The Writing is on the Wall

Bend Your Knees and Appease

I learned the other day that Muslims in Britain are offended by British history textbooks that describe the Holocaust.  They would like such information removed.  That made me think about what offends me about Islam, so I made a list of thoughts, random ideas, in no particular order about what offends me about Islam.

I am offended by

• Muslim Brotherhood's insidious plans for Islam domination of the world, but cleverly describes itself as a charitable organization.This organization authorized outright violence early in its inception against Egyptian Christians, the Copts, and Jews.  The Brotherhood, found in 1929, is present around the world; it is the shadow of every Islamic terrorist organization.
• Islam's constant attacks and outright war, terror, and hate against Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, any and all non-Muslims. For instance, are you aware that they conquered France from 733 to 1492 with the fall of Granada? 
• Islamists who have waged suppression against, ethnic cleansing and/or genocide in Afganistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chad, Chechnya, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Gambis, Britain, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Isreal, Kashmir, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mali, Morocco, the Netherlands, Niger, Nigeria, and Pakistan. (I may have unknowingly omitted a few countries.)
• Assassinations of those who criticize or "insult" Islam, such as Theo Van Gogh who with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, produced a ten minute film that graphically described the Koranic sanctioned violence against women.
• Muslim terrorist groups such as Hamas or Hezbollah, of which there are hundreds throughout the world.
• 100,000 American Muslims, the best integrated Muslims in the world, as identified by the recent Pew Survey, who support suicide bombers and world jihad.
• Muslims who continuously threaten Christians throughout the world with death threats and physical violence, especially at this time in Lebanon and Iraq.
• fascism inherent in Islam with its totalitarian system led by dictorial clerics and imans that emphasize extreme  aggressive nationalism, militarism, and racism.  Read the Koran for more details.
• fatwahs calling for death of noncompliant or offending Muslims throughout the world, fatwahs against those who write books that criticize Islam. There have been hundreds! Bin Laden declared one against America.  Look what has happened.
• Middle Eastern and Saudi vicious cartoons that for decades have described Jews with hooked noses and their descendency from pigs and monkeys.
• Imans such as Nasrallah who incites his people with hatred against the zionist pigs and monkeys, the United States, and Britain.
• Grand Mufi who consulted with Hitler about the "Jewish Problem" in Palestine and had plans for their eradication.
• world-wide appeasement of Islamists to avoid being labeled a racist or an Islamophobe.
• Denial of the Holocaust as an event created by Jews to find sympathy for their own nation.
• The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a completely false book produced in Russia in the late 19th century, describing how Jews plan to take over the world, that is sold in every Middle Eastern bookstore and continues to be published in those countries. Some Muslims can recite from its pages.
• Mahmoud Ahmandindejad who calls for the extermination for Isreal and all Jews, who denies the Holocaust, who supplies Hexbollah with weapons to use against Isreal.
• African Muslims who multilate the genitals of thoudands of young girls to keep them pure.
• Muslim belief based on the Koran that a woman should be beaten by her husband.
• Muslim belief that if a woman is raped, it must be her fault, and that the testimony of four men is necessary to prove that she was raped and who the rapist was.  Raped women are usually killed by their families to save family honor.
• Muslim belief that a married woman must submit to her husband's sexual demands, "even on the side of a camel."
• Muslim belief that the testimony of two women equals the testimony of one Muslim man.
• Muslim belief that any Muslim who converts to another religion is an apostate and must be killed.
• Muslim belief expressed in the Koran that Jews and Christians are to be avoided as they are not worthy of the friendship of an upright Muslim.
• Muhammad who consumed a marriage with a nine year old girl. (He was tired of his many wivies.)
• Hijabs, burqa, chadors, and abayas that keep women subjugated emotionally and physically.
• CAIR, the vociferous Muslim "civil rights" organization in America that was founded by convicted terrorists.  ( I will save that story for another blog.)
• Barbarism as shown by beheading men such as Danny Pearl and soldiers and citizens in Iraq.
• Barbarism as shown by the torture, gang rape, and mutilation of Muslim against Muslim.
• Barbarism as demonstrated by the Talibans' atrocities against Afghani women:  acid thrown in the faces of women not "properly" veiled; polished fingernails pulled out; executions in a public arena and Afghanis made to watch; widows forced to beg as they were not allowed to work; women forbidden to leave their homes which had windows covered with papers; girls forbidden to be educated.
• Barbarism when the Taliban destroyed the incredible ancient stone statues of Buddha, a world treasure.
• Honor killings that go on today not only in the Middle East and Palestine, but in modern European countries such as Holland.
• Signs displayed in Muslim demonatrations world wide that proclaim "Islam will Dominate."
• Burning the American and Isreali flag in almost every Arab demonstration.
• Thugs who wear masks and declare their bravery to commit jihad.
• Thugs who wear masks and march in Islamic parades.
• Sami al-Arian and his ilk who have discovered the soft underbelly of American democracy; they come to America to incite jihad, invite know terrorists speak at conferences, and shout in Arabic "Death to America.  Death to the Jews."  All in the name of free speech.
• Islam's 7th century view of the world that is backward, misogonistic, violent, rigid, and absolutely not merciful and compassionate as they describe their god Allah.
• Lack of any meaningful contribution to the world since they discovered the zero, albegra, and Moorish arch. Where are their discoveries in science, medicine, and technology?  Where are their great universities that produce discoveries to benefit all human beings?
• Lies. Lies. Lies.  The Muslims in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia,and elsewhere have never had the intention finding peace between Israel and the Palestineans. The Palestineans are merely fodder for constant politcal unrest.  It was Arab radio that told them to vacate Isreal in 1948, as the Zionists were going to masacre them.  Lies. Lies. LIes.

