The Prophet Speaks...

One of his smaller soap box rants...

 Of the several articles I read about this recent event, I'm struck immediately how the angle of viewpoint throughout the piece seems to focus on the economic disruption and not the direct societal impact that is shown to be possible in this.

But also, there's a few things in particular that I pondered more than a moment on:

 A federal official said it was not considered it a terrorist threat.

So it's the ideology and not the act that determines a terrorist threat?

Gabrielle Zecha and Taj Heniser, visiting from Seattle, had tickets to see “Next to Normal” at the Booth Theater on 45th Street but could not get into the 8 p.m. show because the area was blocked off. But they made the best of the spectacle. “It’s a whole different kind of show,” Ms. Heniser said, adding, “It’s almost the equivalent of a $150 show.”

For it to be worth the $150, there would, of course, have to be at least one dead body.

Onlookers crowded against the metal barricades encircling the area, taking pictures with cellphones and video cameras, although only a swarm of flashing fire trucks and police cars was visible.

If this were my story—I deal in fiction—I'd have the bad guy put a couple of other bombs at some distance from the first (which would, of course, be lamely designed so as to appear to be the work of a deranged lone wolf and not an organized criminal conspiracy) that would be more insidious, and messy.

But that's just the way I'd write it if it were a fictional story.


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Forbidden Boolean String

According to this article in the LA Times, the internet makes it easier to become a terrorist. Easier than what? I ask, but deduce from the open-ended question they mean easier than without. The logic in that is shoddy, but we'll ignore such a discrepancy in order to have the discussion move past the poor rhetoric it displays.

Another objective flaw in the article is its attention solely to Islamic radicals.

From charismatic clerics who spout hate online, to thousands of extremist websites, chat rooms and social networking pages that raise money and spread radical propaganda, the Internet has become a crucial front in the ever-shifting war on terrorism.

to

[F]iery Internet imans who use English to preach jihad and, in some cases, to help funnel recruits to Al Qaeda and other radical causes.

I've encountered plenty of radical hate-mongering from far more than Islamic voices. I think the easy way to rationally discuss this sort of thing is by just killing everyone who's viewpoint is different than . . . hmmm, that doesn't work because then . . . we'd all have to . . . end up shooting . . . each other.

Okay, to rationally discuss this topic, instead of pointing fingers at just one religious sect of wingnuts, how about point our fingers at all spectrum of wingnuts.

Hmmmm, that really doesn't work either, sing who defines who the wingnuts are?

"Decent society" I guess. Although I've seen damn little proof such a place exists.

And so I tried something. I used Google to help my terrorist indoctrination. But alas! Google failed me. I shan't be able to join my hoped for radical group since, apparently, they don't exist:

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Fun and Laughing in an Iranian Prison

Jon Stewart saved the day on this one. I had a couple of sketches I'd written as responses to other articles but didn't care for either one. Then I watched the Daily Show and saw this piece.

The response is always easy to write when I find the source of the article exasperating.


~•~


ENG 290
December 1, 2009
Portfolio 5: Fun and Laughing in an Iranian Prison


Maziar Bahari was arrested following the 2009 Iranian elections and jailed for 118 days. While in prison, Bahari was repeatedly beaten and tortured. One of the principle pieces of evidence for the prosecution was an interview Bahari gave to the Daily Show as part of a comedy news story. The Iranian government didn't seem to comprehend sarcasm.

In mid-June, in the aftermath of the Iranian Elections, Bahari met Jason Jones of the Daily Show at a café in Tehran. In the comedy piece as aired, Jones interviews three people who had been detained in the few days since they had filmed. One of them, as Jones tells it, is "Iranian-born Newsweek contributer Maziar Bahari," who shares with Jones "his message of radical reasonableness" (sic).

On the morning of June 21, Bahari was arrested without charge and held in the Evin Prison until October 20. The story of his detention is detailed in several "mainstream" news outlets, a segment on CBS's 60 Minutes and an article in Newsweek. But Bahari also paid a visit to The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Opening the interview, Stewart says, "You were imprisoned in Iran—" and Bahari interrupts, "—because of you."

Bahari speaks of seeing the absurdity in his situation—being under arrest primarily for a seemingly innocuous interview with a comedy report—even as he was being interrogated about the election protests and questioned about accused dissidents. This situation, a clash of staunch theocratic minds of official Iranian government and sarcastic satire of an American comedy show interview, speaks loudly in microcosmic tones about the larger situation.

