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Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald continues in his recent regretful vein with a spate of apologies for various musical offenses to Sharia propriety:
I apologize to the Muslim Community of Europe and North America for that B-Minor Mass they have to endure, should they accidentally turn the dial to the last classical music stations standing in the Western world round about Christmas. I apologize for all those pesky Christmas carols which still seem to have something to do with Christmas as a celebration of the Birth of Christ ("Silent Night," "O Little Town of Bethlehem") -- though of course not for “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as sung by Gene Autry or “Jingle-Bell Rock” as sung by anyone. I apologize for Bach in general. I apologize for Monteverdi (not "Montiverdi," as his name was long ago engraved on the wall of Paine Hall, at a certain famous university that does not know how to spell).I apologize for Isaac Watts and the entire contents of all hymnals in, as Gabby Hayes used the say, the whole United States -- and Texas. I apologize for other hymnals, whether in Europe, Africa, or Latin America, or Asia, or Australia, wherever hymnals can -- so sorry -- still be found. I apologize for the Andrews Sisters, and especially for "Bei Mir Bist Du Shon" (put the diaeresis in yourself, please, I can't be expected to do everything). I apologize for Palestrina, but if one takes out that "r" -- see -- does that make you feel better?
I apologize for all those songs which appear to suggest that men and women can flirt, dance, sing, do all kinds of things, and even not impossibly live happily ever after, if they've a mind to, but meanwhile are having a good time anyway. For this view of things is one that does not get a whole lot of air-time on the Muslim International Satellite Channel, though let's not forget that in the very distant past, there were poets in Dar al-Islam who had something to say on these matters. Many were Persians: Hafiz, Sa'adi, Omar Khayyam, amidst all the real and imaginary roses and bulbuls of Gulistan, where the fountains gurgle and gazelle-like girls wander among those roses and listen to those nightingales. Arabic-language poets as well, but in even more distant days. Pre-Islamic Qays, for example, or possibly not pre-Islamic at all, depending on when you date the Mu’allaqat, or “Hanging Poems,” and who you think wrote “Ed I miei occhi piangono d’amore” (sounds like an aria, doesn’t it, when given in Italian? So let's stick to Italian for our titles). And since I’ve already imagined that sweet gazelle of Gulistan, let's add that Siculo-Arab (“hey, Gennaro, you want a piece of me?" he used to ask his Christian neighbors, whenever he wanted to start trouble in the mean streets of Palermo) Al-Billanubi, with “Oh gazzella mia ammaliante”), or Al-Tubi (“La tua belleza”) but I won’t mention Abu Nuwas -- not only because Qaradawi might not be pleased, but also because it gets us away from the main theme, to wit: Men and Women.Of course there was a whole lot of other kinds of poetry, that had nothing to do with love: panegyrics to potentates, designed to obtain a hoped-for place or payment or preferment. And if it was not forthcoming, those panegyrics would be followed by -- same poet, same potentate -- venomous attacks. See al-Mutanabbi, after whom that street with the booksellers in Baghdad is named. But there was stuff that, while it observed the outward rules of decorum, would offer another meaning (see more on this at "Call Us Prudes: A Note on Verbal Decorum" and thread following). For example, Faris al-'Arab, who ends "La donna mi dice" with "(ma ora, chi sa, fermi in una bassura,/se ancora m'accogli..., che galoppata dura.") Well, I'll leave that "bassura" and that implied accogliamento up to you to figure out, but that "galoppata dura" at the end says it all. Horseman -- what of that night? Call in the cavalry.
Now let me get back to apologizing, if you don't mind. I apologize for "You Were Meant For Me/And I Was Meant For You." Puts women on the same level as men, and suggests that love has something to do with it, and what, asks Islam, does "love have to do with it?" So I apologize. And I apologize for Fats Waller's "The Porter's Love Song to a Chambermaid." Puts Porter and Chambermaid on an equal footing: "I will be the dustmop/You can be the broom/We will sweep together/All around the room." "Sweeping" here may anticipate, or hint at, the later Italian slang involving the words "scopa" (broom) and "scopare" (to sweep), but I wouldn't bet a dustmop on it.
