I am a sinner, where is your acceptance? My heart is dark, where is your light and clarity? If you grant me paradise because of my obedience, that is just a salary. Where is your grace and charity? Translated by Juan Cole from [pdf] Whinfield 93
Archives for April 2012
Advancing is Perfection (Gibran)
From Kahlil Gibran, “The Vision,” available at Amazon.com.
US Pentagon Trained Iranian terrorists in Nevada: Hersh
For those who missed this this weekend. The intrepid Seymour Hersh reports at the New Yorker that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) of the US military gave members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK or People’s Holy Jihadis) training in signals intelligence at a facility in Nevada during the Bush era. The MEK was then […]
What We Lost in Iraq and Washington (Van Buren)
Peter van Buren writes at Tomdispatch.com: Left Behind What We Lost in Iraq and Washington, 2009-2012 By Peter Van Buren People ask the question in various ways, sometimes hesitantly, often via a long digression, but my answer is always the same: no regrets. In some 24 years of government service, I experienced my share of […]
All Hell is still Breaking Loose in the Arab World, Television is just not Reporting it
5. Several center-left parties in Tunisia have formed a centrist party for the next election. The Progressive Democratic Party only got 16 seats in parliament, despite being a popular party, and it is determined to improve its electoral position. 4. Omar Suleiman, the former head of Egyptian military intelligence, has thrown his hat in the […]
Liberty without Thought: Kahlil Gibran
From Kahlil Gibran, “The Vision,” available at Amazon.com.
British PM Anthony Eden and the Persian Poet Hafiz
“I suppose that anyone with sort of broad European culture has a fairly good idea of Persian history– he must have– it’s part of our history, as well. And, having been brought up in France, I was perfectly familiar with Lettres Persanes and all the rest of it. For that matter, Omar Khayyam was a […]
America’s new data center: The Biggest Big Brother of All (TBIJ)
From the Bureau of Investigative Journalism: In the small town of Bluffdale in the Utah desert, the US government is halfway to completing a gargantuan complex designed to store and trawl through billions of phone calls, emails, and other global communications. As the UK government reveals its own plans to carry out mass surveillance, a […]
Contemporary Coptic Icon of the Resurrection from Egypt (Wall Painting)
A contemporary Egyptian, Coptic Christian icon of the Resurrection by Adel Nassief: “1994 – The Resurrection – Holy Family Church – Bahir, Egypt” courtesy Adelnassief.net, /frescos For Coptic Christian paintings and icons, see Jimmy Dunn and the Coptic Network Picture Archive For the distinctive Coptic Egyptian ways of commemorating Easter, see “Celebrate Easter the Egyptian […]