Not a rhetorical question.  Responding to my comment to his post Ellison and Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an, Hugh notes, "George Sale published his translation, and the prefatory remarks with the word "Protestant," in 1734. But even in 1934, or 2004, the word "Protestant" does not seem outdated. What about it outdates?"

Well, I don't see the robust Protestantism of 1734 anywhere in the world today, which is unfortunate, given the dynamism of Islam in 2007.  Evangelicals there are aplenty, though, and conservative Catholics who support Israel and oppose Islam.  It will take them, of course, but it also will take atheists, gnostics and agnostics whatever their political stripes to confront Islam.  In the West, failure to agree to disagree on our often serious points of difference makes the triumph of Islam highly likely.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 6 — President Bush’s new Iraq strategy calls for a rapid influx of forces that could add as many as 20,000 American combat troops to Baghdad, supplemented with a jobs program costing as much as $1 billion intended to employ Iraqis in projects including painting schools and cleaning streets, according to American officials who are piecing together the last parts of the initiative...

Officials said a larger American troop commitment also would be used to illustrate Washington’s increased resolve to deter adventurism by regional adversaries, especially Iran. Mr. Bush’s speech is expected to include talk of a new diplomatic initiative to shore up confidence among Washington’s Islamic allies in the region as well as to warn its adversaries. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to begin that initiative almost immediately after the speech, leaving for the Middle East by next weekend...

For no other reason than to make a change and give me a chance to quote Jane Austen.  From Emma, this is Mrs Knightley on the subject of her recent stay in Southend, or South End as it was spelled 200 years ago.

We all had our health perfectly well there, never found the least inconvenience from the mud.

Canadian public television is debuting Little Mosque on the Prairie this week:

After a downright depressing year of ratings for the CBC in 2006, the public network clearly wanted to kick off the New Year in a bolder, more gregarious way. And it is gambling that Little Mosque on the Prairie will be the breakout hit it so desperately needs...

Midday on Thursday, the normally staid CBC hosted a splashy publicity event in downtown Toronto to promote its new sitcom, Little Mosque on the Prairie, the brainchild of Zarqa Nawaz, a Canadian Muslim of Pakistani descent...

“Like every other culture, we have the full range of practice in our community. I'm a mosque-going Muslim,” notes Nawaz, who has worn a hijab (head scarf) since she was in the ninth grade. “But I have many friends who aren't mosque-going, who are not practising, and they have every right to be represented, too.

“In this show,” she adds, “no one will be spared — non-Muslims and Muslims are equally the butt of jokes. It's a comedy for everyone.”

For Nawaz, Little Mosque on the Prairie is more akin to All in the Family or The Jeffersons, both of which tackled bigotry and racism in a hilarious, take-no-prisoners kind of way.

In Little Mosque, for instance, a scruffy, overalls-wearing local named Joe stumbles into the mosque to find so-called scary Muslims bowing to pray. Joe rushes to call the “terrorist-attack hotline,” just like he's seen done on CNN.

When the more tolerant Anglican priest tells Joe there's nothing “sinister” about his Muslim neighbour's commercial real-estate company, Joe is unconvinced, pointing out that “Osama bin Laden ran a construction company, too.”

hilarious.

From the BBC.

A Bahraini athlete who ran and won a marathon in Israel without permission has been stripped of his citizenship.

Bahrain's sport authorities said Mushir Salem Jawher, who was born in Kenya but moved to Bahrain in 2003, had violated the laws of the country.

"This is outside the rules and he went to Israel without telling anyone," Mohammed Abdul Jalal, the head of the Bahrain Athletics Association, told Reuters news agency.

. . . but Mr Jawher said he was "very proud" to have taken part. Following the race on Thursday, Israel's Jerusalem Post newspaper quoted Mr Jawher, whose original name is Leonard Mucheru, as saying Bahrain was a "free country" and "people should live together in harmony. . . I hope to come back and compete next year," he said.

A committee of sport and government authorities decided to strike Mr Jawher's name off the sport union records and revoke his Bahraini nationality, the statement said. It said Mr Jawher entered Israel with his Kenyan passport and that the runner had "violated the laws of Bahrain".

Mr Jawher won the Tiberias Marathon in just over two hours and 13 minutes.

It follows that there is no reason why naturalised citizens of the UK who are convicted of serious criminal offences, like murder, robbery, rape cannot be striped of their citizenship. 

When you think of an MBA student, what type of person comes to mind? What qualities would a college look for in such a student? Here’s Cambridge University’s Judge Business School. Some background first:

The Judge Business School, Cambridge's business school, is an internationally recognised provider of innovative, intellectually challenging and practical management education, encouraging critical reflection and creativity, and attracting the most able students to all its courses.

At least they don’t talk about “solutions”. Usually the word “solutions” sticks like a barnacle to the word “innovative”. And who are they looking for?

The course is a highly practical, one-year, intensive, full-time programme. The intellectual calibre of MBA students is high and they have an average of five years' work experience in a wide variety of sectors and functions. The average age of the current Cambridge MBA course is 30, and course members are from 40 different countries.

