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29 December: Palestinian children walk past a destroyed mosque and houses after they were hit by an Israeli missile strike that killed Jawaher Baalusha, 4, and her four sisters in the northern Gaza Strip
Photograph: Abid Katib/Getty Images
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Troops and mercenaries will be used to detain Americans in prison camps, warns deadly accurate trends forecaster
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, December 15, 2008
Frighteningly accurate trends forecaster Gerald Celente says that America will see riots similar to those currently ongoing in Greece and that the cause will be a hyper-inflationary depression, leading to the inevitable use of troops and mercenaries to deal with the crisis as Americans are incarcerated in internment camps.
As we have highlighted before, Celente’s accuracy is stunning – he predicted the 1987 crash, the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the “panic of 2008,” and is routinely cited even by mainstream news networks as highly credible.
The cause of the riots would be a hyper-inflationary depression, Celente told interviewer Lew Rockwell, causing Americans to revolt in similar circumstances that we have witnessed recently in Iceland and Greece. The trouble would be sparked off by Obama declaring a “bank holiday” whereby people won’t be able to withdraw their money.
“What’s going on in Greece with these riots has nothing to do with a 15-year-old boy being killed, that was only the spark that ignited the pent up, really hatred and disdain, people have for the scandals and corrupt government and the same thing is going on in this country as well,” said Celente.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Celente reiterated his prediction of a revolution and riots in America, and said that the first signs of it could even emerge before the end of the year.
Celente said that the troops now being brought back to America for “domestic security”would be used to suppress the riots.
“There’s talk of opening all these detention centers and hiring the goon squads, the Blackwaters to run them, so these are realities going on as we speak,” said Celente, adding that the Halliburton subsidiary KBR had been awarded a half a billion dollar contract to build “national emergency” internment camps in the name of detaining illegal immigrants but that they would be used to hold rioting Americans.
“We’re really in a period of ‘off with their heads’ and its going to be the people against the politicians,” said Celente.
Celente said that a breakup of the United States was possible and that the secessionist movement was strong.
“The government owns and runs the largest mortgage company, owns the largest insurance company, they’re going to be owning a piece of the oil industry, so it’s a fight against a totalitarian government…so there’s going to be rebellions and things will change for the better if we break up these criminal governments that are in place now,” said Celente.
The forecaster added that the government was killing people for a false reason in Iraq and robbing people blind with the bailouts at home.
Listen to the interview here.
Research related articles:
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29 December: A Palestinian boy watches the funeral of three children in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian medics said five young sisters, died in an Israeli air strike in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza and three other young children were killed when a bomb struck a house
Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters
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Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The man who predicted the 1987 stock market crash and the fall of the Soviet Union is now forecasting revolution in America, food riots and tax rebellions – all within four years, while cautioning that putting food on the table will be a more pressing concern than buying Christmas gifts by 2012.
Gerald Celente, the CEO of Trends Research Institute, is renowned for his accuracy in predicting future world and economic events, which will send a chill down your spine considering what he told Fox News this week.
Celente says that by 2012 America will become an undeveloped nation, that there will be a revolution marked by food riots, squatter rebellions, tax revolts and job marches, and that holidays will be more about obtaining food, not gifts.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
“We’re going to see the end of the retail Christmas….we’re going to see a fundamental shift take place….putting food on the table is going to be more important that putting gifts under the Christmas tree,” said Celente, adding that the situation would be “worse than the great depression”.
“America’s going to go through a transition the likes of which no one is prepared for,” said Celente, noting that people’s refusal to acknowledge that America was even in a recession highlights how big a problem denial is in being ready for the true scale of the crisis.
Watch the clip.
Celente, who successfully predicted the 1997 Asian Currency Crisis, the subprime mortgage collapse and the massive devaluation of the U.S. dollar, told UPI in November last year that the following year would be known as “The Panic of 2008,” adding that “giants (would) tumble to their deaths,” which is exactly what we have witnessed with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and others. He also said that the dollar would eventually be devalued by as much as 90 per cent.
The consequence of what we have seen unfold this year would lead to a lowering in living standards, Celente predicted a year ago, which is also being borne out by plummeting retail sales figures.
