Z as in Zealot

He doesn't look like a killer .. - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
April 15th is not a day that we love, normally because of income taxes being due. For 2013, the young Tsarnaev brothers, Chechen immigrants, made the day all the more frightening by detonating two pressure cooker bombs at the Boston Marathon finish line. It seems that 26 year old Tamerlan and 19 year old Dzokhar were carefree and careless in their methods. They strolled casually along the street planting bomb-laden backpacks, little realizing that watchful security cameras recorded every move. They later bragged to a car jack victim that they were the bombers.

What the brothers lacked in common sense, they made up for in religious devotion. In 2012, Tamerlan is thought to have visited a Salafi mosque in Dagestan where he was versed in radical Islam. He came back a “purist” with a beard, condemning American libertine behavior. Both boys posted various Islamic prayers and poems on their web sites. Because America is a free society, and many among us are religious devotees, none of these behaviors seemed out-of-bounds. In the aftermath of their horrific plot, the specter of Islamic zealotry did in fact rear its head.

In days that followed, the “liberal” media (Salon, Huffington Post, msnbc) contorted themselves mightily to deemphasize the radical religious angle. This crime was done “independently” by “loners” who acted without any guidance or participation in a terror cell. Never mind that the formula for the bomb came from the Al Quaeda magazine, Inspire. Never mind that Islam was given as a life view on FaceBook. My personal feeling is that participation in a terror cell doesn’t matter. Whether it was a large collective effort or individual madness, a jihadist religious philosophy drove this behavior, pure and simple. In my previous blogs about Heaven’s Gate and Jim Jones’ temple I suggested some cautionary remarks about any prophet, priest or minister who exhorts you to:
o Commit murder
o Commit suicide
o Destroy property
o Commit blind, random acts of destruction
o Violate secular, state laws regarding sex with minors, plural marriage
o Disown blood relations, give away property
o Castrate or otherwise harm yourself
o Perform disfiguring corporal punishment on “non believers”

If someone (a mortal human, like you) is claiming to have some cosmic connection and asking you to do these crazy things, your inner cynic should come to the fore. In the above case, the boys’ father was a secular lawyer who hated radical Islam. It’s odd that they could still be swayed away from his more reasoned approach.

Even “mainstream” organized religion can go places it shouldn’t – look at the Westboro Baptist Church who protests American soldiers’ funerals with placards that read “God hates fags”. Look at the Catholic Church which simultaneously condemns gays while sheltering pedophiles in its ranks. Speaking from my own singularly secular perch, all religions can give me the willies. Unitarians serve up some of the weirdest rituals of them all (what with its Wiccans and Pagans). While I will stay in my zone (and the reader, stay in your zone as you see fit), let’s not any of us throw away a life over “wackadoo” extremism that makes promises and threats to weakened minds. I believe there is in fact a God, and he (she or they) expects better from us.

© 2013 blogSpotter

Pieces of April

Daydreaming in April .. - Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I don’t know if it’s my advanced age giving me writer's block, or the allergens of early April. It was a beautiful 75 degrees today and the only thing that kept it from being “God’s perfect day” was a wind that whipped the greenery around at White Rock Lake as I took my walk. I don’t have any burning issues to rant about, no ideas to drive home. Today’s blog entry will be just a little of this and a little of that -- think of it as buffet style blog. It’s not as though there aren't lots of topics going on. I’ll alight on a couple of these like a hummingbird to a flower. These topics deserve better, but my concentration demands less..

KIM JONG UN
This is a mad, mad, mad world more than Stanley Kramer ever dreamed. In our insular America we like to think that one crazy man can’t threaten the whole world. How could one man wreak such damage? Well Osama Bin Laden was directly responsible for 9/11 and the two wars which still roil in the aftermath. One man. Adolph Hitler bullied his way into German leadership and then exacted a horrible toll on Europe, not the least of which was his own divided, occupied Germany. It is my sincerest hope that China tries to talk sense into the ego-maniacal 28 year old “supreme leader” of North Korea. Even if his weapons can’t reach America, they can set off a very regrettable chain of events.

DA MURDERS IN KAUFMAN, TX
Too frequently, when North Texas makes the national news it’s something bad -- Kennedy assassination, Amber child abduction, Cullen Davis murder, Bonnie and Clyde. The events of the last 3 months are a doozy and really top all the aforementioned. Assistant district attorney Mark Hasse was gunned down in January, in cold blood, in broad daylight. Two witnesses saw a masked man in black clothing who jumped into a silver sedan with no license plates. At 10:30AM, the car drove away (without chase) from the courthouse square. The murder remains unsolved, no leads. Then Kaufman DA Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were ruthlessly killed in their own Forney home, early Saturday morning March 30th. A raging thunderstorm may have drowned out the gunfire. Again, the assailants escaped with no witnesses whatsoever. This almost sounds like the plotline for a Batman movie or at the very least a “CSI Dallas”. The only clue for the Forney murder are bullet shells that were recovered. We have to hope and pray that this pure, vindictive evil is stopped in its tracks.

NETFLIX - Giant Mechanical Man
I watched an independent movie today, The Giant Mechanical Man. The title is surprisingly apt for what the movie touches on. It concerns the life choices and directions for two “aimless” people -- people whose pursuit of art and creative fulfillment causes frustration and anger with siblings and spouses around them. The movie is extremely well crafted and moving. Parts of the movie were filmed in a wintry Detroit, a city which is vibrant, large and anything but dormant.

BLAH, BLAH, BLAH
I’m in a new assignment at my office which brings me some new challenges and responsibilities. I complain when I’m bored and then worry even more when I get an opportunity (possibly outside of my small comfort zone). We must square our shoulders and forge ahead, with boldness and tenacity! ... Or at least give it our best shot. :-)

My friend Eric has announced his retirement at age 55. Eric is a successful mortgage broker pulling down about twice what I earn and has some family money too (there is talk of trust funds). Bully for Eric -- we’ll see how he does with it. I can’t afford such a move, and I’m pretty sure I could not spend all my free time blogging.

Alas, these are my “pieces of April”. The illustration (Edward Hopper, Office in a Small City, 1953) has little to do with anything -- it reminds me of me on a distracted afternoon. I hope everyone has a good April, and maybe one with a better continuity than my blog today.

© 2012 blogSpotter