmosphère enjouée et spirituelle, des rapports amoureux fondés sur le jeu et la séduction, tels qu’on les trouve dans les films d’Éric Rohmer, par exemple."

Galanterie, badinage, rapports amoureux fondés sur le jeu et la séduction. Sounds good to me.

On ne badine pas avec l'amour -- or does one?

Posted by: Hugh

at November 12, 2005 10:38 AM

OK Hugh,

If this site is so erudite and scholarly, then why didn't you answer my question in a previous post on Bostom's Legacy of Jihad? I said that I had read the chapter on Jihad by W.R.W. Gardner but pointed out that Bostom apparently gives no background on Gardner or most other authors quoted in his book. So how am I supposed to evaluate this chapter, other than going to Google? (This shows me that he was a missionary, which somewhat detracts from his objectivity.) Since Bostom's book is so important, the deficit should be discussed. Now I did stick my question into an unrelated thread, but where else was I to put it?

Anyhow, someone should tell Bostom, so his next revision can be better. He is a medical doctor by profession, trained in the techniques of biology, but scholarship is more than a collation of textual specimens. The background of the quoted authors is crucial, if they are to have credibility.

Posted by: Benjamin

at November 12, 2005 10:54 AM

"If this site is so erudite and scholarly, then why didn't you answer my question in a previous post on Bostom's Legacy of Jihad? I said that I had read the chapter on Jihad by W.R.W. Gardner but pointed out that Bostom apparently gives no background on Gardner or most other authors quoted in his book."
-- from a poster above, verging on insolence

1. I am not Mister Answer-Man. I am virtually -- not quite, but virtually -- a volunteer, with my hand repeatedly out with the cup, which I keep jingling (with the nickels I put in myself, pour encourager les autres) in vain. Send check or money-order, and I'll answer any damn question you have. Special This Week: the Meaning of Life.

2. Here's a thought: write to Bostom himself. Write to the publisher, Prometheus Books. Or just telephone or email him, or it. Ask why they didn't provide short biographies of all those whose works are included in "The Legacy of Jihad." Why ask me to fill in someone else's perceived lapsus?

3. All kinds of questions and queries are emailed to me via Robert. These range from the perfectly sensible, to students wanting me to essentially write or, phrased more demurely, to "look over" their college papers. What is this? I am not a full-time employee of JW, nor of those who care to post here, nor some kind of on-tap universal slavey. I spare what time I can. I have already referred on a number of occasions to the fact that a title on the door may rate a Bigelow on the floor (old New Yorker ad, when Eustace Tilley was still Eustace Tilley), but beyond that Bigelow, boys... I have already said that a 17-year-old illegal immigrant, who does not speak Englsh, in his first job as a busboy at an all-night diner, takes in more than I do. Is that a hint urbi et orbi, or what?

4. "Why didn't you answer my question."

I didn't even see your question. But suppose I had? Why am I supposed to go and provide potted biographies for the people in someone else's book? What is this?

5. My hand is still out in eleemosynary position #1. Among the tens of thousands of people who come to this site, there has to be one or two or three who knows what I am about, and can tell a hawk from a handsaw. What are you going to make your next charitable contribution to, as for example to some bloated and self-satisfied university that already has far too large an endowment, and that hires all sorts of idiots and gives them tenure, so that they in turn hire others just like them, and down, down, down, go at least the departments of literature and of history -- but then, no one needs literature, no one needs to study history. Or if not a university, any one of those phony operations, designed to End Poverty, Saving the Universe or the Western World, and so on, that are now all over the place, in the guise of think-tanks, societies for this or that, and even one-man operations where the lecture fees alone pull in...well, a lot. To all of these, yet again?

Or to me?

I know which recipient I would choose if I had the means, and chance, to choose.

Meanwhile, do your own research.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 12, 2005 11:20 AM

Is there a non-electronic way to donate (i.e., an address to send to)?

