Breakdown of the senses (Panne de sens) by Mouss Benia; (Nov. 27, 2009)

Note:  I will insert in parenthesis the French/Algerian slang for the corresponding word.

Jilali Benhadji was born and raised in France and going to public school in Paris; his Algerian father (daron) immigrated to France at the age of 17 and has been working in construction as crane operator.   The daron has been sending money for 30 years to his brother in Algeria in order to finish building his house in the city of Oran but everything takes time to finish there. Four years in France, the father tore up his ID and military card because they mentioned his religion. The mother (daronne or yema) barely can speak French and misses her relatives in Algeria.

Jilali is 15 years old and has silky blond (18 carat) hair, milky skin, and blue eyes like the pictures of Jesus in Europe. At the start of each school year teachers would get upset thinking that Jilali is answering “present!” for another student. Jilali is Jilou for his intimate friends and Jil short for students. Girls (meuf or gadji) never suspect his origin until he mentions his name; then the castle of cards collapses as if mistaken by the merchandise.

Jilou can enter supermarket without attracting the attention of the private guard: he could rob the shop dry without being suspected. Thus, when he enters a place then Jilou splits with his darker complexion friends. Jilou is a Troy Horse who can penetrate the hearts and minds if he would change just his name.  Jilou has the pale face with the heart of an Algerian native. Jilou two elder brothers are not the pride of his father: Nourdine prefers to celebrate Christmas with his parents-in-laws and never shows up for the Moslem’ Eids such as Ramadan or al Adha.  Youcef teaches France history, a job that his father commented on “It is not an Arab (rebeu or bicot) who will teach France history to the francaoui”

Immigrants are relegated to quarters in the suburbs with names taking to birds, animals, fruits, or vegetables.  “I am a man not ashamed of looking ridiculous” expressed  for the occasion of accompanying his father to purchasing a live sheep for the Adha Eid to be slaughtered in the afternoon.  It happened that, on the way back, the sheep was licking the rear window and his French girl friend was mimicking the sheep as she was driving with her father. Jilou had to avoid the girl for three days.

Life is boring in these prison-like quarters and Jilou goes on a three-week vacation to the Ocean shores with his friend Stephan. Obviously, he has to lie and says that he is staying at Stephan’s folks. The second week both friends are penniless; Jilou for the first time decides to attempt stealing hard liquor to sell at half price; he is caught and put in jail. The police (keuf or kepi) would not let Jilou out until a close relative personally takes responsibility of his discharge. Nourdine has to drive from Paris to the Vandee to let him out but refuses to intercede with his father on Jilou’s behalf.

When Jilou finally arrives home the family members are ordered to ignore him as an invisible ghost (djinn): he was the shame of the family (hrchouma).  For punishment the father banished Jilou to Algeria to continue his education there; Jilou is to live with his uncle’s family in the city of Oran by the sea shore. Jilou has seen Algeria at the age of 7; he had to be circumcised and the ceremony celebrated among relatives; at the Paris airport, Jilou took out his sore penis (quequette) and said to his uncle “See what they have done to it?”

In Algeria of the 90’s water is rationed and tap water is received once every three days; families have to go to main water sources and fill Jeri cans. Jilou had to learn to clean his ass with water instead of toilet paper; he had never to forget to bring an empty bottle for that purpose when he goes to a private school that teaches in French and reserved just for “Algerian immigrants” coming from France, the mixed bread or the “noss noss”. The Algerian “nationaux” want to acquire the “flow” of the immigrants: their accents, their slangs, their expressions, their style in dressing and music.  In France, the location of these same immigrants, whether in the Old Port of Marseille or in Paris, is irrelevant: they are all considered living in the “suburbs” and potential trouble makers or “racailles”.

Jilou learned that terrorist acts are mostly perpetrated by the military in order to maintain the public illusion that the Moslem fundamentalists are the culprit.  Private entrepreneurs instituted collective taxis because public buses are rare and not schedule reliable.  He experienced the “hammam”, sort of sauna and public bath, and all his “fancied French” cloths and sneaker (basket or Adidas) were stolen; “you don’t wear fancy attires if you have to remove them in public places”.

The sons of the bourgeois (tchitchi) and high ranking military officers throw luxury private parties in their homes.  From the outside, things are normal and blend with the environment; all windows are closed.  Inside, it is a different world and all is permitted; booze of all kinds “a volonte” and lovers find private rooms to do mostly the “brushing” of mutual sex parts; Jilou was lucky in one of these parties and discovered that he is a master painters. Jilou cannot get into dancing unless “sex machine” of James Brown is on.

Jilou came to realize that the Algerian/French immigrants are creating their own problems in France as seen by foreign media.  As long as we, the kids, witness our parents feeling as if in inferior status, then the kids will develop a displaced sense of pride that keep us prisoners in the wider society. Our cultural resistance model is lacking foundations: we all dream of financial success but shun away serious education and the hard work to exist as serious consumers.  Finding decent jobs (taf) to secure financial independence is the way out to integration and not State social aids.

Hand-in-hand, the queens of soft roses and
Sharp thorns stand over the youth Adonis,
Killed whilst his face was still as soft as that
Of one of Artemis’ dark nymphai.

Blood and nectar pours down between them, held
Aloft by Peitho and Hekate. Kind
Thanatos waits; Hermes and Iris, the
Messengers of the gods, stand by his side.

Anemones curl over the youth’s body,
Blowing in the gentle breaths of the winds.
Aphrodite and Persephone kneel
And, together, kiss their boy’s dying lips.

Life streams over his face; his eyes open.

Einstein speaks on his impressions of North America; (Nov. 26, 2009)

Einstein resigned his post at the University of Prussia in 1933 as Hitler was elected Chancellor; he was appointed later professor at the University of Princeton.  You may compare what the USA was 70 years ago with its current state.  Asked on his impressions of North America Einstein wrote:

The first impression of a visitor is this great technological superiority and rationality. Daily common objects are more durable and resistant than those manufactured in Europe. Houses are functional.  Everything is calculated to economize on human labor.  Thus, the workers do not come cheap, a fact that stimulates more technological development and fine tuning of methods of work.  America is currently adopting a policy of the clam: it raises prohibitive tariffs on imported goods. (I guess this is no longer the case. First, the US citizen is working double shifts, if he finds a job, to sustain the 50’s standard of living and failing miserably; second the US is no longer manufacturing anything of values since consumerism demand the lowest prices from imported goods.)

The second impression is the citizen projects an attitude of positive happiness to life; he smiles, he is friendly, and he is conscious of his value.  The Europeans demonstrate critical minds and absence of generosity, and compassion. The European asks a lot from his entertainments and readings. The US citizen is willing to sacrifice much in hardship and peace of mind in order to enjoy comfort and pleasure of life; he has a definite purpose and the present is not a state but a future in the making. He is not strictly psychologically egoistical.  He emphasizes the “we” in his discussions but he is more conformist than Europeans. Organized work, repartitions of tasks, efficiency in industries, at universities, and in private charitable institutions come easily and quickly to him.

The third impression is that State influence is relatively weak; almost all the economy is privatized.  Discrepancies in social earnings are balanced out by social and community feeling of responsibilities toward the less well off.  The rich people are willing to restitute a large chunk of their wealth and offer their services to the communities simply because public opinion is strong and demands such tendencies.  Even important cultural functions are in private hands.  Lately, the prestige of the Federal government was eroded due to the prohibition laws.  The rate of criminality increased. It is never advisable to enact laws that you cannot enforce. Public opinion has thus suffered and the press, representing group interests, has replaced the once powerful public opinion.

The fourth impression is that money is very valued but the impression is highly exaggerated: there is a growing tendency that a happy life should not be that dependent on large fortunes.  The fifth impression is that the US citizen is generally not receptive to classical music and plastic art.  The sixth impression is my admiration to the results of scientific institutions: it is this climate of tolerance, group spirit, and good cooperation among teams that count far more than money injected in the institutions.

The seventh impression is that the US is not interested in getting involved in international problems; the citizens ought to feel personal responsibilities to world predicaments and just get more active in international politics. (Currently, the State is getting far too involved but the simple citizen never overcame his reluctance to meddle in international affairs).

Einstein said that the last hundred of years witnessed a huge progress in material abundance but the moral improvement retrograded.  It is like putting lethal and dangerous tools in the hands of kids; a child of 3 years old handling a sharp razor blade!

Hassib’s welcome home party; (Nov. 26, 2009)

My cousin Hassib is visiting Lebanon after 30 years of absence; he left in 1979 to France for specialization in Pediatrics; his British wife Sonia was then pregnant.  Hassib is currently working in Al Ain in the Arab Emirate, healing, teaching, and doing research. Hassib’s married sister Joelle is throwing a welcome home dinner party this Friday’s evening; all the first generation cousins and cousines are invited; the second generations are too numerous; besides, on their own volition they would not join.

The invitees were: from the Bouhatab (Julie, she wouldn’t miss a gathering, Raymonde, Victor Choukeir, Ghassan and his wife Diane, and I; dad does no longer do dinners anymore; he goes to bed by7:30 pm; he was missed because he is very funny in gatherings); from the Fahkoury (Edward, Joe and Marianne his wife and their elder kid Eddy; my aunt Therese could not join because the steep and many steps; Tony and Janine failed to come); from the Ghoussoub-Tannous (Marie, George, Noel, Viviane, Bernard and his wife Nellie); from the plain Ghoussoub or Gsub (Jihad and his wife Nada, Joseph or Zouzou, and sessine Moukarzel; Jihad tried several times to contact Nassif in Vancouver, at home and on his cellular, but failed); from the Narchi (Montaha, Joelle, Hassib, Jean or Jeannot, and Khaled).

