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2004-12-31
From A Marine in Iraq
Thanks to Blanche for forwarding this.
This says it all. I can go on and on about the bankruptcy of establishment liberalism, the victim mentality, yada yada, but this young officer says it much better. Please read this message often, and think about what it means for us in the year, and the years, to come.
Hello Everyone, I am taking time to ask you all for your help. First off, I'd like to say that this is not a political message. I'm not concerned about domestic politics right now. We have much bigger things to deal with, and we need your help. It seems that despite the tremendous and heroic efforts of the men and women serving here in Iraq to bring much needed peace and stability to this region, we are losing the war of perception with the media and American people. Our enemy has learned that the key to defeating the mighty American military is by swaying public opinion at home and abroad. We are a people that cherish the democratic system of government and therefore hold the will of the people in the highest regard. We love to criticize ourselves almost to an endless degree, because we care what others think. Our enemies see this as a weakness and are trying to exploit it. When we ask ourselves questions like, "Why do they hate us?" or "What did we do wrong?" we are playing into our enemies' hands. Our natural tendency to question ourselves is being used against us to undermine our effort to do good in the world.
How far would we have gotten if after the surprise attacks on December 7, 1941 at Pearl Harbor, we would have asked, "Why do the Japanese hate us so much?" or "How can we change ourselves so that they won't do that again?"
Here in Iraq the enemy is trying very hard to portray our efforts as failing and fruitless. They purposely kill innocents and desecrate their bodies in hopes that the people back home will lose the will to fight for liberty. They are betting on our perceived weakness as a thoughtful, considerate people.
Unfortunately our media only serves to further their cause. In an industry that feeds on ratings and bad news, a failure in Iraq would be a goldmine. When our so-called "trusted" American media takes a quote from an Iraqi doctor as the gospel truth over that of the men and women that are daily fighting to protect the right to freedom of press, you know something is wrong.
That doctor claimed that out of 600 Iraqis that were casualties of the fighting, the vast majority of them were women, children and the elderly. This is totally absurd. In the history of man, no one has spent more time and effort, often to the detriment of our own mission, to be more discriminate in our targeting of the enemy than the American military.
The Marines and Soldiers serving in Iraq have gone through extensive training in order to limit the amount of innocent casualties and collateral damage. Yet, despite all of this, our media consistently sides with those who openly lie and directly challenge the honor of our brave heroes fighting for liberty and peace. What we have to remember is that peace is not defined as an absence of war. It is the presence of liberty, stability and prosperity. In the face of the horrendous tyranny of the former Iraqi regime, the only way true peace was able to come to this region was through force. That is what the American Revolution was all about. Have we forgotten? Freedom is not free and "peace" without principle is not peace. The peace that so-called "peace advocates" support can only be brought to Iraq through the use of military force. And we are doing it, if only the world will let us! If the American
people believe we are failing, even if we are not, then we will ultimately fail. That is why I am asking for your support. Become a voice of truth in your community. Wherever you are fight the lies of the enemy. Don't buy into the pessimism and apathy that says, "It's hopeless," "They hate us too much," "That part of the world is just too messed up," "It's our fault anyway," "We're to blame," and so forth.
Whether you're in middle school, working at a 9-5 job, retired, or a stay-at-home Mom you can make a huge difference! There is nothing more powerful than the truth.
So, when you watch the news and see doomsday predictions and spiteful opinions on our efforts over here, you can refute them by knowing that we are doing a tremendous amount of good. Spread the word. No one is poised to make such an amazing contribution to the everyday lives of Iraqis and the rest of the Arab world than the American Armed Forces. By making this a place where liberty can finally grow, we are making the whole world safer.
Your efforts at home are directly tied to our success. You are the soldiers at home fighting the war of perception. So I'm asking you as a fellow fighting man: do your duty. Stop the attempts of the enemy wherever you are. You are a mighty force for good, because truth is on your side. Together we will win this fight and ensure a better world for the future.
God Bless and Semper Fidelis,
1st. Lt. Robert L. Nofsinger
USMC Ramadi, Iraq
Sep 27, 04 10:17 am
This says it all. I can go on and on about the bankruptcy of establishment liberalism, the victim mentality, yada yada, but this young officer says it much better. Please read this message often, and think about what it means for us in the year, and the years, to come.
2004-12-30
Barnett, Harari: the Map and the Storm
Two important articles have been making the rounds in the blogosphere and I wanted to touch on them. Israeli physicist Haim Harari argues in A View from the Eye of the Storm that the current conflict - the product of a wholly disfunctional Mideastern society - rests on four pillars: suicide-murder, lies, money, and anarchy. Thomas P. M. Barnett of the US Naval War College, in his March 2003 article titled The Pentagon's New Map, points to the conflict between "the Core" of functioning, integrated, prosperous countries, and "the Gap" of non-integrating nations whose climate of "repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, and—most important—the chronic conflicts" provides the breeding ground for the next generation of al-Qaeda followers.
More to follow.
Morning Report: December 30, 2004
Tsunami disaster: how to help. The death toll from the recent tsunami disaster is now over 100,000. To find out what you can do to help, go to Command Post. Update: Information also available at Roger L. Simon.
Commercial jet targeted by laser. Fox News reports this morning that the FBI is investigating a green laser that targeted the cockpit of a commercial aircraft flying in to Cleveland. 'Authorities are investigating a mysterious laser beam that was directed into the cockpit of a commercial jet traveling at more than 8,500 feet. The beam appeared Monday when the plane was about 15 miles from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (search), the FBI said. "It was in there for several seconds like [the plane] was being tracked," FBI agent Robert Hawk said.' (Fox) Follow-up: Rash of Pilot Laser Sightings Reported
Terrorist attacks on Saudi regime - Damascus, Riyadh in same boat? A recent bulletin from Debka provides information on Wednesday's terrorist attack on Riyadh, which included three car bombings and a machine gun attack, apparently targeting the life of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdelaziz: 'Riyadh attack was al Qaeda attempt on life of interior minister’s son Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdelaziz, his father’s deputy and director of the ministry’s security unit running war on terror. ' Debka's feature article on the Saudi attack reports: 'This was the first attempt by Osama bin Laden’s organization to assassinate a member of the Saudi royal family. It is a pivotal event in that it sharply escalates the terrorist offensive besetting the kingdom and raises the stakes on both sides. By targeting interior minister Prince Nayef’s son, the terrorists declared open warfare on the minister who had been trying for the past year to maintain a dialogue with the Saudi cell through his connections in the clergy. According to our sources, Saudi cell leader Saud bin Hamoud al-Uteibi marked out the Nayef family after concluding that the interchanges the minister initiated were not on the level but an effort to plant his agents inside the terror cell and break it up from within. Had the assassination plot against Prince Mohammed succeeded, a major upheaval would have ensued – destabilizing not only the oil kingdom but sending tremors around the Arab and Muslim Middle East as well.' Morning Report notes that Riyadh and Damascus appear to be finding themselves in the same situation these days. A recent analysis available from Stratfor suggests that the Syrian regime's support for the Iraq insurgency may be motivated by a fear that the insurgent elements - including al-Qaeda - might otherwise set their sights on Syria. This, the Stratfor article continues, may help explain Syria's recent efforts to put on an Islamic face. Thus Damascus, like Riyadh, finds itself in the unenviable position of being caught between militant islamists and Western (chiefly US) adversaries. (Debka, Stratfor) Update: Debka reports: 'Saudis claim 3 senior al Qaeda operatives killed Thursday – two on 26-man wanted list - day after terrorist car bomb attacks on interior ministry and recruiting center in Riyadh. They were identified as Sultan Bejaad al-Uteibi and Bandar Abdulhrahman Dakheel. Nine were killed Wednesday.'
Iraq: 7200 leaders step forward. Mohammed posts on Iraq the Model: 'Iraqis' response to terror was so clear; after the terrorists, or the so called insurgents threatened to slaughter anyone who participates in the elections, 7200 Iraqis rushed to announce their candidacy. YES, 7200 Iraqis representing more than 200 different political parties and I believe this makes the image clearer for the viewer. And to remove the fog and debunk the claims about the Sunni population being against the democratic process, I want to point out that tens of the political parties come from the Sunni population. Moreover you almost can't find a single list that lacks Sunni candidates in it, even lists from She'at, Kurdis, Christian or liberal parties.' (ITM)
Najaf police chief: Iran regime agents behind car bomb. The chief of police in Najaf, Iraq, has pointed the finger at Tehran in connection with a recent car bomb attack, according to this article in Iran Focus: 'The police chief in Najaf said that the commander of three terrorists arrested on Sunday in connection with a car bomb that exploded in the holy city, had extensive connections to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). He said that intelligence for when and where to attack was given by an MOIS agent to the terrorist cells. “Iraqi security forces had received information regarding a possible attack. The chaotic security situation, due to the burial ceremony of Sheikh Hatam al-Hassan however, enabled the terrorists to use the opportunity to carry out their attack”, he said. One of the three Iraqis, arrested whilst taking photos of the scene minutes before the explosions, was a resident of Najaf, while his two accomplices were both from Basra. He added that Iran closed its border with Iraq following the attacks to limit any intelligence leaks.'
Bin Laden and democracy. An article at Armies of Liberation highlights the choices facing the peoples of the Mideast today: 'Reform, elections, judicial independence, stemming corruption: these are the buzzwords on the Arab street today, and this is the essential work of the pioneering Iraqis. The transition of executive power in Egypt, Lebanese independence, minority rights in Syria, freedom of press in Yemen, youth enfranchisement in Saudi Arabia: these are the topics of modern patriots in the Middle East, their hope derived from free Iraqi labor unions and political parties and the anonymous anti-corruption hotline in Baghdad. Opposite these concepts of reform are the nihilistic ideology of al-Qaeda and the bloody tactics of the “Amir of Iraq,” Zarqawi, who freely murders innocent children, patriotic Iraqis, and poor truckdrivers.' Jane also offers a memorable interpretation of bin Laden's media image. (Armies of Liberation)
Egyptian opposition. A recent MEMRI bulletin, quoting metransparent.com, states that there are now four candidates set to oppose Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's elections scheduled for mid-2005. They are: author and former military officer Jalal 'Amer; former MP Muhammad Farid Hassanin; feminist author Nawal al-Sa'adawi; and Sa'd al-Din Ibrahim, director of the Ibn Khaldoun Research and Development Center. (metransparent.com via MEMRI)
Commercial jet targeted by laser. Fox News reports this morning that the FBI is investigating a green laser that targeted the cockpit of a commercial aircraft flying in to Cleveland. 'Authorities are investigating a mysterious laser beam that was directed into the cockpit of a commercial jet traveling at more than 8,500 feet. The beam appeared Monday when the plane was about 15 miles from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (search), the FBI said. "It was in there for several seconds like [the plane] was being tracked," FBI agent Robert Hawk said.' (Fox) Follow-up: Rash of Pilot Laser Sightings Reported
Terrorist attacks on Saudi regime - Damascus, Riyadh in same boat? A recent bulletin from Debka provides information on Wednesday's terrorist attack on Riyadh, which included three car bombings and a machine gun attack, apparently targeting the life of Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdelaziz: 'Riyadh attack was al Qaeda attempt on life of interior minister’s son Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdelaziz, his father’s deputy and director of the ministry’s security unit running war on terror. ' Debka's feature article on the Saudi attack reports: 'This was the first attempt by Osama bin Laden’s organization to assassinate a member of the Saudi royal family. It is a pivotal event in that it sharply escalates the terrorist offensive besetting the kingdom and raises the stakes on both sides. By targeting interior minister Prince Nayef’s son, the terrorists declared open warfare on the minister who had been trying for the past year to maintain a dialogue with the Saudi cell through his connections in the clergy. According to our sources, Saudi cell leader Saud bin Hamoud al-Uteibi marked out the Nayef family after concluding that the interchanges the minister initiated were not on the level but an effort to plant his agents inside the terror cell and break it up from within. Had the assassination plot against Prince Mohammed succeeded, a major upheaval would have ensued – destabilizing not only the oil kingdom but sending tremors around the Arab and Muslim Middle East as well.' Morning Report notes that Riyadh and Damascus appear to be finding themselves in the same situation these days. A recent analysis available from Stratfor suggests that the Syrian regime's support for the Iraq insurgency may be motivated by a fear that the insurgent elements - including al-Qaeda - might otherwise set their sights on Syria. This, the Stratfor article continues, may help explain Syria's recent efforts to put on an Islamic face. Thus Damascus, like Riyadh, finds itself in the unenviable position of being caught between militant islamists and Western (chiefly US) adversaries. (Debka, Stratfor) Update: Debka reports: 'Saudis claim 3 senior al Qaeda operatives killed Thursday – two on 26-man wanted list - day after terrorist car bomb attacks on interior ministry and recruiting center in Riyadh. They were identified as Sultan Bejaad al-Uteibi and Bandar Abdulhrahman Dakheel. Nine were killed Wednesday.'
Iraq: 7200 leaders step forward. Mohammed posts on Iraq the Model: 'Iraqis' response to terror was so clear; after the terrorists, or the so called insurgents threatened to slaughter anyone who participates in the elections, 7200 Iraqis rushed to announce their candidacy. YES, 7200 Iraqis representing more than 200 different political parties and I believe this makes the image clearer for the viewer. And to remove the fog and debunk the claims about the Sunni population being against the democratic process, I want to point out that tens of the political parties come from the Sunni population. Moreover you almost can't find a single list that lacks Sunni candidates in it, even lists from She'at, Kurdis, Christian or liberal parties.' (ITM)
Najaf police chief: Iran regime agents behind car bomb. The chief of police in Najaf, Iraq, has pointed the finger at Tehran in connection with a recent car bomb attack, according to this article in Iran Focus: 'The police chief in Najaf said that the commander of three terrorists arrested on Sunday in connection with a car bomb that exploded in the holy city, had extensive connections to Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). He said that intelligence for when and where to attack was given by an MOIS agent to the terrorist cells. “Iraqi security forces had received information regarding a possible attack. The chaotic security situation, due to the burial ceremony of Sheikh Hatam al-Hassan however, enabled the terrorists to use the opportunity to carry out their attack”, he said. One of the three Iraqis, arrested whilst taking photos of the scene minutes before the explosions, was a resident of Najaf, while his two accomplices were both from Basra. He added that Iran closed its border with Iraq following the attacks to limit any intelligence leaks.'
Bin Laden and democracy. An article at Armies of Liberation highlights the choices facing the peoples of the Mideast today: 'Reform, elections, judicial independence, stemming corruption: these are the buzzwords on the Arab street today, and this is the essential work of the pioneering Iraqis. The transition of executive power in Egypt, Lebanese independence, minority rights in Syria, freedom of press in Yemen, youth enfranchisement in Saudi Arabia: these are the topics of modern patriots in the Middle East, their hope derived from free Iraqi labor unions and political parties and the anonymous anti-corruption hotline in Baghdad. Opposite these concepts of reform are the nihilistic ideology of al-Qaeda and the bloody tactics of the “Amir of Iraq,” Zarqawi, who freely murders innocent children, patriotic Iraqis, and poor truckdrivers.' Jane also offers a memorable interpretation of bin Laden's media image. (Armies of Liberation)
Egyptian opposition. A recent MEMRI bulletin, quoting metransparent.com, states that there are now four candidates set to oppose Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt's elections scheduled for mid-2005. They are: author and former military officer Jalal 'Amer; former MP Muhammad Farid Hassanin; feminist author Nawal al-Sa'adawi; and Sa'd al-Din Ibrahim, director of the Ibn Khaldoun Research and Development Center. (metransparent.com via MEMRI)
2004-12-29
Mosque Visit
A couple of weekends ago I had the privilege of visiting the Bilal Mosque in Beaverton at the invitation of Imam Mamadou Toure. I've posted on Imam Toure before - he's an eighth-generation Sufi Imam from Senegal, an eminent scholar, and a truly wonderful human being. This was my first visit to Bilal - I'd been to the Muslim Community Center on MLK Boulevard in Portland a few times - and it was exciting to be able to attend the two-hour class that Imam Toure was giving.
My impressions of the local Muslim community, both at MCC and at Bilal, were entirely positive. They struck me as uniformly warm, decent, down-to-earth folks. If any of them harbored any anti-Israel or anti-Jewish sentiment, they kept it to themselves. The people I met with and interacted with are most certainly not anti-Jewish.
There's a lot of trouble out there in the world. You know that and I know that. We don't have to create problems where none exist. There are narrow-minded people and raving bigots in every place and in every religion. We don't have to be like them.
There is much more I'd like to write, but this is all for now.
My impressions of the local Muslim community, both at MCC and at Bilal, were entirely positive. They struck me as uniformly warm, decent, down-to-earth folks. If any of them harbored any anti-Israel or anti-Jewish sentiment, they kept it to themselves. The people I met with and interacted with are most certainly not anti-Jewish.
There's a lot of trouble out there in the world. You know that and I know that. We don't have to create problems where none exist. There are narrow-minded people and raving bigots in every place and in every religion. We don't have to be like them.
There is much more I'd like to write, but this is all for now.