Posted by: kamala

at November 12, 2005 11:40 AM

Now that's exactly the kind of question I like to receive.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 12, 2005 11:46 AM

When we say things that CAIR doesn't like, like ISLAM IS THE NAZISM OF OUR GENERATION, we become la resistance.
but, what is so ironic, is that most reasonable people don't really disagree with us. Yes, I have trouble when debating very liberal people, but the country has a small but real Republican majority, and most republicans have NO PROBLEM believing that Islam is dangerous and violent.
The fact that we have had no major terror attackes on American soil since 9/11 is telling, as it implies that the Patriot act is working.The fact that Zarquawi is blowing things up in Amman and not NYC is FANTASTIC, it shows that we must be doing something right.Going on the offensive tends to put their onus on our forces over there.
We MUST SPEAK up
We MUST FIGHT
Because, Islam really is the Nazism of our generation.
Defeat Jihad

Posted by: templar

at November 12, 2005 11:57 AM

Robert -

You guys can't even do a post about an exchange on your own web site without distorting the facts and presenting a one sided point of view. So let me make several points:

1 - I was engaged in a substantive discussion with other commenters about issues that are relevant to this site. If Hugh was not so eager to make a point, he would have noticed that my point about discussion of ideas/etc etc was a discussion of ideas etc etc related to the main topic of this site. Specifically, I agreed that Islamic terror was a huge problem, but that targeting all Muslims as evil people who rise up against Hindus and Serbs and everyone else was going too far. That doesn't seem too much in disagreement with your POV, incidentally. So I'm glad I gave Hugh a chance to get on his soapbox, but he clearly didn't understand, or more likely, didn't want to understand, my point.

2 - I didn't "stalk" away - not even sure what that means - because of Hugh's comments, but because I saw it was no longer worthwhile trying to make my point. The reason for that was posts by people like Sheik Yer'Mami, who said:

"RickS,

You present your arguments well.

To me, they smell very islamic though."

and

" RickS is a roman catholic like I am an Eskimo from Uganda...

Go and take a haj, " RickS"

and
"From your own writing above, Mohammed RickS"

In other words, I "stalked away" because I felt disinclined to continue a discussion with people like the good Sheik who resort to personal attacks.

In fact, Hugh was very quick to pick up on my "I somehow mistakenly believed that this was a forum for trading ideas/facts/arguments back and forth." quote. What he somehow missed was the sentence immediately preceeding it:

"I refuse to continue a discussion in which I am going to be attacked personally, for absolutely no reason. I am not particularly thin skinned, but it is just a waste of time."

and immediately following it:

"Comments like "RickS is a roman catholic like I am an Eskimo from Uganda. Why do these guys always have to lie? Do they think it makes their drivel more palatable? The islamic psyche: Deflect and obscure, moral, historical, religious equivalence- we've all seen it before. Go and take a haj, RickS" - make it clear that I am wasting my time and energy trying to have an intelligent discussion on this forum."

So either you or Hugh could not even be bothered to get the obvious facts straight before your post. I wonder if that is how Jihad Watch operates in general?

And before everyone leaps into the ring, I am unlikely to read, and will not respond if I do read, to any replies about this. Given that it is not a forum for the exchange of ideas.

Posted by: RickS

at November 12, 2005 12:32 PM

In a Rodney-Dangerfield "I-don't-get-no-respect" fit, someone -- it hardly matters who -- has chosen to announce to the waiting world that he has left JW, and forever.

This forum is that cold classroom in St. Petersburg, with the neatly-dressed students sitting bolt upright at their benches, while out the window one can glimpse a little house at Kolomna, or possibly that equestrian statue which Ekaterina the Second presented to Peter the First; it's that brisk walk you take in Vienna along the gravelled path, just behind the two animated scholars, Nikolai and Roman, as you attempt to catch snatches of what they are saying about the morphological changes that turn "konets" (end) into "nachalo" (beginning), or possibly the reverse, thus demonstrating in either case the essential linguistic wisdom, for Slavs and Slavists, of that phrase "In My End Is My Beginning" (borrowed by the son of a St. Louis furrier from the French motto of Mary, Queen of Scots); it's that session in Tartu, where Gasparov, whom one was not expecting to find, has chosen to cross-question Lotman about amphibrachs in Tiutchev -- or perhaps I've misremembered, perhaps it was something about versified bees and wasps in Mandelshtam.