Jihad had arrived from Dubai a couple of days ago. Khaled has signed up with another French company “Air Liquide” with a branch in Lebanon. Jean is teaching 6 credit-hour at a new French university in Bikfaya; the courses are opened from 5 pm to 9 pm; this university is branching out in Tripoli, Baakleen, and Gaza (the west Bekaa in Lebanon).

Smoking was prohibited in the house. The smokers such as Montaha, Nada, Jihad, Zouzou, and I took relay in the enclosed front porch. Hassib used to smoke pipe but quit 20 years ago. Montaha reminded her son-in-law Jean, when she visited him in France, that she was banished outside for a s moke and then it got cold; she asked Jean to hand her a Vison coat; Jean invited her to the kitchen and opened slightly a window and told her “As for the Vison, you just have to wait”.

There was plenty of food and in a dozen varieties such as “kebeh nayeh”, tabouli, hot fish “samkeh harra”, homus, chicken shaworma, mouton with rice, rocca salad, and mother brought in “kebbeh bil hileh of kara3”.  I might also mention the dozen varieties of deserts that we enjoyed an hour after the first break. Jihad loves “kebbeh nayeh” and Zouzou was relentless on that matter: I guess Jihad should have been on strict diet. Zouzou also was relentless when Jihad enjoyed the sweet “karabeej”

My brother Ghassan cracked a joke: Our ex-Seniora PM was out of Lebanon for a few days; whereabouts unknown.  Then, the rumor said that Seniora was asked financial counsel from the Emir of Dubai. As Seniora returned Dubai declared bankruptcy.  I had two small glasses of arak “mtalat” (grape wine distilled three times).  I felt tipsy and kept my silence for ten minutes. Bernard is hot for the next municipal elections (if it is, most likely, not postponed); he wants to be member of the next council.  I am never asked on these matters: my CV in community services is nil and void.

Then a lovely and memorable feud among the kids in the 70’s was resurrected. Two groups got upset for one thing or another and two buses were hired by each group for a trip on a Sunday. Hassib was leading the first gang of Katia, Joelle, my brother Ghassan, and twenty other friends and relatives. Zouzou and Ghassan Ghoussoub were leading the second gang, including Nassif and twenty others gathered in great difficulty and in no time.  As Zouzou recounts: “I was on the street and then, I saw a bus passing by and Joelle was mocking me with agitated signs from the window. I hurriedly hired Milad, a bus driver, and he was drunk and just arriving home but he relented and agreed to drive us.”  The two gangs met at the same places during the trip but they would not speak with one another for two weeks. Joelle and Diane mentioned that they have photos of that trip; I have no idea who took pictures at that period; most probably a photographer showing up at expected touristic locations. Hassib said that he had to wait for me because I was not home in Koneitra and that I boarded the other bus on the return trip and didn’t pay my fair. Five minutes after we finished these recollections then my brother Ghassan remembered the event. He said: “Nassif saw me and said “we smash heads” and I retorted “we pluck out beards (min nattef leha)”; most probably Nassif was growing a beard; I was lucky that I did not have then beard; it will grow several times at two occasions..

I recollect these events but I have this strong impression that I watched “Hassib bus” passing by while I was on the balcony of his mother Montaha’s in Beit Chabab. There are discrepancies on the date of this feud.  Zouzou is under the impression that it took place in 1974 but I am sure he is far off the date.  I believe that it might be in 1970.  A few people mentioned that it was the year of the play that we gave; then it should be in 1969; I was to be playing and then I dropped because I realized that I had to prepare for the second session exam of my first failed attempt at the Matheleme general public exam. I am confused and whoever has better memory then he is invited to join in his comments.

Khaled was in charge of taking pictures; ask him to post pictures on facebook. We parted company by midnight. Happy Adha Eid to all.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN: SOUTHAMPTON IN THE TOWER
Sonnet 53
Strange Shadows On You Tend
6 March 1601

Now, with Essex dead and the other conspirators also condemned, time grows short for Southampton’s fate to be decided.  The great shadow of Elizabeth Regina’s imperial frown, the “region cloud” of Sonnet 33, spreads over Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton in the Tower.  The tone of Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford is of increasing worry even as he writes in praise of his son, whom he likens to Adonis of “Venus and Adonis,” the 1593 poem dedicated to him by “Shakespeare.”

Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,

And you, but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen’s cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new.

Speak of the spring and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear,
And you in every blessed shape we know.

In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.

(Following is an edited “short” version of the treatment of Sonnet 53 in my edition THE MONUMENT):

The Tower of London, where Southampton was held captive until James of Scotland became King James I of England

1 WHAT IS YOUR SUBSTANCE, WHEREOF ARE YOU MADE,
YOUR SUBSTANCE = your inner reality, i.e., your royal blood; “No, no, I am but a shadow of myself: you are deceived, my substance is not here” – 1 Henry VI, 2.3.49-50;

2 THAT MILLIONS OF STRANGE SHADOWS ON YOU TEND?
MILLIONS = countless; expressing, by exaggeration, the outrageousness of the “stain” or “disgrace” that has covered his royal son; SHADOWS = the darkness cast by the Queen’s dark cloud or negative view; (“But the world is so cunning, as of a shadow they can make a substance, and of a likelihood a truth” – Oxford to Burghley, July 1581); “Which, being but the shadow of your son, becomes a sun and makes your son a shadow” – King John, 2.1.499-500; TEND = “attend” or wait upon him as those who attend upon a king; “They ‘tend the crown” – Richard II, 4.1.199; echoing the “tender” (or offer) for acceptance by which Oxford has offered to pay “ransom” for his son’s life.

Title Page of "Venus and Adonis" (1593), by which "Shakespeare" entered the stage of history by his dedication to Southampton inside the book

3 SINCE EVERY ONE HATH, EVERY ONE, ONE SHADE,
EVERY = E. Ver, Edward de Vere; ONE = Southampton, his motto One for All, All for One; EVERY ONE = father and son together; EVERY ONE, ONE SHADE = you and I suffer together under the shadow that is cast over you; Note: “one” occurs six times in this sonnet, “every” occurs three times, “none” twice.

4 AND YOU, BUT ONE, CAN EVERY SHADOW LEND.
AND YOU, BUT ONE = and you, Southampton; ““Since all alike my songs and praises be/ To one, of one, still such, and ever so” – Sonnet 105, lines 3-4; EVERY = E. Ver; “But Henry now shall wear the English crown and be true King indeed; thou but the shadow” – 3 Henry VI, 4.3.49-50

5 DESCRIBE ADONIS AND THE COUNTERFEIT
ADONIS: the young god of Venus and Adonis, i.e., Oxford is referring to his own narrative poem  that he dedicated (as “William Shakespeare”) to Southampton in 1593; Adonis (symbol of male beauty) was once Oxford’s self-portrait (based on the Queen’s attempts to seduce him as a young man in 1571-73, if not earlier); but now Henry Wriothesley is the young Adonis in relation to his mother, Elizabeth, who remains Venus, goddess of Love and Beauty; COUNTERFEIT = likeness; that which is made in imitation of him; portrait of him; “But who can leave to look on Venus’ face … These virtues rare, eche gods did yield a mate./ Save her alone, who yet on th’earth doth reign,/ Whose beauty’s string no god can well distrain” – Oxford poem, published in 1576, writing of Elizabeth, who “doth reign” on earth as Beauty

6 IS POORLY IMITATED AFTER YOU:
POORLY IMITATED = inadequately portraying you

7 ON HELEN’S CHEEK ALL ART OF BEAUTY SET,

Southampton in the Tower (with his cat)

HELEN’S CHEEK = Elizabeth, pictured as Helen of Troy, most beautiful of women; “Within this there is a red/ Exceeds the damask rose;/ Which in her cheeks is spread,/ Whence every favor grows” – Oxford poem in The Phoenix Nest, 1593, writing of Elizabeth; ALL = Southampton; OF BEAUTY SET = expressing your “beauty” or blood from Elizabeth;“What thing doth please thee most?/ To gaze on beauty still” – Oxford poem, part of which appeared in The Arte of English Poesie, 1589

8 AND YOU IN GRECIAN TIRES ARE PAINTED NEW:
GRECIAN TIRES = Greek headdresses or attire; PAINTED NEW = recreated (given new birth) in these private sonnets

9 SPEAK OF THE SPRING AND FOISON OF THE YEAR,
SPRING = time of royal hope; Ver; FOISON = abundant royal blood, kingly bounty

10 THE ONE DOTH SHADOW OF YOUR BEAUTY SHOW,
ONE = Southampton, his motto; SHADOW OF YOUR BEAUTY = the ghostlike appearance of your royal blood from the Queen

11 THE OTHER AS YOUR BOUNTY DOTH APPEAR,
YOUR BOUNTY = your royal bounty; “I thank thee, King, for thy great bounty” – Richard II, 4.1.300; “

12 AND YOU IN EVERY BLESSED SHAPE WE KNOW.
EVERY = E. Ver, Edward de Vere; BLESSED = divine, sacred, godlike, royal; “Look down, you gods, and on this couple drop a blessed crown” – The Tempest, 5.1.201-202;  “A God in love” – Sonnet 110, line 12; “Likely in time to bless a regal throne” – 3 Henry VI, 4.6.74;

Secretary Robert Cecil, who agreed to spare Southampton and release him with a royal pardon -- once James was securely on the throne and he, Cecil, retained his power; the price, for Oxford, was loss of his son's crown and loss of his identity as "Shakespeare"

13 IN ALL EXTERNAL GRACE YOU HAVE SOME PART,
ALL = Southampton, One for All, All for One; EXTERNAL GRACE = show of royalty; “The king is full of grace and fair regard … this grace of kings” – Henry V, 1.1.22, 2 Prologue. 28;

14 BUT YOU LIKE NONE, NONE YOU, FOR CONSTANT HEART.
NONE = opposite of “one” for Southampton; LIKE NONE = like no other; NONE YOU = none like you; also, you are now a nobody; CONSTANT HEART = eternal royal power, with a heart that pumps your royal blood; always noble and royal; “our friends are true and constant” – 1 Henry IV, 2.3.17; “Crowned with faith and constant loyalty … constant in spirit, not swerving with the blood” – Henry V, 2.2., 5, 133; “Therefore my verse to constancy confined,/ One thing expressing, leaves out difference” – Sonnet 105, lines 5-8; “In constant truth to bide so firm and sure” – Oxford’s sonnet in “Shakespearean” form, to Queen Elizabeth, early 1570s

As you can see, Oxford does not use a “code” or any other kind of obscure language.  The words related to royalty and kingship are drawn from his own plays of English royal history, plays issued under the “Shakespeare” name; seeing them clearly in these lines is a matter of perception; and once you see them, you know that their presence in the Sonnets cannot be accidental.

