Dick,

Last I checked, Egypt was a lot smaller, poorer and less literate than Spain. There's a difference between imposing ignorance (as with censor-happy China) and simply not having the money.

I also looked it up, but women have been able to vote in Egypt for the past fifty years (whereas they only got the vote last year in Kuwait and in Saudi Arabia are still waiting).

Stephen, you are, I believe, only the second person who has mentioned my 'charter', so thanks for noticing it (and approving of point No 6). Apart from that, well, what can I say?

You really shouldn't have bothered with that painstaking 'trawl'. At least, not on my account. There may be some here who'll find your last post a model of clarity. Hell, maybe everyone else will, confirming me as a lost, dimwitted cause.

No, my 'core' objection (if there was such a thing) would have had more to do with your assumption that I was a representative of this 'philosophy' that you
dreamt up in the first place. Reducing your opponent to a philosophy ('Liberal' or otherwise) and then taking issue with that philosophy hardly seems to me to be a reasonable way to discuss things. But maybe I'm just weird.

Yes, from the word go. I would have respected that if you hadn't been so terribly quick to make MY position clear as well (Liberal hand-wringer). If I jumped it was only because I'd been jumped ON.

Really? ALL 'liberal people'? What about people who are just 73.7 % Liberal, the other 27.3% being Neocon Buddhist?

You wouldn't have had to; I would have blanched for you.

Oh go on. You've digressed so much already why stop now?

A 'point'? What's a point?

You have me confused with someone else Stephen, some guy who was just about to do a mailshot to the entire Brethren community, imploring them to sign his 'Liberal Charter'. And now you've thrown pacifism (not to mention WW2) into the mix. What about a sprinkle of WW1, The Surrealist Movement, psychoanalysis, mandalas, The Tao According To Pooh and Confucianism (or Confusionism)?

Thank you for once more explaining my position to me, and furthermore the liberal position regarding the recent conflict, and furthermore what I was 'strongly' implying in my 'Charter'. I don't know what I'd do without you. Maybe you can also supply me with the name of a good plumber. And here was me thinking I was merely stating some very, very basic principles. I wasn't implying anything about people who wouldn't 'put their names to' (copy and paste) my statement, since I didn't really expect anyone to bother much with it. That it may have registered with a few people was as much as could be expected. If you've read enough of this thread you'll know the kind of insults that were being flung about, the constant sinsister hintings (or outright accusations) that people who disagreed with the actions of the IDF were at best fools, at worst closet Nazis and Jew-haters. So I thought I'd put a few basic principles down, something that summerised the position of many (if not all) who took my line. It still seems reasonable enough to me, nothing as high faluting as a 'Charter', a little attempt at clarity.

Thank you for explaining what stance I SHOULD take (but haven't a hope of actually taking because I'm not hallowed enough) and for informing me what I 'have to decide' and 'deal with'. Sounds like a boot-camp initiation. But no, merely a 'hole' in my (your) 'neutral Liberal Charter'. Except it isn't neutral Stephen. It clearly states my position on the actions of the IDF. If my position was neutral I wouldn't be in this discussion.

Of course they aren't ALL nutters. There is a reasonable argument there, though it's not my argument (just as my statement isn't your 'Charter'). But that's one point I might amend if I bothered to make another, modified statement, so thank you (sincerely this time) for pointing that out.

The fact that 'generations of Jews have lived under the sovereignty of others for so long makes a rather more compelling argument in favour of a Jewish state. No?

'They' do, do they? I can't speak for everyone Stephen, nor was I attempting to. Your earlier point highlighted an oversight. You should have left it there.

Actually Stephen, most people can, and those who can't (tell the difference between rape and littering for example) can safely be considered psychotic. There's a useful tip for you.

No one said we could.

'And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

Mark

PS

Wendy is right. This sucks. I've just bored myself shitless with this ping ponging post.



[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited September 13, 2006).]

Yes, Wendy.

This thread is now officially longer than the one used by Theseus to escape the labyrinth.

Still, I am not sorry I engendered this behemoth, since I have learned a great deal from it.

But I'm not so sure, Wendy, that : "We are a literary, not a political forum."

The very existence of this massive thread seems to argue against the statement - I have never seen a poetry discussion last as long.

And with any breach of the PC code bringing down the house, and placing politics before poetry, I would say that this is indeed a very political forum.

We do not recall granting her permission to speak...

Just playing the part.

First of all, a minor point-scoring to attend to.