Terrorism no longer is seen in association with blown up city pubs or civilian bodies in a bread market, but is thrown in among political protests, public gatherings, and, it seems, comedy skits.
Satire and sarcasm have long be held forth as primary evidences of guaranteed freedom in the United States—the Western World. Which makes the clash of culture and understanding that much more sorrowful—more tragic—when it becomes the reason for someone's imprisonment and torture.

But in such a misunderstanding, it seems as well that there is something poetically ironic that humor has such power. For, in facing great tragedy, being able to laugh afterwards is one sure sign that compassion and humanity have survived.

Works Cited

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

"Jason Jones: Behind the Veil - Persians of Interest."
22 Jun. 2009. Online video clip.
Thedailyshow.com. Accessed on 1 Dec. 2009.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

"Maziar Bahari." 30 Nov. 2009. Online video clip.
Thedailyshow.com. Accessed on 1 Dec. 2009.

"Maziar Bahari." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

1 Dec 2009, 05:47 UTC. 1 Dec 2009.

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"Two-Thirty in the mornin' & I can't sleep..."

This was about the eighth assignment from Fiction I Class. We were to write "a letter story" (not that the fiction program at Columbia thought enough of us mere freshmen to actually tell us to write an epistolary tale, but that bleeds over into a philippic I will undoubtedly add to this blog at some future time concerning creative writing programs in general, and more specifically, my thoughts on the two I have personally been part of.

As for this piece, the teacher replied to me with, "You shouldn't write about something as complicated as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

At no point in this tale is there any mention nor even hint of Hebrew-Arabic strife, and, in fact, since two of the characters have Persian names (incidental to the point of the story), I really wondered if the teacher had actually read the piece at all.

Alas! Not the first time i would clash with the heirarchy of academia, especially in those aforementioned two creative writing programs.

The story here was triggered by a writing prompt: What you do at 2:30 in the morning.

~*~

FICTION I
October 4, 2007


"Two-Thirty in the mornin' & I can't sleep..."

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Salaam! Shalom! And all other manner of salutations, O Grim One, my brother from another mother.

Insomnia again, so I'm doin' what I do. It's 2.30 in the mornin' and I still can't sleep. At least the paranoia's subsided a bit; it's all just anxiety and edges now.

The front room here is cramped and stuffy and smells like rotting lemons. No one's showered in a couple of days, but then again, no one is complainin' since we all equally stink. Ghada comes from downstairs and complains in her motherly tone about how typing in this dim light is gonna ruin my eyes. I've got my little desk lamp on that spills a tiny circle of light on my desk by the Underwood typewriter where I've been hammering out the manifestos. She reaches up under the thick woolen lamp shade and twists the little black knobs until it clicks twice and the stuffy room is filled with dirty yellow light. She looks down at Syd on the floor in front of the couch and just shakes her head. That's about the only expression anyone ever has for Syd.

Syd pulled the ugly green couch cushions off the couch and laid them out on the floor. With a faded brown crocheted blanket tossed over the scratchy hounds-tooth cushions, he spread out on them about an hour ago and now he's passed out. He's been doin' dex for a couple of days and ate a bunch of valium a few hours ago. He was readin' and now Hitchhiker's Guide is folded open on his chest, rising and falling with his erratic pharmaceutical sleep. We should maybe turn him on his side, but it's not a priority on anyone's list. Kira was matchin' Syd's intake, but she's farin' better than he is. A short nod in the recliner, but now she's awake and all fidgety, watchin' some black and white movie on tv with the sound turned down. Neal's in the other room with El and Fen and a couple of others whose names I don't know. El & Fen. Yeah, that's really their names. 'S what happens when you're "in the field", as it were, as opposed to just holdin' the safe house.

We were all freakin' out just after they got here this afternoon because about a half hour later, all the cops in the world showed up outside. We all went into defense mode, but it turned out their target was the house across the street. They were bustin' some dumb ass with a meth lab in his closet. Kinda funny, when ya think about it. Not funny, ha-ha, but funny, like, well, like the sort of funny where cops are bustin' a meth lab when right across the street. Freakin' meth lab! There goes the neighborhood, right!?