And so, since I called my blog "Three Day Old Fish," now you know why I have found an offensive odor in Islam.

Abaya, Burqa, Chador

I am not bundled up in the summer.  I wear cotton and sandals. 

As a middle-aged woman I shy away from shorts; my legs aren't what they used to be. When I am alone, I pull off my bra. In the backyard when I am pulling weeds, I do have a few skimpy outfits that, only because I have some pride, I would not wear on the street. Summer is the season and watermelon and iced tea. . It's cotton time again.

And then I think of her.

On a very hot and very humid North Carolinian day, I saw a Muslim man walking with a woman covered from head to toe in black. His white, short sleeved shirt gave him freedom to swing his arms back and forth, which he did while the woman tottered along in her shroud.  I could feel the perspiration on my back and my thighs were sticking together; I, dressed in a cotton dress.  I glared at the man.  If only I could have put him in that heavy black cloth and freed the woman.

I often think of that anonymous woman.

And when I recall her form and posture, her prescribed, anonymous life, I think of my American female friends, Catholics, Protestant, Jewish, Agnostic, Humanist. Whatever.

We have live in a kaleidoscope of rich choices. We live in a world of red convertibles where we ride with the wind in our face and our hair streaming behind us. We can bare our bodies to sunlight.  We have choices.

Ballet dancer, belly dancer, musician, sculptor, painter, tennis player, champion swimmer, majorette, gardener.

Nurse, Ph.D., teacher, professor,scientist, reporter, political activist, community leader, writer, lawyer, singer, actress, poet, cook, waitress, Physical therapist assistant, admininstrator, sales  person, office manager.

We open our closets' doors:

Tutus, tights, evening dresses, grubby blue jeans, white shorts, halter tops, one piece bathing suit, short skirt, overalls. white uniform, business suit, blue jeans, tee shirt, desinger dress, apron, professional clothing.

In the morning we shower, put on perfume, wash our hair:

Blonde hair, straight hair, frizzy, permed, grey or curly.  Bangs. Ponytail. Short. Long.

We put on our outfit.  We go to our lives. Good, bad, indifferent, wonderful; they are our lives.

I see that woman in black often.

Today she was on the front page of The Wall Street Journal in an article about the "whiff" of change for Saudi women.  I learned that Saudi women are working in segregated workplaces.  Like American women, they work to augment the family income.  Some are even studying to become lawyers although they will never try a case in a courtroom.  They can't.  The judges are male. Always a "but."

