Letter from a Student: "A Bumpy Ride"

Lady Writing a Letter by Johannes Vermeer. Source: Wikipedia 

Bette Davis as Margo Channing in "All About Eve."
Her famous line, "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy night."
Painting by Trevor Heath. Source

I distinctly remember my first day of Mythology and Folklore. As an English major with a writing concentration, this was my first time walking into the intimidating Science Hall East with its tall grey walls, automatic doors, and clean-cut, contemporary design. It was nothing like the rustic Raubinger Hall and mildew-scented Hunziker wing that I was so accustomed to. The only common denominator between these buildings was a plethora of smokers huddled under the awning in order to keep dry. As I ventured into room 5041, I noticed the previous professor had left a lecture on the going influenza epidemic that was sweeping the nation.

When Doctor Danusha Goska walked in, the entire class was in for a surprise. The wispy thin, white marking on the green and black chalkboards were revealed to be hers. She set her enormous backpack and curiously strange walking stick in a corner of the room and without a pause continued into a discussion of how it was the students' responsibility not to become ill: how to wash our hands, cover our mouths when coughing and keeping a distance from those who are or may seem infected. As my eyes crawled along the faces of my peers, Doctor Goska's voice was still murmuring in the background and I knew we were all thinking the same thing. "This course is going to be a bumpy ride."

However, four months into the semester, I have no reservations in saying that our lives have completely changed because of this class. I become excited when seeing my classmate William because he is a fellow English major, Chiyomi, in order to discuss the difference in our cultures, allow Christopher to vent about his girlfriend and future deployment, or Nikki and her precious new niece. It is because of Doctor Goska that we have gained confidence in ourselves and trust in each other.

After introducing us to absolutely repulsive creation myths, fairy tales ranging from Cinderella to talking snakes in India and the issues occurring in modern times, she has filled us with not only a vast amount of knowledge, but the ability to dissect materials presented and fully understand them. Due to her eccentrically charged personality, we were given an unforgettable experience. She spent some time regarding proper research methods, and together we can locate the appropriate sources for my project and distinguish them from false sources. I have learned so much in her class I was completely unaware of. My communication, debate, and analytical skills have increased. I am delighted to recommend this class to all students. Together, Dr. Goska and I can create something magnificent that we will both be proud of.

***

Letter from a student to my boss, quoted with permission.

What delights me most about this letter is my student's great skill at writing. What pleases me second is that she reports that I taught her how to do research and how to assess material for its truth value. She wrote to report that these skills with help her with her own research.

I am so happy that I left this student with these feelings. That’s what I want to do most as a teacher. Teach my students not WHAT to think, but HOW to think.

Yay. Yay. :-)

Finally, I'm really pleased that my student felt that our class was a place where she could connect with fellow students. The professor isn't all that important. What is important, what will serve students for the rest of their lives, are their human connections, and their people skills. I encourage students to connect, not only with me, but with each other. 

What It's Like to Be Swallowed by a Hippopotamus

Source

"There was a terrible, sulphurous smell, like rotten eggs, and a tremendous pressure against my chest," Paul Templer said, recalling the moment he realized he had been swallowed by a hippopotamus.

At the time, Templer was 27, a river guide taking groups of tourists down the Zambezi river near Victoria Falls, along the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe...(Full story here.)

"Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins" by Robert Spencer, 2012. A Book Review

Robert Spencer's 2012 book "Did Muhammad Exist? An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins," citing peer-reviewed scholarship, makes a very strong case that everything previously believed about Islam, both by devout Muslims and secular historians, was invented to serve imperial, military, political ends. Islam was invented, Spencer argues, to provide a unifying ideology for the Arab conquest that began in the seventh century and that defeated Persia, besieged Byzantium, stretched to India, and made it all the way to Spain by 711.

Islam is different from Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism but like Christianity in this important aspect: it relies on an historically real founder. Christianity needs Jesus to exist. Without Jesus' life, teaching, miracles, death and resurrection, Christianity could not exist. Just so Islam. Islam is very much the vision of one man, Muhammad, presumed to have really lived; in that sense, it is entirely fitting to refer to Islam as Muhammadanism and Muslims as Muhammadans. Muslims believed that Muhammad was visited by the Archangel Gabriel, who dictated the Koran to him. Muhammad then began sharing this new revelation with followers, and eventually Muhammad instituted jihad, war to establish Islam as the only faith on earth. Secular historians have long accepted this narrative, if not putting faith in its supernatural aspect.

