ABULAFIA :: Zeitgeist






2 0 0 4 APRIL 05 APRIL 04 APRIL 03 APRIL 02 APRIL 01 MARCH 04 MARCH 03 MARCH 02 MARCH 01 FEBRUARY 04 FEBRUARY 03 FEBRUARY 02 FEBRUARY 01 JANUARY 05 JANUARY 04 JANUARY 03 JANUARY 02 JANUARY 01 2 0 0 3 DECEMBER 04 DECEMBER 03 DECEMBER 02 DECEMBER 01 NOVEMBER 04 NOVEMBER 03 NOVEMBER 02 NOVEMBER 01 OCTOBER 03 OCTOBER 02 OCTOBER 01 SEPTEMBER AUGUST 02 AUGUST 01 JULY 02 JULY 01 JUNE 02 JUNE 01 MAY 02 MAY 01 APRIL 02 APRIL 01 MARCH FEBRUARY JANUARY WEDDING			PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK, WHEN I HAD A CAMERA. Lady's mantle covered in raindrops. M A Y 1 , 2 0 0 4 The Idiot. Fyodor Dostoevsky Powells Began reading -- made it through page 1. Which took more reading than might be expected due to the introduction and translator's notes. Evolution. BalletMet premiere. Notes PHOTO BY BALLETMET The first movement was the most complete, set to Moby and in modern costume. The second movement was jarring, to say the least -- set to Mozart, the women were in period dress while the men wore only knee britches. The dance steps were traditional ballet, but upper body movements throughout were more appropriate to the chicken dance. The third movement was stronger, animalistic, but very short. North Market. Indeed has good Indian food for not too much. Clintonville. Looks like a nice neighborhood to Amy. We drove around for a short while. Goldfish. We're trying five in the pond this year. Motorola is blacklisted. When they see nothing wrong with charging $115 (plus you must mail it to them) to examine a phone they manufactured that has ceased ringing after one year and four months, I see good cause never to acquire their products again. PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK, WHEN I HAD A CAMERA. The white balloon viburnum. Outside now the forget-me-nots are in full bloom. A P R I L 3 0 , 2 0 0 4 Amy to Columbus PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK, WHEN I HAD A CAMERA. The tulips are ending. The wisteria is draped more artfully than yesterday. A P R I L 2 9 , 2 0 0 4 Choir rehearsal. Bexley afterwards. M&D are back from Texas, D has already left for Michigan. They have not yet noticed the door. PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK, WHEN I HAD A CAMERA. The redbud tree has now passed the fullness of its bloom. The leaves, which weree tiny greening extensions last week, are filling out, growing larger, and deepening in color. The blooms are wrinkling and shriveling. Now is the best of the wisteria, in full bloom and weeping majestically over the arbor. The wood hyacinths are preparing to bloom. The grape hyacinths are finishing. The ants are daily more intrigued by the peonies. A P R I L 2 8 , 2 0 0 4 A day. Of times best left unrecorded. PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK, WHEN I HAD A CAMERA. Tulips were then (and still are) in bloom. A P R I L 2 7 , 2 0 0 4 Thoughts from last week. When I had a cellphone that worked. David Adesnik \| Oxblog THE TRUTH ABOUT AL QAA'IDA: Ever since advertising my minimal knowledge of Arabic, the demands have been piling up for an explanation of one of the most perplexing aspects of the War on Terror: Why do some people spell 'al Qaida' with an 'i', whereas others spell it with an 'e', as in 'al Qaeda'? To ensure a definitive answer, I decided to ask Harvard linguistics impresario CH for an answer. (Asking him was a good idea, since I would've given you a wrong answer otherwise.) So here goes: The middle syllable of 'Qaida' is a long 'e', which most linguists write out as 'i'. CH speculates that the alternate spelling 'al Qaeda' emerged because experts in Persian (of whom there are many) prefer to write out long 'e' as 'e'. Now, if one is going to invest the effort in understanding how to spell the name of the terrorist organization founded by Mr. bin Laden, one may as well learn how to pronounce it as well. First comes the 'al', meaning 'the'. Most people seem to know that this part is pronounced like the first syllable in the word 'olive' and not like the first name of Mr. Gore. It's the 'Qaeda' that most people get wrong. Usually, it gets pronounced either 'al KAY-da' or 'al KY (rhymes with 'sky')-da'. Both are wrong for the same reason: they assume that there are two syllables in the word, not three. Actually, it's more like 'al KAA-i-da'. The double 'a' is very important. In Arabic, a 'long' vowel actually has to sound longer than a short one. When writing out Arabic words in English, one indicates the presence of a long vowel either by doubling the vowel