The Muezzin's Call

This is the popular Bavarian folk singer Maria Hellwig performing the Erzherzog Johann Jodler (Archduke John Yodeler) at the age of 69. Kudos! She was a trained soubrette and a much greater artist than her somewhat-too-folksy public image conveyed. This video gives a whiff of her talent. Last Friday she died at the age of 90. She brought pleasure to countless people. May she rest in peace.

The Erzherzog Johann Jodler is very probably THE most famous one of its kind, sometimes called the inofficial Styrian national anthem, written to honour the "Styrian Prince", Erzherzog Johann von Österreich -- Archduke John of Austria (1782 – 1859).

Johann was born in Florence as the thirteenth child of Archduke Leopold, later to become Emperor of Austria. In Styria, he is remembered as a great modernizer and an important figure of identification. In 1829, he married Anna Plochl, the daughter of the Posthalter of Aussee (a Posthalter used to be a well-to-do innkeeper at whose place the horses of the diligence were changed). The marriage was morganatic, its descendants were styled "Counts of Meran" and "Barons of Brandhofen". His one son from this marriage was Franz, Count of Meran. Among his 900 descendants is Johannes Nicolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt, better known as Nicolaus Harnoncourt, conductor.

The Archduke was a passionate mountaineer and attempted to be the first to climb the Großvenediger. The Erzherzog-Johann-Hütte (Adlersruhe) at the Großglockner, and the Archduke John's Vanilla Orchid (Nigritella rubra subsp. archiducis-joannis), an orchid growing on mountain meadows, are named after him.

By acquiring a tin factory in Krems bei Voitsberg and coal mines near Köflach he also became an industrialist. In 1840, he bought the Stainz dominion, where he was freely elected as mayor in 1850. His routing of the Austrian Southern Railway from Vienna to Triest over the Semmering and through the Mura and Mürz valleys to Graz is particularly notable.

Even though Johann did not consider himself, and wasn't, a liberal, he promoted some liberal ideas. He was often in conflict with the Habsburg court, especially but not exclusively, because of his morganatic marriage.

In 1848, the Frankfurt National Assembly appointed him Reichverweser, regent of the realm. After the failure of the March Revolution of 1848, he resigned from this office in 1849.

Archduke John died 1859 in Graz, where a fountain dominating the central square was erected in his honour.

Today, Manfred Kleine-Hartlage reports at his blog "Korrektheiten" that Muslims had enforced a yodelling ban. No, it's not a joke and it even has something to do with the above information. It recently happened in the city of Graz, that a man was fined 800 Euros because his yodelling offended Muslim neighbours. They accused the 63-year-old pensioner of mocking them by imitating the muezzin's call. The daily paper writes the Austrian was fined 800 Euros after judges ruled he might have tried to offend and ridicule them because they were in the middle of a praying session when he started yodelling.

In-effing-credible!

While acts of dhimmitude are nothing new, this is, I think, specifically disgusting. A good yodeller will cut an audio-swath through canon roar and certainly through a muezzin's call, however, it is, to me, unfathomable how somebody can even BEGIN to compare this delightful bit of folk music to the caterwaul of a Muslim service. Maybe it was his intention to disturb and irritate them and it would have been bad enough had he been fined for that. But MOCKING? I'm not quite sure yet why this irritates me so much.

Language Help Needed

The Google search polls US President Barack Obama’s grandmother has admitted praying for him to convert to Islam results in 972,000,000 hits. It is this, which confuses me:

Obama, whose middle name is Hussein, has always maintained he is a ‘committed Christian’. But the news of his grandmother Sarah Omar’s wish to convert to Islam follows a poll, which found one in five believes he is a Muslim.

To me, "to follow a poll" seems to mean "to confirm the results of a poll". That would make sense had the news snippet said: "...the news of his grandmother Sarah Omar’s wish to convert to Islam follows a poll, which found THAT ONLY one in five believes he is a Muslim." In that case, Grandma (Gosh, another disgusting Americanism!) Sarah asking him "to convert to Islam", and specifically the media hype about it, could be seen as one of the smokescreens put up to conceal that he is, in fact, a Muslim. As it is, I'm just befuddled.