Muhammad instructed women to cover their adornments, which at first read is complimentary.  Beautiful women and alluring women.  Beautiful women are modest women who do not tempt men. Such a simple thing, this veiling of women. An act of kindness all the way around.

Ballet dancer, swimmer, tennis player. Tutu, bathing suit, trim white shorts.

To me the veil, this long abaya, burqa, or chador, is a fence of fabric stronger than steel, for it imprisons creativity and potential. I couldn't last a hour under its weight without fighting for my life. But I am an American woman who can speak her mind and make her own decisions. No one tells me what to wear.

But the veil goes deep, goes deep into the psyche. It is not cloth that can be thrown casually into the dirty clothes hamper.

How can I not wonder how many talented women have suffocated under the veil. If their dark, darting eyes tell their stories, they may live lives of quiet desperation. Do they cry in frustration?  Do they scream when they are alone? Clearly, Islam means submission, and as women they submit to physical, emotional, and intellectual suffocation. The Muslim world has deprived itself of infinite accomplishments. Submission comes with a big price.

Somtimes I wonder, if Muslim women ever dream of dancing on a stage.  Does a Muslim woman ever imagine herself riding in a red convertible and having the sun on her face and her hair streaming behind her?

Tomorrow I may do just that.

 

My Hands

My hands

nails short, falsely proletarian in design,

age spots, brown circles of mortal sins

of sun worship and hormones,

I would respect these hands more

had they tilled the soil, planted crops to feed a nation,

or held a rifle to my shoulder to win freedom.

My hands

soft palmed and fragile

held an infant once

touched the cheek of my beloved

wiped away a tear:

fragile memories, whispers now,

so that red polish or French manicure

jarring vanity

against the bulging blue veins

highway sytems to nowhere

life line on my right palm

a route to places unknown until a future time.

Hands, fingers, thumbs, useful

hold, cup, grasp, pinch, caress

yet before the end of my life line

I wish to use these hand to mold, shape, chisel

a monument of granite

rather than trace the shadows of fantasy.

Matzo and Ham

No, they weren't served on the same table.

My mother was a Catholic; my father, a Jew.

Growing up I had a foot in both worlds.

Neither one was observant, especially my father, who often commented that religion had done nothing but bring misery to the world.  "You don't have to die to find hell. Hell is right here on earth."

For a man who disappeared from high school to make his way in the world, he was always well-read. Newspapers were a way of life for him. As a teenager, he ran away from his parents' delicatessen,yet he never lost his taste for good food.  "You can't cheat on your stomach," he would say as he dug into his sirloin. He was a jovial man who enjoyed his shot of Canadian Club followed by a glass of water.  If my father had too much to drink, which was seldom, he remained lively and delightful.  He would tap dance, do the shuffle- ball- chain.  In the mornings when he shaved, he sang "O Solo Mio."

I have read the letters between my mother and father when, in his 40s, he served in World War II in Africa. When he was stateside, he took his leaves in New York City where he could sleep on the cool white sheets of a hotel and find a good restaurant.  I am not sure if Luger's Steak House existed then, but that was always one of his favorites.  Serving in the army with its deprivations was very hard on this man who wore white-on-white French cuff shirts and suits brought in from New York City.   I have a picture of him, grizzled and unwashed, in Africa. He told me he managed to get out of KP because he peeled potatoes into stubs.  Imagine that. A Jewish boy who could slice pastrami with the best of them.  And when I was growing up, he never suggested that we have a picnic.  "Who the hell wants to eat with ants?" he would growl. Africa had taught him well. country.

I have another photo of him as a young boy standing outside of the temple where he is holding his prayer book. He looks angelic. When he was an old man living with me, I asked if he remembered his Hebrew.  He never answered.  I think he skipped Hebrew School to smoke in the alley behind the delicatessen.

  His brother graduated from Harvard Law School, but my father graduated from nothing. Incredibly, one of his first jobs was writing for a Detroit newspaper and selling advertisement. Then, the life of a  traveling salesman was his utopia. He was the consummate salesman, and not because he proclaimed it.  As a young adult I was substituting in a public school, when a teacher asked me if I were related to "that man who had the wholesale store on Franklin Avenue."  I was.  He told me that he remembered my father who could sell anything; he could make you want to buy a fur coat in summer.

