2-4 Cups Leftover Cooked Long Grain White Rice
3 Scallions
3 Eggs
2 Small Carrots
1 Clove Garlic
½-1 Cup Chopped Cooked Pork (or char siu pork)
½ Cup Chicken Stock
¼ Cup Fresh Peas (or frozen)
2-3 TSP Soy Sauce
1-2 TSP Oil (not olive oil)
½ TSP Roasted Sesame Oil
¼-½ TSP Five Spice Powder
¼ TSP Ground White Pepper
Dash of Grated or Powdered Ginger
Preparation:
This recipe requires day-old cooked long grain white rice.
Warm a large dry skillet over low heat. Separate three yolks and one egg white into a bowl and add one or two spoonfuls of water. Beat the eggs well. Add a small amount of oil into the pan and add the eggs. Stir often but avoid breaking up the mass into too small pieces. Cook until slightly firm and reserve for later use.
Peel and dice the carrots into small (3-5mm) pieces. Warm another large dry pan over medium heat. Add a small amount of chicken stock and begin to heat through the diced carrots. Once the stock has evaporated and the carrots are almost tender, add a teaspoon of oil and the chopped clove of garlic. DO NOT brown the garlic. Once the garlic has sweated, add the remaining oil, the roasted sesame oil and the cold cooked rice. Stir and heat the rice through. Add the five spice powder and the white pepper while the rice heats. If the pan begins to dry out too much add some of the chicken stock. Stir in the soy sauce and allow it to evenly coat the rice.
Chop the green onions finely. Reserve half of both the green and white parts for garnish and add the remaining amount to the rice along with the peas and chopped pork. At the last minute mix in the scrambled egg and remove from the heat.
To create an elegant service, place a teaspoon of green onion in the bottom of a one cup (or smaller) bowl. Fill the bowl and gently tamp the rice flat until it is even with the rim of the bowl. Cover the bowl with the service plate. Hold the two together tightly and invert in one swift motion. Remove the bowl and a glistening dome of scented rice, studded with pork and vegetables, will be your reward.
Note: Avoid using too much roasted sesame oil, its flavor will overpower the other ingredients. The fried rice should not be wet or too oily and should fluff apart into grains that separate easily.
#3
And when will Rantburg: the Ramadan Recipes be available on Amazon.com?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 9:30 Comments ||
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#4
When does your restaurant open?
People have been asking me that all of my life. If you know of any plutocrats who have a couple of extra million to invest, send them my way. You do realize that restaurants are the businesses most likely to to fail within one year of opening? Also, they must remain in continuous operation for at least three years before they can be considered as being stable.
And when will Rantburg: the Ramadan Recipes be available on Amazon.com?
That will be up to Fred Pruitt and the Moderators. I'm hoping that at least an easy to produce CD-ROM version can be made available to create revenue for the board. All of you here at Rantburg can help by testing each one of these recipes in your home kitchens to check for any typos or errors. If you have a knack for photography, capture some attractive images of the final product for publication use. Goodness knows I try to proofread these submissions at least three times before I put them up and the occasional goof still slips through.
1 Whole Egg
½ Cup Panko Bread Crumbs
¼ Cup White All-Purpose Flour
½ TSP Sea Salt (or Kosher salt)
¼ TSP Ground White Pepper
½-1 Cup Vegetable Oil (for frying)
Preparation:
Use pork cutlets whole or lightly tenderize with mallet or tenderizing hammer. Beat egg in small dish and allow it to reach room temperature. Combine all dry ingredients, except for panko bread crumbs, and dredge pork pieces in this. Allow cutlets to rest for ten minutes and dredge once again. Permit meat to rest for another five minutes. Dip cutlets in beaten egg and immediately coat with liberal quantity of panko bread crumbs.
Allow coated chops to rest for one or two minutes while oil warms over medium-low heat.. Patch any bare spots with extra panko. Raise heat to high. Gently settle coated chops into hot oil. Once pan is full and the oil is bubbling vigorously, reduce heat to medium. Continue frying until each side is golden brown.
Allow chops to rest for three minutes, then slice into several pieces and array over steamed long grain white rice. Prepare a simple tonkatsu dressing by mixing one part Worcestershire sauce with four parts Heinz 57 Varieties ketchup. A slightly thickened teriyaki sauce is also acceptable. Garnishes include minced scallion or roasted sesame seeds (shiro goma).
1-1 ½ Pounds Ground Pork
1 Grated Carrot
1 Small Diced Onion
3 Cloves Crushed Garlic (or more)
¼ Cup Minced Green Onions
5 TBS Soy Sauce
½ TSP Sea Salt (or Kosher salt)
½ TSP Ground Black Pepper
1 Package Lumpia Wrappers (also use wonton or egg roll wrappers)
2-4 Cups Oil (for deep frying)
Preparation:
Mix all filling ingredients. Allow mixture to rest for thirty minutes. Roll into small cigars using 1-2 tablespoons of filling in each pasta wrapper. Store on waxed paper covered plates with additional sheets of waxed paper placed in between each layer. Freeze or fry immediately in very hot oil.
Serve with a white vinegar, sugar, garlic and grated ginger dipping sauce.
Here is a cry for help from French philosophy teacher Robert Redeker, now in hiding from Islamofascist death threats. In a letter written to his friend philosopher André Glucksmann, Redeker writes:
Dear André,
I am now in a catastrophic personal situation. Many very precise death threats have been addressed to me, and I was condemned to death by associates of Al-Qaïda. The (French security services) have helped somewhat, but I no longer have a right to my own home. On the websites condemning me to death there is a map showing how to get to my house to kill me, my photo, the places where I work, the telephone numbers, and the death sentence. But at the same time the authorities do not provide me a place, I am obliged to wander, two evenings here, two evenings there I am under permanent police protection. I must cancel all my planned conferences. And the authorities make me move on. I am a displaced person. It all leads to a lunatic financial situation, I have to pay all the expenses including rental for a month or two in distant places, moving costs, notary expenses, etc. It is quite sad. I exercised a constitutional law (to free speech), and I am punished for it, even on the territory of the Republic. This business is also an attack against national sovereignty: foreign laws, decided by criminal fanatics, punish me to for exercising a French constitutional right, and I am suffering great damage even in France.