I apologize for "(Let's Build) A Stairway to the Stars." No one can do that except Muhammad, on his winged quasi-steed al-Buraq. I apologize for "I Hear You Knocking But You Can't Come In." Sounds like a woman has a right to Say No, and that just isn't true. I apologize for Ethel Waters's rendition of "Mr. Iceman." And "Mr. Coalman." I apologize for Billie Holiday. I apologize for Ruth Etting and "Ten Cents a Dance." I apologize for Joyce Kane with her brazen betty-boop routine. I apologize for flappers, for the songs to which people danced the chicachoca samba or the Lindy Hope or the Charleston or the Fox Trot or the Waltz or the high lavolt.
I apologize. I apologize. I apologize. And if you have your way -- you people to whom I have been so busy apologizing, in this article and this one before it -- and in so doing I am merely joining a cast of thousands of Infidel political and religious leaders who presume to speak in the name of all of us when they too apologize -- there will be, in the end, no songs, no books, no paintings, no sculptures, for which they, or I, or any other Infidel, will have to apologize, apologize, apologize.
Posted by Robert at March 21, 2006 5:03 PM
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Hugh,
Since you managed to tether Isaac Watts and Gabby Hayes together in one sentence, I think it only incumbent upon me to apologize for Isaac Hayes. That "Theme from Shaft" is clearly haram, and let's not even talk about "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic."
Yrs
Robert
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at March 21, 2006 5:10 PM
And I apologize for my inability to stop listening to Mozart's AVE VERUM and his REQUIEM. And I especially apolgize for not burning my several paperback copies of Dante's INFERNO - something about the twenty-eighth Canto intrigues me. And I apologize for still believing in miracles - praying for healing of Oriana Fallaci's cancer. And I apologize for comparing Islamic eschatology to a thirteen year old boy's wet dream.
Posted by: Tom at March 21, 2006 5:21 PM
I would like to apologize for "Freedom of Choice" by Devo, "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash and of course, "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow" by Funkadellic. There are so many more regrettable songs to apologize for, but I'll leave that to the rest of my dhimmi supplicants.
at March 21, 2006 6:58 PM
I apologize for all the Christian Apologies by the Patres (see J. C. T. Otto's Corpus Apologetarum (3d edition, 1879).
at March 21, 2006 7:17 PM
P.S.: I apologize for not noticing the rubric on this post, "Musical apologies".
Posted by: Television at March 21, 2006 7:20 PM
Let's go back even further, lest we lose sight of the overwhelming contributions to Western music by... *drum roll*... those darned Crusaders.
I apologize for Gregory the Great, Guido d'Arezzo, Léonin, Pérotin, and those infidels of Aquitanian polyphony, Glareanus and the Monks of St. Gall, the maestros di capella (including Franciscan priest Gioseffo Zarlino) of St. Mark's in Venice...
Confiteor Deo omnipotenti..., but it's just not my fault that, in the words of Orlando di Lassus, Musica est Dei donum optimi: "Music is the highest gift of God." Well, it's up there.
Including, in the right moment, yes, even a little Isaac Hayes.
Posted by: Shinoliite at March 21, 2006 7:29 PM
"Guido d'Arezzo..."
-- from a posting above
Darn tootin'. Where would musicians be without Guido d'Arezzo, Beatus Guido, inventor musicae? As it says in Willi Apel's "The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 900-1600" (at last that big book has come in handy, though I can't find it now to check my memory) looking backward in the history of Western music from notes to neumes to letters, it was Guido d'Arezzo's invention of the staff that made the whole subsequent shebang possible.
But Guido d'Arezzo should not be listed among those who existed in the time of the Crusades and can be linked to it ("those darned Crusaders"). He lived in the llth century. The destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre had been ordered by the Caliph al-Hakim in Cairo, in 1009 A.D., and after that came decades of Muslim depredations of Christian property, and attacks on Christian pilgrims, in the Holy Land. The First Crusade was not declared until the very end of that century. And Guido d'Arezzo had been dead, by that time, for many decades, because though the date, and even place (was he "aretinus" from Arezzo, or was he French, Guido della Francesca, or what?) it is known where and when he died, and he died in 1050.
Posted by: Hugh
at March 21, 2006 8:43 PM
Using "Crusader" quite loosely, a perjorative-turned-badge of honor-- referring, as the jihadists, do, to anything associated with Christianity.
I, too, own that charming, dark green tome authored by Apel (I'm frankly floored to encounter someone outside of a music dept. who owns it). An assignment involving the transcription of Facsimile 3 still haunts my dreams. Something to be said for penmanship...