The compliment was lovely, but I remember most that my father never used an offensive word for Catholics, Protestants, blacks, or any ethnic group. He never joined a temple; he never went to services; he never observed any religious holiday. Yet, I know that he had the best qualities of a Jew or Christian: he was generous to a fault, forgiving, caring, and never held a grudge.  I wish sometimes that I had more of his nature. He never hid his Jewishness.  He was not ashamed.

Before I was born in l948, my father  and  mother, went from city and town together as he sold whatever he was selling at the time. Sometimes they had difficulty in finding a hotel room.  My Slovak mother was a tall, dark haired, olive skinned beauty, with black piercing eyes.  My father looked liked his Hungarian mother, a woman with dewy white skin, black wavy hair, and hazel eyes.  He told me that often people did not want to have a Jew in the building and glared at my mother, as if she were the Jewess.

  My mother, one of eight children born to Slovak coal miner in West Virginia, did not have my father's intellect.  However, she could put basketballs into hoops with either hand, and she did graduate from high school. While never a reader, she had her own talents as a jack-of-all-trades, for she could hammer a nail straight and shovel coal into the furnace.  Excelling at housekeeping, she had the cleanest house in the county. She was known for her housekeeping as my father was known for his salesmanship. Our painted basement floor was so clean one could wear white and roll around on the floor without acquiring a speck of dirt. 

I learned from my mother to admire order, a place for everything and everything in its place. Clothes were never tossed about.  Towels were hung up. She believed that flamboyance was a sin.  Unlike my father's closet, hers never bulged, as she had no interest in the latest fashions. My father would beg her to buy a pretty dress or hat.  One time on a trip to New York City, we went to a high end dress shop.  With her height, she wore clothes like a model, and how the salesperson gushed over how she could wear those clothes. My father bought her that stunning outfit which hung barely worn for years in the closet.  She never liked excess of any kind, and often criticized my father for his.

But at Easter she gave me baskets bulging with candy, and always a dark chocolate fruit and nut egg with my name written on its top. Often we would drive to West Virginia to spend the holiday with her mother, father,brothers, and sisters. My grandmother spoke little English and prayed everyday from her worn missal. She said the rosary in Slovak. I could understand none of it, but sensed her deep faith. Arising early on Easter morning, I would meet her at the kitchen table where she had the ham and Easter bread filled with raisins waiting for the priest to come for his blessing. Listening to the his prayers, I was convinced the food was special.  "Holy," my grandmother said in English. "Holy,"

I had learned that during Passover, Jesus had a Seder. He blessed the food, and told his disciples that the unleavened bread they were eating would become his body and blood. That became the rite of communion. When back in my hometowm, whenever I would eat matzos, I thought of Christ.  To me, it all made sense, through different rituals, to remember and to be thankful for the Lord of the Universe.   

The Christmas ritual meant a live tree covered in bright lights.  My mother jockeyed it up and took it down by herself.  My father did not help her because he was all thumbs, and she had no patience for clumsiness. I loved awakening in the morning to see the gifts under the tree, and nestled under one of the branches was the manger. We all shared gifts.  It was such a happy time.

At Christmas my mother and I went to Mass.  I loved the incense and the poinsettias. Amidst all the kneeling, standing, and sitting, most of the time I gazed fascinated at the saints painted on the ceiling and behind the altar, the painting of Christ ascending into heaven. The church was gilded with gold, and the scent from the beeswax candles was intoxicating. The Latin added to its mystery, much like prayers intoned in Hebrew.  I thought all of it was holy. 

When I was in third grade, I decided my religion was "half and half."  Now hanging my head in shame, I will tell you that I was Jewish then when it was convenient, for I could stay home during the Jewish High Holidays out of respect for my father.  We did not go to services, and I spent the day at home doing art work. My public school had many Jewish kids, so when they were absent for a religious holiday, the teachers taught nothing new.  The pace was slow.  It was a free reading day or a review day.  Oh, I hated those reviews.  On the other hand, I was not about to give up Christmas carols and Christmas trees.  And an Easter basket with yellow peeps and jelly beans was divine.  Half and Half was the ultimate.