Let's return to our sheep, or the methods of sheep-shearing that proceed another event, one that we all wish to avoid, especially round about Eid el-fitr.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 12, 2005 12:55 PM

interested:
I don't think this site is "highbrow" at all, or, if cogent arguments, clear thinking & prose and relevant facts and wit are highbrow, then so be it. The word doesn't scare me at all. Highbrow is
often a defensive concept meant to disguise poor knowledge and lazy thinking.

For a buddy-buddy feel--yet smart, funny, great one-liners--coupled with pertinent "citizen reporting," I go to littlegreenfootballs. You should try it. There are others, similar in irreverence and anti-idiotarian stance, but they are not JW/DW, nor should they be. Different kettles of fish.

Posted by: ovidius_naso

at November 12, 2005 1:01 PM

RickS, angry at the other boys because they "don't play fair," takes his ball and goes home.

Posted by: butterfly

at November 12, 2005 1:02 PM

Different kettles of fish.

My favourite fish is the poisson d'Avril, but all year round, overfilling the kettle and spilling over into the nearby pot, which is of a similar colour.

You take the highbrow and I'll take the lowbrow - I'll still be in Scotland afore ye.

Posted by: Interested

at November 12, 2005 1:26 PM

RickS said: "Robert - You guys can't even do a post about an exchange on your own web site without distorting the facts and presenting a one sided point of view. So let me..."

Me, me, me, me, me....

Dear RickS, why don't you try NOT lashing out with false accusations as an intro to whatever BS you plan on saying afterward.

When a casual observer compares your manner of speaking/posting to Robert's manner of speaking/posting, it is obvious that you are the one who is uninformed.

Posted by: Report

at November 12, 2005 1:46 PM

benjamin find his e-mail or write him. as for mr spencers books any questions ive posted or emailed were always answered within 24 hours. just finished the PIG book and now have to find one for the wife errr santa claus to give me for christmas. i was leaning toward bostoms book however i am open to suggestions

Posted by: jimmytheclaw

at November 12, 2005 2:03 PM

What is this? I am not a full-time employee of JW, nor of those who care to post here, nor some kind of on-tap universal slavey
Aw, c'mon Hugh. Don't you do resumes?

Posted by: Carolyn2

at November 12, 2005 2:12 PM

I didn't even see your question. But suppose I had?

Sorry, Hugh, I didn't mean it that way. I was just surprised that you didn't find the question interesting. You're doing a great job, and you are about the only pundit who is truly eloquent. William Safire is supposed to be such a great wordsmith, but he is tediously prosaic in comparison. Keep up the good work!

Posted by: Benjamin

at November 12, 2005 2:33 PM

Oh, by the way Hugh, I love irascible curmudgeons too! They tend to speak the truth. Or should I say 'truth to power'? :-) Churchill was in this august category.

Posted by: Benjamin

at November 12, 2005 2:42 PM

Hugh's frequent and intimate allusions to places all over the place, from Ireland to Russia to Italy to France might indicate he travels widely, which would make dubious his claims to have an empty beggar's cup. Or are all these allusions culled from travel writings of others and literature I've failed to read? Or is he a vagabond on the Orient Express?

Posted by: Dr. Pepper

at November 12, 2005 3:00 PM

I don't think this site is "highbrow" at all.

It may not be highbrow, but it is Hughbrow.

Posted by: Dr. Pepper

at November 12, 2005 3:03 PM

poisson d'Avril

Oh dear, I didn't mean to offend your low-class, proletarian or otherwise Scottish feelings of superiority...

I wouldn't know anything about this poisson, you're right, but I bet you don't know anything about my favorite fish, the calcan, once the poor man's fish around the Black Sea, now rendered noble by its rarity, white-fleshed and rich and succulent, not your bland, goes-with-everything flounder, much beloved by young American professionals.

I'm immune to appeal-to-class fallacies. Spent half of my life under government mandate to think life in terms of class. Sometimes class is relevant. Not now/here.