Posted by: Shinoliite at March 21, 2006 8:52 PM
I apologize for Roy Harper's The Black Cloud of Islam
which can be heard here . . .
I Slam, You Slam, We All Slam Islam
at March 21, 2006 9:18 PM
I apologize to the Muslim Community of Europe and North America for geing a redneck gunaholic who likes to pepper Osama bin 'tarded targets with an Armalite M-15 A4 mid length carbine and Glock 19 handgun... I also apologize in advance for shooting any potential jihadi who attempts to pull a stunt like the piece of Shi'ite in Chapel Hill, NC who tried to plough into people with an SUV... I also appologize for using either pork dipped bullets or Q3131A 5.56mm made in the JOOISH IDF ammo plant on moHAMedians...
Posted by: Armalite at March 21, 2006 9:20 PM
On behalf of the West, I am honored to be able to apologize for Handel's Messiah.
at March 21, 2006 9:25 PM
I apologize for all the Dogs in the World, for Beethoven, for Julia Childs, for Roy Lichtenstein, for S. Bottacelli, for Hayden and for Dolly Parton and for John Glenn and John Philip Sousa for Tom Carvel and for Estee Lauder and for Adam Sandler and for Liberache and for Willaim Butler Yeats and for My Children's Educations, and for Fulton's Folly and for St Valentine and for Easter chicks and John Adams and for Jesus and for Abraham Lincoln and for my Driver's License and for Balanchine and for Sid Vicious and for Eileen Fisher and for Jack Benny and for Martin Luther King and for Cole Porter and for Charlie Brown and for Lucy and for Hanukkah and for Plato and for Atticus Finch and for Cosi fan Tutti and for Dr. Salk and Dr. Suess and for Hans Christian Anderson, and for Amazing Grace and Bonnie and Clyde and for Handel and his Messiah and for Queen Latifah, and Michelangelo and Thomas Edison and Blondie and for Camus and I apologize for my Parent's Insensitive Decision to Marry as Equals .. many years ago .. In St. Patrick's Cathedral in fact, I apologize for St. Patrick's Cathedral and all Cathedrals and all the saints and Paul Cezanne and for Smokey Robinson and Oscar Wilde and all that they signify, I apologize too for all Synagogues and for Rembrandt and Jimi Hendrix the Dali Lama, and Walt Disney and John Waters and I apologize for James Joyce and Camille Paglia and for Adam Ant and for Marylyn Monroe, for William Makepeace Thackery and for Eloise (@ the Plaza), and Andy Griffith and Victor Frankle and I apologize for Mother Theresa and for the Beach Boys and Thurgood Marshall and Cleopatra and Joey Ramone and Audrey Hepburn and Little Anthony and for Oedipus and St Augustine and Nicholas Cage and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Condalizza Rice and Elvis, for Abraham Lincoln and for Old Abraham, and for Elton John and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Charles Darwin and for Charles Dickens and for Bambi and for Mae West and Cary Grant and the Wizard of Oz and the Little Engine that Could, I apologize for Perceval and for Jung and for Thomas Paine, for Miles Davis and for Bette Davis, and the Three Little Pigs I'm sorry for every time I've said "God bless you" and Aesop and for Da Vinci and John Wayne and Paul Bunyan and Dylan Thomas and Popeye and Johnny Cash and Emily Dickenson and for King Arthur and King Kong and Will Farrell and the Good Samaritan and for Pinocchio and for Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire and John Candy, and Blase Pascal and I apologize for Pandora, and Aphrodite and Tom Wolfe and Shakespere and Noah Webster and George Washington and Herman Melville and Yul Brenner and Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler and Robert Graves and for Whistler's Mother and for Raphael and Steven Pinker and Ichabod Crane and Margery Kempe and for Andy Warhol and for Agatha Christi and for Wilhelm Reich and Dick Tracy and for Vladamir Horowitz and Jane Austin and Chopin and for Little Lulu and The Sphinx and for Freud and for Betty Boop and Joan of Arc and Euripides, Wimpy and Zeus and Hera and Jean Auguste Ingres and Peter Pan and Madonna and for Archie and Veronica and Aunt Jemima and Hermes and Venus and Betty Crocker and Davy Crockett ..
Most Basically I am entirely sorry for everything that has gone into the creation of Western Civilization and for my participation in the same. Sorry.
at March 21, 2006 9:36 PM
"Archie and Veronica..."