In friendship,
Robert Redeker
The French "conservative" daily Le Figaro showed considerable courage by publishing Redekers critique of Mohammed and the Koran. After the death threats, the paper also published a frontpage editorial declaring:
We condemn as resolutely as possible the serious attack on the freedom of thought and the freedom of speech that this affair has provoked.
France may be waking up- slowly and very reluctantly. However, if truth-tellers are going to be forced into hiding, there is still something very wrong with the French Republic and its governing elites. Redeker only received tepid support from his boss,
Gilles de Robien, education minister, who declared his solidarity with Mr Redeker, but argued that a public employee should be prudent and moderate in all circumstances.
Well, Redeker was not moderate but he was truthful. Here is what he wrote in Le Figaro: under the title, Faced with Islamic intimidation, what should the free world do? Here is how he describes the traditional picture of Mohammed.
Pitiless war leader, pillager, butcher of Jews and polygamous (people), this is how Mohammed is revealed by the Koran.
That may seem pretty tough, but it is no worse than the last two centuries of open French criticism of Christianity and Judaism. Over the long term anti-clericalism made religious establishments more self-critical. Christian churches have finally erased their overt anti-Semitism and nationalist fervor. The Catholic Church has dropped its absurd condemnation of Galileo. All human institutions are fallible; all can profit from reasoned criticism.
Islams affinity for violence has changed little since the 7th century, because it declared itself immune from criticism, and enforced it with the sword. The question is just what Robert Redeker asked, Faced with Islamic intimidation, what should the free world do? One thing we cannot afford to do is give in. The results would be disastrous for us and for Muslims as well- who are also under the threat of the sword.
Violence is part of all scriptures, because it is part of virtually all cultures. As traditional religions developed over many centuries, they generally left that part behind. Most Christians are not enamored of the saying attributed to Jesus that I bring you not peace but a sword. No modern Jews celebrate the Biblical battle of Jericho, with its bloody aftermath. Hindus may revere the Bhagavat-Gita, but not many take Arjunas advice to fight and kill ones cousins, as long as it is done without mental attachment to the outcome.
Only Islam still clings to a past of violent confrontation with non-Muslims. But there is a vast body if reinterpretation of the Koran, and there must be Muslims who ignore the bloodier passages and elevate the more peaceful ones. It doesnt have to be done officially by some version of Vatican II. Most traditions change more subtly.
But until a reborn Islam places a firm taboo on violence on behalf of religion, modern people will rightly be suspicious and take their precautions. That is a good thing, because that is the only way a more peaceful Islam will evolve. Cultures clash all the time; its just a question of the outcome.
We need many more Robert Redekers in France and elsewhere, to keep challenging Islamist threats. Hopefully they will receive a much more robust and united defense as the West comes to its senses.
Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard. A simply stated and succint rebuttal to Woodward's new Bush expose "State of Denial." Which, not surprisingly, the Democrats and the MSM seem to be having a collective orgasm over. Until the Foley scandal broke and stole it's thunder, that is. Not to worry, I hear Big Tim Russert has Woodward booked on MTP this coming weekend. Someone's gotta keep this on the front burner until the November elections, after all. Hopefully, the Republicans are smart enough to pick up on Kristol's point here and hammer it home until election day. If not for the simple fact that it's entirely too true. I think if they can do that, they stand a decent chance.
Snip: "The country would be better off if there were bipartisan agreement on what is at stake in the struggle against jihadist Islam. But despite areas of consensus, there is still a fundamental difference between the parties. Bush and the Republicans know we are in a serious war. It's not the Bush administration that is in a "State of Denial" (as the new Bob Woodward book has it). It's the Democrats."
"So there really is a profound difference between the parties, as Democrats are happy to acknowledge, since they think Iraq is a winning issue for them. The Democratic talking point is this: We're against Bush on Iraq, but we are as resolute as Bush in the real war on terror (understood by them to exclude Iraq). Except that they're not."
Page-Turner
Rep. Mark Foley, a Florida Republican, has resigned from Congress after "a series of sexually explicit instant messages involving congressional pages, high school students who are under 18 years of age," came to light. . . .
The most fascinating comment about the scandal comes from Andrew Sullivan:
I don't know Foley, although, like any other gay man in D.C., I was told he was gay, closeted, afraid and therefore also screwed up. What the closet does to people--the hypocrisies it fosters, the pathologies it breeds--is brutal. There are many still-closeted gay men in D.C., many of them working for a Republican party that has sadly deeply hostile to gay dignity. How they live with themselves I do not fully understand. . . .
What I do know is that the closet corrupts. The lies it requires and the compartmentalization it demands can lead people to places they never truly wanted to go, and for which they have to take ultimate responsibility. From what I've read, Foley is another example of this destructive and self-destructive pattern for which the only cure is courage and honesty. While gays were fighting for thir [sic] basic equality, Foley voted for the "Defense of Marriage Act." If his resignation means the end of the closet for him, and if there is no more to this than we now know, then it may even be for the good. Better to find integrity and lose a Congressional seat than never live with integrity at all.
#3
But there are lots of openly homosexual Republicans. I think a group of them operate as "Log Cabin Republicans" or something. My goodness, there are even open Republicans in Hollywood, where the younger generation have frequent, if quiet cocktail parties for their own amusement. I agree that being closetted can cause problems, but not because there are no alternatives.
Amid all the speculation about whether Democrats will regain a majority in the Senate in November, it's worth remembering that the politician heading up that effort is New York's own senior senator, Charles Schumer. Inside Friday's Wall Street Journal was a highly illuminating article in which Mr. Schumer, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which raises and allocates huge amounts of campaign cash, described himself and his counterpart on the House side, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, as "trying to be the generals." Quoth General Schumer: "This is a war."