How mind acquired knowledge? (Nov. 25, 2009)

Berkeley, the British philosopher of the 19^th century, insists that we cannot directly comprehend objects with just our senses: our senses are causally linked to phenomena that are affected by the objects. In this case, the “existence of objects” becomes problematic if we try to insert a third transmission factor between the subject and the object to account for our comprehension. The traditional reflection that we need a speculative concept-based system of thinking to mediate between object and subject has been disrupted by physical sciences.

By the by, the conviction that transformations of our senses lead to comprehending brute matters relied on a double proof: first, the impossibility of acquiring knowledge by the sole speculative thinking and second, empirical research enhanced our knowledge base.

Hume, another British philosopher, claimed that causal relations, among other concepts considered essential, cannot be understood from matters that are offered to our senses.  According to Hume, the sensed brute matter is our only source of knowledge and thus, it modifies our understanding but never leads us to formulating laws: “empirical knowledge is never certain”. Hume warned against indulging into metaphysical concept (as the true opposite to objectivity); this word “metaphysic” aroused this erroneous fear that got the subsequent contemporary philosophers rattled and wrote thousand of obscure pages just to sounding objective. This anxious fear of extending metaphysical notions prompted philosophers into describing objects as equivalent to their qualities or characteristics, thus, evaluating relations is equivalent to evaluating qualities.

Consequently, contemporary philosophers reached this understanding that sure and stable knowledge has to be founded on reasoning such as it is done in geometry and the principle of causality. The paradox, said Einstein, is that we learned that most reasoning systems do not necessarily generate certainty in any field of science or that are intimately necessary for our knowledge development.

Bertrand Russell in his “Inquiry into meaning and truth” stated: “We all start with the realism that objects are what they appear: grass is green, snow is cold, and stone is hard. Then physics teaches us that color, heat, or hardness are different in quality or characteristics of what we might have experienced. The observer is in fact registering the impressions of the grass, snow, or stone. When science attempts to be objective it sinks, against its will, into subjectivity. Thus, naïf realism leads to physics, physics then demonstrates that realism is false. Logically false, and thus false.”

To avoid their concepts being labeled “metaphysical” then Scientists have been formulating boundaries or axioms to their concepts; for example, in order for a concept not to degenerate into metaphysic then first, enough numbers of propositions must be linked to the sensed world and second, the conceptual system must have essential functions of re-arranging, organizing, and synthesizing the sensed “reality”. A system expresses a game of logical symbols ruled by logical arbitrary given propositions.

Einstein is not bothered at all by the term metaphysic; he does not mind accepting an object as an independent concept in spatial-temporal structures. As he views it, it is unavoidable bypassing metaphysical concepts and thus, there should be no need to be apprehensive of a concept being considered metaphysical. Einstein thinks that concepts are logically creations of the mind, that it cannot be due to inductive reasoning from the sensed experiences. For example, prime numbers are considered invention of the mind. Yes, that concepts are extracted from the sensed brute matters is a reasonable contention, what is wrong is to exclude all concepts not considered to be related to the sensed world as metaphysical concepts.

What is so fishy about contemporary philosophy is that they avoid dwelling on the processes of hundreds of thousands of years that was necessary for human brain to acquire the necessary associations and images of objects and expressions, of metaphors, and then abstract analogies. It is my contention that reasoning methods of induction, deduction, and logical systems of rules are but organizations and descriptions of mental processes of the brain and memories for retrieving and recalling stored information. I believe that the neo-cortex has been undergoing specialized connected areas for expert specialized and restricted disciplines for work or labor divisions. General knowledge is going down the drain that will result in man destruction and moral oblivion.

Fight reserved only for Women; (Nov. 24, 2009)

I got into thinking: what if women were selected to wage “patriotic” wars against enemies, in front line formations? Then, will recruitment for required military service be instituted? Will age, marital status, number of children, and stature be factors? Will wars become less brutal? Will war duration and rate of frequency be reduced? Will the enemy consider menstruation periods as time off fighting?  Will law of engagement be changed and better respected? Will weapons be miniaturized and weight for carrying backpacks lightened? Will men be the training sergeants? Will women consider the military as a viable career for over twenty years of service? Will turnover be higher?

I got into thinking: what if a State decided to confront an army of male soldiers with only female soldiers? Then, will close range fighting be the norm? Will wounded still be achieved? Will war be waged to just capture prisoners? Will the frequency of raising white flags increases? What men be doing as a support system? Will men behavior change with time and how? Will diplomatic peace negotiations become the norm?

I am just thinking: do you have any historical records of different gender armies facing one another? Shall this wretched human ever learn to refrain from fighting useless and brutal wars? What are your opinions?

(PALAT. ANT. BOOK V – 170)
Nothing is sweeter than Love; and every other joy
is second to it: even the honey I spit out of my mouth.
Thus Nossis says: and who didn’t love Kypris,
doesn’t know what sort of roses her flowers are.

(PALAT. ANT. BOOK VI – 275)
With pleasure Aphrodite received the lovable offering
of the small bonnet which wound the head of Samyta:
It’s really of exquisite workmanship and it gently smells of the nectar
with which the goddess sprinkles the handsome Adonis.

(PALAT. ANT. BOOK IX – 332)
Arrived in front of the temple we gaze at this statue of Aphrodite
embellished by a dress embroidered with gold.
Polyarchis offered it, having made out a large fortune
from the beauty of her own body.

(PALAT. ANT. BOOK IX – 605)
In the temple of the blonde Aphrodite Kallò dedicated this picture
painted with a portrait exactly alike her.
What a tidy attitude! And which grace pervades her!
Hail! Of all your life nothing could be blamed.

– More here.

568.  theoretical physicsspeaks on theoretical physics; (Nov. 18, 2009)

569.  I am mostly the other I; (Nov. 19, 2009)

570.  Einstein speaks on General Relativity; (Nov. 20, 2009)

571.  Einstein speaks of his mind processes on the origin of General Relativity; (Nov. 21, 2009)

572.  Everyone has his rhetoric style; (Nov. 22, 2009)

Aphrodite, please

uncross my sacred heart

in the shadows of my altar,

bless me, soothe me,

find me, take me, show me,

send me my sweet hot,

my Ares incarnate,

Adonis on earth.

i believe, i receive

your will be done

in perfect love

and perfect trust

Aphrodite knows

i conjure, my Pan,

my Ra, my sun,

my breath,

my father, Zeus.

no one can love you

like a witch so deep,

cracked open,

light shining, sex oozing,

priestess of love.

so mote it be.

The European Union (EU): Modern Europe leading human rights; (Nov. 10, 2009)

The previous post “European Union (EU) describes Modern Europe” covered a few statistics and then a short description of the EU administrative and legislative institutions. This follow up post will cover what is working, then analyzing what need to be ironed out, and then how the world community is expecting modern Europe to lead.

The 27 European States forming the EU counts 6 States among the twenty leading economy in the world.  By deceasing rank we have USA, China, Japan, India, Germany, Russia, Britain, France, Brazil, Italy, Mexico, Spain, South Korea, Canada, Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Australia, Taiwan, and the Netherlands. Actually, those six European economies constitute about 90% of the EU in economy and in populations.

As a block, the economy of the EU may surpass the USA with a twist: the three largest industrial multinationals in every sector are US.  For example, in aeronautics we have United Technology, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin; in medical materials we have Medtronic, United Health, and Alcon; in Medias we have Walt Disney, News Corporation, and Comcast; in pharmaceutical/biotechnology we have Johnson & Johnson, and Pfizer; in informatics we have Microsoft, IBM, and Google.  Besides, the US is the first military power in technology, Navy, Bombers, and aircraft carriers.  The EU is totally dependent on oil and gas energies imported from Russia and elsewhere.  France has adopted a policy of being sufficient in electricity via nuclear energy (60% of the total of France production of energy).  Denmark is 25% sufficient in Aeolian technology and Germany about 15%.

The EU is facing problems. First, the “community vision” is eroding: the decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall and disintegration of the Soviet Union sent the wrong message of jumping in the band wagon of US globalization; thus, the well to do citizens wanted to get rich fast by emulating liberal capitalism. Individualism overshadowed the need to resume a common culture of developing institutions that are trained to work toward the common interest and be reformed to keeping the EU spirit intact in human rights and human dignity.