2004-12-27
Morning Report: December 27, 2004
Earthquakes, tidal waves kill thousands in Asia/Pacific. A massive earthquake of magnitude 9 struck in the Indian Ocean, triggering massive tidal waves and tsunamis that claimed thousands of lives in the region. The quake, centered off the coast of the Indonesian island of Aceh, ranks as the largest earthquake worldwide in 40 years and the fourth largest since the recording of earthquakes began in 1899. Currently the known death toll is over 22,000; that figure is expected to rise. Information is available at The Command Post. (various)
Thoughts on natural disasters. Reflecting on the massive tragedy in Asia, Wretchard says: 'In an abstract way, the information flows surrounding the Tsunami of December 2004 structurally resembled those preceding the Pearl Harbor and September 11 attacks. The raw data announcing the unfolding threat was there, yet the pattern so evident in hindsight was invisible to those who were not looking for it. But if tsunamis and asteroid strikes are rare events, they are comparatively more common than that still rarer object, the unprecedented event: the something that has never happened before. Threats like that can emerge suddenly out of chaotic systems, like WMD terrorism or new viral plagues. Against such events, specific precautions are impossible because no one can prepare for what cannot be foreseen. The real challenge is not so much to create a new dedicated network of staring systems against known threats but to tie current sensors to systems which are capable of cognition. The most valuable survival asset is situational awareness -- the ability to recognize threats you have never seen before and respond in an evolving manner -- and that capability has not yet come to the world as a whole.' Glenn Reynolds argues that 'Over the longer run, of course, the best protection against catastrophes, whether foreseen or unforeseen, is a society that is rich enough, and diverse enough, to be well-prepared for all sorts of contingencies. Which means that economic growth, and the freedom that produces it, may be the best guarantor of safety for us all. A rich society can afford to worry about things that a poorer one wouldn't have the resources to think about. A rich society can take steps to prevent disasters before they happen. And a rich society is better positioned to survive disasters once they occur, even if they are completely unforeseen, or unforeseeable.' (Belmont Club, Tech Central Station)
Chavez and China. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that his country's trade with China would increase dramatically as a result of major new trade agreements between China and Venezuela. The bilateral agreements, which were the result of Chavez' three-day visit to Beijing, provide for the purchase of Chinese security equipment by Venezuela, and Venezuelan oil and asphalt by the PRC. In another development, Beijing issued a stern warning against any moves toward independence by Taiwan. (Stratfor)
Debka: Israel releases Palestinians in prisoner exchange. A bulletin from Debka reports: 'Israel frees 159 Palestinian prisoners - 19 guilty of terrorist crimes short of murder – as promised Egyptian president Mubarak in return for Israeli Azzam’s release. President Katsav pardoned small group of illegal entrants.' (Debka)
Journalists convicted in Yemen. Jane reports on the erosion of press freedom in Yemen: 'This week in Yemen: Four more journalists convicted, another editor attacked, justice delayed again for al-Khaiwani. This is on top of one editor imprisoned, one editor murdered, and three newspapers closed. You can’t write about the Saudis-oh no-but trash Bush all you want. You can’t write about governmental corruption in your own country but its fine to demonize the US and UK governments until the cows come home. “Democratization” without a free press is just another way of gaining development aid and clinging to power until your son, Salah Jr., turns 40 and can take over the presidency. ...' (Armies of Liberation)
Thoughts on natural disasters. Reflecting on the massive tragedy in Asia, Wretchard says: 'In an abstract way, the information flows surrounding the Tsunami of December 2004 structurally resembled those preceding the Pearl Harbor and September 11 attacks. The raw data announcing the unfolding threat was there, yet the pattern so evident in hindsight was invisible to those who were not looking for it. But if tsunamis and asteroid strikes are rare events, they are comparatively more common than that still rarer object, the unprecedented event: the something that has never happened before. Threats like that can emerge suddenly out of chaotic systems, like WMD terrorism or new viral plagues. Against such events, specific precautions are impossible because no one can prepare for what cannot be foreseen. The real challenge is not so much to create a new dedicated network of staring systems against known threats but to tie current sensors to systems which are capable of cognition. The most valuable survival asset is situational awareness -- the ability to recognize threats you have never seen before and respond in an evolving manner -- and that capability has not yet come to the world as a whole.' Glenn Reynolds argues that 'Over the longer run, of course, the best protection against catastrophes, whether foreseen or unforeseen, is a society that is rich enough, and diverse enough, to be well-prepared for all sorts of contingencies. Which means that economic growth, and the freedom that produces it, may be the best guarantor of safety for us all. A rich society can afford to worry about things that a poorer one wouldn't have the resources to think about. A rich society can take steps to prevent disasters before they happen. And a rich society is better positioned to survive disasters once they occur, even if they are completely unforeseen, or unforeseeable.' (Belmont Club, Tech Central Station)
Chavez and China. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that his country's trade with China would increase dramatically as a result of major new trade agreements between China and Venezuela. The bilateral agreements, which were the result of Chavez' three-day visit to Beijing, provide for the purchase of Chinese security equipment by Venezuela, and Venezuelan oil and asphalt by the PRC. In another development, Beijing issued a stern warning against any moves toward independence by Taiwan. (Stratfor)
Debka: Israel releases Palestinians in prisoner exchange. A bulletin from Debka reports: 'Israel frees 159 Palestinian prisoners - 19 guilty of terrorist crimes short of murder – as promised Egyptian president Mubarak in return for Israeli Azzam’s release. President Katsav pardoned small group of illegal entrants.' (Debka)
Journalists convicted in Yemen. Jane reports on the erosion of press freedom in Yemen: 'This week in Yemen: Four more journalists convicted, another editor attacked, justice delayed again for al-Khaiwani. This is on top of one editor imprisoned, one editor murdered, and three newspapers closed. You can’t write about the Saudis-oh no-but trash Bush all you want. You can’t write about governmental corruption in your own country but its fine to demonize the US and UK governments until the cows come home. “Democratization” without a free press is just another way of gaining development aid and clinging to power until your son, Salah Jr., turns 40 and can take over the presidency. ...' (Armies of Liberation)
2004-12-10
Fadhil Brothers Meet President Bush!
The Fadhil brothers of Iraq The Model have met with President Bush, according to this report at American Faith. (Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.)
This is very exciting news! I've been following Omar, Ali, and Mohammed at ITM for a year now; their meeting with the Chief is a well-earned honor. I hope the exchange was inspiring and informative to all parties.
Now here’s the best part: today, without prior notice, Omar and Mohammed went to the Oval Office and met with President Bush! They said that the meeting lasted about a half hour, and the President was very interested in hearing the thoughts and opinions of Iraqi citizens first hand. He wasn’t aware until then of the good things that Spirit Of America has been doing over there to help the Iraqi people and assist in their obtaining democracy. Omar joked that he got to meet POTUS and they didn’t even search his pockets beforehand.
This is very exciting news! I've been following Omar, Ali, and Mohammed at ITM for a year now; their meeting with the Chief is a well-earned honor. I hope the exchange was inspiring and informative to all parties.
2004-12-04
2004-12-02
Bush: Iraq Elections Must Happen On Schedule
President Bush has refused to back down on holding national elections in Iraq on January 30, 2005, as scheduled. According to news reports, the Chief rejected calls from some political parties for postponing the elections, saying, 'It's time for Iraqi citizens to go to the polls.'
Providing some perspective on the various parties' attempts to delay the vote, Omar at Iraq the Model writes:
The Iraqi National Congress also stands firm on the election date:
The sooner Iraqis get to take an active role in choosing their own future, the better. The elections should take place as scheduled.
(Besides which, I confess I am a little bit partial to the January 30 date: it's my birthday.)
Providing some perspective on the various parties' attempts to delay the vote, Omar at Iraq the Model writes:
Some of these parties cannot think beyond their partisan interests and it seems they want things to calm down in the so-called Sunni triangle so that more Sunnis participate in the elections. This seems like a reasonable demand, but the problem is that they do not seek that as much as they seek to strengthen their own individual and partisan positions.
The Iraqi National Congress also stands firm on the election date:
Delay in holding the elections will be a delay in the restoration of full sovereignty to Iraq. It will also be a delay of withdrawal of foreign troops. The INC upholds that the legitimacy of the Iraqi government is based on the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which clearly states in Art.2.b.2. that elections must be held no later than 31 January 2004. Moreover, Art. 3 of the TAL reconfirms the January election timetable by stipulating that “likewise, no amendment may be made that could abridge in any way the rights of the Iraqi people…; extend the transitional period beyond the timeframe cited in this Law; delay the holding of elections to a new assembly”. The TAL is also reinforced in United Nations Security Resolution 1546 that also refers to date for the elections which must be respected.
The sooner Iraqis get to take an active role in choosing their own future, the better. The elections should take place as scheduled.
(Besides which, I confess I am a little bit partial to the January 30 date: it's my birthday.)
2004-11-30
Muslim Zionist Speaks Out
Professor Khaleel Mohammed of San Diego State University is not afraid to speak out in favor of Israel - and he cites the following verse in the Koran for support:
According to this article in Ha'Aretz, Professor Mohammed stands by his controversial view that the land of Israel is ordained - "katab" in Arabic - for the Jews. ""If Allah katab the Holy Land to the Jews, then it is theirs unless stated otherwise - and it is not stated otherwise in the Koran," he says. In fact, Mohammed explains, the Koran goes on to record that the Jews were punished for their "cowardice" in failing to enter the land at Moses' call, and had to wander 40 years in the wilderness. But "They received punishment for their sins - a prohibition limited in time on their entry to the land. This makes no difference to the principle whereby the land was intended for them."
As for Israel and the Palestinians: "The establishment of the State of Israel is the expression of the fact that the Jews desired to return to their land. The State of Israel was established thanks to the `Jewish jihad,' and the acts of terror that are being carried out by Palestinians inside Israel are not jihad because this is not their land."
Go read the whole article at the link. Hat tip: Ocean Guy.
"O my people! enter the land which Allah hath assigned unto you, and turn not back ignominiously, for then will ye be overthrown, to your own ruin." Koran 5:21 (al-Ma'ida)
According to this article in Ha'Aretz, Professor Mohammed stands by his controversial view that the land of Israel is ordained - "katab" in Arabic - for the Jews. ""If Allah katab the Holy Land to the Jews, then it is theirs unless stated otherwise - and it is not stated otherwise in the Koran," he says. In fact, Mohammed explains, the Koran goes on to record that the Jews were punished for their "cowardice" in failing to enter the land at Moses' call, and had to wander 40 years in the wilderness. But "They received punishment for their sins - a prohibition limited in time on their entry to the land. This makes no difference to the principle whereby the land was intended for them."
As for Israel and the Palestinians: "The establishment of the State of Israel is the expression of the fact that the Jews desired to return to their land. The State of Israel was established thanks to the `Jewish jihad,' and the acts of terror that are being carried out by Palestinians inside Israel are not jihad because this is not their land."
Go read the whole article at the link. Hat tip: Ocean Guy.
Muslim Liberals Call for Justice
Three leading Muslim liberals - Jawad Hashim, Shakir al-Nabulsi, and Lafif Lakhdar - have written an open letter to the United Nations calling for strong action against terrorists. The letter, now available in English translation, urges the UN Security Council to establish an "international tribunal to prosecute individuals, groups, or entities including, but not limited to, Muslim clerics, who issue religious edicts (fatwas) inciting terrorist acts."
Go visit Iraq the Model to find out more, and be sure to follow the e-mail link. Dr. Hashim welcomes signatures from people of all religions and nationalities; I've just added my own name - now it's your turn.
Go visit Iraq the Model to find out more, and be sure to follow the e-mail link. Dr. Hashim welcomes signatures from people of all religions and nationalities; I've just added my own name - now it's your turn.
2004-11-25
Thanksgiving Day: Freedom and Responsibility
As Americans, we have much to be thankful for. Yes, it may be a trite sentiment, but it's still true. We need to acknowledge, individually and as a nation, our blessings; and for those of us who are religious, it goes without saying that this implies acknowledging how deeply we are beholden to the Creator.
I will argue here that thanksgiving is not merely a fair sentiment, nor even solely a spiritual experience; it is a moral duty. This is because our good fortune places a moral burden on us. If we have wealth, then we have the duty to spend it wisely and to donate to charity. If we have power, then we have the duty to use it in the service of justice. If we have freedom, then we have the duty to learn about the plight of those living under tyranny - to ask the questions they themselves are forbidden to ask - and to work to set them free.
If freedom brings responsibility, does oppression - or victimhood - bring absolution from responsibilty? No. If we lack the freedom to act, then we must learn from our experience and resolve to right such wrongs as we have endured as soon as we have the chance. My Islamic teacher, Imam Mamadou Toure, explained it this way: "Every person has a duty to fight oppression. If they are experiencing oppression, they have a duty to fight for freedom. If this is not possible - for example, if the person's family is threatened - then, at a very minimum, the person has a duty to hate the oppression in their heart, and to fight it when they do have the chance."
Jason Holliston has an excellent post on the subject of victimhood. The victim mentality is the greatest enemy of dignity, of responsibility, and ultimately of freedom.
We are often tempted to believe that "suffering ennobles". It does not. As liberals, we are sometimes taught that "oppressed people understand the suffering of others". This is a dangerous myth. To be dealt with cruelly by others is not, in and of itself, either uplifting or enlightening; it is an opportunity to understand the pain of injustice, but it is no more than that. How we grow from our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, is our choice as individuals - and our responsibilty.
The Torah teaches this principle unequivocally:
"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." - Exodus 22:29
"You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor, nor show deference to the rich..." - Leviticus 19:15
"You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger ... Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment." - Deuteronomy 24:17-18
On this Thanksgiving holiday, let us remember our blessings and acknowledge them; let us also give thanks for the moral burden they place on us. For that, too, is a blessing.
Biblical quotes are from the Jewish Publication Society translation.
Postscript: Please read this recent post by the Ten O'clock Scholar.
I will argue here that thanksgiving is not merely a fair sentiment, nor even solely a spiritual experience; it is a moral duty. This is because our good fortune places a moral burden on us. If we have wealth, then we have the duty to spend it wisely and to donate to charity. If we have power, then we have the duty to use it in the service of justice. If we have freedom, then we have the duty to learn about the plight of those living under tyranny - to ask the questions they themselves are forbidden to ask - and to work to set them free.
If freedom brings responsibility, does oppression - or victimhood - bring absolution from responsibilty? No. If we lack the freedom to act, then we must learn from our experience and resolve to right such wrongs as we have endured as soon as we have the chance. My Islamic teacher, Imam Mamadou Toure, explained it this way: "Every person has a duty to fight oppression. If they are experiencing oppression, they have a duty to fight for freedom. If this is not possible - for example, if the person's family is threatened - then, at a very minimum, the person has a duty to hate the oppression in their heart, and to fight it when they do have the chance."
Jason Holliston has an excellent post on the subject of victimhood. The victim mentality is the greatest enemy of dignity, of responsibility, and ultimately of freedom.
We are often tempted to believe that "suffering ennobles". It does not. As liberals, we are sometimes taught that "oppressed people understand the suffering of others". This is a dangerous myth. To be dealt with cruelly by others is not, in and of itself, either uplifting or enlightening; it is an opportunity to understand the pain of injustice, but it is no more than that. How we grow from our experiences, whether pleasant or painful, is our choice as individuals - and our responsibilty.
The Torah teaches this principle unequivocally:
"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." - Exodus 22:29
"You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor, nor show deference to the rich..." - Leviticus 19:15
"You shall not subvert the rights of the stranger ... Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore do I enjoin you to observe this commandment." - Deuteronomy 24:17-18
On this Thanksgiving holiday, let us remember our blessings and acknowledge them; let us also give thanks for the moral burden they place on us. For that, too, is a blessing.
Biblical quotes are from the Jewish Publication Society translation.
Postscript: Please read this recent post by the Ten O'clock Scholar.
2004-11-24
Pilgrims
As Americans reach for the stuffing and turkey basters, it is well to reflect on the meaning and origins of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.
William Bradford, in his classic Of Plymouth Plantation, records that in 1621:
A letter by Edward Winslow, dated December 11, 1621, relates:
And so the Pilgrims embarked on their task of founding a new nation, a new culture, a new world. Sustained by their courage and their faith in Providence, they persevered through good times and bad.
But all was not perfect among these early pioneers. For all their virtues and their ideals, they, too, had human failings. Life in the settlements was harsh, and sometimes, despite the Pilgrims' heroic efforts towards virtue, the more unpleasant aspects of human nature emerged. And so we read, in chapter 32 of Bradford, the unfortunate case of a young man who was brought to trial for unnatural acts involving
Happy Thanksgiving.
William Bradford, in his classic Of Plymouth Plantation, records that in 1621:
They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strenth and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came firest (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.
A letter by Edward Winslow, dated December 11, 1621, relates:
Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king, Massasoit with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted.
And so the Pilgrims embarked on their task of founding a new nation, a new culture, a new world. Sustained by their courage and their faith in Providence, they persevered through good times and bad.
But all was not perfect among these early pioneers. For all their virtues and their ideals, they, too, had human failings. Life in the settlements was harsh, and sometimes, despite the Pilgrims' heroic efforts towards virtue, the more unpleasant aspects of human nature emerged. And so we read, in chapter 32 of Bradford, the unfortunate case of a young man who was brought to trial for unnatural acts involving
a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a turkey.
Happy Thanksgiving.
2004-11-22
News Roundup: Japan, China, Iran
Japan's more assertive stance was apparent at the recently concluded APEC summit, with Koizumi showing little interest in mollifying either China or Russia in territorial disputes stemming from East China Sea gas fields and the Kuril Islands respectively. The increasingly confident - and pro-US - Japan is seen as a potential ally against possible threats from China and North Korea. More information is available from Stratfor.
China, eager to fuel its faltering economic engine, has recently been courting the IRI regime in Iran. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is working to produce a nuclear missile, with over 350 sites involved, according to this Debka report:
MEMRI reports that Omar Hadid, one of Saddam's private guards prior to the liberation of Iraq, was also a key aide to Zarqawi and went to Afghanistan for training with al-Qaeda. Omar's brother, Hamid Hadid, was the bureau chief of al-Jazeera in Iraq, before al-Jazeera was closed by the Iraqi government for inciting violence. (This would fall under the category of "Saddam-Zarqawi-al-Qaeda-al-Jazeera links".) This November 19 item at the MEMRI News Ticker is attributed to al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, November 19.
China, eager to fuel its faltering economic engine, has recently been courting the IRI regime in Iran. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is working to produce a nuclear missile, with over 350 sites involved, according to this Debka report:
... a “walk-in” source approached US intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages purported to be Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to delivery an atomic strike. The warhead design is based on implosion and adjustments aimed at fitting the warhead on existing Iranian missiles. DEBKAfile’s military experts believe the data referred to the Shehab-3 and its improved version, the Shehab-4. The US official said he would not have revealed this much had not Powell alluded to the intelligence publicly. If the information is confirmed, it would mean the Islamic republic is further along than previously known in developing a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it.
