zenpundit.com

[ by Charles Cameron — one for those who follow apocalyptic strands in RL and media, one for those who follow Vimalakirti, Heraclitus and the Glass Bead Game — recommended ]
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Tim Furnish reviews the Netflix series, Messiah:

An Iraqi Refugee Trained in Illusion Who Works Miracles — Christ or Anti? Masih or Dajjal? That’s the situation posed by the Netflix series, Messiah, and it’s presented with sufficient subtlety that the answer’s not as obvious as it may seem from that quick condensation — and indeed, at the end of the series, there’s still sufficient ambiguity to keep you guessing, and the producers in line for a renewed contract and second series..

It’s not quite subtle enough to please our friend Tim Furnish, however, who gives a fine overview of the series, then takes the details of eschatological hadith and Biblical writings a step further into accuracy, and thus depth. His opening paragraphs:

“One man’s messiah is another man’s heretic.” That’s the opening line of my first book on Islamic messianic figures. It’s also an apt summary of Netflix’s excellent new show Messiah. Its 10-episode first season was released on Jan. 1. Let’s hope it gets renewed. We need to know how this story of a charismatic Middle Eastern miracle worker, who not only attracts Christians, Muslims and Jews but sways the U.S. President, plays out. Here’s a brief (as possible) summary.

A Modern-Day Messiah?

A long-haired, thinly bearded man appears in Damascus and accurately predicts the destruction of besieging ISIS forces. Many Palestinians there follow him into the desert, believing him to be al-Masih, “The Messiah.” He leads them to the Israeli border. The movement gets on the CIA’s radar screen. The group reaches the Israeli border, and al-Masih crosses. He’s arrested and interrogated by a Shin Bet agent, about whom he knows personal details. He then disappears from prison (later we find out the prison guard let him go, believing him the Messiah) and reappears on the Temple Mount. In a confrontation near the Dome of the Rock, Israeli soldiers shoot a young boy — whom al-Masih heals. He then disappears again, showing up soon after in Dilley, Texas. He is caught on cell phone cameras stopping a tornado about to destroy the Baptist church. This goes viral and many flock to the town. The church pastor believes him to be Jesus returned and becomes his spokesman and handler.

Well there’s plenty more, obviously, and I highly recommend Tim’s commentary — they should have hired him as a consultant.

To read more, go to Netflix’s Messiah Reviewed: Who’s Your Messiah Now?

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Very different indeed is JustKnecht‘s exquisite weaving of ideas around Basho, Vimalakirti and a whiff of Chick Corea in his Notes on a winter journey to the interior, subtitled (and subtled) “on a treadmill facing north” — the reference is to Basho‘s Narrow Road to the Deep North which you really ought to know already.

And that’s a bit of a point. You really ought to know already: Basho and Vimalakirti, Heraclitus and Tamsin Lorraine, heaven and earth, and as it is in heaven, so it already and always is on earth, for as above, so below.

For myself, I know each of these with glancing blows, while JustKnecht knows each in depths I cannot match. Reading the whole is, for me, a sustained flight in the Absolute as viewed through thr world’s cultures, with butterflies a particular point of reference — and a long-tailed bired in seven syllables that’s almost an angel — or an apsara?. — ah, peacocks, too.

In any case, an education — and a delight.

Late afternoon, cooling down after a hard run in the condo gym, Herbie Hancock’s Butterfly breezes onto my playlist. We breathe together deeply, and I don’t know whether it is I dreaming that I am the bass clarinet, or the bass clarinet dreaming that it is I.

The music and the vision fades, and I’m sitting in my armchair doing mental exercise. From high school trombonists and collegiate level cello students to elite athletes and surgeons, cognitive rehearsal in the absence of physical movement has been shown to improve physical performance. In the same way, listening to one of my 5K run playlists gives me a perfectly good workout without the inconvenience of even moving a muscle.

Reade more: Notes on a winter journey to the interior — ah yes, the interior!

Thank you: I bow .

[ by Charles Cameron — I can’t claim to be the originator of that title phrase — I found it in a book of literary criticism many years ago — but anyway, this post is about examples of form — content optional ]
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Twinning:

The images are striking, stunning. Under the title, The Double Vision of Alicia Rodriguez Alvisa, Doreen St. Félix‘s opening para on the phorographer’s double portraits is worth quoting in some detail:

Alvisa has olive skin, ringlets of curls, and dark, thick eyebrows. She uses different wardrobes and poses to delineate between the two manifestations of herself. Immediately, we know we are observing a psychological exercise. ..

