[see Part I] II. I do not ♥ Baby Boomers Aldous Huxley called occult nature worship the “perennial religion,” because it is the default to which man returns when his gods desert him. It makes sense after all to appeal directly to the effects of nature, rather than their causes, when the chips are down. [...]
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Via Anil came the “best commentary” yet on the Pakistani political scene. You can listen to the entire Sonia Deol show as well. Anil says it is always worth listening to Ms. Deol.
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[sepoy notes: A tip from a CM reader led me to Stargates in Iraq. Feeling inadequate to the task, I called a few favors and farangi is here to tell us the story.] How I Learned to Stop Worrying–about Humanity, Ganesh, Bill Moyers, Foreign Policy, and The Strange Life of Robert Anton Wilson–and Love the [...]
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That ‘story’ bit in history: Villemessant, the founder of Le Figaro, characterized the nature of information in a famous formulation. “To my readers,” he used to say, “an attic fire in the Latin Quarter is more important than a revolution in Madrid.” This makes strikingly clear that it is no longer intelligence coming from afar, [...]
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۱) فيض تمەيں کەو رند و محتسب ميں اج شب کون فرق ايسا يە ا کە بيٹهے ەيں ميکدە ميں وە اٹھ کە اۓ ەيں ميکدە سے ۲) فيض اج تک شيخ کے اکارام ميں جو شۓ تهي حرام اب وەي دشمنِ دين راحتِ جان ٹەري ەے ۳) حافظ می خور که شیخ و حافظ [...]
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Seriously. How many more things can the DePaul administration do wrong? They denied tenure to Finkelstein in June expressly against the recommendations of his department and his college. And now they have cancelled his classes and re-assigned his office space – in apparent violation of AAUP rules. The mind boggles at the sheer ineptitude of [...]
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Leo Strauss ruined my graduate school experience and caused the Iraq War. Or maybe not? Chicago Reader investigates the hidden imam of neo-conservatism. I blame Bernard Lewis, actually. Foreign Policy Magazine TV interviewed some ambassadors of countries on their Failed State Index. You can watch Amb. Mahmud Ali Durrani defend Pakistan. “Don’t blame us for [...]
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The Supreme Court has ruled that Nawaz Sharif can return to Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif, you may recall, was the Prime Minister who tried to kill The General by refusing to allow The General’s plane to land in Karachi and immediately succumbed to the coup soon thereafter. He then fled to Saudi Arabia clutching a suitcase [...]
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صبا سے کرتے ەيں غربت نسيب زکِر وطن تو چشمِ صبح ميں انسو ابهرنے لگتے ەيں ــ عرصەِ دەر کي جُهلساي ەوي ويرانە ميں ەم کو رەنا ەے پر يوں ەي يوں نەيں رەنا ــ کب نظر ميں اي گي بےداغ سبزے کي بەار ـــ کبهي کبهي ياد مين اُبهرتے ەيں نقشِ ماضي مٹے مٹے [...]
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The video, by Robert Greenwald, is worth watching – if only to see how little advancement we have made in TV graphics and music in the last 4 years. You can also sign a petition – though, I admit I don’t really get the import of the petition. Our petitions and actions need to be [...]
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Naim Sahib just emailed that the renowned Urdu author – Qurratulain Hyder has passed away at the age of 80. “There was no one like her when she was alive. Future generations will place her above Ismat and the rest. She was the best writer of her generation, male or female. And said more and [...]
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From the Gujarati literary journal Visami Sadi [may the internet gods smile upon whomever digitized it], May 1916, comes this nugget of a Q&A with Mohammad Ali Jinnah [link and translation via Daily Times] : Q: What are the qualities a man should be admired for? A: Independence (swatantrata). Q: What are the qualities a [...]
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I break my reverie to state, unequivocally, that Ramchandra Guha’s oped in today’s NYT, India’s Internal Partition, is very, very strange. Seriously. Read it one sentence at a time.
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Ah, the second week in August, when every wizened old editor’s attention turns to the “Partition of 1947″. Thoughtful pieces are commissioned on the violence of Partition, the communalism that brought about the horrible violence of Partition and the horrendous culpability of the British in bringing about the terrible violence of Partition (to add some [...]
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Way to go, Obama! During a state of emergency, the government can restrict the freedom to move, rally, engage in political activities or form groups as well as take a slew of other measures, including restricting the parliament’s right to make laws. It can even dissolve parliament. Under Pakistan’s constitution, the president may declare a [...]
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The July/Aug 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs contains Daniel Markey‘s A False Choice in Pakistan. It is a clear-eyed assessment of Pakistan – and US options going forward. I highly recommend it. I don’t necessarily agree with everything – Markey’s analysis has no place for non-Army actors and I am not entirely satisfied with his [...]
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As billed, I was at the podium at 4:00, ready to change the discourse in our nation. Well, it may take a little more than that. I presented a rant-free version of the post below which tried to highlight the fallacies in Obama’s argument. My co-panelists were Juan Cole – who gave a wonderfully off-the-cuff [...]
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How can Obama be just as wrong as Bush? Yesterday Barack Obama delivered a major speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. I believe that despite its virtues, it is overall an erroneous reading of the world’s geo-political landscape; that his understanding of terrorism is deeply flawed and that his specifics on action [...]
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And that explains, conclusively, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Gilbert Arenas, of the Washington Wizards: There Are No Such Thing as Shark Attacks I know this is random, but I just want to clear this up for people out there. There are these things called shark attacks, but there is no such thing as a shark attack. [...]
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