The Red Pyramid
The Red Pyramid, constructed 2575–2563 BCE (4600 years ago) by Pharoah Sneferu. Located at the Dahshur necropolis, 55 kilometers south of Giza, Egypt. Photo taken November 3, 2024.
All But Tut (Tutankhamun, That Is)
The long-delayed Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), originally scheduled to open in 2013 and house more than 100,00 artifacts from Ancient Egypt, including the complete collection from the tomb of Pharoah Tutankhamun, finally opened on October 16th — except for the complete Tutankhamun collection. That, for the time being, remains at the old Egyptian Museum downtown at Cairo’s Tahir Square.
Last year at this time, Emma and I and our Saudi friend Tariq, who resides in Cairo, were given a private tour of the GEM’s central atrium, a tour that the GEM operated as a trial run before its grand opening. It was wonderful, whetted our desire to see the GEM’s thousands of artifacts. With 81,000 square meters (872,000 square feet) of floor space, GEM is the world’s largest archeological museum and is located adjacent to the Great Pyramids of Giza.
So, Emma and I have now decided to return to Egypt next month and see it. We’ll invite our friend Tariq. We’ve now renewed our visas. This will be our fourth trip to Egypt since 2022. We are gradually becoming old Cairo hands.
Why to Unfriend and Alienate Some People
I avidly and sincerely plan to lose some social media Friend’s and acquaintances this month: I expect that perhaps 30 or 40 of my current 944 Facebook ‘Friend’s and maybe another 50 or so on X (‘Twitter’), Instagram, Threads, and other social media platforms, will ‘Unfriend’ or ‘Block’ me Most of these people will be upset by me or, at best, feel alienated. Some of these are people who I have known since my childhood.
I don’t mind political differences and discussions about contentious issues. I grew up with a father who was a Boston Democrat and a mother who was from a Connecticut Republican family. Each of their votes cancelled out the other’s. Moreover, they owned and operated a 140-year-old daily newspaper whose editorial pages [had] to take stands on issues of public controversies. And a fundamental factor was that anything their daily newspaper printed had to be verifiably true lest someone sue them for libel and, if such a lawsuit were successful, my parents lose their business and livelihood. That legal requirement to be truthful is a factor that the average person doesn’t face when expressing his opinion about controversial issues. But it shaped me.
Why in the world would I endeavor to lose friends, angering or alienating anyone?
So, why should I endeavor to lose any social media ‘Friend’ or follower?
Because people who intentionally or knowingly lie recklessly or evilly erode their communities, be it a physical or an online community. In other words, I have a fundamental problem with three categories of deceivers:
- Racists.
- People who knowingly lie or circulate others’ lies as if truth.
- Reckless fools who don’t care whether what they say is true or false.
Why do I endeavor to lose social media ‘Friend’s and acquaintances who are racists? I’ve no difficulty answering that. Racists are liars because they condemn entire races or religions or nationalities, despite knowing what anyone who has walked more than a thousand paces beyond their crib learns: that there are good people, as well as bad people, among every race, religion, or nation and that the good significantly, often extraordinarily, outnumber the bad. A particularly evil dynamic of racism, in person or online, is that the most prolific racists are otherwise affable, rather than irascible, people. That’s because irascible or cranky people make few friends, yet affable racists tend to make many more friends (particularly at times when they aren’t being racist) than irascible racists do.
Why do I endeavor to lose social media ‘Friend’s and acquaintances who knowingly lie or knowingly circulate others lies? Because such deceivers pillage and ruin society. They lie for either personal gain, prestige, or political power. I, however, live in a nation that reveres ‘Honest Abe’ Lincoln and how ‘George Washington could never tell a lie.’ For more than a quarter of a millennium, teachers, priests, pastors, rabbis, imans, and judges have taught Americans that a lie is a sin, calumny, deception, or crime; that liars are untrustworthy; and that liars and lies divisively undermine and destroy communities.
That’s also why I endeavor to lose social media ‘Friend’s and acquaintances who recklessly don’t care whether what they say is true or false. Their recklessness fertilizes the liars’ lies, cause the gullible to start thinking that there is no way to know the true, and that perhaps truth doesn’t exist. Indeed, a common evasive by liars is they ask, “Well, how do you know what I say isn’t true? Who really knows? I think that it’s what you say that isn’t true!”
However, truthful people know that the previous four thousand years of civilizations have given us two major methods and means to establish what is truth and what is a lie.
The judicial system is one such method. It can be flawed: a guilty person sometimes goes free or an innocent person gets convicted). Estimates of such errors range from one to five percent of cases. It’s thus a method with an approximate 95 to 99 percent accuracy rate, not unlike the estimated accuracy of medical cancer diagnosis. If with such an accuracy rate you were diagnosed to have cancer, would you seek medical treatment? Or would you recklessly believe or claim that you didn’t have cancer? Most mature, rational people would seek treatment, realizing that doing so is the safest course of action.
