Here’s what I learned on my trip to New York City:
- the old Continental-powered Piper Malibu is a lot quieter and smoother than the newer Lycoming-powered Piper Mirage (flew down from Boston in a couple of for-sale Malibus)
- the Petra exhibit at the Museum of Natural History is inspirational–it might be time to take a leaf from Indiana Jones’s book and head over to Jordan
- there are several good shows at the Metropolitan, as usual
- the Whitney Biennial was one of the best in a long time. At least 20 percent of the works were charmingly creative. The show just ended but it might still be worth taking a trip to the Whitney because they’ve concentrated the best of their permanent collection on the fifth floor and also brought in some Thomas Hart Benton murals from Connecticut. [If you want to get into the Biennial for 2006 just take a page from one of Edward Tufte’s books and blow it up to wall size, then reverse it and stick it next to the first enlargement… that’s what one of the artists in the exhibit had done.. without credit to Tufte.]
- the RM seafood restaurant on 60th between Madison and Park is fantastic and for the summer does a weekday $20 3-course lunch menu that is as good as any meal I’ve had in Boston at any price, www.rmseafood.com
- seeing Shrek 2 with a 4-year-old girl is fun but the movie is disappointing after Shrek 1.
No New York experience is complete without at least one cabbie story. The fellow who drove me to LaGuardia Airport was a Coptic Christian from Egypt (the Copts are the descendants of the original Egyptians who built the pyramids, etc.; after the Arab invasion of 640 A.D. they’ve survived as a minority within their ancient homeland). Fully trained as a lawyer in Egypt, he came to the U.S. 12 years ago. “The Muslims were making it harder and harder for Christians to survive. I was just starting out so I decided to start in the U.S. Of course the situation in Egypt is much worse now for Copts than it was back then.” He couldn’t work here as a lawyer easily because Egyptian law is based on the Napoleonic code rather than cases. “I got a degree in networking from NYU and worked at a French bank in mid-town until 2001 when they downsized their IT department.” Since then he has been driving a cab. How does he like living in New York compared to Egypt? “I came here to escape the Muslims but now they are coming to America. They may appear to accept American values but 15 years from now you’ll see that they haven’t. They can’t stop fighting Christians and they hate the West because it represents Christianity. Americans don’t understand anything about Islam.”
They used to say that about others…
“More, the true and normal type of Jew believes that the influence of Americanism, or of any civilized Gentile state, is harmful to Judaism… It is not the Gentile who says that Jewish ideals, as ideals, are incompatible with the life of our country; it is the Jew who says so. It is he who inveighs against Americanism, not the American who inveighs against Judaism.”
Henry Ford – “The International Jew”
Henry Ford also though the American’s didn’t understand anything about Judaism
“Let the American people once understand that it is not natural degeneracy but calculated subversion that inflicts us, and they are safe. The explanation is the cure.”
The number of people basing their arguments on Greenspun’s heritage is getting a little uncomfortable. Equally uncomfortable is Philip’s not so sly barbs against Muslims.
My comment is nothing to do with Philip. It’s to do with the similarity of xenophobic arguments through the ages. The times change, the groups change, but the way of thinking stays the same. We’ve been down this road before.
It is not unusual for each wave of immigrants to america to be met with, um, misunderstanding…
Here is an excerpt from The New England Galaxy
Boston, Saturday, March 21, 1835, Vol 18, No. 12
“It is a fact that Catholicism is viewed with undisguised abhorrence by a majority of the citizens of this republic. Still no legal bar or disqualification is thrown in the way of its professors–and throughout the country, except in one instance, they have been allowed the unmolested enjoyment of their religious principles and institutions. In that one instance, there is ground for doubt whether the building burned, can strictly be denominated a religious institution–or,–in other words we doubt whether in calm and dispassionate times, the Catholics would claim Convents as institutions essential to their church”
Oddly enough, Boston has managed to survive its Irish immigrants
Actually I included the anecdote about the taxi ride mostly because I thought it was ironic/sad that he had been an IT guy and was now driving a cab. I also thought it was ironic that his move of thousands of miles hadn’t been sufficient (in his mind anyway) to escape his tormentors. Sort of a Global Village/IT depression theme.
