dude

I wonder if it is a coincidence that the stripes on this brave lad's shirt are the symbol for 'equality?'

I've told my 92 year-old neighbor lady many times about the funniest thing I've ever seen in a movie.... the Meg Ryan/Billy Crystal scene shot in NYC's Katz's Deli. We spotted the movie featured on Amazon Prime last night and watched it. Here is the scene: My neighbor agreed that it is the funniest scene ever!

NOW it does!

Applying logic to religion is as futile as applying it to politics.

This was sent to me as an email by AD Author Pertinax Carrus who is a well known historian in academic circles. I'm presenting it here as it is one of the best overviews of the subject of radical Islam I have ever read. It is posted here with his consent. "Okay, so I am restless. When I am restless, I think of all kinds of things. It helps sort out my thoughts. And so, I have been thinking of the movement called radical Islam. Let me say at the outset, I am no authority on Islam. However, I have more knowledge than the average person, simply because I have had to deal with Islam as an historian. So, what I say here is probably not definitive, but also not mere spouting off. Islam is the religion founded by Mohammed. And I do not apologize for using the traditional English spellings. Mohammed died in 632 A.D. The Moslem calendar begins in 622 A.D. with the Hejira, or Mohammed's flight from Mecca to Medina, and the beginning of the spread of his ideas. After a period of consolidation in Medina, Mohammed returned in triumph to Mecca, and suppressed the small Christian and Jewish communities there, as well as the dominant paganism. He went on to conquer most of the Arabian peninsula. After the death of Mohammed, the leaders of his movement were the so-called orthodox califs. from 632 to 661. Only three years after the death of Mohammed, a period devoted to consolidating control over most of Arabia, these califs began an unprecedented expansion. In 635 the Moslems invaded the Syrian province of the Byzantine Empire, and soon conquered the entire eastern shore of the Mediterranean. In 640 they invaded Egypt, and, turning east, in 644 they invaded the Persian Empire. Under the second group of califs, the Omayyad dynasty (661-750), this conquest continued, although not without some setbacks. By about 700, all North Africa had been conquered, and in 711 the Moslems began the conquest of Spain. To the East, after Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Persia (Iran), they conquered Bactria (Turkistan), bringing their empire up into the great plains of central Asia, and had cross the Himalays into India. Checks were administered by the defeats at the first attempt on Constantinople in 717, and the invasion of the Frankish Kingdom at Tours in 732. But, by one century after the death of the Prophet, his followers had created the greatest empire the world had seen. Only the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century was larger, and it broke up almost immediately after the death of Genghis Khan, its creator. The British Empire in the later 19th century and early twentieth was also larger, but of a different kind. Within this new empire, the Moslem rulers created a new civilization, quite different from anything else. Islam, the religion of Mohammed, is the key and cement holding this civilization together. It also draws on the Classical civilization of the Greeks and Romans, and the civilization of Persia, as well some later influences from India. What we call Arabic numerals originated in India. This civilization reached a high point around 800 A.D., during the time of the calif Harun al Rashid, the calif of the 1001 Nights and Sheherazade. There was a flowering of philosophy and science, especially in mathematics and medicine. Algebra was invented by the Moslems, to the eternal disgust of high schoolers. Taking the pulse as a sign of health is a Moslem contribution. The thinker known in the West as Avicenna was extremely influential in the development of Scholasticism in Western Europe. There was the characteristic Moslem architecture, and such literary giants as Omar Kayyam. But this Moslem Civilization was not stable. It was based on the dominance by Moslems of a majority of non-Moslems. As late as the twelfth century, the majority of the population of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were Christian. But only Moslems could have any legal position in the society created by Islam. The holy book of Islam, the Koran, teaches in several places that no unbeliever is to be given any rights by victorious Moslems. The true believer is to continuously fight the unbeliever. The conquered unbeliever is to be given the option of conversion, submission, or death. If he converts, then he is a brother. If he submits, accepting a subordinate position under the rule of Moslems, he is allowed to live. If he refuses to submit, he is to be killed. This can be seen in many passages such as 8:38-39. In actual fact, the victorious Moslems could not kill all the unbelievers, but they did reduce them to a subordinate condition. Non-Moslems could not own landed property. Non-Moslems could not hold public office. Non-Moslems had to pay a special tax in return for being allowed to live. [As a sideline, this is why Pakistan exists today. When the British decided to withdraw from India after World War II, the Moslems demanded that conditions which prevailed prior to the British conquest be restored, including these restrictions on the majority non-Moslem population. When the British refused to accept this, the Moslem refused to live as equals in a multi-religious India, and so the predominantly Moslems sectors where cut off and formed into Pakistan.] An example of Moslem rule can be found in the history of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. This church was originally built by St. Helen, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, in the fourth century. After the Moslem conquest in the seventh century, as Christians could not own landed property, it became the property of the Moslem ruler. After the days of Harun al-Rashid, the Moslem empire began to fragment, and Palestine was under the rule of the Sultan of Egypt. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the Sultan of Egypt was al-Hakim, who carried out a severe persecution of Christians in Egypt and Palestine. Thinking there were entirely too many unbelievers coming into his lands from the West to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, he ordered it destroyed in 1009. After his death, a successor granted some leeway, but nothing serious was done until after the conquest of Jerusalem by the First Crusade in 1099. The present church is largely the work of the Crusaders. There were several other manifestations of this instability in the Moslem world. Just as in the Christian West, there seemed to be a conflict between the teachings of religion and the developments in philosophy and science. In the West, this apparent conflict was overcome by the teachings of such figures as Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. No such reconciliation happened in the Moslem world. The Spanish Moslem philosopher called in the West Averroes tried by teaching that there were levels of truth, and one statement could be true on one level and false on another. That was no acceptable. And so, by the late twelfth century, Moslem religious leaders had effectively stamped out Moslem philosophy. What had been achieved remained, but there were no new advances. In the tenth century, the Moslem world was invaded by the Turks from Central Asia. This was another element of instability. They played a role parallel to that of the Germans in the Roman world. They adopted the religion and culture of the people they conquered, but at the same time made it more violent and destructive, even less tolerant. It was the Turks who inflicted on the Byzantine Empire a major defeat at Manziket in 1071, resulting in the beginning of Turkish settlement in what is now Turkey. An attempt to recover these lost lands led the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenos to ask for military help from the West a quarter of a century later, leading to the First Crusade. In a few places in sub-Sarahan Africa and Indonesia, Islam spread independently of military conquest, but I know of no other examples. On the whole, those portions of the globe which are Moslem today are so because Islam was imposed by military might. Under President Thomas Jefferson (1801-09), we fought what are called the Barbary pirates. Essentially the Moslems of North Africa -- Libya, Tunisia, Algeria today -- for centuries had made a living preying on Mediterranean commerce. Many European countries dealt with this by paying these lands not to attack their vessels. As a new nation, the flag of the United States was not recognized by the Barbary pirates, and so American commerce in the Mediterranean was subjected to these attacks. Jefferson tried to negociate with a Barbary representative in Landon. His agent was told simply that the followers of the prophet had a God given right to seize anything in the hands of unbelievers. The result was our first foreign conflict, not a declared war, but a 'police action', like Vietnam, or Afghanistan today. From this conflict, the US Marines sing about going "from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli." After the mid nineteenth century, the economic and technological superiority of the West was such that many Moslem lands were brought under Western control, such as the French in Algeria and Tunisia and the British in Egypt. The low point of Moslem rule came with the break-up of the Turkish Empire following World War I. But from the time of World War II, a Moslem resurgence has taken place, not only in achieving political independence, but in developing a more specifically Moslem, and anti-Western, consciousness. This was seen in Saudi Arabia first, and spread to other lands. And so, as they came less and less to depend on the West, the Moslem lands came more and more to resume old attitudes and outlooks. And this includes the concept that there is no possibility of a lasting peace with the non-believer. The most one could expect was a truce. So, I conclude that the so-called radical Islamists are more in keeping with their traditions than those who say they want to get along with the West, and many of those say they want to get along only as a temporary measure, until the West also becomes Moslem.