Posted by: ovidius_naso

at November 12, 2005 3:09 PM

To Ovid's post above:

"...the calcan, once the poor man's fish around the Black Sea, now rendered noble by its rarity, white-fleshed and rich and succulent, not your bland, goes-with-everything flounder, much beloved by young American professionals.

I'm immune to appeal-to-class fallacies...."

Yeah right, bub... Your class-free mentality is there for all of us to witness and enjoy...

Roughly translating your post above from obscurantist into English:

"I am a peasant who craves status so I can deny it..."

And all this carping about fish? Well I prefer to fry it..

From a young American professional...

Posted by: jsla

at November 12, 2005 4:51 PM

I'm nae Scottish, but if we're in that part of the world and talking about brows, high and low, then let's not forget 'brent' and 'beld' ones

John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snow;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo!

And while we're in pedagogic mode, here's my suggested homework: give three reasons why Burns's poem could not have been written under Islam.

Answer:

1 'First acquent' - an unmarried couple first acquainted. Stone them.
2 'Raven locks' - a woman describing a man in terms of physical beauty - not possible under Islam for all kinds of reasons.
3 'Blessings on your frosty pow' - how can you translate this? Either you get it or you don't.

And the second verse, with its emphasis on total equality, companionship and union between the sexes, written long before Equal Opportunities legislation:

John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;
And monie a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.

I don't know what 'canty' means - you don't have to. But could this have been written under Islam?

Posted by: Interested

at November 12, 2005 5:15 PM

A comment above about evidence of my having once travelled hither and yon, and therefore necessarily having deep pockets, shows a misunderstanding of all the things that can happen in life. These things are called vicissitudes. Some go up, and some go down. C'e chi scende, c'e chi sale. The Wheel of Fortune. A Mirror For Magistrates. It happens, and while the American system is based on the dreamy belief that everyone gets exactly what is coming to him, for good and ill, we all know that that is often not true, here or anywhere else.

There are those who travel and study happily on grants, and then eventually the grants come to an end. There are those who have jobs, and then don't have them any longer, possibly because they were not given to hiding their distaste or contempt for certain things, or could not adjust to nonsense. There are those who may get caught up in the modern version of Tulipomania, at the height of the high-tech stock craze, and see promised pensions diminish. And there are those to whom all of the above may apply.

There are those who in another time and another place might once have lived quasi-contentedly as luftmenschen, but today's way of life and expenses do not permit it. A bohemian devil-may-care existence (not that such is really ever desirable) is no longer possible in the advanced West; those swamps have dried up. Just imagine Max Jacob with his friends in Paris in 1920, and imagine what one would have to pay just for a glass of plonk au zinc today, not to mention a loaf of bread.

That kind of comment infuriates me because even if I am living on mental capital stored up from both reading and the experiences made possible by expenditure of capital in the past, that tells one nothing about the present state of my other kind of capital -- the kind that pays for heating, medical insurance, and things like that.

But suppose you were right. Suppose I did have that non-existent trust fund. So what? I have posted 4000-5000 inteliigent postings here. To those who come, and read and run, there seems to be the assumption that this is a Public Service. And despite my repeated hints that it is not, and those who can afford to contribute to the continuation of my part of the enterprise ought to, still others seem all too ready to believe that it must be one more bit of leg-pulling. Oh, yes, you mention the Orient Express. I did travel once on the Orient Express. It was a trip for which I did not have to pay. And quite while ago. And taking that trip, and being for a while in Istanbul at one end, and Venice at the other, and at various stops along the way, contributed as everything I have experienced helps to contribute to the postings and articles I put at JW for the profit and pleasure of those who can derive that profit and that pleasure.

If you wish, think of me as akin to one of those refugees in Paris, whose father may have been an industrialist in Petrograd in 1913, or Prague in 1938, and after assorted revolutions -- and you will agree that there have been "revolutions" in university life in America, wouldn't you? -- may have been dispossessed of everything except that mental capital.

Of course one would prefer to believe it is all just blague, because if it isn't, then one would feel a bit guilty, possibly, for not responding.

