Category: Islam

Lost in translation

 Bad translation makes fundamentalists of us all By Marie Dhumières, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 July 2010 16.00 BST http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jul/20/translation-arabic-language-fundamentalist-muslim or http://bit.ly/a2gGGW or http://tinyurl.com/2fjebba I was recently watching the Spanish documentary To Shoot an Elephant, about the Israeli attacks on Gaza in January 2009. The documentary is good, but the subtitles in English struck me as strange: “For the sake …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/07/21/lost-in-translation/

Refudiating Muslims

 Geoffrey Dunn’s HuffingtonPost post (is that redundant?) today: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn/palins-bigoted-twitter-cal_b_650562.html or http://huff.to/a69dg9 or http://tinyurl.com/32dx5vc Palin’s Bigoted Twitter Calls on Muslims to “Refudiate” Echoing the bigoted and right-wing contortions of the National Republican Trust PAC and disgraced Tea Party leader Mark Williams, Sarah Palin has sent the world of Twitter on fire this afternoon, with a series of Tweets …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/07/18/refudiating-muslims/

Robert Plant and the Band of Joy

 She Who Must Be Obeyed and I drove to Little Rock last night to see Robert Plant and the Band of Joy perform at Robinson Center Music Hall.  Great Show!  The latest incarnation of Band of Joy is Robert Plant, Patty Griffin (wow!), Buddy Miller, Darrell Scott, Byron House, and Marco Giovino. The show opened …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/07/16/robert-plant-and-the-band-of-joy/

Fisk on Fadlallah

 Robert Fisk’s commentary on CNN’s firing of Octavia Nasr for a tweet praising Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah (who died this week): Poor old CNN goes on getting more cowardly by the hour. That’s why no one cares about it any more. That can’t be said about Fadlallah. The Americans put it about that he had blessed …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/07/10/fisk-on-fadlallah/

Pandering pays

 Interesting news about the unraveling of another darling of the Christian Fundamentalists, another “former Muslim extremist rescued by Jesus.” Following are a few excerpts from the June 23 article by Omar Sacirbey (Religion News Service) about Ergun Caner,  president of Liberty University’s Baptist Theological Seminary (founded by the late/great Jerry Falwell).  Incidentally (or not), Ergun’s brother Emir is president of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/06/26/pandering-pays/

Part 1 of 3: First the good news…

 …bad news to follow.  Here’s a short introduction Ray Close (retired CIA) added yesterday to a recent essay by a credentialed Republican: This short essay contains no particularly original ideas or deep insights, but in the simplicity and clarity of its logic and language, (and the credentials of its author), it is exceptionally helpful.  It …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2010/05/16/part-1-of-3-first-the-good-news/

All along the watchtower

 Having just finished a book that extols the virtue of harmonizing right-wing elements of Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity (see http://tinyurl.com/b3levz and http://tinyurl.com/ahashg), I found the following Fisk commentary on papal perspective most interesting.  And more than a bit alarming…  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-examine-the-popes-words-and-theres-only-one-thing-to-conclude-1634266.html and/or  ttp://tinyurl.com/avwuz3  Fisk’s last paragraph And what do I make of all this? Well, I don’t think the …

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Permanent link to this article: https://levantium.com/2009/02/28/all-along-the-watchtower/