The other means to establish the truth is known as scientific method. If repeated experimentation always leads to results confirming a premise or claim, and no experiment produces contrary results, then that premise or claim is considered true. In both the judicial and the scientific methods, verifiable evidence and verifiable testimonies are crucial. If all the evidence and testimonies support a claim and no evidence/testimonies dispute it, then the claim is considered true. Civil courts require that the preponderance of evidence/testimonies to back the claim; criminal courts require that the evidence and testimonies back the claim beyond a reasonable doubt. And authentic scientific method requires that the information backing the claim not only be verifiable but reproducible by everyone else who tests its. This is how science, medicine, engineering, and the judiciary work. It is how the modern world was built.
So, starting this month, I’m no longer ignoring or in any way countenancing racists or liars. Better to expose and crush the vermin, even if they are social media ‘Friend’s or acquaintances. Particularly if they are social media ‘Friend’s or acquaintances.
For instances:
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, a convicted felon awaiting sentencing, has for the past four years claimed that he that he was ousted from office due to rampant voting fraud and that he ‘won’ the 2020 election. Yet, during the four years since that election, Republicans and many others have searched the approximately 3,300 U.S. voting districts for any notable evidence of voting fraud. No such evidence has been found. More than 50 federal and state lawsuits filed by Trump supporters have been thrown out due to lack of any evidence being produced by in those courts’ jurisdiction. Trump’s own campaign staff has testified under oath that they told him within a week of the election that he had conclusively lost. Even William Barr, Trump’s own U.S. Attorney General, stated under oath that Trump’s claim was “Bullshit!’ Yet the convicted felon Trump continues to repeat his thoroughly debunked ‘Big Lie’. He is a liar. I’ve perhaps dozens of my social media ‘Friend’s and acquaintances who nonetheless either still believe against all evidence and all those courts that Trump’s lies are the truth. They believe that their espousal of Trump’s ‘Big Lie’ is their opinion. Yet their untruth is a lie, a deceit; not an opinion at all. They are liars.
Second, Climate Change deniers. More than 99 percent of professional climatologists state that human-caused pollution is worsening the world’s climate. Sure, Fox News can search for, cherry-pick, and interview the single percent of experts who disagree with that. However, that 99 percent of experts is a more convincing number than even that which this nation’s judicial system can produce. Moreover, those 99 percent of experts have verified their conclusion to a ‘Five Sigma’ level, a statistical gauge meaning there is only a one-in-a-million chance that they are wrong. The one percent of climatologists can verify their dissent at all. So, anyone who is a climate change denier is most likely either a sophomoric, woefully gullible, or else deceitful.
Third, what should I do with a ‘Friend’ who knowingly and willfully repeats a known lie as if it were truth? A few years ago, I had a gullible ‘Friend’ posted something political on Facebook that I knew factually was untrue. In a comment to his post, I showed him the link to the evidence debunking what he posted. “Thanks!”, he replied, “I didn’t know that.” However, yet another ‘Friend’ then commented, “Well, if it isn’t true, it should be!”. And the next day that other friend third ‘Friend’ posted the falsehood on his own Facebook timeline as if he didn’t know it was false. His action told me volumes about his lack of ethics and morale character!
Finally, what if that other ‘Friend’ also posts something blatantly racist, something condemning an entire race or religion? Racism isn’t an opinion; it is an expression of hate. Why should you or I have a ‘Friend’ who posts racist content? Does you having known him since childhood excuse his conduct? Of course, not. What if you just met him for the first time now that he posted something racist; would you ‘Friend’ him. Probably not unless you are someone who countenances racism. Why have ‘Friend’s and acquaintances on social media who lies, spread other’s lies, or post racism?
You shouldn’t. I no longer will.
[Photo above of Irving Tressler’s 1937 book ‘How to lose friends and alienate people’, a spoof of Dale Carnegie’s 1927 book, ‘How to win friends and influence people’.]
The Fetid Stench of America’s Newest Racism
The words in red above, bookending someone’s racist posting on Facebook, are mine.
Only if they donned white cotton robes and matching conical hats, then set life-sized crucifixes afire, could the fecal scum who concocted, posted, and ‘Like’d this despicable posting on Facebook be more satanically racist. If you find what I write here to be blunt, Known that its bluntness is justified. I won’t tolerate racism.
The October 7, 2024, terrorist attack on Israel by the political party Hamas of the Gaza Strip, an atrocity that killed 1,139 Israeli citizens, absolutely was a Crime Against Humanity (as were the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States during 2001) and Hamas must be eradicated (like Al Qaeda was).
- Yet when during the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland 1,890 civilians and 1,049 British soldiers died nobody said, ‘Everything I ever needed to learn about Christianity, I learned in Northern Island!’