Which woman is the true Alvisa? Is it the woman lying nude in a tub, her eyes closed, or is it the robed woman kneeling before her, a wrist extended over the water in a way that feels both caring and dangerous? Is it the woman in a baby-doll dress, glancing wistfully out of a window, at the city outside, or is it the woman in underwear, looking, with concern, at her counterpart?

Is the question itself flawed — the idea that one self should vanquish the other?

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A congressman whose name I do not know, addressing the question of whether Democrats should cease using the Latin Quid pro quo and instead say something more readily identifiable such as bribery or extortion, quoted as part of a mash by Chuck Todd on Meet the Press, November 14 2019:

Using Latin, per se, is not something I tend to do, Hallie..

A lovely piece of reflexive self-mockery, eh?

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A parallel observed:

Parallels, like the dyadic photo-pairings above, are always worth noting, and at times revelatory:

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A troubling turnaround, visible in court proceedings at Guantanamo:

they’ve really turned the detainees into martyrs and victims.

As we all know, martyrdom is a potent Islamic concept — letting CIA torture lend undoubted experiential realism to the sense that one has been victimized, almost martyred, is among the black sites’ least appealing features.

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Ooh, and a humorous apocalyptic ref:

As my friend Tim Furnish might say of that word, “apocalyptic”:

[ by Charles Cameron — you know I’m fascinated by parallelisms and analogies — here are some I’ve noticed recently — enough for three fine posts, and you get three in one ! ]
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Parallelisms of interest that have surfaced in my reading recently include:

between Trump speeches and the Crusius El Paso manifesto

between Trump’s and Hitler’s uses of language

between AQ’s Sami al-Uraydi and French revolutionary Saint-Just

between ISIS strategy and use of social media and western Neo-Nazi terrorism

between Christchurch and El Paso

between the Gildead of Margaret Atwood and the Family of Jeff Sharlet

between the Family of Jeff Sharlet and the Muslim Brotherhood

between 11 Sept 2001, NYT, and 11 Sept 1683, Vienna

oh, and on a different note altogether, there’s:

between the arts of architecture and cartooning

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El Paso Shooting Suspect’s Manifesto Echoes Trump’s Language:

At campaign rallies before last year’s midterm elections, President Trump repeatedly warned that America was under attack by immigrants heading for the border. “You look at what is marching up, that is an invasion!” he declared at one rally. “That is an invasion!”

Nine months later, a 21-year-old white man is accused of opening fire in a Walmart in El Paso, killing 20 people and injuring dozens more after writing a manifesto railing against immigration and announcing that “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

Sources:

NY Times, El Paso Shooting Suspect’s Manifesto Echoes Trump’s Language<

Intercept, After El Paso, We Can No Longer Ignore Trump’s Role

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A professor of German history explains the true horror of Trump’s response to Charlottesville

We haven’t had a Reichstag blaze, nor a Kristallnacht — not even close!!! — still, if we consider rhetoric alone, there’s food for thought:

“You look at what is marching up, that is an invasion!” he declared at one rally. “That is an invasion!”

Nine months later, a 21-year-old white man is accused of opening fire in a Walmart in El Paso, killing 20 people and injuring dozens more after writing a manifesto railing against immigration and announcing that “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

Source:

RawStory, A professor .. explains the true horror of Trump’s response to Charlottesville

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Here’s a nice one observed by jihad-scholar Cole Bunzel:

“Those who make revolution halfway only dig their own graves,” says AQ leader Sami al-Uraydi (of Hurras al-Din) in video message decrying idea of concessions in jihadi revolution. Does he know he’s quoting the French revolutionary Louis Antoine de Saint-Just? pic.twitter.com/sABdapOllp

— Cole Bunzel (@colebunzel) August 12, 2019

Looks good, though one wonders whether the parallelism comes from the translator’s memory-store rather than al-Uraydi‘s?

Wikipedia quotes St-Just thus:

Those who make revolutions by halves do nothing but dig their own tombs.

and gives the date as January 1793 and the source as Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, vol. 1 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), p. 414.

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Here’s the Stratfor analysis:

Stratfor, What White Supremacism and Jihadism Have in Common
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Like jihadism, the various ideologies driving white supremacism are not going away any time soon, and comparing the two can provide valuable lessons for understanding the ongoing threat. [ more.. ]

I’ll have a separate post on whether white supremacists as well as jihadists should be classified as terrorists — a matter on which opinions are divided..

The other piece referenced in the DoubleQuote above:

Rantt, White Supremacist Terrorists Operate Like ISIS, Trump Shrugs

And here’s an impressive, alternative contrast by Tim Furnish:

Stream, White Terrorists vs. the Sultans of Slaughter

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There’s something akin to a waterfall of manifestos on the supremacist, arguably starting with Breivik, and thence to Christchurch and El Paso:

WaPo, Christchurch endures as extremist touchstone
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In the days after a gunman killed 51 people in March at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, analysts warned the attack could become a rallying point for extremists.