Notabene that Grandma Sarah is not his biological grandmother, but one of several wives of his Muslim grandfather and yet how everybody seems to accept her role, fully aware of that fact and in spite of the implications.

Hat tip: Gudrun Eussner!

Culturally Sensitive Village Fête

Commenter Bruce Church made me aware of the fact that the bloody (as in "gory" AND as in "damned") matam ritual is performed in London on a regular basis. (Thank you, Bruce!):

...it just came out that in December 2009 the bloody Shura Shia self-flagellation ritual was held in east London. 800 men participated, and it's going to happen again in Dec 2010. The police can't stop it.

The report by the Express is traded as a revelation of sorts.

Shia Muslims use a five-bladed chain called a Zanjeer to whip their own backs and make cuts in their foreheads with razor blades in homage to their faith.

Bare-chested men were left bleeding heavily during the ritual known as Matam – self-flagellation – which a witness described as being “like a scene from a horror film”.

The Sunday Express found that up to 800 men performed the bloody ceremony in secret at the Imamia Mosque in Forest Gate, east London, last year.

The Matam takes place during the annual Shia Ashura ceremony and commemorates the death of Husayn, a grandson of the prophet Muhammad. It is practised largely in Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and India as well as Yemen and Afghanistan but this is the first time it is known to have taken place in Britain.

Huge wooden screens were put up around the mosque to keep the event secret and prevent passers-by on busy Romford Road seeing the bloodletting.

The Sunday Express visited the mosque last week and learned that the ceremony took place last December and is due to be repeated next month. One man who witnessed the ceremony last year was so alarmed by what he saw he nearly passed out. He said: “There was blood everywhere. There were pools of blood on the ground and my clothes were splattered with blood. It was very scary.

“I was told it was part of a religious ceremony but the anti-western sentiment was clear. If the public had seen what was going on they would have reported it to the police. It was like a scene from a horror film.”

A devout member of the mosque who attended last year’s ceremony said he was proud of the thick Matam scars across his back and showed them to our photographer. Ameer Hamza, 21, a student from Forest Gate said: “I started doing it when I was a kid. ”

Scotland Yard said it was aware of the annual Ashura event at the mosque but had no knowledge of the bloodletting which it said it had no power to ban.

A spokesman said: “If it is on private property and no offence is being committed this is not a matter for the police. The Ashura is an annual community event which has taken place in Newham for many years.”

Newham Council said it had no knowledge of the Matam taking place and the Ministry of Justice said self-flagellation was not an offence.

It isn't really. A brief Google search rendered several reports from previous years, for example 2009 in Birmingham, or 2005 in London. (Kudos to the New Statesman!) It's just that nobody gives a damn.

Maybe the English are well advised to introduce more games that are sensitive towards the ever-growing ethnic diversity at local village fêtes, such as "stick the tail on the Muslim" or "guess the amount of blood those guys in the flaggelation contest lost", because guessing the weight of a pig should be really a no-no in these culturally aware days and times.

Here are some pictures of such, well, community events taken from various sources in the Internet, just for your edification.

Thoroughly wholesome entertainment! Bring your family!

Hyperventilating Ego-Extravaganza

The old bag is at it again:

There is no peace and consequently, I (I, I, I !) have no peace. Every morning, I (I, I, I !) wake up to news about Muslims blowing each other up ... Yesterday, a friend ... told me (ME, ME, ME !) that Arab Muslims are taking over more and more Jewish Israeli land ... They are not allowing me (ME, ME, ME !) to have peaceful thoughts. Every week, sometimes every few days, I (I, I, I !) am informed that yet another Iranian woman has been ... Daily, the news from Afghanistan chills my (MY, MY, MY !) blood ... Thus, Muslims, among whom I (I, I, I !) once lived and whom I (I, I, I !) once loved, are giving me (ME, ME, ME !) no peace in my (MY, MY, MY !) older years. (The ones I (I, I, I !) knew and loved are either dead or living in exile in the West.) ... please explain to me (ME, ME, ME !) why Gretta Duisenberg ... is now suing my (MY, MY, MY !) friend and colleague the eminent Iranian-Dutch professor of philosophy and jurisprudence, Afshin Ellian, for calling her an “anti-Semite,” when she proudly calls herself an “anti-Semite.”