- Likewise, after the Thirty Years War, when Protestants and Catholics killed 8 million of each other, nobody said, ‘Everything I ever needed to learn about Christianity, I learned during those three decades!’
- Nor after Europeans murdered 1.7 million residents of the Middle East during the five invasive ‘Crusades’ did anyone state, ‘Everything I ever needed to learn about Christianity, I learned between during those five invasive massacres!’
- Nor, more recently, when the NAZI government killed 7 million civilians during the Holocaust, nobody but racists would have said, ‘Everything I ever needed to learn about Germans, I learned in between 1933 and 1945!’
No, all those statements are demonstrably racist. As clearly are the scantily-educated white men (gee, isn’t it always?) who concocted, posted, ‘Share’d, or ‘Like’d, this excremental graphic on Facebook.
Do these rabidly racist mental runts believe that all 2.2 million Palestinians who live in Gaza attacked Israel on October 7th last year? Including the 1.4 million Palestinian women and children in Gaza?
Do they know that in 2006 the Hamas political party of terrorism violently overthrew the Gaza’s previous government? And that, much like the Russian-occupied eastern European nations during the Soviet Era, all subsequent Gaza ‘elections’ under Hamas terrorist have been staged by Hamas? Were the people of Armenia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and the Ukraine, themselves responsible for the crimes of Lenin’s and Stalin’s Soviet Communist Party? Do the human shits who posted this graphic think that the German people themselves were, rather than the NAZIs, were culpable for the Holocaust?
Yet the diarrhea these racists spew blames all of the world’s 1.9 billion Muslims, 25 percent of the world’s population, for what a the estimated 60,000 Hamas party members (that’s Israel’s estimate of their number) among the 2.2 million Palestinians living in Gaza. That’s only 2.6-percent of the Gaza’s population, a percentage probably not coincidentally similar to the 3 million to 6 million Protestant-Americans who were members of the Ku Klux Klan (that’ the FBI’s estimate, which was 2.5-percent of the United States’ population of 123 million then) during mid-1920s; Klansmen who killed thousands of African-American citizens.
The execrable racists who concocted, posted, ‘Share’d, or ‘Like’d this monstrous posting on Facebook, probably consider themselves good or devout Christians–much like so many of the white Baptist ‘good ole boys’ who were Ku Klux Klansmen. Yet those Klansmen back then and these turds who posted this graphic now clearly aren’t really Christians.
Jesus Christ himself lived amid many different religions, such as Canaanites who worshipped idols of Baal and Ashtoresh, Samaritans (a religion still existing today), and polytheistic Romans. The Christian Gospels, known in Arabic as the Injīl and described by the Qur’an as one of the four Islamic holy books, record Christ’s interactions with a Roman Centurion with a sick servant (Luke 7); the Roman governor Pilate (John 18-19); a Canaanite woman with a sick daughter (Matthew 15); a Samaritan leper grateful for his healing (Luke 17); a sinful Samaritan woman at the well (John 4); the allegorical Good Samaritan (Luke 10); and many unnamed sick and demonized from the Palestine and Syria who were most likely not Jewish (Matthew 4 & 8; Mark 3 & 7). According to the Gospels, in none of these interactions did Jesus condemn theirs or anyone else’s religions. Christ’s reactions to people of other religions was always to aid them and if they sinned, or even crucified him, to forgive them.
By contrast, the walking scum who concocted, posted, ‘Share’d, or ‘Like’d this posting on Facebook are demonic in their spewed hate condemning all Muslims worldwide.
The Muslim holy book, the Quran, states that Jesus (‘Isu’ is Arabic) is the Messiah who will return to Earth at the ‘end of times’; overthrow the Anti-Christ; and judge all souls. Christ is revered by Muslims as the penultimate prophet of Islam. In fact, the Quran has more references (each reverent) to Christ than to the Prophet Muhammed.
I happened to be in Cairo on October 7th when Hamas attacked Israel. Egyptians, most of who abhor Hamas, were horrified at the attack, as were the Qataris, Saudis, Emiratis, Kazakhs, and Moroccans I know. Horrified, too, were most Bahrainis, Jordanians, Kuwaitis, Turks, Malays, and other Muslims around the world. When on that tragic days I saw this shitty posting on Facebook, I thought, ‘What imbecilic sick fucks! Hamas would love the hate such racists incite.’ The American racists have probably never met an actual practicing Muslim. Moreover, they might be fans of Muhammed Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Shaquille O’Neil, Mehmet Oz, Dave Chapelle, Ice Cube, Mike Tyson, model Bella Hadid, or other American Muslims, yet hypocritically shit on each those by posting this fecal graphic.
An irony of their posting is that, although they might claim not to be antisemitic, these moronic racists don’t realize that antisemites they by definition are:
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a Semite as:
A member of any of the peoples mentioned in Genesis 10:21–31 as descended from Shem, one of the sons of Noah, traditionally interpreted as including the Hebrews, Aramaeans, Assyrians, and Arabs.