It was a high-casualty attack, intended to be imitated by others, live-streamed on social media, accompanied by the release of a white supremacist manifesto decrying immigration and immigrants.

On Saturday, a similar manifesto appeared online, with similar grievances. The author opened by expressing “support” for “the Christchurch shooter.” Within minutes, a gunman opened fire at a shopping center in El Paso, killing 20..

The second quote in this above DoubleQuote says what it needs to say in the subtitle: “the more oxygen these manifestos get…”.

Onwards. Here’s a rather more disturbing aspect of the El Paso > Christchurch parallelism:

WaPo. Two mass killings a world apart share a common theme: ‘ecofascism’
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Before the slaughter of dozens of people in Christchurch, New Zealand, and El Paso this year, the accused gunmen took pains to explain their fury, including their hatred of immigrants. The statements that authorities think the men posted online share another obsession: overpopulation and environmental degradation.

The alleged Christchurch shooter, who is charged with targeting Muslims and killing 51 people in March, declared himself an “eco-fascist” and railed about immigrants’ birthrates. The statement linked to the El Paso shooter, who is charged with killing 22 people in a shopping area this month, bemoans water pollution, plastic waste and an American consumer culture that is “creating a massive burden for future generations.”

The two mass shootings appear to be extreme examples of ecofascism — what Hampshire College professor emerita Betsy Hartmann calls “the greening of hate.”

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On the existence of “so much similarities between the family and Muslim Brotherhood: praying groups“<:

OK dear friend I have done a full thread to that in Arabic. I’ll try to make it in English:

First major similarity is the refusal to be organised with official presence. The founder and up tell now calling it “Al-gama’a”… And they call each other “Brother”..

[ thread ]

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The Family: More Gilead than Godly:

In both Gilead and Virginia, men in inner circles have been anointed by God to lead. Conversely, those women chosen to be of service remain in the background where they respond to these godly guys’ commands with a heavenly “blessed be.”

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A stunner:

#September11 1683 was far more important than the same date in 2001.https://t.co/9iZ784EB6x

— The Occidental Jihadist (@Occidentaljihad) September 12, 2019

Here’s from the London Review of Books review of Lawrence Wright‘s The Looming Tower:

Wright offers the sense among the jihadis that America was the centre of Christianity, and that the Christian world had been winning the battle of faiths since the Islamic host began to be beaten back from the gates of Vienna on 11 September 1683.

I’d be interested if anyone has evidence connecting 2001 to 1683 in the mind of UBL —

— Timothy McVeigh, after all, timed the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City to coincide with the date set for the execution of Richard Snell, who had earlier plotted to blow up the same building, also the date of the final holocaust of the Branch Davidians in Waco two years earlier, the 220th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord — the “shot heard ’round the world” –and the start of the FBI’s siege of the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord compound in 1985. Quite an impressive concatenation of anniversaries!

Anniversary dating, indeed, is not solely a white nationalist phenomenon. According to Hussain S. Zaidi‘s Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts, the principal suspect in the 1993 bombings, Tiger Memon says:

Friday, 12 March, is the seventeenth day of Ramazan. It will be the day when the Holy Prophet fought the first battle of Junge-Badr against the heathens of Mecca and forced them to retreat. The auspicious date will help us achieve success.

Or as Anuraga Kashyap‘s film Black Friday has it:

Tiger‘s memory reaches back to 624 CE.

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And for a sunnier thought..

Here’s a parallelism between architecture and cartooning, courtesy of Bill Benzon:

Scaffolding in making a drawing. When the outline is inked-in, the scaffolding is erased.
Witch Hunt https://t.co/tywDweL3vs via @YouTube

— Bill Benzon (@bbenzon) August 18, 2019

[ by Charles Cameron — opening a discussion of two tweets and the place of New Testament theology in political praxis ]
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Gen Michael Hayden:

Just coming from Sunday mass. The Gospel and homily today focused on the story of the Good Samaritan. Do you think Trump or anyone in his administration is aware that this would be happening on this particular Sunday?

— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) July 14, 2019

Dr Timothy Furnish:

So US domestic & foreign policy should be run according to New Testament rubrics? Wouldn’t that violate separation of church & state? But OK. Are you ready to apply the same standard when the lectionary reading is I Corinthians 6:9-11 or II Thessalonians 3:10?