MEMRI reports that Omar Hadid, one of Saddam's private guards prior to the liberation of Iraq, was also a key aide to Zarqawi and went to Afghanistan for training with al-Qaeda. Omar's brother, Hamid Hadid, was the bureau chief of al-Jazeera in Iraq, before al-Jazeera was closed by the Iraqi government for inciting violence. (This would fall under the category of "Saddam-Zarqawi-al-Qaeda-al-Jazeera links".) This November 19 item at the MEMRI News Ticker is attributed to al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, November 19.
2004-11-14
Iraq The Model Celebrates One Year
I've got a lot going on right now and I don't have time for regular posting ... but THIS I've got time for:
Iraq The Model is one year old. The Fadhil brothers - Omar, Ali, and Mohammed - are marking their first anniversary of blogging today.
Iraq The Model homepage
first anniversary post
Iraq The Model is one year old. The Fadhil brothers - Omar, Ali, and Mohammed - are marking their first anniversary of blogging today.
Iraq The Model homepage
first anniversary post
2004-11-11
Dogface: The New Georgia Doughboy
From my father's World War II memoirs. Posted in honor of veterans everywhere.
This is the New Georgia doughboy, returning from the front. He's wearing his green-and-brown-mottled camouflage suit - the one he has been wearing continuously for the past three weeks. It has seldom been off of him, even to be washed - the rains take care of that. If his unit happens to be anywhere near a creek, he washes himself, but that happens only once in a while. Oh, yes, and that camouflage about his face is not really camouflage. Can he help it if the dust, kicked up from the road, sticks to his sweaty, bearded face? All available water is used for drinking, but even with the supply on New Georgia augmented by purified water from neighboring islets, he has to exercise rigid economy. His daily supply which he carries with him in two canteens doesn't last very long in New Georgia's baking sun and steaming jungles.
This doggie, like most of his buddies has been in combat for around twenty consecutive days. That means that during that time he has no hot food. His meals when he could get them, were C rations eaten right out of the can. Sometimes his fare wasn't even that sumptuous. Sometimes he subsisted on a bar of D ration chocolate a day. Now he returns, stripped down to barest essentials, without even the light battle pack he started out with. He still has his faithful M-1 Rifle with possibly some ammunition left, his precious water, first aid packet, and sulfanilamide tablets.
He trudges along the dusty road, his trousers legs rolled up to just below the knees, revealing a dirty, soggy, reeking pair of green canvass jungle boots. He walks along the road which Army engineers and Navy Sea Bees have hewn out of the jungle. But the soldier doesn't always find the road dry and dusty; all too often he slogs through channels of knee-deep mud which must serve as travel routes. On this isle of the dead and living dead, the stench of this mud suggests that decaying bodies are blended in with the soil, but the smell is more probably from rotted vegetation. When it rains in New Georgia, this is what the soldier eats in, sleeps in, lives in. Now, as he walks along with expressionless eyes focused on the ground a few paces ahead of him, his presence adds a poignantly personal touch to the procession of peeps and three-quarter tons which are laden with supplies for the front. Daily he (for "he" represents all such front line men) passes our gun positions with an air of mingled apprehension and respect. He dreads being near them when they fire, yet he wants to get a good look a t the guns that probably helped save his life. "How do you guys stand it? How do you stand the noise?" he asks with a seriousness that dumbfounds us. How do we stand it! He's been sniped at, mortar-shelled, has our artillery barrage seventy-five to one hundred yards ahead of him, and he asks us that! He comes up to the guns once in a while when there is a lull in the firing, and pats a howitzer affectionately. "I could kiss these babies," he says with a wan smile. Once he asked if we'd let him pull the lanyard that would send a 95 pound shell on its destructive mission. He was tickled as a kid with a new toy when we let him fire on the next fire mission.
He sits and exchanges a few words with us; he's never very talkative - sits and broods a lot. As he gets up to leave, his valedictory usually is: "Keep shootin' them out there. It sure is good to hear them land." Though they go through hell, that is all that he and his buddies ever ask of us, that we keep shootin' out there, and they'll carry on their share.
- Ken McLintock (1929-2000)
Battery A,146th Field Artillery Battalion, 37th Infantry Division
January 1942 - October 1945
Urban Renewal: "Pacific Driftwood"
This is the New Georgia doughboy, returning from the front. He's wearing his green-and-brown-mottled camouflage suit - the one he has been wearing continuously for the past three weeks. It has seldom been off of him, even to be washed - the rains take care of that. If his unit happens to be anywhere near a creek, he washes himself, but that happens only once in a while. Oh, yes, and that camouflage about his face is not really camouflage. Can he help it if the dust, kicked up from the road, sticks to his sweaty, bearded face? All available water is used for drinking, but even with the supply on New Georgia augmented by purified water from neighboring islets, he has to exercise rigid economy. His daily supply which he carries with him in two canteens doesn't last very long in New Georgia's baking sun and steaming jungles.
This doggie, like most of his buddies has been in combat for around twenty consecutive days. That means that during that time he has no hot food. His meals when he could get them, were C rations eaten right out of the can. Sometimes his fare wasn't even that sumptuous. Sometimes he subsisted on a bar of D ration chocolate a day. Now he returns, stripped down to barest essentials, without even the light battle pack he started out with. He still has his faithful M-1 Rifle with possibly some ammunition left, his precious water, first aid packet, and sulfanilamide tablets.
He trudges along the dusty road, his trousers legs rolled up to just below the knees, revealing a dirty, soggy, reeking pair of green canvass jungle boots. He walks along the road which Army engineers and Navy Sea Bees have hewn out of the jungle. But the soldier doesn't always find the road dry and dusty; all too often he slogs through channels of knee-deep mud which must serve as travel routes. On this isle of the dead and living dead, the stench of this mud suggests that decaying bodies are blended in with the soil, but the smell is more probably from rotted vegetation. When it rains in New Georgia, this is what the soldier eats in, sleeps in, lives in. Now, as he walks along with expressionless eyes focused on the ground a few paces ahead of him, his presence adds a poignantly personal touch to the procession of peeps and three-quarter tons which are laden with supplies for the front. Daily he (for "he" represents all such front line men) passes our gun positions with an air of mingled apprehension and respect. He dreads being near them when they fire, yet he wants to get a good look a t the guns that probably helped save his life. "How do you guys stand it? How do you stand the noise?" he asks with a seriousness that dumbfounds us. How do we stand it! He's been sniped at, mortar-shelled, has our artillery barrage seventy-five to one hundred yards ahead of him, and he asks us that! He comes up to the guns once in a while when there is a lull in the firing, and pats a howitzer affectionately. "I could kiss these babies," he says with a wan smile. Once he asked if we'd let him pull the lanyard that would send a 95 pound shell on its destructive mission. He was tickled as a kid with a new toy when we let him fire on the next fire mission.
He sits and exchanges a few words with us; he's never very talkative - sits and broods a lot. As he gets up to leave, his valedictory usually is: "Keep shootin' them out there. It sure is good to hear them land." Though they go through hell, that is all that he and his buddies ever ask of us, that we keep shootin' out there, and they'll carry on their share.
- Ken McLintock (1929-2000)
Battery A,146th Field Artillery Battalion, 37th Infantry Division
January 1942 - October 1945
Urban Renewal: "Pacific Driftwood"
2004-11-10
Morning Report: November 11, 2004
Arafat dies. Terrorist leader Yasser Arafat died in Paris in the early hours of Thursday, November 11, according to media reports.
Mohammed: Emergency state enhances security in Iraq. Mohammed at Iraq the Model believes the current state of emergency declared by Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi will help restore confidence among Iraqis:
Wretchard: The enemy's prospects in Fallujah. The Belmont Club assesses the position of Ba'athist remnants and insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq: 'Simply reading the map shows that the enemy is pinned in a strip north of the highway, which is now a barrier to further escape south. As Major Piccoli put it, the "enemy fighters were bottled up in a strip of the city flanking the major east-west highway that splits Fallujah". Pressing them against the highway are four US battalions from the north and two from the east.'
Three relatives of Allawi abducted. Gunmen kidnapped three relatives of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - Allawi's 75-year-old cousin Ghazi, Ghazi's wife, and their daughter-in-law, according to this Fox News report. A militant group called Ansar al-Jihad claimed responsibilty, threatening to kill the three hostages in 48 hours unless the Iraqi and US governments met its demands.
Mohammed: Emergency state enhances security in Iraq. Mohammed at Iraq the Model believes the current state of emergency declared by Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi will help restore confidence among Iraqis:
Declaring the state of emergency laws had a positive effect on the majority of Iraqis although it should’ve caused worries but I believe that this explains the public hopes to see an end for the violence and presence of criminal groups in some parts of Iraq and this is a public feeling that grew bigger because of the brutality of the atrocities committed against Iraqis by those criminal groups. I think it also shows that Iraqis are convinced that this emergency law won’t be similar to the “laws” that governed their lives under Saddam; people know that a real change is under way and that the new laws are going to protect the citizens instead of oppressing them. Perhaps the fact that most the Fallujans left the city proves that they have no intention to confront the Iraqi and multinational forces and it clearly means”go get the bad guys” and this discredits the media’s theory which claimed that “most of the Fallujans are willing to fight”.
Wretchard: The enemy's prospects in Fallujah. The Belmont Club assesses the position of Ba'athist remnants and insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq: 'Simply reading the map shows that the enemy is pinned in a strip north of the highway, which is now a barrier to further escape south. As Major Piccoli put it, the "enemy fighters were bottled up in a strip of the city flanking the major east-west highway that splits Fallujah". Pressing them against the highway are four US battalions from the north and two from the east.'
Three relatives of Allawi abducted. Gunmen kidnapped three relatives of Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - Allawi's 75-year-old cousin Ghazi, Ghazi's wife, and their daughter-in-law, according to this Fox News report. A militant group called Ansar al-Jihad claimed responsibilty, threatening to kill the three hostages in 48 hours unless the Iraqi and US governments met its demands.
2004-11-07
LGF on Netherlands jihad: It's not about race.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs gets it exactly right when he says:
Read more at these entries:
Jihad in the Netherlands
"Murder Is Normal"
This is the almost universal, wrongheaded slant on the story in mainstream media: that the horrific murder of Theo Van Gogh had something to do with race, when in fact it was driven by a violent, supremacist religious ideology.
Read more at these entries:
Jihad in the Netherlands
"Murder Is Normal"
2004-11-05
The Zero Ring
original fiction by Asher Abrams
No one understood why King Avishai of Dungard chose to relinquish everything then, his kingdom and his rule, or why he should have been ready to hand himself over to the care of his three daughters. Perhaps it was true, as he said, that the cares of rule weighed too heavily on him; perhaps also he had come to the realization that he had entrapped himself too deeply in the things of this world. And it was just possible, as a few murmured, that he was becoming uncomfortable with his reputation as a miser, as a man a little too fond of keeping things for himself.
Now he is floating over their heads, the suspensors on his throne set very high so that they must crane their necks to see him: this is how he is, Levana thinks, afraid to be seen touching the ground. And he's smiling that secret smile and he's got that twinkle in his eye, and he radiates that boyish innocence that never quite becomes childishness. On either side stand Hanna and Shira. In the middle, directly before him, stands Levana, the youngest, shifting her weight now and then, the toes of her left foot accommodating the comforting feel of the small, smooth secret in her left shoe.
"Love," he is saying, "is beyond any price. Love is a fair country with no borders, no boundaries. Love is what binds us together, and love is what has made this kingdom great."
Hanna and Shira are looking inscrutably at Levana. The afternoon light finds its way in through the cantilevered skylights of the great, round central hall of the Palace. Levana gazes at the ancient mosaics that circle the single unbroken wall, then looks up at Avishai, silhouetted against the graceful, shallow dome that rises above the skylights.
Rising before her, between her and Avishai, a colored projection of the map of Dungard appears, like a glowing stained-glass window. In the north is the Mountain Country, and the region called the New Land. In the middle, dividing the kingdom, are the cold and arid steppes, with their uninhabited regions of sand and stone. There also lies the maze of volcanic craters and canyons surrounding the Great Fissure, which dominates the central region of Dungard like a spider in her web. This is the land where so many soldiers fell, the land the old generals and sergeants-major still tell stories of in the halls of the palace. And to the south, stretching to the coast, is the Plains Country, the farmland, and the seat of the ancient capital, where the Palace still sits on a mountainside overlooking the city and the sea.
The map is divided vertically into three sections of different colors. Two, of roughly equal sizes, are labeled with her older sisters' names; the third, the central strip running from north to south and distinctly larger than the others, is left unmarked. The land of Gallia, vast and vague, looms off the eastern shore.
Confronted with this manifestation of their father's will, Shira and Hanna fidget and toy with the ceremonial tablets on which their shares of the kingdom are inscribed. Avishai's voice is soothing.
"Hanna found the favor of Lord Tir, and she will be the co-ruler of his province under the new order. Shira has acquired her share of Lord Roncor's province through her merits as well. You, Levana, have it much easier. You don't have to please anybody. Just stay here in Dungard, and the Central Province is yours alone. I have no quarrel with the King of Gallia, but you are needed here. You must give up the foreigner if you love me.
"You do love me, don't you, Leva?" His gaze is steady and solicitous. The throne lowers imperceptibly. She has only to say what he wants to hear, and her name will appear on the third region, and the tablet -- drawn up weeks before -- will be brought out and handed to her by gracious servants.
"It's Gallius I love," she says. "You can't keep me forever."
Gallius is not good looking or a particularly powerful king. In fact, he is unambitious and indifferent to geopolitical influence. His interest in Levana seems to be for herself alone. Sometimes Levana worries guiltily if it is not she, drawn by his holographic maps of the lush landscapes of his land, whose motives are impure. But in the long and empty weeks that fill her life, it is not the land she dreams of, but the man.
"Watch what you say, little girl."
And it is at this moment that she knows she cannot please him.
"Daddy, I'm not your little girl anymore."
There's a moment of explosive silence; then the map goes dark and the throne plummets to its resting place on the low carpeted dais. He peers into her eyes. His lower lip quivers, as thoughts seem to compete for his attention. His voice is low and breathy, like wind and far-off thunder.
"How dare you tell me that! Take that back at once."
But she is silent.
"Have you nothing to say?"
Still she is silent.
"Do you know what comes from nothing? Nothing -- and by the Merciful and Mysterious, that's what you'll get! Servants, annul those papers -- computer, redraw the map! And you -- go to your new home in Gallia and never let me see your face again. Pack tonight. I'll have Gallius send his men to meet you on the beach tomorrow."
Levana is too stunned to cry at first. Then she does.
Then, much later, she walks slowly to her room and takes off her shoes.
*
It is always there. Never out of reach, in her shoe, under a pillow, or in the airspace under one of the useless ceramic pieces that decorate her room. Sometimes she puts it in the pocket of her tunic, but usually that does not feel safe enough to her. But it is always there, and with it, a memory and a hope.
Now, at nineteen, her last memory of her mother is as fresh as it was on that day, when she was eleven years old. The room looked then much as it does now: walls of pink stone, floor of marble, covered with old rugs from her mother's family. An ornate chandelier in the ceiling sprinkles cool, harsh light from one floating light globe. Sitting on the soft, purple-covered bed, she can see her mother once again standing beside her.
Elnura is holding something small wrapped in purple velvet. She is tall and strong, like most of the women of the Mountain Tribe. Traditionally Mountain women are metalworkers, since prehistoric times of living and working in caves, while the menfolk hunted game and wild food. Years ago, Levana has been told, Elnura was a Seer, and a scholar of ancient lore. When Avishai is not around, which is seldom, Elnura spends time teaching Levana from her ancient books, with titles like The Way of Power and The Book of Creation.
"Do you know the legend of the Rings of Power?" she asks Levana.
"There were nine of them. They were all destroyed." She says the last word with feeling.
Avishai is watching from the door of the bedroom. "There were ten rings," Elnura is saying, "ten and not nine. They were numbered. The Nine Ring was the first to be destroyed, and the One Ring was the last."
"But you said there were ten."
"Before one, what do you count?" Levana does not answer and she continues: "This is the Zero Ring. It is called the Ring of Dreams, and it is the mother of the other nine. It shows you things in the world as they really are -- how things are conceived and born, how they develop, and how they end. It shows you the beginnings and the endings of things. And then it shows you the emptiness at the heart of Creation. It shows you the Void.
"This ring has been the secret of the women of the Mountain Tribe since ancient times. Only women have the power to channel its energy -- men are destroyed by it. Sometimes right away, sometimes slowly. Once a shepherd got hold of the Ring. He put it on. They found him the next day, going on all fours, eating grass and bleating back at the sheep. To wear this Ring is to look into the Void, and men are afraid of empty spaces."
Avishai grunts contemptuously. "Zero," he says. "Unnecessary number." He turns to go, still looking at the Ring out of the corner of his eye. It is because the Ring is forbidden to him that he finds it irresistible.
The Ring is a very simple, plain gold ring on the outside. Its surface is shiny and without scratches. It is like a curved mirror. The inside, the flat surface that fits against the finger, is inscribed with the thirty-two characters of the Classic Script. Each character appears exactly once, but their order changes from one moment to the next. Sometimes they form words; sometimes the words seem to fit together into ideas -- but, like the shapes you can see in the clouds, the meaning soon vanishes. Because you cannot see through the ring, you can never see all the characters at once. (Levana imagines that if she had a small, cone-shaped mirror, she might.)
"Thirty-two signs dance around the rim," Elnura says, "but it is the space in the middle that makes it useful."
"Will it ever run out of ways to arrange the letters?" Levana asks.
"It will take eight thousand trillion trillion years."