Other sacred texts, such as the Jewish Torah, the Hindu Vedas, and the Buddhist Sutras are the products of centuries, and vast communities. The Koran is the product of the alleged encounter of one man – Muhammad – with an archangel, Gabriel. Without an historical Muhammad and a reliable record of this encounter, Islam has no foundations whatsoever.

Spencer points out that there are no contemporary or near contemporary mentions of Muhammad. When Arab armies attacked and pillaged in the seventh century, those they attacked often did not mention Muhammad, Muslims, the Koran, or Islam. An early document, the Doctrina Jacobi of the mid seventh century, refers to an "Antichrist," an Arab "armed with a sword," who is alive after Muhammad was supposed to have died.

Sophronius, in 637, gives a devastating account of these Arab raids: "Barbarian raids abound…there has been so much destruction and plunder…incessant outpourings of human blood…the birds of the sky devouring human bodies…churches pulled down…the cross mocked…Christ blasphemed." Spencer points out that centuries later, Muslim historians whitewashed these events, depicting the Arab conquest of the Holy Land as respectful and restrained.

There are early mentions of Muhammad, but he is not the Muhammad of later Islam. He announces himself as preparing the way for Jesus; he declares that the Jews have the right to the Holy Land. Violence, though, was a feature of this new faith, whatever it was. "They inflict the pain of death upon anyone who seems to contradict his tradition," wrote a contemporary of the Arab Conquests.

Arab conquerors, too, writes Spencer, did not mention Islam or Muhammad at first, and when they began to mention them, they did so in a way that differs from the understanding of Islam today. For example, Arab conquerors struck coins with the word "Muhammad" combined with a Christian cross. Christian crosses are anathema in today's Islam. As late as the eighth century, Arab rulers are announcing themselves as worshipping "The Lord of Moses and Aaron" – not Muhammad (61).

Inscriptions on the seventh century Dome of the Rock seem to indicate that the Koran was not codified by that time, and one interpretation argues that these inscriptions show that early Arab invaders weren't quite sure whom they worshipped; possibly Jesus. Clarity of the Islamic messages as totally different from Christianity may have come about because of "pressure from rebel factions" and Caliph Abd al-Malik's need to unify troops (58). "It is possible that Abd al-Malik expropriated and expanded on the nascent Muhammad myth for his own political purposes" (59). Certainly lines emerge that support political power, e.g. "'obedience to the Caliph in his every demand was compulsory for the population'" (60).

Islam itself, and Muslims themselves, repeatedly acknowledge fabricated material about Muhammad. Muslims attempting to establish their idea of who Muhammad was and what Islam should be protest against what they allege to be fabricated material, and develop ways to lend an air of credibility to their material. "My facts are better than so-and-so's facts because I got my facts from a more reliable source than so-and-so." There is no support for these assertions. There are no extra-Islamic mentions of Muhammad to rely on, and no contemporary documents. Believers are simply to leave their inquiring minds at the door, and accept the biographical details about Muhammad that are supported by the biggest guns.

Accepted biographical details about Muhammad are self-contradictory. Muhammad famously did not perform any miracles, except when he did perform miracles; he forbids, then praises, innovation; Muhammad forbids, then encourages the killing of women and children (77). There are many such contradictions; Spencer points out that these contradictions can easily be understood in light of the political needs of the person producing the biological detail. If a given, contemporary political problem required Muhammad to do or say x, y, or z, he could be made to do so (66).

This cynical view is not limited to non-Muslims. "'Emirs forced people to write hadiths,'" an early Islamic scholar protested (71). One leader demanded a hadith that forbade pilgrimage to Mecca, considered a pillar of Islam today (72). Islam insists that these biographical details were passed down since the lifetime of Muhammad, but there is no early record of them (68-69). Bukhari, author of a respected collection of hadiths, traversed the Muslim world collecting hadiths – and he rejected 293,000 of them as fabricated! Bukhari was a Persian, born in Uzbekistan, two hundred years after Muhammad died. Bukhari was not an Arab. There is no good reason to accept his work as factual.