or putting a horizontal bar over it. Now what about this whole 'Q'-instead-of-'K' business? Well, in Arabic there are two letters that have a 'K' sound, but one of them is aspirated, which means that a burst of air comes out along with the sound. Sometimes this gets written out as 'kh' instead of 'q' because the 'sound' of 'h' is really just an aspiration. Finally, we come back to the long 'e' that started this whole discussion in the first place. There is actually an invisible consonant which precedes it, but which is unpronounceable in English. The letter is called 'ayin' in Arabic and sounds sort of like someone clearing their throat. When written in English, ayin becomes an apostrophe. So, in the final analysis, the most precise way to write 'al Qaida' is actually 'al Qaa'ida'. (Of course, you don't have to capitalize the 'Q' since there are no capital letters in Arabic.) If you've read this far, you'll probably also want to know why 'Taliban' also gets spelled as 'Taleban'. As CH points out, 'Taliban' is actually a Persian or Dari word, not an Arabic one (although there is an Arabic cognate for it which also means 'students'). And since long 'e' is written as 'e' when transliterating Persian, the proper spelling is 'Taleban'. However, English speakers are more likely to pronounce the long 'e' correctly if it is transliterated as 'i' in this context. And since Kevin asked: There is no good reason for American newspapers to drop the 'al from 'al Qaeda' in order to save space in headlines. No Arabic newspaper would do that. I don't know what that had to do with a cellphone. Sounds, I guess. PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK, WHEN I HAD A CAMERA. Tulips are now in bloom. A P R I L 2 6 , 2 0 0 4 Nothing OK, maybe something. Maybe some things. Life in South Africa: "We believe that if you employ your own police force and you live behind the right kind of wall, you stand a chance," said Mr. Henshall, a bluff man with an embracing manner. "We're happy inside our walls." Outside the walls, they are wary. [Mrs. Henshaw] says, "How good can life be if you have to live in fear?" Decade of democracy fills gaps in South Africa \| NYT ... Set behind [Ms Ndlovu's] brick home just outside this city of 146,000, the shed is 10 feet by 10 feet, a listing shambles of rusted corrugated iron and sheet metal, unexceptional but for this: before it was a toolshed, the Ndlovu family lived there for five years. Under apartheid, Ms. Ndlovu was an illiterate black domestic in a white household. Today she runs her own construction company, laying asphalt and building fences on freeway projects. Her three-bedroom home has new living-room furniture and a carved wood door. Her old shack sits in the backyard, a dilapidated reminder of the past. Her 17-year-old daughter calls it "scary." Ms. Ndlovu refuses to tear it down. "I like that house," she said. "I suffered in that house. Sudan: The Darfur region of western Sudan is one of the most remote and inhospitable places on earth, which makes it an ideal place to get away with ethnic cleansing. Since late last year, an Arab militia called the Janjaweed has killed thousands of darker-skinned non-Arabs and driven about one million from their homes. Most of the refugees are still in Sudan, many of them in squalid camps, the children dying of malnutrition and measles. ... Meanwhile, the world seemed to spend more time observing the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and solemnly vowing ''never again'' than actually doing something to prevent a recurrence in Darfur. Attacked, expelled, ignored \| NYT Magazine New York: (via the incomparable (what else can you say of the only man in America who speaks directly to God?) Jimmy Breslin) I can't believe that Bush is so dumb that he thinks he actually talks to God. When I am the only one I know of who talks to God. I can prove that because God told me that no one else in America speaks to him directly. I became involved in the religious crisis because I plan to run a religion to take over the Roman Catholic church that has failed so miserably. Let Bishop Breslin be your guide. He can talk to God. Not this cardinal in Rome running for pope, Francis Arinze, who wants to suffocate American temporal life by refusing Communion to any Catholic politician who does not oppose abortion, meaning John Kerry. Already, a past Arinze campaign speech at Georgetown had students leaving and a dean apologizing. It shows how much I am needed. For I do not take these issues to some dim, musty Vatican. I talk exclusively to