But I grew up.

I have heard during my lifetime that you are what you are. I think that is true.  In my case I think the genes of my Jewish ancestors rushed through my veins.  As a child, the first time I was in temple and saw the Torah removed from the ark, heard the silver bells tinkling, and then touched the Torah with my prayerbook, I knew that I was a Jew.  I was filled with an indescribable joy, a rapture so intense my knees shook. So in my twenties I converted to Judaism.

My husband laughs sometimes because I told him my mother had me baptized when I was a baby. He thinks I have hedged my bets very well,  It is funny though.  If I go to heaven I still will belong to a minority: a baptized Jew.

Perhaps some would shake their heads at my childhood experience. I feel I was blessed because I developed the antennae to feel bigotry and hatred.  Yes, there were times when I had to defend the religion of my Catholic mother or my Jewish father.  When I would hear a degrading comment about Jews, Catholics, or Slovaks, I rose to the occasion with a counter argument.  As a little girl I started to develop an ecumenical vision, but today I find it heartbreakingly difficult to keep that vision, as I witness what Islam, in its blind orthodoxy has brought to the world.

I am the worst kind of infidel: half Christian, half Jew. Sura after sura in the Koran debases my heritage, and I raise both my right and left hand in defense.

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The day before the Ides of March

THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL

I am one of those curious people who ask questions, doubts the answers, and then, like a dog with a bone as someone once described me, I dig for my answers.  I have also found that after every proverbial honeymoon, comes the dirty dishes and the mangled toothpaste tube.  As much as all of us love having guests, their honeymoon with us usually does not go beyond the weekend.  Their snoring is annoying, and they leave a mess in the bathroom.  And as for fish in the refrigerator--after three days it stinks. In other words, reality is a rude awakener.  The same holds true for analyzing, questioning, and thinking; after the introduction to a topic, I have to dig in.  Explore some more.  Find the truth. 

So what is my bottom line?  I love America.  I hate fascism.  I am threatened by Islam.

My friend said start a blog.

I said there are a zillion blogs.  Why another?

My husband said that I need to blog because I am bright, reasonably well read, and a decent writer.  "After all," he said, "you have been exploring Islam for years.  You have something important to say."

Another friend commented, "Don't you remember?  When we were watching the Towers go down in the college snack bar, you said it was Bin Laden."

Yes, I did.

And those around said, "Bin Laden?  Who?"

I remember years ago when I was teaching a freshman writing class, I brought an article from Time Magazine that showed a picture of Afghani women clad in burkas.  The Taliban had restricted women to their own segregated dirty hospital where they were dying.  They had neither a box of band aids nor a handful of aspirins. Also some of the women had been brutally punished for wearing white anklets.  White socks.  The ultimate is Western debauchery and and salaciousness.  I was stunned by the article, short as it was, and thought that it might provoke an interesting discussion that would lead to a writing topic.  But my students kept shaking their heads.  White socks?  It was surreal.  Forget about band aids and aspirins.

That day began my digging for information.  What was going on in a country where women were flogged and stoned?  Who were these Taliban?  How did Islam produce such brutal zealots? Didn't Islam create alegebra and the gorgeous Moorish arch? I remembered seeing the Prophet Muhammad and Moses on the carved relief in the Great Hall of the United States Congress.  In my naivete I thought that Muslims followed the Ten Commandments. Didn't Islam mean peace?  I know a teacher told me that in grade school.

I started digging for information and to this day haven't stopped.  I have found answers to those questions and a hundred more that I didn't know how to ask then. I searched the Web.  I bought books.  I read newspapers.  Then I decided to read the Muslim Holy Book.  Any half-decent researcher wants to go to the primary source, and in college I had to find primary and secondary sources to write a paper. Footnotes gave support to a thesis.

Yes,  I have found answers in The Holy Qur'an-- an Arabic text with English translation and commentary by Maulana Muhammad Ali. As a respected Koranist with a world wide reputation, Ali has written several important works on Islam. Convinced that I had a reliable translation, I read it from cover to cover, slowly, very slowly.