Kevin says "Last I checked, Egypt was a lot smaller, poorer, and less literate than Spain." As is usually the case, Mr. Murphy needs to check more often. Egypt is home to about 70 million people, Spain to about 40 million. Your other two points -- that Egypt is poorer and less literate -- might make up for some of the difference Mr. Morgan noted, but I would say not all of it. As for Mr. Morgan's apparent notion that Egypt, or Arab countries in general, are just plain hopeless (forgive me, Dick, if I overstate this case,) I do disagree. They're often under authoritarian rule, often embroiled in low-level counterinsurgency (such as against the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt,) and quite frankly, cannot be judged solely by this kind of snapshot.

As far as the point goes, though, Dick's stat makes it well enough. One does have to question closed societies -- it just is not the whole ball of wax, especially when the only alternative (as in Egypt's case,) is a worse one.

Wendy,

I don't much care for playing king. I'd love to be king, of course, but in the absence of that unattainable goal, I'd at least like my world to respond to some semblance of reason. Not everything in neat little compartments, mind you, just the broad brush strokes. I suppose I can get pretty insistent when I'm right.

Your distaste is noted and discarded. Politics is a discussion we must have, if man is -- as I believe -- a zoon politikon. Usually, poems that cover such material are quite bad. They tend to be flame wars like this dressed up with rhyme, meter, or neither. Given that we must have the conversation, I prefer to have it in flame war form (or better, in a civil debate). And of course, this being General Talk, I see no reason 'Sphereans shouldn't have the conversation here.

No malice intended here, and I hope no malice is perceived.

King Dan

Originally posted by wendy v:

"Perhaps
there'something to learn about war, about the tribe,
and about how humans
discuss war or listen to one another, but I suspect such learning can only come when the win
is no longer the most important thing."

Wise woman.

Bob

Mark,

A few replies:

MG: “So I thought I'd put a few basic principles down, something that summarised the position of many (if not all) who took my line.”

MG: “your assumption that I was a representative of this 'philosophy' that you dreamt up in the first place.”

You seem to have lost the plot.

SF: “I’ve seen all the liberal hand wringing many, many times before.”

This was my FIRST post, to which YOU replied and assumed I had YOU in mind. I didn’t have you in mind, but now I know why you assumed I did.

This quickly warps into:

MG: “I would have respected that if you hadn't been so terribly quick to make MY position clear as well (Liberal hand-wringer)”

Yes, yes, I know, it’s all about you.

MG: “If I jumped it was only because I'd been jumped ON”

Honestly, Mark, I don’t know what you’re talking about. This kind of “Please miss, he hit me first” stuff kind of illustrates the whole sorry predicament, don’t you think? The only comment where you may have cause to take what I said personally was:

“The very people you purport to stand up for hate and despise the liberal beliefs you base your arguments on. They consider you weak, disposable and eminently exploitable.”

I was rightly criticised for making sweeping generalisations with that one, but it was not meant as a personal attack on you. I was trying to point out how the guys with the bomb-belts exploit those with liberal views and how they regard those people as enemies because they hold those views. In hindsight I should not of assumed that you support Hezbollah. I apologise.

MG: “Really? ALL 'liberal people'?”

MG: “summarised the position of many (if not all) who took my line”

Your words, Mark.

MG: “I would have blanched for you.”

Zionism was a part of a wider, liberal nationalism that took hold post W.W.I & II, lest we forget. That conflict arose between those with competing nationalistic goals should come as no surprise to anyone. I’ve not tried to hide the injustice done to the Palestinian people, but considering the effect that “Zionism” has had on your sensibilities, I doubt whether you care.

GM: “Oh go on. You've digressed so much already why stop now?”

So, you think my comments about the Brethren Movement are a digression. That’s as silly a comment I’ve heard in the debate so far. Christian Zionism (a mainspring of the Brethren’s rather weird theology) is alive and well and voting Republican in the USA. Such people played no small role in helping to facilitate Zionism’s political goals, they still do. As relevant as all that is, my main point, as you well know, was about pacifism and the deliberate confusion brought about by mistaking their views for yours.

MG: “Thank you for once more explaining my position to me”

Lather, rinse, repeat.

MG: “Maybe you can also supply me with the name of a good plumber”

What for, the leaks in your argument?

MG: “If you've read enough of this thread you'll know the kind of insults that were being flung about”

Hmmm.

GM: “Thank you for explaining what stance I SHOULD take”

Broken records anyone?

MG: “a little attempt at clarity.”

How true.

MG: “it clearly states my position on the actions of the IDF”

Yes it does.