His metaphor was a dagger aimed at the heart of those many moderate and independent-minded Americans who want to fight a war on Islamic extremist terrorists, a war on cancer, a war on poverty but not a war on Republicans. Mr. Schumer is described further in the article as among those arguing that the Democratic Party should keep its agenda secret from the voters. "For more than a year, Democrats debated what platform to have for 2006, or whether to have one at all. Mr. Schumer was among those mostly content to bash Mr. Bush," the Journal reported.The newspaper quoted General Schumer as saying, "For us to put out a big range of ideas gives Republicans a target and gets the message off George Bush."
General Schumer is a lot of things, but he's not stupid. So if he wants to keep the Democratic Party's ideas secret from the American people in a closely fought election, it just may be that he realizes how unpopular his party's ideas are with the American people. The Democrats want to cut and run in Iraq, retreat into a defensive crouch in the war on terror while making good relations with France the top priority in American foreign policy, impose huge tax increases on American businesses and families, and appoint judges who are soft on violent criminals but easy on ambulance-chasing plaintiff's lawyers. With those kinds of ideas dominating his party, it's no wonder General Schumer wants to keep them a secret from the voters.
#3
"The Democrats want to cut and run in Iraq, retreat into a defensive crouch in the war on terror while making good relations with France the top priority in American foreign policy, impose huge tax increases on American businesses and families, and appoint judges who are soft on violent criminals but easy on ambulance-chasing plaintiff's lawyers."
Yep. From everything I've seen of them the last coupla years, I'd say that sums it up pretty accurately.
I was a Democrat for 31 years, up until a few years ago. But after watching these unprincipled bastards and their "Get Bush!" mentality, including making a thoroughly bogus political issue of the war, I will absolutely NEVER vote for another Democrat so long as I live-- nor will I abide anyone who does.
*SPIT*
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 15:06 Comments ||
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#4
Mr. Schumer is described further in the article as among those arguing that the Democratic Party should keep its agenda secret from the voters.
Why not? Everybody likes surprises, right, Chuck?
Vote for 'em and you'll get lots of them...
#5
"For us to put out a big range of ideas gives Republicans a target and gets the message off George Bush."
So we need ideas (and people) to attack, but we don't need to give 'them' anything to attack. If 'them' is 5% of the folks, I could understand that, sort of....
But when 'them' is somewhere upwards of 45%, that's a "horse of a different color", to quote the Wizard of Oz.
Once again, "Free speach for me, but not for thee."
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/02/2006 16:28 Comments ||
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#2
Book review? Political drivel, is more like it.
Anything to get one's name in print.
Come to think of it, why am I here, again?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/02/2006 6:35 Comments ||
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#3
Analysis of Sun Tzu almost invariably get the whole concept wrong. They look at snippets of what he wrote out of context.
The reality was that Sun Tzu was given a mission: to come up with some practical means for his king to conquer all of China. His response was to create military order.
1) No more individual anything. Military units are units. They move as units, and fight in units, not individual combat. This type organization is still used today.
2) All military plans will be created using the same format, a format created to include everything a military commander and unit need to know prior to doing anything. From the smallest to the largest, all units will use this format.
With these two things alone, unit organization and planning according to a standardized format, Sun Tzu turned his king's army of individual soldiers into an unstoppable force.
Even after the empire had been created, Sun Tzu continued to advocate standardization as a way of keeping the new empire together. In just the life of that first emperor, the written language was standardized from dozens to just Mandarin, and the same weights and measures were used throughout China, a major boon to business.
It is alleged, by former Lt. Gen. Mike DeLong, that Donald Rumsfeld once interrupted a briefing of his with the remark: "General, there was no verb in the last sentence." The retired general gave this to CNN as evidence of Mr Rumsfeld's obsession with trivial details.
Let me explain the U.S. defence secretary's curious remark. A sentence without a verb has no meaning. It is a waste not only of the speaker's breath, but of his auditor's time. As Harry Truman once said, being stupid "is hardly against the law for a general"; but it is an inconvenience. And the inability to form sentences is not trivial.
There are a lot of retired generals in the U.S. just now -- Mr Rumsfeld may have the Guinness record for cashiering them -- and a lot of second-guessing about Iraq. The most serious criticism has come from former Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in north-west Iraq two years ago. He told the same TV network the U.S. is in a fix in Iraq, "because Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ignored sound military advice, dismissed it all, went with his plan and his plan alone."
Continued on Page 49
#1
For those with some knowledge of Mr Rumsfeld's working habits, it also comes as a surprise. He has a reputation for encouraging reasoned debate among his subordinates but not with him or his inner circle.
Rubbish!
#2
So you know him personally Besoeker and not the crap that comes filtered from MSM?
My read on history is that effective reform in a military establishment occurs when it either (a) loses a war [i.e. WWI>Germans, Vietnam>Americans] or (b) has a leadership purge [i.e. French Revolutionary Army]. The military of the 90s was stilled anchored on a strategy of a massive European land based war with the Soviet Union and damn slow and resistant to evolution. It was going to hurt a lot of egos and personal pets of the General Officer corps to make the change. Character assassination is a long and fine tradition from the time of the Roman Republic.
It was Alexander and Fredricks fathers who built the armies they won with. It was Carnot that put together the army Napoleon would fight with. Notice how the builders get little credit for laying the foundation which served the names of history well. You are witnessing the transition of a military force that is suited not just for fighting a war effectively and efficiently, but one that has to operate within the political, cultural, and economic parameters of the American Republic. Lots of toes and personal empires are being bruised.
Is he perfect. Hell, no. I find both Rumsfeld and the GOs at fault for outsourcing the reporting of the war. Rummy because he has enough on his plate, but the attitude of the GOs is that they dont want to be bothered by it, is a clear demonstration of the narrow vision that the suits have. They are still protecting their turf and control over their environment and dont want to have to deal with winning anything outside of the battlefield. Youd think theyd learned from Vietnam, that you can win all the battles, but still lose the war. See, its another aspect that has yet been reformed in the military culture. Maybe they have to give up some of their resouces to compete with the enemy and their allies in 'winning the hearts and minds' back home. There is still much work to be done and egos to be bruised.