Second, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 took Europe by surprise.  The euphoric undertaking of uniting East Germany quickly exhausted West Germany with the multitude of social, economic and political problems of this unification and captured most of Germany’s resources and time and prevented it to ponder on the EU necessities.  The opportunity to deepen European consciousness for reformed institutions to expanding eastward was missed.

Third, the EU was discussing the two possibilities: either the strengthening the current union for the longer term expansion or hastily absorbing the many eastern European newly independent States.  The political decision was to go ahead and allowing these tiny states to adhere to the union.  I think that this was the appropriate decision because new States had to root their future into a tangible alliance or fall back into past habit, inclinations, and culture; thus, forming close alliances with Russia. The EU was the appropriate framework for ethnic communication and more democratic realization of social aspirations.  The problem is that these tiny States feel that they should aspire to the same standard of living in no times.  The latest financial crash has left al these States in bankrupt conditions and it is up to the rich EU States to salvage this predicament.  Maybe this fact should remind the EU that not all States should enjoy the same rights until they can show the same capability to shouldering responsibilities.

The actual challenges are many. First, there is a political space to reconstruct:  The budget of the EU institutions is merely 1% of the gross GNP while States allocate over 30% to re-distribute to collectivities, social protection, and welfare. The richer States are not that inclined to contribute heavily to the social stability of the poorer EU State members. Second, the EU has unified its currency (it overcame the States’ monopolies to issuing paper money) but is lacking a unified economic government.  For example, the EU lacks common public spaces, no political party or organization has been created or formed to focus on specific EU interests, and the EU Parliament has no power to raise taxes to finance common policies.  So far, the government chiefs are wary of relinquishing their interstates legitimacy and power.

As a block, the EU is still unable to challenge the US on crimes against humanity committed by the US and Israel;  it is fully cooperating with the US on taking Israel off the hook in the UN for daily crimes against human dignity, rights, and apartheid policies in the West bank and Gaza. There are a few States in the EU that are showing trends to opposing Israel’s apartheid practices and boycotting its products grown and manufactured in the occupied West Bank; it is the people in these States who have set the stage for human rights and dignity reversal toward the Palestinian endemic plight since 1948.

The world community is on its toes: will the EU refresh its initial objective of “community vision” or will it relapse in petty interstates interest of monopolies and idiosyncrasies?  We need the EU to be the caldron of community communication among ethnicities, languages, and cultures. We need the EU to be the social and political testing ground for viable alternatives in vision, institutions, ecological human survival, human rights and dignity. We need the EU to invent new reasons to living together and reducing man inequality.

The European Union is the most striking political and social achievement in the 20^th century.  The backbones of most of the UN peace keeping forces around the world are European contingents; the EU is the highest contributor in humanitarian budgets and for reforming obsolete public institutions in the under-developed States. The EU needs a refresher community vision and the world community should raise its voices and aid Europe in its endeavors.

561.  The world’s food basket: Africa is heaven for agro-business investments; part 2. (Nov. 12, 2009)

562.  I have problem with Newton’s causal factor; (Nov. 13, 2009)

563.  Food baskets for year 2050; (Nov. 14, 2009)

564.  “Peace treaty”: Paris, 1919; (Nov. 14, 2009)

565.  Einstein speaks on theoretical sciences; (Nov. 15, 2009)

566.  Sex for a Sufi (Nov. 16, 2009)

567.  Nature is worth a set of equations; (Nov. 17, 2009)

568.  Einstein speaks on theoretical physics; (Nov. 18, 2009)

569.  I am mostly the other I; (Nov. 19, 2009)

Everyone has his rhetoric style; (Nov. 22, 2009)

Let us consider the mechanism of rhetoric in delivering speeches. You have the square of fundamental values such as shared values, analyzed reality, wished utopia, and fiction of reality; these values intervene in most speeches and are focused on intermittently.  The top left corner represents the “subjective” shared values (SV) by a community and expressed by empathic “every one of us; or we, the working people; or we the citizens of this great nation.”

The bottom left corner represents the analyzed reality (AR) or the attempt to giving objective statements for facts and statistical results of data from surveys and other community research experiments. For example, replying to his question (Why are we in so much pain to preparing for our future?” Sarkozy answers “Because we have to account for the principles of a politics that encircled us in contradictions that are no longer sustainable”. Another example is generated from the extreme right opponent Jean-Marie Le Pen “This system, beast with two faces, with strange and worrisome names, the Gang of Four”.

The top right corner represents the wished utopia (WU) for transforming a community such as what the community should strive and act for; for example “another world; passion for equitability; simple and honest; the real name of the Republic of France is togetherness; or America strong.”

Then, the fourth corner on bottom right represents the imagined fiction of reality (FR) which usually brings forth historical figures or extracts texts from classical literature of the nation; for example “French, prompt at detesting your history, hear the voice of Jaures.  It is the nation that synthesized patriotism and universality”.

When we speak we start by focusing on a value that is dear to us or we think is dear to the audience and the speech converges in the directions of any one of the other three corners. For example, the socialist candidate to France Presidency, Segolene Royal, usually starts her speeches in (SV) by maintaining the illusion of intimate communication with her voters “You have told me, I am hearing you”, or “I want it because you want it”. Royal then shift to the (WU) “I believe in the expert capacity of the citizens.  I am convinced that each one of us is better placed than anyone else to know and express his problems and his hopes” and “I want a democratic revolution founded on the collective intelligence of the citizens. Politics has to change.” After establishing the (WU), Royal tries to focus on the (AR) “I wanted that the citizens speak again so that I may carry their voices. This is the best way to talking right and mostly to acting right”

Another example is President Nicolas Sarkozy’s rhetoric style. Again Sarkozy starts from (SV) “We do not become President by hazard.  It is a choice for a life and a long struggle. For me, France is not a hazard, it is a will. It is the will of various people to living together and sharing common values.”  Then Sarkozy reverts to (AR) “Why the French have no longer the urge to live together? My answer is: because there are a few citizens who believe that nothing is possible for them. I feel the force, energy, and wish to propose another vision of France. I refuse to find answers in ideology”.

Suppose now that you are debating or in negotiation then consider the “semiotic square” that was conceived by Algirdas Jullen Greimas.  For example, in the framework of the law we conduct our behavior according to two sets of opposing poles such as (Required or Prohibited) and (Allowed or Optional). The negotiations are thus conducted between contradictory poles of either (Required or Optional) and (Allowed or Prohibited). The “semiotic square” is used extensively in analyzing political discussions in order to comprehend how meanings in discourse are constructed. There is another method that might supplement the “semiotic square” with valuable intelligence such as generating statistics on most used key words (lexicometry).

The “semiotic square” is almost identical to the square of fundamental values.  For example, we have the two opposite sets of values (Subjective Shared Values or Utopia) and (Analyzed Reality or Imagined Fiction).  In general, the directions of the speech access the contradictory poles (Shared Values and Imagined Reality) or (Utopia and Analyzed Reality) but there are occasional movements from Shared value to Analyzed reality.  It seems that movements from Utopia toward Imagined Reality or vice versa are rarely used mainly because the speaker will feel totally disconnected with his audience who is mostly down to earth: he wants answers based on some subjective or objective sense of reality.

Note: The topic was generated from the French monthly “Sciences Humaines”.  The last paragraph is my synthesis of rhetoric mechanism.

Einstein speaks on General Relativity; (Nov. 20, 2009)

I have already posted two articles in the series “Einstein speaks on…” This article describes Einstein’s theory of restricted relativity and then his concept for General Relativity. It is a theory meant to extend physics of fields (for example electrical and magnetic fields among others) to all natural phenomena, including gravity. Einstein declares that there was nothing speculative in his theory but it was adapted to observed facts.

The fundamentals are that the speed of light is constant in the void and that all systems of inertia are equally valid (each system of inertia has its own metric time). The experience of Michelson has demonstrated these fundamentals. The theory of restrained relativity adopts the continuum of space coordinates and time as absolute since they are measured by clocks and rigid bodies with a twist: the coordinates become relative because they depend on the movement of the selected system of inertia.

The theory of General Relativity is based on the verified numerical correspondence of inertia mass and weight. This discovery is obtained when coordinates posses relative accelerations with one another; thus each system of inertia has its own field of gravitation. Consequently, the movement of solid bodies does not correspond to the Euclidian geometry as well as the movement of clocks. The coordinates of space-time are no longer independent. This new kind of metrics existed mathematically thanks to the works of Gauss and Riemann.

Ernst Mach realized that classical mechanics movement is described without reference to the causes; thus, there are no movements but those in relation to other movements.  In this case, acceleration in classical mechanics can no longer be conceived with relative movement; Newton had to imagine a physical space where acceleration would exist and he logically announced an absolute space that did not satisfy Newton but that worked for two centuries. Mach tried to modify the equations so that they could be used in reference to a space represented by the other bodies under study.  Mach’s attempts failed in regard of the scientific knowledge of his time.

We know that space is influenced by the surrounding bodies and so far, I cannot think the general Relativity may surmount satisfactorily this difficulty except by considering space as a closed one assuming that the average density of maters in the universe has a finite value, however small it might be.

The theme of gender-changing, whether by one’s own hand or choice or by another’s, occurs frequently in Hellenic mythologies. It is accompanied, often, by gender-reversal; by gods and daimones acting as the opposite gender, rather than actually becoming the opposite gender. Part of this is undoubtedly due to the gender fluidity of the gods (and certain gods in particular), and part to the necessity of their act for their own gain, or for the gain of the entire kosmos. In this essay, I will be discussing, in-depth, the three most notable occurrences of gender-changing – Hermaphroditos’, Agdistis-Rhea-Kybele’s, and Attis’.

