fall fresh sun beams
on ceramic features
of carved irony
warm the deadened
impulse to breathe
green grass grows
on the other side
of the world
we desensitize the cells
until growth is abstract
feeling obsolete
we steal false smiles
and so standing
in the mire
of dirt and secrecy
shame skirts the issue
of my two feet
beautiful woman
they say
look at you…
A few days ago, in Wisconsin, 11-year-old Madeline Neumann died from undiagnosed diabetes. Her parents prayed over her as she deteriorated, instead of taking her to the hospital.
According to most reports, the Neumanns are a normal American family. They are not members of some weird death-cult. They didn’t show up at military funerals with signs that read “God Hates Fags.” This is, in a way, all the more troubling.
My initial response to this story cannot be published here on account of the vast number of obscenities it involved. I was shocked, and outraged, and demanded immediate removal of the Neumanns’ other children from their home. While breaking up a family in the wake of a tragedy is grim business to say the least, one does hope that law enforcement will keep an eye on the Neumanns. Imposing probation and ordering counseling is the least that can be done.
The fact that the Neumanns’ other children have indeed, for now, been removed from their home may ultimately serve to educate the parents on the fact that their actions, or, rather, their inaction, was indeed wrong.
I am not Christopher Hitchens, and do not wish to use this death to score a point. Let’s put it this way, most parents, religious or not, would take their child to a hospital at the first sign of serious trouble. When it comes to religion, the Neumanns are the exception, not the rule.
As a person of (some) faith, I find that the Neumanns are the perfect illustration to the saying that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Clearly, the Neumanns “knew” certain passages from the Bible concerning God’s omnipotence and power to heal, etc. And yet did they also not realize that if God allowed His or Her children to create life-saving penicillin, He or She might just want us to use it? Considering that life is a gift and all? Read More
Chloe Bradshaw is 13. She counts Darren Shan as one of her main writing influences. Her favourite subjects at school are Drama, History, and English. This is the first installment of “The Revenge,” one of her many stories.
Mine is a hellish tale, one of treachery, bloodshed and piracy; life, death, and life after death. My story will haunt me forever.
It starts in my house at Sennen, two miles from Lands End, in 1720. I was only about fifteen when it began, but I still remember it as clear as day. I was with my twin brother Jay and my father. Father was explaining something about ships. He used to be a pirate and he carried a few grisly tales in his memory. We grew up knowing that he was banished from the ship when he stole a bottle of the captain’s favourite rum.
A loud rap at the door had interrupted our conversation.
“You two wait at the back, and do not let yourselves be seen,” our father told us. My brother Jay and I looked at each other uncertainly. “I just want you to be out of the way.”
I was frustrated, but also very curious. Never before had he asked us to leave the room when someone was at the door.
I stormed out of the room, Jay following behind me. I remember scanning the door, trying to find the hole which was caused by one of my Father’s guns (all I will say is that I managed to get hold of one when I was little). I found the bullet hole near the bottom of the door and crouched down. I had a perfect view of the room. After the incident was over, I wished that I had not found it.
“I don’t think you should be watching him.” Jay said.
“Eh,” I grunted, finishing the conversation off. I did like my brother, don’t get me wrong, but he could be such a brown nose!
I watched as my Father opened the door. A man stood in the doorway, he was tall, and wore a thick brown coat and a lot of jewellery. He had a presence about him which made you want to run for the hills. Although I had some doubts, I was fairly sure that we were being paid a visit by a pirate.
“It has been fifteen years, Lucian, it is time,” Read More
Here in GC land, we thought this poem was especially pertinent considering the recent brouhaha over Barack Obama’s minister.
Please remember to enjoy the genius of Sim Stafford responsibly.
Sincerely,
The Editor
We sat in our seats awaiting His return,
“In the meantime, a word from out pastor.”
It’s the same thing every Sunday, man:
What the devil are we here for?
When the collection plate goes by I remember
Why I leave my wallet at home: Sitting on it
So long throws my hips out of line. Good thing
We kneel, stand, kneel, stand, kneel, stand, but
Not before setting our tongues on autopilot
To reaffirm our ability to memorize and recite
In the drone of unison. Man, I can’t wait—
Oh! There they go, robes and all: Damn, Read More
This is a review of God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215, by David Levering Lewis. W.W. Norton. 2008
Islamic presence in Spain between the 7th and 14th centuries has long been considered a controversial topic. The ex-Spanish Prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, for example, added fire to the already intense discussions two years ago. He argued Muslims have never apologized for “conquering Spain and staying for eight centuries”.
Modern Conservative scholars such as Victor Davis Hanson, Bat Ye’or and Robert Spencer suggested that Muslim rule in Spain were despots who subjected people of other faiths to heavy taxation and religious persecution. David Levering Lewis thinks otherwise. This New York University professor places the relationship between Muslim nations and and Europe at the center of his latest book. His book inspires one to re-think the Islamic contribution to Europe.