Ibn Ishaq, Muhammad's first biographer, did not write until over a hundred years after the death of Muhammad, and his work no longer exists. It is known only by later references to it, made two hundred years after Muhammad died. This work's author admitted that he presents only a bowdlerized version. At least one Muslim historian regarded Ibn Ishaq as unreliable (88). Another alleges that Jews are to blame for Ibn Ishaq's problems (90). Ibn Ishaq assigns dates to every event in Muhammad's life. None of those dates occur during time periods that existed before a renovation of the calendar. This seems to indicate the dates were fabricated by an author unaware of that calendric innovation (98).

When assessing ancient texts, scholars seek support for the texts in still extant archaeological sites. Archaeology seems to contradict Muhammad's received biography. It contradicts what is known about Mecca (104-5).

When assessing texts, scholars consider the "criterion of embarrassment." Does the text contain material that might embarrass? If so, it is more likely to be true. Those who argue for the authenticity of Muhammad material cite his marriage, when he was fifty plus, to a six year old girl, and his demanding that his son relinquish his wife and allow Muhammad to marry his own daughter-in-law. Spencer claims that these details might jibe with seventh century Arab warlord needs and values.

The Koran is a notoriously incoherent book. It is unlike other world scriptures, whose narratives and values are usually readily apparent to non-members even on a first read through. One estimate states that 20 % of the Koran simply makes no sense (149). Islam's "theological flux" is explained with a Koranic verse that says that Allah gives better verses to abrogate inferior ones (128; 131). The Koran is said to be all but divine, but passing influences dictate its contents (128-9). Muslim traditions state that some Koranic verses disappeared (135-137). Scholarship backs this up; analysis shows that the Koran is the result of several authors working over the course of many years (138-9).

Finally, Spencer argues that the Koran was based largely on pre-existent Jewish and mainstream and heretical Christian material from the Bible and folklore (148-9). Much of this material was obviously misunderstood, for example, the Koran describing Jesus as Moses' nephew. Again, Islamic tradition supports this view, announcing that Muhammad's critics called him merely someone who heard and regurgitated Jewish and Christian tradition, "fairy tales of the ancients he has written down" (146-7).

Many words in the Koran make no sense in Arabic or any known language. It is possible that these words are the results of errors. If one understands the Koran in the context of the Syriac language and the Christian heresy of Arianism, it begins to make sense – but it is a much less "Islamic" text. It is not the unique revelation of God to a prophet, but simply a misunderstood and misused text. Translated correctly, the Koran may contain celebrations of the Last Supper, of Christmas, and a Christian confession of faith.

Did Muhammad exist? Spencer says that he possibly did, but scholarship shows that he is not the prophet of a coherent and new revelation, but, rather, that his name was used to unify and rally an imperialist, expansionist Arab conquest. That conquest's scripture was a garbled version of a Jewish and Christian substratum that evolved in response to military needs.

Amanda Berry in Cleveland, and in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan ...

Child bride in Afghanistan Source

Child brides in Yemen. Source

Everyone is upset about the news from Cleveland, as well they should be. Remember, though, that in countries like Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the "marriage" of girl children against their will to adult men, and their living under house-arrest conditions, is not a freakish, nightmarish, unspeakable crime, but standard operating procedure.

These girl children are married off in accord with canonical scripture.

These girls forced against their will to be wives of much older men they do not know or love often attempt or commit suicide.

A child bride who attempted to burn herself to death. Source

A child bride whose husband tried to kill her. Source

Prayer Request; Praying for a Miracle for My Sister

Dear Jesus,

"Inhale as a believer, exhale as an atheist." That's a line from my book "Save Send Delete. I know it's a line from my book because in his recent review, Jeff Miller quoted that line. I had forgotten writing that line. Sometimes, readers remind writers of lines they have forgotten writing.

Can I perform that service for you now, Jesus? May I remind you of a line you may have forgotten speaking?