Average age thirty with five years’ work experience is probably the norm, and seems reasonable. One major benefit of an MBA course is sharing experience gained from different businesses or even the public sector. Somebody fresh out of university would probably not benefit – or contribute – as much. MBA courses are often undertaken by older students, perhaps in their forties, who wish to change career.

This is England, however. In China the thirty-year-old would be considered past it. From The Telegraph:

When Qiao Qian sits down to dinner with her parents after another hard day's study at college, she is able to discourse on everything from economics to astronomy. The four-year-old from Shanghai cannot only spell "precocious" correctly, she is herself the embodiment of early child development.

She is one of more than 3,000 Chinese children aged from three to six studying for an "early" MBA, as the country's one-child policy and rising middle class incomes put pressure on parents to produce a genius. An exceptional early education and an early introduction to the world of business are seen as the best ways to ensure that a child stands out from the millions of graduates who annually make up a huge oversupply of job applicants.

At the Fastrackids Academy, toddlers attend life goal and earth science classes and are taught the management skills needed to secure a boardroom seat and fat bonus.

"The children participate in an imaginary marketing survey and create an advertising strategy to better understand their daily economic impact," the academy's chief executive officer, Chris Justice, said.

There is no room for such traditional Western childhood staples as nursery rhymes. Instead of Baa Baa Black Sheep, the young students are given a computer screen and an animated sheep farm on which they learn to make the business of sheep shearing profitable, building a business structure from the pen to the market place.

Thanks to the creative literature segment of the two-year higher education programme, children like Qiao Qian can offer several multi-syllable adjectives to describe their progress.

So can I, but not ones I would use in front of a four-year-old. When I was four, so I am told, I was very dreamy, and certainly not able to “discourse”. In fact I don’t really “discourse” now, at least not consciously. Even when I was seven, my commercial acumen was confined to swapping toys with my friends for ones I liked better – not necessarily the more expensive ones. Children should be daydreaming, playing, joking, singing, hitting each other, mooching about, and hearing and reading stories, not developing a marketing strategy.

We think the Victorians were cruel for sending young boys up chimneys, but at least the little urchins didn’t have to turn their sooty hands to a cost-benefit analysis or discounted cash flow projection once they came down.

New York, NY. (Atlantic Records) - Yusuf Islam is to be awarded the Mediterranean Prize for Peace today January 4, 2007 in Naples, Italy.

Yusuf is being awarded the prestigious award as a result of the work he has done to increase peace in the world. --from this press release

Any organization or group with the words "Euro" or "Mediterranean" in the title is likely to consist of manipulated or calculating deux-rivistes -- that is, those who believe that the peoples of the two "rives" or banks, north and south, of the Mediterranean are not so much divided as united, or should be, by that body of water. The unknown or even secret agreements, governmental or quasi-governmental, according to which European states committed themselves to allowing the Arabs to freely promote a European Party Line on Islamic culture, Islam, and the Arab Muslim view of such matters as the Lesser Jihad against Israel, can be found in Bat Ye'or's Eurabia. By now many in Europe have become aware that their ruling elites have betrayed them on the matter of Islam and Muslim immigrants, but do not know exactly how, when, where. Eurabia helps tell them.

With deux-rivisme, the deux-rivistes replace the tiersmondistes. And to hell with the Christians of Black Africa -- as in the southern Sudan, or southern Nigeria, or the Cote d'Ivoire. French colonialism, consisting of the manipulation and corruption of local leaders and the application, where necessary, of French force, now stands foursquare with Muslim colonialism, and therefore with Arab imperialism. The "deux-rivistes" know which side of the mosque their bread is buttered on.

And what is the Article of Faith of the deux-rivistes? That Article of Faith is the belief that there must exist a natural commonality of interest between the "deux rives" (two banks) of the Mediterranean, and that the only thing truly separating the people and civilizations of each littoral is that body of water, one so easily overcome nowadays by all those Arabs from North Africa disembarking even now from their ships and planes to set up permanent camp in France, in Spain, in Italy. It is to view the Mediteranean not as a dividing line between Europe and its historic enemy, Islam, but rather as a now-trivial geographical obstacle to that once and future unified civilization -- that of the Mediterranean. And for the past two decades these "Mediterraneanists" have celebrated the effacement of that watery barrier. And they have led too many in power and in the media to believe that what unites these "Deux Rives" is far greater than all those trivial things -- such as Qur'an, hadith, and sira, and their effect on the minds of men -- that divide them. About the really important things -- olive oil, couscous, mint tea, cardamom -- well, according to the deux-rivistes who control so much of the public discussion, there is no division.

