Back To The Future

Glenn links to more proof that everything new is old again.  Torn from today's headlines:

Afghan Men Struggle With Sexual Identity, Study Finds

...

An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it. 

The study, obtained by Fox News, found that Pashtun men commonly have sex with other men, admire other men physically, have sexual relationships with boys and shun women both socially and sexually -- yet they completely reject the label of "homosexual." The research was conducted as part of a longstanding effort to better understand Afghan culture and improve Western interaction with the local people.

Now let's flashback to January 2002, a few months after we first put booty on the ground in Afghanistan:

Kandahar Men Return to Original Love: Teenage Boys

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan —  Now that Taliban rule is over in Mullah Omar's former southern stronghold, it is not only televisions, kites and razors which have begun to emerge. 

Visible again, too, are men with their ashna, or beloveds: young boys they have groomed for sex. 

Kandahar's Pashtuns have been notorious for their homosexuality for centuries, particularly their fondness for na�ve young boys. Before the Taliban arrived in 1994, the streets were filled with teenagers and their sugar daddies, flaunting their relationships. 

Kandahar is called the homosexual capital of south Asia. Such is the Pashtun obsession with sodomy � locals tell you that birds fly over the city using only one wing, the other covering their posterior � that the rape of young boys by warlords was one of the key factors in Mullah Omar mobilising the Taliban. 

A bit more on life under the Taliban:

Men accused of sodomy faced the punishment of having a wall toppled on to them, usually resulting in death. In February 1998 three men sentenced to death for sodomy in Kandahar were taken to the base of a huge mud and brick wall, which was pushed over by tank. Two of them died, but one managed to survive. 

"In the days of the Mujahedeen [the pre-Taliban victors against the Communist government], there were men with their ashna everywhere, at every corner, in shops, on the streets, in hotels: it was completely open, a part of life," said Torjan, 38, one of the soldiers loyal to Kandahar's new governor, Gul Agha Sherzai. 

"But in the later Mujahedeen years, more and more soldiers would take boys by force, and keep them for as long as they wished," Torjan said. "But when the Taliban came, they were very strict about the ban. Of course, it still happened � the Taliban could not enter every house � but one could not see it." 

I am not interested in playing apologist for the Taliban but I do recall articles [e.g., NY Times] explaining that part of their popularity in the Pashtun region was due to their suppression of some of the more unsavory homosexual practices - just for example, young boys were routinely kidnapped by warlords or sold as sex slaves.  From the Times, Feb 21 2002:

An interest in relationships with young boys among warlords and their militia commanders played a part in the Taliban's rise in Afghanistan. In 1994, the Taliban, then a small army of idealistic students of the Koran, were called to rescue a boy over whom two commanders had fought. They freed the boy and the people responded with gratitude and support.

''At that time boys couldn't come to the market because the commanders would come and take away any that they liked,'' said Amin Ullah, a money changer, gesturing to his two teenage sons hunched over wads of afghani bank notes at Kandahar's currency bazaar.

The gay-bashing under the Taliban came out of a very different culture than we see in the US.  And now we have an unclassified study discovering that again.

Comments

[clarice]

Per the kite runner, however, many of the Taliban reserved that practice for themselves and I recall seeing photos of obvious poofters with dreamy faces and heavily kohled eyesin a cache of Taliban photos some time ago.

The truth is I think that jihadism is as uch a psychosexual phenomenon as it is anything else.

[peter]

Rumors about Yassir Arafat's preferences for boys swirled for years. LUN

[Fritz]

Andrew Sullivan your military needs you.

[Jane]

All I can say is Holy Cow!

[Man Seeking Woman]

"locals tell you that birds fly over the city using only one wing, the other covering their posterior"

Back when I lived in San Francisco, that is how I walked through the Castro district.

[clarice]

LUN, a video of the homosexual photos of Taliban

[centralcal]

Ditto, what Jane said.

[Janet]

Yes Clarice...an article and those photos were linked and highlighted on LGF years ago. I was just looking through my piles of papers for a great old article on homosexuality in Saudi Arabia....very prevalent but not very public. Don't ask, don't tell.