I like to learn about history but I’m not sure that comparisons between anti-Catholic sentiment in the 1800s or Jew-hatred in the 20th century shed too much light on the current situation in New York City. There was no Catholic organization comparable to Al-Qaeda fighting the U.S. government and the American people. Jews in the 20th century have been a similarly harmless target. Henry Ford was able to publish his ideas, make big profits from his subsidiary in Germany right through the war years (they supplied a lot of vehicles to the German Army and used slaved labor to further cut costs), wear the Great Cross of the German Order of the Eagle that Hitler gave him in 1938, etc. The Jews that he claimed controlled the world were not able to injure him in any way, blow up any of his factories, or reduce his company’s sales and profits. By contrast, New Yorkers since September 11, 2001 have suffered many thousands dead, tens of thousands out of work, a lot of economic losses, and a big loss of well-being. People who hate Jews only have to be upset on those rare occasions when they see a Jew (with Jews at 2 percent of the U.S. population this can be avoided easily). New Yorkers who fear Islamic terrorism have to be afraid every time they get on the subway, enter a tall building, ride an airliner, or, if they believe in the possibility of a nuclear weapon in a shipping container, any time that they are near the island of Manhattan.
Christianity is not a cultural unifier. Islam is likewise not culturally cohesive.
Domestic Islamic Radicalism is not likely to be a serious threat. We have already seen domestic radical’s plans to attack Manhattan in a coordinated fashion fail miserably (e.g. bridge-tunnels attack vs the first World Trade Center bombing).
Of course, I am dealing in degrees here, domestic Islamic Radicalism will claim casualties, much like McVeigh, but it is unlikely home-grown haters of God-Mom-Pie will cause more grief than our Christian Patriot Movements.
There is one cultural commodity that’s a bit of a wildcard: revenge. As in the past, we may one day see the dreams of those aggrieved in Iraq visited upon us by refugees and immigrants, or their poisoned descendants.
In militant Buddhist cultures, there was the ritual of revenge, but such concepts are antiquated and the religion has always emphasized ‘do no unnecessary harm’. Christianity insists one must embrace forgiveness. In my ignorance, what concerns me is the seeming lack of limits imposed by Judaism or Islam on revenge or violent conflict. Why take an one eye when you can take both? Why be concerned with non-combatant casualties? What’s the loss if an infidel/goyim is killed?
The carnage inflicted upon Iraq by America is undeniably evil (be serious, how can anyone excuse such slaughter and torture of non-combatants?), but what puzzles me is how Islamic Jihadists can be so hypocritical. Is it really true, but unspoken, that all of these religions have small print: compassion is not necessary if your victim is not a spiritual ‘neighbor’.
Being in New York, always wary of a future counting down to disaster, the insights of a cabbie from a forgotten culture are hard to appreciate. As Philip states, it is difficult for many of us to walk past sites such as the Empire State Building or to witness everyday urban interactions with the comfort of those days before the buildings fell.
Funny thing about Petra, it’s in Jordan – and there are those pesky terrorist Muslims everywhere.
If you feel so filled with fear in NYC, I’d advise you to steer clear of Jordan.
Yeah, I get the IT joblessness angle, but I would not expect you to be entirely one-dimensional.
OH, and the Molly Maguires were the Al Queda of their time, they were only limited by their reliance on ox-carts as opposed to commercial jets. Check out some online chapters of “The Dynamiter” by RL Stevenson for some gripping descriptions and glorifications of suicide bombings of innocent bystanders:
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/46/85
Is it me or Philip’s arguments are very much like Ariel Sharon’s?
Philip, are you sure you belong in a pinko-liberal place like Boston? Aren’t you supposed to be encouraging the Palestinian uprising etc. ?
BTW anyone familiar with the history of Islam understands the differences between Judaism, Christianity, and Islamic belief.
Islam arose out of a particular form of Christian heretical belief (sort of like Gnosticism), combined with the existing moon-god cult of the most powerful tribe in the area. Of course Muslims don’t like to hear this…
Even if you dispute the origins of Islam, you cannot dispute the traditional teachings (Hadith) – the ones where Mohammed himself breaks a treaty and slaughters people, and where Mohammed marries a 6 year old girl – and consummates the marriage when she is 9 and he is (about) 50.
Phillip, I so miss your travelogues…this taste makes me hungry for a larger dose, if you get the chance and also where are the 1500 pictures???
This is interesting:
http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=146287&ixReplies=78
Philip,
It’s a good idea to explictly seperate Islamic terrorists from Muslims in general when you talk about terrorism and danger in NY or elsewhere. By being blurry in your distinctions, you accomplish a service for the terrorists: to drive a wedge between their mostly peaceful adherents and non-muslims who would like to peacefully co-exist with them.