-- from a posting above
What about Betty? What about Jughead?
Posted by: Hugh at March 21, 2006 10:11 PM
Daisytoo, you forgot to apologize for Russ Meyer...so I'll do that for you. To wit: I apologize.
Posted by: Dum Dhimmi Dum Dum Dum at March 21, 2006 10:32 PM
"Facsimile 3..."
-- from a posting above
Found the book. Have it right here. MS London, BR. Mus. Add. 29996. Looks like row after row of spoons, or perhaps pans, hanging on racks. And what are we to make of that inky blob at the bottom right? Too difficult. I'm going back to my Archie and Jughead comic-book collection.
Posted by: Hugh at March 21, 2006 10:39 PM
I apologize for the definitions:
(1) Apologetics, n, the branch of theology concerned with the defense of Christianity.
(2) Apologist, n, 1. one who makes an apology or defense in speech or writing. 2. Eccles. a. a defender of Christianity, b. one of the authors of the early Christian apologises.
(3) Apologize, v.i., 1. to offer excuses or regrets for some fault, insult, failure, or injury. 2. to make a formal defense in speech or writing.
(4) Apology, n., an expression of regret offered for some fault, failure, insult, or injury. 2. a formal defense in speech or writing, as of a cause or doctrine.
I enter the above to assure that any Muslim reader understands that an apology does not neccessarily note regret. Rather more often it is an affirmative defense. All of the above constitute an affirmative defense of Western Civilization by each and every poster. To accept an apology is to traverse from your argument to ours, accepting as being true and correct our arguments favoring Western Civilization vis a vis Islam, and abandoning your defense and support of Islam.
I will apologize to Islam all day, and I will still be defending the Faith by doing so. What you think we mean and what we really mean are two different things.
Posted by: SCV at March 21, 2006 11:16 PM
I am the most wretched of najis and kaffir women, Hugh. I am worse than a fornicatrix, worse than a jewmonkeypigapedog. Vile, I am. For I teach little children how to play the piano. Boys. I teach little boys and girls, and I actually place my hands over the boys' hands to correctly place them on the haram instrument of Shaytan. I also sing, too. Allah who once commanded the Jews to praise Him on the harp, with singing and dancing and with thanksgiving and praise, has abrogated his command and forbidden us to engage in that which once was the clean thing, which is now the vile thing. I am ashamed, Hugh, for secretly I listen to The "Seven Last Words of Christ," sung in Latin, an unholy language that is not pure and sinless as is the Holy Arabic. Woe is me, for I am unable to help myself. I profess a secret love, one that I can barely utter, it is most putrid....I...Oh Allah forgive me...Love...save me oh Prophet Mohammed, (pbuh)...BRAHMS!...There. It is out. For all to see. Is there a more pitiable wretch than I, Hugh? Okay, Condoleezza Rice is worse off, for she plays the confounded messenger of the Jinn herself, and she does it way better than me....beeyotch.
Posted by: Jauhara Al-Kafirah at March 21, 2006 11:25 PM
I'm going back to my Archie and Jughead comic-book collection. - Hugh
They're probably of the proper portion to be read while hidden inside the Apel book, enabling one to look busy.
Posted by: Shinoliite at March 21, 2006 11:30 PM
I'd like to apologize, with deep regret, for the artist formerly known as "Cat Stevens".
Posted by: Hammer_Time at March 21, 2006 11:37 PM
Oh look, he's got his own website:
"Well isn't that special", as the 'Church Lady' on Saturday Night Live would say.
Posted by: Hammer_Time at March 21, 2006 11:43 PM
Wait! No need to apologize for Billie Holiday. I think that 'My Man' would please even when 'Ave Maria' would offend horribly:
Two or three girls
Has he
That he likes as well as me
But I love him
I don’t know why I should
He isn’t true
He beats me, too
What can I do?
To make up for that, you may apologize for Leonard Bernstein twice, for a Jew who wrote a Mass must be the worst offender of all.
Posted by: libbysmom at March 21, 2006 11:50 PM
Or even worse: http://catstevens.com/
Here we learn that Mr. Islam has a new music album coming out; "...his first album of 'pop' songs since 1978". Allah is not going to be pleased.
Posted by: Hammer_Time at March 21, 2006 11:50 PM
Hugh ..