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

Jesus, I am asking. I am seeking. I am knocking.

Jesus, please heal my sister and bless her family. Her surgery is today. I am praying for a miracle cure. For her, for her family.

A believer. An atheist. On the inhale. On the exhale. Both in mere seconds?

God, I have seen enough wonder in your world that I could never be a real atheist. I accept Darwin. Darwin explains nothing. Mechanics. Anyone with a heart, anyone who can be moved by poetry, anyone who has been amazed by a child, knows that mechanics explains nothing.

I think of the tok tokkie beetle of the Namib Desert, one of the driest deserts in the world. It gets less than half an inch of rain a year. At dawn, the tok tokkie beetle scurries to the top of a sand dune, facing the ocean. The beetle stands on its head. Mist moves across the dune. The beetle's back is grooved; the grooves point toward its mouth. Mist condenses into water; the water flows down the beetle's grooved back towards its mouth. The beetle drinks this water. I don't believe that mere chance, given no matter how many billions of years, produced that eccentric, expert, indispensable water fountain.

God, I have seen enough pain in your world that I struggle with my belief.

My sister has already dealt with enough pain. Her diagnosis comes less than a year after mine. And everything before this. Suffering? Me or any one of my siblings. We could teach graduate level classes.

So, yes, I want to lose my faith. I want to curse God and die.

The great irony is that the words I want to use to seal my atheism are your words, God! "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani," "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Your words, God! Matthew 27:46. "My only friend is darkness," Psalm 88:18. "Curse God and die," Job 2:9.

Jesus, here is a line I know you spoke that I know you will remember. I've reminded you of it often enough, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died." John 11:21

If you had been here, my brother would not have died.

I remember every second. Sitting at the kitchen table. Phil, beautiful Phil, coming downstairs, pausing at the kitchen sink to get a drink. He was wearing a fancy shirt with a painting of a woman's face on the back. It worked. Phil looked good in everything he wore. He moved to the back door, opened it, and left. I was the last person in the family to see him alive.

Seven years later. That dream I had in Nepal. I was living at seven thousand feet, in a village with no electricity, no running water, no glass, no steel, no roads, no planes flying overhead. No telephone, no telegraph, no communication except what could be carried by foot. I had a dream that my mother, my sister, and a doctor landed in a helicopter, got out, walked up to me, and said, "You have to go home. Someone is sick in the family."

I took my passport out of hiding, put it in my backpack, and told my headmaster that I was gone. It was monsoon. As I was walking downhill through mist, several vague, pale forms moved toward me. They looked somehow ghostlike, not human. I realized later it was because they were all dressed all in white – mourning color – and they were all bald, with shaved eyebrows. They trooped past me silently. I realized later, they were my students. Someone had died in their family. That was why they were white, silent, and hairless. Another sign.

Of course I found out when I got to Kathmandu. My brother Mike. Phil had had one stepson. Mike had a son and his wife was pregnant with his daughter, whom he would never know.

In other words, yes, I know that suffering teaches us much. We've gotten it, God. We've learned the lesson.

Miracles also teach us much. Please, Jesus, heal my sister.

And I know you might say no.

And my prayer rapidly becomes, please, Jesus, wrap my sister's husband and her children and her dog in your love.

No matter what happens.

But, please, Jesus, let that not happen. Unlike Mike, unlike Phil, unlike me, let my sister see her grandchildren.

Jesus I know that at this very moment her children, and probably even her dog, are pelting you with all of my sister's good qualities. Her wit so fast it seems to do what physicists can't and turns back time and makes you laugh before you even realized there was anything to laugh about. Her strength. Her unimpeachable work ethic that would make Atlas seem a slacker.

But miracles don't work that way. Jesus, you knew that your cousin, John the Baptist, had many good qualities. Maybe as many good qualities as my sister. Of him, you said, "I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John."

In spite of how well you thought of John, when John was in trouble with Herod, you did not rescue him. No miracle. Herod chopped of John's head. This is what you said, Jesus, "What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed blown by the wind? What did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, people who have fine clothes and much wealth live in kings' palaces."