I also saw this film as a young collegian at an art house cinema in St. Louis... and it sent me scurrying for the closet! Brilliant movie. Just downloaded it from YouTube along with the other two. Time for another look. Thanks, Lark!

Oh... is that how Brits explain "Brexit?"

Right, James... an apt comparison!

Just ignore Cole, Des... that's a lovely photo of you!

Oh no... that is Nathan Chan... the hottest young cellist since Yo Yo Ma! Nathan also has a wicked sense of humor!

Brought tears to my eyes!

Exactly... or folks with fleas?

Example of my point: " When a teacher corrects a student, he or she should take into consideration his or her feelings." A bit cumbersome, but correct.

I totally disagree! "They" is the subjective form of "them." It is always plural and must be used only to refer to more than one person or thing. "They" is used by lazy Americans when they should be saying "he or she." Yes, you hear it on American television by broadcasters who probably slept through their English classes in primary and secondary school. It is all part of the so called "?dumbing? down of America" conspiracy that includes the mis-pronunciation of 'anti' and 'multi.' As for the American Dialectic Society... I still will continue to speak the English language.... not the American 'slanguage.' Mike

Same here with the Bose Acoustimas speakers turned way up! Did I ever mention that the ringtone on my cell phone is Rufus Wainwright singing Hallelujah!

Missed by many because it wasn't given in 'Prime Time' was former comic and now US Senator from Minnesota Al Franken's speech to the Democratic National Convention

AD Radio will be down for maintenance forabout an hour from 0930 PDT on August 6th.

It is on the itv hub... I just invoked my VPN for Great Britain, clicked on the link... signed into my ITV account and it started playing... an hour in all, including commercials. Private Internet Access is available for about $3/month paid on an annual basis. You can sign up HERE. When you sign up for your ITV account the first time, they'll ask for your email address and for a UK postal code. Mike

Say WHAT?