The prospect of revolution was a concept echoed by a British Ministry of Defence report last year, which predicted that within 30 years, the growing gap between the super rich and the middle class, along with an urban underclass threatening social order would mean, “The world’s middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest,” and that, “The middle classes could become a revolutionary class.”
In a separate recent interview, Celente went further on the subject of revolution in America.
“There will be a revolution in this country,” he said. “It’s not going to come yet, but it’s going to come down the line and we’re going to see a third party and this was the catalyst for it: the takeover of Washington, D. C., in broad daylight by Wall Street in this bloodless coup. And it will happen as conditions continue to worsen.”
“The first thing to do is organize with tax revolts. That’s going to be the big one because people can’t afford to pay more school tax, property tax, any kind of tax. You’re going to start seeing those kinds of protests start to develop.”
“It’s going to be very bleak. Very sad. And there is going to be a lot of homeless, the likes of which we have never seen before. Tent cities are already sprouting up around the country and we’re going to see many more.”
“We’re going to start seeing huge areas of vacant real estate and squatters living in them as well. It’s going to be a picture the likes of which Americans are not going to be used to. It’s going to come as a shock and with it, there’s going to be a lot of crime. And the crime is going to be a lot worse than it was before because in the last 1929 Depression, people’s minds weren’t wrecked on all these modern drugs – over-the-counter drugs, or crystal meth or whatever it might be. So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension.”
The George Washington blog has compiled a list of quotes attesting to Celente’s accuracy as a trend forecaster.
“When CNN wants to know about the Top Trends, we ask Gerald Celente.”
— CNN Headline News“A network of 25 experts whose range of specialties would rival many university faculties.”
— The Economist“Gerald Celente has a knack for getting the zeitgeist right.”
— USA Today“There’s not a better trend forecaster than Gerald Celente. The man knows what he’s talking about.”
– CNBC“Those who take their predictions seriously … consider the Trends Research Institute.”
— The Wall Street Journal“Gerald Celente is always ahead of the curve on trends and uncannily on the mark … he’s one of the most accurate forecasters around.”
— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution“Mr. Celente tracks the world’s social, economic and business trends for corporate clients.”
— The New York Times“Mr. Celente is a very intelligent guy. We are able to learn about trends from an authority.”
— 48 Hours, CBS News“Gerald Celente has a solid track record. He has predicted everything from the 1987 stock market crash and the demise of the Soviet Union to green marketing and corporate downsizing.”
— The Detroit News“Gerald Celente forecast the 1987 stock market crash, ‘green marketing,’ and the boom in gourmet coffees.”
— Chicago Tribune“The Trends Research Institute is the Standard and Poors of Popular Culture.”
— The Los Angeles Times“If Nostradamus were alive today, he’d have a hard time keeping up with Gerald Celente.”
— New York Post
So there you have it – hardly a nutjob conspiracy theorist blowhard now is he? The price of not heeding his warnings will be far greater than the cost of preparing for the future now. Storable food and gold are two good places to make a start.
Research related articles:
BRIDGEPORT — Connecticut Muslims met at an Islamic religious school Friday to protest Israeli air attacks on Gaza. The airstrikes, the Israelis say, are aimed at rooting out Hamas operatives.
“We want justice. We want peace,” Muhammed Ali intoned into a huge bullhorn to the crowd of more than 140 outside Bridgeport Islamic Community Center’s Al-Manaar School.
“We want justice. We want peace,” Ali’s audience chanted back, while many waved handmade protest posters.
Some of the signs featured photographs of the human carnage in tiny Gaza of wounded children and dead babies. The signs lambasted Israel, comparing the Jewish nation’s attacks to Nazi atrocities, called on the United States to stop defending Israeli attacks.
Motorists lumbered down Clinton Street, slowing down to check out the protesters waving Palestinian red, green and black flags and holding their posters high in the air. Midway through the demonstration, the rally ground to a hushed halt as the assembled lined up in long rows and faced east to pray.
Hassan Haid, of Trumbull, held a picture of a wounded boy with his head bloodied laying outstretched on a gurney. Haid pulled the photograph off an internet site that he says tells “the real story” of what’s happening in Gaza.