"Mama, did you ever wear this ring?"
It is the question Elnura has been waiting for. "Yes," she says, "in the old days, that is. Among my people. Before you -- before we became acquainted with the people of the Plains Tribe, and your Kingdom. I was known as a seer, one who knew how to use the ring, how to see dreams and look into the Void. I used the Ring often in those days." Here she pauses again. "I used it again last night."
"What did you see?"
Elnura stands up and does not answer at first. "Some things," she says finally. "I saw some things." She takes the ring back gently and puts it in her pocket. "I love you," she says to Levana, and leaves, telling the servants that she's taking a little walk.
The next day they learn that Elnura has traveled to the Great Fissure and thrown herself in.
The following night a servant whom Levana does not recognize, and will not see again, gives her a parcel wrapped in purple velvet. It is the Ring.
From then on, she keeps it in her shoe; she knows he will never look there. Sometimes she carries it in her pocket, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. Occasionally her fingertips will slip into the open space. When this happens she feels a pleasant tingling shoot up her arm and into her head. There is a sense of weightlessness. She finds the experience delicious but avoids this violation as much as possible; she feels it is unfair to the Ring to tease it in this way.
Mostly she just looks at it, watching the letters. Sometimes they form words, or almost form words. During the tedious shows and entertainments that are supposed to make her evenings lively, she looks at the Ring, keeping it cupped in her hands. In the tiny hours of the heavy mornings, she reads it in the moonlight.
Once a few of the characters arrange themselves to form FREDOMS, which is almost freedom but the letters are wrong. The next moment it becomes SERFDOM, and then the letters return to chaos.
*
It is after midnight. She snaps the brass latch on her goatskin satchel, and looks around at the rejected items of clothing strewn about. Picking up a delicate hair ribbon, she almost yields to the urge to tidy up, then thinks better of it. The ribbon falls to the floor.
She has heard from Hanna and Shira.
Hanna, the eldest: "I guess you know what you're doing to us. After you left, Shira and I got the Middle Province divided up between us, and with it the care of the Palace Compound. You know he wouldn't keep anything for himself -- that means we're going to have to look after him the rest of his life. I guess you got even."
And Shira: "Well I hope you're proud of yourself. Our father is devastated. Do you have any idea what you've done to him? If you have any decency you'll promise you'll forget about that foreigner and stay home where you belong. Then maybe, maybe he'll take you back."
Her life is ending and beginning. She feels like a long-festering sore that has been gashed and is at last beginning to bleed. It does no good to try to re-think her words of the day gone by. She thinks of begging Avishai to take her back, she thinks if she offers to forget Gallius perhaps he will.
Now she stares at the ring, which seems for the first time to have turned a frosty silver. She needs more than endless recombinations of the same signs. Only the transcendent vision of the wise women of the Mountain Tribe will do now. She imagines herself in the coarse, splendid, traditional woolen robes she has sometimes seen her mother wear. She decides that this is a time for seeing deeply into things. And as the warm glow surges from finger to arm to brain and suffuses her body, she understands why night, with its emptiness, is the mother of dreams.
Clouds obscure the starlight, and the plain is lit only by occasional flashes of gunfire. Two great armies are poised to clash, but her business is not with them. She is leading a Gallian commando unit in some sort of search-and-capture mission. She sees an outline in the night: it is the enemy leader, pathetic and helpless, and he will not be killed, but captured, as in a chess game, it is more satisfying that way.... The scene fades into a parade, it must be a victory celebration, she is marching with soldiers all around her...and now she is speaking with a great sage, discussing the mystery of things in the cell of some kind of monastery.... And finally she sees herself with an old man at her feet, raised up high as if on a throne, suspended in the air.
And then comes the kiss of the Void.
It could swallow you. It could tear you apart from the inside. She feels the weight of a vacuum in her body, and then the vacuum explodes and she feels she is both giving birth and being born, being crushed and turned inside out. For a moment, she sees her body lying on the bed, thinks how trivial and ugly it looks, like a rag doll that a child has dragged through the mud. Then everything dissolves into a flaming circle, and she passes through the center and finds peace.
After vision comes memory. Levana lies on the bed, rumpled now and damp with sweat, feels the ring icy on her finger, its power spent for now. Having seen the future, she feels she has already stepped outside of the Palace compound. Looking back, she sees things she has always overlooked, or things to which she has closed her eyes.
Memories come with a vengeance.
-- Her mother is speaking to Avishai, perhaps Levana is eight or nine. Elnura is saying, "Why don't you ever let the girls out of the compound? They need to see things, they need to travel." Avishai: "They have all they need. I provide them with everything." Elnura: "The same way you provide for your people! Yes, I've seen the way you treat your people. I've seen the slaves in the factories, chained to the machines, with electrodes in their heads to keep them from thinking evil thoughts...." Avishai raises a single finger in denial: "Those are not slaves! They are contract laborers. Slavery is against the law -- I signed the order myself!"
-- Hanna and Shira and the cruel games they played on her. And the way they looked when they did not know she was looking, haunted and scared.
-- Washing his feet. Of all the tasks that she has been given since her mother's death, this is the worst. She must kneel before him with the basin. Once, only once, she dares to ask, "Couldn't you get a maidservant to do this for you?" He is not angry; he simply looks wounded. "I thought you loved me, Leva," he says.
-- At thirteen she is too old to put flowers in her hair but she still does. She thinks she is alone in the garden. A voice from behind startles her: "You look so beautiful with flowers," he says, and starts caressing her shoulders. "You should wear them more often. Why are you so tense, little girl?" She never wears flowers again.
Now everything is clear, and freedom is a lighthouse on the horizon, a beacon over the Great Sea, and it shines on the filthy stones of the Palace Compound and calls to her. And to hell with the rest of them.
*
Seen from the outside, the Palace looks small, a grey mass nesting in the walled Compound on the mountainside like a pigeon. A road runs down the mountain to the city, but the road is hard to see, as if the mountain covers it. A small path, much steeper and shorter, leads from the Palace to the seashore. Levana looks back up at this path for the last time, and smiles at what she sees.
As he walks down the path to meet her, she can see he's carrying something, he's got his arms behind his back and he's picking his way carefully among the rocks with his feet. As he walks toward her she sees he is trying to recreate the mischievous grin that she used to love in spite of herself, but now he only manages to look desperate. So he is going to give her a gift. Very nice. She has something for him too.
"Something to remember me by," he says as he produces the bouquet of flowers. His taste for melodrama has not abandoned him. Politely, if a bit stiffly, she puts one hand out to take them.
She locks eyes with him and reaches inside her tunic, pausing just for a moment. "Put out your hand."
She gives him the gift, presses it into his trembling palm. She closes her eyes and forms one word in her mind: slowly. It is the only time she has ever prayed.
The path to the Palace rises and winds through the rocks, twisting like a plume of smoke. Levana turns to look back at it, and at her father. He holds the ring, incredulous, staring into her eyes and past them.
"Keep it," she tells him as gently as she can. "Mother would have wanted you to have it. It shows you the beginnings and the endings of things."
"How will I know which is which?"
"'Their end is embedded in their beginning, and their beginning in their end,'" she says, quoting the Book of Creation.
She sees he has seen something in the distance. She looks over her shoulder. It is the flyer from Gallia, now gliding over the water, now coming to rest and hovering over the sand. Two or three armed men in berets and black shirts get out and wait beside the vehicle. Its sleek, foreign design reminds her of a seashell.
The flowers. Their smell rises to her nose, nauseating her. She thinks: Even now he wants me to be his girlfriend. The old pervert. Their colors are lurid, obscene, like all the secret vices of the earth.
He's watching her. He's studying me, she thinks, trying to memorize the way I look. Let him. He will soon have enough on his mind. Yes, he is fingering the Ring already, stroking it. She turns away from him, looks down at the flowers.
"Leva," he calls plaintively. "You're going away."
She doesn't turn to answer him, doesn't even care if the wind carries her words back to him, or where it takes the flowers she throws into the sky. "Everything goes away."
She walks a few paces, and looks back for the last time, and he's motionless, just watching her go. He's not looking at her anymore, but at his idea of her. Now he can no longer see even that. In his mind's eye, she is already gone across the big water.
Now he sees nothing.
"The Zero Ring" copyright (c) 2004 by Asher Abrams.
All rights reserved.
the horror of nothing to see
-- Luce Irigaray
No one understood why King Avishai of Dungard chose to relinquish everything then, his kingdom and his rule, or why he should have been ready to hand himself over to the care of his three daughters. Perhaps it was true, as he said, that the cares of rule weighed too heavily on him; perhaps also he had come to the realization that he had entrapped himself too deeply in the things of this world. And it was just possible, as a few murmured, that he was becoming uncomfortable with his reputation as a miser, as a man a little too fond of keeping things for himself.
Now he is floating over their heads, the suspensors on his throne set very high so that they must crane their necks to see him: this is how he is, Levana thinks, afraid to be seen touching the ground. And he's smiling that secret smile and he's got that twinkle in his eye, and he radiates that boyish innocence that never quite becomes childishness. On either side stand Hanna and Shira. In the middle, directly before him, stands Levana, the youngest, shifting her weight now and then, the toes of her left foot accommodating the comforting feel of the small, smooth secret in her left shoe.
"Love," he is saying, "is beyond any price. Love is a fair country with no borders, no boundaries. Love is what binds us together, and love is what has made this kingdom great."
Hanna and Shira are looking inscrutably at Levana. The afternoon light finds its way in through the cantilevered skylights of the great, round central hall of the Palace. Levana gazes at the ancient mosaics that circle the single unbroken wall, then looks up at Avishai, silhouetted against the graceful, shallow dome that rises above the skylights.
Rising before her, between her and Avishai, a colored projection of the map of Dungard appears, like a glowing stained-glass window. In the north is the Mountain Country, and the region called the New Land. In the middle, dividing the kingdom, are the cold and arid steppes, with their uninhabited regions of sand and stone. There also lies the maze of volcanic craters and canyons surrounding the Great Fissure, which dominates the central region of Dungard like a spider in her web. This is the land where so many soldiers fell, the land the old generals and sergeants-major still tell stories of in the halls of the palace. And to the south, stretching to the coast, is the Plains Country, the farmland, and the seat of the ancient capital, where the Palace still sits on a mountainside overlooking the city and the sea.
The map is divided vertically into three sections of different colors. Two, of roughly equal sizes, are labeled with her older sisters' names; the third, the central strip running from north to south and distinctly larger than the others, is left unmarked. The land of Gallia, vast and vague, looms off the eastern shore.
Confronted with this manifestation of their father's will, Shira and Hanna fidget and toy with the ceremonial tablets on which their shares of the kingdom are inscribed. Avishai's voice is soothing.
"Hanna found the favor of Lord Tir, and she will be the co-ruler of his province under the new order. Shira has acquired her share of Lord Roncor's province through her merits as well. You, Levana, have it much easier. You don't have to please anybody. Just stay here in Dungard, and the Central Province is yours alone. I have no quarrel with the King of Gallia, but you are needed here. You must give up the foreigner if you love me.
"You do love me, don't you, Leva?" His gaze is steady and solicitous. The throne lowers imperceptibly. She has only to say what he wants to hear, and her name will appear on the third region, and the tablet -- drawn up weeks before -- will be brought out and handed to her by gracious servants.
"It's Gallius I love," she says. "You can't keep me forever."
Gallius is not good looking or a particularly powerful king. In fact, he is unambitious and indifferent to geopolitical influence. His interest in Levana seems to be for herself alone. Sometimes Levana worries guiltily if it is not she, drawn by his holographic maps of the lush landscapes of his land, whose motives are impure. But in the long and empty weeks that fill her life, it is not the land she dreams of, but the man.
"Watch what you say, little girl."
And it is at this moment that she knows she cannot please him.
"Daddy, I'm not your little girl anymore."
There's a moment of explosive silence; then the map goes dark and the throne plummets to its resting place on the low carpeted dais. He peers into her eyes. His lower lip quivers, as thoughts seem to compete for his attention. His voice is low and breathy, like wind and far-off thunder.
"How dare you tell me that! Take that back at once."
But she is silent.
"Have you nothing to say?"
Still she is silent.
"Do you know what comes from nothing? Nothing -- and by the Merciful and Mysterious, that's what you'll get! Servants, annul those papers -- computer, redraw the map! And you -- go to your new home in Gallia and never let me see your face again. Pack tonight. I'll have Gallius send his men to meet you on the beach tomorrow."
Levana is too stunned to cry at first. Then she does.
Then, much later, she walks slowly to her room and takes off her shoes.
*
It is always there. Never out of reach, in her shoe, under a pillow, or in the airspace under one of the useless ceramic pieces that decorate her room. Sometimes she puts it in the pocket of her tunic, but usually that does not feel safe enough to her. But it is always there, and with it, a memory and a hope.
Now, at nineteen, her last memory of her mother is as fresh as it was on that day, when she was eleven years old. The room looked then much as it does now: walls of pink stone, floor of marble, covered with old rugs from her mother's family. An ornate chandelier in the ceiling sprinkles cool, harsh light from one floating light globe. Sitting on the soft, purple-covered bed, she can see her mother once again standing beside her.
Elnura is holding something small wrapped in purple velvet. She is tall and strong, like most of the women of the Mountain Tribe. Traditionally Mountain women are metalworkers, since prehistoric times of living and working in caves, while the menfolk hunted game and wild food. Years ago, Levana has been told, Elnura was a Seer, and a scholar of ancient lore. When Avishai is not around, which is seldom, Elnura spends time teaching Levana from her ancient books, with titles like The Way of Power and The Book of Creation.
"Do you know the legend of the Rings of Power?" she asks Levana.
"There were nine of them. They were all destroyed." She says the last word with feeling.
Avishai is watching from the door of the bedroom. "There were ten rings," Elnura is saying, "ten and not nine. They were numbered. The Nine Ring was the first to be destroyed, and the One Ring was the last."
"But you said there were ten."
"Before one, what do you count?" Levana does not answer and she continues: "This is the Zero Ring. It is called the Ring of Dreams, and it is the mother of the other nine. It shows you things in the world as they really are -- how things are conceived and born, how they develop, and how they end. It shows you the beginnings and the endings of things. And then it shows you the emptiness at the heart of Creation. It shows you the Void.
"This ring has been the secret of the women of the Mountain Tribe since ancient times. Only women have the power to channel its energy -- men are destroyed by it. Sometimes right away, sometimes slowly. Once a shepherd got hold of the Ring. He put it on. They found him the next day, going on all fours, eating grass and bleating back at the sheep. To wear this Ring is to look into the Void, and men are afraid of empty spaces."
Avishai grunts contemptuously. "Zero," he says. "Unnecessary number." He turns to go, still looking at the Ring out of the corner of his eye. It is because the Ring is forbidden to him that he finds it irresistible.
The Ring is a very simple, plain gold ring on the outside. Its surface is shiny and without scratches. It is like a curved mirror. The inside, the flat surface that fits against the finger, is inscribed with the thirty-two characters of the Classic Script. Each character appears exactly once, but their order changes from one moment to the next. Sometimes they form words; sometimes the words seem to fit together into ideas -- but, like the shapes you can see in the clouds, the meaning soon vanishes. Because you cannot see through the ring, you can never see all the characters at once. (Levana imagines that if she had a small, cone-shaped mirror, she might.)
"Thirty-two signs dance around the rim," Elnura says, "but it is the space in the middle that makes it useful."
"Will it ever run out of ways to arrange the letters?" Levana asks.
"It will take eight thousand trillion trillion years."
"Mama, did you ever wear this ring?"
It is the question Elnura has been waiting for. "Yes," she says, "in the old days, that is. Among my people. Before you -- before we became acquainted with the people of the Plains Tribe, and your Kingdom. I was known as a seer, one who knew how to use the ring, how to see dreams and look into the Void. I used the Ring often in those days." Here she pauses again. "I used it again last night."
"What did you see?"
Elnura stands up and does not answer at first. "Some things," she says finally. "I saw some things." She takes the ring back gently and puts it in her pocket. "I love you," she says to Levana, and leaves, telling the servants that she's taking a little walk.
The next day they learn that Elnura has traveled to the Great Fissure and thrown herself in.
The following night a servant whom Levana does not recognize, and will not see again, gives her a parcel wrapped in purple velvet. It is the Ring.
From then on, she keeps it in her shoe; she knows he will never look there. Sometimes she carries it in her pocket, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. Occasionally her fingertips will slip into the open space. When this happens she feels a pleasant tingling shoot up her arm and into her head. There is a sense of weightlessness. She finds the experience delicious but avoids this violation as much as possible; she feels it is unfair to the Ring to tease it in this way.
Mostly she just looks at it, watching the letters. Sometimes they form words, or almost form words. During the tedious shows and entertainments that are supposed to make her evenings lively, she looks at the Ring, keeping it cupped in her hands. In the tiny hours of the heavy mornings, she reads it in the moonlight.
Once a few of the characters arrange themselves to form FREDOMS, which is almost freedom but the letters are wrong. The next moment it becomes SERFDOM, and then the letters return to chaos.
*
It is after midnight. She snaps the brass latch on her goatskin satchel, and looks around at the rejected items of clothing strewn about. Picking up a delicate hair ribbon, she almost yields to the urge to tidy up, then thinks better of it. The ribbon falls to the floor.
She has heard from Hanna and Shira.
Hanna, the eldest: "I guess you know what you're doing to us. After you left, Shira and I got the Middle Province divided up between us, and with it the care of the Palace Compound. You know he wouldn't keep anything for himself -- that means we're going to have to look after him the rest of his life. I guess you got even."
And Shira: "Well I hope you're proud of yourself. Our father is devastated. Do you have any idea what you've done to him? If you have any decency you'll promise you'll forget about that foreigner and stay home where you belong. Then maybe, maybe he'll take you back."
Her life is ending and beginning. She feels like a long-festering sore that has been gashed and is at last beginning to bleed. It does no good to try to re-think her words of the day gone by. She thinks of begging Avishai to take her back, she thinks if she offers to forget Gallius perhaps he will.