Likewise, the American Merrian-Webster Dictionary defines a Semite as:
- A member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.
- A descendant of these peoples.
- A member of a modern people speaking a Sematic language (Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Amharic).
So, behold the hateful filth behind this racist, even anti-semitic, posting on Facebook!
If I were to state that I know racists, you might think that I was arrogantly boasting that I’ve expertise identifying racists. No, the unfortunate reality is I’m simply stating that I have friends and acquaintances who are demonstrably racists. You’re seeing one of their Facebook postings pictured above. For the past third of a century, I’ve been a paying member of the Whole Earth [E]Lectronic Link or WELL (i.e, why my personal email address is @well.com), a seminal online discussion forum whose motto is ‘You Own Your Own Words’. I take responsibility for the bluntness of my words in this blog post and for point out the unmistakable racism in the Facebook posting pictured above. Likewise, they must admit their unmistakable actions. Stating something racist isn’t an opinion. Stating something racist is a demonstrable expression of hate.
Not surprisingly, I know these racists because I went to secondary school with them. It was during elementary and secondary schooling that I first heard racism. As a product of a Catholic parochial elementary school, I had rather sheltered childhood (although, thinking in retrospect, I’m now surprised that the nuns there didn’t actively teach against the evils of racism). At their homes, some of my classmates’ parents would sometimes say things that were racist. Yet as a child then adolescents, I thought perhaps what they said was simply an adult’s opinion of people who looked or worshiped differently than that adult did (the mill town of some 14,000 people where I grew up, its mills employing mostly immigrants, contained 37 churches, temples, and a synagogue, but no mosques). Yet by the time when I graduated from secondary school, I’d learnt that racism isn’t an opinion but one of the most common manifestations of hate and that the ever-aging adolescents who spout that hate aren’t truly adults intellectually, psychologically, or emotionally. Ever since I’d left secondary school and became an adult, I’ve chosen new friends and acquaintances who aren’t racists.
Attending my secondary school graduating class’s 40th and 50th reunions ten years ago and last years doused me back into contact with some of the muck which I’d thought that I’d left those many decades ago. I discovered that 40 to 50 years after our secondary school graduation, they stunted during that time. What a waste of time and a near lifetime of experiences. When after secondary school graduation at age 17, I left that mill town in which I grew up, I was naïve to think that all of my classmates would continue learning throughout their lives. Although some did, other rotted and became even more prejudiced or racists than their parents were.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised by that some of my former classmates posted or ‘Like’d the Facebook racist graphic pictured above. Five years ago, yet another of my former classmates posted a political falsehood on Facebook. In a commented on his posting, I provided incontrovertible evidence that the posting was untrue. That other classmate replied, “Thanks, I didn’t know it was untrue.” That was when one of my former classmates whose name appears in the racist graphic above interjected a comment, “Well, if it’s not true, then it ought to be!” The next day, he then posted the falsehood on his own Facebook page as if it were true, knowing it was false. His interjection and actions those five years ago taught me volumes about his amorality, his lack of ethics, and his stunted and hypocritical character.
Indeed, ‘All I Need to Know about Him, I learned on that One Day.’
If you’ve got a Facebook friend who is this demonstrably racist, ask yourself why. Are friends with him or her because you’ve known the person since childhood, secondary school, or college? That doesn’t justify tolerating racism. You shouldn’t tolerate open racism from anyone, lest by your silent acceptance of it, you and abet their satanic hate.
The Top-Ranked Steakhouse in North America
As when someone claims to have the best barbeque (BBQ), churrasco, brai, or whatever in your own nation they call grilled red meat, claiming to be ‘the best steakhouse’ generally are fighting words!
I was surprised today to see an Instagram post by Chef Eric Ripert, co-owner of the Michelin three-star rated Le Bernadin, long rated annually as the #1 ranked overall restaurant in North America, who was stating that Cote in Manhattan is now rated as the #1 steakhouse in North America and the #4 steakhouse in the world. Those ratings are by WorldsBestSteaks.com. Cote (“coat”) has been awarded one Michelin star. Even more remarkable, Cote is a Korean cuisine steakhouse.
Well, hold my Stetson! The #1 ranked steakhouse in the nation that invented barbeque is an Asian cuisine restaurant? I generally think of grilled red meat as American or Australian barbeque, South American churrasco, or South African brai. Yet here is a 26-minute video about Cote.
I suspect its top ranking is justified. Look at Cote’s dinner menu (click this hyperlink). For examples:
- The twelve-item ‘Butchers’ Feast’: Gogi Cha (beef bone consomme), Ban-Cha (pickled seasonal vegetables), Scallion Salad, four cuts of USDA Prime & American Wagyu beef (or Japanese Wagy if you pay UD$34 more), Red Leaf Lettuce with Ssam-jang, Savory Egg Souffle, two Stews with rice, and Vanilla Soft-Serve ice cream with soy sauce caramel, for US$74 per person.