You get the point? The worst about the threat Islam poses to the West is that it causes Professor Chesler to suffer sleepless nights and doesn't allow her to have peaceful thoughts anymore. And now, finally, at last (we are relieved) to the purpose (apart from letting us know that the worst about the threat Islam poses to the West is that it causes Professor Chesler to suffer sleepless nights and doesn't allow her to have peaceful thoughts anymore) of this hyperventilating ego-extravaganza:

Leon de Winter and Abigail Esman are both asking us all to write on their blogs, in our articles, on our Facebook pages that we, too, believe that Gretta Duisenberg is an anti-Semite. In Dutch, de Winter says:

I invite all readers to support journalistic freedom and freedom of expression by writing ‘I, too, think Gretta Duisenberg is an anti-Semite.’

How many people can Duisenberg sue? Can she sue only one person if thousands, perhaps millions, are saying the same thing?

For Heaven's Sake! Almost exactly seven years ago, I (I, I, I !) and the Jerusalem Post called Gretta Duisenberg (and others) antisemites. Countless people must have done so as well before and since then. And now she (SHE, SHE, SHE !) needs to recruit "thousands, perhaps millions" to save her (HER, HER, HER !) "friend and colleague" from a fate worse than death? Give me a break!

In fact, a Google search for "gretta duisenberg antisemite" renders 398,000 results right now and a picture search shows countless pictures poking fun at the evil old Duisen-hag, even including the antisemitism-topic.

For Phyllis Chesler, the world revolves around one thing, Phyllis Chesler's arse. The fact that people take seriously what this lump of hormones blathers, is proof for the fact that feminism has won long ago.

Ideological Hotchpotch -- I told you so!

At the sound of the word "freedom" Americans tend to react with an appreciative Pavlovian drool. Recently, a new German party named "Die Freiheit" (Freiheit=freedom/liberty) is triggering this effect. The party hold its inaugural meeting on October 28 in Berlin. Chairman is René Stadtkewitz, a member of the Berlin parliament who used to belong to the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union until his expulsion some weeks ago for hosting the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. (We reported.)

Stadtkewitz is clearly modeling his party after Geert Wilders' "Partij voor de Vrijheid" (Party for Freedom) with a strong focus on the threat an ever-increasing Islamisation poses to the West and a pronounced solidarity with Israel.

For what else does it stand? 28 "core demands" (Kernforderungen) taken from the party platform, may shed some light on it:

1. for a direct democracy after the Swiss model

2. for a new constitution for Germany -- decided directly by the people

3. for better voting rights by referenda

4. for the election of the President by the people

5. against exertion of political influence by the political parties via the media

6. for the sanction of tax-wasting by politicians

7. for the protection of the unborn life

8. for a salary for the parent who stays at home to look after the children

9. for a child-related bonus to the pensions of parents

10. for a flexible retirement age, depending on health and job performance

11. for a national school system and national education standards

12. for the support of teachers by so-called co-teachers

13. for performance-orientated dole-money with the entire career as assesment base

14. for the introduction and realisation of the "workfare concept", i.e. charitable work instead of welfare money without return service

15. against local business tax, for a reform of the municipal budgets

16. against car tax, for car toll

17. for the inviolable dignity of the animal - no cruelty and killing out of religious and traditional reasons

18. for non-discrimination of complimentary treatment methods -- recognized by the health insurance