— The Occidental Jihadist (@Occidentaljihad) July 14, 2019

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It seems to me that Tim Furnish‘s response to Gen Hayden opens up one of the few truly central questions of our times — maybe in fact The Key Question for holders of western culture and values.

I take it that this question is in fact a koan — strictly unanswerable, yet livable, lively.

Zen koans are the equivalent of case law. In what follows, I shall offer some precedents that may be of use as we consider the case that Tim Furnish sets before us.

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First, I would like to offer two notions from New Testament studies which may be of help here.

The Kerygma:

Following the scholar CH Dodd, Wikipedia defines the kerygma thus:

• The Age of Fulfillment has dawned, the “latter days” foretold by the prophets.
• This has taken place through the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
• By virtue of the resurrection, Jesus has been exalted at the right hand of God as Messianic head of the new Israel.
• The Holy Spirit in the church is the sign of Christ’s present power and glory.
• The Messianic Age will reach its consummation in the return of Christ.
• An appeal is made for repentance with the offer of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit, and salvation.

if that’s the Foreign, what’s the Domestic Policy?

The Acts of Corporal Mercy:

I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. .. Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Gospel of Matthew 25 vv. 35-36, 40.

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Michael Lotus gave me an exemplary comment with permission to quote it the other day:

As to binaries, lawyers, judges and legislators do not get to spend unlimited time dealing with the ultimately unique nature of each person, each event, each controversy. They have to determine when government power will be applied to compel behavior, to extract money, to seize and bind and carry away persons against their will, to imprison, to put to to death. They have over millennia determined that clear, simple rules are the best way to use this blunt and often brutal, but essential, instrument. Then they have to apply rules to actual cases. Clarity, certainty, and the ability to plan accurately based on known rules, is critical. And inevitably there will be, or seem to be, unfairness in the application, and hard cases, and heart-breaking cases. Attempts to deal with many nuances lead to a thicket of confused rules, lack of guidance for action, and even more arbitrary application of the same unavoidable application of government power. Large and complex human groups cannot be governed otherwise than by general rules of general application. Some balance between hard-and-fast rules tempered by some degree of judicial discretion is where most reasonably fair systems end up, and that is what we have. But the basic fact of binary division is inevatable in the law. Do we hang this man or not? Is this or is this not the type of property subject to this set of rules? Is this man entitled to a deduction on his tax or not? Etc., etc. The law is at best a very crude approximation of the ideal of justice which we can imagine even in human terms if we lived in a a less defective world than the real one. And of course our poor, merely human law, even at its best. falls bitterly, laughably short of that perfect justice that God alone can comprehend and impose. It is one of the many tragedies of the human condition, deriving ultimately from original sin.

Much food for thought there..

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I’m a Brit, and a guest here in these United States. Here, accordingly, are some materials of British origin:

Think of the British coronation service, a Eucharist with anointing, and these words proffered to the King or Queen by the presiding Archbishop:

Receive the Rod of equity and mercy.
Be so merciful
that you be not too remiss,
so execute justice
that you forget not mercy.
Punish the wicked,
protect and cherish the just,
and lead your people
in the way wherein they should go.

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Sir Thomas More, in Robert Bolt‘s play, A Man for All Seasons:

Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you–where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast–man’s laws, not God’s–and if you cut them down–and you’re just the man to do it–d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes. I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

According to a Harvard Crimson article:

Sir Howard Beale, the Australian ambassador to this country, took the late Mr. Justice Frankfurter to see Bolt’s play in New York in 1962. Beale recounts that the Justice could scarcely contain his excitement during the scene just set out, and as it ended Frankfurter whispered in the dark. “That’s the point, that’s it, that’s it!”

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I saw a reference to More, who was Lord High Chancellor under Henry VIII, as Keeper of the King’s Conscience, which drove me to this definition:

Keeper of the King’s Conscience”

The early chancellors were priests, and out of their supposed moral control of the King’s mind grew the idea of an equity court in contradistinction to the law courts. A bill in chancery is a petition through the Lord Chancellor to the King’s conscience for remedy in matters for which the King’s common law courts afford no redress. The Keeper of the King’s Conscience is therefore now the officer who presides in the Court of Chancery; see Chancellor and Lord Keeper.

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Barnett Rubin, today, for another up-to-the-moment view:

Politics is not a mechanism for transforming goals into reality, for the Taliban or anyone else. It is a process of conflict and cooperation dependent on resources, relationships, and chance in which no one controls the outcome.

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St Francis would, I think, like to see the Beatitudes, and proceeding from them the corporal works of mercy, deployed in all functions of the individual and community / state; the Jesuits would, by and large and in contrast, it seems to me, appreciate pragmatism — tempered by mercy, yes, as and when pragmatism permits.