The most memorable case of gender-changing is that of Hermaphroditos, the god of hermaphrodites, effeminate men, masculine women, transsexuals, transgenders, etc. Hermaphroditos’ gender-change (or, more correctly, gender-merge) is also his primary mythology. He is rarely named in the literature that points to the Erotes, although he is numbered among them, both by his parentage and divine function; and even the mythology of his birth is short and barely-considered. His pre- and post-merge mythology is barely touched upon; despite his Olympic parentage, he seems to have been all but forgotten by the Classical writers, in all respects other than detailing his merge with the nympha Salmakis.
Hermaphroditos (or Atlantius, as he was once/otherwise known, according to Hyginus, Fabulae, 271), ‘whom in Mount Ida’s caves the Naiades nurtured’ (Ovid, Metamorphoses, 4.28ff), was a youth comparable in beauty only to Adonis, Ganymedes, Endymion, Hyakinthos, Narkissos, Hylas and Khrysippos. It is interesting to note, here, that several of these most beautiful youths–Adonis, Hyakinthos and Ganymedes and, to a lesser extent, Hylas–all experienced a gender reversal, which will be discussed in Gender-Reversal in Gods and Daimones.
When he was fifteen–’when thrice five years had passed’ (Met, 4.28ff)–Hermaphroditos ventured from Mount Ida, ‘eager to roam strange lands afar’ (Met, 4.28ff), and eventually came upon Salmakis’ ‘limpid shining pool’ (Met, 4.28ff). Salmakis, upon seeing the beautiful youth, declared her love for him. He, who ‘knew not what love was’ (Met, 4.28ff), rejected her as she ‘besought at least a sister’s kiss’ (Met, 4.28ff). Pretending to accept his rejection, the nympha Salmakis withdrew from sight; and Hermaphroditos, thinking himself alone, stepped into her pool and ’stripped his light garments from his slender limbs’ (Met, 4.28ff). Salmakis watched him until he dived into the pool; and that–in succumbing to the pull of her water–made him hers, seemingly, for she ‘flung aside her clothes and plunged far out into the pool and grappled him’ (Met, 4.28ff). Hermaphroditos struggled to free himself and, at last, she managed to gain such a hold on him that ‘her clinging body seemed fixed fast to his’ (Met, 4.28ff), and she beseeched the gods to never let their bodies part. The gods (though it is unknown which gods) accepted the prayer and ‘both bodies merged in one, both blended in one form and face . . . they two were two no more, nor man, nor woman–one body then that neither seemed and both.’ (Met, 4.28ff) Hermaphroditos, now merged with Salmakis, emerged from the pool, saw that ‘the waters of the pool, where he had dived a man, had rendered him half woman’ (Met, 4.28ff) and beseeched his divine parents, Hermes and Aphrodite, that ‘whoso in these waters bathes a man emerge half woman, weakened instantly’ (Met, 4.28ff). His parents agreed; and ‘drugged the bright water with that power impure’ (Met, 4.28ff).
Diodorus Siculus described Hermaphroditos, after the merging with the nympha: ‘Some say that this Hermaphroditos is a god and appears at certain times among men, and that he is born with a physical body which is a combination of that of a man and that of a woman, in that he has a body which is beautiful and delicate like that of a woman, but has the masculine quality and vigour of a man.’ (Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, 4.6.5.) Diodorus Siculus then continued to note that ‘there are some who declare that such creatures of two sexes are monstrosities, and coming rarely into the world as they do they have the quality of presaging the future, sometimes for evil and sometimes for good.’ (Library of History, 4.6.5.)

The above quote of Diodorus Siculus can be applied, in turn, to the monster-god Agdistis, born of the Phrygian Sky God and Earth Goddess–Ouranos and Gaia–who would later become Kybele, equated with Rhea as Rhea-Kybele, mother of the gods.
Agdistis was, according to Pausanias, born when Ouranos (or, rather, the Phrygian sky god – who Pausanias equates with Zeus, strangely), ‘let fall in his sleep seed upon the ground, which in course of time sent up a Daimon, with two sexual organs, male and female.’ (Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 7.17.8.) Fearing Agdistis–the bi-sexed, and therefore aggressively, and by some accounts, literally insanely, sexual god–the other gods ‘cut off the male organ’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8), thus effectively changing Agdistis, a bi-sexed god, to Rhea-Kybele, a solely female god. An almond tree grew from Agdistis-Kybele’s castrated organ, and a nympha daughter of the river-god Sangarios ‘took the fruit and laid it in her bosom, when it at once disappeared, but she was with child.’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8.)
The child born was the youth Attis; and as he grew, his beauty, which was ‘more than human’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8) drew Agdistis-Kybele’s eye. She fell in love with him; and he ‘conquered the towered goddess with pure love’ (Ovid, Fasti, 4.222). Attis swore to her that he would ‘desire to be a boy always’ and that if he ever cheated, the one ‘I cheat with [will] be my last’ (Fasti, 4.222). He cheated, either by having an affair with the nympha Sagaritis (Fasti, 4.222) or by an attempt at marrying a king’s daughter (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8).
Agdistis-Rhea-Kybele, in divine wrath and madness, either then killed Sagaritis–by cutting down the nympha’s tree; ‘her fate was the tree’s’ (Fasti, 4.222)–or showed up at the wedding of Attis and the king’s daughter, whilst ‘the marriage-song was being song’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8); either version, though, caused Attis to descend into instant madness. Attis ‘bolts to Dindymus’ heights’ (Fasti, 4.222) and ‘went mad and cut off his genitals’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8), until ‘no signs of manhood remained.’ (Fasti, 4.222.) According to Pausanias, she then ‘repented of what she had done to Attis, and persuaded Zeus to grant the body of Attis should neither rot at all nor decay’ (Guide to Greece, 7.17.8); effectively, then, immortalising him.
This myth–beginning with Agdistis’ conception and ending with Attis’ immortal rebirth–has several common themes. The first, of course, is gender-changing; Agdistis, the bi-sexed, became Rhea-Kybele, a mother goddess, and simultaneously impregnated Sangarios’ nympha daughter, and thus became a father goddess, too. Attis, the boy born of the nympha and Agdistis’ castrated genitals, castrated himself, in turn, and ‘became a model: soft-skinned acolytes toss their hair and cut their worthless organs’ (Fasti, 4.222), thus effectively changing his own gender - and although his gender was changed by his own hands, it was caused by Agdistis-Rhea-Kybele. The second important theme is accidental pregnancy: the Phrygian Sky God’s/Ouranos’ impregnation of Gaia, the Earth, creating the bi-sexed Agdistis; and then Agdistis’ castrated genitals’ impregnation of Sangarios’ daughter, creating the lovely Attis. The entire myth continues the theme of ‘creatures of two sexes are monstrosities’, as suggested by Diodorus Siculus; and is a reoccuring theme within Hellenic mythology. Perhaps the other gods are wary the raw, fertile, mad power of bi-sexed gods; or, perhaps it was simply the prejudices of Classical society, made into divine acceptance through the mythos.

In Gender-Reversal in Gods and Daimones, I will be further exploring the gender switches in the Greek mythos; including Zeus’ gender-switch into Artemis, Adonis’ androgynous nature, Ganymedes’ and Hyakinthos’ apparent femininity and feminine values; and others.

Einstein speaks of his mind processes on the origin of General Relativity; (Nov. 21, 2009)

This article is how Einstein described his mind processes that lead to the theory of restricted relativity and then his concept for General Relativity. In 1905, restricted relativity discovered the equivalence of all systems of inertia for formulating physics equations. From a cinematic perspective there was no way to doubting relative movements; still there was the tendency to physically extend privileged significance to system of inertia.  The question was “if speed is relative do we have to consider acceleration as absolute?”

Ernest Mach considered that inertia did not resist acceleration except when related to the acceleration toward other masses. This idea impressed me greatly. First, I had to establish a law of gravitation field and suppress the concept of absolute simultaneity. Simplicity urged me to maintain Laplace’s scalar gravity potential and fine tune Poisson’s equation. Given the theorem of inertia of energy then inertia mass must be depended on gravitation potential but my research left me skeptical. In classical mechanics, vertical acceleration in a vertical field of gravity is independent of the horizontal component of velocity; it follows that vertical acceleration is exercised independently of the internal kinetic energy of the body in movement. I discovered that this independence did not exist in my draft theory; this evidence did not coincide with the affirmation that all bodies submit to the same acceleration in a gravitational field. Thus, the principle that there is equality between inertia mass and weight grew with striking significance. I was convinced of its validity though I had no knowledge of the results of experiments done by Eotvos.

Consequently, the principle of equality between inertia mass and weight would be explained as follow: in a homogenous gravitational field all movements are executed in relation to a system of coordinates accelerating uniformly as if in absence of gravity field. I conjectured that if this principle is applicable to any other events then it can be applied to system of coordinates not accelerating uniformly. These reflections occupied me from 1908 to 1911 and I figured that the principle of relativity needed to be extended (equations should retain their forms in non uniform accelerations of coordinates) in order to account for a rational theory of gravitation; the physical explanation of coordinates (measured by rules and clocks) has to go.

I reasoned that if in reality “a field of gravitation used in system of inertia” did not exist it could still be served in the Galilean expression that “a material point in a 4-dimentional space is represented by the shortest straight line”. Minkowski has demonstrated that this metric of the square of the distance of the line is a function of the squares of the differential coordinates.  If I introduced other coordinates by non linear transformation then the distance of the line stay homogeneous if coefficients dependent on coordinates are added to the metric (this is the Riemann metric in 4-dimension space not submitted to any gravity field). Thus, the coefficients describe the field of gravity in the selected system of coordinates; the physical significance is just related to the Riemannian metric. This resolved this dilemma in 1912.