“I am sure some people want to know. I feel sorry for the USA. They are only hearing one side,” said Haid, who emigrated to the United States 30 years ago from Lebanon, where he still has
relatives. “What Israel is doing in Gaza now is the same thing it did in Lebanon [with Hezbollah]. I know from experience. My son was there.”The Israeli military launched its airstrikes on Hamas in Gaza after its six-month long truce with the militant group came to an end. The United States and a number of other western countries list Hamas as a terrorist organization. The Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs says that between 2000 and 2004, Hamas has killed about 400 Israelis and wounded more than 2,000 in 425 separate attacks.
“We understand they want to fight Hamas,” Haid said of the Israelis. “But it doesn’t make sense to kill everybody. To kill children, how can you ever ever hope to have peace?”
Suhib Abunar, a junior at Fairfield Warde High School, who was born in Jordan, but considers himself a Palestinian, said he is paying close attention to all that transpires in Gaza, especially since he has only been back in Connecticut two months after spending a year in Jordan at a private American school where courses are offered in Arabic.
“I don’t like seeing anybody killed — Muslim or not. I don’t like war,” Abunar said, adding that after school he often stops off at a home of a family friend who has satellite television to watch Arab broadcast news from Gaza.
“Sometimes the media [here] doesn’t show everything,” Abunar said. By contrast, on the Arab broadcast stations, “you actually see bombs exploding real close to them and people getting killed right on camera.”
Khaled Elleithy, a professor at the University of Bridgeport and one of the organizers of the demonstration, said many local Muslims believe Israel’s campaign on Gaza is unjust.
“Consider what their targets are,” Elleithy said. “They have bombed civilian homes, hospitals and mosques.”
The Israeli government has said Hamas has stored rockets and other weaponry in mosques and the homes of some key Hamas operatives in Gaza.
“We do not approve of this use of military might of Israel. Their [warplanes] are F-16s from the United States paid for with our tax dollars.”
A few feet away, Hana Bajes, of Milford, a demure young woman in her mid-20s dressed in a hijab, a traditional Muslim veil, waved a sign that featured a Jewish star, an equal sign, and a swastika.
“This symbol represents the star on an Israeli flag,” Bajes said, adding that it wasn’t an anti-Semitic statement.
“I have many friends who are Jewish,” said Bajes, who was born in Kuwait, moved to Jordan after the first Persian Gulf war and then emigrated to the United States. “I’ve worked with many people who are Jews. It’s not any kind of attack on them.
“What these symbols represent here is that the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza and also on the West Bank resembles what Hitler and the Nazis did to the Jews. It’s not just Jews that are persecuted and slaughtered. It’s our people, too.”
A couple of motorists honked their horns and a few gave the protesters a thumbs-up sign.
Bajes held her sign high above her head.
“I am an American citizen. I love this country. I love what it means to live in a democracy and have the right to stand out here the way we are to make our point,” she said. “Mostly what I want to do is get people to think, to get all the information about what’s happening in Gaza and to stop the killing. I’m in a country now that cherishes freedom. So I am standing up and speaking out because that is my right.”
Thousands demonstrate across Spain against ‘genocide’ in Gaza
By h.b. – Jan 11, 2009 – 8:15 PM
The Spanish Prime Minister repeated his call for an immediate cease fire.
Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, has said that it was his job to call for an immediate cease fire in Gaza, and he called on the leader of the Partido Popular, Mariano Rajoy, to do the same. He said he lamented that Israel continued to bombard Gaza and that he was loyal to his Socialist ideas and in favour of peace.
Speaking at a rally in Orense, ahead of the forthcoming Galician regional elections, Zapatero centred his speech on the Middle East and the economic crisis. He did not mention the chaos on the roads and at airports over the weekend because of the snow.
Meanwhile 250,000 people, according to the organisers, took to the streets of Madrid against the ‘genocide in Palestine’. ‘Genocide is not war’ was one of the chants of the demonstrators who left the Plaza de Cibeles at noon and then held a rally in the Puerta del Sol, where there were calls for an immediate cease fire in Gaza.
On Saturday more than 30,000 people took to the streets of Barcelona also demanding an end to the bombing of Gaza and a commercial boycott of Israel. The demonstration started in the Plaza Universitat and ended in Sant Jaume. Many of the demonstrators carried photos of Palestinian children killed in the conflict.
A similar demonstration also took place despite the rain and cold on Saturday in Valencia outside the City Hall.