MG: “Of course they aren't ALL nutters. There is a reasonable argument there, though it's not my argument (just as my statement isn't your 'Charter')”

Did I say it was? The objective of my comments was to point out that your six assumptions which we are all supposed to be able to agree on, when examined closely, are flawed (well, five of them, anyway).

GM: “The fact that 'generations of Jews have lived under the sovereignty of others for so long makes a rather more compelling argument in favour of a Jewish state. No?”

Sorry, you’ve lost me there.

“'They' do, do they? I can't speak for everyone Stephen, nor was I attempting to. Your earlier point highlighted an oversight. You should have left it there.”

I wasn’t speaking for everyone, as you know, and, yet again, I wasn’t assuming you were one of them. There actually are those who think the state of Israel has no legitimacy. The natural consequence of this is that their state, in other words, their sovereignty, should be dismantled.

MG: “Actually Stephen, most people can, and those who can't (tell the difference between rape and littering for example) can safely be considered psychotic.”

Again, you seem to have lost the plot. If it were as simple as my illustration then we wouldn’t be discussing the finer meanings of the word terrorism, would we.

MG: “No one said we could.”

MG: “Actually Stephen, most people can”

What can I say?

Do excuse me but I need a little fresh air, I maybe some time.

Stephen
the psychotic

(Corrected for typo's)



[This message has been edited by Stephen Foot (edited September 13, 2006).]

Stephen,

I'm not going to respond to all of this. A couple of things need addressing though. Yes, I did assume you meant me in that first post of yours, and if you didn't my apologies. I am not sure who you were calling liberal hand wringers? Bob? Kevin? If that's what you call liberal hand wringing than I qualify too.

I am utterly baffled that you STILL presume that I am somehow trying for the 'pacifist' position. Again, you insist on hammering me into one of your very square little holes, then explaining to me why I don't fit. Have you any conception of how patronising such an attitude is, and how stupid a way of arguing a point? Don't answer that. I'll ask nicely now. Please stop doing this. In fact, let's just agree to not address each other. Not that that's what we're doing anyway, because one of us is talking above or around or perhaps clear through the other's head, as if he were a particularly insubstantial ghost (or perhaps both of us are doing this). But one thing is certain, this is no longer an interesting conversation for me, nor, perhaps, for either of us. [Warning: puns on the way] One of us got off on the wrong leg-appendage. Perhaps it was ME. I don't really care anymore. I have (strange as that may seem) a life.

Maybe the 'maybe' was deliberate, an invisible pun: You may be sick? Otherwise, I am not sure why you're quoting Oates, the understated suicide. PLEASE don't explain. I trust you're not going to top yourself on my account.

Goodbye Stephen. I wish you well.


Mark



[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited September 13, 2006).]

I can't speak for Seree, but personally, I feel left out and discriminated against.

Perhaps I should start a woman-only political thread.

Lo-the-girl



[This message has been edited by Lo (edited September 13, 2006).]

It's high time for mideastwargrrrlpo. I can't believe it took us this long.

Mark,

I apologise for the typo’s; they probably tell you more about my lack of patience with filling in details and background than I care to admit; I just don’t have the dogged patience of Dan.

I apologise, again, for talking past you. It’s not so much that I forget who I’m talking to but that I’m in too much of a hurry to make my grand brushstrokes.

Stephen
who really just needed a breath of fresh air

Stephen -- you're new here. I "Personal Messaged" you. (the little PM at the bottom of the screen).

Dick Morgan

Dan,

Hadn't realized that the Egyptian population was that high or the Spanish population was that low. Ah well, my bad for my "last I checked" being back in grade school, if ever. FWIW, I did look up the Egyptian literacy rates.

Of course, if I was going to look up alarming statistics, I suspect that the US government is having less stuff translated into English than the the Spanish government is having translated into Spanish, simply because so many things are published in English in the first place. That, however, is suspicion rather than statistic.

Kevin, weren't the figures you quoted the entirety of the translations by publishing concerns in the countries mentioned? In the U.S. what the government translates would be a drop in the bucket -- although I believe that this year some government agencies stopped translating information originating from the U.S. Government, into English.

Dan

They were Dick's figures and I can't recall whether they were government output or total publishing ventures for the country. In the case of the US, it makes so much 'nevermind': With the rare exception of foreign language bestsellers and other works where they are guaranteed to make a buck, US publishers do not translate anything into English. It's the responsibility of the non-English-speaking authors to arrange their own translations and then market them to the various US editors. Same thing with the UK editors, and yes, I've heard this directly from the editors themselves.

