So Much for Brotherhood in Islamism . . .

'Dutch'

News Brief: MEMRI TV Clip No. 7168 tells us:

"Former Dutch ISIS Fighter Regrets Having Joined ISIS, Says Syrians, Immigrants Were Treated Poorly Because Leadership Became Dominated By Iraqis"

Just as nationalism undermines communism, so does tribalism undermine Islamism.

I'm No Linguist, But . . .

Coptic Again!

. . . I've decided to refresh my Coptic, after having been away from it for about ten years, maybe even fifteen?

I used to know Coptic pretty well, well enough, anyway, to correct Alexander Boehlig.

The Most Beautiful Redheads in the World

Read-Headed Woodpecker

Birds have the most beautiful red heads in the world . . .

Fine-Tuning Tech

Fine-Tuning Tech

In the beginning . . .

Once Upon a Time . . .

e=mc^?

There was a problem . . .

But the problem was solved: e=mc^2

And they all lived happily ever after . . .

Joyfully Wrecking a Poem! Watch!

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Watch me wreck this poem, "The Windhover," in mere seconds:

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
"Hi there!" . . .

Poem wrecked. So much for Gerard Manley Hopkins and his sprung rhythm . . .

Science Hints: Eggs

A Braking Egg

Eggs brake instantly against a hard surface.

Radicalized at the Root of Islam?

Hamed Abdel-Samad

I've often stated that Islamism (e.g., the ideology of ISIS) is not Islamic extremism, but is, rather, radicalization at the root of Islam. I now see that the "Egyptian-German scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad [has] said that Islamic extremism and terrorism stem from the 'core of Islam' – from its texts, its history of conquests, its founder, and its ideology." In short, he says what I've been saying.

This is reported in Memri Special Dispatch No. 8056 (May 12, 2019), which can be seen online via this link.

E-ville?

God and Moral Evil

Kevin Kim is talking about evil, both moral and natural, and I have obliquely suggested that the existence of God raises the possibility that natural evil might be God's moral evil.

This may sound shocking, but it's implicit in theodicies and the like.

Fraudian Analysis Again!

Freudianism w/o Freud

I posted something transactionally funny last night and woke up to this:

* * * Empty Space * * *

I had probably written something like:

"Freudianism without Freud is almost like Ianism without Joy."

And then I probably added something hilarious like this:

Parent (Superego) - Adult (Ego) - Child (Id)

And was that.

Fraudian Analysis?

Freudianism
without a
Single Freud

Remember Transactional Analysis?

Remember "I'm Ok, You're Ok?"

Remember Parent - Adult - Child?

Not Freudian Analysis, but Fraudian Analysis?

Memri Report: Syrian Moonshine

Memri Report

Moon

I didn't even know that the Israelis had a moon mission until some part of the spacecraft's flight went awry, giving rise to varied remarks in the Arab world, Syria's reaction being the most bizarre :

There were also bizarre reactions, like that of former Syrian MP Ahmad Shalash, who hinted that Syrian intelligence had caused the spacecraft to crash, apparently in retaliation for the airstrikes in Syria that are attributed to Israel. He wrote on his Facebook page: "An Israeli spacecraft has crashed on the moon. We have said previously that the operations of the Syrian intelligence [apparatuses] would surprise everyone and that the arena of conflict is unlimited. I do not want to say anything more explicit."

Yeah, I can understand that one wouldn't let too much of that intelligence get out.

Sounds Like Psych

Freud or Freud?

Someone took Freud's Es, Ueberich, and Ich and rendered these words in 'English' as the more scientificky-sounding terms Id, Superego, and Ego, but how much better wouldn't It, Overi, and I have sounded . . .

Analysis without Freud

Freudnichts

Freud didn't posit the Id, the Superego, and the Ego. He posited the Es, the Ueberich, and the Ich. English should have rendered these as the It, the Overi, and the I.

I may have said this before. Or maybe Overi said it. It didn't say it.

The Id is a Short Idiot!

 Big Short? Nah, it ain't that short!

Superego: "Virtue is its own reward."

Id: "Oh, no, not you again. Well, just for the record, everything I do, I do it as its own reward for me."

Ego: "Might I address what, in principle, our reality is?"

Eagle

Not Our Ego

Superego: "Virtue is its own reward."

Id: "Oh, do shut up!"

Superego: "You never tell Ego to shut up."

Id: "That's 'cause Ego has at least thought a lot and sometimes says something interesting, whereas you're just a yes-man's ego-echo."

Superego: "Yeah. Right."