#5
Is he perfect. Hell, no. I find both Rumsfeld and the GOs at fault for outsourcing the reporting of the war. Rummy because he has enough on his plate, but the attitude of the GOs is that they dont want to be bothered by it, is a clear demonstration of the narrow vision that the suits have. They are still protecting their turf and control over their environment and dont want to have to deal with winning anything outside of the battlefield. Youd think theyd learned from Vietnam, that you can win all the battles, but still lose the war. See, its another aspect that has yet been reformed in the military culture. Maybe they have to give up some of their resouces to compete with the enemy and their allies in 'winning the hearts and minds' back home. There is still much work to be done and egos to be bruised.
Part of that is simply that we didn't think we were the sort of nation that needed a line in the federal budget for "convincing the American people that supporting the country is a good idea."
Posted by: Phil ||
10/02/2006 11:51 Comments ||
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#6
It was Carnot that put together the army Napoleon would fight with.
Actually it was Gribeauval well before the revolution who made French artillery the best in world. I am not sure but he could have also improved artillery schools. One of them was soon to have a pupil called Buonaparte.
#7
I like Rumsfield but thing he's wrong on troop numbers. I don't mean the number of feet on the groun in Iraq but the number of feet available for rotations so the same guys don't go back every other year. After SEPT 11 we should have bumped up the numbers, and pulled troops out of Germany/Korea to ensure flexibility.
#9
Part of that is simply that we didn't think we were the sort of nation that needed a line in the federal budget for "convincing the American people that supporting the country is a good idea."
Actually done directly or indirectly during WWI and WWII. Notice something missing in the news since then?
#10
Wartime rationing, tires, sugar, etc. The postponement of vehicle manufacturing from 1942-1946, termination of professional sports (such as they were back then). All served as reminders of the greater task at hand, that of Victory and the defeat and destuction of the Axis powers.
#11
US should have worked with the INC (even if they are crooks) to take over the country as we did in Afghanistan. We should have then set up a series of firebases along the borders to ensure no infilitration and to allow the Iraqi's to take care of their own internal problems.
Thing is, I believe, the goal was not necessarily Iraqi stability as much as a flypaper strategy designed to draw jihadists from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran into Iraq where we could kill them. This requires an open border and somewhat exposed troops, as well as alot of nightmarish crap from the "loyal opposition". But it is better than invading a half dozen countries.
The Germans are pussies these days because we culled a generation of the more fanatical types. I believe we are doing the same in Arabia but we are letting the herd self-select. Those that choose to come and die can, the rest will be left in peace.
#12
I would suggest that we have missed a bet to a greater extent in Afghanistan, and a lesser one in Iraq. That being, despite sobbing criticism, we should have imposed *our* western system of government on them from the outset. American style, *not* European style.
It was a mistake we also made after WWII with Europe, encouraging them to adopt Social Democrat governments and, even worse, retain the Roman Law and Code Napoleon Law; both of which has been to their ruination ever since.
Bluntly, we should have imposed *our* form of government, not a European parlimentarian style of government, and re-ordered their entire nation to have Common Law, rather than that wretched excuse for law they have. And this applies to all situations. Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan.
No Jurgas. Absolutely NO possibility of Sharia. NO religion in government at all for that matter. Equal rights for women. Free enterprise and small business with little or no government interference. Even make their parlimentarians wear business suits, not dresses.
By utterly re-arranging their shiat, they are forced to see an example of the BEST of what works. To see a truly efficient government in operation. To see equality of opportunity. To see what a modern nation, with a good system of laws, can be.
Then, after even a few years, when we pack up and leave, see if any but utter fanatics want to change back.
McArthur did it for Japan, and boy did it work.
So why were we so pissed off at Europe that we ruined them with socialism and welfare statism? Did we dump on them because they were white?
And by "us", I mean the democrat party that wanted them to be that way. They saw the Japanese as inferior, so ironically let Mac do what he saw fit.
#13
So why were we so pissed off at Europe that we ruined them with socialism and welfare statism?
I'm currently re-reading Cornelius Ryan's "The Last Battle". Once again, I see parallels with Vietnam and also the current war. During WWII, we fought to destroy the enemy's warfighting capability, leaving politics to the politicians after the war was won. To the Europeans, politics was first and destroying the enemy was second. Many of the attacks, feints, and other military actions of the British, Free French, etc., were ment for symbolism, rather than the destruction of the enemy. They were to "improve morale", "send a message", etc., the same multicultural crap we hear today. The British are more responsible for the current German form of government than the United States, and the German government looks more like the British government than that of the US. The same can be said of the Iraqi government. Just as Iraq was a creation of the British, so is their "form" of government. The only difference is that for the last 50+ years, it's been run as a dictatorship of one group or another. The basic form, however, is still British parlaimentarianism.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/02/2006 22:46 Comments ||
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#14
My 2 cents. Even if numbers (US & Co soldiers) were doubled or tripled, it still wouldn't work. Can't make silk purses out of sows' ears.
#1
Good article; I'm partway through it, and will come back later to finish it.
While over at Gates of Vienna, I scrolled around a bit and followed a link to a Rants and Raves article by Stephen Browne, Observations On Arabs, which details a dozen ways in which Arabs, in Dymphna's words, might as well be from another solar system.
How do Browne's conclusions measure up to what you observed over in Soodi-Land?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 7:01 Comments ||
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#2
To follow up, here are Browne's 12 observations, very briefly excerpted:
1) They dont think the same way we do.
2) When you meet them in just the right circumstances, they are a very likable people.
3) Their values are fundamentally different from ours, their self-esteem is derived from a different source.
4) Not only can they not build the infrastructure of a modern society, they cant maintain it either.
5) They do not think of obligations as running both ways.
6) In warfare, we think they are sneaky cowards, they think we are hypocrites.
7) In rhetoric, they dont mean to be taken seriously and they dont understand when we do.
8) They dont place the same value on an abstract conception of Truth as we do, they routinely believe things of breathtaking absurdity.
9) They do not have the same notion of cause and effect as we do.
10) We take for granted that we are a dominant civilization still on the way up. They are acutely aware that they are a civilization on the skids.