It's almost like you are taunting John. You are saying to him, "This is what life is. It's a desert that offers soul-forming lessons, but for those lessons to take, you have to experience the good, and the bad."

But, Jesus, you did save some people. You did perform some miracles. And not because the recipient had many good qualities.

This is how miracles work:

A woman who had a hemorrhage for twelve years, and could not be healed by anyone, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak, and immediately her hemorrhage stopped. And Jesus said, "Who is the one who touched Me?" And while they were all denying it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing in on You." But Jesus said, "Someone did touch Me, for I was aware that power had gone out of Me." When the woman saw that she had not escaped notice, she came trembling and fell down before Him, and declared in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched Him, and how she had been immediately healed. And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace." Luke 8:43-48

The woman with a hemorrhage did not plead her case. She did not hire a lawyer or a PR agent to present to you a carefully manicured advertising campaign proving why she deserved to live.

She just touched your garment.

Jesus, we are touching your garment today in the name of my sister.

And her family. Whom I beg you to bless

No

Matter

What

Happens.

Because you also said, "Thy will be done."

Inhale as a believer, exhale as an atheist. Because I have seen your glory. And I have felt your lack. And it's funny how your glory can shine in the darkest places.

I was with my mother when she died. We were alone in the house together.

It's hard to describe that moment. She was in terrible pain. She was wasted by disease. The only relationship she and I had was a shared relationship to pain.

Being with her when she died was one of those moments, God, when I know that you exist. It was just one of the most transcendent moments of my life. In spite of everything.

I pray for a miracle for my sister, her family, and her dog. In Jesus' name I pray.

Liberals Who Support Jihad and Gender Apartheid. Why?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Champion of women's rights.
One of the most courageous, outspoken women in the world.
Should be a liberal heroine.
Liberals have accused her of being an imperialist, hateful, Islamophobe.
What gives?

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva. Maleficent.

Martin Richard, the Boston bombers' youngest victim. "No more hurting people. Peace."
Why wouldn't this innocent child the person we defend? The passing we mourn?
The kind of loss we vow to prevent?

It is a frequently commented upon counterintuitive phenomenon: a critical mass of – not all but a significant number of – liberals defend jihad and gender apartheid, two of the problematic features of Islam.

How do some – not all – liberals defend jihad and gender apartheid?

In my experience, their defense consists most significantly of demonizing any critique of jihad and gender apartheid. If one dare say in public that jihad, which entails killing people in order to spread Islam, is a bad idea, these liberals become agitated and verbally aggressive. They denounce any such criticism as tantamount to an invitation to commit genocide against Muslims.

The two factors here are bizarre: the refusal to allow critique of jihad and gender apartheid, and the insistence that any such critique is tantamount to an invitation to commit genocide against Muslims.

An example. When I was a humanities grad student at a major research university, if clitoredectomy came up in class, liberal grad students and professors would rush to defend it, insisting that clitoredectomy was in every respect comparable to the Catholic rite of confirmation.

Is clitoredectomy comparable to confirmation? Please read the opening pages of Nawal el Sadaawi's The Hidden Face of Eve. She describes what it was like to be awoken one night, when she was six years old, dragged, naked, by strangers, into a bathroom, thrown on the floor, and sexually mutilated. It is a terrifying, unforgettable passage. You can find the full passage at this website.

***

Why do some – not all – liberals do this? Why do they demonize any critique of jihad and gender apartheid, while not only allowing, but encouraging, criticism of the failures of Catholicism and Judaism, the foundational faiths of Western Civilization?

The reasons are complex, but a recent dustup on Facebook offered some clues as to what is going on in the minds of those liberals who defend jihad and gender apartheid.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is the mother of the Boston Bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. I was repelled by Tsarnaeva's announcement to CNN that she didn't care if her son Dzhokhar was killed.

Tsarnaeva made other ugly public statements. I won't post them all, but one got me. She insisted that the Boston bombing was staged by the US government, and that the blood was merely paint. I thought of eight-year-old Martin Richard, the bombers' youngest victim. His blood was real, human blood. To call it paint is atrocious.

I posted a photograph of Tsarnaeva on Facebook and compared her to Maleficent, a Disney villainness.