It is not blague. I have posted several thousand times. The prose holds. The points are made. Feel guilty.

Posted by: Hugh

at November 12, 2005 5:57 PM

Ricks, maybe this will help you understand.
I have posted many thoughts here. Does that mean that I believe ALL Muslims are evil. Here is my answer since you have trouble with understanding
principles.

My auto mechanic came to America from Syria 15 years ago and he also says he is a Muslim. But he is my friend and we respect each other and I would help him anyway I could.

While he says he is a Muslim, he really isn't as he doesn't go to the mosque nor know what is in the Qu'ran.

We are capable of making sound judgements while enlightening others about the evil of Islam.
We don't judge a book by its cover > but we are saying "read that book" as it may be threatening.

Posted by: learjet0450

at November 12, 2005 6:14 PM

Well, as long as we are lamenting ourselves, I've had a lot of experience with the painful, cruel relativity of "I don't have enough money". Not only am I in a situation where I cannot even take one measly plane trip to visit a person I love, I haven't been able to travel outside my state in these U.S. for two decades, and I can't even count how many times I've heard the phrase "I don't have enough money for x,y and z" from people who have taken at least one or two plane trips (if not five, six or seven) every year for those 20 I can't. So I don't really know what "I don't have enough money" means except when it reverberates painfully in my head. I have talent too that I would like to be remunerated for; would you believe me if I insisted on it?

Posted by: Dr. Pepper

at November 12, 2005 6:51 PM

Interested,

you got me there...indeed those stanzas could not have been written under Islam... but then, on reflection, almost nothing in Scottish or English verse could have. Chech this out (picked at random, and almost within the time-frame):

My mistrees loves no woodcocks
Yet loves to pick the bones.
My mistress loves no jewels
Yet loves the precious stones.
My mistress loves no hunting
Yet she loves the horn.
My mistress loves no babies
Yet she loves to see me borne.
My mistress loves no wrestling

Yet loves to take a fall....

Mistress means here the guy's employer

It goes on, but I fear Robert will censor it in the name of propriety.
Want some more? I can oblige; early modern English verse is chock full of such stuff, funny and lovely, indeed nothing like Islam.

Say again, what was your point??

Posted by: ovidius_naso

at November 12, 2005 7:04 PM

It goes on, but I fear Robert will censor it in the name of propriety.

Fear not.

Say again, what was your point??

My point should not need spelling out. Either you get British self-deprecating humour, or you don't. Thing is, when people say things like 'it's a bit deep/highbrow for me' they are usually taking the micky, and you are the one who is being had. Over here anyway. It's one of those potato/tomato things.

Dr Pepper - I take everything you say with a pinch of salt.

Never has the Atlantic seemed so wide.

G'nite.

Posted by: Interested

at November 12, 2005 7:33 PM

I insisted on being remunerated for my talent, and now I am retired at 44 -- America has been very very good to me... And I wasn't a nitwit with my cash...

I guess Ovid is just going to ignore my attempt at dactyllic hexameter -- I doubt he even noticed...

Posted by: jsla

at November 12, 2005 7:34 PM

"I am a peasant who craves status so I can deny it":

Status is not synonymous with class; I'm a well-respected usher in my church, 7th Day Adventist, in my small, low-class Nicaraguan community; I've got better status than most of my fellows 'cause I can read and speak English, and I've been in this country longer. My employers, whose offices I clean as a living, belong to a higher class, though I drive a better car than many "special assistants" and "associates" whose baskets full of Subway litter I empty every day.

So said my best friend Xavier, before I left for America:
"We all love corn. They're like us. Go forth and multiply, and don't you mind Garcia Marquez or Ernesto Sabato."

Posted by: ovidius_naso

at November 12, 2005 7:59 PM

Interested:

A little more of Elizabethan/Jacobean coarse, law-school humor, in honor of a sweet, Victorian night-night:

Underneath this stone and brick
Lies one that once loved well a prick.
All that you pass by, do her this honor:
Pull out your pintles and piss upon her.

