A Moment of Silence

Beeay thanks for sharing your views in interact # 54

Regards.

#55 Khamkhwa.

Dear sir:

Aap khamkhwa pareshan ho rahe hain! I would like to re-emphasize that (in #52) the inspector only paid a visit – he did not actually make an arrest! For all we know, he may have just taken a side detour from a “fishing” trip! ;-)

Please rest assured, the Beej is a “one of a kind” entity and there aren’t many (or any) like him/her! Thanks for your encouraging words!

(The inspector thanks you, too!)

Re: # 54

beejay,

.... excellent post ....... you are absolutely right - we cannot abdicate our duties to the cause of freedom just because some natives in turbans and their fawning sympathizers in the west have chosen to parrot lies and half-truths over and over again............ the biggest culprit in this silliness is the liberal media that is always looking for a cause ......... watch it, as soon as the dead-enders have been exterminated inspite of their hue and cry, they will turn their attention to saving the spotted owl and prairie dog - a much better cause, i might add .............

Re: # 52

...with a nick lik BJ... salim the strip manager comes to mind...who is currently busy unravelling the mysteries of mevlana rum...vaise temporal`s cc is cute chowki who imho has nothing to do with censoring...but you may carry on with your operation a la pink panther while i listen to henry mancini in the background...;)

Dear Ozer:

In response to the earlier question that you asked regarding the death toll for Iraqi civilians after Saddam was toppled, I quote parts of my i-log from July 3, 2005. Hope this clarifies to you how I view this issue. Thanks.

“Yes, we know all the pitfalls of our continued stay in Baghdad and other parts of the Middle East and the rest of the world! And we know all sides of this issue and that issue, and all the issues in between and without. And we know that more civilians have been abrupt casualties in this war than would have been systematic casualties over a long haul under that dictator Saddam, and we know that people there may not have the experience of ruling by majority and by reason and by consensus and that there are many, too many in the region for whom force has always been the way – the only way! You don’t need to tell us any of that – we have heard it all before so many times that we know it by heart!

We refuse responsibility for killings of civilians that the ruthless enemy conducts day in and day out – that responsibility belongs to the ones that commit it – the killers! And we refuse guilt by association for acts individual at this prison or that in capacities individual (and we fully hold those accountable in every way as our laws allow). And we call the bluff and refuse to swallow the lines that the local media – brought up on the same ancient diet of exclusivity and of all the hate that such exclusivity entails keeps feeding its more-than-willing audiences of individuals brought up in the same manner. And we refuse to buy the lies – the lies that try to tell us that the local population tolerating the local and not-so-local bullies means that we have to tolerate abdication of our own roles and indeed duties to the causes of freedom, in this region or the world at large!”

Sincerely,
BeeJay.

Re: # 52

Dearest Janitor:

``Some appear to be more interested in the poet rather than the poem.``

The interest, if any, should only be geared towards the ``poem``. Its ``content``. And nothing else.

Thanks anyways Pink Panther.

(Enter the inspector)

Inspector Clue-so (IC): (looks around suspiciously)
Chowk Censor (CC): Hey, who are you?
IC: I’m Inspector Clue-so.
CC: You mean Clouseau.
IC: No, I mean Clue-so.
CC: What happened to Clouseau?
IC: We fired him.
CC: For what?
IC: Incompetence and disruptive behavior.
CC: (flutters eye lashes in wonder) At chowk! No way! Here we only reward people for bad behavior!
IC: Well, there was one more reason.
CC: What, because he’s dead and had a lousy name?
IC: No, he spoke terrible English.
CC: Hmmmm…What can I do for you?
IC: I have an arrest warrant here.
CC: For whom?
IC: (Trying to read) It says something like “M…. Mullah”
CC: You mean “Mad Mullah”! He doesn’t live here.
IC: Not him. (Trying harder) I think it says “Machiavellian Mullah”
CC: I disclaim knowing anybody by that name.
IC: Who DOES live here, anyway?
CC: Tempo, but he’s out!
IC: But that’s impossible. He’s NEVER out!
CC: Inspector, believe me! It CAN happen! He CAN resist posting on a board!
IC: That’s a tough fly to swallow! (Becoming suddenly suspicious) He hasn’t left his earthly abode and become a ghost, or something?
CC: (Changing topic quickly and fluttering eye-lashes, moves closer) You look handsome. That’s a nice gun you got! Can we elope together to Las vegas?
IC: (Shocked) Ma’m. I DO have my professional ethics. (To self) And standards.
CC: Why do they call you Clue-so, anyway?
IC: I look at clues.
CC: So?
IC: Exactly.