And my Facebook page burst into flames.

Liberals jumped down my throat. How dare I disrespect this grief-stricken mother? After days of craziness, the message morphed into, "If you post a picture of Zubeidat Tsarnaeva comparing her to a Disney villainness, your ultimate goal is to foment a genocide of Muslims."

Let's address this bizarre accusation right now. I have criticized the Catholic Church, in published writing. I have criticized Protestants, in my published writing. I have criticized Jews and Hindus and Buddhists, in my published writing.

No liberal has ever told me that I should not criticize Catholics or Jews or Hindus or Buddhists or Protestants. No liberal has ever told me that such criticism is tantamount to fomenting genocide against Catholics or Jews or … you get the idea.

These liberals maintain a double standard. In fact, a couple of the liberals who jumped down my throat maintain a steady stream of anti-Christian, anti-Israel and anti-American posts on their own Facebook pages.

***

After the Boston bombing, my politically conservative Facebook friends were distraught. They posted photos and news stories.

If I had viewed only my liberal friends' Facebook posts after the bombing, I never would have known that the bombing even happened.

I pondered all this for days. What was going on in the minds and hearts of those among my liberal friends who defended jihad and gender apartheid?

***

I think that liberals sincerely care about other human beings, suffering, and injustice.

The liberals who defend jihad and gender apartheid seem to think that evil is perpetrated mostly by white, Christian or Jewish, American or Israeli men.

The same people who appeared not to have noticed the Boston bombing were all worked up about the explosion of the fertilizer plant in West, Texas. "See! See! Capitalists are evil!" They get all worked up every time an accusation is made that Israel did this or that bad thing. "See! See! Imperialist Jews! They are just like Nazis!"

I think that that is part of why some liberals rush to defend jihad and gender apartheid. They see evil as the property, exclusively, of white, Christian or Jewish, Western men. Anyone who is not like the group they identify as evil must, therefore, be good.

I think they think that Americans, Westerners, Christians and Jews are just so darn bad that if it were not for the constant monitoring by liberals, average Americans would just rise up and start genociding randomly.

Tamerlan, Dzhokhar, and Zubeidat must be really good people, simply misunderstood, or framed, or, at worst, driven to do something bad, because they are most unlike the population these liberals believe to be the source of all evil: white, Christian or Jewish, Western men.

So far, so good. It is easy to find evil deeds by bad, bad white men. The Atlantic slave trade was really bad. Jim Crow: really bad. It is right and proper to condemn these things.

Here's the thing, though. Liberals get a payoff. They are thought of, they want to be thought of, as society's conscience. They want to be thought of as the sensitive, caring, compassionate people in the room.

When a Facebook friend posts a photo of the West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion that killed fifteen people, that friend may not just be saying, "Bad, bad capitalism! Rah, rah, workers' rights! Bring on the revolution!" That friend might also be announcing, "I am compassionate. While the rest of you frivolous chuckleheads are posting cute cat photos, I am concerned with victims of industrial accidents."

These liberals tsk, tsk, they tut, tut, they get huffy. "While you get all whipped up by mass hysteria invented by Fox News" – which they like to call "Faux News" – "I care about the victims of Western aggression and imperialism! Dzhokhar, Tamerlan and Zubeidat are the real victims! America overthrew Iran's government in 1953! Christians murdered Muslims during the Crusades! Westerners are the true victimizers and deserve to die! Muslims are the true victims!"

Again, so far so good.

But when these liberals are confronted with the realities of jihad and gender apartheid – that jihad justified, even demanded, the death of innocents like eight-year-old Martin Richard, when gender apartheid demands that a fourteen-year-old Bangladeshi girl, Mosammet Hena, receive one hundred lashes for the crime of being raped – she died after being lashed seventy times – these liberals freak out.

Why do they freak out? That's the question that haunted me after the dustup on my Facebook page in response to something as trivial as a comparison between Zubeidat "I don't care if they kill my son" Tsarnaeva and a Disney villainness.

I don't think liberals, when they are freaking out in this way, really care about Islam. I don't think they care about Muslims. I think they care about themselves. I think they care about their social position.