11) We think that everybody has a right to their own point of view, they think that that idea is not only self-evidently absurd, but evil.
12) Our civilization is destroying theirs. We cannot share a world in peace. They understand this; we have yet to learn it.
The above has been stripped of a wealth of explanation and examples; as they say, RTWT.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 8:48 Comments ||
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#3
The Dave D link is very interesting, applies well (to a certain degree) to the north-african arabs I've met or know here in France.
Except for some comoreans, I've not met enough black africans (the ones I've met or spent my high school daze with were mostly blacks from the french Dom-tom, IE absolutely westernized) to know if there is also such a gap between our hard-wired behavior and their, but my guess is "yes" (I've read that black americans going to south africa end up hanging solely with whites, because they can't relate to native blacks, too culturally different).
#4
David D., the intelligence level of your previous posts pretty much assures that you are already familiar with the concept of "High Context & Low Context Cultures". If not, please be sure to read the linked article. Anyone not familiar with this method of cultural distinction will gain a great deal of understanding from it.
Nearly all of the distinctions you note in post # 2 are entirely context driven. Arab societies epitomize high context cultures to an almost catastrophic degree. While I have yet to read Fjordman's or Browne's articles (I will do so later today), I urge you or anyone else to read the short one-page description of context driven cultures linked above to gain some often startling insights into Arabic, Islamic and terrrorist mindsets. Their observations about monochronic and polychronic time perception are also quite good.
Here are some excerpts from the article:
China, Chile and Iraq, for instance, are high-context societies in which people tend to rely on their history, their status, their relationships, and a plethora of other information, including religion, to assign meaning to an event. The totality of all this information, implicit, explicit, guides their response to the event. This pattern is in sharp contrast to Norway or Austria, for instance, where people depend for meaning on a relatively narrow range of objective information in specific verbal or physical form.
High-context cultures are characterized by extensive information networks among family, friends, associates, and even clients. Their relationships are close and personal. They keep well informed about the people who are important in their lives. This extensive background knowledge is automatically brought to bear in giving meanings to events and communications. Nothing that happens to them can be described as an isolated event; everything is connected to meaningful context.
People in low-context cultures, on the other hand, tend to compartmentalize their lives and relationships. They permit little "interference" of "extraneous" information. Thus in order to give detailed meaning to an event, they require detailed information in a communication. The "context" must be explicit in the message. One might expect, therefore, that low-context communications are perforce wordier, or longer, than high-context messages, since they have to carry more information. In fact, the opposite is sometimes true: low-context cultures use language with great precision and economy. Every word is meaningful. In high-context cultures, language is promiscuous: since words have relatively less value, they are spent in great sums.
#5
"David D., the intelligence level of your previous posts pretty much assures that you are already familiar with the concept of "High Context & Low Context Cultures"."
Ha! Never hoid of 'em.
I'll check out the link as soon as I get home from work. BBL...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 16:23 Comments ||
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#6
That was a good article, Zenster. Thanks for the link. And it does add a dimension of understanding to what Browne had to say.
And now on to the Fjordman article...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 17:10 Comments ||
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#7
Dang. The Fjordman article is a must-read, the whole thing. These two paragraphs stood out for me, though:
"French philosopher and cultural critic Alain Finkielkraut thinks that Europe has made human rights its new gospel. Has human rights fundamentalism approached the status of quasi-religion? Have we acquired a new class of scribes, who claim the exclusive right to interpret their Holy Texts in order to reveal Absolute Truth, and scream blasphemy at the few heretics who dare question their authority? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a great document, but it is written by humans, and may thus contain human flaws. We shouldnt treat as if it were a revelation from God, carved into stone. Far less should we deem as infallible the veritable maze of regulations and well-meaning human rights resolutions that have rendered democratic nations virtually unable to defend themselves.
[...]
If democratic nations are bogged down by suicidal human rights regulations while non-democratic states simply ignore any agreements they sign, doesnt this mean that we run a risk that human rights and international law, instead of helping people in repressive countries, will weaken the democratic countries that actually respect them?"
The answers: yes, yes, and yes.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 17:43 Comments ||
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#8
Dave - The list stands up to multiple reads well...
Islam. Steve Browne's list is a Westerner's reflection of Islam - through a glass darkly, lol. To understand what the Saudis are about you just have to understand the absolute worst of Islam. Not that it makes any sense or spreads where not imposed except among the dysfunctional and disaffected. It permeates all, dictates all, suppresses all, controls all, corrupts all, destroys all, brutalizes all, and rewards a very privileged few. Islam is the ultimate bottom-feeder of mankind, infecting and systematically destroying the worthy traits of humanity in all it controls.
When trying to explain the inexplicable, lol, I tend to rely on illustrative stories. The differences in some cases simply defy Western logic and distillation, I'm afraid, so the stories approach allows folks to draw conclusions in their own logical style using their own experiences.
I won't repeat my stories. Hell, there are some very smart folks 'round here who've been to the Magic Kingdom and could tell you their stories. Variety and different perspectives / angles would be better than repetition, methinks. I enthusiastically encourage them to post their observations in whatever form they're comfortable with. No doubt I'll enjoy them immensely! So PLEASE post!
BTW, my first reply to this thread was swallowed whole and I was sent to Roadside America, again. I think it was attempt to organize a little flowchart of terms in HTML, this time. I had to start over from total fucking scratch, so this is much shorter and excludes some amazingly brilliant reasoning, lol. It was an epic, honest injun. Lol. I surrender.
#9
"Dave - The list stands up to multiple reads well..."
Yeah, I kinda thought it might-- it seemed to me to square pretty well with a lot of what you'd told us over the years about your experiences in Soddiland...
"BTW, my first reply to this thread was swallowed whole and I was sent to Roadside America, again."
Jeebus... I tell ya, between the occasional dump-off to Muffler Man for God-knows-what obscure reason, and the sometimes-frequent OTR status of the RB server, I've made it a habit to automatically hit CTRL-A and CTRL-C before punching the ol' Submit Query button. It has saved me beaucoup heartache...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 18:37 Comments ||
Top||
#10
CTRL-A and CTRL-C
Lol - I'll reacquire that habit.