[Cecil Turner]

I'm a little surprised at how open they are about it. Other than that . . . There was plenty of similar behavior going on in Saudi Arabia when I was there, but it was much less obvious. (Well, at least officially . . . it was still pretty obvious.)

[Neo]

All the more reason to draft gays.

[clarice]

Point taken, neo, though apparently only gays who prefer the active role. The passive role is frowned upon and generally simply forced on little kids.

Really, we need shrinks and porno material airdropped there.

[Janet]

Here it is...LUN The Kingdom in the Closet

[Neo]

This story kind of makes me change my mind in regard to gays in the military ... I say we draft them all and send them to Kandahar.

Definitely falls into the "Be Careful What You Wish For" category.

Let's make the Afghan War, the "Gay War." We have been protecting our precious gays too long.

[Janet]

"...the KGB had invented a background for Arafat with a birthplace in Jerusalem."

From peter's article at 9:40...Now who does that remind you of?!? A scripted background.

[bgates]

I never realized this guy was Pashtun.

[bgates]

Doh, broken link. Try again.

[anduril]

Iranian (Persian) culture is notorious for this kind of stuff, and Pashtuns are simply a subdivision of the overall Iranian culture. Non-Pashtun Afghans are even more closely connected to Iran and speak a Persian that is only dialectally different from mainstream Farsi--the languages are mutually intelligible from Teheran to Kabul (which also explains why Iranian intel on Afghanistan is so good and why they were able to help us so extensively post 9/11). The joke about the birds is a very ancient one, indicating how deeply this goes in history and in the local "culture." And, as others have said, this is endemic throughout the Islamic world. It's common to hear that most classical Arab and Persian poetry (dating as far back as the 8th century) is replete with homoerotic themes, although others discount this.

Obviously, all this is closely tied to the low status of women in Islam, as indeed homosexuality was connected to the low status of women in ancient Greece, where homosexuality was widely practiced. The fact is, tolerance of homosexuality has led to a lowering in the social status of women everywhere it has occurred: another good reason to ban immigration of Muslims to the US. This is a "culture" that has nothing to offer any society that prizes human dignity.

[Janet]

From the Kingdom in the Closet article -

"...her 16-year-old brother, along with many boys his age, has been targeted by his male elders as a sexual object. “It’s the land of sand and sodomites,” she said. “The older men take advantage of the little boys.”

[fdcol63]

Well, this explains their misogyny.

[anduril]

Janet, a couple of points stand out from that article.

1. Re the story of Lot, the real sin involved in the original story was violation of the duty of a host to his guests. This duty of hospitality is so sacred in those cultures that Lot is portrayed as offering his own daughters to the unruly mob that wanted to rape his (male) guests. Think back to the episode in our Afghan war when a single surviving SEAL, pursued by Taliban, sought help from Afghan villagers who then faced down the Taliban. Those villagers were responding to this same law of hospitality, not out of love for non-Muslims or SEALs in particular.

2. The tolerance of "active" homos and derision of "passive" ones in Saudi mirrors the same attitudes in ancient Greek and Roman society (Caesar was derided as "a wife to every man" by his critics, i.e., a soft or effeminate homosexual). St. Paul himself refers to this distinction when he condemns both "arsenokoitai" and "malakoi" (malakoi means "softies" and the first word is a compound derived from words for "male" and "coitus," clearly referring to the active participant). In other words, Paul felt that he had to be very explicit that neither practice was tolerable.

3. As the author notes, current reform movements may be influenced my Western ("Victorian") standards of morality.

4. All this illustrates the problems that arise in cultures either weak in or rejecting of concepts of natural law morality--which is what has been the strength of the West and which our Founding Fathers explicitly supported. It is unwise to allow immigration of people from such different cultures.

[Carol Herman]

Everyone can quickly remember a particular Taliban horror in Afghanistan. Including women taken out to soccer fields and shot. Public display gone immoral.