And so the real division, the one reflected in or caused by Islam itself, which uncompromisingly divides humanity between Believers and Infidels and offers loyalty to one and endless hostility, even murderous hostility, to the other, is ignored. But that teaching of such a division between Believer and Infidel cannot be effaced or ignored, and its effects can be seen everywhere that Muslims and non-Muslims live in the same polity, whether in Dar al-Islam (Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Lebanon) or in Dar al-harb, where Islam does not yet prevail and Muslims do not yet rule. Until very recently, no one was allowed to notice this. Few even today permit themselves, or are permitted, to discuss that difference, that inculcated abyss that cannot, alas, be bridged by the non-Muslim side only, and cannot be bridged by the Muslims until the tenets of Islam itself, its canonical texts, are transformed.

The deux-rivistes tell us not to be silly. They tell us (as Tariq Ramadan helps to cheer them on) whatever they want to tell us about Islam and the history of Islamic conquest and of non-Muslims under Muslim rule. They tell us, indeed, whatever they want to tell us about the history of Western civilization, for they are secure in the knowledge that few Infidels have any knowledge of their own about these matters, and will be willing to believe whatever version of events is insistently presented and is plausible, and above all comforting, so that Infidels will want to believe it. So, we are told, where would the Renaissance in Europe have been without Islam? It was an outgrowth, we are told, of Islamic sources of intellectual ferment and skeptical inquiry. And isn't putting Man at the center of things, and Individualism -- aren't these really at the very heart of Islam? No wonder the Europeans had to look south for all that fruitful cross-pollination etcetera etceterum, that "cross-pollination" whose time, we are told, has come round again at last, and this time is not to be stopped.

And don't forget, those Infidels are told, to form in your mind at moments like these a mental picture of the grave old men murmuring low, among the low murmurs of fountains, in the stately courtyards of the House of Translators, at the Court of Haroun al-Rashid in Baghdad in the old days. Or of Maimonides, no doubt being tended in his final illness by a special set of Muslim doctors sent by kindly Saladin himself. Or think of Washington Irving's Alhambra, and the Moor's last sigh, and how splendidly everyone got along in Al-Andaluz, by the Guadalquivir, and the scent of orange-blossom -- holiendo a azahar -- and the gitanillas overflowing beyond the black grillwork of the whitewashed walls, and the narrow alleys in Cordoba, or Seville, or Grenada (all at different times, of course, depending on how the Reconquista was doing).

Oh, and now is the time to mention that long and glorious list of the Great Men of Islamic Civilization who Practically Constructed -- in their days off -- the Western world. One must never fail to mention those Great Figures. Dominique de Villepin never fails to mention them when he gives his little speeches and deuxriviste pep talks in Cairo, or at the "Library" (whew -- $225 million in Euros down the drain) of Alexandria, or anywhere he dares to travel in the Maghreb. So here they are. Get out your pencils, and note them down: Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Rhazi. Oh, have I left anyone out? Yes, I forgot to mention Avicenna, Al-Rhazi, Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi, Averroes. And perhaps I did not mention Averroes, Al-Farabi, Al-Kindi, Al-Rhazi, Avicenna. Oh, how silly of me to have forgotten to mention, and I'll add them here, if you don't mind -- Averroes and Avicenna. And also Al-Rhazi. Did I leave anyone out? Oh yes, Al-Farabi. Sorry.

What a list. How can Europe be expected to top that, with its pathetic little list of supposed "great men"? Or the Chinese, on their high Tang horse? Or the Koreans, or the Japanese, or the Mayans with their supposed calendrical and other scientific achievements? Don't even try to top that list of Great Islamic Achievers. And please don't bring up the matter of just how many of them were orthodox, and how many practically apostates. And certainly do not begin looking into which ones were Persians and Turks and which ones were Arabs. That would not be fair. That would not be kind. That would even be Islamophobic.

An excellent exhibit about Soviet labor camps is now touring the US, including grainy documentary short films which, though taken by the Soviet government itself for propaganda purposes, nonetheless manage to convey something of what went on. The ill-clad shivering prisoners breaking rocks are presented to us as from another world, and one can only imagine, if these are the films the Soviet authorities took, presumably to show the magnificent efforts being made as this or that White-Sea Canal was built, what the real conditions were like -- imagine, or read Varlam Shalamov or many others.

Part of the exhibit, too, consists of photographs of those in what is called the Dissident Movement. Andrey Sakharov and Elena Bonner, Yuri Galanskov, General Pyotr Yakir, Andrei Amalrik, Leonid Plyushch, the smiling face of that gifted writer and teacher, the tragic Anatoliy Yakobson, handsome Valeriy Chalidze with a cigarette dangling from his lips, and a hundred others -- the Best People in the Soviet Union -- are on view.

A perfect exhibit.

Except for one thing.

It is being shown around the country. On the East Coast, in Boston and then  outside Washington. BAnd in California. And in California, the site chosen to show this exhibit is in the dsert -- Manzanar, in California. Why the desert? Why make it so hard to have it viewed by a large public?