It's actually pretty damned hard to do what Browne has done, so much simply defies understanding from the Western POV and, consequently, clear description.
In August of 1990, representatives of 54 Muslim countries met in Cairo and signed the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam. What then are Islamic Human Rights and how do they differ from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)?
The Cairo Declaration allows stoning as punishment, prohibits Muslims from changing their religion, prohibits usury, does not give women equal rights and divides the world between Muslims and infidels.
The degree of cognitive dissonance required to sign a document containing the term Human Rights, that goes on to enumerate how it allows stoning as punishment, prohibits Muslims from changing their religion, prohibits usury, does not give women equal rights , enters the realm of incredulity. It is symptomatic of how Arab society indulges itself in the most strenuously contradictory feats of self-deception and utterly outlandish conspiracy theories. Go ahead and link it to the high-context principle of how; Nothing that happens to them can be described as an isolated event; everything is connected to meaningful context. Yet, if that context is so intrinsically flawed, all we are looking at is fruit of the poisoned tree.
Let us enter into the realm of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
Cooing should be a thing of the past because these are little people with the same rights as you or me.
Complete and total bullshit. A minor dependent (especially an infant) does not possess the same civil rights of an adult who has attained legal majority. Property ownership, driving, smoking and drinking are the most basic examples of this difference.
Norwegian medical doctor Ståle Fredriksen thinks that giving homework to school children violates their human rights. He refers to article 24 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, stating that: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours. Dr. Fredriksen believes school children in Norway dont have this right.
Again, utter insanity. The long term and life career benefits of compulsory public education far outweigh whatever ostensible access to temporary leisure, and especially so for a minor, that any putative claim to loss of rest or enjoyment is patently falsified.
How will people who are afraid that cooing at babies or giving homework to children might violate their human rights fare against people who think that those who insult Muhammad should have their heads cut off?
BINGO!
Writer Robin Harris noted that The traditional British view is that rights should be negative: we may do whatever the law does not forbid. This is how Anglo-Saxon law has been shaped from the very beginning, all the way back to the Magna Carta in 1215, which placed limitations on the kings power.
According to Harris, We do not expect from the state a positive right to specific benefits a job, or a house, or a good education.
This represents a cornerstone of modern constitutional law. It is also the absolutebedrockof conservativedoctrine; Namely, that government must at all times be restrained from any intrusion upon the private lives and activities of law abiding citizens. However repugnant it might be for you republicans, this is also the wellspring of rights, including marriage, for homosexuals in American society. Until homosexuality is declared illegal, any abrogation of their rights is a defiance of proper constitutional law. I refer you to the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Modern law grants us the right to the pursuitof Happiness. But nowhere does it guarantee same and rightfully so. It seems that much of political correctness demands government provision of such happiness and this is where the fatal poison of interpretation regarding what constitutes happiness seeps into legislative doctrine. Theocracy is the prime example of such meddling, but political correctness stridently insists upon recognition at nearly the same exact level. This is what makes it such a toxic brew of appealing, yet, totally dysfunctional mandates.
It is possible for all members of a society to obtain their negative rights, such as freedom from oppression and tyranny, at the same time. These include the rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, as stated by Thomas Jefferson in the 1776 United States Declaration of Independence.
This becomes a lot more difficult once we introduce the idea of positive rights, such as the right to a job. These require others to actively do something to fulfill your rights for you.
I rest my case.
Had the Allies been required to fight World War II under the rules of engagement selectively applied to Amnesty International to Israel, our greatest generation might have lost that war. If attacking the civilian infrastructure is a war crime, then modern warfare is entirely impermissible, and terrorists have a free hand in attacking democracies and hiding from retaliation among civilians. Terrorists become de facto immune from any consequences for their atrocities.
This must be chisled into the forehead of every military commander who is sent to fight the terrorist threat.
#13
Heh... for me, nothing illustrated better the distinction between "positive rights" and "negative rights" than when I was reading that abominable EU "Constitution" and found among their "fundamental human rights" the "right" to free job placement services.
Kinda says it all.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
10/02/2006 21:14 Comments ||
Top||
#14
And by the way, among "rational, fair-minded" non-interventionist libertarians, not a damn one of them has asked me, "What in your experience caused you to change your mind?" Instead what I get are gratuitous insults followed by insufferably condescending lectures about how wrong I am.
I can sing that song by heart.
there are a lot of different ways to be human. We Americans have a basically open attitude to our fellow human beings and sometimes forget this. Combined with the fact that most Americans are linguistic idiots, we tend to assume that anyone who learns to speak English learns to think like us.
[Daffy Duck] Aha! Pronoun Context trouble! [/DD]
Arabs are often easy to like, but difficult to respect - as opposed to Israelis, who are often difficult to like but impossible not to respect.
To quote Arethra Franklin; R-E-S-P-E-C-T
The basic forms of work: making stuff, growing stuff and moving stuff around, is taken care of by a class of indentured servants, usually non-Arab Muslims from the Third World, and even today, by outright slaves.
Which goes a long way towards explaining the almost complete and total absence of any manufacturing base in nearly every Arab or Muslim majority nation.
This is expressed in the inshallah philosophy, If God wills it. A Palestinian friend of mine explained to me that even the weather forecaster will qualify his prediction, It will rain tomorrow. Inshallah. Or, I will meet you tomorrow, inshallah.
And it is here where we must all be somewhat thankful that Christianity has, at least, abandoned to a greater degree the notion of; Its Gods will. Had this not happened, we in the West might just as well also be stuck in a similar stone-age mileau.
what we call terrorism is quite close to the historically normal way of warfare among these people.
Word. Nuff said.
Arabs dont seem to mind making a scene in public and have a high blown sense of drama.
See; High Context Societies. Also see why we will probably have to kick multitudinous Arab ass back several hundred centuries before they realize we arent joking.