While as soon as the Americans came, I can remember the glee! Afghan men were singing! And, when the Taliban were there, singing was forbidden. Everyone there took their radios and buried them way out in fields. Not to be caught by the Taliban police 'owning' a forbidden 'fruit of the West.'

You can't fool me. The Taliban are the saud's. The saud's have been using wealth to spread a verulent form of islam. Tossing out local imams, and putting their lunatics in their place.

What's to count? More arabs, now, hate their sunni religion. And, the shi'ites get theirs from Persia. Again, no poll details how people really feel. To find a comparison? You'd have to go to Patton. He pisses in the Rhine. And, then the Americans cross it. And, guess what? Germany has no nazis. None. No german admits to having belonged to that party. It's as if the whole dance disappeared.

[clarice]

Actually, I think the cultural misogyny explains the homoerotic nature of their culture.If women are hidden and have no rights and you need money to marry--and all the rich older men get them, not the young men whose hormones are raging--what do you think will happen? There's religious beliefs on one side which make love of any sort haram (dirty, forbidden) and at the same time you have biology.

[anduril]

"Well, this explains their misogyny."

In these cultures women are viewed as uncontrollably libidinous. It is presumed that any woman who is alone with a man will make sexual advances to the man--not the other way around. That also explains the practice of female mutilation and also why, in strict observance, women have to be accompanied everywhere by a male relative. And violation of these norms leads to honor killings, since the men must avenge their own failure to control their presumed to have been over libidinous women folk. A charming culture.

You can see reflections of some of these attitudes in the Israelite scriptures, as well.

[narciso]

Well there has been an Islamist current in the NorthWest Frontier going back a long time, but it was generally of short duration,
the Fakir, the Mad Mullah of Malakand, Syed
Ali, et al. Most of it comes from Deobandism
which is the Indian variant of Wahhabism the Saudi creed.

[boris]

None of this makes any sense. Everybody knows that gays are born that way. So it can only be genetic. So it has to be the same everywhere on the planet. And all cultures are equal. Therefore this has to be nothing but ethnocentric homophobic lies and propaganda.

[Janet]

Interesting point about Marcus Luttrell.

The polygamy in Islam (rich old guys get the women), along with this acceptance of homosexual sex seems to explain the "lost" nature of the young jihadi.

[Soylent Red]

Just installed Windows 7 so this is a test.

[anduril]

"Just installed Windows 7 so this is a test."

What the hell for? Try OpenSuse 11.2.

[Ignatz]

--What the hell for?--

Hadn't had his morning lecture yet.

--Obviously, all this is closely tied to the low status of women in Islam, as indeed homosexuality was connected to the low status of women in ancient Greece, where homosexuality was widely practiced.--

Wonder to what extent hellenism underlies this, as the Arabs, even pre Islam, were pretty notorious for this kind of stuff. Islam only feeds it.

[clarice]

So true Boris..so true.*hand to forehead*

[Soylent Red]

Fark. Anduril has reappeared.

Have to go edit greasemonkey script...

[anduril]

"Have to go edit greasemonkey script..."

You'd be better off reformatting your HD, for starters.

[sylvia]

I really think the sexes have to be mixed from an early age, and particularly in adolescence if people are going to be more normal. I notice the difference with my older relatives who had separate gender schools. Even now, in old age, they still act like the other sex is some mystery to them and don't get the concept of just being friends with the opposite sex.

So I can just imagine how messed up the Afghans are. If we could get mixed sex schooling in there though, this problem could be solved in a generation.

[clarice]

Jack Cashill has a goof AT blog on Obama who he thinks is dead and who Obama thinks may only be "technically " dead. Only the CIA still credits the audiotapes of a man no one has seen since 2001 and whose rants grow increasingly bizarre.

And why would they vouch for this memorex stuff? Because they'd have to scrap the rogue jihadi thesis for state sponsored attacks on the US if they did not.

[anduril]

"Jack Cashill has a goof AT blog on Obama who he thinks is dead and who Obama thinks may only be "technically " dead."

Was this run through Babelfish?

[Soylent Red]

Oh hellz yeah...