The biggest accomplishment of Lewis’s book lies in its attempt to challenge conventional thinking regarding the victory of Charles Martel, the leader of the Franks. He rebukes historians such as Edward Gibbons and Victor Davis Hanson for their simplistic views on the Battle of Poitiers:
“Today, Charles Martel’s defeat of ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Abd Allah al-Ghafiqi is buried deep in the collective memory of the West, a marker of an important happening seldom recalled with the hyperbole typical of an earlier, more cultural self-aggrandizing age…However, it probably occurs to few, if any of the contemporary descendants of the “Europenses” to credit the existence of the European Union to the Battle of Poitiers.”
Lewis does an excellent job of asking the question as to what served to create Europe as we know it. He believes that years of Western-dominated thinking on the war have made us blind to the idea that Martel’s victory may have actually hurt Europe of those days by paving the way for an intolerant feudal age. At present times, the re-education Lewis offers us is of vital importance.
For me, the most surprising discovery in Lewis’s book concerns how the struggle between two civilizations actually improved welfare of women. It’s an intriguing premise, since conflict usually means setbacks wherein women’s rights are concerned.
Lewis blames Pope Innocent III and Pope Urban II for ending the long history of co-existence between Arabs, Jews and Christians. He beautifully summarizes the impact of the Pope’s Fourth Lateran Council’s call for wars against unbelievers and heresy:
“Difference, immemorially accommodated for better and worse by Western Europe’s peoples as the way of the world, was institutionalized henceforth as unassailable “otherness”
Lewis’s condemnation of Catholic Church is practically confrontational. He made me wonder whether even the present-day Vatican has the credibility to initiate dialogue with different faiths. In his book, Lewis gives a glimpse of the world of Christendom whose defeat of the Islamic faith slowed down the development of technology, culture, and science. It’s a grim picture, to say the least.
This book makes one consider the possibility that bad luck is likely to befall Europe if it decides to turn away from its Muslim neighbors in Turkey and Morocco. These neighbors may just offer some solutions to the aging crisis of the Great Continent.
The book suffers from a dearth of Spanish and Arabic source materials and a surplus of academic language. Having said that, Lewis still stands well above many colleagues who have tackled similar subjects.
Above all else, God’s Crucible is full of useful information for advocates of inter-faith dialogue; it’s main message is that freedom of exchange of ideas, tolerance of dissidents, and respect for diversity are will make a society prosperous.
An awkward boy is talking to two pretty girls he met at a coffee shop: can you imagine a more flinch-worthy scene?
Our hero wears a red shirt that marks him as a proponent of “AIDS Day” in no uncertain terms. He has a very efficient looking satchel, stickers all over his laptop, and the sort of subtly dry humor that… sucks. It never registers, and he doesn’t understand why people don’t laugh at what are probably fairly funny insights.
He currently isn’t getting anywhere with these girls. They’re both getting up to leave, and he’s sort of corralled one of them, but the other one is making her escape through the front door. The girl he’s trapped is twitching like a frightened new-born gazelle. She keeps glancing at the door, but her so-called friend is gone. She’s probably already in the car; she might very well be speeding towards the Georgia-Alabama border this very minute.
I’m only a bystander, but even I can tell that this guy has about as much sex appeal as the Republican National Convention. It will be a victory if she even gives him the dignity of a fake number with the right number of digits.
My friends, spring is coming. That means many things, but the one that I choose to dwell on is the maelstrom of failed courtship and disappointed organs that I see on a yearly basis. It’s as if everyone’s libido has been hibernating, and just woke up. It’s hungry, slightly disoriented, and wants to scratch its back against a pine tree. (How do we interpret that metaphor? Hungry = “Gotta get me some action.” Slightly disoriented = “Am I gay now? Hm.” Wants to scratch its back against a pine tree = “Poke people on Facebook until it gets creepy.”)
I, for one, would like to help everyone avoid any potential heartache. To this end, I’ve compiled some crucial tips for both guys and gals on dealing with that utterly confusing opposite gender. I’m a man of insight and experience, and I’m happy to share what I’ve learned. As to people interested in their own gender, well, I have to admit that I’m no expert, but I imagine that you can find some of this useful anyway.
Guys, let’s walk through the phases of a relationship together, shall we? Read More
Imam Idris Sultan was unmarried, and for this reason he approved of polygamy.
He was a religious figure in “this irreligious society” where polygamy was looked down upon. His open advocacy of the practice allowed the impious to label him “a pervert just like us” — a fact that caused him great agitation. He did not think polygamy was a mark of perversion and therefore tried to set forth various arguments as to the benefits of the practice.
He invoked altruism. He identified the vast number of women in the world that were orphaned and suffering and homeless. He thought to himself that if such women could, three or four at a time, be matched up with healthy middle-class males (such as himself), then the world would be a much better place for all.
However, this welfare oriented argument always floundered when he remembered that he lived in a so called “welfare state.”