It's also unfair to compare Spanish publishing with Egyptian publishing because Spain has a very lucrative secondary market in Mexico and the rest of latin America and other former Spanish colonies (which rather annoys the Mexican publishers), and while I have not studied the state of Arabic publishing, I would suspect it's base is in Saudi Arabia with marketing to other Arabic-speaking countries.

And yes, I can speak to this because I've been in Mexico City and signed works of mine which were translated and published in Spain. No, I don't have exact publishing statistics, but the secondary market is a big one.

It also becomes more convoluted when you have countries side-by-side sharing the same language. I've written books for US publishers but the books also had Canadian prices stamped on them. But before we talk of the awful state of Canadian publishing, it should be noted that my US editor is a Canadian citizen and the books were printed by Quebecor, which is not only in Canada but in Quebec.

If an Egyptian tranlator living in Morocco translates a German book for a Saudi Arabian publishing house and the book is printed and bound in, oh, say, Hong Kong, then sold in Iran, who exactly gets bragging rights?

About the best you can do is count the number of books translated into Arabic and leave it at that.

Okay nitpicking first, Kevin (and I should really google rather than assume, but I'm tired too.) My guess is there's more publishing in Egypt because of 1) greater populations and 2) its position as one of the cultural centers of Islam, in the cosmopolitan sense. Saudi Arabia gets to keep the holy places, and I dare say a good number of Qur'ans might be printed there. Otherwise, it's Cairo, not Riyadh, that serves as a secular intellectual center in the Islamic world. I think Egypt's the more "open" society, and also the one with the larger publishing industry (although again, that bears fact-checking.)

The larger question Dick raises should not go ignored, but as you note, one cannot just count translations and "leave it at that."

The larger question he points toward, is whether Egypt and other Arab nations are playing a significant part in a cosmopolitan, international exchage of ideas, in the same way that, let's say, the "world cities" like New York, Paris and London do.

I don't think they do. I do think the West's intellectual class takes multiculturalism for granted, attaches status to works produced by another culture, and cycles through fads regarding which external source of culture is best. There are no fatwas out against the author of The Poisonwood Bible or the producer of The Last Temptation of Christ, and the only significant limit faced by the Western intellectual is the sterile existential dilemma created by the lack of norms left against which to rebel (in which predicament many predictably resort to cannibalilsm, as it were, rebelling against one another the moment one weltanschaung gains ascendency.)

The importance of Arabic works to English- and Spanish-speakers (as well as, for instance, Chinese texts, Indian texts, French texts, etc.,) has more underlying it than relative wealth. It is the hallmark of Western society that it translates first and asks questions later (which, if you think about it, is as it should be.) Western society is largely secular society under Christian banners (which we have discussed before,) whereas Muslim societies are Muslim societies under secular or religious banners. This difference is part of what the Islamists are fighting to preserve, possibly because (if we believe either the Islamist or the Western secularist worldview,) secularism is indispensible for establishment of a modern lifestyle.

The error here is to judge Muslim nations as advanced or primative, by examining the openness of their cultures. In other words, we judge them by the standards of the West, by which standards they are destined to fail.

Of course, in some cases, the less open Muslim societies are also impossibly sexist (for instance,) and rabidly anti-Semitic. The Saudi notion that all women should wear veils (like it or not,) is very different from the voluntary use of the veil, and cannot be supported on its own merits by any sane Westerner. The trick is realizing the limits of Western influence on some of these cultural features.

My POV is that the closed societies in Arab nations are "our" business in the West, when they are made our business, but otherwise not. Certainly not unless we in America want the French telling us we're barbarians for our death penalty.

Okay, my fingers are out of breath now.

Dan

Well, speaking as a relatively sane Westerner, I can argue that the Saudi idea that women should wear veils differs from the Western idea that women should wear tops only in yardage and placement. Remember the ridiculous foofarah about Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Superbowl a few years ago and the obscene fines levied for the display of a single female nipple, something it should be pointed out that half the people on the planet see two of in the mirror every morning, and everyone has at some point in their life not only seen but also had in their mouth?

Certainly, I agree that the use of the veil should be voluntary but I dare you to contstruct a sane and logical argument why the veil should be voluntary but the tube top is still mandatory lest Western civilization itself crumble at the sight of evil evil nipples!

Otherwise, if the West gets to grandfather in its religiously-based tube-top laws, then you have to allow Muslim countries to do the same with their similar laws, whether it's wrapping women in veils or going for the extreme and just dropping a lace tablecloth over them.