Because, you see, someone thought it would be telling, someone thought it would be perfect, someone thought it would be wonderful if an exhibit about Soviet concentration camps could be shown to the American public right at Manzanar, where some Japanese-Americans who as we all know were re-located to camps where they could be guarded, and were not permitted, having been deemed to be security risks after Pearl Harbor, were moved -- if they were Japanese-Americans on the Pacific Coast (if they lived elsewhere they were not moved) to one of those relocation camps, with its schools, stores, post-offices, churches, and so on.  And the largest one was one at Manzanar. The effort was supported by California's then-governor, who would later become the celebrated liberal Supreme Court Justice, Earl Warren.

So the official or officials who, in some Federal bureaucracy, decided to show this exhibit about the vast archipelago of Soviet slave labor camps in which tens of millions of people were worked to death, or killed on the spot at Manzanar, were Making a Statement. And that Statement was: Americans are Guilty, in exactly the same way, or at least we who placed the exhibit in Manzanar wish you to think so, as the Soviet Union.

This Statement is false, and infuriates, but that some in the American government wanted to make it -- who? -- and others did nothing to stop it -- who? -- is telling.

When Ginger Rutland writes, her hand on her forehead in anguish that, if she stopped attending CAIR events, "I would fear for my country, for its cherished traditions of religious tolerance, open debate and fair play."

Can she think of no other reason to "fear for her country"? What about those Nazi agents, especially of the Abwehr, that did such a good job infiltrating American business, or such propagandists as Putzi Hanfstaengl, or such local supporters of the Nazis as Fritz Kuhn? And if the war-generated fears about Japanese-Americans were false, that does not mean that they were irrational (there were some Japanese spies in this country), nor that all those liberals, such as Earl Warren, were wrong in 1942, long before the 442nd Regiment of Japanse-Americans distinguished itself, and how (it was the first or second most-decorated American regiment in the war), in the European Theatre, were cruel madmen. There are things to regret, but not to pluck out of historical context, and relocation was limited in time and space and application.

There is no Muslim equivalent of the 442nd Regiment, proving its loyalty to the United States. And there never will be. Instead, at every step, CAIR has been trying to entangle everyone, in and out of the government, and to urge Muslims in this country, whenever and wherever they can do so, to complain, to sue, to do whatever they can to bollix up the entirely rational and sensible measures being undertaken to protect us, on airplanes and otherwise.

"Why has the American government not read Saudi Arabia the riot act?"--Hugh Fitzgerald

"Silly Hugh. Has he not heard of the "Rhyming Esdrújulas with Feminine Endings" explanation?" --from a reader

Esdrújula (Sp.), sdrucciola (It.), a proparoxytone, or word with the accent falling on the antepenult.

Examples of such "esdrújula" words are:

Cupidity
Stupidity
Timidity
Rigidity

These words chimingly characterize the policies of many Western governments, over the past thirty years, as nothing was understood about what the Muslim recipients of ten trillion dollars would inevitably do with it, nothing understood about what the admission of millions of Muslims to the countries of Western Europe would inevitably lead to, no ability to understand the connection between one local Jihad and the next, no ability to face down the demands of Muslim organizations, or states, or groups living within the Bilad al-kufr, no ability to change course, to see things aright and plan accordingly.

Because of the OPEC trillions, and all the arms and favors from Western hirelings that those trillions brought, the doctrine of Jihad has been dusted off from a desuetude that was the result not of a lack of will, but of a lack of way, and now that the way is there, the will is certainly there.

For more google "Esdrújula Explanation" and "Jihad Watch" and "Posted by Hugh."

The reader describes these as "rhyming esdrújulas." Yes, in a sense, for the antepenult, penult, and final syllables in all four words do, in a sense, limply rhyme (and with "cupidity" and "stupidity" the first syllables also rhyme, less limply). But the rhyming here is useful only as a mnemonic device. Such similar-ending dactyls do not please an English ear, are apprehended as fit mainly for some  kinds of comical verse -- bibbity-bobbity-boo --  but not even right for other kinds, such as manly-rhymed Skeltonics. In Spanish it is a different matter.

A new word for me - I'll try to remember it.

...similar-ending dactyls do not please an English ear, are apprehended as fit mainly for some  kinds of comical verse -- bibbity-bobbity-boo --  but not even right for other kinds, such as manly-rhymed Skeltonics.

Those -idity words would work in a Gilbert and Sullivan song, but G and S don't seem to be fashionable nowadays:

I tried to write a silly song with words that end in -idity

Cupidity, stupidity, timidity, avidity

I put a man's rigidity with a girl's frigidity

It all went belly-up and now I wish I never didity. 

Muslim prisoners must go vegetarian, says the Lancashire Telegraph (h/t Gates of Vienna):

Police have now taken all meat off the table for Muslims as food was being labelled as 'produced in accordance with Muslim law' but was not Halal.

Lancashire Police Authority bosses insisted that no Muslim had been given one of the microwave meals on the premise and the decision to scrap the meals was taken to remove any confusion.

The new system, where only vegetarian meals are offered to Muslims, was introduced towards the end of last year.

But chairman of the Lancashire Council of Mosques, Hamid Qureshi, said: "Taking meat totally off the menu is not right. They should be trying to provide Halal meat."