If he really wanted to help women in trouble, the more appropriate thing to do in such a society wasn’t to marry multiple times, but to become involved in politics, assist in the passage of helpful legislation, or volunteer at the women’s shelter and write grants — in other words, engage in ventures that benefitted all the women, and not just the troubled ones that he was attracted to (which would be very selfish and not at all altruist).
Unable to devise a convincing argument as to the merits of polygamy caused Imam Idris a great deal of despair. If he could not even convince himself about the viability of Islamic polygamy in this day and age, how would he influence his congregants about the more complex things of the faith?
They would turn soft in their practice, and slowly drift towards apostasy, and then he would have to imagine stoning them in his head while publicly assuring them that “in this pluralist age you are free to leave the faith as you please.” Read More
Around mile 20 of the 26 mile Boston Marathon, runners come upon an incline called Heartbreak Hill. They hit a fatigue point at a time when the course calls for some tough slogging before the stretch run to the finish line. Rookie runners are known to pull out in agony at this point in the race.
Has our presidential election cycle reached a Heartbreak Hill of sorts? We have about six weeks before the Pennsylvania primary with nothing major on the horizon after a flurry of primaries in a tightly compressed calendar cycle of about the same duration that was forecasted to settle the issue in both parties.
Instead, the Democratic primary remains very much in doubt, seemingly teetering on the brink of a knock-down, drag-out brawl. Prior to this, there has been commentary talking about all the excitement the Democratic race engendered with the first black man and first female as two viable candidates. It brought a slew of new voters into the process and has been heralded for giving our democracy a badly needed boost of participation after years of declining voter turnouts.
But now these rookie participants have to endure the kind of long, protracted campaign battle that galvanizes voters into opposing camps and disillusions the less zealous among us.
One of the two camps is going to lose. Read More
Lalla M’Zouda took pride in the thicket of her burning bush.
“Gardens are the scene of assignation,” she told Moulay Aly.
“First, your tongue is to brush, barely brush,
the dew from the outer petals.
Penetration can only ensue with almost unbearable lightness.
The violets must be woken from their dusky sleep,
the marigolds plucked leaf by vibrant leaf,
the lobelias gently watered with saliva.
Only then may you proceed to the inner grotto,
now scented and alive with wetness as is a fountain hidden by moss.
A recess in which, as in virtually all heraldry of Eros, blooms the dark rose of ecstasy, magically unfolding.”
Lalla M’Zouda may not have come across Ariel
but knew that where the bee sucks, there sucks Moulay Aly,
who brushed his lips with what she called “my little honey.”
Or the nacreous spoor of the snail, housed in the recesses of the arbor.
“My bee,” she whispered, “is your sac now full?”
I arrived in Warsaw by train from Krakow. I forgot to take a book for my train ride, but this was a blessing in disguise, because Polish people have devised a wonderful system for book promotion:
Instead of doing signings in bookshops, authors can sit in a specially designated train carriage, and have the travelers come over and get their books signed. It’s a clever promotional tool and it makes traveling by train in Poland incredibly fun.
From the window of the train, Warsaw initially struck me as ugly. This was confirmed on a taxi ride to my friend’s apartment. However, the elements of ugliness are both palpable and understandable.
Warsaw was largely destroyed by the Germans during WWII, and its reconstruction mostly took the form of large, concrete communist-style blocks scattered all over the city. There is lots of Russian architectural influence, but other traditions have a presence in Warsaw as well.
For example, France gave Warsaw the gift of a lovely bridge. And today the European Union is stepping in to repair roads and the city itself. A large sports complex has been created, and a concert hall is in the process of being erected in the center of town in the place of an old hotel.
On the first night, my friend took me to an underground bar. He told me about working as a journalist, following in his mother’s footsteps. His mother had been exiled due to running a printing press against the communists. On a more cheerful note, the bar we met at turned out to be having a cheap selection of new flavored vodka, mixed with apple juice so sweet it tasted like its name: Apple Pie.
The following day, I took a walking tour around Warsaw – my friend was my guide. We met in Lazienki Park situated in downtown Warsaw. We entered the park near a statue of Chopin (Poland’s most famous composer), which is surrounded by benches and a rose garden. Every year a Chopin concert is put on here.
We strolled through the park- which boasts royal baths, an orangery, and a sculpture gallery. The old bathhouse is also known as the “Palace on the Water,” and is located on an artificial island on the Lazienki Lake. The island is connected by two arcade bridges to the rest of the park, and regal peacocks roam the outside. Prince Stanislaus Lubomirski lived there first, then sold it to Stanislaw Poniatowski, the last King and Grand Duke of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Poniatowski transformed the place by bringing in minor works by Rubens and Rembrandt, as well as frescoes. Sadly, the Germans undid much of the work by blowing up the first floor with dynamite.
Driving towards the Old Town, we passed many memorials for those who fought against the Nazis and, in most cases, perished. Read More