After last week's Thanksgiving bombs--a dozen chain store coffee shops were all blow up within sixty seconds of each other, coordinated terrorist attack, the news called it. The brand name coffee stores were closed at the time, of course, it was a holiday, so there were only a few people injured by the blasts. One person died. Anyway, I digress. Constantly. But you know that. As I was sayin', after last weeks' Thanksgiving bombs, the cops are naturally a bit jumpy. Witness the heavy response to the meth lab across the street. Ironic place for a safe house so close to a cop show like that!

Some cat I don't know comes in from the kitchen and asks me if I want to join them. "Zak'?" he called my name a few times before I noticed. I've been typin' out plans and peakin' out the window between half-open curtains at the chem suits across the street and tryin' to ignore the commotion from the kitchen. Dorian, that's this cat's name, Dorian Gray, just like the book, he's askin' me if I want to join them in the kitchen. "What's cookin'?" I ask. He tells me. Kira jumps at the offer. Absinthe, speed, and now they're fixin' some hot knives to smoke some hash. Strange safe house we've got here, but it's never drawn any attention in three years. I guess all safe houses could say that; they're safe regardless of what goes on inside them until they get raided. I look forward to staying at a place where these sort of things are the standard behavior.

The blend of spice smells is odd, anise and sweet tar. I'd like to, but I need to finish the outline of plans before I get any more fucked up. Not that they shouldn't be, right now. Hell, most of 'em have just finished their end of things for a while, so it's a good time to celebrate, I guess. And a few of the others don't have to be clear-eyed until tomorrow afternoon when they take out the children's gifts. But my end of things has to get done right now. Guidelines. Projections. Organizin'. Mappin' routes. And a couple other things. One of which I have just appointed for myself; that's to be paranoid enough for the rest of us. We had the obligatory visit a few hours ago from the cops who said all houses had to be evacuated because...well, he didn't say aloud why, but it was clear from the chem suit guys across the street in their big trucks. Explosive hazard, they said, and I laughed behind my straight face. I spoke with the cop and told him my elderly grandmother was an ornery ol' crone and said she'd be damned if they moved her out of her own house and where would she go anyway if they did. He bought it with change left over and told us he'd come back if necessary. It wasn't, of course. They hauled off the poor dumb kid--not yet twenty, from the look of him--who'd been cookin' meth in his closet or somethin'. Who'd have thought? Right across the street! It's just a quiet neighborhood.

Anyway, the smells from the kitchen was enticin', but I had to pass for now. Even when I got through writin' up the guide for everyone, and mappin' the routes and placements and such, I still had to go over the various drafts we had for the press release and finalize it. Then there was the finishin' touches to be done on the gift packages.

Ghada comes back in and asks when the Hanukkah gifts are goin' to be ready. The hash smell clings to her beautiful dark skin and bald head and I tell her to just be patient. She abstains from the absinthe and wine, of course, the Prophet speaks against intoxicants, but somehow, by the measures of her mosque, such abstinence doesn't include Lebanese hash. She takes a look over my shoulder at the maps and things I've already finished and seem to be pleased with the dropoff locations. She tries to take a gander at the manifesto, but until I'm finished with it, no one reads it.

The anxiety in the house is turning to excitement. I ask 'em if I could get just a small toke of somethin' before I finish wrapping the presents and they head off to the kitchen and I push my laptop (and this email to you) away and peer out the window again. The last of the chem trucks pulls away and I sigh a deep breath of relief. I didn't want to leave my window seat until they were all gone, so I guess it's time to play Santa Claus.

Does Santa come around on Hanukkah, too?

This year he will, I guess.

Ghada brings me a small hookah and I take a few quick puffs. Plus one more thinkin' of my distance brother. Kira gladly takes over the hookah. A thank you to Ghada and I'm off to the basement where the Hanukkah gifts sit in wait. Even when I smoke hash or even opium I can't sleep.

Just like Thanksgiving, we'll make sure our light display is afterhours. Collateral effects are always a factor in any human endeavor, but our show is not meant to be waged with flesh and blood. The manifesto cries for something beyond that...I triple check the wiring and it is all perfect. The taggants and detonators and caps. Everything is ready. I sit down in the small concrete cellar and smile at my array of Hanukkah gifts to the world. A two dozen packages of T4. The canvas, brush and paints for our masterpiece of fire, glass and stone.

Our Christmas party will be even better.

This is what I do at 2.30 in the morning when I can't sleep--

--Mondays will never be the same,

L. Zakariyya, Nepenthe


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