You can't make this stuff up

A plane crash in Africa was caused when a crocodile that had been smuggled onto the plane as luggage got lose and starter attacking passengers. How do you do that? Who would do that?

Kane West has his teeth replaced with diamond implants. Quick somebody lone me a club and pair of pliars!

A three-year-old and five-year-old are engaged in Syria. What do you expect?

The Yankees are getting beaten like a rented mule in the playoffs. Its about time!

Sombody thinks that the Hong Kong realestate market is not bubbled up. Just goes to show you that idiots live everywhere.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who enjoys odd news

Headless Body in Legless Story

Sometimes Mark Stein is just too good for words.

If this guy was a moderate Muslim then what about the fanatical ones?
Before someone says: "Well, Christian preachers and Jewish Rabbis murder their wives too!" you need to remember they are condemned by their own religion for it. What this man did was not a crime under Sharia law but rather a virtuous act. You would be very hard pressed to find any group other except Islam that propagates a legal code as barbaric as Sharia Law.

I started to not post this but then I've seen other posting about it.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who probably is an insult to Islam

The End Of England?

Drool, Britannia, Britannia drools in waves,
Britons very very very soon will all be slaves.

Bow, Britannia, Britannia towards Mecca prays
Britons very very very soon will all be slaves


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who believes that all religions have a right to evangelize in a non-violent manner.

One more time

The religion of peace strikes again.

This is just so typical of the Islamic mind set in many cases. (Notice I did not say all)

Until Next Time
Fai mao

Sometimes I just need a story like this

I was in a bad mood this morning until I read this.

Sometimes a mean snicker is just the thing you need to brighten up your day.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger who isn't married to his cousin

You can't make this stuff up

What kind of rates do suicide bombers get on health insurance anyway?


Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger with Health Insurance

Fitna to be tied

A comparison is useful here.

Some not all Christians get upset and protest when artist, or others slander them for what they do NOT believe.

Muslims get upset when you present WHAT they believe.

Are there verses in the Bible that are difficult to deal with? Sure there are. Christians and Jews have developed theology or possibly rationalizations to deal with those.

Islam needs to do the same.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The blogger who isn't really offended by very much

Holland: Likely to Be the Next Target of Islamist Rage

I want to see this movie


Until Next Time
Fai Mao

The Veil of Self Righteousness

The comments after this article are as revealing as the article.

As I was reading it I couldn't help but think of what St. Paul wrote in Romans about the purpose of the law is to reveal our sinfulness (Romans 3:20) and why we can never have laws exact enough to achieve righteousness. The best we can do is self righteousness and in my experience, no other term more completely describes radical Islam than the term self-righteous.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger whose will will never wear a veil

Pakistan: Revenge Attacks on Chinese Nationals and Security Personnel

Interesting.

And if you own a Chinese restaurant in Islamabad maybe frightening

Until Next Time
Fai Mao

Molon Labe!

I sometimes get upset with the way that language is misused. I think we all do to some degree or another. Certainly I've met enough Brits that get really bent out of shape over "Tires," "Center" and "Color" that I think I'm justified in thinking many people have an idea, even if it is a fuzzy one of what proper grammar, usage and spelling should entail.

Many words have, through slang or sloppy usage lost any semblance of their real power. I could make a couple of corny jokes about the lost attributes of love, gay, wicked, or any of probably 1/2 a dozen other words. But I'm not. I'm going to pick on one word. Actually I'm going to pick on two forms of one word: racist or racism.

It strikes me that racism in the proper context has everything to do with skin color or more properly ethnic heritage and nothing to do with religion or culture. Some NAZI, I've forgotten who, maybe Goering said something very much along along these lines when he said and I'm paraphrasing here; "We hate Jews because they are Jews not because of their religion" (This is one of those quotes that I wish I'd kept a source for.)

