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With the Mumbai hostage siege finally drawing to its conclusion, the majority of terrorists (if that is what we must call them) either dead or under lock and key, it comes time to take stock and consider exactly what happened in this great Indian city most of us still remember as Bombay.

NBC Nightly News labeled the events of the last few days, “India’s 9/11”. Well, of course, they would, wouldn’t they? Mumbai is no stranger to terrorist violence: two years ago, seven blasts ripped through rail stations and commuter trains in Mumbai, killing 187. No mention then of “India’s 9/11” – possibly, because no Americans died in those atrocities.

Much speculation exists on the identity of these latest attackers. Are they from Pakistan, a historical enemy of India? Al Qaeda, perhaps, or Hindu extremists from the north of the continent? Putting a label on them will not be too difficult. The authorities of any nation have ways of making their enemies talk.

More difficult, is finding words – adjectives and nouns – that will describe them. Yes, that’s a lot more difficult.

The first to come to mind was, “pigs”. But, pigs are gentle creatures, unless riled. Pigs don’t deserve association with those responsible for these latest atrocities.

In fact, there’s not a creature on the planet so cold-bloodedly evil as those who attacked and killed, for the sheer joy of killing, innocent individuals who had not done them the slightest harm, or wished them the least ill.

It matters not the nationality or religious belief of the victims. British and Americans were, we are told, singled out for execution – though by far the greatest number of dead were Indian – and a young American rabbi and his Israeli wife and family. Oh, the ecstasy of those who happened on these defenseless human beings. How glorious to gun down in cold blood representatives of the Zionist intruder. How inopportune that one, two year old, Jewish child escaped their lethal clutches.

No, to refer to them as ‘pigs’ is to bestow far too great a compliment.

Instead, let’s call them what they are – human beings. Members of the only animal species on the planet that willfully slaughters its own kind, without guilt or mercy, in the mistaken belief of ‘serving a cause’. It’s not important to achieve anything, other than the killing of innocent members of their own kind. Apart from the death-toll, no other result is anticipated.

Is it possible to understand the mindset of such people? We gasp in horror as the atrocities unfold before our eyes. We question what it is they want from us, even though it’s obvious their only desire is our death. After all, there were no demands for ransom.

The slaughter of innocents, to serve a cause, is nothing new. Whether that cause is Islamic, Christian, or political, wherever there is conflict in the world it is the innocents who die in greater numbers than the combatants. While US drones regularly exterminate whole Afghan villages, or its mercenaries shoot up locals in Baghdad; while Israel starves the Palestinians in Gaza, dismembers their children with tank shells, or mutilates Lebanese innocents with cluster-bombs, there will always be those who wrongly believe they have some god-given right to take out their self-centered revenge on other, innocent, human beings.

While Madeleine Albright, asked whether the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth the sanctions on Iraq in the 1990’s, can answer, “Yes,” there will always be those who believe they have a cause for which the taking of innocent lives is justified.

There is, of course, no such justification. Search the very depths, the hidden corners of the Universe, and you will never find a bonafide reason. But that applies as much to governments as it does to terrorists. Those empowered to make the laws have even less excuse to break them.

Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet revered by the Islamic community as well as the Christian, when asked whether a woman who committed the sin of adultery should be stoned according to the law, responded: “Let he who has never sinned cast the first stone.”

It’s a sad indictment of our species, that those who profess to serve a divine cause, are the very one’s to cast aside the teachings of their Godhead in a vain quest for power, glory, and a dubious immortality.

Until we learn to respect each other’s beliefs, honor the sacredness of all human life, and stop justifying the slaughter of innocents under the label of “collateral damage”, the “9/11’s” of this world will continue with monotonous regularity.

Frankly, the future does not shine forth with any glorious promise of hope.

Filed under: Pinnacle of creation

Reports today that Ann Coulter, the big-mouthed Barbie doll of the Republican party, has had her jaw wired in the shut position, after she broke it recently (or, maybe someone broke it for her?)^[1]

Ms Coulter is one of those Americans, of which both parties have their share, who’ve discovered a way to become infamous, and consequently a celebrity, by mouthing ignorant and inaccurate statements about their political opponents. It’s an American game that never ceases to confound the rest of the world by its immaturity and lack of any facet of intelligence.

We can only hope Ms Coulter remains orally challenged for the foreseeable future.

Across the pond, in Britain, a new advertising campaign is hoping the festive spirit will take note and carry a condom to all those office Christmas parties where, it seems, anything goes and the results can be disastrous:

The story, publicized in the UK’s notoriously hypocritical Daily Mail newspaper, asks whether this “crude ad” is really the best way to combat unwanted Xmas pregnancies – all, while displaying the lives, loves, and dirty washing of UK and US celebs, for the reader’s delectation.^[2]

To some Americans, the loose moral attitudes of the British are an anathema, but thankfully not all nations share the same narrow-minded, moralistic, interfering-in-other-people’s-lives, philosophy, so to those British males headed for the annual Christmas “do”, Sparrow Chat says, don’t forget to pack a ‘packet of three’, ‘cos you never know when you’ll need one.

And, while you’re at it, give thanks you’re not subject to the religiot morals of your cousins across the pond.

^{[1] “Ann Coulter’s jaw broken and will be wired shut” OregonLive.Com, November 25th 2008}

^{[2] “Is this crude ad really the best way to tackle unwanted pregnancies at Christmas?” Daily Mail, November 28th 2008}

Filed under: All about Thanksgiving

I can think of nothing worse than spending a whole day eating and drinking in the company of in-laws and relatives. I mean, just the thought of having my relations, and those of any of my ex-wives, (my present wife’s parents are no longer with us) in the same room, is reminiscent of a day in Hades with the Borgias and Genoveses.

Yet, this is something Americans do every year, and they at least pretend to enjoy it. “Relations” are considered sacrosanct to such an extent that at times the US appears like a nation of families Gambino.

Which begs the question: do they really enjoy it, or is it just an old tradition turned into something expected?

My guess is the latter.

Here in the mid-West, or the Heartlands, or the flatlands, or the asshole of the US, it’s a tradition probably better tolerated than elsewhere. After all, central Illinois is the epitome of that place where life originated for the sole purpose of eating. Within a radius of five hundred miles there’s absolutely nothing else to get out of bed for. Unless, one includes shopping, but that’s usually just a means to procure even greater amounts of sustenance.

On any Saturday afternoon between May and September, the air is thick with the odor of roasting flesh intermingled with the caustic fumes of burnt fat incinerated over countless barbecues. Even the ten thousand tonnes of poisonous pollution pumped into the atmosphere by ADM and Staley Sugar, pale into insignificance alongside the ritual weekly cow-cook that is the raison d’etre of most Illinois residents.

Consider the irony of a local law that forbids camp-fires on one’s own property – “it may cause an allergy alert or spark an asthma epidemic” (I kid you not!) – yet happily ignores the pollutants from two major, unregulated, industrial giants and the barbecue output from fifty thousand homes.

This evening, as the Thanksgiving holiday draws to a close, my wife and I give thanks for the wonder of isolation. We spent our vegetarian Thanksgiving with the best company to be found on the planet – each other. No animal was injured or killed in the making of our meal. No pollutants were released into the atmosphere, and our relatives enjoyed the occasion, or not, in the company of other relatives – well away from us.

We hope your Thanksgiving was as delightful, peaceful, free of argument and screaming kids, and as full of love and joy, as ours.

Filed under: Happy Holidays