Goodbye you preachy mf.

How are the rest of you doing today?

[narciso]

Woops, freudian slip and all, Where's the Youtube on Al Jazeera, 'all the cool kids
are doing it' these days.

[Carol Herman]

Islam's calling card has always been the ease with which a man gets a woman. And, if any woman dares speak her mind? She's killed by her dad. Or her brother. Or an uncle.

This is what causes the malfunction for women. The ones who survive go along with the dictates. More than just as a "general rule."

What also follows is that the Islamic men, no matter what country they wandered into, actually go to their mosques. Where they do business with each other. And, keep the rules to suppress women just the same. (No Abigail Adams to write to her husband, John.)

What we don't know, is what happens, ahead, where the saud's took over. And, stuck in their virulent form of islam. Replacing the local imams. Who stressed that in their communities they get along with the majority. Do business. The numbers, now, for mullahs and imams really don't look all that good.

Can religions change from the inside? Ever hear of Martin Luther's thesis stuck up on a church door? That was just one stroke. A few others came down the pike as well. And, this shook the Vatican up to its core.

Shells aren't the same thing as the old power structure. You just can't fool me.

[bgates]

So it can only be genetic. So it has to be the same everywhere on the planet.

You're stealing a base there. I can think of plenty of traits that are genetic but not distributed identically across the globe.

[anduril]

bgates, I think he was being sarcastic.

[anduril]

sorry, bgates, i see what you're saying, but still think boris has a good point.

[clarice]

**gooD** I meant a good piece up at AT.

[Frau Tierfreund]

I still feel sorry for the Tennessee mules the U.S. supplied during the Soviet-Afghan war. The mujahideen didn't give them much time to rest.

[Ignatz]

--You're stealing a base there. I can think of plenty of traits that are genetic but not distributed identically across the globe.--

Second baseman dropped the ball.
I think he was referring to the cultural correlation which make an asymettrical genetic distribution unlikely.

[bgates]

the cultural correlation which make an asymettrical genetic distribution unlikely

I don't understand that at all.

[Ignatz]

--I don't understand that at all.--

I think boris was referring to the coincidence of Islam and middle eastern culture with the widespread practice and acceptance of man/boy sexual proclivities which, while not inkown elsewhere, seems considerably less prevalent and socially acceptable.
If he wasn't he can correct me.

[anduril]

"Jack Cashill has a goof AT blog on Obama who he thinks is dead and who Obama thinks may only be "technically " dead."

Obama = ?

[anduril]

bgates, boris' basic point, I believe, is that widespread discrepancy between cultures in homosexual practice among humans is more likely to be explained by cultural differences than by genetic differences. I think he's right in principle--members of the same species are likely to exhibit similar basic behavior that is closely connected with their identity as a species, such as reproductive behavior--as well as right on the data. After all, the rate has varied among Middle Eastern cultures and subcultures from the standpoint of both time and place, and those cultures and subcultures presumably share similar genetic bases. Moreover, the advent of Christianity brought changes in this regard to Greco-Roman society.

[Janet]

LUN another good article. Sexual Starvation and Jihad Fantasies.

"But, like the September 11 bombers, who visited strip clubs before their date with destiny, when his devout religious beliefs conflicted with his corporeal desires, he found that blowing himself up along with a whole lot of infidels was preferable to being sexually frustrated.

As the New York Post put it: “The bomb wasn’t the only thing burning in his pants.”

[anduril]

Janet, I believe Glazov has other, lengthier, articles on this topic, as well. The bottom line is that Islam is all about submission and domination--that's what "Islam" means: submission. Theoretically, that submission is to God, but since in Islam God is so remote and unknowable it ends up being submission to (domination by) God's representatives. This submission/domination theme pervades Islamic culture.

[anduril]

I should add, this implies a vision of human nature and human dignity that is wildly at odds with the Western vision.

[anduril]

Some years ago a work colleague--a very liberal guy in a very conservative work environment--urged me to read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. I was dumbfounded after a brief glance through the book--it was obviously little more than a Marxist tract. Only later did I learn how widespread this book is in our schools.