I bring this up because I've been watching a DVD of the the movie "300" about the Spartans against the Persians. Some Mullah in Iran objected to this film because it showed the Persians, modern day Iranians, getting their butts kicked by 300 Greeks until a Greek traitor showed the Persians a way to get behind the Greeks. Somehow, I'm not really sure how, this was considered "an affront to Islam" even though none of the characters in the movie were Muslims and Islam hadn't been invented yet , but this Iranian guy just had the vapors with righteous indignation.

Well, since 9-11, as an expat-American; I've made it my patriotic duty to watch any movie or buy any book that Muslims object to. Salmon Rushdie? You bet. Those cartoons in Denmark? I've seen them all! I'll see Evan Almighty when it comes to town with the beautiful, smart, hardworking, looks 25 years younger than she is wife. One of the reasons I want to see this movie is, in addition to looking like it is hysterical, because some Islamic clerics in Malaysia objected to the film because God is played by a Black man, Morgan Freeman (My second favorite actor behind Russel Crow) He said the the movie is an "Affront to Islam" Holy Cow, if it offends a significant percentage of Muslims somewhere that's good enough for me.

So how does this relate to racism? Easy. I've been, from time to time labeled a racist because of my views on Islam. In reality, nothing could be farther from the trues. I don't hate Muslims or anybody else with the possible exception of George Steinbrenner because of the way he ruined the game of Baseball. I don't care what anyone's skin color is, what their parentage is, where they live or anything else. I don't even hate Islam. You can't hate hate an idea. You can only disagree with it and I do. Vehemently so. I disagree with every tenant of Islam. I disagree with it in principle and practice. I wish that it would simply die out and it would if the countries where it exist would stop maintaining it by force. Whatever the crimes any other religion has committed pale in comparison to the barbarism practiced by Islam.

But, disagreeing with Islam as a religion doesn't make me a racist but what might be called a culturalist. I believe that in most ways my Western culture that stresses liberty and tolerance is superior to Islamic cultures.

All cultures and all nations have a set of myths that people believe but that are not necessarily true. George Washington and the Cherry tree. Abe Lincoln walking miles to return three cents he'd overcharged a customer in his father's store. French fecklessness and so on. Some of these myths such as Honest Abe returning the pennies and other times they were constructed out of whole cloth. But they all serve to define a national or cultural heritage. They represent what we, the citizens of a place want to believe about ourselves, or nation, our culture. That is why we preserve them. Or, in some cases discard them, because what we are as a people has changed.

One these myths that has served Islam well is that Medieval Islam societies were more advanced than those in Europe. That they were more tolerant and so for and so on. I think that if we were to look closely and objectively we'd be able to see pretty fast that this myth is exactly that; a myth. Not that Medieval Europe or China were a cream cake by comparison, they weren't but Islamic societies were just as bad or worse.

But, even if the myth of Islamic cultural superiority were true in the past, that's not what Islam is today. I refuse to be immolated, or more likely have my head chopped off for not being a Muslim. I refuse to allow a backward, woman hating, intolerant bunch of scary guys with beards and AK-47's tell me what to do, believe or eat.

But I digress. This was a movie review.

I enjoyed this film. I liked it a lot. Yes, I know it kind of glossed over the unsavory elements of Spartan society. But this film had everything else going for it; blood, sex, treachery and bravery,on one hand and honor and the desire to do the right thing in the face of overwhelming odds on the other hand, everything. The fact that some Islamics in Iran objected to it was gravy just as the the old Monty Python film "The Life of Bryan" was more fun because of Southern Baptist protesting against it.

I wouldn't recommend it for little kids or Canadian pacifist but everyone else should enjoy it.


Molon Labe in deed!

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The movie watching non-Islamic Blogger

The perils of Jihad

By Comedian Steve Martin.
Probably to blue for some readers.

My dirty mind strikes again

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger who thinks you should be able to make fun of all religions

Hagia Sophia

This will probably be my last travel-log post about my recent trip to Turkey. It will also be the hardest to write because I am going to deal with some very abstract concepts. I'll try not to ramble.