Two other problems had to be resolved from 1912 to 1914 with the collaboration of Marcel Grossmann. The first problem is stated as follow: How can we transfer to a Riemannian metric a field law expressed in the language of restrained relativity?  I discovered that Ricci and Levi-Civia had answered it using infinitesimal differential calculus.  The second problem is: what are the differential laws that determine the coefficients of Riemann?  I needed to resolve invariant differential forms of the second order of Riemann’s coefficients. It turned out that Riemann had also answered the problem using curb tensors.

“Two years before the publication of my theory on General Relativity” said Einstein “I thought that my equations could not be confirmed by experiments. I was convinced that an invariant law of gravitation relative to any transformations of coordinates was not compatible with the causality principle. Astronomic experiments proved me right in 1915.”

Note:  I recall that during my last year in high school my physics teacher, an old Jesuit Brother, filled the blackboard with partial derivatives of Newton’s equation on the force applied to a mass; then he integrated and he got Einstein’s equation of energy equal mass by C square. At university, whenever I had problems to solve in classical mechanics on energy or momentum conservations I just applied the relativity equation for easy and quick results; pretty straightforward; not like the huge pain of describing or analyzing movements of an object in coordinate space.

I am mostly the other I; (Nov. 19, 2009)

Are you trying “To be what you are?” as the Greek poet Pindare once said? This is not at all similar to “Be yourself” which has practically no meaning as if you were hibernating and then decided to exhibit your “true” self.

What you are is never stable or cast in iron; the “I” is constantly being constructed and conquered: the body, our family history, our relations, our social values, our prescribed set of morals, and our social status. “To be what you are” is not to accept your “destiny” or what is being “maktoub”; it is an affirmation of your creativity to the kind of existence we dream to be.  I am never aware of my capabilities, abilities, and deficiencies except when I am on a course to change through deliberate actions, a different daily pattern of activities that has a purpose for the other me that I want to be.

“To be what you are” is not denying how you were born and raised; you have to accept the premises of from where you are starting the change as the best objective capabilities and deficiencies to get where you want to be.  It is not even a matter of the will to change that usually has no tomorrow. It means the urge to acquire knowledge and interact with people and society to feel your reformed dreams and possibilities for a qualitative jump.  If you have no desire for continuing education then you might as well be one among the masses of invincible imbeciles, those holding the absolute “truths” simply because they don’t know any better. You might revert to mingling with the invincible hooligans in sport stadiums and activate mayhems for mythical power and mythical belonging and identities.

Traditionally, the subject “I” was correctly defined as the one subjected to his community traditions and customs, subjected to his mother, father and elder siblings. The subject was placed under and subordinated to the other adults in a community. The subject “I” is practically the object and has no special characteristics that distinguish him from the members of the community. The member of a community is subjugated by the two facets of power: first, the weight of determinism for manufacturing individuals such as laws and norms that channel heritage and obeying institutions and authority.  The second facet of power is extending supports, means, and dispositions to grow as a reflexive member who can exist by his own means. Thus, desires for autonomy have to be supplemented by the means in resources and knowledge to break through the support system.

A person is born with a double helix like the ADN helix: the first section determines his objective heritage and the second contains his potential for becoming another self. It is a phase that everyone had to go through; some like to be taken care of; they emulate their environment: They find in their community the means for their existence and their natural development.  Some go into an affirmative phase to separate and be independent and go their own way.

It is the second alternative that extended this modern term of “subject” to an individual who is trying to get free of his previous dependencies. To become autonomous is a process and not just a temporary state of mind; it is a quest to becoming “another extension of the self”.

Individual identity is fluid and constructed of many small decisions and by many tipping over actions that direct the trajectory of the person. If we could study a person’s trend in activities we discover that it is the little but consistent variations in activities that determine his change into another individual. The subject is ever “himself” when he is changing to some else. We start discovering our identity (characters and set of values) as we cohabite or co-exist with others.  Many couples grow and start looking at their partners in new perspectives: they are learning how they were and how they currently feel toward the characters and values of the partners. Living as couples is not just a mirror but a reflective teaching means of our evolving identity.

We are all intelligent. There are at least 8 kinds of intelligence.  Some are more intelligent than others in particular capabilities such as verbal, mathematical, abstraction, visual, auditory, socializing, interaction with others, or writing styles. Rarely anyone is ready to consider another man intelligent. If you want to be known as relatively intelligent then your best means is to antagonize everybody: enemies are more likely to be extended some forms of intelligence.

I think some have this distinct intelligence of synthesizing many components in their intelligence and they realize early on their correct social conditions and potentials: they are the ones who break through the quickest of their community traditions and fly to greener pastures or a life or harsher miseries.  Let us not be judgmental about another’ achievements; successes are mostly illusions; failures are real but worth the try by all means.

Note: this topic was generated from three long articles on the “conquest of the self” in the French monthly “Sciences Humaines” with the special issue on the art of convincing or rhetoric.

Fragile is normal;

Being normal is pretty fragile. Maybe if you read “The man who substituted his wife for her hat” by the physician Oliver Sacks you might realize how barely tenable the concept of normalcy is. In general, scientists (including psychologists) consider what is normal the sample of items or group of people, within a restricted community, who share a particular attribute or characteristic 68% of the total studied, which means one standard deviation from the means (which has no meaning whatsoever, except that it is amenable to mathematical manipulations of other mathematical derivatives).

Now if we want to study the same group who share two characteristics then the percentage deteriorates rapidly.  If you need to investigate people who share three characteristics then you might as well not to resume your investigation: your project would lead nowhere.  When we walk the street we are amazed to discover that there are more “normal” people than we imagined. There are mainly two reasons for our imagination:

First, the “abnormal” people (for example, the Mongolians, the smart idiots, the clinically found psychologically disturbed) are sheltered off the street, voluntarily or involuntarily.  Most of them are secluded in rooms at homes, or in the basement, or in the attic.

Second, the majority of “abnormal” people that look normal on the street are labeled normal in contrast to our perceived over valuation to our personality.  They are normal with a bad connotation; they are not as good as us in many ways.  There are a few instances when we observe people of being in a category of “better than normal” but we never declare ourselves defeated.  In the depth of our psychic we know that if we get to “know” them deeper than the superficial aspects, let’s say sort of skin deep, then these super normal must have vices and diseases that instantly drag them way below “normalcy”.

You have got people who lost the functions of language, memory or part of it, identity recognition, time, and space.  You have got people who lost the feeling of their body, of imagination, of who consider one of their limbs are stranger to their bodies, people stuck in one moment in their life, people who cannot see what is on one side (right or left), super talented people in one restricted domain of music, numbers, chess, poetry, or drawing.

You have people who would describe a glove in much detail (not recognizing what they are describing) until they wear it and then would exclaim “My God! This is a glove!” People who would describe a rose in detail and after smelling it shout “But this is a rose!”

We are subjected at any instant to flipping from normal to the other side of the category and we will have no idea that we have flipped; even psychiatrists will never tell us how we have been categorized: we are no longer normal people to communicate intelligibly with; as if our folks or relatives should fair better than us to be told the whole truth.

Today is much better than tomorrow. Extend a soft hand to your “normal” neighbor today.

Prometía ser uno de los hallazgos arqueológicos más importantes de los últimos tiempos: el descubrimiento del comedor giratorio del emperador Nerón en el Palatino.

Demasiado entusiasmo. Ahora, Andrea Carandini, el arqueólogo que excavó la colina donde se originó Roma, rebaja las primeras expectativas en una entrevista en La Repubblica al advertir que  “No se discute la importancia del hallazgo, pero no es el comedor de Nerón. Pero, ¿qué Domus Aurea en una torre de culto a la belleza?”

He aquí la entrevista:

Nature is worth a set of equations; (Nov. 17, 2009)

I have been reading speeches and comments of Albert Einstein, the greatest theoretical physicist in the 20^th century. Einstein is persuaded that mathematics, exclusively, can describe and represent nature’s phenomena; that all nature’s complexities can be comprehend and imagined as the simplest system in concepts and principles. The fundamental creative principle resides in mathematics and formulas have to be the simplest and most beautifully general. Mathematical concepts can be suggested by experience, the unique criteria of utilization of a mathematical construct.

I got into thinking. I read this dictum when I was graduating in physics and I have been appreciating this recurring philosophy ever since. The basic goal in theoretical physics for over a century was to discovering the all encompassing field of energy that can unite the varieties of fields that experiments have been popping out to describing particular phenomena in nature such as electrical and magnetic fields as well as all these “weak” and “stronger” fields of energy emanating from atoms, protons, and all the varieties of smaller elements.

I got into thinking. Up until the first quarter of the 20^th century most experiments in natural sciences were done by varying one factor at a time; experiments never used more than one independent variable and more than one dependent variable (objective measuring variable or the data).  Even today, most engineers perform these kinds of totally inefficient and worthless experiments: no interactions among variables can be analyzed, the most important and fundamental intelligences in all kinds of sciences. These engineers have simply not been exposed to experimental designs in their required curriculum! 

Although the theory of probability was very advanced the field of practical statistical analysis of data was not yet developed; it was real pain and very time consuming doing all the computations by hand for slightly complex experimental designs. Sophisticated and specialized statistical packages constructs for different fields of research evolved after the mass number crunchers of computers were invented. 