Now she stares at the ring, which seems for the first time to have turned a frosty silver. She needs more than endless recombinations of the same signs. Only the transcendent vision of the wise women of the Mountain Tribe will do now. She imagines herself in the coarse, splendid, traditional woolen robes she has sometimes seen her mother wear. She decides that this is a time for seeing deeply into things. And as the warm glow surges from finger to arm to brain and suffuses her body, she understands why night, with its emptiness, is the mother of dreams.
Clouds obscure the starlight, and the plain is lit only by occasional flashes of gunfire. Two great armies are poised to clash, but her business is not with them. She is leading a Gallian commando unit in some sort of search-and-capture mission. She sees an outline in the night: it is the enemy leader, pathetic and helpless, and he will not be killed, but captured, as in a chess game, it is more satisfying that way.... The scene fades into a parade, it must be a victory celebration, she is marching with soldiers all around her...and now she is speaking with a great sage, discussing the mystery of things in the cell of some kind of monastery.... And finally she sees herself with an old man at her feet, raised up high as if on a throne, suspended in the air.
And then comes the kiss of the Void.
It could swallow you. It could tear you apart from the inside. She feels the weight of a vacuum in her body, and then the vacuum explodes and she feels she is both giving birth and being born, being crushed and turned inside out. For a moment, she sees her body lying on the bed, thinks how trivial and ugly it looks, like a rag doll that a child has dragged through the mud. Then everything dissolves into a flaming circle, and she passes through the center and finds peace.
After vision comes memory. Levana lies on the bed, rumpled now and damp with sweat, feels the ring icy on her finger, its power spent for now. Having seen the future, she feels she has already stepped outside of the Palace compound. Looking back, she sees things she has always overlooked, or things to which she has closed her eyes.
Memories come with a vengeance.
-- Her mother is speaking to Avishai, perhaps Levana is eight or nine. Elnura is saying, "Why don't you ever let the girls out of the compound? They need to see things, they need to travel." Avishai: "They have all they need. I provide them with everything." Elnura: "The same way you provide for your people! Yes, I've seen the way you treat your people. I've seen the slaves in the factories, chained to the machines, with electrodes in their heads to keep them from thinking evil thoughts...." Avishai raises a single finger in denial: "Those are not slaves! They are contract laborers. Slavery is against the law -- I signed the order myself!"
-- Hanna and Shira and the cruel games they played on her. And the way they looked when they did not know she was looking, haunted and scared.
-- Washing his feet. Of all the tasks that she has been given since her mother's death, this is the worst. She must kneel before him with the basin. Once, only once, she dares to ask, "Couldn't you get a maidservant to do this for you?" He is not angry; he simply looks wounded. "I thought you loved me, Leva," he says.
-- At thirteen she is too old to put flowers in her hair but she still does. She thinks she is alone in the garden. A voice from behind startles her: "You look so beautiful with flowers," he says, and starts caressing her shoulders. "You should wear them more often. Why are you so tense, little girl?" She never wears flowers again.
Now everything is clear, and freedom is a lighthouse on the horizon, a beacon over the Great Sea, and it shines on the filthy stones of the Palace Compound and calls to her. And to hell with the rest of them.
*
Seen from the outside, the Palace looks small, a grey mass nesting in the walled Compound on the mountainside like a pigeon. A road runs down the mountain to the city, but the road is hard to see, as if the mountain covers it. A small path, much steeper and shorter, leads from the Palace to the seashore. Levana looks back up at this path for the last time, and smiles at what she sees.
As he walks down the path to meet her, she can see he's carrying something, he's got his arms behind his back and he's picking his way carefully among the rocks with his feet. As he walks toward her she sees he is trying to recreate the mischievous grin that she used to love in spite of herself, but now he only manages to look desperate. So he is going to give her a gift. Very nice. She has something for him too.
"Something to remember me by," he says as he produces the bouquet of flowers. His taste for melodrama has not abandoned him. Politely, if a bit stiffly, she puts one hand out to take them.
She locks eyes with him and reaches inside her tunic, pausing just for a moment. "Put out your hand."
She gives him the gift, presses it into his trembling palm. She closes her eyes and forms one word in her mind: slowly. It is the only time she has ever prayed.
The path to the Palace rises and winds through the rocks, twisting like a plume of smoke. Levana turns to look back at it, and at her father. He holds the ring, incredulous, staring into her eyes and past them.
"Keep it," she tells him as gently as she can. "Mother would have wanted you to have it. It shows you the beginnings and the endings of things."
"How will I know which is which?"
"'Their end is embedded in their beginning, and their beginning in their end,'" she says, quoting the Book of Creation.
She sees he has seen something in the distance. She looks over her shoulder. It is the flyer from Gallia, now gliding over the water, now coming to rest and hovering over the sand. Two or three armed men in berets and black shirts get out and wait beside the vehicle. Its sleek, foreign design reminds her of a seashell.
The flowers. Their smell rises to her nose, nauseating her. She thinks: Even now he wants me to be his girlfriend. The old pervert. Their colors are lurid, obscene, like all the secret vices of the earth.
He's watching her. He's studying me, she thinks, trying to memorize the way I look. Let him. He will soon have enough on his mind. Yes, he is fingering the Ring already, stroking it. She turns away from him, looks down at the flowers.
"Leva," he calls plaintively. "You're going away."
She doesn't turn to answer him, doesn't even care if the wind carries her words back to him, or where it takes the flowers she throws into the sky. "Everything goes away."
She walks a few paces, and looks back for the last time, and he's motionless, just watching her go. He's not looking at her anymore, but at his idea of her. Now he can no longer see even that. In his mind's eye, she is already gone across the big water.
Now he sees nothing.
"The Zero Ring" copyright (c) 2004 by Asher Abrams.
All rights reserved.
A post about my father,
World War II, and Vietnam is currently offline because I think it still needs a little tweaking.
This is a very important subject for me and I want to be sure i get it right. Stay tuned.
This is a very important subject for me and I want to be sure i get it right. Stay tuned.
2004-11-03
The Next Generation ...
... has just earned his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do. Just got the word from his mom, down in California. And he'll be coming up here to visit over Thanksgiving weekend - that's going to be fun!
2004-11-02
I did it!
Just got back from the Multnomah County, Oregon election office, where I placed my votes in favor of President Bush, in favor of Goli Ameri, and against Oregon Measure 36.
On the cab ride (both there and back) I had to endure Al Franken on the radio, which I suppose somehow balances out the time I had to listen to Dr. Laura *spit* Schlessinger.
Now, having done my patriotic duty as a citizen of the United States, I must move on to other things. Like paying the rent. I know I left that checkbook around here ... somewhere ....................
On the cab ride (both there and back) I had to endure Al Franken on the radio, which I suppose somehow balances out the time I had to listen to Dr. Laura *spit* Schlessinger.
Now, having done my patriotic duty as a citizen of the United States, I must move on to other things. Like paying the rent. I know I left that checkbook around here ... somewhere ....................
Update
So there it is, just to your right, appearing in honor of Election Day: my spiffy new sidebar. I've added quite a few new links, and organized it just a bit, so please feel free to explore.
The sidebar reflects most of my major interests: current events, feminism, human rights, gender, science. I've also added some internal links, reflecting the fact that Dreams Into Lightning is now six months old and has accumulated a modest amount of material.
THE PORTLAND MUKHABARAT (thanks to MJT for that great phrase) includes: Michael J. Totten himself; Emily at Strangechord, who was among a class at Portland State that I was invited to address (thank you Prof. Liebman); Auntie Cracker, who sent me some words of encouragement on my blog; and Alas, a Blog and Jason Holliston, both of whom I owe to MJT.
WOMEN now includes links to Curve and Girlfriends magazines, and also to the We'Moon homepage. Of the numerous women's communes that flourished in Oregon since the late 1970s, We'Moon has been one of the most successful, and their famous datebook calendars are now available in color.
ACTIVIST AND HUMANITARIAN will be getting more links soon; keep an eye out.
POLITICAL AND NON-POLITICAL BLOGS is just that, and in no particular order. (A few of the links aren't technically "blogs".) I've added a few, some new and some long-overdue.
GYPSIES, QUEERS, AND DAVID'S STARS takes its title from a line in Amy Ray's wonderfully twisted version of the folk classic, "This Train Revised", performed by The Indigo Girls. (It's the last track on the Indigo Girls' utterly sublime album "Swamp Ophelia".)
Skipping down to MISSED OPPORTUNITIES, these are some of my more important posts from Dreams Into Lightning. ORIGINAL FICTION is just that; I'm hoping to get some new pieces going after the election is over. And for those who just can't get ENOUGH OF ME, I'm collecting my longer posts and series at "Dreams Into Lightning Amalgamated" (thanks to Canadian Headhunter Michael for that great word). Currently playing at DiL Amalgamated: complete "New Republican" series.
I'll continue to update and upgrade my sidebar as time permits. Stay tuned.
The sidebar reflects most of my major interests: current events, feminism, human rights, gender, science. I've also added some internal links, reflecting the fact that Dreams Into Lightning is now six months old and has accumulated a modest amount of material.
THE PORTLAND MUKHABARAT (thanks to MJT for that great phrase) includes: Michael J. Totten himself; Emily at Strangechord, who was among a class at Portland State that I was invited to address (thank you Prof. Liebman); Auntie Cracker, who sent me some words of encouragement on my blog; and Alas, a Blog and Jason Holliston, both of whom I owe to MJT.
WOMEN now includes links to Curve and Girlfriends magazines, and also to the We'Moon homepage. Of the numerous women's communes that flourished in Oregon since the late 1970s, We'Moon has been one of the most successful, and their famous datebook calendars are now available in color.
ACTIVIST AND HUMANITARIAN will be getting more links soon; keep an eye out.
POLITICAL AND NON-POLITICAL BLOGS is just that, and in no particular order. (A few of the links aren't technically "blogs".) I've added a few, some new and some long-overdue.
GYPSIES, QUEERS, AND DAVID'S STARS takes its title from a line in Amy Ray's wonderfully twisted version of the folk classic, "This Train Revised", performed by The Indigo Girls. (It's the last track on the Indigo Girls' utterly sublime album "Swamp Ophelia".)
Skipping down to MISSED OPPORTUNITIES, these are some of my more important posts from Dreams Into Lightning. ORIGINAL FICTION is just that; I'm hoping to get some new pieces going after the election is over. And for those who just can't get ENOUGH OF ME, I'm collecting my longer posts and series at "Dreams Into Lightning Amalgamated" (thanks to Canadian Headhunter Michael for that great word). Currently playing at DiL Amalgamated: complete "New Republican" series.
I'll continue to update and upgrade my sidebar as time permits. Stay tuned.
2004-11-01
The Blogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves
Well, let me try to move on to a positive note. A very dear friend of mine in San Francisco recently announced that she is voting for Bush. B. and I have known each other for about seven years, and we've had many incredible conversations. She's a highly intelligent, independent-minded person. I had told her that I was voting for Bush, and why, but never pushed her to agree with me. But once she got internet access, she started reading this site and others, and chose to become better informed. What finally changed her mind was a TV interview with Michael DeLong, author of "Inside CENTCOM", which explained a lot about the Iraq war and put things in perspective for her. She has also begun noticing the media bias! Like me, B. disagrees with President Bush on many issues, but she understands that he is the only candidate with the will, the character, the resolve, and the ideas to see America and the world through this difficult time.
Here in Portland, my friend G. hasn't changed her pro-Kerry position (again, I've never pushed her to) but she has shown a genuine interest in learning more about what's happening. This, for me, is the most important thing. I wish more people had this attitude. If you are reading this blog, I hope you feel the same way.
Here in Portland, my friend G. hasn't changed her pro-Kerry position (again, I've never pushed her to) but she has shown a genuine interest in learning more about what's happening. This, for me, is the most important thing. I wish more people had this attitude. If you are reading this blog, I hope you feel the same way.
A Few Final Thoughts
... before the election.
I'm tired of writing about politics, but we're not done yet. It ain't over 'til Fat Boy howls in anguish, which, G-d and the American people willing, will be very soon.
I received a last-minute pro-Kerry e-mail from some well-meaning friends in San Francisco. They sent me editorials by Alan Dershowitz and Rabbi Avi Wikonur. I spent the morning composing a lengthy rebuttal in my head, but at this point, frankly, I haven't got the energy.
Let me say what I really mean. I haven't got the patience to plod through the same arguments again and again. I sit in front of this computer every day, sometimes for 6 or 8 hours at a stretch, and I've heard every argument there is. There isn't anything Dershowitz or Wikonur can say that I haven't heard already.
There is only one candidate who cares about making the Mideast, and the world, a better place. Perhaps Kerry actually believes his own insane claims that the Iranian mullahs will be induced, through gentle persuasion, to give up their nuclear ambitions. Kerry, in fact, seems to have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality, which is the single thing about him that disturbs me the most.
I'm rambling. I don't know what else to say right now. I feel like I should have some profound thoughts on the eve of the election, but I'm just numb. I'm numb, and I don't know what to say.
I'm tired of writing about politics, but we're not done yet. It ain't over 'til Fat Boy howls in anguish, which, G-d and the American people willing, will be very soon.
I received a last-minute pro-Kerry e-mail from some well-meaning friends in San Francisco. They sent me editorials by Alan Dershowitz and Rabbi Avi Wikonur. I spent the morning composing a lengthy rebuttal in my head, but at this point, frankly, I haven't got the energy.
Let me say what I really mean. I haven't got the patience to plod through the same arguments again and again. I sit in front of this computer every day, sometimes for 6 or 8 hours at a stretch, and I've heard every argument there is. There isn't anything Dershowitz or Wikonur can say that I haven't heard already.
There is only one candidate who cares about making the Mideast, and the world, a better place. Perhaps Kerry actually believes his own insane claims that the Iranian mullahs will be induced, through gentle persuasion, to give up their nuclear ambitions. Kerry, in fact, seems to have a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality, which is the single thing about him that disturbs me the most.
I'm rambling. I don't know what else to say right now. I feel like I should have some profound thoughts on the eve of the election, but I'm just numb. I'm numb, and I don't know what to say.
Update
My blogroll is now in some remote semblance of order, although it still needs a lot of work. But please take a look, I've sorted out my links a bit, and, even more important, added some new ones.
I don't have time to post this morning, got to get to class. (M/W/F: Calculus and Women's Studies. Tu/Th: Early American Literature.) Hope to post a little this afternoon if time permits.
And BTW, thanks to everyone who has taken time out of their busy schedule (even if just 2 seconds!) to visit Dreams Into Lightning over the past six months. Feel free to post a comment here, if you have any questions or if there's something you'd like to see more/less of, or if you just want to chat.
Catch you later ...
I don't have time to post this morning, got to get to class. (M/W/F: Calculus and Women's Studies. Tu/Th: Early American Literature.) Hope to post a little this afternoon if time permits.
And BTW, thanks to everyone who has taken time out of their busy schedule (even if just 2 seconds!) to visit Dreams Into Lightning over the past six months. Feel free to post a comment here, if you have any questions or if there's something you'd like to see more/less of, or if you just want to chat.
Catch you later ...
2004-10-31
Michael J. Totten returns ...
... to his homepage after helping to hold down the fort at Instapundit. If you scroll down on his current screen, you'll find his impressions from his stint in the upper realms of the blognoscenti, plus his sailing trip up north to Washington, and observations on the experiences of those annoying "liberals for Bush" like Christopher Hitchens and Marc (Armed Liberal) Danziger. MJT - who also wants you to know that he still reads Andrew Sullivan - speaks succinctly for many of us when he says, "despite the fact that I’ve been pushed toward to the right, I haven’t joined the right." Go read his blog.
UPDATE: Don't miss the new guest post by Danziger, The Struggle of Ideas.
UPDATE: Don't miss the new guest post by Danziger, The Struggle of Ideas.
2004-10-28
Rabin Remembered
Reflections on Yitzhak Rabin (1922-1995)
Israelis recently marked the ninth anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist named Yigal Amir.
Alison Kaplan Sommer writes:
Israelis recently marked the ninth anniversary of the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist named Yigal Amir.
Alison Kaplan Sommer writes:
Mommy, Yitzhak Rabin was killed in Tel Aviv, right? By a bad guy with a gun named Yigal Amir. And he was Jewish, too. Mommy, tell me again, why did the bad guy kill Yitzhak Rabin?”- An Unsealed Room: Rabin
It’s that time of year again.
As November rolls around, the questions begin flying thick and fast from my son Eitan — questions about Rabin’s assassination, exactly how he was killed, where he was killed, who killed him, and the hardest question to answer — why?
Eitan is seven years old — he was born in September 1996, 10 months after Rabin’s assassination in November 1995. He never lived at the same time as Rabin.
Yet — with all the ceremonies, memorial rallies, and class lessons about his life, through the ever-growing number of schools, parks, roads, and buildings named after him — Yitzhak Rabin is vivid and real and familiar to my son — much more so than today’s politicians.
Eitan can regale you with stories about Rabin’s childhood, where he went to school, his army career. But mainly, he can tell you the details of the assassination — the date it happened, the location — how Rabin was approached, how many shots were fired. He knows that the man who killed him was named Yigal Amir, and that he was Israeli and Jewish. He knows that Amir was angry at Rabin for signing a peace agreement with the Arabs. He knows that Amir is in jail and will never get out. And yet, every year, he wants to know more.
All of this feels eerily familiar. I was born in September 1964, 10 months after the assassination of John F. Kennedy — an event now being marked with 40th anniversary commemorations. At Eitan’s age, I, too, could rattle off stories of the Kennedy clan, recount the drama of Oswald and Ruby, describe where the grassy knoll was located and the color of the suit Jackie Kennedy was wearing that was splashed with her husband’s blood. ...