I'll agree on the last, though I think Saudi Arabia is no slouch either. I've received highly literate emails from folk there and I know they had a Fatwa against Pokemon cards (for various reasons, the most amusing/insane of which was declaring them "Zionist"), so my thought is that there is certainly some cultural literacy going on there too. I expect they publish a lot more than just Qurans.

What about Tokyo, Milan, Rio, Capetown and Sidney? And the others? Helsinki? Kiev? Prague? Hong Kong? Beijing?

Whoops, I just skipped Madrid and Mexico City.

Anyway, if you want a cosmopolitan international exchange of ideas from a Muslim country and a "World City," look to Istanbul. I bounced around YouTube today and suddenly was watching Tarkan's latest Pepsi commercial. Tarkan? Oh, Turkish Europop star. Color me clueless before, but there you have it, cosmopolitan international exchange of ideas.

You sort of missed that whole "gay marriage" thing, didn't you? And Janet's nipple? Creationism tarted up as "Intelligent Design"?

I'm sorry, you must have wax in your ears. Publishers do not, I repeat, do not, translate anything into their languages unless they think they can sell copies of it.

Unless you're talking about having an imperial censor (or similar) vet the works to be translated first, but if the Pokemon card thing is any indicator, that's not happening in Saudi Arabia either. Pokemon ran rampant over the country before any fatwa was issued against it.

Unless we're talking Turkey or Morocco, or, until recently, Iraq.

For certain values of "indispensible" and "modern," likely so. I'd argue that rather than "secular," some variety of "tolerant non-fundamentalist" can work too.

If I were Turkish, I'd be really pissed to read the above statement.

From a Western perspective, yes, and assuming that by "impossibly" and "rabidly" you mean "extremely."

Then it comes the question of when "our business" is ended. And you're also falling into the trap of "extreme cultural relativism." If the French don't get to call us barbarians for the death penalty, then we don't get to say there's anything wrong with having a woman stoned to death for adultery, or killing someone because their race doesn't fit your personal pantone.

And anyway, we are barbarians. Our government is currently torturing people and lying about it, then when caught, trying to legalize it. And this is the government that the majority of the country wanted.

"A 2002 United Nations report on development in the Arab world cited the meagre number of translated books available there each year. But the annual figure, 330, is about the same number of translated literature titles that the United States, with its huge publishing industry, put out in 1999, the most recent year for which America’s National Endowment of the Arts has full figures. When viewed as a percentage of the total books published, the Arab world surpasses the United States. "

This is a tad stale, but Harper's Index recently gave stats on the paucity of Arabic titles being translated into English by U. S. publishers. No market here. There's plenty of good literature being written around the world for which we exhibit no curiosity.

Bob

"National Endowment for the Arts Announces 11 Literature Translation Fellowships

October 15, 2003
BANNED POST
Contact:
Victoria Hutter
202-682-5570
BANNED POST

Washington, D.C. - The National Endowment for the Arts announced today it will award 11 grants for the translation of works of prose from ten other languages into English. Grants in the translation category are for $10,000 or $20,000, depending on the artistic excellence and merit of the project, for a total of $160,000.

"Given the dwindling number of translations published in this country, it is essential that the Arts Endowment continue to support this important work," said National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Dana Gioia. "Translations provide Americans with valuable insights into other cultures and an enriched array of literary options. Without translation, there would be no Bible or Koran and most Americans would not be able to enjoy writers as essential to our culture as Homer, Dante, Dostoevsky, Proust or Neruda."

Fellowship projects will include translations from a total of ten languages including Bengali, Chinese, French, Greek, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish. "

Not much chance in this set for The People of the Book.

Bob

Sorry for the double post. Don't know why it happens, especially after an intervening post.

Bob

[This message has been edited by Robert J. Clawson (edited September 17, 2006).]

As I understand it, publishing houses in the U.S. do not translate books "unless it makes them money," basically.

Again, I need to do some spot fact-checking; It would not surprise me that this is essentially true. What would surprise me is that the market for translations is so nonexistent, that the U.S. also lags behind Spain by a similar margin.

Kevin, your points on Turkey are correct. Post in haste, repent in leisure. It's easy to make statements about the challenge of modernization for Islamic societies, when, after all, the Turks have made the transition. I'd describe Hussein's Iraq within the description "Islamic societies under secular or nationalist banners," but it's a formulation that probably won't hold up under examination, so I'll just ditch it, in deference to the Turkish counter-example alone.