The Israeli embassy in a statement accused the Spanish people of having double standards, and asked why they did not demonstrate in the past against the Hamas aggression.
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Zapatero talks to Mahmud Abbas and Ehud Olmert
– Jan 9, 2009 – 7:08 AM
King Juan Carlos calls for an immediate cease fire in Gaza
– Jan 6, 2009 – 8:10 PM
Spanish Prime Minister criticises the ‘disproportionate reaction’ of Israel
– Jan 5, 2009 – 12:43 PM
M. Wekler MD.
“The best proof that your Nazi gas chambers and your Nazi gas vans did not exist any more than your Jewish soap, your lampshades of human skin and so much other nonsense of a vile war propaganda is that, more than fifty years after that war, your ‘scientific experts’ are, more than ever, unable to show them to us”.
As for the despicable mike walsh, just leave him to his inconsistent, incoherent ramblings. No-one knows what he’s talking about anyway, including him.
12-01-2009
Gaza, (PNN): Director of the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital, Dr. Hussein Ashour, reports that the nature of the wounds sustained by the dead and injured reaching the hospital are unusual.
Al Shifa Hospital has reported similar findings throughout the years of occupation resulting from the Israeli use of internationally banned weapons including carcinogens. Gaza City is surrounded by the noxious smoke from phosphorous bombs on Monday afternoon with the death toll hovering at 900 Palestinians.
Yesterday Israeli forces killed 53. Dr. Hassanein of the Ministry of Health reports more cases of “bodies cut to pieces” after attacks on Gaza City’s Palestine Square, Tuffah, Zeitoun and Old City neighborhoods. A handicapped center was bombed in Sheikh Zayed and homes in Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya. Rafah in the south was hit heavily today as well with the number of injured throughout the Strip reaching 4,100.
Yesterday’s reports on the use of phosphorus bombs have been confirmed by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), the Ministry of Health, doctors, residents and Human Rights Watch.
Children with deep flesh burns have joined those of the severely dismembered and others who arrive at hospitals in unrecognizable condition. The reality is more horrifying than imaginable for most with the United Nations saying that the Gaza Strip was a “living hell.”
“The injuries here demonstrate that Israel is using prohibited weapons,” Dr. Ashour told Al Sharq Al Awsat. A Norwegian volunteer working in the hospital, who has also worked in the emergency rooms of Iraq during US invasions, reiterated that the nature of the wounds confirms the use of explosive materials containing carcinogenic substances.
Dr. Ashour and the Norwegian doctor certified that people infected by these types of explosives require treatment every six months in order to prevent the development of cancerous tumors.
Palestinian medical sources had confirmed that the nature of the burns, which afflicted the bodies of the dead and wounded Palestinians arriving at Gaza Strip hospitals, demonstrated that the Israeli army used white phosphorus bombs in the shelling of Palestinian civilian gatherings. Medical sources have reported that even the bones of some of the dead and injured were burned.
Residents of the northern Strip towns of Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun, Gaza City’s eastern neighborhoods and Jabaliya Refugee Camp have reported that the smoke emitted after the bombing of Israeli aircraft led to dozens of cases of suffocation and shortness of breath. Once white phosphorus is released into the air it rapidly oxidizes. The interaction creates heat and produces a yellow flame and thick white smoke.
The British Times reported that Israeli forces have been using white phosphorus during bombings, while local organizations are asking for an inquiry into the use by Israeli forces of internationally prohibited weapons.
Human Rights Watch said that Israel should desist from the use of white phosphorus in the military operations in civilian populated areas in Gaza, while its investigators confirmed the use targeting Gaza City and Jabaliya.
“In the view of Human Rights Watch the use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas in Gaza contravenes international humanitarian law.”
Attacks on the Strip are ongoing as of 4:30 pm Monday.
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4483&Itemid=1
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Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
23rd February 2007
Central Hall, Westminster,
London
[Opening Dua]
People have been here a long time, we lost some people, they just either had to go and catch the tube, or they had something on the tube they wanted to watch or something, I don’t know.