Yes, I have found lovely prayers, but I have found something very vicious in the Koran.  My readings have illuminated its hate and bigotry that is supported by Muslims  right now in our 21st century. For a Muslim, Islam is an immutable religion, the ultimate perfect religion; therefore, nothing in its orthodoxy is false. That was hard to swallow.

I kept talking and writing emails to my friends about my concerns. I had a private soapbox with my emails. My cousin told me I had become obsessed with Islam. She feltsthere were so many other politcally important issues.   I suppose I could put my passion into supporting a sports team or becoming a gourmet cook.  But I can't. I have found out too many details to sit quietly and make a quiche.   If I am obsessed, so be it, but I am justifiably scared that Islam will dominate the world, unless we prevent it.  No, I am not scared to death, but I don't intend to die before I have written what must be written.

Obviously that world obsessed can give you the wrong impression.  So allow me to defend my normalcy, my emotional equilibrium.

I am a middle-aged American woman who earned a graduate degree. My teaching career has spanned private and public schools and higher education. That is the resume part.  Who I am is a living, breathing woman one who can laugh at herself, enjoy a great joke, even at my own expense; who adores animals, especially elephants, and feeds squirrels, birds, and even those damn crows; who lives with an adoring and talented husband, an old dog rescued from Arizona, and a grumpy cat; who grinds her own coffee almost every morning, and loves crossword puzzles. Occasionally I write poetry and paint a canvas.  I avoid ironing. (Do I dare say with a passion?)

Yes, I am passionate, and like a mother defending her children, I am not afraid to flex my muscles.

So what is my issue?

I love America.  I hate fascism.  I am threatened my Islam.

I loathe those who wish to destroy Western Civilization and America.  I abhor their prejudice, hatred, and bigotry under the guise of their merciful and compassionate Allah.  Furthermore, I understand how political correctiveness and multiculturalism has made us mummies, afraid to utter one word of criticism, as we must be universally kind and accepting.  We have new words for criticism these days: bashing, dissing, Islamophobe. We whisper our concerns to one another in private for fear that raising our voices would put us in the same living room as Archie Bunker.

What else should I tell you?  I do not embrace jihad, the subjugation of women, men or children, suicide bombers, beheadings, floggings, gang rapes, honor killings, stonings, or the Arabic taqiyya--lying for the good of Islam.

I embrace religions that can make space in the world for others to worship without bombing mosques, churches, and synagogues.

I relish dialogue without fearing a fatwa.

To quote the author Brigitte Gabriel:  "Those who stick their heads under the sand, make a target of their behinds."  My arse will not be sticking up in the air.

I don't want yours to be sticking up either.

So I intend in my annoying obsessive way, like a pebble in your shoe or a fly in your soup, to continue to let you know what I learn, where I learned it, and how I learned it.  You don't have the time, but I do.

Most of you work full time, maintaining homes, caring for children, running to the grocery store, mowing lawns, working out in gyn, walking three miles a day for your health. You worry about your taxes, shop in a mall, have coffee at Starbucks, and watch football every Monday night.  You read your emails and pay your bills. Of course you are tired.  Down time is guarded with a vigilance.  "Just let me alone.  I am tired, and I want a bubble bath." 

I understand.

But here I am with the time to obsess about my country; I wear my patriotism on my sleeve, and just like the men and women in our military, I would die to protect this land.  America is certainly not perfect; but I don't know of anyone queuing up to live in Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, Lebanon,Yemen, or Saudi Arabia. I don't even know anyone who wants to live in Turkey where separation of Mosque and state exists. Yes, America certainly is a work in progress.  That is exactly it;  America moves toward the light.  It does not hide behind a state controlled press; it is not shrouded in darkness or a mental burka.  For hundred of years, Americans have struggled to make this country a good and decent place to live because passionate people have demanded, among many issues,  the separation of church and state, the right for women to vote, and equal treatment for  all under the law.  We have failures, but we publish ours.    We are free people with a free press.

So I have the freedom to tell you that if you unwrap the paper around Islam, you will find that the  fish is stinking.  The white paper wrapper must come off. 

My passion it to alert you to the danger of Islam--than danger that is it to you.  To your family. To your descendants.

That is why on the Ides  of March I have begun my blog.

I l

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