the top of the sky. "If I were to choose a people from these days of our tiny history, who would be the most favored?" I asked. "I favor no country or group of people," he told me when all this started. "I am for all children, not just American whites. "I have love for all my children." "Still, just tell me one group that has somewhat of an edge. I mean, after American Catholics, that's what I am, as you know. We are the best. Aren't we the best?" "No." "How can that be? Catholics are the best because Catholics are against same-sex marriages." "Not quite." "Then who is really good?" "Rwanda." "With all respect, how can you say that? What do they mean? America never even sent any troops into Rwanda." "They suffered." "What do they have in Rwanda? Muslims." "And Catholics." "And they each pray to their God?" "There is only one God," he said. "I didn't think Muslims knew that. I thought they just take off their shoes and pray to a sand dune. You tell me that their God is as good as an American God." "I am the same." I had one thing I wanted to know right away. "In Iraq, there were five suicide bombings in one day. How can we possibly handle a populace that fights like that? Is that part of their religion? Do they pray and then go out and kill themselves?" "They pray. But they have free will. There is a wisdom to this that is beyond your understanding now." "So when we pray to bless us against them in a war, and they pray to you to bless them against us in a war, who wins? Who do you listen to?" "Women praying for their children." "But whose women?" "All the women and children." "Catholic and Muslim?" "Everywhere. All of Palestine. All Arabs. All Jews. My son was a Jew. China." "China? What do they do? They pray to a peaked roof. Do you ever hear them?" "Yes." "Then let me ask you something. What are we going to do in America? All our speeches end with 'God bless you, and God bless America.'" "When you pray," he said, "best leave all pride out in a bare field." A frank talk with God \| Jimmy Breslin \| Newsday PHOTOS FROM LAST WEEK, WHEN I HAD A CAMERA. The massive bumblebees love the redbud tree, and now, this week, the wisteria, which is coming into full bloom. A P R I L 2 5 , 2 0 0 4 Took G to church. We had corn on the cob for lunch. Returned later to finish up the painting in Bexley, remove the tape, and work on the computer which doesn't want to utilize its keyboard. Those evil natured robots They're programmed to destroy us She's gotta be strong to fight them So she's takin' lots of vitamins Cause she knows that It'd be tragic If those evil robots win I know she can beat them Oh, Yosimi Amy to Akron > APRIL 04			AAA Abulafia Boardwalk Bread CHN Christ Lutheran Church NCCHS Neighborhood Research Institute Old Oaks Olde Towne Polyphony INTP Business First Business First Daily Edition Call and Post Columbus Alive Columbus Dispatch Columbus Free Press Columbus Post Communicator News The Daily Reporter Inner Art The Lantern The Other Paper Suburban News Publications Short North Gazette NBC4 Columbus WSYX 6 10TV WBNS ONN BBC World Service CNN Christian Science Monitor The Guardian IndiaTimes Newsday New York Times StarTribune Washington Post Washington Times AfricaPundit William F. Buckley Jr. Juan Cole Command Post Crooked Timber Daniel W. Drezner John Ellis David Frum Hit & Run Instapundit Mickey Kaus Joshua Micah Marshall The Note OxBlog Virginia Postrel Wes Pruden Regions of Mind Jim Romenesko Andrew Sullivan Volokh Conspiracy Why I hate DC Day by Day Doonesbury Ted Rall Peter Steiner Tom Toles Tom Tomorrow Rob Pegoraro Matt Drudge Cronaca Languagehat Language Log Open Brackets PaleoJudaica News designer Arts Journal Communication Arts Mooch Bluejake Blue Ridge Blog Chicago Snapshot Coincidences Conscientious Dublog Ecotone Wiki Eye Control Found Magazine Lightningfield London and the north Meccapixel Mysterium Paths of Light Satan's Laundromat Slower Smoky Mountain Journal Trip report Sean Kernan Brody Neuenschwander Cheryl Holtz D.U.I. Studio Columbus Underground Forgotten Ohio Illicit Ohio Midnight Exposure Ohio Exploration Society Ohio Lost Acme Art Company Ballet Met CCAD Columbus Arts Columbus Arts Festival Columbus Metropolitan Library Columbus Museum of Art Columbus Symphony Dialogue Franklin Park Conservatory Glass Axis Music in the Air Opera Columbus Thurber House Wexner Center City of Bexley City of Columbus Columbus City Council Columbus Police Columbus Public Schools OTENA egroup OTENA-NIC egroup OTENA-tours egroup OTENA-trustees egroup Old Oaks egroup Ohio Parsons Blockwatch egroup