Dietary laws are not the worst aspect of Islam, but Hamid Qureshi's reaction shows that he is more concerned with demanding - with claiming territory - than with spiritual matters. If one is religious and the religion forbids eating most meat, would it not be a sign of devotion to sacrifice meat and eat vegetarian food only? A reasonable compromise, you might have thought. But compromise is not Islam's strong point.

And if Muslims want to eat food of their choice, including Halal meat, perhaps they should try not to end up in prison in such large numbers.

"Ibn Khaldoun. He's a medieval pop star these days."-- from a reader

Ibn Khaldun, as a good Muslim, counselled the duty of participating in Jihad (that is, the real Jihad to spread Islam, not the "inner Jihad" that Karen Armstrong tells us, relying on an "inauthentic" Hadith, outside one of the compilations of the most authoritative muhaddithin).

Whatever his great achievements as a historiographer (see Rosenthal's translation of The Muqaddimah, or Introduction, to his vast work), Ibn Khaldun has become the favorite of Infidels not because of this, but because he represents, like tulip tiles from Iznik or Qur'anic calligraphy (when you don't know Arabic), something for Infidels to focus on, to be enchanted by beyond all measure (how can Iznik tiles somehow replace the contents of Florence, Rome, Venice?), as they try to cling to something wonderful about Islam. Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Khaldun.

Read Ibn Khaldun on Christianity, and on Jihad, and the influence of the heat that explains the inferiority of black Africans, and that should do a bit to make the enchantment of the so-called "father of modern sociology" wear off.

There is, by the way, a certain former Pakistani diplomat, a smooth man, who somehow (how do these former Pakistani diplomats do it?) transformed himself into the "Ibn Khaldun Professor" at American University, but who, in a recent exchange, professed complete ignorance of Ibn Khaldun's writing about the duty of Jihad. You decide which is worse: whether that smooth man (google his name and "Posted by Hugh" for more on his trips, with adoring American students in tow, to Pakistan to "confront the extremists" in their mosques) was lying, and knew perfectly well what Ibn Khaldun wrote, or that he didn't, even though he is the Ibn Khaldun Professor, know what Ibn Khaldun wrote.

A toss-up.

Here are some statements by Ibn Khaldun:

1. On Jihad As a Duty

"In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the mission and convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. Therefore, caliphate and royal authority are united , so that the person in charge can devote the available strength to both of them at the same time. The other religious groups did not have a universal mission, and the holy war was not a religious duty to them, save only for purposes of defense. It has thus come about that the person in charge of religious affairs is not concerned with power politics at all. , royal authority comes to those who have it, by accident and in some way that has nothing to do with religion. It comes to them as the necessary result of group feeling, which by its very nature seeks to obtain royal authority, as we have mentioned before, and not because they are under obligation to gain power over other nations, as is the case with Islam. They are merely required to establish their reli­gion among their own .That is why the Israelites after Moses and Joshua remained uncon­cerned with royal authority for about four hundred years. Their only concern was to establish their religion."

(quoted in Andrew Bostom, "The Legacy of Jihad," page 161)

And Ibn Khaldun on the Christians (relevant to all the criticism aimed at the Pope, for his quoting of Paleologos at Regensburg):

"Thereafter, there were dissensions among the Christians with regard to their religion and to Christology. They split into groups and sects, which secured the support of the various Christian rulers against each other. At different times there appeared different sects. Finally, these sects crystallized into three groups, which constitute the sects. Others have no significance. These are the Melchites, the Jacobites, and the Nestorians. We do not think that we should blacken the pages of this book with discussion of their dogmas of unbelief. In general, they are well known. All of them are unbelief. This is clearly stated in the noble Qur'an. To discuss or argue those things with them is not up to us. It is conversion to Islam, payment of the poll tax, or death."

Do you think Ibn Khaldun made himself clear on the duty of Jihad in the first excerpt? Do you find any ambiguity there, or in the second excerpt, when in discussing the Christians he writes that "we do not think that we should blacken the pages of this book with discussion of their dogmas of unbelief," for "all of them [the Christian sects] are unbelief" as "clearly stated in the noble Qur'an"?

And what do you think Ibn Khaldun could have meant when he wrote, about Christians that "[t]o discuss or argue those things with them is not up to us. It is conversion to Islam, payment of the poll tax, or death."

Any ambiguity there? Anything subject to various interpretations?

Those young Europeans and Americans who contentedly buy one of those very prettily-covered books (camels, Iznik tiles, a Sassanian rhyton or most likely, a mosque with minarets, or an interior of that mosque with graceful geometric designs that would do the compiler of "A Grammar of Ornament" proud) should not be so entranced by the visual. The exploitation of those pretty pictures is common, and is especially obvious in the books of Esposito and similar apologists. It is as if a book on Khomeini's Islamic totalitarianism had on the cover some Persian miniatures depicting Layla and Majnoon. Same effect, same inability of all but the clearest-minded to make sense, to keep things straight, to study the texts and the history of Islam, and not to be distracted by the prettiness of some fountain, in some garden, in some mythical demi-paradise of Andalucia or Baghdad.