Think on these things..

Your thoughts?

[ by Charles Cameron — actually the exam is daily, ongoing — and we’re not scoring very high marks ]
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Unpolarized light vibrates in any planes:

A light wave that is vibrating in more than one plane is referred to as unpolarized light. Light emitted by the sun, by a lamp in the classroom, or by a candle flame is unpolarized light. Such light waves are created by electric charges that vibrate in a variety of directions, thus creating an electromagnetic wave that vibrates in a variety of directions. This concept of unpolarized light is rather difficult to visualize. In general, it is helpful to picture unpolarized light as a wave that has an average of half its vibrations in a horizontal plane and half of its vibrations in a vertical plane.

Polarized light vibrates in only one plane:

It is possible to transform unpolarized light into polarized light. Polarized light waves are light waves in which the vibrations occur in a single plane. The process of transforming unpolarized light into polarized light is known as polarization.

The most common method of polarization involves the use of a Polaroid filter. Polaroid filters are made of a special material that is capable of blocking one of the two planes of vibration of an electromagnetic wave. .. In this sense, a Polaroid serves as a device that filters out one-half of the vibrations upon transmission of the light through the filter. When unpolarized light is transmitted through a Polaroid filter, it emerges with one-half the intensity and with vibrations in a single plane; it emerges as polarized light.

This works either way — so to speak, either vertically, or horizontally — though not, by definition, both at once. Ohh, and there’s paradox involved:

Read the whole lesson at The Physics Classroom: Polarization — and memorize, remember?

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Ali Soufan notices polarization in our political sphere wrt events we label or do not label terrorist:

Big difference in how President Trump reacted to the London Bridge and #Charlottesville car attacks.

— Ali H. Soufan (@Ali_H_Soufan) August 12, 2017

NPR likewise:

When Is It "Terrorism"? How The Media Covers Attacks By Muslim Perpetrators https://t.co/KSI9oLlUi0

— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) June 20, 2017

Tim Furnish sees this polarization as avoiding mention of Islamic influence when it is clearly present:

#Charlottesville driver's car was still accelerating when "terrorism" alleged. But shouting "Allahu Akbar" & killing folks never called that

— Dr. Timothy Furnish (@Occidentaljihad) August 12, 2017

And then there’s this:

Uproar over #CharlottesvilleKKK & Jew-hate, but you all yawned last week when it was Muslim imams calling for Armageddon against Jews https://t.co/dYDUCRNyYy

— SHIREEN QUDOSI (@ShireenQudosi) August 12, 2017

Sebastian Gorka told MSNBC

https://t.co/HIMMGEOxOP"..shouts Allahu Akbar as they're..stabbing a police officer, it’s..clear it’s not..case..the mafia robbing a bank..”

— I. Ryan (@EttasPlace) August 9, 2017

Gorka in full:

Sometimes an attack is unequivocally clear for what it is. When somebody shouts ALlahu Akbar as they’re stabbing a police officer, it’s pretty clear it’s not a case of the mafia robbing a bank, wouldn’t you say so?

Eh?

White House Official Gorka Claims Right Wing Attacks Are ‘Fake,’ but Data Show Something Different https://t.co/2rCas2fOKf

— Anthony Lemieux (@aflemieux) August 9, 2017

Vox is oppositely polarized to Gorka et alii:

Trump is quick to blame Muslims for terror attacks. He's slow when Muslims are the victims. https://t.co/gFH8Hv4srE

— Vox (@voxdotcom) June 6, 2017

As, indeed, am I.

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Incientally, all you special ops types with cool shades:

For lightweight, functional shades that protect your eyes in any lighting situation, Oakley has designed the SI Flak Jacket. Featuring an innovative 8.75 base lens curvature for optimal peripheral vision, these sunglasses provide side eye protection as well as a maximal field of view. The stress-resistant O-Matter frame found in many Oakley tactical models is lightweight, ergonomic and will not succumb to the pressures of constant wear and travel. The Plutonite polycarbonate lenses fully filter out harmful UVA, UVB, UVC and blue light up to 400 nm for maximum sun protection. Oakley also has included an Iridium coating on the lenses which reduces glare in extremely bright light. For adaptability in any environment, the lenses are easily interchangeable. « less

Take heed:

Polarization has a wealth of other applications besides their use in glare-reducing sunglasses.

Like — in USian politics?

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Okay, time for the test. Sample question:

Answer:

A. Referring to the above question, the glare is the result of a large concentration of light aligned parallel to the water surface. To block such plane-polarized light, a filter with a vertically aligned polarization axis must be used.