            Consequently, early theoretical scientists refrained from complicating their constructs simply because they had to solve their exercises and compute them by hand in order to verify their contentious theories.  Thus, theoretical scientists knew that the experimental scientists could not practically deal with complex mathematical constructs and would refrain from undertaking complex experiments in order to confirm or refute any complex construct. The trend, paradigm, or philosophy for the theoretical scientists was to promoting the concept that theories should be the simplest with the least numbers of axioms (fundamental principles); they did their best to imagining one general causative factor that affected the behavior of natural phenomena or would be applicable to most natural phenomena. When Einstein mentioned that equations should be beautiful in their simplicity he had not in mind graphic design; he meant they should be simple for computations.

            This is no longer the case. Nature is complex; no matter how you control and restrict the scope of an  experiment in order to reducing the numbers of manipulated variables to a minimum there are always more than one causative factor that are interrelated and interacting to producing effects.

            Man is far more complex than nature to studying his behavior. Psychologists and sociologists have been using complex experimental designs for decades in order to study man’s behavior and his hundreds of physical and mental characteristics and variability. All kinds of mathematical constructs were developed to aid “human scientists” perform experiments commensurate in complexity with the subject matter. The dependent variables had no longer to be objectively measurable and many subjective criteria were adopted. Certainly, “human scientists” did not have to know the mathematical constructs that the statistical packages were using, just the premises that justified their appropriate use for their particular field. Anyway, these mathematical models were pretty straightforward and no sophisticated mathematical concepts were used: the human scientists should be able to understand the construct if they desired to go deeper into the program without continuing higher mathematical education.

            Nature is complex. Theoretical natural scientists should acknowledge that complexity; studying nature is worth a set of equations! Simple and beautiful general equations are out the window.  There are no excuses for engineers and natural scientists for not expanding their imagination and focusing their intuition on complex constructs that may account for many causative factors and analyzing simultaneously many variables for their interactions.

            There are no excuses that experimental designs are not set up to handle three independent variables (factors) and two dependent variables; the human brain is capable of visualizing the interactions of nine combinations of variables two at a time.  Certainly, scientists can throw in as many variables as they need and the powerful computers will crunch the numbers as easily and as quickly as simple designs; the problem is the interpretation part of the reams and reams of results; worst, how your audience is to comprehend your study. A set of coherent series of relatively complex experiments can be designed to answer most complex phenomena and yet be intelligibly interpreted.

It is time to account for all the possible causatives factors, especially those that are rare in probability of occurrence (at the very end tail of probability graphs) or for their imagined little contributing effects: it is those rare events that have surprised man with catastrophic consequences. If complex man was studied with simple sets of equations THEN nature is also worth sets of equations; be bold and make these equations as complex as you want; the computer would not care as long as you understand them for communication sake.

Sex for a Sufi (Nov. 16, 2009)

            Sexual harassment is highest among women enjoying positions of supervisors or in management staff.  I have been telling socio-psychologists that these findings were known for the human kinds before they stepped off trees. Sexual intercourse for man is very weakly correlated with sexual pleasures: it is a power status. Unfortunately, older men tend to be forgetful and younger ones still are ignorant that their partners are far more proficient in the power games.

            Intercourse for women has mixed correlations with sexual pleasures. It can be almost nil for virgins and almost 100% for practiced women who experienced with a few “compatible partners”. Warning! Invariably, once you had intercourse with a woman, if she digs you, then you are demanded to becoming her slave, “love slave” along with and many other varied tasks.  

            Are you waiting for explanation?  Discussing details in writing interest me; verbal discussion does not: I am not verbally intelligent. We have two hands; one is more sensitive, functional, and defter than the other; not for manual work but for relieving your emotional anger and passions. You will discover that this maneuver quickly re-adjust your set of priorities. For how long?  It is up to you to experiment with your potentials. Man must learn and be encourage using his professional hand as often as his rational mind desires to focus on important matters.

            Man is not endowed to experiencing sexual pleasures; they just want to get natural relief, like pissing or shitting without dirtying their hands. In fact, women have focused so much on their well deserved sexual endowment for pleasure that man deduced that women are less fit for rational reasoning.  In fact, women learned that luring man to sexual desires is the quickest and most effective mean for satisfying their wishes and wants; they did abuse it to such an extent that man banished women from rational functions, such as governing soberly and equitably among all people.  Consequently, wise men banished women from “statesmanship” and leadership jobs.

            Sexual desires are not sins; how could they be sins if they are natural?  Sexual desire is the main enemy for both genders if the mind is to be considered the most valued part in man.  Mystics and Sufis, of both genders, comprehended this dialectic: You cannot vanquish your enemy (sexual desires) if you fail to know the enemy completely.  Mystics and Sufis dissected sexual desire in all its forms, shapes, and varieties; they explained sexual desire in the minute details, pornographically, physiologically, anatomically, and psychologically and left us scientific manuscripts in that field with accurate terminologies. 

            Mystics and Sufis achieved the highest level of serenity in personal victories after mastering the characteristics of the enemy to defeat: they said that they finally faced it boldly; I am not convinced; they must have been getting worn out.  They say that they lost many battles but their purpose was to keeping the struggle.  Steadfastness in the struggle for the victory of rational thinking is the discipline of the courageous and strong men and women.  Practiced women Sufis should have far more value than men: they should be elected representatives of the UN to promoting rational thinking, instead of models and actresses!

            All religions approached sexual desire as the most disturbing factors for social stability.  A few religions attacked sexual desire as sins attached to various myths; they have woven fantastic tales to demonstrate their premises and applied drastic punishments and ordained stupid conditions to overpower the most natural of instincts. Other religions defined sexual desire as the enemy for rational thinking, and for equitable functioning in society; they faced that enemy rationally and didn’t run away from rational temptations or hide from natural facts.  Unfortunately, rational thinking require studying, application, follow up, and training; rational thinking is not endowed to vanquish natural inclinations when society is lazy; especially, if a government is not intelligent and bold to disseminate literacy and permit freedom of speech, opinion, publishing, and gathering.

            Virgin ladies abuse sex seduction more frequently than the staunchest nymphomaniac experienced ladies.  Sex decoying is independent from sexual practices; in fact, the less practiced the virgin the most experienced she is in seduction; women learn that skill since childhood, directly and indirectly; they already mastered that domain before puberty.  Contrary to man; man needs years of practice and continuing education for sexual baiting, after he realized that there is more than one function for the pissing ridiculous projection.

            I am interested in serious sexual proposals; I have strict terms and will set detailed conditions, more rigorous than financial or marriage deals.  I’ll have sex, take times off, extend the cuddling phase, spend hours on foreplays, and even have intercourse for pleasuring my friendly partner who genuinely is in need of companionship.  In almost all religions, particularly in Islam, women have rights to dictate conditions and clauses for marriage.  That they fail to exercise their rights is not simply a matter of lack of character; in most instances it is illiteracy, pressures of deviant traditions, and ignorance of THEIR RIGHTS.  Sakina, the grand daughter of Caliph Ali, Aicha Bint Talhat, and Hababa imposed their conditions to the astonishment of the Moslem society in the 7^th century; those intelligent and ambitious women refused to wear the veil and keep silent in gathering; they behaved as they imposed the clauses that suit their life style and got it.

Remember, man does not get sexual pleasures; he works to make life and the world goes on.  Man, when you are surprised by sexual lure, remember that you have got a professional hand to get in control if your terms are denied. 

This post is not on love: that would be a different ball game.  It is not on feelings. This post is on sexual desires. Reading sex tales interest me; discussing fictitious love proposals does not.  Discussing actual sex propositions interest me; performing actual intercourse does not; though I am functional. I tend to occasionally cling on day-dreaming sex: maybe I am not there for being considered a Master Sufi; I never considered that honor; I am confined to it. Let your comments not mix love with sexual desires. I suggest you read this post in two dispositions: serious and funny. You might understand it in two perspectives. That is my style.

You need references? You need qualifications?  Good luck in your research.  I am reflecting loudly on personal experiences.  Take my reflection or leave it. (You may read a few of my addendums in “Introspection”)

King cobra may kill female if rebuffed? (Nov. 9, 2009)

I watched National Geographic channel at 10:30 pm on Sunday.  I see a couple of cobras copulating.  The story is that the female was mating with a king cobra and a local male challenged the mating cobra.  The two males engaged in a harmless fight: they are immune to their poisons and just entwine for some time; I see their heads dancing close to one another.  The previous mating cobra gives up the fight and sneaks out of the picture. The female was sneaking away because she was either already satisfied or she felt that she had aversion to the intruding challenging vanquisher.

The winning cobra appeared wanting to mate for a few seconds but the female kept sneaking away. Suddenly, the king cobra changed his mind and decided to kill the female; did he smell his rival’s copulation or was he going crazy for the rebuff? The male cobra killed a female cobra after 45 minutes of an agonizing struggle. Before dying the female spins fast clockwise and counter-clockwise for a last attempt to survival. It seems that the female has less immunity than male to the poison and the male is at least a head longer than female. The male then undertook to swallow whole the female; she was too big and he regurgitated her dead body.

What with this game of male challenges?  Couldn’t the mating king cobra resume his job by forgetting the intruder’s presence?  Anyway, I don’t think that the intruder would have challenged the mating king cobra; at least the mating one has this psychological superiority of being more capable of surviving and finding a female partner.  Why would a tired mating cobra endeavor to take chances and then run the possibility of hard scouring process of finding an agreeable and consenting female?