(attributed to students at Christ's Church, Cambridge)

(Robert, please don't censor this! It's too precious. It's got everything our humorless, dour enemies hate.

Posted by: ovidius_naso

at November 12, 2005 8:27 PM

I'm not very literate so ... right on Hugh!! You are old school in the best way.

Posted by: dennisw

at November 12, 2005 8:43 PM

Hugh...
You are so erudite you must be promoted forthwith to co-pilot of JihadWatch or at minimum to president_for_life of the board of directors

Posted by: dennisw

at November 12, 2005 8:47 PM

"I somehow mistakenly believed that this was a forum for trading ideas/facts/arguments back and forth." -- from a posting by a wounded and disillusioned poster here
You were mistaken. This is in the main a pedagogic site, with occasional time out for paronomastic play and musings on language. Postings cannot be patrolled, though egregious examples of a lack of decorum will be removed when brought to the attention of the bouncer in the back, the one chatting up the hat-check girl. That some choose to trade insults with one another, to crudely or rudely emote, or to bite at the proferred bait of those trolling invitingly for...........ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.......whoa..huh....oh I'm sorry. I feel asleep there for a second. What was he saying?

Posted by: Avatar

at November 12, 2005 10:21 PM

"right on Hugh!! You are old school in the best way."

I'm with dennisw.

Avatar,

With a comment like that, I figure you have more stamina. Wake up and keep reading. You'll get to it eventually.

Posted by: del

at November 12, 2005 11:26 PM

RickS,

You said:
"And before everyone leaps into the ring, I am unlikely to read, and will not respond if I do read, to any replies about this. Given that it is not a forum for the exchange of ideas."

In case you do read this: I have to say that I was disappointed that you did not respond to many of the arguments that were raised in the initial thread. You said you had read the Koran, and that you are Catholic. I therefore assumed that you had a reasonable grasp of the Koran and the New Testament. Based on your appeal to a moral equivalence argument, I have doubts that you have read the New Testament and the Koran fully. Having a solid grasp of their respective overall messages (of the teachings and character-examples of Jesus and Mohammad, respectively) is needed before a reasonable discussion can take place. Perhaps your fellow Christians can forgive you for misrepresenting your own religion by dragging it down to the level of Mohammad.

If you get nothing else out of this exchange, take this suggestion: Read the Koran and New Testament.

Posted by: Archimedes

at November 13, 2005 6:55 AM

Hugh reminds me a bit of Harlan Ellison. Were I a betting man, I'd wager that "Hugh" is a writer, not confined to fiction, boarding school educated, between 40 and 50 years of age.

Were I a betting man.

Posted by: Dreadstone

at November 14, 2005 3:22 AM

Hugh wrote

Postings cannot be patrolled, though egregious examples of a lack of decorum will be removed when brought to the attention of the bouncer in the back, the one chatting up the hat-check girl.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008959.php

Posted by Robert at November 12, 2005 05:43 AM

"comments that are abusive ... are unwelcome"

"I remove posts that are brought to my attention."

Robert I assume that you don't consider the message posted by t-ham ( http://profile.typekey.com/t_cunningham ) at http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008715.php to be abusive since I have brought that message to your attention and you haven't removed it.

Hugh where is your bouncer? Or is what t-ham wrote not considered "egregious examples of a lack of decorum" here at JihadWatch.org?

The thread where t-ham made those comments is at

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008715.php

October 26, 2005

Israel: at least five killed in suicide bombing in Hadera

The link to t-ham's comment is at

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008715.php#c135974

Posted by: t-ham at October 27, 2005 12:09 AM

I won't post what he wrote there again here in case my comment here, gets deleted as well, if Robert now change his mind and decides that what t-ham wrote was "abusive" or an "egregious examples of a lack of decorum" and decides to delete that comment.

In short, t-ham called me an ass, moronic, screamingly ignorant and retarded.

t-ham said I was "a sick and black-souled piece of garbage" and a "moron" and that he felt "disgust" towards me.

t-ham then told me to "go jump in front of a bus."