I think what makes jihad-friendly liberals freak out so badly is that their hypocrisy is exposed, and they lose their social position of being the compassionate person in the room, the person who posts photos of a fertilizer plant explosion while others are posting photos of cute cats.

I think they freak out because they like being thought of as different and special and more moral, and their defense of jihad and gender apartheid threatens that, and so they must lash out with a frenzy, with fury, with relentless verbal aggression, and exaggeration – "You are trying to foment genocide!!!" – against those who speak plainly about the problematical features of jihad and gender apartheid.

These liberals are used to being seen as the compassionate person in the room. They are used to being seen as society's conscience. They are used to being seen as supportive of peace and freedom and gender equality.

Suddenly, they are in a public forum, Facebook, say, and someone who isn't one of them criticizes jihad. And they know that the person voicing this criticism is wrong, because all the bad things in the world come from white, Western men.

And this person criticizing jihad or gender apartheid cites evidence. Evidence! Clitoredectomy. Bombing victims. Stonings.

And the liberal freaks out. Freaks out because – "If there were something bad going on in the world, I would oppose it! Me and my comrades! We would know all about it and we would already have a committee formed! We would be on top of it! Not your scummy Faux News watchers!

And these Faux News watchers can't be allowed to state these disturbing facts publicly! About fourteen year old girls being whipped to death for the crime of being raped!

Because if this news gets out, I will be seen as a hypocrite. I will be exposed as not caring about victims of gendered violence. I will be exposed as not caring about innocent bombing victims. I can't allow these things to be stated publicly! I must demonize them! Because righteous indignation, compassion, and activism belong to me, me, liberal me and my comrades! And badness and evil are the exclusive property of Western men!"

Look at it this way. A girl is known as the most fashionable at her high school. She is famous for her long, elegant dresses. A new girl arrives. She wears miniskirts, and really rocks them. Suddenly, the girl who had previously seemed fashionable seems out of date. Of course the girl whose position has been usurped is going to trash talk the miniskirt girl.

Those liberals who defend jihad and gender apartheid are not doing it because they love Muslims. They are not doing it because criticism of jihad and gender apartheid will precipitate a genocide against Muslims, any more than coverage of the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis, the Crusades or the Inquisition will precipitate a genocide of Catholics. Those liberals who defend jihad and gender apartheid are doing it out of purely selfish, ego-driven motives.

Or that's how it looks. If I'm wrong, please correct me in the comments section.

"As Good As It Gets" 1997 Jack Nicholson, or, Yes, I Used to Be a Liberal Who Demonized Straight, White Men

"As Good As It Gets" 1997 Bad Jack!

Good Jack!

I saw "As Good As It Gets" when it opened in 1997. I hated it. I wrote a scathing review that ran in a local paper.

I hadn't re-watched the film until just the other night.

I didn't hate it as much. I still saw everything I saw on the first viewing that made me hate the film, but I saw other features, as well. I saw Melvin's (Jack Nicholson) vulnerability and his eagerness to do the right thing. I saw that he really was, as old as he was, the best option for Carol (Helen Hunt) a much younger waitress.

I dug up my 1997 review of "As Good As It Gets" and was stunned to reread it. It reads like something someone I would now vilify would write. It is so … ack ack … liberal. Anti-white male. All rah rah about gay people and people of color. I'm still rah rah about gay people and people of color, but less annoyingly so, I hope. And I just can't relate to the white male bashing in this piece.

Ah, growing old. Teaches you so very much.

Anyway, here is my voice from the past:

Like Melvin, its obnoxious main character, "As Good As it Gets" wants very badly to be loved. The film plays to more special interest groups than a politician. But, like Melvin, AGAIG doesn't surrender any of its obnoxiousness to get love. Melvin, and the movie, gets to have its cake and eat it, too.

In spite of its Affirmative Action cast, "As Good As it Gets" is a fairy tale designed to comfort the anxieties and reward the appetites of a very specific target audience: nervous straight, white males.

In the old days we had fairy tales about frogs who turned into princes when kissed by the right princess. Such fairy tales comforted male anxieties about whether they could ever attract the girl of their dreams.

