Keyboard commandos!

^The rest of us can take a hike?

It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way. As it happens, Twain was autobiographical there, because this short story was suppressed by his publisher until after his death. I think the message would be lost on most denizens of the Politics section, Baashi. But maybe one of the moderators can move it there. Che, are you considering the possibility that there are no enemies?

The War Prayer by Mark Twain It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way. Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation *God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!* Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory -- An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!" The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said: "I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think. "God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it. "You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen! "O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. (*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!" It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Well, I suppose that's a concession of sorts.

Northerner, Originally posted by Northerner: You seam to be ignoring the report by the Libyans. Why? Because its not accurate according to the western media? What does that say about your mindset? Volumes or apples and pears? You've said several times that I'm getting my information from biased Western media, am I to understand that you have a different media source which contradicts the information you've posted? Could you present this alternative news source? So far, the facts as I'm aware of them are: 1. 400+ Libyan children were found to be infected with HIV in 1998. 2. Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor were charged by the Libyan gov't with deliberately infecting the children with the virus. Some of the nurses confessed to the crime, but later retracted their confessions, saying that they were tortured. 3. A study funded and released by the Libyan gov't concluded that the physical evidence does not rule out foul play. They didn't actually present any evidence, however, that directly implicates the accused of the crime. 4. Two teams of international virologists present evidence that the healthcare workers could not have introduced the HIV strain found in the children, since a) an epidemic involving this specific local strain was already underway before they arrived, and b) half of the children are co-infected with Hepatitis viruses, indicative of poor hospital infection control. Are you contesting any of these points on factual grounds? Do you have access to non-western media which failed to inform you that one of the accused is Arab but which at the same time gives you reason to confidently assert that the accused are guilty of the crime?

Northerner, Originally posted by Northerner: quote:Actually, they are from Bulgaria. I sense you're going on autopilot here. Are you even familiar with the case? Hungary/Bulgaria, whatever - Europe.I think that says volumes right there. Are you not rejecting the judicial system of Libya? I am questioning this particular verdict, because the evidence presented against the healthcare workers is flimsy, and does not establish their guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The Libyan judicial system is indeed deeply flawed and prone to manipulation by the government, but so is every judicial system to some degree or other. Courts are meant to follow due process; if they fail to do that, their verdicts should be rejected. Do you disagree with that? European, Palestian or Somali. I haven’t seen any denials from the accused but I have heard they confessed! Oh don’t tell me they were tortured (very convenient ey :rolleyes: ). Why should I care? Again, this says volumes about your peculiar mindset. If you don't care, why did you post the article? Even if you don't care that possibly innocent people are sentenced to be killed for a crime they did not commit, could you at least look beyond your petty biases and consider the repercussions for Libya? If those children were infected with HIV because of unhygienic hospital practices, will finding a handy scapegoat protect future Libyan children from the same fate? When you confess to the crime yes it is! Well, they do claim they were tortured. Do you find that farfetched in general, or is your faith in the Libyan judicial process particularly robust?

Northerner, Originally posted by Northerner: Ok 1 Doctor from Palestine and Nurses from Hungary. My bad. Actually, they are from Bulgaria. I sense you're going on autopilot here. Are you even familiar with the case? quote: are you claiming that Libya's justice system is infallible? Does this: Or is a court in Africa less important than 'our' courts in the west? constitute such a claim?The question makes no sense otherwise. Miscarriage of justice is common everywhere, so why does a rejection of THIS particular verdict equate a believe that African courts are less important? What has one thing got to do with the other? ps you didnt answer my last q. Would you or your media care if the nurses were not from Europe? Not in the least. Just as you don't care since they ARE European (well, except for the Palestinian, which throws your argument for a loop). And you didn't answer my question. Is being found guilty the same as being guilty?

MMA, What about capitalization? Soomaali kuma waydiinkaro su'aasha

Northerner, Please don't play the ethnocentric card. The doctor is from Palestine. I think that's in Asia. And even if he wasn't, are you claiming that Libya's justice system is infallible? Is being found guilty the same as being guilty? The evidence has been analyzed thoroughly. Neither the nurses nor the doctor is likely to have deliberately infected those children with HIV. Here's a good breakdown . In a paper published online in Nature last week1, an international team led by researchers from Oxford, Edinburgh and Rome showed that the strain of HIV with which the children had been infected was already present and spreading locally in the mid-1990s, long before the medics arrived in Libya in 1998.