(Exit the inspector)

Dear Naqshbandi

Heartening it is to finally witness some mature and savvy comments being made.
Naqshbandi these `defenders of freedom` feed ``misinformation`` with opaque and usurous hands. The truism that a white man`s life is kindled and considered 100 x more precious than that of the rest of the world is a menacingly aching neo-colonialist reality, an intoxication which afflicts us all- the developing world. No matter what our stripes.

The neo-con hang-over can only be undone by ``revolutions from below`` as opposed to ``revolutions from above``. In ``revolutions from below`` state apparatchiks are deemed null and void and the people render the uprising thereby legitimising ``authority`` through constant referenda.

``Westoxification`` spasms brown sahebs and chachas into ``paroxysms of mourning`` while the bleaker fields of casualties around the developing world harvest not a modicum of despair amongst Machiavelli`s children.

Naqshbandi as you acidly observe the ``ba-ba blacksheeps, uncle toms, mental slaves`` , the blah blah Blairs, the blahdy-daah Bushes shed selective crocodile tears when decorum dictates and protocol summons.

All consciousness has been eclipsed.
All Kalimah`s rebuked.
Except for ``la ilaha il America``

Though the pendulum of justice will swing over one day.

But justice is never served on a silver platter. Or fed with grapes.

Justice is never benignly granted. It must always be taken.

The question is not if.

But how and when.

This ought to be ``our`` struggle.

From cradle to grave.

From womb to tomb.

Re: # 46

Beejay you vacuously and predictably require me to respond to items (1)-(5) in #33. But you have not asked a single question ! Your innate contradictions are becoming quite a transparent paradox on this fora. You merely rendered lofty assertions in #33. So there is nothing to answer. The one question you ask about Kashmir has already been given coverage to in the poem itself.

Now courteously take your broom and mop elsewhere. Good janitor that you are.

Re: # 48


Farzana

As always thanks for the insight-driven feedback. I do acquiesce with thee that my interact #28 was below the belt. I’m not proud of it. I normally do rise above the fray and the mass hysteria in the infant-like playgrounds of Chowk, yet if you see all of Hamid M`s and his lackey appendage Beejay`s numerous slanderous comments, both merited a long overdue type-lashing. Though I must concede my type-lashing could have been done more gracefully. Point taken.

Now that one of them, Beejay, has comeback with an “iota” of pseudo-intellect I will counter him diplomatically of course. A certain cyber-ghost says to a certain cyber-witch that life is all about “grace”. I have realised how very infantile interactions can be on these fora and I will ONLY answer the relevant ones, as I have hitherto done so.

As for any purported allegations by cyber-war mongrels of a “hoax” a simple adage would suffice:

“For those who believe no explanation is necessary. For those who do not none will suffice”.

#26 by hamidm2:

[ i am really surprised farzana fell for this hoax - i always thought she had more brains than all the men on chowk put together .............]

Well, while I sincerely hope you (and just you for now) do not alter your opinion about my intelligence, I will still go ahead and ask: In what way have I fallen for ``this hoax``? Is he (heck, it could be a she for all I care) a hoax only because he is saying something different from your world-view? Can both not co-exist even if they be at odds with each other?

In my earlier post I had quoted Woody Allen who said that 9/11 was too small an event. Would you ask the oh-so-Manhattan Allen the queries you pose here? If you feel that this poet`s religious leanings are reflected in this work, then the responses reveal the opposite leanings too. How much objectivity is there then?

I am aware that you have a different take, am aware of it since the day you responded to my poem, or `poem` posted a day after the disaster on the same theme. Your point is valid from one perspective, but there is another one. Since I hold more or less the same views as expressed here (and expressed by me earlier), I cannot possibly be taken in by any `hoax`.

About the literary gaps, I already voiced my opinion...I am surprised at your comment, ``.......... once again, i ask the chowk staff to ban ozer from this forum and pull this horrible piece of gibberish before the children see it ................``

Children are wise. It is the juvenile adults that need to be watched.

PS: There are four new poems put up by Chowk for your reading pleasure!
- - -
#27,29:

Ozer:

Constructive criticism is all you will get from me...and I do feel your response #28 was not quite in order.

[``Both are hunters with hungry intent``? Why kill your own lines?
FV sometimes a stab to one`s own style is uplifting. It puntures any traces of ego.]

If the ego is identity, I see no reason for you to puncture it. You have to decide whether reaching out or renunciation is your goal. It is clear you wish to get your message across, so forget about stabbing your style, and perhaps start some pruning?

[”Also, the use of some words in Caps appeared self-conscious- the flow should be its own emphasis.”
If anything they were “sub-conscious”]

If you wish to raise the conscience, then you have to be conscious.