Betty, Jughead - and even Josie and the Pussycats - Mea-Culpa!
Posted by: Daisytoo at March 22, 2006 12:05 AM
Hildegard von Bingen, b. 1098 A.D. Extraordinary woman and life.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07351a.htm
http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/sainth05.htm
Hear her music and it will never leave you.
Posted by: Hammer_Time at March 22, 2006 12:29 AM
I apologize for Ron Howard's "Cotton Candy". I also apologize for The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Daniel Johnston, Wesley Willis, Jandek, The Shaggs, Whitehouse, Nurse With Wound, Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music", Throbbing Gristle's "First Annual Report...", for The Electric Eels, for Lee Scratch Perry, Harvey Sid Fischer, the South Bay Surfers and for the mediocre cover band that played my Bar Mitzvah. I also apologize for all the garage bands I started but never got out of the garage. I do not apologize for Bob Dylan or Serge Gainsbourg, however. Someone else will have to take that up. I suppose I'll go to hell for that.
Posted by: Dum Dhimmi Dum Dum Dum at March 22, 2006 12:35 AM
How could you leave out Moose, Midge, Big Ethel, Reggie? And what about Sabrina, the teenage witch? Are witches haram in Islam - never heard about their status.
While we are at it, why don't I apologize for Melissa Joan Hart?
Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 22, 2006 2:26 AM
I apologize, on behalf of these United States, to the world-wide Ummah, for the following matters, to wit:
First, for the Barry Sisters' "Bei mir bist du sheyn," which for obvious reasons is an even greater affront than the Andrews Sisters' song referenced by Sir Hugh, supra.
Item, for the translation by Saul Bellow and Isaac Rosenfeld into vile jargon of a poem by him whom some are pleased to call the son of a St. Louis furrier, "Der shir hashirim fun Mendl Pumshtok,"
Nu-zhe, kum-zhe, ikh un du,
Ven der ovnt shteyt uf kegn dem himl
Vi a leymener goylm af Tisha b'Av
Lomir geyn zikh
Durkh geselakh vos dreyen zikh
Vi di bord fun dem rov
* * *
(which not being a strictly musical apology my Uncle Toby says may thereby and herein convict me of hobbyhorseicality).
Item (since one item ineluctably leads to another, though not necessarily through the modality of the visible), for Villon's Ballade to our Lady ("Dame du ciel, regente terriene,/Emperieure des infernaux palus"), which I think another American poet from east of Missouri may have set to music in his opera, but I won't take my oath upon it.
Posted by: Marc at March 22, 2006 2:28 AM
"whom some are pleased to call the son of a St. Louis furrier.."
-- from a posting above
Do you know why I call him (T. S. Eliot) that?
Posted by: Hugh at March 22, 2006 2:49 AM
"Moose, Midge, Big Ethel, Reggie"
-- from a posting above
I remember Moose and Reggie the Rich Kid. But Midge? Big Ethel? If they appeared in Archie and Jughead, I failed to notice. I didn't remember things then the way I do now. Improves with age. Then again, perhaps they appeared before my time, or after. And while we are on the subject, what was the name of Little Lulu's boy friend?
Posted by: Hugh at March 22, 2006 2:53 AM
I assumed because he was?
Posted by: Marc at March 22, 2006 3:10 AM
Mustang Sally - never mind slowing that Mustang down, you better explain to the religious police why you're driving at all
She's Got a Ticket to Ride - really? Her male relatives should know about this; we can't have freedom of movement for women
Can't buy me Love - money can't buy me love, but it can buy me John Esposito
You Keep me Hanging on the Telephone - well, what are you complaining about? Women should know their place.
How about some Gilbert and Sullivan?
Three Little Maids from School are We - you might be, but you're not too young to be sold into marriage
George and Ira Gershwin?
Oops, sorry - Jewish ...
Which reminds me, Betty Boop will have to go. Here's a video file including music (I know, I know) from Cab Calloway:
http://www.archive.org/details/bb_minnie_the_moocher
Posted by: Yojimbo at March 22, 2006 4:19 AM
Sor.... so.... sorr... Nup, cannot do it.