There was a great article in the New Yorker about this the issue before last. It was in their “Reporter At Large” section. I think it was entitled “Will Moderate Iraqis Embrace Democracy?”. It interviews a bunch or Iraqis from all over the country. The overall effect was the US presence, the provisional authority and the interim government were effectively causing the vast majority of Iraqis to increasingly side with radicals like Muqda d’el Sadr and his ilk. Under different circumstances, they would not be so inclined to do this.
I will say that the story tended to portray the average Iraqi alarmingly backward in their attitude toward women and basic human rights, some more than others.
Nick: I wasn’t “talking” at all in my posting, just quoting the cabbie. If you think he should distinguish more carefully among various kinds of Muslims take it up with him, not me!
The New Yorker article that you cite doesn’t surprise me. A year ago I wrote http://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2003/06/11 and noted that “Saddam may yet go down in history as the kindest and gentlest 21st century leader of a unified and stable Iraq.” In the 12 months that have elapsed the U.S. has apparently been fairly cruel, at least to prisoners if we are to believe recent newspaper articles, and yet Iraq is still nowhere near as unified or stable as it was under Saddam.
All the more reason to apologize and give Iraq back to Saddam!
If the cabbie had really wanted to be a lawyer when he came over he could have moved to Louisiana. Thier law is still based on the Napoleanic code, and its predominantly Christian.
“… the Copts are the descendants of the original Egyptians who built the pyramids, etc.; after the Arab invasion of 640 A.D. they’ve survived as a minority within their ancient homeland.”
Not sure this is correct. I thought the Arab conquerors weren’t numerous
enough to displace the indigenous inhabitants of the lands they conquered.
Places like Egypt, Syria, Palestine, etc. became Arabic-speaking and Muslim
through assimilation (often forced) rather than displacement. Kind of like
the Bosnian Muslims — they’re Slavs who converted to Islam under Ottoman rule.
Examples of displacement rather than assimilation would be the Angles and Saxons
who destroyed Roman Britain, driving the Britons into Wales; or the Ottoman Turks
in Anatolia; or the British in Australia and North America.
Selective quoting to server your purpose and agenda maybe?
Philip is not a moron.
Philip appears to be a Zionist.
“Philip is not a moron. Philip appears to be a Zionist.
Or both?
Or perhaps he’s just backing up his master, Mr Sharon?
Philip, alright, you were quoting someone. However, is it fair to say that who and how you quote reflects what you think, or do you believe a human being can be totally unbiased? At some point you must “own” a point of view.
I think giving back Iraq to Saddam, while seeming a specious argument at first glance, is what is going to happen anyway. My father, a foreign correspondant for many years, now a daily newspaper editor, has been telling me that the newswire stories have been painting a picture where the US coalition forces have been quietly handing over Iraqi sovereignty to local militias: latter-day Saddams. We won’t get Saddam in power, but we seem to be heading toward replacing him with someone who is about the same.
Iraq’s new pres confirms that step.
“… is it fair to say that who and how you quote reflects what you think, or do you believe a human being can be totally unbiased?”
I don’t think that’s Philip’s philosophy. You get the same kind of writing in “Travels with Samantha” — Philip reports people saying things that he finds interesting, not necessarily that he agrees with.
“Oral cultures do not share this belief. Knowledge is open-ended. People may hold differing opinions without one person being wrong. There is not necessarily one truth; there may be many truths. Though he didn’t grow up in an oral culture, Shakespeare knew this. Watch Troilus and Cressida and its five perspectives on the nature of a woman’s love. Try to figure out which perspective Shakespeare thinks is correct.
“Feminists, chauvinists, warmongers, pacifists, Jew-haters, inclusivists, cautious people, heedless people, misers, doctors, medical malpractice lawyers, atheists, and the pious are all able to quote Shakespeare in support of their beliefs. That’s because Shakespeare uses the multiple characters in each of his plays to show his culture’s multiple truths.”
There is an unfortunate strain of the irrational when it comes to Israel and Arabs throughout Greenspun’s otherwise entertaining writing. This is just more of it.
Glad to see I’m not the only person who liked Shrek (the first one) better.
Anyone interested in the fate of Christians in the Levant — including, alas, the policies of Israel towards its dwindling Christian community — should read William Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain. It’s one of the best travel narratives of the last decade.