Ron Radosh has an article on Zinn today (Zinn recently died) and specifically addresses a TV Special based on Zinn's work: The Zinning of America: How to Watch “The People Speak” on The History Channel on Sunday Night.

Unfortunately, Radosh's article drags a bit until he gets down to "The Critique of Michael Kazin". There we find this interesting paragraph taken from Kazin' critique of Zinn:

History for Zinn is thus a painful narrative about ordinary folks who keep struggling to achieve equality, democracy, and a tolerant society, yet somehow are always defeated by a tiny band of rulers whose wiles match their greed. He describes the American Revolution as a clever device to defeat “potential rebellions and create a consensus of popular support for the rule of a new, privileged leadership.

Anyone wanna bet whether Obama read this book? Here's the link to Kazin's critique, itself written for a leftist magazine: Howard Zinn's History Lessons.

[bgates]

the coincidence of Islam and middle eastern culture with the widespread practice and acceptance of man/boy sexual proclivities

occurs within certain ethnic groups, though, and anyway I don't see how that helps boris' apparent point, "if a trait is genetic then it must be the same everywhere on the planet". Plenty of traits are genetic without being the same everywhere on the planet.

It would be interesting to know whether this behavior was a problem in Arab Christian communities, though as you note hellenism is a confounding factor.

[narciso]

That's a profoundly stupid argument that Zinn posits, even more than Charles Beard on a similar tack with the Constitution. One suspects like McGovern he might have been rattled too many times in the bombers he flew.
Now the only argument against Obama having totally adopted this view, is that Zinn knew
dissent in wartime was a mugs game

[anduril]

Stupid it may be, but it's been instrumental in indoctrinating millions of young people.

[daddy]

"Actually, I think the cultural misogyny explains the homoerotic nature of their culture. If women are hidden and have no rights and you need money to marry--and all the rich older men get them, not the young men whose hormones are raging--what do you think will happen? "

With that said, then China certainly bears watching in the future. Last week read where in today's China men outnumber women in the new generation by 24 million---something equivalent to the current population of Manhattan being 'raging hormone' boys unable to find girls. Yet still here in Guangzhou I spot Westerners adopting baby girls because culturally parents still want boys.

So the question I suppose, is will China turn Gay or homicidal?

[clarice]

Maybe they'll offer asylum to North Korean women,

[clarice]

Better yet polyandry will be more widespread than it is in some remote spots in China.

[anduril]

Westerners continue to adopt Chinese baby girls, and there is a hot traffic in kidnapped Vietnamese women in rural areas of Guangzhou, occasioned by the dearth of Chinese women and the need of Chinese farmers for wives to breed sons. The particularly acute shortfall in the countryside is caused by migration to the cities of women who don't want to be farmers' wives, but also by abortion and abandonment of unwanted girls.

Also, concubinage--an ages old institution--is making a big comeback in China. That, of course, is for the wealthy, mostly in the urban areas.

[boris]

"plenty of traits that are genetic but not distributed identically across the globe"

Okay but JMH and ChaCo both informed me there can't be a trait favoring the 1 male 1 female institution of marriage because there are geographical variations in the custom. Now who should I believe?

[daddy]

Or maybe the competition will simply start earlier:

9-year-old">http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/china/9-year-old-girl-gives-birth-in-China/articleshow/5517050.cms">9-year-old girl gives birth in China. Ughh.

[anduril]

Also on the topic of China: Battling the Information Barbarians: China often views the ideas of foreigners, from missionaries in the 17th century to 21st-century Internet entrepreneurs, as subversive imports. The tumultuous history behind the clash with Google. The entire article is interesting, but this portion echoes a discussion from about a week ago:

The claim of universality is indeed an important facet of American culture, rooted in the American Revolution and Protestant ethics. It is considered proper for a U.S. secretary of state to give voice to the ideal of universal human rights. Just so, a Chinese official sees it as his duty to assert the uniqueness, or even superiority, of Chinese culture. This was true of Confucian scholar-officials in the imperial past. It is still true today.