The trouble started when I asked "libbysmom" ( http://profile.typekey.com/hadassahchana ) this question at http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008715.php#c135914

"By the way libbysmom what does "libbysmom" means? LesbiMom???"

It was a simple question. My profile name is Informed_Christian which means that I am a Christian. So I thought whether "libbysmom" meant that libbysmom was a homosexual.

I posted a reply to t-ham but that message got deleted while t-ham's message wasn't.

If CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) or anybody else misquote my comments then please send me an email at Informed_Christian@Yahoo.com or go to my blog at http://informedchristiannews.blogspot.com/ and post a message there telling me about it. I suspect some of the trolls that show up here regularly are from CAIR.

I will post this mesage at my blog when I have time. Right now I am very busy. If anybody wants to discuss what I just wrote or anything else with me they can email me or go to my blog and post messages there.

I won't post too many messages here anymore. Despite the calim that JihadWatch.org is unmoderated whenever I post messages, they seem to get deleted quite quickly and regularly for unknown reasons. For example this one here at http://informedchristiannews.blogspot.com/2005/10/halal-and-haram-speech-at.html where I disagreed with Hugh. I only assume that those messages must have been off-topic.

I will still post messages here but only a little. I will write most of what I have to say at my blog, where it won't get deleted. People can come and post at my blog too if they are afraid that their messages might get deleted if they post them here at JihadWatch.org .

My blog is a refuge. It was originally set up as an asylum for refugees from JihadWatch when Robert threatened to stop people from commenting here some months ago. Read the first message at my blog.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Informed Christian

at November 15, 2005 1:36 AM

Sorry. Missed the first part in my earlier post. Here is the full message.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert wrote

And, pace CAIR, I have also said many times that comments that are abusive, genocidal, paint all Muslims with a broad brush, etc., are unwelcome. Off-topic rants, politically motivated baiting, etc., are unwelcome also.

However, as I actually spend my days tracking jihad activity and writing about it, I don't have time to monitor the comments. I remove posts that are brought to my attention.

Hugh wrote

Postings cannot be patrolled, though egregious examples of a lack of decorum will be removed when brought to the attention of the bouncer in the back, the one chatting up the hat-check girl.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008959.php

Posted by Robert at November 12, 2005 05:43 AM

"comments that are abusive ... are unwelcome"

"I remove posts that are brought to my attention."

Hugh where is your bouncer? Or is what t-ham wrote not considered "egregious examples of a lack of decorum" here at JihadWatch.org?

The thread where t-ham made those comments is at

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008715.php

October 26, 2005

Israel: at least five killed in suicide bombing in Hadera

The link to t-ham's comment is at

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008715.php#c135974

Posted by: t-ham at October 27, 2005 12:09 AM

In short, t-ham called me an ass, moronic, screamingly ignorant and retarded.

t-ham said I was "a sick and black-souled piece of garbage" and a "moron" and that he felt "disgust" towards me.

t-ham then told me to "go jump in front of a bus."

The trouble started when I asked "libbysmom" ( http://profile.typekey.com/hadassahchana ) this question at http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/008715.php#c135914

"By the way libbysmom what does "libbysmom" means? LesbiMom???"

It was a simple question. My profile name is Informed_Christian which means that I am a Christian. So I thought whether "libbysmom" meant that libbysmom was a homosexual.

I posted a reply to t-ham but that message got deleted while t-ham's message wasn't.

If CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) or anybody else misquote my comments then please send me an email at Informed_Christian@Yahoo.com or go to my blog at http://informedchristiannews.blogspot.com/ and post a message there telling me about it. I suspect some of the trolls that show up here regularly are from CAIR.

My blog is a refuge. It was originally set up as an asylum for refugees from JihadWatch when Robert threatened to stop people from commenting here some months ago. Read the first message at my blog.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Informed Christian

at November 15, 2005 1:41 AM

By the way I didn't say any of the things that CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) was complaining about.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by: Informed Christian

at November 15, 2005 2:56 AM

WOW!!! There's five minutes of my life I'll never get back...I even heard violins at one point.

Anyway...

Posted by: XRDC

at November 15, 2005 7:57 AM

from: "IC"