Here's (I believe) a place where you can read what Morgan quoted:
http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/663.cfm

"The oil wealth is matched by social backwardness, and the only other region of the world with an income level lower than ours is sub-Saharan Africa. Productivity is decreasing, scientific research is virtually nonexistent, the region is suffering a brain drain, and illiteracy afflicts half of Arab women. The report was only diplo-matic concerning implicit criticisms of extremist Islamist movements as a cause of the culture of backwardness and absence of fertile ground for democ-racy. Interestingly, the report found that the total number of books translated into Arabic yearly is no more than 330, or one-fifth of those translated in a small country like Greece.

Indeed, the total number of books translated into Arabic during the 1,000 years since the age of Caliph Al-Ma’moun [a ninth-century Arab ruler who was a patron of cultural interaction between Arab, Persian, and Greek scholars—WPR] to this day is less than those translated in Spain in one year. "
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/05/1607582.php says...

"About 3% of the fiction and poetry published in the United States in 1999 was translated (approximately 330 out of the total 11,570 fiction and poetry titles published). America compares unfavourably to almost every other country and most unfavourably to western Europe, the region closest to an ideological sibling.

There, Germany translates the most works - about six times as many as the US each year. Spain is close behind, while the French publishing industry exceeds the US by four times. "

Oddly, in this site, we also see that the Arab world translates about 330 titles a year, and the U.S. translates about 330 titles. We also find that Spain translates four times as many, which we must think means about 1300. However, according to the other site, more books are translated in Spain in a single year (say, 1500) than have been translated into Arabic in 1,000 years (for an average of 1.5 a year.)

The variables are these:

1) the figures are from two sites. However, both sources seem to be quoting Khalaf's UN report.
2) The figures for all translations in Arab countries are different for all translations into Arabic.

If 2 is the case, what we are seeing here is a smallish but tolerated business of, for example, translating Turkish to Persian, Persian to Turkish, Hungarian to French, etc., in Arabic-speaking nations. What is not tolerated is the tranlation of foreign works into Arabic.

As to the comparison of the tradition of enforced veiling, versus public nudity prohibition:

It is also illegal for those women who cannot show their faces in many Islamist societies, to show their nipples (if you are confused on that subject.) The female nipple's "tabooness" in the West, is due to the fact that it can signify sexual receptivity, and arouses biologically (not culturally) determined reactions. All manner of social awkwardness is thus avoided by public display of same, although of course it's silly for a whole nation to go into paroxysms of shock over a super bowl nipple display. However, the location and square footage of a piece of cloth are not arbitrarily determined here.

Hence, some Muslim women are not only forbidden to show their nipples but also forbidden to show their faces. Your position is basically that full freedom is best, so less freedom is not any worse than more freedom, if there is a utopian ideal that neither achieves.

I would argue that universal nudism (or the right thereto,) is not an unmitigated personal or social good, based on my comparative study of wearers of spandex.

However, even if you argue the inherent rightness of a universal right to nudism, the trouble is Western dress is, by comparison, a modified nudism -- which is closer to your ideal than the Islamist model.

Your flip-flop at the end is about as comical as my distance from the [Western] rationalist conclusion. To wit, you say I have to be careful about my moral relativism (uh, about that veil thing...) because people are stoned for adultery in these countries. Right-o. If we have sufficient influence to effect change in that regard, that's great.

What I am referencing here is that we need to know the difference, if we cannot achieve the goal. After all, Mr. newly found backbone, the enforced veil is a symptom of the same underlying problem, as the death-for-adultery stance.

And I doubt you'd advocate a newly Moralistic approach to these nations mideast supported by force; so what, exactly, are we to do? I think the answer is something like "speak out. raise a ruckus."

Well, the thing is, we can speak what we want, we can write what we want, but unless the goal is to assemble a mob in front of an embassy, it's never read or heard. These are closed societies.

I think we've seen what happens to happily concocted dreams of regime change. However painful it may be to watch, I think these nations must themselves come to the conclusion that modernization's benefits outweigh its pitfalls.

Give up? No. But I think it's the voices of Muslims themselves which will eventually be the difference in these nations (as they were in Turkey.)

Dan

So you're saying that women in the West need to hide their nipples because some guys get instant hard-ons at the sight? What about the guys who have a thing for legs or butts or eyes or hair? Wouldn't it be better to just hide women under tablecloths to avoid even the slightest chance of an unwanted hard-on? Except, oh damn, what about the gay guys? Shouldn't we drape the men in tablecloths too, to keep them from getting turned on?