Thought control, in terms of imposing an official orthodoxy, is a very old tradition. The official glue that has long been applied to hold Chinese society together is a kind of state dogma, loosely known as Confucianism, which is moral as well as political, stressing obedience to authority. This is what officials like to call Chinese culture.

One can take a more cynical view, of course, and see culture as a mere fig leaf meant to hide the machinations of political power. The latest Chinese salvo against the U.S., blaming the Americans for instigating rebellion in Iran through the Internet, reveals that the current spat has a hard (and opportunistic) political core. And the assumption that Google, as a Chinese editorial put it, is a "political pawn" of the U.S. government, is a clear case of projection.

In any case, instilling the belief that obedience to authority is not just a way to keep order, but an essential part of being Chinese, is highly convenient for those who wield authority, whether they be fathers of a family or rulers of the state. That is why in their efforts to promote democracy after World War I, Chinese intellectuals denounced Confucianism, with its rigid social hierarchy, as an outmoded orthodoxy which had to be eradicated.

It was, as we know, not so much eradicated as replaced by a Communist orthodoxy after 1949. And when this orthodoxy began to lose its grip on the Chinese public after the death of Chairman Mao in 1976, Chinese officials struggled to find a new set of beliefs to justify their monopoly on power. The ideological hybrid that followed Maoism was "Socialism with Chinese Characteristics," a mixture of state capitalism with political authoritarianism. Later, Confucianism actually made a comeback of sorts. But the most common ideology since the early 1990s is a defensive nationalism, disseminated through museums, entertainment and school textbooks. All Chinese schoolchildren are indoctrinated with the idea that China was humiliated for centuries by foreign powers, and that support of the Communist state is the only way for China to regain its greatness and never be humiliated again.

This is why foreign criticism of Chinese politics, or Chinese infringements of human rights, is denounced by government officials as an attack on Chinese culture, as an attempt to "denigrate China." And Chinese who agree with these foreign criticisms are treated not just as dissidents but as traitors. The term "information imperialism" is clearly designed to evoke memories of the Opium Wars and other historical humiliations. Chinese are meant to feel that foreigners who talk about human rights are doing so only to bash China.

The author is Ian Buruma, Henry R. Luce Professor at Bard College.

[matt]

This really is one of those Captain Obvious stories, but it also opens the whole cultural, religious, psychological and psychiatric can o' worms.

One of the functions of religion has always been socialization, and haram/forbidden behavior has common sense, cultural and strictly religious/moral roots.

Until the 20th century, women in the West were to a lesser extent treated in many ways similar to those within the Ummah.

Even within the Ummah, it would be interesting to contrast the incidence of homosexuality in cultures such as Indonesia or India.

In Asia, there are not very many records extant of widespread homosexuality. It seems to have been accepted but rare.

In the Wahabbist/Deobandist world, however, the tenets of Islam are taken to the extreme. You have young men with raging hormones and zero outlet except jihad and homosexuality. The homosexuality in Afghanistan long predates modern cultural mores, and as the article points out, it is worst in Pushtunistan, where Deobandism is strongest in the region.Even in Pakistan, which has a truly horrible history of the repression of women, it does not seem to be as great an issue. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

The rumors of saltpeter in American military food used to reduce the libido, consciously or unconsciously, but our boys always had outlets at some point. We also had Victorian, enlightened values and a sense of progressivism.

And yet homosexuality in the West under Christianity, even in the middle ages, with the exception of monasteries/nunneries, was completely haram. It was the sin whose name was not spoken.

Contrast this with the Ummah, where Englishmen of a certain persuasion were visiting Marrakech and Istanbul 300 years ago for the sole reason of finding catamites and a culture more open to their tastes.

There's a Nobel in researching all of this, but the politically correct would never dare.

[daddy]

Does anyone know if in Afghan Pashtun land, if access to the internet is easily available to each and every male?

My guess is no. It will be interesting in the future to see what happens to that society if cheap computers with access to all things Western, including porn and our salacious ads etc, become ubiquitous in Pashtun land.