Sharon's Gaza Plan Moves Ahead
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon scored a major political victory on October 26, with the Knesset's passage (by 67 votes to 45) of his controversial Gaza withdrawal plan. An earlier post on the subject can be found here: Disengagement.
I haven't blogged a lot on Israel/Palestine issues, mostly because Iraq and Iran have been occupying the geopolitical center stage at Dreams Into Lightning. Also, I don't believe the Palestinian/Israeli issue will be resolved in Jerusalem or Ramallah, because the problem really lies in Tehran, Damascus, and Cairo. As long as these foreign regimes are in power, they will do everything they can to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians impossible.
Also, my opinions on Palestine and Israel are not quite as clear-cut as they are on Iran and Iraq. But I feel I can say a few things with confidence, so I'll say them here.
I think President Bush is on the right track. People who see Sharon and Bush as being ideological twins, and those who see Sharon as Bush's "lapdog" (or, depending on how anti-Semitic they are, who see Bush as Sharon's lapdog), simply don't know what they are talking about. Sharon is traditionally a hardliner, and he has come toward an accommodation with the Palestinians after a long, hard struggle. President Bush - the first US President to explicitly call for the recognition of a Palestinian state - has also been leaning very hard on Sharon to plan for a withdrawal from Gaza, and to evacuate unauthorized Jewish settlements.
Both Sharon and Bush have been facing stiff opposition from hardliners on the Right. By pursuing his disengagement plan, Ariel Sharon is risking his political career - and, as the ninth anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination reminds us, perhaps more than that. Sharon cannot act without his government's consent, which often has not been forthcoming. President Bush, too, faces opposition from conservatives who accuse him of being "soft on the Palestinians".
Bush isn't going to get everything he wants from Sharon, and Sharon isn't going to get everything he wants from his government. There are no lapdogs in this picture - just a collectioin of factions with different goals and occasionally overlapping interests.
The folks at Debka have made no secret of their opposition to Gaza withdrawal and settlement evacuation. Now I don't claim to be a Mideast expert and I don't have to worry about Qassam missiles hitting Oregon, but I do understand the Israelis' concerns about a militarized Palestinian state in either the West Bank or Gaza.
Still, Israel can only be Israel. The goal of statehood - and I mean Israeli statehood - must be to secure borders: In here, it is our land; out there, it is your land. Any Palestinian-Israeli agreement must work concretely toward that end.
Danny at The Head Heeb offers some helpful comments. I'll quote the central paragraph of his reflection on Rabin:
Go read the whole post at The Head Heeb: Rabin's Legacy.
I haven't blogged a lot on Israel/Palestine issues, mostly because Iraq and Iran have been occupying the geopolitical center stage at Dreams Into Lightning. Also, I don't believe the Palestinian/Israeli issue will be resolved in Jerusalem or Ramallah, because the problem really lies in Tehran, Damascus, and Cairo. As long as these foreign regimes are in power, they will do everything they can to make peace between Israelis and Palestinians impossible.
Also, my opinions on Palestine and Israel are not quite as clear-cut as they are on Iran and Iraq. But I feel I can say a few things with confidence, so I'll say them here.
I think President Bush is on the right track. People who see Sharon and Bush as being ideological twins, and those who see Sharon as Bush's "lapdog" (or, depending on how anti-Semitic they are, who see Bush as Sharon's lapdog), simply don't know what they are talking about. Sharon is traditionally a hardliner, and he has come toward an accommodation with the Palestinians after a long, hard struggle. President Bush - the first US President to explicitly call for the recognition of a Palestinian state - has also been leaning very hard on Sharon to plan for a withdrawal from Gaza, and to evacuate unauthorized Jewish settlements.
Both Sharon and Bush have been facing stiff opposition from hardliners on the Right. By pursuing his disengagement plan, Ariel Sharon is risking his political career - and, as the ninth anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination reminds us, perhaps more than that. Sharon cannot act without his government's consent, which often has not been forthcoming. President Bush, too, faces opposition from conservatives who accuse him of being "soft on the Palestinians".
Bush isn't going to get everything he wants from Sharon, and Sharon isn't going to get everything he wants from his government. There are no lapdogs in this picture - just a collectioin of factions with different goals and occasionally overlapping interests.
The folks at Debka have made no secret of their opposition to Gaza withdrawal and settlement evacuation. Now I don't claim to be a Mideast expert and I don't have to worry about Qassam missiles hitting Oregon, but I do understand the Israelis' concerns about a militarized Palestinian state in either the West Bank or Gaza.
Still, Israel can only be Israel. The goal of statehood - and I mean Israeli statehood - must be to secure borders: In here, it is our land; out there, it is your land. Any Palestinian-Israeli agreement must work concretely toward that end.
Danny at The Head Heeb offers some helpful comments. I'll quote the central paragraph of his reflection on Rabin:
On Rabin’s Jahrzeit, one talks a lot of “Rabin’s legacy” which usually means the Oslo agreements. How do those agreements look from retrospect? Overall the outcome cannot be positive. It was a bold gamble, and it was largely unsuccessful. The agreements attempted to reverse drastically the way in which Israel, and beforehand the Zionist movement, approached the Arabs since the 1920s; reverse the logic of Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall”, which though serving Israel well in the past, was now proving harmful. This change has been very hard to implement. It turns out that certain elements of “Iron Wall” thinking has remained sound; as I mentioned above, the jury is still out about whether ‘land-for-peace’ is a workable formula (the jury should always be out on this issue as long as Israel is in the OT. What else is there?). What Oslo did make clear is that the “Iron Wall” which controlled the lives of millions of Palestinians, could simply not be maintained (indeed another way of looking at Oslo is as an acknowledgement of defeat in the first Intifada posing as a peace agreement – it was a shame that it relied on Arafat). The moderate Right has also come around to this point of view, which is why Sharon is promoting disengagement.
Go read the whole post at The Head Heeb: Rabin's Legacy.
Belmont Club: What Arafat Forgot
'Palestine was cursed by the example of Algeria, which after evicting the French, could spend the next three decades cleansing itself of the poisons of terrorism. Arafat forgot that the Jews, unlike the French in Algeria, were as much a part of region as themselves. In place of protracted war, which at all events ends, Arafat embarked upon an eternal war with the eternal Jew. He would enter Algeria's tunnel of terror with no light at the end of it.
The Intifada may have hurt Israel, but it consumed Palestine...'
Read Wretchard's full post "The Noonday Train" at Belmont Club.
The Intifada may have hurt Israel, but it consumed Palestine...'
Read Wretchard's full post "The Noonday Train" at Belmont Club.
2004-10-24
Afghan Women Lead the Way
Hat tip: Rickvid in Seattle, at the Healing Iraq comments.
Barbara Walters of 20/20 did a story on gender roles in Kabul several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked about 5 paces behind their husbands.
She returned to Kabul recently and observed that women still walk behind their husbands, but now seem to walk even further back and are happy with the old custom.
Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why do you now seem happy with the old custom that you used to try and change?"
"Land mines," whispered the woman.
MORAL: BEHIND EVERY MAN -- WAY BEHIND -- IS A SMART WOMAN!!!!
Barbara Walters of 20/20 did a story on gender roles in Kabul several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked about 5 paces behind their husbands.
She returned to Kabul recently and observed that women still walk behind their husbands, but now seem to walk even further back and are happy with the old custom.
Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why do you now seem happy with the old custom that you used to try and change?"
"Land mines," whispered the woman.
MORAL: BEHIND EVERY MAN -- WAY BEHIND -- IS A SMART WOMAN!!!!
2004-10-20
A Year of Healing Iraq
This past week marked the first anniversary of the blog Healing Iraq by Zeyad. The first post is dated October 15, 2003 and was posted on October 17. "Healing Iraq" was the first blog to open the window for Westerners on the Iraqi people's yearning for freedom. Zeyad has posted some very important articles on Iraqi history and culture as well. Go check out Healing Iraq.
2004-10-15
Where Wings Take Dream
If you'll look QUICKLY at the bottom of my right-hand sidebar, you might still see that the TTLB Ecosystem has promoted me to "Flappy Bird"! Well, I'm just chirping with joy. I zoomed RIGHT PAST the Reptile stage this time around ...
Of course I know this particular evolutionary burst is probably just an artifact of having been rotated to the top of the Blogs For Bush list, so I'm currently linked on a bunch of blogs that don't even know I exist. But still. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
It feels good to be soaring among the higher realms of the blognoscenti, even if it's just for a little while.
Of course I know this particular evolutionary burst is probably just an artifact of having been rotated to the top of the Blogs For Bush list, so I'm currently linked on a bunch of blogs that don't even know I exist. But still. I'm enjoying it while it lasts.
It feels good to be soaring among the higher realms of the blognoscenti, even if it's just for a little while.
2004-10-14
LCR Responds to Presidential Debate
Log Cabin Republicans singled out Senator John Kerry's tasteless remarks on Mary Cheney for criticism, but also called on both major parties to elevate the level of dialogue on gay issues:
Log Cabin Republicans is the nation's largest organization of Republicans who support fairness, freedom, and equality for gay and lesbian Americans. LCR believes in the ideals of small government, individual rights, and individual responsibility. Visit their homepage at the link: Log Cabin Republicans
Statement by Log Cabin Executive Director Patrick Guerriero
(Washington, DC)—"Senator Kerry could have made his point about gay and lesbian Americans without mentioning the Vice-President's daughter.
However, this shouldn't distract us from the fact that President Bush, Karl Rove and other Republicans have been using gay and lesbian families as a political wedge issue in this campaign.
Log Cabin Republicans have a message for both campaigns. For Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards, you do not need to talk about the Vice President's daughter in order to discuss your positions on gay and lesbian issues. For President Bush and Karl Rove, you have a moral obligation to stop using gay and lesbian families as a political wedge issue. Our country and our party deserve better."
Log Cabin Republicans is the nation's largest organization of Republicans who support fairness, freedom, and equality for gay and lesbian Americans. LCR believes in the ideals of small government, individual rights, and individual responsibility. Visit their homepage at the link: Log Cabin Republicans
2004-10-13
The Blogging Will Continue Until Morale Improves
May I safely assume I'm not the only one whose nerves are frayed? Who finds these last few agonizing, nerve-wracking, nail-biting days of razor-close polls, well ... agonizing?
You too? Thank you, I knew I could count on your nod of assent. Then we are agreed: the next 20 days are going to be murder. But we will survive! And if we stay strong and keep up the fight, we will win.
Look, I've been watching the polls, and overall Bush is still ahead of Kerry. I'll feel a lot more comfortable when the margin is wider, but I guess that just means we've got work to do.
Remember this: our position is morally unassailable, and theirs is morally indefensible. The Dems have built up a culture of victimization over a period of years. They don't really believe that they have to actually earn votes. Many are still in denial about the consequences of misguided actions. They have so immersed themselves in their own propaganda that they can no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality. (Case in point: John Kerry. Him and that eighteen-point deer ... but I digress.)
The process that George W. Bush and his supporters have begun is, in the large sense, irreversible. The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq will never again accept dictatorships. The other peoples of the Middle East will begin making greater demands on their rulers. The United Nations has been exposed for the fraud-riddled syndicate that it is, and the big media are hemorrhaging credibility while pajama-clad citizen journalists build a network of information and dialog.
The followers of the bizarre cult called the "Democratic Party", and of its witless figurehead Kerry, will grow ever more shrill in their desperate attempts to drown out the din of cognitive dissonance. They will continue to alienate the sane and rational people among their number, and eventually the crazies will turn on one another.
Those who still believe in cultural pluralism, individual rights, and the possibility of a better society, will realize that the so-called "liberals" of today are in fact reactionaries, whose only agenda is to perpetuate fascist regimes in order to create a new crop of victims. And they will realize that there is a better way.
More and more, Americans - and especially young Americans - are growing tired of the intolerance that passes for "liberalism" and are looking for something deeper and truer. What they will find in the years to come remains to be discovered. The first step toward that discovery will come on Election Day.
G-d bless America.
You too? Thank you, I knew I could count on your nod of assent. Then we are agreed: the next 20 days are going to be murder. But we will survive! And if we stay strong and keep up the fight, we will win.
Look, I've been watching the polls, and overall Bush is still ahead of Kerry. I'll feel a lot more comfortable when the margin is wider, but I guess that just means we've got work to do.
Remember this: our position is morally unassailable, and theirs is morally indefensible. The Dems have built up a culture of victimization over a period of years. They don't really believe that they have to actually earn votes. Many are still in denial about the consequences of misguided actions. They have so immersed themselves in their own propaganda that they can no longer distinguish between fantasy and reality. (Case in point: John Kerry. Him and that eighteen-point deer ... but I digress.)
The process that George W. Bush and his supporters have begun is, in the large sense, irreversible. The peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq will never again accept dictatorships. The other peoples of the Middle East will begin making greater demands on their rulers. The United Nations has been exposed for the fraud-riddled syndicate that it is, and the big media are hemorrhaging credibility while pajama-clad citizen journalists build a network of information and dialog.
The followers of the bizarre cult called the "Democratic Party", and of its witless figurehead Kerry, will grow ever more shrill in their desperate attempts to drown out the din of cognitive dissonance. They will continue to alienate the sane and rational people among their number, and eventually the crazies will turn on one another.
Those who still believe in cultural pluralism, individual rights, and the possibility of a better society, will realize that the so-called "liberals" of today are in fact reactionaries, whose only agenda is to perpetuate fascist regimes in order to create a new crop of victims. And they will realize that there is a better way.
More and more, Americans - and especially young Americans - are growing tired of the intolerance that passes for "liberalism" and are looking for something deeper and truer. What they will find in the years to come remains to be discovered. The first step toward that discovery will come on Election Day.
G-d bless America.
2004-10-10
Bereshith
I've already posted my commentary on the first weekly portion in the Torah, but I want to add a few quick thoughts.
It's often said that the story of the fall from Paradise is the story of the loss of innocence. And so it is, but I would suggest that it is the loss of "innocence" in the political sense, that is, a negative kind of innocence. What is lost is the "innocence" of the slave, that is, one without the freedom to make moral choices. It is an innocence of ignorance, an innocence of powerlessness, an innocence of victimhood.
But this innocence is not merely lost - it is actively rejected. For better or worse, this is the kind of creature we are: we insist on making our own decisions, even at the risk of making bad ones. We want to be like the Divinity in this way, "knowing good and evil". And it is indeed a mixed blessing, because the Tree of Knowledge is described as "the Tree of Knowledge - good and evil". Not "the tree of knowledge of good and evil"; that is a mistranslation. (In that case, the Hebrew should read "etz da'ath ha-tov ve-ha-ra'." But that's not what it says; it says "etz ha-da'ath, tov ve-ra'.")
With power comes responsibility. It is in our nature to seek both. To shirk the burden of justice is the worst kind of cowardice. As human beings, we are born into a covenant: we must act as creatures who know good and evil, and not close our eyes.
It's often said that the story of the fall from Paradise is the story of the loss of innocence. And so it is, but I would suggest that it is the loss of "innocence" in the political sense, that is, a negative kind of innocence. What is lost is the "innocence" of the slave, that is, one without the freedom to make moral choices. It is an innocence of ignorance, an innocence of powerlessness, an innocence of victimhood.
But this innocence is not merely lost - it is actively rejected. For better or worse, this is the kind of creature we are: we insist on making our own decisions, even at the risk of making bad ones. We want to be like the Divinity in this way, "knowing good and evil". And it is indeed a mixed blessing, because the Tree of Knowledge is described as "the Tree of Knowledge - good and evil". Not "the tree of knowledge of good and evil"; that is a mistranslation. (In that case, the Hebrew should read "etz da'ath ha-tov ve-ha-ra'." But that's not what it says; it says "etz ha-da'ath, tov ve-ra'.")
With power comes responsibility. It is in our nature to seek both. To shirk the burden of justice is the worst kind of cowardice. As human beings, we are born into a covenant: we must act as creatures who know good and evil, and not close our eyes.
2004-10-05
The Rose of Paradise
The Rose of Paradise: fiction by Asher Abrams
_________________________________
and your desire shall be for your husband
The Shadow
With the first shafts of light piercing the land and the sky, even before she can make out the shape of the land, already there is a silent rushing, and a feel of something taking flight. And as the morning breeze begins to rustle its feathers in the treetops, she thinks that, for a moment, she can still see the Void, endless and pure, hiding behind the dome of the still-dark sky in the west. And now she can see the shadow of its wings, vanishing into the land beyond the sky. And the day comes.
From the hilltop, looking into the abyss above, she can see with her inner sight, and she can see past the veil that shrouds the world. In the form of a flower, she sees the rhythm of things: creation, emergence, communion, culmination, and rebirth. She sees all of the land, and the living things on it. She can see beyond the land to the great ocean far away, and she can see all the creatures in its depths: the fish, the whales, and the Great Serpent, Tahmatu, who has made her home in the sea-bed since the beginning of time. Looking at the moon, she sees its form reflected in the round shape of an apple hanging from a branch, and in an instant grasps the mystery that holds the apple and the moon in their places. She sees how the stars came to their places in the sky, and the secret codes they spell out in the night. As the lights in the sky travel in their courses, she counts their cycles, and their patterns grow into a glowing tree in her mind; and sometimes she can hear the tree singing to her. And beyond it all, outside and inside, wrapped in layer on layer of mystery, she sees the gateway to the Void and to the only feeling of peace she knows.
This is the story of how it all happened -- the woman and the man and the garden they left behind. And though you may have heard this story before, there are still some parts that need to be told. For storytelling is only the memory of creation: the different arts by which storytelling is practiced are changes, not from the unknown to the known, but from the unremembered to the remembered. And so it was with Eve in these early days: for there was no one to tell her stories, and all she knew was what she saw around her, and what she dreamed. And there was that which she remembered, drawn from her fading memory as from a dream, brought forth from the Wells of Silence the way a bird draws a fish from the still waters of a lake. And so, with the morning sun and the waning of the night’s mystic trance, she remembers dimly how things were at the beginning: the chaos of elements, space and time, matter and energy. This chaos gathered into a great and hollow sphere, a vessel awaiting its moment of bursting. And then the light came, and then the light became the world. And the world would always rejoice in the coming of light.