And what do we do then about the people who are linen fetishists who get turned on by all those hot sexy tablecloths?

I'm sorry, dress codes are all cultural constructs. You only have to pull open an old issue of National Geographic to realize that you can have a society with women without tops that is not a nonstop orgy.

Originally posted by Kevin Andrew Murphy:

"You only have to pull open an old issue of National Geographic to realize that you can have a society with women without tops that is not a nonstop orgy."

Yeah, and they were in BARBER SHOPS, along with Sports Afield and The Police Gazette.

I'm puzzled why, aside from Janet Jackson's, other humans of African descent, such as those on The Discovery Channel, are shown bare-breasted, whereas Caucasian women's breast get pixilated or blurred. Is there something wrong with honkey breasts?

I may have digressed.

Bob

Originally posted by Dan Halberstein:

"It is also illegal for those women who cannot show their faces in many Islamist societies, to show their nipples (if you are confused on that subject.)"

"After all, Mr. newly found backbone, the enforced veil is a symptom of the same underlying problem, as the death-for-adultery stance."

Dan, these inferred and direct ad hominem attacks undermine your intricate arguments. They make you sound like a pissed-off, emotional debater rather than a cool logician.

"I think we've seen what happens to happily concocted dreams of regime change. However painful it may be to watch, I think these nations must themselves come to the conclusion that modernization's benefits outweigh its pitfalls."

I agree; however, our current administration sees them as a source of oil first, not as potentially modern democracies.

"But I think it's the voices of Muslims themselves which will eventually be the difference in these nations (as they were in Turkey.)"

Yes, I should hope so. There's there there, and they own it.

"The female nipple's "tabooness" in the West, is due to the fact that it can signify sexual receptivity, and arouses biologically (not culturally) determined reactions."

I've fished on nude beaches on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard without being aroused, and I didn't notice tumescence in any male members of the sunbathing groups.

"All manner of social awkwardness is thus avoided by public display of same...."

This sounds like something lifted from a tract. The first warm day of spring in Boston, when "all manner" of residents peel off their winter layers, is a day of joy. The young men look strong, the young women beautiful. It's a blooming celebration.

Shameless O'Clawson

Wow, you still get seasons over there. We have increasingly mild winters here, and a large youthful population, most of whom go about all year wearing as little as possible. Celebratoty, perhaps, when the weather's warm, but in mid-winter, on coldish evenings, all that exposed goospimply skin looks too uncomfortable to bloom.



[This message has been edited by Mark Granier (edited September 17, 2006).]

I have no enlightening statistics at my disposal. I do think the paucity of books translated into Arabic is worrying. However, I wonder if there is something else going on that is not picked up in the statistics. My mother-in-law is from Jerusalem and grew up in Cairo and Beirut. She speaks Arabic, French, and English fluently. At least for Lebanon, this trilingualism is far from uncommon. Most of the novels she reads are in English or French, not in Arabic. We were discussing Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian novelist, the other day because I had just bought the first volume in his Cairo trilogy. She asked, "why didn't you just borrow my copy?" I was a bit surprised that she would read an Arabic author in English -- it is not as if she doesn't use Arabic anymore; she speaks it everyday with family and friends.

I gather from experiences with my in-laws, and what travels I've had in Turkey (admittedly not an Arab country), Jordan, and Lebanon, that reading books in European languages in the Middle East is much more common than any of us would expect. Of course this would only be true for the educated classes (though I wonder what percentage of Americans actually read many foreign authors). In either case it is probably the highly educated who read foreign authors. Many Americans (even many of the highly educated) speak only one language, and rely on translations. I would be quite willing to bet that the percentage of Arab college-graduates who are multilingual is much higher than the American figure. We are certainly missing a piece of the story by only focusing on what translated. We should also look at what books are sold in what countries, whether in translation or not.

Originally posted by Daniel Haar:

"... I wonder what percentage of Americans actually read many foreign authors..."

Daniel, given for whom we vote, I wonder how many Americans actually read.

When I was a kid and, for a stretch, took up Russian novelists, my mother asked me, "Are you becoming a Communist?"

Bob

RJ, first of all, you're right this time. There was no reason to throw in "Mr. newly found backbone," etc. in the post you quote from. I noted that I was as much of a "mixed bag" as K on the "when do we raise our voice/what options do we pursue" front; so there's no reason to ridicule him for basically being in the same basic ideological quandry as I find myself. Intervene to advance Western secularism? I don't think it works. Watch people stoned to death for adultery? I don't like how that sounds either.