Posted by: stranger at March 22, 2006 4:25 AM
Marc,
I think the Bellow-Rosenfeld version of prufrock is much better than Eliot's original. If you have the whole thing you could send it to comments on my website. But derivative versions are not always better. Consider what the Quran and the Hadith did to the midrash [elaboration] of the Queen of Sheba story in the book of Kings. You especially ought to see the Hadith version or perversion. I suppose that Hadith is available in English, but, sorry, I don't know where to find it. I read it in Hebrew in Bialik's collection of King Solomon stories.
at March 22, 2006 4:36 AM
By the way, it's a mistake to identify the Queen of Sheba as an Arab. Josephus calls her "the woman who ruled Egypt and Ethiopia." Sheba refers to a city called Saba in ancient Ethiopia [later called Nubia, the northern Sudan of today]. The Saba in Ethiopia changed its name to Meroe, which is a known site downstream from Khartoum. Only the Hadith on the Queen of Sheba story identifies her as coming from the Saba in southern Arabia, around Yemen. There is no ancient source or document that I know of that identifies the Queen as an Arab, but for that Hadith, which displays several significant divergences from the midrashic tale.
Posted by: Eliyahu at March 22, 2006 5:01 AM
Here we learn that Mr. Islam has a new music album coming out; "...his first album of 'pop' songs since 1978". Allah is not going to be pleased.
Posted by: Hammer_Time at March 21, 2006 11:50 PM
Hmmmm...let me guess, his next album will be called...
"All you Kaffirs are doomed, so stop struggling and submit".
Catchy album title.
Now let me guess the song titles...
Bittergreen
No Brakes on this Islamic train
But I might explode tonight
Can't keep it(Islam) out
Changes, yep plenty
Crazy Mujahadeen
Mohammed and Son
Gouge their eyes
Foreigner slut
Hard headed woman (gotta use a bigger stick)
How can I kill you
How many times(have I gotta threaten you)
Into black
I've found a love (and he's got horns)
Mohammed
Mecca
Lady Mecca'anville
Moonshine(with plenty more crescent moon)
Oh very young, my Aisha
Old schoolyard, new battleground
On the road to be deceived
Sad Fatimah
The last cut is the deepest of the 500
Jihad
Should sell well in Dar al-Islam.
Posted by: Mike_W at March 22, 2006 5:40 AM
Eliyahu
You might be interested in Michael Wood's research into the origins of the Queen of Sheba which puts her ruling the Sabean empire which spread from Ethiopean across the Red Sea into Arabia.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/sheba_01.shtml
On p5 of that link he speaks of the Ethiopean tradition that she bore Solomon's son Menelik in her capital Aksum in Northern Ethiopia and that is where he brought the Ark of the Covenant, and where it is believed to remain.
During the TV programme Wood turned the map of north Africa and the Middle East upside down, looking towards the south which is the way the ancients viewed their land. And outwith my established view of how the political boundaries set things in place, you could see how her empire could have spaned what to us now is 2 separate continents, with only a 13 mile ferry sail between the two branches.
And while he does not labour the point (he had to be very "polite" about the Koran to get access to certain sites in Arabia) it is clear how much the Koran took and muddled from the earlier history in the Bible and the Kebra Nagast of Ethiopia.
I also remember reading Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision where he insisted that Sheba was Queen Hapshetsut of Egypt, but I was not convinced.
Meanwhile I apologise for Fairport Convention, Jethro Tull, the Albion Band, Iron Maiden and my husband's playing of Saxon's Crusader album whenever the TV news annoys him. I apologise for rags and reels, jigs and rants, sea shanties and country dance. I apologise for Karl Jenkin's The Armed Man a Mass for Peace because the peace it proposes is not the peace of surrender and submission. Most of all I apologise for my accordion playing, (seriously - my neighbours have to listen to me practice, thank the Lord most of you live far, far away) and for teaching the toddlers nursery rhymes and Christian choruses to sing to my accompanyment.
at March 22, 2006 5:52 AM
And I apologize for "The Doors", to all people everywhere..because they were so damn awful.
Seriously, anyone who wanted to get rid of a crowd, be they Pizza parlour proprietors or publicans at closing time, only had to put on a doors song to disperse a cowd at closing time.
We used to call it "Pissing off" music.
Truly, horribly, awful.
Posted by: Mike_W at March 22, 2006 6:05 AM
Islam means never having to say you're sorry.
Posted by: Shy Guy at March 22, 2006 6:34 AM
We should make the most out of musical events like the St Matthew and St John's Passion st Easter before some pc committe decide to ban them for their offensiveness.
