Major General William Caldwell, the US military’s chief spokesperson in Baghdad, is so poetic! On Nov 2 (a day on which 49 people were known to have been killed in Iraq), Caldwell told reportes to cheer up! Operation Iraqi Freedom is a work of art! It’s just a work in progress right now!
“Every great work of art goes through messy phases while it is in transition. A lump of clay can become a sculpture. Blobs of paint become paintings which inspire.”
I’m no art critic, but I’m going to have to disagree with the Major General on this one. How many people died in the making of the Mona Lisa?
November 7, 2006
I came across a pretty hilarious quote this week in Time Magazine’s notebook section (not usually that great, but this week there was twinkling gem), from Australian cleric Sheik Taj Aldin al-Hilali. In a sermon about why women need to wear the veil in order to not tempt men and get raped, he had this to say:
“If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside the garden or in the park or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it, whose fault is it – the cats’ or the uncovered meat?”
Excellent reasoning there, Sheik. The veil = the cover. Good one. The only problem with this analogy is:
Women (conscious humans) are not meat (dead, food item).
Men (sentient beings) are not cats (animals).
Raping (violent crime) is not eating (biological imperative).
Other than that, the whole argument was pretty much on point. Thanks buddy, you should think about dropping the cleric profession and writing metaphors for a living.
November 3, 2006