- Or the Steak Omakase for US$225 per person! An Omakase, a Japanese term, is where the chef chooses how many course and what you eat according to his own choices of what he thinks are the best things to cook that day.
- Or the Kimchi Wagyu ‘Paella’ for US$35, which is Kkaldhugi kimchi, Wagyu beef fried rice, and a soft poached egg.
I’ve been to Peter Luger’s, Smith & Wollensky’s, Kean’s, Morton’s, etc. However, I think my next New York steakhouse trip will involve chopsticks.
Ignorant and Unchristian ‘Christian’ Racists
Conventional wisdom warns not to start talking about religion in establishments where alcohol is on tap. Correspondingly, self-preservation advises even more strongly not to respond to someone who does start talking religion in bars, pubs, and other drinking establishments. So, how does one react to a despicable fool like the one whom I encountered two months ago at a tavern along Route 67 in Connecticut ? He was loudly expressing his hate and his ignorance of religions (including his own, too) while thinking that he was Christianity.
“I hate Muslims!”, he bellowed to everyone and no one in particular at the tavern’s bar that evening.
When he arrived, I had overheard him telling the barmaid that he was a building contractor in the town. He was a muscular, formidable figure who had probably spent at least ten years lifting bricks, lumber, and construction equipment at building sites. As my friends will tell you (and my wife probably confirm), I’m not someone who feels bound by conventional wisdom nor even self-preservation. At least, not when open expressions of hate and racism are involved near my town, in my nation, or anywhere else for that matter. So, from my seat three stools and ten feet away, I loudly asked, “Why?”
I don’t think he expected anyone to respond or ask about his loud holler of hate. However, he readily answered. Appraising me, he spit out, “Because they hate Jesus!” That is when I noticed the crucifix he prominently wore.
Did I respond to that? No.
Why not? My reasons why not are these: Perhaps he is a competent contractor. Maybe he is an amenable person when not drunk. Perhaps he also is a good husband and a doting father. I don’t know for sure. However, I have no doubt that he believes he is a pious and devout Christian. I, however, have learned through seven decades of experience that there is no point in attempting to change the minds of zebras, donkeys, mules or other forms of ignorant jackasses. Particularly, when they are drunk.
Moreover, no amount of evidence or facts (by which I mean verifiable, readily provable, mutually-agreeable, court-admissible evidence and facts; and not anecdotal ‘evidence’, unverifiable ‘facts, or a cherry-picked mention of an outlying expert who is clearly contradicted by the huge preponderance other experts in that field) nor persuasive reasons will penetrate the thoroughly empty cerebellum of someone who cluelessly attempts to masquerade his atrocious prejudices under the guise of a religious faith.
First, allow me to raise a personal note. I was remembering him yesterday while standing in a taxi line on an island about 250 kilometers (150 mi.) off the coast of Northwester Africa. In the line next to me were two Muslim women. I’ve done business in nearly a dozen Muslim nations and have Muslim friends from yet another half dozen more nations. I’ve vacationed, even honeymooned, in Muslim nations. I doubt this fool in a Connecticut tavern has ever met a Muslim or visited any of the world’s 57 Islamic nations. In my travels, I’ve been privileged to visit mosques, ranging from the ancient Al-Azhar of Cairo (founded in the year 970) to the ultramodern Asy-Syakirin of Kuala Lumpur 8,000 kilometers (5,000 mi.) further east. I’ve read the Bible, the Q’uran, the Hindu Rigveda, some of the Torah, and many of the Buddhist sutras and text. These experiences have guided me to know that this drunken moron in a Connecticut bar is characteristic of a clan of racists who I’ve become all too familiar in modern life, particularly in my own nation: racists who pose as Christians.
So, let us test his prejudiced and opinion, from first the perspectives of Christianity, then that of Islam.
The Christian Gospels are crystal clear that Jesus lived, worked, and interacted with a wide variety of people of other religions. For examples, the polytheistic Roman occupiers of Palestine; idolator Syrians and Canaanites who worshipped Baal or Ashtoreth; and Samaritans, whose religion was similar to that of Jesus’s own Jews in that they followed the Torah and believed in a coming Messiah. (By the way, the Samaritan religion still exists). The Gospels describe his interactions with a Canaanite woman with a sick daughter (Matthew 15); a Samaritan woman at a well (John 4), a Samaritan leper (Luke 17), and the ‘Good Samaritan’ (Luke 10); a Roman centurion with a sick servant (Luke 7); and many sick and demoralized people from Syria and Decapolis who likely weren’t Jewish (Matthew 4 and 8; Mark 3 and 7). Unlike this reprehensible fool in a Connecticut tavern 2,000 years later, Jesus hated none of those non-Christians. He hated no one. Nor did he condemn or rebuke them. Nor argue or debate theology with them. Nor tell them that their religions were wrong. He led by his own example, thereby using what the Quakers 1,800 years later would call ‘quiet persuasion’.