It seems that female cobra build a nest for around 25 eggs to hatch; she pile up a meter-high of tree leaves so that the eggs enjoy a climate of 25 degrees and then hatch after 3 months; the female fast for 3 months because she would not leave the nest.  Immediately after the first egg hatches then the female is out of her obligations; actually, she leaves quickly in order not to start eating her progenies.

The newly hatched cobras are already venomous and can hunt for survival; usually, only 2 out of 25 live to adulthood.  Cobras are attracted to areas where rat snakes abound; thus, rat snakes are attracted to areas where rats come to eat and then cobras follow rat snakes to feed on!

I got in bed by 12:15 am and was terrified by the program on natures.  Luckily, I don’t recall having nightmarish dreams.  What do I know? May be the bad dreams will strike me tonight; then I might sue National Geographic for late horror emissions.

Einstein speaks on theoretical sciences; (Nov. 15, 2009)

I intend to write a series on “Einstein speaks” on scientific methods, theoretical physics, relativity, pacifism, national-socialism, and the Jewish problem.

In matter of space two objects may touch or be distinct.  When distinct, we can always introduce a third object in between. Interval thus stays independent of the selected objects; an interval can then be accepted as real as the objects. This is the first step in understanding the concept of space. The Greeks privileged lines and planes in describing geometric forms; an ellipse, for example, was not intelligible except as it could be represented by point, line, and plane. Einstein could never adhere to Kant’s notion of “a priori” simply because we need to search the characters of the sets concerning sensed experiences and then to extricate the corresponding concepts.

The Euclidian mathematics preferred using the concepts of objects and the relation of the position among objects. Relations of position are expressed as relations of contacts (intersections, lines, and planes); thus, space as a continuum was never considered.  The will to comprehend by thinking the reciprocal relations of corporal objects inevitably leads to spatial concepts.

In the Cartesian system of three dimensions all surfaces are given as equivalent, irrespective of arbitrary preferences to linear forms in geometric constructs. Thus, it goes way beyond the advantage of placing analysis at the service of geometry. Descartes introduced the concept of a point in space according to its coordinates and geometric forms became part of a continuum in 3-dimensional space.

The geometry of Euclid is a system of logic where propositions are deduced with such exactitude that no demonstration provoke any doubt. Anyone who could not get excited and interested in such architecture of logic could not be initiated to theoretical research.

There are two ways to apprehend concepts: the first method (analytical logic) resolves the following problem “how concepts and judgments are dependents?” the answer is by mathematics; however, this assurance is gained at a prohibitive price of not having any content with sensed experiences, even indirectly. The other method is to intuitively link sensed experiences with extracted concepts though no logical research can confirm this link.

For example: suppose we ask someone who never studied geometry to reconstruct a geometric manual devoid of any schemas. He may use the abstract notions of point and line and reconstruct the chain of theorems and even invents other theorems with the given rules. This is a pure game of words for the gentleman until he figures out, from his personal experience and by intuition, tangible meanings for point and line and geometry will become a real content.

Consequently, there is this eternal confrontation between the two components of knowledge: empirical methodology and reason. Experimental results can be considered as the deductive propositions and then reason constitutes the structure of the system of thinking. The concepts and principles explode as spontaneous inventions of the human spirit. Scientific theoretician has no knowledge of the images of the world of experience that determined the formation of his concepts and he suffers from this lack of personal experience of reality that corresponds to his abstract constructs.  Generally, abstract constructs are forced upon us to acquire by habit. Language uses words linked to primitive concepts which exacerbate the difficulty with explaining abstract constructs.

The creative character of science theoretician is that the products of his imagination are so indispensably and naturally impressed upon him that they are no longer images of the spirit but evident realities. The set of concepts and logical propositions, where the capacity to deduction is exercised, correspond exactly to our individual experiences.  That is why in theoretical book deduction represents the entire work.  That is what is going on in Euclid geometry: the fundamental principles are called axioms and thus the deduced propositions are not based on commonplace experiences. If we envision this geometry as the theory of possibilities of the reciprocal position of rigid bodies and is thus understood as physical science, without suppressing its empirical origin, then the resemblance between geometry and theoretical physics is striking.

The essential goal of theory is to divulge the fundamental elements that are irreducible, as rare and as evident as possible; an adequate representation of possible experiences has to be taken into account.

Knowledge deducted from pure logic is void; logic cannot offer knowledge extracted from the world of experience if it is not associated with reality in two way interactions. Galileo is recognized as the father of modern physics and of natural sciences simply because he fought his way to impose empirical methods. Galileo has impressed upon the scientists that experience describes and then proposes a synthesis of reality.

Einstein is persuaded that nature represents what we can imagine exclusively in mathematics as the simplest system in concepts and principles to comprehend nature’s phenomena. Mathematical concepts can be suggested by experience, the unique criteria of utilization of a mathematical construct, but never deducted. The fundamental creative principle resides in mathematics. The follow up article “Einstein speaks on theoretical physics” with provide ample details on Einstein’s claim.

Critique

Einstein said “We admire the Greeks of antiquity for giving birth to western science.” Most probably, Einstein was not versed in the history of sciences and was content of modern sciences since Kepler in the 18^th century: maybe be he didn’t need to know the history of sciences and how Europe Renaissance received a strong impulse from Islamic sciences that stretched for 800 years before Europe woke up from the Dark Ages. Thus, my critique is not related to Einstein’s scientific comprehension but on the faulty perception that sciences originated in Greece of the antiquity.

You can be a great scientist (theoretical or experimental) but not be versed in the history of sciences; the drawback is that people respect the saying of great scientists even if they are not immersed in other fields; especially, when he speaks on sciences and you are led to assume that he knows the history of sciences.  That is the worst misleading dissemination venue of faulty notions that stick in people’s mind.

Euclid was born and raised in Sidon (current Lebanon) and continued his education in Alexandria and wrote his manuscript on Geometry in the Greek language.  Greek was one of the languages of the educated and scholars in the Near East from 300 BC to 650 AC when Alexander conquered this land with his Macedonian army.  If the US agrees that whoever writes in English should automatically be conferred the US citizenship then I have no qualm with that concept.  Euclid was not Greek simply because he wrote in Greek. Would the work of Euclid be most underestimated if it were written in the language of the land Aramaic?

Einstein spoke on Kepler at great length as the leading modern scientist who started modern astronomy by formulating mathematical model of planets movements. The Moslem scientist and mathematician Ibn Al Haitham set the foundation for required math learning in the year 850 (over 900 years before Europe Renaissance); he said that arithmetic, geometry, algebra, and math should be used as the foundations for learning natural sciences. Ibn Al Haitham said that it is almost impossible to do science without strong math background.  Ibn Al Haitham wrote mathematical equations to describe the cosmos and the movement of planets. Maybe the great scientist Kepler did all his work alone without the knowledge of Ibn Al Haitham’s analysis but we should refrain of promoting Kepler as the discoverer of modern astronomy science. It also does not stand to reason that the Islamic astronomers formulated their equations without using 3-dimensional space: Descartes is considered the first to describing geometrical forms with coordinates in 3-dimensional space.

Souvlaki Circus, M. Setola & A. Vähämäki. (Buenaventura Press) $13.95

This is an eery, unsettling little book of pencil drawings: a bear on fire, a man’s head disintegrating into bees, a bird with its beak in the barrel of a riffle, a line of ants marching into a broken television, and many more. Souvlaki Circus is a meditation on human and animal nature, and the fragility of their boundaries, which flex with the push a pencil. The Circus has the authority of a news headline, with the imaginative scope of a night terror. Even more impressive, when you consider the collection’s seamlessness, is that it is a blind collaboration between the Finnish Vähämäki and Italian Setola, as only after several careful viewings can one begin to distinguish between their drawings.

Mihyar of Damascus: His Songs, Adonis, tr. by Adnan Haydar & Michael Beard. (BOA Edition Ltd) $16

Adonis reimagines the story of Mihyar, a poet who converted from Zoroastrianism to Shi’i Islam in 1037 CE. Like Mihyar, Adonis has long been recognized as a dynamic aesthetic rebel. In their introduction, translators Adnan Haydar and Michael Beard compare this collection, first printed in Arabic in 1961, to other “series of breaks with traditional styles we find elsewhere at early moments in the history of modernisms.” Indeed, even with a cursory knowledge of Arabic-language poetry, Adonis does resemble an Ungaretti or Pound. His poems are inhabited by recurrent stones and islands, hands and eyelashes. My favorites are his prose poem Psalms, which begin each of the book’s first six sections. In section V, “These Petty Times,” he writes in “Psalm”:

XXXI shall scrape off the horizon’s hide until it bleeds. I shall fly from one wound to another.
XXXWe divide the sky up, Death and I.
XXXWe raise the flag of hunger, Bread and I.
XXXTomorrow, trapped in the robe of myth, I’ll climb the wall of shadow. A procession, songs of stone, will stick to me.
XXXO madness, my master, my messiah.

and in the “Psalm” that begins section VI, “Edge of the World”:

XXXI wear the elegance of anemones. The pine tree has a waist that smiles for me. I find no one to love. But will Death hold it against me that I love myself?
XXXI devise a kind of water that doesn’t quench my thirst. I’m like the air—there is no law for me. I create a climate where heaven and hell overlap. I invent other devils. I race and we place bets on things.…

XXXThe blood of the gods is still fresh on my clothes. A seagull’s scream echoes through my pages. So let me just pack up my words and leave.

Like Mihyar, Adonis writes, as his translators suggest, “far enough outside the tradition to ensure its dynamism.” Even nearly fifty years after its original publication in Arabic, Mihyar of Damascus is an exciting, vibrant contribution to international poetry in translation.

DS