Ive been assured, by well-educated and otherwise sensible people that Winston Churchill was Jewish
Again, I refer back to; how Arab society indulges itself in the most strenuously contradictory feats of self-deception and utterly outlandish conspiracy theories. Go ahead and link it to the high-context principle of how; Nothing that happens to them can be described as an isolated event; everything is connected to meaningful context. Yet, if that context is so intrinsically flawed, all we are looking at is fruit of the poisoned tree.
This involves some seriously weird stuff about other people being responsible for their misery because they ill-wished them.
Can you say; Americas support for Israel? Very good, I knew you could.
There was a time when cultural transmission between Islam and the West went overwhelmingly from them to us. Now the situation is reversed, and it is humiliating for them.
Only because of their complete and total inability to understand, comprehend, assimilate or accept the contributions of non-Islamic cultures. Tough shit, yall. At some point it may well become necessary for the West to issue forth such non-Islamic contibutions as high throw-weight hydrogen bombs.
we are sometimes left in the absurd position of defending their idea as perfectly valid for them. Doesnt work that way for them, Gods Truth is laid out in some detail in the Koran, and not to believe it is a sin.
Unless you do not happen to believe in (or respect) the Koran.
Can the subjugation of women coexist with Western Civilization with Western media ubiquitous throughout the world? Can a pluralistic and tolerant society be governed by Islamic law? Can a modern economy exist where interest is forbidden and many forms of business risk-taking are considered gambling, and thus forbidden? Can a society that educates its young men by a process of rote recitation produce critically thinking, technically educated men to build and operate a modern economy? Can you even teach elementary concepts of maintenance to a people who believe that anything that happens is inshalla (As God will it)? To compete, or even just survive in the world they must become more like us and less like themselves and they know this.
Ummmm no! End of story. End of any negotiation. End of all myths about Moderate Muslims. We have an enemy, it is Islam. Those who think otherwise should go join them in their religious utopias.
In his meeting with the ambassadors of the Muslim countries, Benedict XVI has not apologized. He has stated once again that violence must be rejected (a clear reference to the reaction to his remarks in Germany) and, more important, demanded the ambassadors that religious freedom be granted because dialogue must be based on reciprocity of rights.
It has been noticed that, after his speech to the Islamic ambassadors, the latter were not allowed to reply. As the Egyptian-born deputy director of Il Corriere della Sera Magdi Allam said in one of his latest editorials, this decision was taken on behalf of the Pope because he is aware of his right to criticize Islam and urge reciprocity. In other words, he did not need to know if the ambassadors agreed or not.
When George W. Bush says "Islam is peace," and Tony Blair insists the war now begun "has nothing to do with Islam," some of us scratch our heads and try, brows furrowed, to reconcile their soothing words with our frightening vision: the dirty war on Western civilization waged by evil forces in the name of Islam.
The experts tell us militant Islamic fundamentalists, or "Islamists," represent a narrow, if murderous, fringe. They number no more than 10, maybe 15, percent of all Muslims. That estimate works out to somewhere between 100 million and 150 million people. Which is a lot of murderous fringe.
Meanwhile, where is that peaceable majority overflowing Islamdom? Are they filling the streets in unity with America's effort to eradicate Islamist terrorism, "marginal" though its supporters may be? Hardly. Only last week, UPI reported that Pakistan's Tahirul Qadri had become "the first prominent Muslim scholar to condemn Osama bin Laden and the Taliban so strongly in public." Even if the wire service missed a bin Laden-condemning cleric here or there, the singularity of Qadri's achievement is striking. Indeed, sampling some of the world's largest mosques, The New York Times recently found clerics from England to Pakistan denouncing America, saluting the Taliban, or even declaring solidarity with Osama bin Laden.
In Cairo, the paper reported, Friday prayers at the famous Al Azhar University mosque ended with a rousing chant of: "America is the enemy of Arabs and Muslims. Let us die in our war against America." In New Delhi's largest mosque, the imam urged "moral" support for Taliban jihad. In Nairobi, services progressed from attacking the United States to the parable: "Every Muslim is Osama bin Laden."
Every Muslim, of course, is not Osama bin Laden. But why don't more Muslims say so, quite loudly and very specifically? Muslim condolences after Sept. 11 very often came across as rather generic expressions of sympathy, equally as suitable for a natural disaster as for a terrorist act of war committed by co-religionists. Little sense of the magnitude of events is being communicated, and, thus, little recognition of the urgent need for civilized people of all faiths and nations to denounce this evil, vociferously and by name, and array themselves in warring solidarity against it.
What accounts for this weakness? And what is a reflexively tolerant, post-multicultural Westerner to make of it? Our dauntless leaders may repeat that the Islamist threat has nothing do with Islam, but, frankly, their mantra is getting a little ridiculous. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Amir Taheri, an Iranian author and journalist, recently declared that "to claim the attacks had nothing to do with Islam amounts to a whitewash." It's also, he wrote, a "disservice to Muslims, who need to cast a critical glance at the way their faith is taught, lived and practiced."
Taheri, frank as he was, did not offer how-to specifics. But with reporters mining Islam for information previously limited to specialists, it's clear how important this call for Islamic reform really is. As the horrors of our Taliban enemy have become common knowledge, we also learn, for example, that a similar strain of Islam, Wahabbism, is practiced and exported by our so-called ally Saudi Arabia. Examining a textbook for one of five compulsory religion classes for Saudi 10th-graders, The New York Times quoted a lesson regarding whom "good Muslims" should befriend. "After examining a number of scriptures which warn of the dangers of having Christian and Jewish friends, the lesson concludes: `It is compulsory for the Muslims to be loyal to each other and to consider infidels their enemy.'"
This comes straight from the Quran. "O believers," the Quran says (Sura 5, Verse 50), "do not hold Jews and Christians as your allies. They are the allies of one another; and anyone who makes them his friends is surely one of them." As historian Paul Johnson noted in National Review, such "canonical commands" -- along with "slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them" (Sura 9, Verse 5) -- "cannot be explained away or softened by modern theological exegesis, because there is no such science in Islam." Johnson goes on to explain that contrary to the evolving nature of both Christianity and Judaism, Islam has never undergone any update, reformation or enlightenment since its inception in the seventh century. "Islam," he wrote, "remains a religion of the Dark Ages. The seventh-century Quran is still taught as the immutable word of God, any teaching of which is literally true. In other words, mainstream Islam is essentially akin to the most extreme form of Biblical fundamentalism."