My impression of China, at least in the large coastal cities where I hang out, is that every male is wired up on the internet, and all that sort of stuff is easily available and omnipresent. The internet cafe's are jam packed, and the Starbucks sort of coffee joints with wifi are as well. I think that has to influence the 'raging hormone' male population between the ages of 10 and 30 severely, though I can't exactly say how.

My guess is that if and when that happens in Pashtun land, that will transform the younger generation of males and push them away from whatever societal norms currently exist in thousand year old Pashtun Society.

[Captain Hate]

The author is Ian Buruma, Henry R. Luce Professor at Bard College.

Does anybody know if they still have an Alger Hiss chair at Bard? My oldest Hatette spent a year at Bard; despite them being top-heavy with nutjobs and emotional trainwrecks (one idiot in my daughter's dorm slashed her wrists and then tried to return a couple days later like nothing happened; to the school's credit they said "You shouldn't be here") they were able to do what her high-school teachers were abject failures at: Getting her to write coherently.

I like their president's, Leon Botstein, ideas about education. He gave a presentation that was very insightful but my first exposure to him was on Nightline and was my first illustration of how a bright person can look like a pinhead when forced to present complex thoughts in sound bytes.

[Janet]

So on the layers of sickness we will add pornography? That can't be the answer for a healthy society.

[boris]

Think chickenpox smallpox Janet.

[narciso]

He's said some interesting things, but mostly trite kefty things, about Islam, the left et al. He certainly has raised the hackles of Steyn at times, over the Eurabina question, that's why I'm a little surprised he would
be cited here

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

It's a virus, doncha know?

I, virus: Why you're only half human

A fascinating article on viruses, symbiotic relationships, and DNA/RNA, and how it all effects evolutionary changes, immunities, mutations, etc.

[Melinda Romanoff]

daddy-

That Joe Venuti & Zoot Sims example can be found

[Melinda Romanoff]

oops.

here.

[Yet Another Longtime Lurker]

Captain Hate

RE: "Does anybody know if they still have an Alger Hiss chair at Bard?"

They certainly did two years ago (I know someone who interviewed for it).

And RE Botstein: He was considered the family failure. Unlike his older brother and sister, he was rejected by Harvard/Radcliffe and had to settle for the University of Chicago.

[daddy]

Thanks Melinda,

Nice to hear that sweet sound.

I wish TM had a place off to the side to archive JOM's music and book recommendations.

Folks here give so many good ones, but I find I'm busy doing something else and when I try a few weeks later to relocate the recommendation it is lost amid a million comments and threads.

Sara

That's an interesting science link. So I don't have a doppelganger, I are a doppelganger?

[Ignatz]

--Think chickenpox smallpox Janet.--

Maybe. Or perhaps alcohol/firearms is more apt.

--So the question I suppose, is will China turn Gay or homicidal?--

Spengler, no stranger to China, and others familiar with Chinese sub cultures, estimate over 100 miilion Christians in China, a number apparently growing extremely fast. So perhaps neither.

[Melinda Romanoff]

daddy-

Here's my favorite jazz violinist, playing Swing 42,Stephane Grappelli .

[boris]

"perhaps alcohol/firearms is more apt"

Dunno about that, I should have written "think cowpox / smallpox" because cowpox will provide immunity from smallpox. Before smallpox was eradicated peoople used to expose their children to cowpox to protect them from smallpox. I don't think chickenpox does that so my analogy was inapt.

[Janet]

Or perhaps alcohol/firearms is more apt.

LOL! I agree.

[Janet]

So it's pornography rather than homosexuality as the lesser of two evils?...how about narciso's the evil of two lessers?

more pornography = less homosexuality?
I don't think so.

[glenda]

Well.. I wrote this lengthy comment on the birds&the bees vs deviant behavior of sadists+hypocrits...nevermind..........

In other news, OT, the grandson's team won their "Upward" Basketball game, and got a Red Star for the "best defense" of the game!!
Miracles are happening everyday!

[boris]

"more pornography = less homosexuality?"