Compounding tragedy with gross injustice.

Sorry, I know. I just had a mental image of Aweys looming over some poor feverish patient and draining all his/her "bad" blood away. It seems like a metaphor more appropriate for the anti-ICU crowd.

Originally posted by Kashafa: quote:Originally posted by Allamagan: Maxkamadaha spoiled everything! They are desprados warmongers like their predecessors. eager to spill more somali blood as ever! Slight correction, akh: They're eager to spill traitorous Somali blood. Kinda like the practice of bloodletting , out with the sick dirty blood and the body gets better. "The practice, of unproven efficacy, has been abandoned for all except a few specific conditions as modern treatments proved or believed to be effective have been introduced." :confused:

Wow, awesome idea, and kudos to those who got it going. I hope more nomads took pics and will share.

Does he talk to anyone in the restuarant before killing himself?

Originally posted by ThePoint: ^Well - u only get the disease if you 'interact' with the saqachaans(sp) who carry it - otherwise it doesn't touch you. By 'interact' do you mean, eg, you're a new-born and your mother got infected with HIV from her husband and you get HIV from her breast-milk?

ThePoint, Yeah, seems kinda strange. Maybe it's one thing to perform a procedure on your pre-pubescent son as a cultural ritual/religious obligation and another thing to circumscise grown men as a medical procedure. Especially if the men are not familiar with the ritual, and they will have to be "out of commission" for a while, so to speak. Just raising awareness and opening clinics and training health workers will be a challenge. But hopefully one African nations can rise to.

Originally posted by WILDCAT: The clitoris is a much larger organ than most people suppose. It extends into the body and is as large as any erect penis. Removing the outer tip is merely just the "tip of the iceberg" (so to speak). If you really wanted to completely kill a woman's (physical) arousal, you'd have to do a much larger internal operation. Circumcised women do just fine. Even if their pleasure comes with a little more difficulty. That's not to say FGM doesn't do a lot of harm, but thankfully, it is not as destructive as it might have been if the ancients had been more knowledgeable about female anatomy. It's destructive enough, Wildcat. Interference with sexual pleasure is only the most obvious effect. The medical consequences are vast, and known well enough not to need repeating. It's just a lot sexier to talk about what gets a woman off than about urinary tract infections and postpartum hemorrhage.

Pooja, I don't finding supernatural claims very convincing in general.

Who cares?

2. Why don't they exercise some other way first?

Welcome beeteljuice. Nip/Tuck is fiction. What's so disturbing about the surgery? Aside from the 'ceeb' factor I mean?

Originally posted by Djib-Somali: You may note that my theorie is that "self-incoherence" (lack of clear priorities to which the rest is subordinate, contradicting objectives ect) is the root cause of depression, stress... Well, this is the point where your views are merely those of a layman. A psychiatrist wouldn't put clinical depression in the same category as stress, for one thing. Clinical depression has an indisputably biological basis. We may not understand all the factors that can lead to depression, but then we don't understand all the factors that lead to type 1 diabetes, or rheumatism, or multiple scelerosis. It would be absurd to then dismiss possible physiological processes that the sufferer is not in control of. Likewise depression has nothing to do with lacking clear priorities, saaxiib. Perhaps a little less theorizing and a little more humbleness is in order.

Originally posted by Northerner: quote:Originally posted by J B: ^and who am i to fetch your oponion?, none. just a lil tiny correction, there're no respective claims, there is only one( uno ) single claim, and unsubstantiated at that. 'There is no that particular God' has to be preceded by ' there is that particular God',no? See, we're making progress !! I see you tactfully dodged my 'convenience' theory,,,,,, 'Convenience' in not believing in a god/creatoris the main reason you (and others like minded) choose not to believe. Its not that you dont believe (i think you believe in God) but you 'pretend' (at least in your own mind) not to, purely out of convenience. The ramifications it would have on your life etc etc The really convenient belief is this one, Northerner. You want to reconcile your faith in a Merciful God who created humanity for a purpose with the glaring fact that most of humanity either doesn't believe in him or believes in the wrong 'version' of him. Hence you tell yourself that all those other people KNOW what the Truth is, but they are denying it out of convenience/arrogance. That justifies your Merciful God's promises of eternal damnation for them. It's a very comforting belief, I'm sure.

^ Definitely. I have lots of earrings. Gold (14k, 18k, 21k), silver, two-tone. But every time I wear a pair I lose one. Does mix-and-match work with earrings?