This stagnation is a key to the problem. The solution, however, is beyond the grasp of non-Muslims. This most critical, internal challenge falls to those Muslims around the world who desire to live and worship in peace. IE Bad muslims.
#1
One of my peers did 6 months in Afghanistan working some "secret squirrel" job. From his experience 90% of the Afghanis were glad the Taliban was gone. The problem as he saw it was that the Saudi's are funding, equiping, and providing bodies to help the Talibanos. He said the Sauds are as much involved in the problems in Afghanistan as the Paks are.
#2
In a simple world, we would have gone and kicked over Saudi Arabia instead of Iraq. Sometimes you need to maneuver a little on the chessboard before you get to your objective.
Inviting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak is like inviting Hitler in the 1930s, an Israeli official has said, in response to the invitations extended to the Iranian leader by the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University. Those invitations followed, by less than two weeks, Harvard Universitys hosting of a speech by one of Ahmadinejads defenders, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami.
The Israeli officials remark was closer to the truth than he realized. Although neither Columbia nor Harvard invited Adolf Hitler to speak in the 1930s, they did the next worst thing they welcomed senior officials of the Hitler regime.
Thanks to recent groundbreaking research by Prof. Stephen Norwood of the University of Oklahoma, the shameful details of this Ivy League flirtation with the Nazis is a secret no longer. Perhaps it makes their recent invitations to Iranian officials seem less surprising.
In May 1934, the Harvard administration played host to Nazi Germanys U.S. ambassador, Hans Luther. He visited Harvards Germanic Museum and Widener Library. The following month, Harvard president James Conant rolled out the red carpet for Hitlers foreign press chief, Ernst Putzi Hanfstangl. A graduate of the class of 1909, Hanfstangl came for the June 1934 commencement and his 25-year class reunion. He had been a close ally of Hitlers since the early 1920s, and in his new position was responsible for spreading Nazi propaganda abroad.
President Conant received the Nazi official at a tea for the Class of 09 in his home. The student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, even urged the administration to award Hanfstangl an honorary degree as a mark of honor appropriate to his high position in the government of a friendly country.
Later that year, the Harvard administration hosted Germanys Boston consul-general, Baron Kurt von Tippelskirch, at a ceremony honoring Harvard graduates who had died while fighting in the German army in World War I. The consuls wreath included the infamous Nazi swastika.
Meanwhile, at Columbia, president Nicholas Murray Butler in 1933 invited Nazi ambassador Hans Luther to speak on campus, and also hosted a reception for him. Luther represented the government of a friendly people, Butler insisted. He was entitled to be received with the greatest courtesy and respect. Ambassador Luthers speech focused on what he characterized as Hitlers peaceful intentions.
Three years later, the Columbia administration announced it would send a delegate to Nazi Germany to take part in the 550th anniversary celebration of the University of Heidelberg. (Harvard did likewise.) This, despite the fact that Heidelberg already had been purged of Jewish faculty members, instituted a Nazi curriculum and hosted a burning of books by Jewish authors.
Academic relationships have no political implications, Butler claimed. Many Columbia students disagreed. The student newspaper, The Spectator, denounced Butlers intention to send the delegate to Heidelberg, and students held a Mock Heidelberg Festival on campus, complete with a bonfire and mock book burning. Butler Diddles While the Books Burn, their signs proclaimed.
That was followed by a student rally in front of Butlers mansion. Butler was furious that a leader of the rally, Robert Burke, delivered a speech in which he referred to the President [Butler] disrespectfully. As punishment, Burke was permanently expelled from Columbia.
(In the late 1930s, Butler would change his position and speak out against the Nazis. Unfortunately, it was too late to undo the damage he already had done.)
Universities are uniquely positioned to shape public attitudes. As the pillars of Americas educational system, they are looked upon as exemplars for our society. But what example did they set in the 1930s, by hosting officials of the Hitler regime and expelling a student for the "crime" of leading an anti-Nazi rally? What message do they send today by welcoming leaders of a regime that sponsors international terrorism and threatens to annihilate five million Israeli Jews?
As it happens, President Ahmadinejhad will not speak at Columbia, but for the wrong reason. He was originally invited by the dean of Columbias School of International Affairs, Lisa Anderson, to speak as part of the Universitys World Leaders Forum. Following protests, university president Lee Bollinger told Anderson that Ahmadinejad should speak at the School of International Affairs itself rather than at the university-wide forum. Anderson, for her part, said the logistical and security requirements for the visit were too complicated to resolve on short notice. Unfortunately, neither Bollinger nor Anderson acknowledged any moral problem with inviting the Iranian president.
Robert Burke is the person who should be embraced by Columbia, not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even at this late date, an honorary degree for Burke would constitute an appropriate replacement for the Iranian leaders speech, and a powerful expression of Columbias opposition to fascist tyrants and their proxies.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Amid all the speculation about whether Democrats will regain a majority in the Senate in November, it's worth remembering that the politician heading up that effort is New York's own senior senator, Charles Schumer. Inside Friday's Wall Street Journal was a highly illuminating article in which Mr. Schumer, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which raises and allocates huge amounts of campaign cash, described himself and his counterpart on the House side, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, as "trying to be the generals." Quoth General Schumer: "This is a war."
It is alleged, by former Lt. Gen. Mike DeLong, that Donald Rumsfeld once interrupted a briefing of his with the remark: "General, there was no verb in the last sentence." The retired general gave this to CNN as evidence of Mr Rumsfeld's obsession with trivial details.
Inviting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak is like inviting Hitler in the 1930s, an Israeli official has said, in response to the invitations extended to the Iranian leader by the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University. Those invitations followed, by less than two weeks, Harvard Universitys hosting of a speech by one of Ahmadinejads defenders, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. 