The reasoning would be that male sexuality in that culture is so distorted that internet exposure to soft porn, ubiquitous in western culture would be an improvement. Certainly speculative and perhaps could make things worse, but that seems unlikely based on how bad they are already.

Some of the ads that show up on this website would qualify.

[anduril]

Here's something more to my taste.

[anduril]

The actual music only runs between the 2 and 3 minute marks.

[Janet]

glenda - Congrats! There is nothing better than cheering on a loved one. What happened to the comment?

[anduril]

But I like this too.

[Extraneus]

I wish TM had a place off to the side to archive JOM's music and book recommendations.

At least he has "Afghan Girls! Meet Afghan girls for dating and marriage."

[anduril]

On a more serious note this is...moving: Giant Katyn memorial to be built in Poland.

Giant Katyn memorial to be built in Poland.

The memorial is supposed to consist of a tall monument, and an „army” of 21.857 natural size statues of soldiers – the number equal to the number of the Polish POWs murdered by the Soviets in Katyn.
Something like the Chinese ancient Terracota Army.

Each statue will have its first name, surname, military rank and ... a hole in the head.

There's a link to a video visualization.

[anduril]

Promise--this is the last one.

[glenda]

Janet...I deleted it. It wasn't adding anything worthy to the conversation. So, I just went with my happy thoughts! :)

[Ralph L]

Hellenistic art was not centered on the male form, unlike the Classical period, so the Arabs may not have picked it up from the Greeks.

The only gay Arab I know partnered up with an American twice his age (my ex-step-uncle). Daddy issues, or was he interfered with by someone much older?

Maybe we can settle our debts with China with women.

[Captain Hate]

And RE Botstein: He was considered the family failure. Unlike his older brother and sister, he was rejected by Harvard/Radcliffe and had to settle for the University of Chicago.

Thanks for the insight, YALL; do his siblings have a major musical affinity as well?

[Captain Hate]

He's said some interesting things, but mostly trite kefty things, about Islam, the left et al. He certainly has raised the hackles of Steyn at times, over the Eurabina question, that's why I'm a little surprised he would be cited here

narciso, were you referring to Buruma there?

[narciso]

This story brings the two halves of the thread together, in a disturbing way, Charles
McCarry was right

http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/01/al-qaeda-now-planning-breast-implant.html

[anduril]

"Maybe we can settle our debts with China with women."

An interesting possibility. Maybe if we sent blonds. They've got a thing about blonds.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Iranian (Persian) culture is notorious for this kind of stuff, and Pashtuns are simply a subdivision of the overall Iranian culture

People are pretty much notorious for this kind of stuff. The Romans were big believers in the distinction between the convex and concave members of the act. The Greeks, pre-Christianity, were of course notorius for it ("Come to Plato's Academy and learn Greek culture!"). It wasn't uncommon in pre-Meiji Japan.

[daddy]

The thing I'm most proud of here at JOM is that nobody made any Pashtun jokes.

The ">http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6999144.ece"> BBC would approve.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Okay but JMH and ChaCo both informed me there can't be a trait favoring the 1 male 1 female institution of marriage because there are geographical variations in the custom. Now who should I believe?

Before you start figuring out who to believe, learn how to think. You're actually very bad at it when pressed for logic.

[Ignatz]

--Hellenistic art was not centered on the male form--

Wasn't referring to the art so much as the culture's pervasive pederasty.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

4. All this illustrates the problems that arise in cultures either weak in or rejecting of concepts of natural law morality--which is what has been the strength of the West and which our Founding Fathers explicitly supported. It is unwise to allow immigration of people from such different cultures.

And the competition for the stupidest thing I've ever seen said with a straight face on the Internet gets a new leader.

[anduril]

OK, Charlie, thanks for the input--now, back to your porn browsing.

[sbw]

The author is Ian Buruma, Henry R. Luce Professor at Bard College.

Mr. Luce? The Henry Luce? The Time Magazine founder Luce? And Bard let him endow a chair? Wow! Three strikes in one sentence.