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by Hugh Cook |
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Section 98 Entry 0001. Date: 2004 March 05 Friday.
(diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents) It's 22:36 Japan time and I don't know when I'm going to be able to upload this, because I can't access the zenvirus.com website at all. In frustration, I started clicking round other blogs, and clicked through to the website of the Iraqi blogger Salam Pax, who blogged all through the recent war in Iraq. Last update by Salam on his website is dated Wednesday, February 25, 2004. It says, in part, "Raed you should have been here today, how could miss out Ashura? Well, you still have 5 more days to get your ass back to Iraq and in Karbala". And now, on the site, there's a note from Salam's (close) friend Raed, dated Wednesday, March 03, 2004: "salam i was trying to call your phones all the day long, i hope u didnt die in the karbala explosions "I'm coming back to baghdad next week". Karbala, of course, is one of the Iraqi cities hit by bomb attacks very recently. Update 2004 March 07 Sunday (Japan time):- Salam Pax survived Karbala. On his website he has an entry dated Saturday, March 06, 2004, which tells the story of how he met an Ayatollah ("a real life Ayatollah") (this is worth reading!) and what happened to him on the day of explosions:- |
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I, my mother and my cousin were out of the center of the city, running, by the third mortar. it was the last two that did the damage and it happened near the shrine of Abbas not al-Hussein where we were staying.
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Section 98 Entry 0002. Date: 2004 March 07 Sunday. (diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents) I found a startling quote from the Age of the Ayatollahs (the age we're living in) in the Toronto Star. It's in an article by Linda McQuaig, an article on the Mel Gibson film The Passion of Christ. The article (or, more exactly, a review, I guess) is dated March 7 and is headlined "Fanning Flames of anti-Semitism." Ms McQuaig writes that the "bleak vision" of the film "fits well with the emergence of an intolerant, fundamentalist mentality in which the world is neatly divided into good and evil, them and us". Then comes a paragraph which contains the quote, and the quote did indeed really startle me:- |
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Even apparently secular institutions are getting into the fundamentalist swing of things. New York Times reporter Elizabeth Bumiller put an astonishing question to Democratic front-runner John Kerry in a televised debate last month. "Is God on America's side?" she asked, apparently unaware that this is the 21st not the 15th century, and that she works for a newspaper, not an Inquisition panel.
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Right now, a functional link to the article is:-
Actually, for the record, God is on America's side. As someone wrote, long ago, "God is on the side of the big battalions." (Looking on the Internet, that limitless font of useful information, I find this quote, or something like it, variously attributed to Stalin, Napoleon and Voltaire ....) Section 98 Entry 0003. Date: 2004 March 08 Monday. (diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents) Bill Clinton for vice president! This (theoretical) possibility surfaced (briefly) on CNN this morning. Apparently it's constitutionally possible - although Bill's been twice elected president, this doesn't bar him from getting himself elected as vice president. This time round, I find myself genuinely interested in the American presidential elections, even though I'm not an American and I don't live in America. An intriguing idea came my way recently: given that the American presidential elections are so important for the world, we should all ("we" being everyone who lives on this planet) get a vote. That sounded very reasonable to me! (I can't now remember where this idea came from. I know of a certainty that it's not mine, but I don't remember whether someone said it to be in conversation, or whether it's something I read on a website, or what.) Later on 2004 March 08: re a world vote for the US president, Joshua writes to say "I don't know if you have read The Bridge by Iain Banks, but this was a concept that was raised by one of his characters. Good book by the way." Having heard that, out of interest I typed "world vote US president" into Google's search box, and discovered that there's actually a website devoted to the idea of getting everyone round the world to cast a vote in the American presidential election of 2004. Apparently even Americans can vote:- |
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Theworldvotes.org is most certainly not intended to be an anti-America or anti-G.W. Bush platform. We welcome U.S. Citizens to register and have their voice heard as well.
Casting your vote on theworldvotes.org does not mean that you have voted officially. We encourage U.S. citizens to cast their vote in their traditional polling station as well. |
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Section 98 Entry 0004. Date: 2004 March 11 Thursday. (diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents) On the TV news on NHK 1 here in Japan, not one word this morning about Martha Stewart. Rather, the news is dominated by weightier matters, particularly the ongoing outbreak of avian flu. Section 98 Entry 0005. Date: 2004 March 13 Saturday. (diary) (previous) (top) (bottom) (next) (topics) (contents) Hillary Clinton for vice president? This thought had never occurred to me until this morning, when I was watching CNNj and Dan Rather, in passing, mentioned this unlikely but less than impossible possibility to Larry King while talking about John Kerry's possible running mates. |
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