Now, if I was a racist zealot who wanted to dismiss all that, I perhaps might attempt to distract from the issue by claiming that none of those ancient religions was Islam, which didn’t arise until six centuries after Christ. I don’t think this racist turd in 2024 would be dimly intelligent enough to attempt such a line of argument, but let’s now imagine that he had.
Many non-Christian religions founded since Jesus walked on Earth revere Jesus for performing such good works and for speaking the sermons that the Gospels report. In the Druze religion, Jesus is honored not only one of God’s important prophets but considered to be the Messiah who will return to Earth at the ‘End of Times’. Similarly, the Baháʼi religion considers Jesus to be one of many manifestations of God, while rejecting the Christian doctrine that he was an actual divinity. Yet of all non-Christian religions founded since Jesus’s teachings, Islam is the most to revere him.
In Islam, Jesus is called in Arabic Isa and his Gospels, themselves holy books in Islam, are call the Inil. Isa (Jesus) is Islam’s penultimate prophet; the messenger of God; and the Messiah who at the ‘End of Times’ will return to Earth, overthrow the Anti-Christ, and rule thew Earth. Indeed, the Q’uran mentions Isu (Jesus) by name 25 times, which is more often than it mentions Muhammad.
Islam differs from Christianity in that it consider Isa (Jesus) to have been a mortal human, albeit one divinely chosen to spread God’s message. Most Muslims believe that Isa (Jesus) wasn’t killed during his crucifixion, but that God made it appear so to his enemies and that God afterwards ascended him into heaven where Jesus is still alive. Despite those differences, the Q’uran and the New Testament agree about most aspects of his life and his teachings. Muslims and Christians believe that he was miraculously born without a human biological father by the will of God, and that his mother, Mary (Maryam in Arabic) is among the most saintly, pious, chaste and virtuous women ever. The Quran states that Isu (Jesus) was able to perform miracles through the will of God, including being able to raise the dead, restore sight to the blind, and cure lepers. One miracle attributed to Jesus (Isu) in the Quran, but not in the New Testament, is his being able to speak at only a few days after his birth, in order to defend his mother from accusations of adultery.
Does all that sound like Muslim’s hate Jesus?
No matter how much he might claim to be a Christian, what a thoroughly ignorant and hateful turd was the guy I encountered in the Connecticut tavern. He was demonstrably ignorant not only of Islam but of Jesus’s renowned teachings of tolerance and love for others.
Do you know anyone like him who claims to be Christian yet preaches hate for Muslims?
Unfortunately, I’ve encountered too many in recent years. This one was noxious when drunk. I’ve however encounter many of them who are quite affable when sober. They are worse. The affable one lack intoxication as any sort of excuse for their racism. Although few people like, condone, or tolerate a racist who is mean or irascible, unfortunately too many tolerate an affable one. Yet is affability any excuse for racism, prejudice, and hate? No, of course not. What if a friend or acquaintance from childhood or adolescence has grown to become a racist? Should he be tolerated. Absolutely not. If a racist is affable or was a childhood or adolescence friend and you tolerate his hate and prejudice, you aid him in spewing it.
And if a racists claims to be a devout Christian, you needn’t the heavens to part and a divine voice warn you that you’re dealing with not only someone hateful and prejudiced but a most evil hypocrite, drunk or sober, kneeling in church or relaxing at a tavern or country club. Any racist does the Devil’s work.
Faro de Maspalomas
Although I’ve owned an aerial camera drone, a DJI Mavic Air, for the past five years, I recently replaced it with the far more powerful, smaller, lighter, and more far-ranging DJI Mini 4 Pro. Meanwhile, laws about flying drones in North America or the European Union have considerably tightened.; so, I am now studying for my United States pilots license, which would allow me to fly the drone in many regions where amateur flights or unlicensed flights are prohibited. In the United States, I live fewer than 100 metres west of outside a restricted airspace, which means I can fly unlicensed only east of my property. At my home in the Canary Islands, Spain’s airspace restrictions are so tight that not only is flying a drone unlicensed in my city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria prohibited, but so too is virtually the entire eastern half of Gran Canaria island. I spent last weekend vacationing at the southern tip of the island, an area where unlicensed flights are allowed. This gave me a chance to briefly fly my Mini 4 Pro from the balcony of my hotel on a glorious Saturday afternoon. Here is a six-minute clip from that flight. It’s not an entirely smooth flight, as I’m still experimenting with adjustments to the 250-gram drone’s balance and flight controls. However, this video clip does provide great views of first the Lopesan Boabob and he Lopesan Costa Meloneras resort hotels, as well as the lighthouse of Maspalomas (‘El Faro de Maspalomas’).