Ego: "Might I address what, in principle, our reality is?"

Virtue is What?!

Virtue Signaling?

Superego: "Virtue is its own reward."

Id: I take great pleasure in looking back on the origin of our word "virtue," namely, directly in its present form, from Middle English, which borrowed from Old French vertu, which came from Latin virtus, "valor, merit, moral perfection," and all these wonderful attributes come down to us from the Latin word vir, which means "man," meaning that true virtue can be only masculine, but such masculinity can be had with ease for men, for men have it with ease, by definition.

Ego: "Might I address what, in principle, our reality is?"

Throw me a Real Lifeline

Not Salman Rushdie!

Superego: "Virtue is its own reward."

Id: "I like my vice a little naughty but nice."

Superego: "You shouldn't plagiarize Salman Rushdie!"

Ego: "Might I address what, in principle, our reality is?"

Perish the Taught!

Psycho-Analysis

Superego: "Virtue is its own reward."

Id: "But vice is also nice, and would suffice."

Superego: "Would you want to perish twice?"

Ego: "Might I address what, in principle, our reality is?"

Tortured Talks

Grave Jones and Earnest Import

Superego: "Virtue is its own reward."

Id: "You said that already."

Superego: "It bears repeating."

Ego: "Might I address what, in principle, our reality is?"

Freud's Joyful Science

Freud

Superego: "Virtue is its own reward."

Id: "So's vice. Do it till you're satisfied."

Ego: "Might I address what, in principle, our reality is?"

Poetic Licence in High Heels?

Poetic Licence

I've rewritten the word "stayeth" as "stay'th" in one of my Miltonic sonnets so that it might rhyme with "faith":

"Now choose / Life" from the Tree of Life and live by faith . . . / Though grace hath promised that she ever stay'th . . .

Clever, eh? Or would you need to see the entire sonnet? You've already seen it sometime back, if you're a regular reader.

But you would need to make the little readjustment . . .

. . . in heels.

Article on Don Quixote's Mole: Two Citations

Don Quixote
By Honoré Daumier
(1868)

Here is my article on Don Quixote - ten years ago!

Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America. Fall 2009 Horace Jeffery Hodges ... journal, Cervantes 28.2 (Fall, 2008): "Our cover sports another of Jack Davis' illustrations from our bi-lingual Children's Don Quixote."] ...

And here are two citations:

Why You Can't Believe the Arabian Historian Cide Hamete ... - Jstor  by NF HERMES - ‎2014 - ‎Related articles hereafter Don Quixote - as the perfect model of a "pivotal text," that is "prescient in its formulation of the .... Horace Jeffery Hodges in turn notes that "Cervantes ...

The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, Volume ...  Kevin Ingram, ‎Juan Ignacio Pulido Serrano - 2015 - ‎Religion Don Quixote's identity and valor depend on a mole on his right side under the left shoulder, the mark of a strong man. Horace Jeffery Hodges saw that this ...

There are actually a couple more citations but again not easy to cut and paste.

More Citations: A Fateful Turning of the Spheres . . .

Mandaean Gnostics

Here's another article I wrote, this one on Gnosticism and the breaking of fate:

Gnostic Liberation from Astrological Determinism - Jstor by HJ Hodges - ‎1997 - ‎Cited by 6 - ‎Related articles DETERMINISM: HIPPARCHAN "TREPIDATION". AND THE BREAKING OF FATE. BY. HORACE JEFFERY HODGES. Introduction. Of all the intellectual systems ...

This was published way back in 1997, so it should have a few more citations:

Cosmology and Fate in Gnosticism and Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Under ...  Nicola F. Denzey - 2013 - ‎Social Science In a provocative article, Horace [Jeffery] Hodges points out the highly technical nature of ... Hipparchan 'Trepidation' and the Breaking of Fate," VC 51/4 (1997), 368.

Classifying Christians: Ethnography, Heresiology, and the Limits of ...  Todd S. Berzon - 2016 - ‎Religion On astrological determinism among the Gnostics, see Horace Jeffrey (sic., Jeffery) Hodges, ... Hipparchan 'Trepidation' and the Breaking of Fate," VC 51.4 (1997): 359–73; ...

The Books of Jeu and the Pistis Sophia as Handbooks to Eternity: ...  Erin Evans - 2015 - ‎Religion Hodges, H.J., "Gnostic Liberation from Astrological Determinism: Hipparchan 'Trepidation' and the Breaking of Fate," Vigiliae Christianae 51 (1997), 359–373.

Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines: ...  Nicole Kelley - 2006 - ‎Religion ... power of astral determinism see Horace Jeffery Hodges, "Gnostic Liberation from Astrological Determinism: Hipparchan 'Trepidation' and the Breaking of Fate ...

There are actually several more citations, but they would be harder to copy and paste here.

Some Citations of the Zavah Article

Woman with a Flow of Blood

Here are three citations of the article by Poirier and me:

Reading Mark in Context: Jesus and Second Temple Judaism Ben C. Blackwell, ‎John K. Goodrich, ‎Jason Maston - 2018 - ‎Religion Horace Jeffery Hodges and John C. Poirier, "Jesus as the Holy One of God: The Healing of the Zavah in Mark 5.24b–34," JGRChJ 8 (2011–12): 151–84, at 181.

"The Poor, the Crippled, the Blind, and the Lame": Physical and ... Louise A. Gosbell - 2018 - ‎Religion ... of the subsequent categories.97 Horace Jeffery Hodges and John C. Poirier likewise assert this scaffolding of meaning referring to it as a "logical progression.

A Theology of Mark's Gospel: Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the ... David E. Garland - 2015 - ‎Religion Horace Jeffery Hodges and John C. Poirier, "Jesus as the Holy One of God: The Healing of the Zavah in Mark 5.24b–34," JGRChJ 8 (2011–12): 169–70, argue, ...

I could probably find others if I looked, and I could also fill in the gaps, but you can do that yourself.

Citations, Academic Citations!

Zondervan

2018

Professor David E. Garland, of Baylor University, borrows and cites from an article written by John Poirier and me on holiness, impurity, the clean, and the common within the Markan story of the woman with the impure flow of blood who 'touches' Jesus, the Holy One of God.

Cleft Sentences

Cleft Sentence

This sentence below is a type of "Cleft Sentence":

"It is my father who left me there."

The basic sentence is:

"My father left me there."

I probably don't need to explain why the basic sentence is better style, so unless you're translating Coptic to English or need to emphasize something or other despite the attendant wordiness, avoid the cleft sentence.

Quarter Horse

Quarter Horse

This is a quarter horse. What are the other three quarters?

Dog Days of War

Dogs: Wikipedia

Yesterday, I was asked by a certain Ms. Lynn Rosa to comment on Dog Wars:

Hello is it possible to speak with you regarding Korea and some health issues relating to the eating of dogs? Thanks, we are making a documentary on this topic, Dog Wars. I am the executive producer, Lynn Rosa... Thank you!

I replied:

Dear Ms. Lynn Rosa, I think that I am too ignorant of the Korean dog meat industry to add anything substantive to the debate. I am on the side of the dogs, of course. I know that some Korean men think that eating dog soup provides them with energy, particularly sexual energy. I know that this is nonsense, and the belief that beating the dog to death increases the energy is evil nonsense. Some Koreans have told me that dog meat is easier to digest because dogs and humans are more closely related than, say, cattle and humans. I tell them that if this is true, then dog meat is more dangerous to eat since we - dogs and humans - share too many similar pathogens. Beyond what I've posted here today, I know nothing.

I suppose Ms. Rosa will find her expert somehow or other, but not through me, unfortunately.

Mad Men Advertising

Bottled Sparkling Water

This is the mineral water I mostly drink: "Victoria Sparkling Water: Plain." I like the water, but I've noticed something misleading. Below the large word "Victoria" is the large image of a waterfall, leading one to infer that this water comes to us from "Victoria Falls." Granted, the words "Sparkling Water" do come between "Victoria" and the "Falls," but only in much smaller font than "Victoria" and in much smaller effect than the "Falls."

Biblical Remembering?

Heart

Once upon a time, I was working on an article on the biblical view of the "heart," which contained this paragraph:

This Jewish and Christian understanding of the remembering of crucial salvational historical events as though one had personally experienced them has its grounding in a larger Biblical understanding of memory as a faculty of the heart, but this means far more than mere recollection, for in Biblical anthropology, "heart" as a technical term "denotes the center of the person as a rational, emotional and volitional being" (Eric Jager, The Book of the Heart, 2001, page 13). Planning and volition thus come from the heart, which serves as the root of religious and moral conduct. I would like to call attention to the active aspect of this unity, as expressed in the Biblical understanding of "remembering," by surveying and commenting upon a number of Biblical passages.

I had some things I wanted to explain to my own satisfaction, but I didn't remain long enough in one place with a theological library, so I stopped working on the manuscript, which has been gathering metaphysical dust for about fifteen years.

I had thought that my sabbatical might offer me the time, but I now suspect it won't.