Regarding literacy, I feel Daniel on the "something else going on" front. Just as we have very few translations happening in the U.S., but you couldn't spit in a real-time (U.S.) 'Spherean gathering without hitting someone who's reading (or writing) a translation, the friends of Arab descent who I have also read a good deal in languages other than Arabic.

I wonder how deep the "elite" runs in that neck of the woods -- a small elite would certainly square the stats with the anecdotal evidence. I certainly don't like the prospect of "proving" this one, personally. I find that various Semites get along when we get to the U.S., away from turmoil, and I think it's that experience of meeting and working with the "other" that makes that possible (and often pleasurable.) There's no joy in thinking another society is just without interest in other culture -- though the oft-mentioned "Arab Street" is often presented in that way, and certainly the extremists in many Muslim countries lend support to the "general" notion. The textbooks used by even the more moderate Arab regimes, point to the idea that this enlightened elite is either not running the show, or making some very ugly compromises if indeed they are.

However, I feel like I've waded in on this one way too deeply and quickly, probably seizing on a few stats and making a grand statement about them. I'll leave you guys to it for the moment.

Thanks,

Dan

Hey Shameless -- you said

"I've fished on nude beaches on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard without being aroused, and I didn't notice tumescence in any male members of the sunbathing groups."

How well did you check those fishing rods?

Dick

By the way, great article in Sunday's Washington Post, about how Hezbollah miscalculated the impact of kidnapping Israeli soldiers, with some interesting scenes describing the players within Lebanon, prior to and during the events of this summer.

I mention this in hopes that a fairly objective retelling of events, is as impressive as the "report what you want it's true in some sense" theory of journalism we discussed briefly this summer.

I also feel like we're morally obligated on this thread to demonstrate the proper form for vitriolic rambling. Even the most impassioned partisans elsewhere seem to be coherent and relatively polite to one another, and this troubles me.

I kid because I love. To paraphrase the inimitable Chad Johnson, "Please don't ban me!"

Dan

Re: Nipples:

Teri Hatcher,one of the stars of desparate housewives, was asked on an Actor's Studio interview if they had any trouble with the censors. She said the network spent a fortune erasing her nipples. Being in the biz I imediately contacted the studio to ask if I could buy a pair off the cutting room floor and was told they were too radioactive to send through the mail.

Dick

Dick

Sixteen pages, and someone finally hit on a topic I'm interested in!

I musta been bottle-fed...

Just when I thought this thread had taken every conceivable turn, in come Teri Hatcher's nipples.

Quincy

They're real, and they're spectacular.

And with that, we've solved the Middle East Conflict. Everyone go home. The troops can come home, and the oil can flow into the gas stations so that we can all drive to the twenty-four-hour grocery store where housewives and stoners and businessmen and movie stars and gas station attendants and strippers and poets and college lecturers and brewery workers and truckers and Rastas and teachers and Jews and Muslims and and Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists and Britney Spears fans and metal-heads and gay people and straight people and tall people and short people will all buy groceries in harmony because the Middle East Conflict is solved and we can all go home.



[This message has been edited by Quincy Lehr (edited October 12, 2006).]

Actually, I find her too thin in general. Conflict back on!

Daniel--

Get in your car, drive to the grocery store, and ponder the beauty of slender women in the company of your fellow man while looking for the perfect breakfast cereal, because the Middle East Conflict is solved.

Quincy

May the world of politics and speculation fuel this discussion for another couple of years. Here's a bone to gnaw on:

A speculation on why US warships are on their way to Iran right now

------------------

--Svein Olav

[This message has been edited by Svein Olav Nyberg (edited October 13, 2006).]

Teri Hatcher's nipples
cause testosterone ripples,
but one of George Bush's boobs
could send us all down the tubes.

Regards, Maz

Quincy:

"Muslims and and Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists"

--don't count the Scientologists as one of the common people--they're the only ones who ever made the IRS backdown and made them give their "church" designation back so they don't have to pay taxes. (Church of Scientology v. IRS -9th Circuit)

Svein - Read the "speculation" in The Nation --interesting how many third person attributions used as "sources". THANX!

Dick

Long time no see - anyway, the Peoples of the Book refer to Christians and Jews. Though there aren't many Jews left in places like Lithuania and Poland, there are plenty of People of the Book in both places http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

You anti-Japhethite.

Tongue in cheek, unless we do really get going again,

Dan