But the darkness was already there.
The Garden
The land is called Ediin. You pronounce the word with a catch in your throat, as if you are choking on dust. It’s a land of sand and mud, mountains and rocks. Stand here and you will remember that the earth is your origin, the Gate of Mercy through which you came to exist. Stand here, and you will remember that the earth is also your Gate of Mystery, that aperture through which you will pass and be seen no more.
The garden isn’t like any place you’ve ever been. Set in the wilderness of Ediin, it’s a place that speaks its own language. Outside, the land stretches into sparse grass, shrub, and ultimately desert in one direction; and in another, trees become a forbidding forest. Inside, there is comfort and fertility; the garden is a part of Ediin, but it is also apart from it. It is its own world. There is a presence that envelops the garden and gives it life, an invisible mist that spreads from the center of the garden the way the scent of a rose spreads from the blossom. The garden itself has a kind of design, even an intelligence to it. It is not a geometric plot, like the gardens you might see in a city today; it has the complexity of an organism, and it seems even to have its own mind. Its own soul.
From the far wastelands of Ediin there comes a river, and it spreads from the garden to the four corners of the world. These will trickle into streams and lakes and wetlands far away. The garden is a crossroads, a place of meetings and a link between this world and the other. To live there is to live suspended between worlds.
Eve has discovered something in the garden. It is not beautiful: it has an ungainly size and shape, and a certain unfinished feel about it. But it is human, like herself: its face seems to say I can dream, and its hands say I can do. Because it is part of what is human, she calls it Man. The man wakens, and begins to speak. I am like you, he says, and from then on his name is Adam. She is not sure, but she thinks she has dreamed the man. She wonders if she will ever wake up.
She thinks she has dreamed the man, and he thinks he has dreamed her. They call their world Paradise, which means orchard or sacred space. They listen to its voice, which does not speak in words and perhaps comes through the garden from some place far beyond. They understand that the garden is theirs, to tend and to protect. But to protect from what?
Now you should know that there were other people in the world then, too, but they were not really there, which is to say, they were not alive inside the way Eve and Adam were. So while Adam and Eve were not the only people, they were alone.
They walk for miles. They walk for days at a time, sometimes together and sometimes each alone, around the fertile land that is bounded by plains, forests, and rivers. They find a great river, too big to cross. Eve looks across it, wondering what is on the other side. Adam looks down it, wondering where it flows. She turns away, he lingers. He has seen something: a footprint, as large and as heavy as his own. Then he goes.
No one, from that time until today, has ever been so full of wonder and joy as they were in their world. Adam loves the distances, he wanders far beyond the garden into the wasteland, dreams of the day when he can scale those mountains. Eve studies the colors of the garden: red, rooted and earthy, and the blue that speaks of the sky; the warm passion of yellow and the bliss of violet. And all around, the green heartbeat of the garden, and the faint azure glow that surrounds it like an intangible membrane, visible only at the edges of sight.
Far down the river, Adam has discovered other people. He has seen them, heard them, walked among them in one of their villages. He has seen women, men, and children. He has seen people dying and giving birth. Yet they have not seen him. He has walked unnoticed, like a specter. He has spoken, shouted and cursed, stolen from them, all to no effect. So he accepts his life as a spy and learns what there is to know about them.
He learns that they are simple people: their way of seeing the world and moving in it is not like his own. They move like water, leaving no trace or disturbance, seemingly impelled by some subtle force. The animals do not fear them. For a moment, he wonders how he himself can frighten animals while remaining invisible to the villagers. Then he understands that they do not see him because they choose not to.
They live in dwellings of dried grass, with roofs of leaves and branches so insubstantial that you can see the sky through them. He can understand their speech, but it is a crude dialect of the language he speaks with Eve. They have no numbers, they can only say “one” and “many.” They know little of building, cooking, or tending plants. They do not venture beyond the boundaries of their settlements, and though they live in the wasteland, they show no inclination to explore the orchards of the land he shares with Eve. (Except, he thinks, that one who left his footprint in the mud so near our home.) They lack ambition. There is a childlike innocence about them, and they fear the dark as children do. Their presence troubles him, and he says nothing of them to Eve. Eventually he loses interest in the villagers. They have nothing to teach him.
The Night
The Spirit Throne rests in a sacred chamber in the highest heaven. It is shaped like a cube with thirty-two sides, six feet wide on the outside and six billion light-years wide on the inside. Its radiance cascades down from the most recondite reaches of Mystery into the worlds below. All of the powers and energies of the universe, and all the human souls and all the angels, emanate from it.
Before time began, there was a certain emanation from the Spirit Throne. This emanation would not seek the higher places as the other angels did; it sought the lower reaches, which all the others despised. It sought, it circled, it flew in a spiral around the sphere of the universe from one pole to the other. Like an angled serpent, a twisting serpent, it went in search of the lower worlds. And when time began and the womb of the universe burst with being, this angel was expelled through the Gate of Mercy and descended into flesh. Long before Eve walked the earth, even before the sleepwalking villagers, this angel took form as a woman. The first woman: the angel of the night, and her name was Lilith.
Night comes, spreading its net over all the living. It shields the world from the brightness of the sun and subdues the light of the numberless stars. If you have ever been in a desert on a clear and moonless night, you know how the light of the stars can frost the surface of the land with a shadowless, silver crust, how it can take you out of your senses and make you forget who you are. And as the moon walks its course, forever falling back towards the sun from night to night, you can reach out to it and feel it pull you away from the world. Eve can feel the pulse of the moon as surely as Adam feels the sun’s heat, and she has named every one of the six thousand stars her eyes can see. By the black light of the unseen maiden moon, she bathes in the water of the longest river, the one that flows from the barren heights of Ediin, and branches out and nourishes the world.
This is the part Eve never tells Adam, the part she will spend the rest of her life trying to forget.
She has seen another woman in the garden at night. The woman is an angel, tall and strong, with long dark hair and powerful shoulders and wings. She is naked, like Eve, but around her waist she wears a sword, something Eve has never seen before, and on her body she wears gleaming golden jewelry and gemstones.
At first, Eve only sees her once or twice in a moon, and by accident. But something begins to grip Eve by the heart, pulls her out of her pallet late at night, drives her deep into the forest. Now she’s looking. She can find Lilith by her scent, wild and raunchy like a herd of animals. Some nights Eve stumbles blindly through the brush, being careful not to fall because how would she explain the bruises? Eve is as nimble as a deer and more helpless. Sometimes she has tears in her eyes when she finds her. But she always finds her.
When Lilith doesn’t appear, Eve dreams of her, prays for her to fly down from the chamber of the Spirit Throne, to come and stand beside her like a comrade. Lilith belongs to another world, and Eve tries to imagine it. It is a world on the other side of the veil, a world of peace amid the chaos like a rose among thorns.
Dimly, Eve knows that Lilith could find her if she chose, but that she prefers to make Eve come to her. Eve doesn’t care. They meet each other’s eyes, look away. And is it Eve who reaches out for the first time? Eve who touches Lilith on the arm, and then pulls back? Yes, and it is Eve who touches Lilith again, again on the arm just below the elbow, and then Lilith returns the gesture, and they stand like that for a moment, arms locked, eyes locked, scarcely breathing.
They begin to talk, slowly at first, then quickly and easily. Eve learns that Lilith is an angel, and asks her about her home in the heavens. Lilith teaches Eve many things about the earth. She knows how to melt rock into metal, the stuff jewelry and tools and weapons can be made from. “If you do it right,” she says, “you can make something that will last a thousand years.” She tries to teach this to Eve, but it is difficult. She teaches her the uses of plants and rocks, how to flake stone into tools: these things Eve remembers. The night becomes many nights.
Once Eve asks Lilith to tell her about her sword. Lilith draws its shining blade from the sheath. The blade seems to turn within itself, the way a kaleidoscope turns inside out before your eyes. “Don’t touch,” she warns.
Eve reaches out and puts her fingers on the blade. She stifles a howl, as the pain sears her fingertips burns her arm.
“This sword will not kill you. This is the blade that comes to you in sleep, to stop you from going too deep, so that you won’t be drawn into the void. Without it, you would be sucked into the land beyond.”
Eve wonders about the land beyond. Is it better than this one? She looks at Lilith, but says nothing.
How does Eve look to Lilith?
Slender and soft, like a fertile field before the rain has touched it. Her hair is fine and delicate, like the fabric the angels weave. She smells like moss and flowers and growing things. Her eyes are the eyes of a child who will never see its mother again and must find comfort in the arms of a stranger. Her lips tremble as if praying, as if asking a question, as if crying. This creature is not ready, Lilith thinks, but even the angels can lust ... yes, she must have her.
And how does Lilith look to Eve?
Beautiful and mighty, with strong arms and legs. Rich and full as a ripe fruit -- strange that one never meant to bear children should have such wide hips and full breasts. Lilith is tall, with long, thick hair -- strange, too, that a creature of heaven should have so much of earth about her. The smell of her sweat and her sex. The musty, musky odor of her wings as she moves them slowly, like the boughs of a tree in a gentle breeze. Her strong, soft fingers. Her face like an ever-changing plain and her eyes like the deeps of space. Her voice like the ocean, her touch like the wind.
Once, when the moon is dark, Lilith touches Eve’s face. “Be mine,” she says. “Come with me to a place I know. No mortal may go there, but you will be safe with me.”
At this, Eve trembles but says nothing. Something is twisting inside her, like Tahmatu beneath the waves, not breaking the surface.
And Lilith says, “Even in the darkness, you are beautiful. Come with me and be my beloved.”
And Eve still says nothing, but she feels something impossible is happening, as though the earth is swallowing her up and giving birth to her again. She looks up to the sky for answers, but the vault of the night is only a silent wall.
Now Lilith raises her hand and the garden around her seems to fade, and Eve is standing someplace else, someplace she’s never seen before, but a place that looks somehow familiar. There is a grove of apple trees with their luscious red fruit and juicy fragrance. The whole place is shadowed with roses, and a living spring bubbles from deep within the earth.
Here the evening breeze blows warm as Lilith comes into view, bearing two golden goblets, one in each hand. She kneels down and fills these from the spring. Eve feels her fingers cup around the smooth bowl of the vessel as she accepts it, trembling, from Lilith.
“Drink this and come with me,” Lilith is saying in the vision. And Eve holds the cup before her for a moment and looks into it, scrying the crystal water. The cup is full of stars.
Eve raises the cup to her lips, still gazing into it. But at that moment the vision fades. Now she is gazing into Lilith’s eyes. “Come with me,” she is saying.
“Yes,” she murmurs, barely audible, and Lilith says, her voice now low and commanding, “I can’t hear you!” and the trembling figure says again, louder, “Yes!”
But when Lilith takes one step closer, Eve runs.
The next morning she is covered with scratches, tired, and very quiet.
The Tree
Just as he is turning away from the village for what he is certain will be the last time, Adam sees a pair of eyes looking at him. There is a man standing in the bushes by the river. The man motions to Adam to join him on the riverbank. He seems to be kin to the villagers, but he shows no interest in them; perhaps he is an exile. They look at each other and Adam thinks: He is like them, but he is different too. He is like me, but he is not like me. Following the silent stranger, Adam notices his agility, and the softness of his hair. They meet each other in the afternoon, in the hot part of the day. Deep in the woods, the man shows Adam things that he has missed somehow, plants too small to see and trees too large to see. Adam, following him, can see and touch the animals that used to flee from his presence. They speak as men do, without words.
Although the man is an outsider, Adam raises no protest to his presence within the garden. Yet after a time Adam becomes uneasy: after all, it is his garden. He keeps meaning to say something, but somehow, around the man with no name, Adam forgets how to speak. And then one day he comes upon the stranger picking a plant from the garden, and this violation incenses him. With a shout, Adam rushes at him and grapples with him, arm to arm. By the side of the river they struggle. As the sun lowers and the earth becomes ruddy, the stranger sinks to his knees -- not defeated, simply surrendering. Adam stares down uncomprehending as the other man extends his right hand. He stands for a moment, then turns his back and limps away.
That night, sleeping fitfully while Eve is away on one of her lengthy walks, Adam becomes aware of something moving near him, but though he strains his eyes looking, he sees nothing. In the morning, he goes back to the river bank. There on the ground he sees something, and he understands what his silent friend was doing in the garden the day before. It is a bouquet of flowers, exquisitely arranged in a rainbow of colors and tied with a length of vine. He picks up the gift and takes it to Eve, who has been very moody lately; she is delighted. The next day he tells her he doesn’t feel like going out exploring, he’s going to stay in the camp with her. And the day after that, he goes back to the river, he’s not sure whether he’s looking for his friend or avoiding him, but it doesn’t matter. Adam never sees him again.
The garden has begun to change. Or maybe it is they who are changing. The wild places within the garden no longer call to Adam; instead, he turns his attention to the making of stone tools: hammers, axes, knives. He learns how to make a blade sharper. Eve spends more time learning how to cultivate crops: she likes things that grow where she can watch them. She begins going to bed early, but she cannot sleep. Their conversation with one another is short and functional, as it has always been, but now there is an impatience to it. They are restless, as if their thoughts are elsewhere. As if they are now visitors in this place, as if it is no longer their home.
The Tree of Knowledge stands in the eastern part of the garden. It is easy to see from afar, harder to see from close up. It is unlike anything else in the garden. Its trunk is shiny, as if made of metal or stone, and deep bronze in color, the color of flesh. Its boughs fork into branches, each bearing leaves, and each branch bearing smaller branches as well. The smallest branches of the Tree of Knowledge are like the fibers of a spider web; in fact, the tree appears surrounded by mist. It seems to be a union of opposites: earthly and heavenly, good and evil. There is something forbidding about it: it seems to say Do not eat me, do not touch me. Yet it is beautiful, and by its five leaves they know it is good to eat. And this is where Adam is standing when he looks up and sees Eve there too. And now someone else is there, too, looking at them.
Eve is looking at the tree, thinking of something she’s lost -- she’s lost something but she can’t say exactly what, except that it had something to do with life, and something to do with wisdom. Perhaps it even had something to do with death. All she is sure of is that it is missing, and now, in the fruit and in the eye of the serpent, she sees it.
The Rose
The serpent is naked, unlike all the beasts of the field: like the woman and the man, it is hairless. And it knows what none of the other animals know: that though they may be warm-blooded, yet there is something about them that is cold, cunning, and reptilian. They know how to desire, and they know how to change the world to get what they want.
Now some will tell you that the serpent spoke, but it didn’t have to: the look in its eyes was enough. Yes, the serpent is looking at that fruit, first with one eye and then with the other, while its tongue flicks in and out to taste the scent of the fruit. That round globe of delight nestled in the bushy leaves and tawny limbs of the tree, that fruit contains the universe, and the serpent knows it. And Eve knows it too.
She feels the fruit burn all the way down. It will never stop burning. The memory of the strange face in the starlight fades, and now she will only remember the undulating coils slipping through the grass. And now, and forever, this is the shape of desire.
They have both eaten, and the radiance of the Tree of Knowledge spreads from them like the glow of a new fire. Things stand out in sharp detail, and take on new meaning. They see something they have somehow overlooked all this time, right in the center of the garden. It is another tree, not like the first: it is not pleasant or desirable, and until now it would never have occurred to either of them to pay it any attention. It is a small, scrubby thing, with twisted, dark, knotty limbs and an earthy odor. Its fruits are brown and small, scarcely more than berries. But there is a potency to it, an energy that suffuses the garden like the evening mist. Unnoticed and almost unseen, it sustains the garden. Eve knows that it is the Tree of Life, and who eats of its fruit will live forever. It is the doorway to eternity, the Gate of Mercy and the Gate of Mystery. Yes, this is what she wants: to live forever in this beautiful world. She takes the fruit into her hands, and she hands it to Adam. As they touch it, they are enveloped by its fragrance -- and then they drop it to the ground as if it were a hot coal, for suddenly and too late they understand its full meaning. To live forever, yes -- but not here. To live forever, in the next world.
The fruit of the Tree of Life is death.
The fruit grows before their eyes, like a sun exploding, and its round surface becomes grooved like a pinecone. The fruit is now a great black flower, a rose whose petals reach out to devour them. They run, but the black rose keeps growing. They smell it on their bodies, they feel it behind them. Without stopping, they glance behind them and they can see its giant petals over the treetops, stretched thin and phantasmic like smoke. They run, and they know that the smell will never leave them, it will stay on them like a slow-acting poison, in their blood and in their sweat. When they look again, the Rose of Paradise is gone, and in its place, in the distance, is an angel with a sword that flashes like lightning. Eve turns, but Adam grabs her arm. They keep running.
The angel stands there watching them for a long time.
"The Rose of Paradise" copyright (c) 2004 by Asher Abrams
All rights reserved.
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and your desire shall be for your husband
The Shadow
With the first shafts of light piercing the land and the sky, even before she can make out the shape of the land, already there is a silent rushing, and a feel of something taking flight. And as the morning breeze begins to rustle its feathers in the treetops, she thinks that, for a moment, she can still see the Void, endless and pure, hiding behind the dome of the still-dark sky in the west. And now she can see the shadow of its wings, vanishing into the land beyond the sky. And the day comes.
From the hilltop, looking into the abyss above, she can see with her inner sight, and she can see past the veil that shrouds the world. In the form of a flower, she sees the rhythm of things: creation, emergence, communion, culmination, and rebirth. She sees all of the land, and the living things on it. She can see beyond the land to the great ocean far away, and she can see all the creatures in its depths: the fish, the whales, and the Great Serpent, Tahmatu, who has made her home in the sea-bed since the beginning of time. Looking at the moon, she sees its form reflected in the round shape of an apple hanging from a branch, and in an instant grasps the mystery that holds the apple and the moon in their places. She sees how the stars came to their places in the sky, and the secret codes they spell out in the night. As the lights in the sky travel in their courses, she counts their cycles, and their patterns grow into a glowing tree in her mind; and sometimes she can hear the tree singing to her. And beyond it all, outside and inside, wrapped in layer on layer of mystery, she sees the gateway to the Void and to the only feeling of peace she knows.