I will also not respond to those wishing to call me names or who complain about my lack of sensitivity to Muslims in this regard. So, save the hate mail. I won't respond to it.

It is amazing to me how close the emotions of love, hate, joy and bitterness often stand to each other in our conscience. I find the ability to rapidly slide from one to the other to be one of the more uncomplimentary facets of the human condition.

I ran into this while in the Hagia Sophia. While looking at the remnants of the beautiful mosaics and frescoes as well as the magnificent dome and the truly monumental proportions of the church I was struck with what a travesty the Ottomans perpetrated on my culture when they overran the Byzantines. Let us be frank, the Ottomans invaded and conquered a culture that had existed for nearly a 1000 years in its Roman form and much longer as a conglomeration of Greek speaking peoples. As a culture, the Byzantines were superior to the Ottomans in almost every way except the ability to wage the most cruel and barbaric form of war. This doesn't mean that the Byzantines were perfect, far from it, but there is no doubt that the Turks simply stole a country from people who had lived there for millennia and who were culturally and spiritually their superiors.

The Turks then set about destroying all the references to that culture they'd conquered and apparently designed mosque to resemble Orthodox churches. They plastered over they tore down, they changed the language and while slightly more tolerant than the Fatmids in Egypt they forced many to convert to Islam at the point of a sword. The accounts of the atrocities committed upon the people of Constantinople after its fall are difficult for me to read.

The Turks even changed the names of cities so that the Greek heritage of the area was lost or at least submerged beneath a forced veneer of Turkish colored paint. The palace of the last Sultan is a tourist attraction. I don't think the Germans do tours of Adolph Hitler's house. If they do they approach it very differently and the Sultan was a ruthless dictator.

Much of the New Testament was written to churches in what is now Turkey. Much of the best of ancient civilization was preserved by the Byzantines. The Renaissance in Western Europe was possible not because of anything done by the Arabs as is often stated but because the Byzantines had never lost the knowledge of antiquity and Byzantine teachers were hired by Italian merchants and princes to educate their children. The Byzantines were the only state besides China to make the transition from antiquity to the middle ages. Far from being a culture in decline they remained until almost the end, a vibrant culture though reduced in size and influence.

I simply broke down and wept in the Hagia Sophia. I found myself weeping over the loss of what is without doubt, my cultural inheritance. I wept because it is a lie that the plaster over the frescoes preserved the art in the church. The art would have been better preserved if the Hagia Sophia was a working church as it had been for 800 years before the Ottomans converted it into a mosque. I wept and had to quickly leave before I collapsed on the floor. I went outside and waited near the gate for the rest of my group. Outside in the bright sunlight I was able to regain my composure and calm my soul.

Outside I was able to forgive both my myself and the 15th century Ottomans and I sat there and enjoyed the wonderful Saturday morning sun. I waited about 15 or 20 minutes for the rest of my group.

I had to struggle to remember those who committed this great crime are not the same people who are living in Turkey today. I do not hold children responsible for the crimes of their fathers. That said, I don't think that the Turks are able to stand emotionally far enough away from their history to be able to understand why the Hagia Sophia was simultaneously the one thing in Turkey that I felt I must see and the one thing I so dreaded to see.

Other Western nations are somewhat ashamed or at least speak in sheepish tones of their Imperial past and especially the crimes their ancestors committed in the name of their nation. I didn't see that in Turkey. As I said earlier I think that the Turks are still standing too close to their history to see how some of the things they've done look to others. I should also say that the Turks I met were friendly, polite and generally good people. I'd live in Turkey before I'd live in France or Germany or the UK. But, I still had to struggle to not hate the Turks on that day for what their ancestors did to my culture. It is a struggle I won, at least on that day.

I am grateful to the Turkish government for the restoration that is occurring in the Hagia Sophia. I am grateful that they have turned it into a museum. It will only become more spectacular in the future.

I'm planning to return to Turkey someday

I am praying that the Gospel may one day be proclaimed again from the pulpit of the Hagia Sophia.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Philo-Byzanto Blogger