Posted by: londongirl at March 22, 2006 6:41 AM
I will never apologize for the Beatles.
For Islam: "and in the end the hate you take is equal to the hate you make"
Posted by: Grunt
at March 22, 2006 6:47 AM
".. what was the name of Little Lulu's boy friend?"
I was going to say Sluggo ... but maybe that was Nancy's boyfriend .. Is Little Lulu gay?
Posted by: Daisytoo at March 22, 2006 10:16 AM
"... And while we are on the subject, what was the name of Little Lulu's boy friend?
Tubby, of course. And we ought to apologize for that as well, in case it should offend a Muslim who has been Supersized® .
at March 22, 2006 10:17 AM
Okay .. I suppose Little Lulu is not gay - her boyfriend's name is Tubby (and her arch-rival is Dolly)
For a real blast from the past:
http://www.cloudnet.com/~bobpfef/LULU.HTM
at March 22, 2006 10:28 AM
I will never apologise for Pink Floyds 'Dark Side of the Moon'...never...I wont apologise for Roy Rogers, Dale Evans or Trigger. And who could apologise for Bob Steel, who never lost his hat in a fight, never won the girl, but always won the horse. And then there is no apology required for the Lone Ranger and Tonto...the word Tonto means 'fool' and Kemo Sabe means 'horses azz'...Well, maybe I would apologise to the first muslim I encounter for that...
Posted by: duh_swami at March 22, 2006 10:55 AM
If you watch the collected bin Laden/Zawahiri videotapes while playing Dark Side of the Moon (the album), do they sync up?
Posted by: Shinoliite at March 22, 2006 11:36 AM
I'd like to apologize to the Ummah for Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" album. Clearly, Floyd was calling the Ummah something, even if I don't know what. And I'd like to apologize for being a huge Frank Zappa fan. Too bad he's dead, I'm sure he would have had some very interesting comments about Islam today. Lonesome Cowboy 'Mo, The Islamic Enema Bandit, Dinah-'Mo-Hum anyone?
While I'm at it, I'd like to apologize for knowing what a curse on hummanity Mohammed and his gang were and continue to be.
Posted by: Proud Infidel at March 22, 2006 12:43 PM
Proud Infidel,
"'I'd like to apologize to the Ummah for Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" album. .... Clearly, Floyd was calling the Ummah something
Was Pink Floyd calling the Ummah "gumma"? Off with our heads!
Posted by: Daisytoo at March 22, 2006 1:22 PM
"Was Pink Floyd calling the Ummah "gumma"? Off with our heads!"
I wish I knew. But I'm apologizing just in case, you know how easy to offend the Ummah is. :-)
Posted by: Proud Infidel at March 22, 2006 1:32 PM
Profuse apologies are needed for "American Idol"
All that Idol worshipping, Satanic music, pornographic exposure of human flesh, and worst of all... it was a big hit in the middle east too! (out of Lebanon). Not sure if the mad mullahs have managed to shut it down by now or not.
at March 22, 2006 3:08 PM
Midge was Moose's girlfriend, and needless to say, anyone who so much even peeped at her risked getting clobbered. Big Ethel was a girl who had the hots for the woman-hating Jughead. More than a rich kid (I'm assuming that you are talking about the Reggie in Archie, not the Reggie in Richie Rich), Reggie was most prominent as a narcissist.
Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 22, 2006 3:17 PM
"But I'm apologizing just in case, you know how easy to offend the Ummah is. :-)"
Infidel Pride, I sure enough do!
I even Ummah doomha ding dang do.
Maybe someone ought to send Uma Thurman a note suggesting she 'apologize' for being named after a Tibetan Goddess whose name sounds dangerously like Ummah? Just a thought :)
Posted by: Daisytoo at March 22, 2006 3:46 PM
"the woman-hating Jughead."
-- from a posting above
I never thought of Jughead that way. True, he was impatient with the girls, didn't like the idea of double-dating (he and Archie, Betty and Veronica), and simply had better things to do. He was not terribly smart, he was not terribly anything. He was Jughead, a foil for lively freckle-faced Archie. But that's not the same thing as "woman-hating."
And yes, I was referring the slick-haired Reggie in Archie and Jughead.
Now we can all agree that it is time to get serious. No more of this Archie and Jughead stuff. So why don't we turn our attention to those more expensive, and much more impressive productions, those of Classics Illustrated. Shall I begin with the treatment, in that series, of "The Prisoner of Zenda"? Or would you prefer that I start with "Captains Courageous"?