This is the story of how it all happened -- the woman and the man and the garden they left behind. And though you may have heard this story before, there are still some parts that need to be told. For storytelling is only the memory of creation: the different arts by which storytelling is practiced are changes, not from the unknown to the known, but from the unremembered to the remembered. And so it was with Eve in these early days: for there was no one to tell her stories, and all she knew was what she saw around her, and what she dreamed. And there was that which she remembered, drawn from her fading memory as from a dream, brought forth from the Wells of Silence the way a bird draws a fish from the still waters of a lake. And so, with the morning sun and the waning of the night’s mystic trance, she remembers dimly how things were at the beginning: the chaos of elements, space and time, matter and energy. This chaos gathered into a great and hollow sphere, a vessel awaiting its moment of bursting. And then the light came, and then the light became the world. And the world would always rejoice in the coming of light.
But the darkness was already there.
The Garden
The land is called Ediin. You pronounce the word with a catch in your throat, as if you are choking on dust. It’s a land of sand and mud, mountains and rocks. Stand here and you will remember that the earth is your origin, the Gate of Mercy through which you came to exist. Stand here, and you will remember that the earth is also your Gate of Mystery, that aperture through which you will pass and be seen no more.
The garden isn’t like any place you’ve ever been. Set in the wilderness of Ediin, it’s a place that speaks its own language. Outside, the land stretches into sparse grass, shrub, and ultimately desert in one direction; and in another, trees become a forbidding forest. Inside, there is comfort and fertility; the garden is a part of Ediin, but it is also apart from it. It is its own world. There is a presence that envelops the garden and gives it life, an invisible mist that spreads from the center of the garden the way the scent of a rose spreads from the blossom. The garden itself has a kind of design, even an intelligence to it. It is not a geometric plot, like the gardens you might see in a city today; it has the complexity of an organism, and it seems even to have its own mind. Its own soul.
From the far wastelands of Ediin there comes a river, and it spreads from the garden to the four corners of the world. These will trickle into streams and lakes and wetlands far away. The garden is a crossroads, a place of meetings and a link between this world and the other. To live there is to live suspended between worlds.
Eve has discovered something in the garden. It is not beautiful: it has an ungainly size and shape, and a certain unfinished feel about it. But it is human, like herself: its face seems to say I can dream, and its hands say I can do. Because it is part of what is human, she calls it Man. The man wakens, and begins to speak. I am like you, he says, and from then on his name is Adam. She is not sure, but she thinks she has dreamed the man. She wonders if she will ever wake up.
She thinks she has dreamed the man, and he thinks he has dreamed her. They call their world Paradise, which means orchard or sacred space. They listen to its voice, which does not speak in words and perhaps comes through the garden from some place far beyond. They understand that the garden is theirs, to tend and to protect. But to protect from what?
Now you should know that there were other people in the world then, too, but they were not really there, which is to say, they were not alive inside the way Eve and Adam were. So while Adam and Eve were not the only people, they were alone.
They walk for miles. They walk for days at a time, sometimes together and sometimes each alone, around the fertile land that is bounded by plains, forests, and rivers. They find a great river, too big to cross. Eve looks across it, wondering what is on the other side. Adam looks down it, wondering where it flows. She turns away, he lingers. He has seen something: a footprint, as large and as heavy as his own. Then he goes.
No one, from that time until today, has ever been so full of wonder and joy as they were in their world. Adam loves the distances, he wanders far beyond the garden into the wasteland, dreams of the day when he can scale those mountains. Eve studies the colors of the garden: red, rooted and earthy, and the blue that speaks of the sky; the warm passion of yellow and the bliss of violet. And all around, the green heartbeat of the garden, and the faint azure glow that surrounds it like an intangible membrane, visible only at the edges of sight.
Far down the river, Adam has discovered other people. He has seen them, heard them, walked among them in one of their villages. He has seen women, men, and children. He has seen people dying and giving birth. Yet they have not seen him. He has walked unnoticed, like a specter. He has spoken, shouted and cursed, stolen from them, all to no effect. So he accepts his life as a spy and learns what there is to know about them.
He learns that they are simple people: their way of seeing the world and moving in it is not like his own. They move like water, leaving no trace or disturbance, seemingly impelled by some subtle force. The animals do not fear them. For a moment, he wonders how he himself can frighten animals while remaining invisible to the villagers. Then he understands that they do not see him because they choose not to.
They live in dwellings of dried grass, with roofs of leaves and branches so insubstantial that you can see the sky through them. He can understand their speech, but it is a crude dialect of the language he speaks with Eve. They have no numbers, they can only say “one” and “many.” They know little of building, cooking, or tending plants. They do not venture beyond the boundaries of their settlements, and though they live in the wasteland, they show no inclination to explore the orchards of the land he shares with Eve. (Except, he thinks, that one who left his footprint in the mud so near our home.) They lack ambition. There is a childlike innocence about them, and they fear the dark as children do. Their presence troubles him, and he says nothing of them to Eve. Eventually he loses interest in the villagers. They have nothing to teach him.
The Night
The Spirit Throne rests in a sacred chamber in the highest heaven. It is shaped like a cube with thirty-two sides, six feet wide on the outside and six billion light-years wide on the inside. Its radiance cascades down from the most recondite reaches of Mystery into the worlds below. All of the powers and energies of the universe, and all the human souls and all the angels, emanate from it.
Before time began, there was a certain emanation from the Spirit Throne. This emanation would not seek the higher places as the other angels did; it sought the lower reaches, which all the others despised. It sought, it circled, it flew in a spiral around the sphere of the universe from one pole to the other. Like an angled serpent, a twisting serpent, it went in search of the lower worlds. And when time began and the womb of the universe burst with being, this angel was expelled through the Gate of Mercy and descended into flesh. Long before Eve walked the earth, even before the sleepwalking villagers, this angel took form as a woman. The first woman: the angel of the night, and her name was Lilith.
Night comes, spreading its net over all the living. It shields the world from the brightness of the sun and subdues the light of the numberless stars. If you have ever been in a desert on a clear and moonless night, you know how the light of the stars can frost the surface of the land with a shadowless, silver crust, how it can take you out of your senses and make you forget who you are. And as the moon walks its course, forever falling back towards the sun from night to night, you can reach out to it and feel it pull you away from the world. Eve can feel the pulse of the moon as surely as Adam feels the sun’s heat, and she has named every one of the six thousand stars her eyes can see. By the black light of the unseen maiden moon, she bathes in the water of the longest river, the one that flows from the barren heights of Ediin, and branches out and nourishes the world.
This is the part Eve never tells Adam, the part she will spend the rest of her life trying to forget.
She has seen another woman in the garden at night. The woman is an angel, tall and strong, with long dark hair and powerful shoulders and wings. She is naked, like Eve, but around her waist she wears a sword, something Eve has never seen before, and on her body she wears gleaming golden jewelry and gemstones.
At first, Eve only sees her once or twice in a moon, and by accident. But something begins to grip Eve by the heart, pulls her out of her pallet late at night, drives her deep into the forest. Now she’s looking. She can find Lilith by her scent, wild and raunchy like a herd of animals. Some nights Eve stumbles blindly through the brush, being careful not to fall because how would she explain the bruises? Eve is as nimble as a deer and more helpless. Sometimes she has tears in her eyes when she finds her. But she always finds her.
When Lilith doesn’t appear, Eve dreams of her, prays for her to fly down from the chamber of the Spirit Throne, to come and stand beside her like a comrade. Lilith belongs to another world, and Eve tries to imagine it. It is a world on the other side of the veil, a world of peace amid the chaos like a rose among thorns.
Dimly, Eve knows that Lilith could find her if she chose, but that she prefers to make Eve come to her. Eve doesn’t care. They meet each other’s eyes, look away. And is it Eve who reaches out for the first time? Eve who touches Lilith on the arm, and then pulls back? Yes, and it is Eve who touches Lilith again, again on the arm just below the elbow, and then Lilith returns the gesture, and they stand like that for a moment, arms locked, eyes locked, scarcely breathing.
They begin to talk, slowly at first, then quickly and easily. Eve learns that Lilith is an angel, and asks her about her home in the heavens. Lilith teaches Eve many things about the earth. She knows how to melt rock into metal, the stuff jewelry and tools and weapons can be made from. “If you do it right,” she says, “you can make something that will last a thousand years.” She tries to teach this to Eve, but it is difficult. She teaches her the uses of plants and rocks, how to flake stone into tools: these things Eve remembers. The night becomes many nights.
Once Eve asks Lilith to tell her about her sword. Lilith draws its shining blade from the sheath. The blade seems to turn within itself, the way a kaleidoscope turns inside out before your eyes. “Don’t touch,” she warns.
Eve reaches out and puts her fingers on the blade. She stifles a howl, as the pain sears her fingertips burns her arm.
“This sword will not kill you. This is the blade that comes to you in sleep, to stop you from going too deep, so that you won’t be drawn into the void. Without it, you would be sucked into the land beyond.”
Eve wonders about the land beyond. Is it better than this one? She looks at Lilith, but says nothing.
How does Eve look to Lilith?
Slender and soft, like a fertile field before the rain has touched it. Her hair is fine and delicate, like the fabric the angels weave. She smells like moss and flowers and growing things. Her eyes are the eyes of a child who will never see its mother again and must find comfort in the arms of a stranger. Her lips tremble as if praying, as if asking a question, as if crying. This creature is not ready, Lilith thinks, but even the angels can lust ... yes, she must have her.
And how does Lilith look to Eve?
Beautiful and mighty, with strong arms and legs. Rich and full as a ripe fruit -- strange that one never meant to bear children should have such wide hips and full breasts. Lilith is tall, with long, thick hair -- strange, too, that a creature of heaven should have so much of earth about her. The smell of her sweat and her sex. The musty, musky odor of her wings as she moves them slowly, like the boughs of a tree in a gentle breeze. Her strong, soft fingers. Her face like an ever-changing plain and her eyes like the deeps of space. Her voice like the ocean, her touch like the wind.
Once, when the moon is dark, Lilith touches Eve’s face. “Be mine,” she says. “Come with me to a place I know. No mortal may go there, but you will be safe with me.”
At this, Eve trembles but says nothing. Something is twisting inside her, like Tahmatu beneath the waves, not breaking the surface.
And Lilith says, “Even in the darkness, you are beautiful. Come with me and be my beloved.”
And Eve still says nothing, but she feels something impossible is happening, as though the earth is swallowing her up and giving birth to her again. She looks up to the sky for answers, but the vault of the night is only a silent wall.
Now Lilith raises her hand and the garden around her seems to fade, and Eve is standing someplace else, someplace she’s never seen before, but a place that looks somehow familiar. There is a grove of apple trees with their luscious red fruit and juicy fragrance. The whole place is shadowed with roses, and a living spring bubbles from deep within the earth.
Here the evening breeze blows warm as Lilith comes into view, bearing two golden goblets, one in each hand. She kneels down and fills these from the spring. Eve feels her fingers cup around the smooth bowl of the vessel as she accepts it, trembling, from Lilith.
“Drink this and come with me,” Lilith is saying in the vision. And Eve holds the cup before her for a moment and looks into it, scrying the crystal water. The cup is full of stars.
Eve raises the cup to her lips, still gazing into it. But at that moment the vision fades. Now she is gazing into Lilith’s eyes. “Come with me,” she is saying.
“Yes,” she murmurs, barely audible, and Lilith says, her voice now low and commanding, “I can’t hear you!” and the trembling figure says again, louder, “Yes!”
But when Lilith takes one step closer, Eve runs.
The next morning she is covered with scratches, tired, and very quiet.
The Tree
Just as he is turning away from the village for what he is certain will be the last time, Adam sees a pair of eyes looking at him. There is a man standing in the bushes by the river. The man motions to Adam to join him on the riverbank. He seems to be kin to the villagers, but he shows no interest in them; perhaps he is an exile. They look at each other and Adam thinks: He is like them, but he is different too. He is like me, but he is not like me. Following the silent stranger, Adam notices his agility, and the softness of his hair. They meet each other in the afternoon, in the hot part of the day. Deep in the woods, the man shows Adam things that he has missed somehow, plants too small to see and trees too large to see. Adam, following him, can see and touch the animals that used to flee from his presence. They speak as men do, without words.
Although the man is an outsider, Adam raises no protest to his presence within the garden. Yet after a time Adam becomes uneasy: after all, it is his garden. He keeps meaning to say something, but somehow, around the man with no name, Adam forgets how to speak. And then one day he comes upon the stranger picking a plant from the garden, and this violation incenses him. With a shout, Adam rushes at him and grapples with him, arm to arm. By the side of the river they struggle. As the sun lowers and the earth becomes ruddy, the stranger sinks to his knees -- not defeated, simply surrendering. Adam stares down uncomprehending as the other man extends his right hand. He stands for a moment, then turns his back and limps away.
That night, sleeping fitfully while Eve is away on one of her lengthy walks, Adam becomes aware of something moving near him, but though he strains his eyes looking, he sees nothing. In the morning, he goes back to the river bank. There on the ground he sees something, and he understands what his silent friend was doing in the garden the day before. It is a bouquet of flowers, exquisitely arranged in a rainbow of colors and tied with a length of vine. He picks up the gift and takes it to Eve, who has been very moody lately; she is delighted. The next day he tells her he doesn’t feel like going out exploring, he’s going to stay in the camp with her. And the day after that, he goes back to the river, he’s not sure whether he’s looking for his friend or avoiding him, but it doesn’t matter. Adam never sees him again.
The garden has begun to change. Or maybe it is they who are changing. The wild places within the garden no longer call to Adam; instead, he turns his attention to the making of stone tools: hammers, axes, knives. He learns how to make a blade sharper. Eve spends more time learning how to cultivate crops: she likes things that grow where she can watch them. She begins going to bed early, but she cannot sleep. Their conversation with one another is short and functional, as it has always been, but now there is an impatience to it. They are restless, as if their thoughts are elsewhere. As if they are now visitors in this place, as if it is no longer their home.
The Tree of Knowledge stands in the eastern part of the garden. It is easy to see from afar, harder to see from close up. It is unlike anything else in the garden. Its trunk is shiny, as if made of metal or stone, and deep bronze in color, the color of flesh. Its boughs fork into branches, each bearing leaves, and each branch bearing smaller branches as well. The smallest branches of the Tree of Knowledge are like the fibers of a spider web; in fact, the tree appears surrounded by mist. It seems to be a union of opposites: earthly and heavenly, good and evil. There is something forbidding about it: it seems to say Do not eat me, do not touch me. Yet it is beautiful, and by its five leaves they know it is good to eat. And this is where Adam is standing when he looks up and sees Eve there too. And now someone else is there, too, looking at them.
Eve is looking at the tree, thinking of something she’s lost -- she’s lost something but she can’t say exactly what, except that it had something to do with life, and something to do with wisdom. Perhaps it even had something to do with death. All she is sure of is that it is missing, and now, in the fruit and in the eye of the serpent, she sees it.
The Rose
The serpent is naked, unlike all the beasts of the field: like the woman and the man, it is hairless. And it knows what none of the other animals know: that though they may be warm-blooded, yet there is something about them that is cold, cunning, and reptilian. They know how to desire, and they know how to change the world to get what they want.
Now some will tell you that the serpent spoke, but it didn’t have to: the look in its eyes was enough. Yes, the serpent is looking at that fruit, first with one eye and then with the other, while its tongue flicks in and out to taste the scent of the fruit. That round globe of delight nestled in the bushy leaves and tawny limbs of the tree, that fruit contains the universe, and the serpent knows it. And Eve knows it too.
She feels the fruit burn all the way down. It will never stop burning. The memory of the strange face in the starlight fades, and now she will only remember the undulating coils slipping through the grass. And now, and forever, this is the shape of desire.
They have both eaten, and the radiance of the Tree of Knowledge spreads from them like the glow of a new fire. Things stand out in sharp detail, and take on new meaning. They see something they have somehow overlooked all this time, right in the center of the garden. It is another tree, not like the first: it is not pleasant or desirable, and until now it would never have occurred to either of them to pay it any attention. It is a small, scrubby thing, with twisted, dark, knotty limbs and an earthy odor. Its fruits are brown and small, scarcely more than berries. But there is a potency to it, an energy that suffuses the garden like the evening mist. Unnoticed and almost unseen, it sustains the garden. Eve knows that it is the Tree of Life, and who eats of its fruit will live forever. It is the doorway to eternity, the Gate of Mercy and the Gate of Mystery. Yes, this is what she wants: to live forever in this beautiful world. She takes the fruit into her hands, and she hands it to Adam. As they touch it, they are enveloped by its fragrance -- and then they drop it to the ground as if it were a hot coal, for suddenly and too late they understand its full meaning. To live forever, yes -- but not here. To live forever, in the next world.
The fruit of the Tree of Life is death.
The fruit grows before their eyes, like a sun exploding, and its round surface becomes grooved like a pinecone. The fruit is now a great black flower, a rose whose petals reach out to devour them. They run, but the black rose keeps growing. They smell it on their bodies, they feel it behind them. Without stopping, they glance behind them and they can see its giant petals over the treetops, stretched thin and phantasmic like smoke. They run, and they know that the smell will never leave them, it will stay on them like a slow-acting poison, in their blood and in their sweat. When they look again, the Rose of Paradise is gone, and in its place, in the distance, is an angel with a sword that flashes like lightning. Eve turns, but Adam grabs her arm. They keep running.
The angel stands there watching them for a long time.
"The Rose of Paradise" copyright (c) 2004 by Asher Abrams
All rights reserved.
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