Durian, Durian, Durian!
Although my wife prefers mangosteens, I love durians. In case you don’t know what those are, you’re in huge company. One of the side-benefits of travel is learning about fruits not native to you continent or even your hemisphere. Durians and mangosteens, which are southeast Asian fruits, are superb examples. Neither of these fruits ship well over long distances, which is why you find them almost only in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia. Although durians are often called the ‘Kings of Fruit’ and the most delicious fruit in the world, you won’t find them everywhere in Southeast Asia. Durians are also have the most repulsive smell of all fruits, so Singapore bans them from being served or eaten in public places.
The New York Times today published a homage to durians. Or rather why the People’s Republic of China nowadays imports US$6.7 billion of durians each year. I recommend this story.
What do durians taste like? Wikipedia quotes the 19th Century British explorer naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace:
“This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acidic nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. … as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.”
What is a durian’s smell? Wikipedia quotes the 21st Century travel writer Richard Sterling:
its odor is best described as pig-excrement, turpentine and onions, garnished with a gym sock. It can be smelled from yards away. Despite its great local popularity, the raw fruit is forbidden from some establishments such as hotels, subways and airports, including public transportation in Southeast Asia.”
It is perhaps one of nature’s greatest practical jokes that the ‘King of Fruits’ smells like a dead one!
My wife and I first encountered durians two decades ago in Malaysia, one of my favorite nations. Since then, I’ve been able to find durians served in a Vietnamese restaurant in upstate New York (yes: how that location makes sense is another question). And I’ve been able to find them on sale in the Westchester County outlet of the Asian supermarket chain H-mart. As The New York Times article describes, however, these are likely durians that had been cryogenically frozen before shipping to North America. They lacked full delight of durian taste, unlike those in Southeast Asia. Nonetheless, if you are a North American, try them nonetheless. It is too bad that durians and mangosteens don’t travel well!
Mangosteens, also a fruit my wife and I first encounter in Malaysia, are my second-favorite fruits. These small apricot-like fruits are delicious. Yet unfortunately like durians, are almost impossible to find outside of Southeastern or Far Eastern Asia. If you can find them, you’ll immensely enjoy them.
Travel outside of your nation or continent and try the foods and fruits there. I doubt you’ll be disappointed!
Trump is a Symptom, not the Problem Itself
To understand why Trumpism is merely a symptom of a larger predicament, first consider that today’s children will see more technological, scientific, Industrial, business, and societal changes during their lifetimes than any previous generation in human history. Futurists for several decades have been documenting after the fact that the pace of such changes has been accelerating since the start of the Industrial Revolution. That pace has now begun skyrocketing due to developments such as computerization, global connectivity, artificial intelligence, genetic medicines, etc. Indeed, as the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus sagely observed 2,500 years ago, change is the nature of things and that the only constant is change.
Is that a problem? Well, change tends to make many, if not most living things anxious, even uncomfortable. Anxious animals defensively retreat into their burrows, nests, caves, etc. And anxious humans can similarly retreat into, if not nests, cave, or burrows, traditional values or nostalgia for a time before or without the change.
Certainly, some changes can be harmful. However, not only does change cause evolution, it likewise tends toward progress. Organisms don’t devolve. Human history during the past 500 years demonstrates increasing progress: such as ending slavery, emancipating women, democracies replacing monarchies or even more authoritarian forms of government, sciences and medicine elongating longevities and eradicating ancient diseases such as the plague, smallpox, polio, etc. Who adapts, and particularly takes advantage of change, best survives and flourishes.
But there is a contrary corollary. We shouldn’t be surprised that the people who tend to be most anxious when faced with change are those who are least able or willing to adapt and thus who most complain and resist change. They are also those who are most likely to be seduced by demagoguery against change or who claim that was past is best. Enter Trump, Putin, Modi, Bolsonaro, et. al.
Centuries ago when the pace of change was gentle, if even perceptible, these natural dynamics might have been less. Yet now that technological dynamics such as ‘Moore’s Law’, quantum mechanics, artificial intelligence, etc., have exponentially increased the pace of change, the sheer numbers of people who either can’t adapt, or not as easily as perhaps in the past, exponentially increases, too. Demagogues find willing audiences.
And as the pace of change continues to accelerate, perhaps an evolutionary hurdle is reached? If our technologies are now advancing faster than our adaptation to the changes they bring, what do we do about or how do we aid those among us who have trouble or can’t adapt? Aren’t they within their rights not to adapt? Or are there situations or cases in which their resistance to change or adaptation tramples the rights of those who embrace change? These questions need to be encountered and answered, because change is the nature of things.
‘Red’ vs. ‘Blue’ Map of the 2020 U.S. Election
Politically conservative simpletons in the United States of America are fond of posting on social media maps of the nation that have each county colored either red for a Trump victory in 2020 and blue for a Biden victory that year. They like to do that because it colors the U.S. mostly red for Trump. And it is true that Trump won more than 2,500 counties and Biden fewer than 500 during that election.