Posted by: Hugh at March 22, 2006 3:58 PM
Shinoliite: "If you watch the collected bin Laden/Zawahiri videotapes while playing Dark Side of the Moon (the album), do they sync up?"
LOL. . . Perhaps, but for a really good sync you have to put on a Doors album. Or the soundtrack from Apocalypse Now.
Posted by: texan at March 22, 2006 5:17 PM
I know this is deadly serious stuff, but every time I come back to this thread & read the new posts, I find myself filled with much belly-laughter and hearty joy. Just want to thank everyone who's contributed -- y'all make me happy to be alive.... Of course, I apologize for that.
Posted by: Dum Dhimmi Dum Dum Dum at March 22, 2006 5:28 PM
Enough apologies for Western music, art, science, technology, morality, etc.
This will not cut it. The only way to mollify the Islamites and their jihadist ideology is to REVERT.
REVERT while there is still time. REVERT o ye infidels!
Posted by: unicorns62000 at March 22, 2006 6:46 PM
can l say l appologize for loving great Rock n'Roll,
and Country Music, dancing at Weddings? Easter is coming around the corner, and l cant wait to see all those chocolate eggs and bunnies.. and so do l appologize for watching my nieces and nephrews look for all those hidden eggs?
at March 22, 2006 8:01 PM
Of course a nice up to the minute web site of all that Islam has given us iscould be called Islam what it gives you with 911 etc.
Posted by: mark52 at March 22, 2006 9:51 PM
And there is a lot of money in furs.
Posted by: Marc at March 23, 2006 1:33 AM
Still on comics, but slightly more serious, do we apologize for Hertz' (Georges Remi's) Tintin, particularly Tintin in The Red Sea Sharks? This was one where Tintin and Captain Haddock rescue a whole bunch of Black African slaves who were en route to Mecca. Would the Ummah frown on this because:
a. Mecca was shown to be a destination for slavery
b. Arabs were deprived of so many potential slaves, unsuspectingly headed for Mecca
c. Muslims were dissuaded from following one of the 5 pillars i.e. completing the Haj
d. Slavery was shown as occurring in Islam
at March 23, 2006 3:48 AM
"there is a lot of money in furs."
-- from a posting above
Especially if those furs are as in "Venus in Furs." But times change, and PETA rules and customers tremble, and now it is not only ever-lovin' Adelaide who sings "Take Back That Mink."
at March 23, 2006 12:28 PM
Love your song titles Mike:
"Hard headed woman (gotta use a bigger stick)"
Music is forbidden except for when the music is
a device to attract converts. As always with Islam, the ends justify the means.
at March 23, 2006 1:36 PM
Hugh --
I was actually thinking of Bleistein, and offered the reference as the second half of a two-part tentative oblique response to your query. I'm afraid I still don't have it, however.
at March 24, 2006 1:29 AM
Music! Yes, as I recall Muslims are merely playing allah's favorite tune: "5 Billion People Screaming as the Earth Goes Dark!"
(No applause).
Posted by: pythagoras at March 24, 2006 2:40 PM
Marc--
Not Bleistein but Eliot. By alluding to his days as a parvenu, when he was mocked in England for his echt amerikanische Tory-and-High-Church ways (yes, he was mocked, by Englishmen to the manner born, in the 1920s and even later, and doing so by that "your father was in trade" insult, but in Eliot's case, his father was not only in trade but in trade as a furrier, and furriers were often Jewish, and Eliot as an antisemite is thus made fun off in more than one way through this "the son of a St. Louis furrier" alluding to him. And finally, it removes the Boston Brahmin bit; he was a distant relative of Charles Eliot Norton of Norton's Woods, and Eliots of Beacon Hill; he was an Eliot from St. Louis. A different thing. And the son of a furrier. And a poet who, had greater poets survived the Great War, poets in the line of Hardy such as Edward Thomas and Isaac Rosenberg, would not have made such a marketing splash, with Ezra Pound serving as his village-idiot Edward Bernays.
That's a bit of what could be said about that.
Have you ever tried, by the way, that seconal-in-a-dustjacket known as "The Cocktail Party"? Or the other sleeping pill, "The Confidential Clerk"? Highly recommended for insomniacs.
Posted by: Hugh at March 24, 2006 9:33 PM
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