Keep your wits about you. So you don't lose your heads.

From a reader:

Yes, Spanish words fall into three categories according to the way they are pronounced: agudas, graves, and esdrújulas.

Words that are stressed on the last syllable are called agudas. If an aguda ends in a consonant other than n or s it is written without an accent mark. If an aguda ends in a vowel, or n or s it carries a written accent mark.

Words that are stressed on the next to the last syllable are called graves (or llanas in some countries). If a grave ends in a vowel or n or s it does not carry a written accent. If a grave ends in a consonant other than n or s it carries a written accent mark.

Words that are stressed on the third to the last syllable are called esdrújulas. All esdrújula words carry a written accent.

Now that we have had our Spanish lesson, I must say Hugh that your contortions and metaphors do not serve you well as a communicator.

The mark of a truly wise man is he who can say much but with few words.

So why did you dilate so much on "agudas" and "graves" in Spanish? The "Esdrujula Explanation" had already been defined, discussed, understood. Of what relevance was the business about "agudas" and "graves"?

Try to be more succinct and to the point. Apparently, as at least one bromide insists, it's "the mark of a truly wise man."

Esdrújula - new word for me - I'll try to remember it. --Mary Jackson

How could "esdrujula" be a "new word" for you? The Esdrujula Explanation was mentioned several dozen times by me at JW, in the period when at that site you still read and responded, before the anti-British Brigade drove you out.

Here, for example, is the first appearance, in a longer posting, almost a year ago:

"Rhyming Reasons With Feminine Endings,
or the Truth of the Esdrujula:

Timidity (fear of offending the Gods of the Copybook Headings)

Stupidity (the most powerful force on earth, aggravated by egalitarianism that erases the distinction between those who have bothereed to study something, and comprehended it, and thosee who have repeatedly demonstrated that they have not.

Cupidity (see those oil companies and businessmen seeking to recycle petrodollars, those arms salesmen in the Gulf, those Western ex-diplomats, intelligence agents, jouranlists, academics of the esposito vain, trolling for Arab dollars)

Rigidity (see the inability, as in Iraq, to be flexible, to recognize one's initial mistakes, to change course, to admit that understanding was lacking) Iraq misallocation of resources)."

[Posted by: Hugh  at January 21, 2006 08:50 PM]

You must have seen one of the appearances of the word "Esdrujula," and if you didn't know it, you would have looked it up. You know that. I know that.

Or do you wish to give me the same answer that Elsie Randolph gave to Jack Buchanan when he asked her "You wouldn't fool me, would you?"

Of course you would reply just as Elsie Randolph did.

So here, fittingly plucked, just like the Esdrujula Explanation itself, from a long-ago posting at JW, is that exchange between Buchanan and Randolph:

"You wouldn't fool me, would you?"
Jack Buchanan to Elsie Randolph

"I would if I could."
Elsie Randolph to Jack Buchanan

[Posted by: Hugh  at March 7, 2006 08:48 PM]

I've no reason to claim not to know a word when I know it. I remembered the cupidity, stupidity and A-N-other-idity, but not what they were called, and I don't think I ever knew in the first place.

My memory, like that of just about everyone else in the world, is nothing like as good as yours. So no attempted fooling - you are perhaps fooling yourself that I'm less of a fool than I am. I know the word now, that's the main thing.

Was this the same Elsie who rented by the hour in Caberet? --Mary Jackson

DVDs with Jack Buchanan, including some of his duets with Elsie Randolph, can be ordered on-line. The duets are good, but "And Her Mother Came Too" is the best. Nothing to do with Alan Clark or the wives and daughters of South African judges.

I now see that I'd already recommended that song  at JW:

"And as you grapple with a sinister twist on a celebrated civilizational problem (at least if Jack Benny, George Burns, and other famous philosophers are to be believed), you might find cheering the recording of Jack Buchanan, circa 1930, singing "And Her Mother Came Too."

[Posted at October 14, 2005 03:51 PM]

 Q.  In the last 10 years, which Hollywood movie "drew widespread criticism for its portrayal of Arab characters"?

A.  The same film that "The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee described [...] as 'probably the most racist film ever made against Arabs by Hollywood.'"

Q.  Ahem, what is the name of the film?

A.  Rules of Engagement.

Q.  Written by?

A.  James Webb.

(Above quotes via Wiki.)

The following is an account by Craig Baker of Katy Texas:

On September 29,2006 at 11:30 AM, Mr. Yousuf N. Shaikh & Mr. Kamel H. Fotough came to my office to introduce themselves to me as the new neighbors. These two gentlemen informed me that they had purchased the adjacent house along with the 11-acre tract of land from the Sacco family on 09/22/06. They asked that I remove my cattle from this 11-acre tract & remove my electrical fence. They said they were going to use the existing house as a community center. Children would be coming to play on the grounds, and as an engineer, Mr. Fotough felt it was unsafe for them to be around the cattle. Since 1995 I had been leasing this property from the Sacco’s to run my Limousine cattle on.