What the simpletons either don’t realize, forget, or ignore is that not all counties in the U.S. are equal. Trump indeed won thousand of largely empty or sparsely populated U.S. counties. Yet although Biden won few than 500 counties, he won those where not only most U.S. citizens live but in which 70-percent of America’s economy resides. Trump overwhelming won Texas’s Loving county (population: 54) but Biden overwhelmingly won Los Angeles county (pop.: 9.9 million),
It is infantile for politically conservatives to post colored maps showing that Trump won a greater geographic aggregate of the emptier counties in the U.S.. Elections are instead won by gaining the greater number of citizens’ votes, which Biden did during 2020 by more than seven million votes (equal to more than 109,000 Loving county’s). However, if it makes simpletons feel better to post such maps, give them all the red and blue crayons they need. I expect a similar outcome from the 2024 election.
You Won’t See U.S. or European Airlines Staffs Doing This
A frequent international traveler, I often post about how bad U.S. airlines have become and how European are starting to decline, too. The contrast between airlines from the Americas and Europe and those from the Middle East and Asia has become stark. Skytrax has long published the most objective and reputable ranking of the world’s airlines. Only one airline from outside the Middle East and Asia ranks among Skytrax’s Top Ten in the world: Air France. Moreover, no more than one airline from Europe and the Americas ranking in that top ten is usual. In recent years, Lufthansa had ranked in the Top Ten but no longer does; not more than one airline from the Americas or Europe has in decades; and in many years none does. Skytrax hasn’t picked its Top Ten for 2024, but atop its Top Ten last year were: Singapore, Qatar, ANA (All Nippon Airlines), Emirates, Japan Airlines, Turkish Airlines, Air France, Cathay Pacific of Hong Kong, EVA (Evergreen Airlines) of Taiwan, and Korean Airlines. Although a pedant might claim that Turkish is a European airline because it’s based in Istanbul west of the Bosporus, its service is distinctly Middle Eastern (meaning very good). Although their small airline, Drukair, isn’t rank by SkyTrax, the people of the Kingdom of Bhutan, a nation which uses a civic metric called the Gross National Happiness Index to judge itself, could make a case that it has the friendliest service in the world. Judge from this five-minute video from them. You won’t see the employees of Delta, British Airways, Latam, or Olympic doing this.
Homie Extremists
I regret that during the past 25 years of working with New Media, what has distressed and alarmed me most is discovering that a tangible percentage of the people with whom I grew up harbor extremist opinions. I estimate that the percentage of whom is approximately less than five-percent, yet that means one in every twenty. That number, like their extreme opinions, is unfortunately too tangible.
My mother was from a multi-generational Republican family (her ancestors was a Republican politician who served in the Connecticut State Legislature. My father was from a Boston liberal immigrant family (the Crosbies are lowland Scots). I thus grew up with political differences; I’m used to dealing with opposing political opinions.
However, what I’m not used to is political ‘opinions’ based upon clearly disproven lies. The political opinions of mature adults aren’t based upon lies. As psychologists will tell you, a characteristic of a mature adult is that the person changes his opinion when faced with contrary evidence that disproves that opinion. He will also acknowledge that the opinion has been disproved. Only liars or psychologically immature adults knowingly base their opinions upon clearly disproven lies. I unfortunately know, among the people with whom I grew up, too many psychologically immature adults or knowing liars. I’ve grown shocked to realize that is what they are. I’m tired of knowing them and am repulsed at their deceits or immaturity.
Worse, some of them purport to be Christians. During my life, I’ve gotten to know many Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists, and can state that I don’t know any who based their political opinions upon lies. Perhaps that is simply because as an adult I met these Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists and chose to make them my friends. Whereas, by contrast, I did not choose the people with whom I grew up; those were simply the kids who happened to live within the school district where I lived while growing up. Almost all of those kids were purportedly Christian (indeed, very many because I attended a Catholic parochial elementary school). I’ve become amazed at how some of these Christian kids have grown to become bigots, Christian nationalist extremists, or both.
This year, I intend to drop as friends and block from my social media feeds those among whom I grew up who harbor extremist opinions. I should have done so years ago. I first however feel a need to tell my other friends why I am dropping and blocking those extremists. I realize that I needn’t tell my friends why. Yet the reason I will tell them why is because they too have been enduring these extremists, perhaps putting up with them too much ‘for old times sakes’. Silence in response to bigotry or lies merely encourages the bigots and liars to spread their lies and prejudices more. Stop them here and now.
So, if during subsequent weeks you see me posting here about bigots and political liars who are unfortunately among my acquaintances, you now know why.
Why here on this blog? Because by posting here then simply linking to that on the several social media I use, I don’t have to repetitive writing the some posting on each of those social media.