Today's movie audiences are too sophisticated to be taken in by the notion of magical frogs. Another symbol is needed for the qualities the main character fears will alienate him from the love he needs and wants. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, this film wants us to believe, has turned Melvin into a frog. The movie gambles that not enough people will know enough about Obsessive-compulsive disorder to find this plot device as implausible and objectionable as it really is.

The main character of AGAIG is a fantasy of a stereotypical white male who's been feeling a bit paranoid, lately. Accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia – suddenly minorities seem to be getting bigger and bigger pieces of the pie, leaving less and less for him.

Straight white men's feeling of being demonized is made a concrete image, not in frog identity, but in Obsessive-compulsive disorder. "I couldn't help it! I'm sick!" Melvin protests to his princess, a waitress. "Your kiss will save me," he says, "Because, for you, I want to be a better man. For you I'll take Prozac!"

Melvin's desire to be a better man sounds pretty good, doesn't it? But any such urge on his part is not the center of the movie. What is? A powerful, older, straight white male, in a series of scenes, publicly humiliating those who threaten his status. Nicholson's uncontested verbal attacks against fat women, "coloreds," "big-nosed Jews," Hispanic women, intellectual women, and "fudge packing" "fags" got lots of appreciative laughter in the theater where I viewed the film.

Cast with Melvin is a gay man who lives up to many vicious homophobic stereotypes. Simon is gay because his parents screwed up. Mom was too affectionate; dad too butch. Simon has no friends. What Simon really needs is a woman, and Melvin provides him with one. Melvin gives Carol, the waitress to Simon. It is the sight of this woman's naked body that brings AGAIG's gay male character back to life.

An older straight man like Melvin might feel uncomfortable when looking at the beautiful face of a young gay man like Simon. He might feel jealous because Simon's beauty exposes the decay in his own features; he might feel anxious because Simon's beauty might be attractive to a straight man uncomfortable with his own homoerotic impulses.

But the Melvins in the audience need never fear. Greg Kinnear, the actor playing Simon, is wonderfully beautiful – temporarily. The movie gives us a lengthy, entirely gratuitous scene lingering over the destruction of Simon's beauty. Simon's face is bashed, and then displayed, in a hospital room, swollen, red, stitched, destroyed.

Melvin's homophobic put-downs of "fudge packers" are not the script's only reminder to the audience of vilified sexual practices. In one scene, Melvin throws Simon's dog into a dumpster. After Simon and his dog are reunited, the dog eagerly kisses Simon on the mouth. A janitor is there to remind Simon that the dog, when in the dumpster, had been eating diapers full of shit.

Carol, the waitress, talks like a feminist, but, she is essentially incompetent. She is a failure at getting her son the medical attention he needs. She clings to this failure because smothering her son is the only emotional life she has.

While Jack Nicholson, as Melvin, at sixty, looks as though the flesh on his face is boiled and pounded once a day, Helen Hunt, playing the waitress Carol, is a luminous 34. There's no mistaking it: Melvin is the winner; Carol is the prize. Watching geezer Melvin paw babe Carol may have felt good for the older males in the audience, but I had to turn away.

Melvin wins Carol when he steps in and saves the day. In spite of the nasty things he says, he's a good guy at heart – really. Melvin rescues the gay man, who is bashed, not by straight fag bashers, but by other gay men. Melvin provides a doctor for Carol's son. Melvin can do these because he is good at the white male's work: making money. The stereotypical white male is vindicated and rewarded.

Would AGAIG have been a better movie if it had moved out of exculpatory fairy tale fantasy and into the real world? The real world where gay men get bashed by straight fag bashers, where gay men have family-like networks of other gay men and gay friendly straights who support them when they need it? Where men's vicious comments to fat women hurt those women? Where white racism and anti-Semitism have killed blacks and Jews? Where men who walk around saying unkind things to others eventually meet someone who can offer a satisfying retort? Where the working poor go without necessary health care? Is it so bad that a feel good movie was made for older, more conservative white men?

Maybe not. Agendaed fairy tales have their value. I don't begrudge AGAIG its reality; I just wish there were more big-budget Hollywood films representing others' realities, too.