The gentlemen were very friendly, but spoke with a heavy Middle Eastern accent. They told me how much they loved the United States and how they had such big plans for the land. They said that their children had grown up right here in America, and they said that their ultimate dream is to build a parking lot, a new community center, an athletic facility, a school, and a mosque. They felt that they were going to need a total of 25 acres to complete this project, which might take them as long as five years to complete. They went into great detail how they wanted to provide a complete atmosphere where their friends could bring their entire families to worship and to play, and they said they would even provide security for the entire site. They felt that there was no other place on the far west side of Houston that was able to handle their needs.

While I was walking these men out, I offered to give them some granite fill, free of charge for their new driveway that they had planned. Then Mr. Fotough said that it was probably a good idea for me to start thinking about packing up my business, along with my family and moving somewhere further out in the country. They felt that a mosque and a marble shop did not go well together. He told me he was from Egypt and his partner was from Pakistan, and that they were bringing many new families in from as far as 5,000 miles away. He went on to say that many of these new people that they would be bringing in would be unfamiliar with many of the local customs, and/or ways of doing things, and that most would not be able to speak English at first.

Before they left, they provided me with their cell phone numbers so that if I ever had a problem I would be able to get in touch with them. I of course reciprocated the gesture, but I did not say much of anything because I was simply trying to digest what I had heard. I must have had a look of total shock on my face...

Then Mr. Baker was called a liar by a Muslim representative at a town meeting who maintained they did not tell him to leave.

Now, my family has deep roots here on Baker Rd. Houston, TX. As a matter of fact, a Baker has been living right on this land as far back as the early 1800’s. We are fast approaching 200 years being settled on this piece of land. The Baker family has not always found it easy living here. In the 1940's the Baker family lost most of its land to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers through a process known as eminent domain. The land was worth approximately $150.00 per acre, the Bakers received $3.00 per acre. Our government had to create a reservoir for the sprawling metropolis of Houston, which was some twenty miles away. This reservoir would allow part of the Buffalo Bayou to be dammed off in certain situations to prevent the flooding of the entire city.

Each of the family members was able to keep their immediate homesteads. One of the Bakers headed to Colorado, but most stayed on for many years. In 1979 I bought my first piece of Baker Rd. property. The piece I bought was only three quarters of an acre to move my brand new business onto. I bought the property from my grandparents, James Mayes Baker Jr. & his wife Anna H. Baker. Since then, as property in the area was put up for sale I have made every effort to purchase it. I have bought a total of eleven small tracts from remaining family members and others. This includes my grandmother's two acres and a small family cemetery that sits adjacent to my home. My grandmother was given a lifetime estate and still lives in the same home she has since 1949. With Houston pushing further outward the price of property has sky rocketed. The only land I have ever sold off was to my best friend Don. I cut off two acres next to my home so he could build his home, and of course he still lives there today. Although it is not a huge amount of land, I have tried to put the parcels back together and create a small farm like atmosphere for my children to grow up in. I have always kept thirty to forty head of cattle on my property.

Upon learning that I was called a liar I became determined to make a statement to everyone that I was not leaving. Not only that, I am taking a stand. I will use my property as I see fit. I went to a local printing shop and had a huge banner made up. The banner states “COMING SOON WEEKLY FRIDAY NIGHT PIG RACING.” I also put up some pig pens on the north east corner of my property, which just happens to be the closest point to my new Muslim neighbors. So far I have bought 24 pigs and put them in the pens. Additional pigs will be delivered soon, and the pig racetrack is under construction, as well as the starting gates.

I have sent two separate letters to Mr. Shaikh and Mr. Fotough to try to find a way to resolve this crisis -- one on 10/14/06 and the other on 11/28/06. I offered to act as a facilitator to assist in selling their property to the neighborhoods, which in turn would turn the vacant land into a public park. I did not receive a response until 12/01/06, which came in the form of a demand letter from their attorney Mathew Kornhauser. Kornhauser made the demand that I remove my pigs from my land immediately. Should I fail to do so his client will contact the appropriate authorities and take what ever measures necessary to protect their interest. Further Kornhauser demanded that I remove the website http://www.katyislamicassociation.net. Since I have absolutely no control over this website, his demand is ridiculous and absurd. His threat to eradicate the website should I fail in his demand to remove it is laughable. He claims again that his clients did not state that I should move out, and that is “totally false." Now I have made the offer in writing, on the radio, and on TV that I will pay for three lie detector test. One for each of the owners, and one for me. The sole question to be asked is: Did they, on 09/29/06 tell me that I should consider packing up my business and my family and moving?

Then we will see who is lying and who is telling the truth...

AP reports:

MIAMI - Three men were caught trying to slip past a checkpoint in a cargo truck Sunday at the Port of Miami, said authorities, who increased security at the busy trade hub.

