LJ Idol Season 9 Week 13 - By Order of the Prophet
o/` "The king called up his jet fighters
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way" o/`
-- "Rock the Casbah" performed by The Clash
My friends and family know that almost ten years ago I put myself on a "no news" diet. I did it for several minor reasons --- the lack of researched stories, the unbalanced presentation, the exaggerated drama intended to frighten and inhibit the audience --- but the main reason I did so was to keep from going completely insane. In the days when I did watch the news, I watched both the dinner hour and the ten o'clock broadcasts. I even surfed channels I'd pre-programmed into my remote so I would be certain I hadn't missed anything important. I fared no better with the computer; each morning, I would pour a cup of coffee and go into the office to scan news sites. Fox, CNN, MSNBC, half a dozen others; if it remotely resembled news, I read it.
I didn't notice the crippling anxiety until one evening my husband came home and found me in tears. I'd been half convinced he'd been in a fatal car wreck, terrorists lurked around every corner, my kitchen cleaners had become potential bombs, and quite possibly some of my favorite restaurants were out to kill me. He removed as many of the news channels from our television subscription as he could and blocked all the computer news sites with a password to which I did not have access. The following morning, he marched me to my primary physician's office and told him I needed medication for anxiety.
Now it just so happens that I really did need medicated for that particular disorder but watching news all the time hadn't helped it.
These days I seldom watch the news; the small Reuters blurbs on my public radio station are enough to keep me informed and if something catches my mind, I can always go look it --- and only that particular story --- up. Most of the time, the media has simply built a mountain out of a mole hill and I'm done after the first headline and sentence blurb. This past month, though, has been different. I've been eagerly waiting with baited breath for the birth of a new nation.
Michael Asher, one of TE Lawrence's biographers, but it best (emphasis mine):
An Arab army had entered Damascus, and after five centuries the conquest of Selim the Grim had been avenged. If it had not been for European ambitions, Lawrence believed, then the Arabs might have gone on to take Anatolia, Baghdad, and even the Yemen and established a new Arab empire in the East. But European greed had brought the movement to a halt in its finest hour..... (Lawrence: Uncrowned King of Arabia, page 340)
If you've been following international news, you are already aware that a Sunni faction has taken over large portions of Iraq in an effort to create an Arab caliphate (a caliphate is a district often spanning several nations which is religiously governed by a male who can claim direct descent from the prophet Mohammad). This morning, scanning headlines, I discovered that is exactly what seems to be happening. From a purely historical point of view, it's interesting to me to note that the Middle East is dividing along the tribal lines Lawrence originally envisioned. Of further interest is ISIL's border demands: they want the Sykes-Picot borders abolished.
It's very clear --- to me, at least --- at this point that this is nothing for Westerners (the US specifically) to interfere with. It was, and is, an internal racial and religious issue. Provided the rest of the world stays out of it, we just might see an Islamic state rising like a phoenix out of the ashes. This will happen anyway; the boundaries are falling back into those initially imposed by tribal guidelines and religious affiliations. Whether or not we are invited to play in the new sandbox depends on how well we can share the toys and whether or not we know when to go home for dinner when told to do so.
What about my no-news diet? Why is this my business. Some of you know via other pieces I've written; for the rest of you, let's just say that an Arab was very kind to me at great risk to himself when my fellow countrymen not only would not help but had instigated the peril in the first place. I'd like to think that his grandchildren might have this as the legacy they were owed which never came to fruition in their grandfather's or father's time.
More information:
Mapping Iraq's Fighting Factions
Sykes-Picot Agreement (Compare these maps with the one above)
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way" o/`
-- "Rock the Casbah" performed by The Clash
My friends and family know that almost ten years ago I put myself on a "no news" diet. I did it for several minor reasons --- the lack of researched stories, the unbalanced presentation, the exaggerated drama intended to frighten and inhibit the audience --- but the main reason I did so was to keep from going completely insane. In the days when I did watch the news, I watched both the dinner hour and the ten o'clock broadcasts. I even surfed channels I'd pre-programmed into my remote so I would be certain I hadn't missed anything important. I fared no better with the computer; each morning, I would pour a cup of coffee and go into the office to scan news sites. Fox, CNN, MSNBC, half a dozen others; if it remotely resembled news, I read it.
I didn't notice the crippling anxiety until one evening my husband came home and found me in tears. I'd been half convinced he'd been in a fatal car wreck, terrorists lurked around every corner, my kitchen cleaners had become potential bombs, and quite possibly some of my favorite restaurants were out to kill me. He removed as many of the news channels from our television subscription as he could and blocked all the computer news sites with a password to which I did not have access. The following morning, he marched me to my primary physician's office and told him I needed medication for anxiety.
Now it just so happens that I really did need medicated for that particular disorder but watching news all the time hadn't helped it.
These days I seldom watch the news; the small Reuters blurbs on my public radio station are enough to keep me informed and if something catches my mind, I can always go look it --- and only that particular story --- up. Most of the time, the media has simply built a mountain out of a mole hill and I'm done after the first headline and sentence blurb. This past month, though, has been different. I've been eagerly waiting with baited breath for the birth of a new nation.
Michael Asher, one of TE Lawrence's biographers, but it best (emphasis mine):
An Arab army had entered Damascus, and after five centuries the conquest of Selim the Grim had been avenged. If it had not been for European ambitions, Lawrence believed, then the Arabs might have gone on to take Anatolia, Baghdad, and even the Yemen and established a new Arab empire in the East. But European greed had brought the movement to a halt in its finest hour..... (Lawrence: Uncrowned King of Arabia, page 340)
If you've been following international news, you are already aware that a Sunni faction has taken over large portions of Iraq in an effort to create an Arab caliphate (a caliphate is a district often spanning several nations which is religiously governed by a male who can claim direct descent from the prophet Mohammad). This morning, scanning headlines, I discovered that is exactly what seems to be happening. From a purely historical point of view, it's interesting to me to note that the Middle East is dividing along the tribal lines Lawrence originally envisioned. Of further interest is ISIL's border demands: they want the Sykes-Picot borders abolished.
It's very clear --- to me, at least --- at this point that this is nothing for Westerners (the US specifically) to interfere with. It was, and is, an internal racial and religious issue. Provided the rest of the world stays out of it, we just might see an Islamic state rising like a phoenix out of the ashes. This will happen anyway; the boundaries are falling back into those initially imposed by tribal guidelines and religious affiliations. Whether or not we are invited to play in the new sandbox depends on how well we can share the toys and whether or not we know when to go home for dinner when told to do so.
What about my no-news diet? Why is this my business. Some of you know via other pieces I've written; for the rest of you, let's just say that an Arab was very kind to me at great risk to himself when my fellow countrymen not only would not help but had instigated the peril in the first place. I'd like to think that his grandchildren might have this as the legacy they were owed which never came to fruition in their grandfather's or father's time.
More information:
Mapping Iraq's Fighting Factions
Sykes-Picot Agreement (Compare these maps with the one above)