[Ebbing towards a “Dead Poet`s Society” ?]

Indeed. For the ghosts, the past, are then not dug away or distilled to fall in designated heaps and tagged with labels that flutter like pennants. Without rhyme or reason, as the saying goes...

Re: # 44

naqsh,

...... i guess you didn`t hear bush say, ``we must fight them there so that we don`t have to fight them here``........... i, for one, subscribe to that logic especially since i just planted some petunias this morning - here ........ besides, the barbaric people of those god forsaken places need to be civilized - the world cannot afford to let them languish in the seventh century ..........

#35 Ozer

Sorry, I’m in a hurry, so quickly….

I should have known that you’d ignore virtually all of my legitimate questions – not answer a single one and instead simply harp on what you had already parroted earlier. If you wish to salvage the slightest bit of dignity out of this worthless exercise, you may consider responding to items (1)-(5) in #33.

The question you ask (in #35) in your own unique style (or perhaps not so unique around here, since it’s really accurately described by the term moronic) is highly rhetorical. The speciously obvious answer to your rhetorical question is of course – one atrocity does not justify another. The asinine assumption that super-turkeys (and I mean no disrespect to the country) like you (and third-rate bogus dimwit writers like Farzana) imply is that U.S. intervention in Iraq rises to that definition of an atrocity – a statement so absurd that in most cases, there is no need to answer it. However, I have no problem in giving you a fitting answer in such simple and lucid terms that even you, at your microscopic level of intelligence, can understand. I would like to hold off on my comments on that, since putting them here would partially preempt my next i-log (which I am currently drafting). If this piece of your garbage is still around anywhere in the vicinity of FP then, I’ll make sure to paste in extracts from that. So, hold on with baited breath, and continue with this pseudo-intellectual master-bay-shun, in which, like all such activities, the pleasure is strictly one-sided.

#36 Dr. LokRaj
I believe there was an urgent page for your services from the board entitled “Faraz”, which may be of better service to mankind than anything we see here on this crappy piece here.

#8, scout {``this whole `moment of silence,` `month of silence,` `lifetime of silence` ``}

IS IT TOO MUCH TOO ASK THAT YOU REMAIN SILENT FOR A MOMENT, ANY MOMENT?

ozer,

a good idea to illustrate the sheer hypocrisy of the so-called `defenders of freedom`--it has always been thus: one white man`s life is considered 100 x more precious than that of the rest of the world--especially that of muslims.

3000 odd people died in 9/11 and the whole world and their chacha went into paroxysms of mourning yet no one cares about the millions of muslims killed before and since. 60, 000 civilians in Iraq already by conservative estimates. that alone is 20 times the number of 9/11. the ba-ba blacksheeps and uncle toms and mental slaves and house negroes are crying even today because a few thousand of their master`s people got killed but they don`t care about the millions of third world people being killed.

(not that 9/11 wasn`t wrong--it WAS wrong but that doesn`t justify the rest of the killing. those whose kalimah is la ilaha il America (ppl like hamidm and others on this forum) are crying tears even now ; the lives of those whose kalimah is la ilaha il Allah Muhammadur Rasul Allah (sal allahu alayhi wa sallam) do not count for these baysharam people...

of rhyme and reason..........

............ sometimes there are things that are bereft of rhyme but have some reason, and sometimes there are lines that rhyme and are pleasing to the ear, but have no reason, and then there is this ....... this, a thing with no rhyme or reason ..........

............ by now, i think, everyone agrees that ozer is no line manager - that is, a poet - so let`s see if there is any reason behind this garbage without meter, form or rythm ..........

............he starts off with a mealymouthed expression of sympathy for the victims of 9/11 and then launches into a diatribe against the west and its ``crimes`` against the poor muslims wo were simply sitting around in their suicide belts enjoying the bamiyan buddahs being tumbled down before moving on to a fun filled evening of beheadings and hangings at the kabul stadium .......... he talks about the plight of the poor palestinians - everyone talks about these idiots - conveniently forgetting that they had everthing that they are now asking for in 1967 but chose to gamble it away because they were greedy and just plain stupid ............. then, his lament moves on to kashmir and ramadi and falluja as if there was some kind of a link beween them - what is the connection, except that they are all inhabited by followers of an insidious ideology that is at war with itself and everything else ? ............. and just to show his even handedness, he throws in a few lines about argentina and mexico and somalia - uh ? ......... or ``duh?`` as they say in more intellectual circles ...................

.......... once again, i ask the chowk staff to ban ozer from this forum and pull this horrible piece of gibberish before the children see it ................


p.s. i also suggest that all ``poetry`` should be reviewed by temporal and saminasha before being posted