A port security officer became suspicious when the truck driver could not produce proper paperwork to enter the port about 8 a.m., Miami-Dade Police Detective Richard Williams said. The driver also indicated he was alone in the truck.

Officers searched the truck and found two men in the cab trying to hide, Williams said.

The three men - two Iraqis and one Lebanese national who are legal permanent U.S. residents - were taken into custody for questioning. They had not been arrested or charged by Sunday afternoon.

The men do not appear on any terrorist watch list, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez.

A preliminary check of the truck showed its contents did not match the manifest, Gonzalez said. She declined to say what was in the truck, citing the investigation.

The Miami-Dade bomb squad moved the truck away from public areas of the port and X-rayed it.

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were also on scene. The port's cargo area was shut down all day Sunday.

"Of course we're on a heightened sense of security out here," Williams said.

Passengers in the normally busy cruise ship area of the port were unaware of the official bustle in the cargo area. When told of the situation, some said they thought it probably made boarding lines longer. But officials said Sunday's long lines were normal.

"I feel freaked out," said Connecticut resident Allie Tetreault, 23, who was waiting to board a Caribbean cruise when she heard about the security alert. "That's not good to hear right before you are going on vacation."

Mary, you are missing my point. All of my points. The word "redouble" is comical. That it continues to be used, and its comicality overlooked, is also comical, and worth noting. The word does not "mean" exactly "redouble" nor does it mean exactly "double." Those who use it seriously appear to think it means something more than double, "double with an oomph," and I was playing upon that misunderstanding, and simple-mindedly taking it to mean, as commonsensically, it should be, "re-double" or quadruple. But it does not end there.

Clearly the person throwing his hat into the ring misperceives the word "redouble" himself because he thinks -- or does he? -- that "redoubling" is not quite as good as "quadrupling" and therefore he is proud to promise that he, unlike those who promise merely to redouble, will "quadruple" his own efforts.

The whole idiocy is there.

But I wish you had left it entirely alone. I hate having to discuss these things. It takes away from them.

Now I'm totally confused. You're too subtle for me. –Mary Jackson

En cas d’échec dans un des modules, l’étudiant doit redoubler l’année. Il faut que tu redoubles l'année.

All of it? That's a bit much. Couldn't I just stand in the corner for the afternoon with my dunce's cap, or capote anglaise, as I believe Johnny foreigner calls it? –MJ

No.

Behold the fruits of polygamy, from Arab News:

RIYADH, 7 January 2007 — With the aim of strengthening business ties, two Riyadh business partners in their 70s have married their teenage daughters (17-19) to each other, reported Sayidaty magazine, a sister publication of Arab News.

“A man has the right to marry. When it comes to marriage, there is no stopping point,” said Al-Dossary, a man in his 70s with silver hair, a gray beard and gray eyebrows. “We have followed Islamic principles in the way we conducted our marriages and we are both happy with our wives,” he added.

Al-Dossary married his teenage daughter to his business partner and in turn married his partner’s teenage daughter. His partner, Saif Al-Qahtani, said: “It is true that our arranged marriages are strange, yet this does not mean that we are the only people to have married in this way, either in the past or the present. Anyhow, the main purpose of marriage is to protect men and women and we have both achieved this through our marriages.”

He added: “It took us only two months to decide and then arrange our marriages. It all began when my friend, Al-Dossary, continuously expressed the desire to marry.”

Al-Dossary added: “It is true that I wanted to marry. I proposed to several girls but all refused. One day I decided to ask Al-Qahtani to give me one of his daughters. He agreed immediately, but in return he asked me for my daughter. I was surprised because he already had three wives; however, I agreed since I had a young daughter who was of marriageable age.”

Al-Qahtani commented: “Yes, I asked him to give me his daughter in return. When he asked for one of my daughters, I thought I couldn’t refuse him because of our friendship. I knew that if I did refuse his request, our business would be affected. I didn’t have any other choice. I agreed to give him my daughter and take his daughter in return. At the time, I remember telling him to give me his daughter and that I would give him mine.”...

When asked if they had consulted their daughters, Al-Qahtani said: “I did not ask my daughter. I don’t have to. I know what is beneficial for her. When I told her what I had planned, she was happy. If she hadn’t been, she would have told her mother.”

Al-Dossary said: “In bedouin culture, a girl does not have the right to express her opinion about marriage, especially if her father and brothers have decided on a particular man. In both our cases, we have been married for a long time and have had no problems with our wives. Although we are much older than our wives, the fact that we are together proves that we are right for each other.”...

There once was a woman from Katy

Whose new neighbours were not very matey.

She said, Have you heard?

Their pig ban’s absurd!

My racing pigs are mean and quite weighty.

It used to be a folk belief that pigs could "see" the wind. On the Isle of Man it was specifically black pigs that had this ability; if a man wanted to be able to do the same he should not wash his face for 9 days.

The theory is that pigs feel the movement of air on their eyelashes which is why wind affects their behaviour. This is relevant as it could affect the betting, you understand.

Going good to hard, wind favourable, the one with the curly tail odds on favourite.