James Lileks Says it All
Still catching up after several days out of town, I just came across James's bleat of last Thursday. An astonishing piece of writing, it intermixes events in the Middle East with his daughter's preparation for school the next day and his own nearly OCD rearranging of refrigerator magnets--no, I don't know how he does it, either--and suffusing every word with wit and fury and patriotism. No excerpt can do the piece justice, but here's a sample all the same:
Okay then. Here’s something you might not hear; the BBC ran this a few days ago.
"In post-occupation Iraq being gay, or even looking gay, can be a death sentence.
"It's very difficult to determine how many homosexuals have died in so called "honour killings" by their own families or in the hands of the militias. But a BBC investigation has found that law enforcement agencies are involved in ongoing, systematic and organised violence against gay people, while the government refuses to acknowledge it.
"Once targeted, most gay people in Iraq have nowhere to hide. There is only one safehouse in Baghdad which can house three people.
Aaaand I add that to the story about the Taliban killing a bunch of people because they danced, and think: forgive me if I add these anecdotes - isolated, non-representative, of course - to a large store of similar events, and draw some generalizations which may pop to mind when embassies are overrun. Again.
Forgive me if I note that one culture has a debate about allowing gays to marry, and another that seems to have concluded a debate about whether they should live.
And pardon the fargin’ hell out of me if I dare to note that the signature value of the West these days, Tolerance, is best exemplified in a tiny hangnail of a nation which stands apart in its neighborhood for letting gay people live lives, instead of gathering everyone else to watch their lives ended....
Only Lileks.
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Feb '12
Re: James Lileks Says it All
Oh that hangnail..
BERNARD LEWIS INTERVIEW
By Ruthie Blum
Jerusalem Post - One on One: When defeat means liberation
Ruthie Blum , THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 6, 2008
Extract:
"I have sat with friends in Jordan watching Israeli television, and they see something they wouldn't see in any Arab country: an Arab member of parliament attacking the government and its policies on national television, and then going home safely. No member of parliament in an Arab country could denounce his government the way Arab members of the Knesset do in Israel.
Do they acknowledge this about Israel?
They're not stupid.... and it has an effect. Notice that whenever there's any suggestion of ceding even an Arab-inhabited part of Israel to a Palestinian state, it brings howls of indignation among Israeli Arabs. They know they're much better off under Israeli rule.
It does. And the leaders use that, of course.
Look, imperialism, sexism and racism are all Western words, not because they're uniquely Western, but because Western societies name them and identify them as evil, in order to eradicate them. In other societies, they are so much an integral part that they don't even have names. "
Jun '10
Re: James Lileks Says it All
Meanwhile, here in America, a terrorist is someone who refuses to pretend that medicare and social security (as we know them) are financially secure for all eternity, or close enough. That's what makes you a dangerous lunatic--unfit for office--here.
Feb '12
Re: James Lileks Says it All
A view from the eye of the storm "The most formidable weapon against errors of any kind is reason"
Mar '11
Re: James Lileks Says it All
The link to James Lileks is broken. This is it.
Jul '11
Re: James Lileks Says it All
Lileks is a national treasure. It's ten years since I started reading the bleat (it was a link of Glenn Reynolds's in either late '01 or early '02 that took me there the first time) and I've been a devotee ever since, sharing it with friends along the way. I can't remember how many times I've given the picture books as gifts.
I was in Minneapolis last June and stopped at a Target to buy a few personal items. I half expected to see Lileks pushing a shopping cart full of "supplies." No luck.
Nov '10
Re: James Lileks Says it All
Here's another one:
One culture debates the right to bear arms.
Another culture debates the right to bare arms.
Sep '10
Re: James Lileks Says it All
Peter, your link to James' Bleat piece is missing the ":" between "http" and "//". Do you hand-code your own html?
Jun '12
Re: James Lileks Says it All
That is top shelf scathing commentary. My liberal wife loves James' stuff on consensus era decor kitsch. I have to figure out how to get her to start reading his political stuff.
Mar '11
Re: James Lileks Says it All
Peter, he's on a roll. Today's screed is also top-shelf: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/12/0912/091912.html
He brilliantly skewers the inane stupidity of the editorialists at the LA Times for suggesting we need to prosecute those who stir up the sensitive Muslim extremists and force them to riot.
Jul '12
Re: James Lileks Says it All
All the things he says are true. But our error is thinking that people in this part of the world are or can be exactly like us, they just wear funny headgear. The cultural divide is unbridgeable. We can rightly point out the vast differences between the two worlds, nothing is going to change. But we can appreciate all the more the way things go (for the time being) in our world.
Edited on September 19, 2012 at 6:42pmMar '12
Re: James Lileks Says it All
My thoughts exactly. And, I found him 10 years ago from an Instapundit link, too.