19. for traffic light labelling on food products to make it easier for the consumer to identify the ingredients

20. for a modernisation of the health insurance system aimed at a statutory insurance for all citizens with freedom to choose (i.e. private insurance)

21. for the establishment of the Kirsten-Heisig-Scheme in all federal states

22. for better infrastructure for and against staff cuts of the police force

23. for a zero-tolerance strategy in the case of Islamic influence, no creeping sharia

24. for a stop of immigration now, at least until a solution to the integration problems has been found

25. for new guidelines for residence permits for family members of migrants

26. for strict public participation at mosque building projects

27. for the deprivation of the German citizenship in cases of terrorist activities and felony

28. for Europe as a contract between independent partners, against EU-dictatorship from Brussels

From the laudable, via the indispensable to the sensible to the superfluous to the ridiculous and finally to the potentially dangerous. See Americans? They are NO "conservatives". Everybody who demands "animal rights" has lost any credibility, generally and specifically as conservative. As far as points 18 and 19 are concerned, one could as well vote "green". And if I see a demand for "no cruelty and killing out of traditional reasons" all my alarm bells start ringing and I smell a hunting/shooting ban. It's the old German besottedness with "nature", pretty pictures, romanticism, idealism, rising ity ugly head again. "Conservatism" has no place here.

At least a third of those "core demands" have no place in a party platform anyway and one wonders whether Stadtkewitz (who is a decent enough fellow) and his team are unable to pay an editor or whether they REALLY think this is something on which some common understanding can be built.

1 Corinthians 4 34-35

There is this perfectly idiotic bit from the Emory University website and I couldn't RESIST fiddling with it:

Margot Kässmann (Dr. Rev.), ex-lay-bishopette and as such former head of the Protestant* church in Germany, is culturally enriching Emory University during the fall semester, serving as Distinguished Theologian-in-Residence at the university’s Candler School of Theology, and as a Distinguished Fellow of the Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning, which lends a so far unknown meaning to the word "distinguished".

A theologian, pastor, prolific author and able to hold more booze than an entire troop of Russians, Kässmann is an influential leader in the international ecumenical arena and an enormously popular speaker in Europe, often drawing crowds in the thousands, specifically since she was caught in a drunk-driving incident with more than three times over the limit, which proves that we have become an undiscerning, sheepish breed with a knack for the sleazy.

“When I became dean at Candler, I issued her a standing invitation to join us for a semester at our rowdy stagettes whenever she could, and I’m delighted that she has accepted,” says Love, dean of Candler. “Candler faculty and students will be able to interact personally with an extraordinarily creative, charismatic and chadbandian Christian leader. Plus, with our new strategic emphasis on internationalizing the curriculum, whatever that is worth, the fit of having her on campus for a semester could not be better”, says Jan Love. Love is, who would have thought so, female.

Since Kässmann's election in 1983 as one of the youngest members of the board of directors of the WCC, she has broken age and (retch) gender barriers within the leadership of the Protestant church, and it shows. First in 1999 with her election as the first female bishop of the Protestant Church of Hannover — the largest worldwide, then in 2009, when she was elected chair (barf) of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), the governing body of 24 million Protestants. She enjoyed (you bet) a lot of media attention and even granted interviews about intimate matters to the sleaziest of all Caesarean media whores, BILD.

Kässmann’s February 2010 voluntary resignation from her roles as bishop and chair (barf) of the EKD after a drunk-driving conviction when she had always vocally condemned all forms of "excess", has not diminished her popularity, but, as it could be expected in a totally worth- and shameless society, enhanced it: She received several standing ovations at her first major appearance after her resignation, a Bible study for 5,000 people at the Ecumenical “Kirchentag” in Munich this May, which ought to teach Catholics what ecumenism is worth.

“I think the public see her as a leader who models honesty and integrity in the face of difficulty — a model of authentic leadership at a time when too few leaders own up to the consequences of their inappropriate actions,” simpered Love lovingly. Just imagine for a fraction of a moment what the slimy old bag would have said, had a Catholic bishop committed the same "inappropriate action".

Known for her administrative acumen, prophetic witness and pastoral ability to address complex dilemmas of everyday life (burp), Kässmann is the author of more than 40 books on spirituality, the quest for Christian unity, Christian social engagement and Bible study and about all other thinkable footling and fatuous attention whorish things with which a certain ilk of theologians, not all of them female, poisons the hearts and brains of the undiscerning.

During her semester at Candler, Kässmann will deliver lectures, participate in panel discussions, hen parties and preach, addressing such hilariously funny and utterly worthless topics as women’s leadership in the church, post-modern and secular challenges to the church’s mission, and Protestant spirituality, all of which are unbearable below a blood alcohol level of 1.5 o/oo.

Kässmann is the featured speaker at the following events, which are free and open to the public, which is self-explaining because otherwise she wouldn't attend anyway:

Lecture in the Luminaries Series, "The Challenges and Opportunities of Women's Leadership in the Church Worldwide," Sept. 21, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Cannon Chapel, Emory Campus. A reception will follow. Bring your own bottle because Margot will swig the lot. Lecture co-sponsored by Emory’s Office of the Provost, Luminaries Series, Candler School of Theology, la Veuve Clicquot and The Halle Institute.


Preaching, preening and presiding while pissed, Reformation Day Chapel Service, Oct. 19, 11:15 a.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus.

Preaching at Emory University Worship Margot Service on Reformation Sunday, Oct. 31, 11:00 a.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus. Drinks will be served.

Lecture, "Bible, Prayer and Confession: Anticipating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation," Nov. 16, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus. A reception will follow. Bring your own bottle because Margot will swig the lot. Lecture co-sponsored by Candler School of Theology, The Halle Institute and Johnnie Walker. 


*I am not using "Evangelical Church", the literal translation of the German term "Evangelische Kirche", of which Americans are so fond. It is misleading, and so "Protestant" will have to do.

Now I was pointed at a recent bout of verbal diarrhoea of that woman, exactly one of those for which she is so widely revered in this country. She explains Americans how they ought to feel about the Ground Zero Mosque, which is, after all, ten whopping walking minutes away from Ground Zero. "Does this building of a mosque really hurts the feelings of Americans? Does it really have anything to do with the terrorist deed of September 11?" In a word: Don't make such a fuss, Amis!

How was that about the religion of the natives? It was considered inferior, dismissed, eliminated by forced baptisms, wiped out. Today there are Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists here -- and they all define themselves as Americans. [No, NOT ALL do that, Margot.] And yet there is an undercurrent: An American is Christian.

If there is a single politically correct issue, however far-fetched, in the vicinity, that woman will grab it and twist it to fit her own shallow, vain, slimy and sleazy devices.

She then goes on to inform us about the evil Pilgrim Fathers and their rigid understanding of religion, and goes on -- as a German SHE CAN NOT HELP IT -- to wax lyrically about the Koran burning of that "fundamentalist" pastor in Florida that never happened and how hurtful this was for, yes, not just Muslims, but specifically for us as Germans -- the entire old schtick of the child molester who thinks he is especially qualified for a job as a kindergarden teacher.

She left out, I guess yet and just, the slavery issue, and I spare you the rest, Americans. Frankly, I've got neither the time nor the stomach to translate the rest of that totally predictable, hackneyed, undignified drivel. Here we have a woman, a woman who holds a doctorate in theology, a woman who used to head one of the largest Protestant churches worldwide, a woman who has supposedly taught for two months now at an American university, a woman who IS BOUND TO HAVE spoken to Americans, a woman who still doesn't know how Americans, her hosts, think, feel and define themselves. Why? Because she doesn't give a damn as long as she looks pretty in the process.

In a word: a woman.

She is supposed to come back to Germany later this year. Do me a favour: Keep her!

Who ON EARTH would have thought so?

Oh WOW!