I wanted to make a few remarks. First of all, I want to address a few issues that I think are important and perhaps not for most of the people in the room, but for other people and I would like you to convey this to the other people. There are people that have been talking about the work that is being done by Fuad Nahdi, by Abdul-Rehman, by Fareena and by the other groups that have been involved in this effort; that this is a government propaganda; that these are stooges of the government of England. I’m sure some of you have heard some of these things, so I want to say a few things about them.
First of all, there’s a verse in the Qur’an that is very interesting to me, and probably to most of you, [verse in Arabic] ‘If people incline towards reconciliation, incline with them’ Wa tawakal alAllah ‘and trust in God’ inahu Huwa Samiul Aleem. [Arabic verse] When they want to incline towards peace, you incline towards peace; and if they want to deceive you, if there’s some hidden ulterior motive, God is enough for you. Don’t worry about that, that’s not your concern. Peace is so precious, that anybody who reaches out for peace, you should reach out with them for peace.
And there is another thing I want to say about this government – who do you think this government is? They are called civil servants. Who do you think pays their money? Where do you think this money is from that the government has? It’s from the pockets of the British people, who pay taxes. There are 2 million Muslims in this country paying taxes; they don’t want a little refund?
No seriously, I mean, I’m just amazed at this. Abu Hanifah said, [Arabic] The wealth of the non-Muslims, if they want to give it to you, it is permissible to take it.
Now, I’m going to be honest with you – I did not want to come here. I was in California; my wife is a brilliant cook. Really. There’s no hotel food that compares to her food. It’s not why I married her, she learnt to cook after I married her; but she’s a brilliant cook. Her food is very good. It’s nourishing, I feel good when I eat her food. And she cooks it with love. You can’t get that in a restaurant. I can taste the anxiety in their food, I can taste the anger of the cook. My cells feel it.
And I also have really good tea. I come to England, I buy the tea and I take it back. I have a big supply. My tea is much better than the tea they give at any hotel I’ve ever stayed at in England. I learned how to make tea from Abdul Adheem Sanders, excellent tea-maker. If anybody has ever had his tea, they’ll know what I mean.
So, why leave the comfort of my home? Because my Shaykh, Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah, asked me to. He said this is an important thing, so come. So I came. I’m tired, and whenever I get tired I become more open, because my defences are down.
I’m going to tell you some true things. I used to not like the English people. Seriously, I thought they were cynical. You know, the English people, the way they roll their eyes, there’s a certain way; there’s a smirk that comes on their mouths when you say something. Really very subtle things that you notice about the English. You know there’s a cynicism that’s particularly Anglo-Saxon in its nature and it’s really interesting. But I’ll tell you something – I have come to love these people, and for a number of reasons. I want to talk about this because it’s very important for all of you who are living here. This country is an amazing country. It has done many wrongs, and we could bring an Irish person here tonight and they could talk for hours about what this country has done wrong. We could bring Welsh people, they might not be as eloquent as the Irishmen, but they could also talk for several hours about what the English have done to them. And, you could bring some of my tribe, from Scotland, really, you could bring some of them down, and they could give you with a nice brogue, they’ll let you know what the English did. From Edward Longshanks on, or even before that. They’ll tell you about the English. But each one of these people has been challenged to learn to live with the English. Really. The Scots are very civil; some of them want independence, quite a number of them, but how are they going about gaining that independence? They are not blowing up things. They have other ways of doing it. The Welsh de-evolution, it’s been a long time. They say the Welsh are the Irish who couldn’t swim. You know it’s been a long time since the Welsh have been occupied. Much longer than Palestine. But the Welsh are a gentle people. I love the Welsh and I love the Irish. But it’s taken me a while to really appreciate the subtleties of these different cultures.
And so I really want to say, there’s two ways that you can live in your life; one is the way of husn dhann – having a good opinion; and the other way is the way of su’a dhann. Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah doesn’t tolerate ghiba; it’s one of the things that I love about his majlis. You can’t say anything about anybody, even people that you should say things about, he won’t let you say anything about them. Years ago, we were at a gathering and somebody mentioned something about Jamaludin al Afghani, who died a long time ago, two centuries ago. So somebody said something and Shaykh Abdullah said something I have never forgotten. He said [Arabic] ‘Have a good opinion of the dead, we’ve tried having bad opinions, we’ve tested it as a way of being in the world.’ Our Prophet, Salallahu alayhi wa sallam, had the best of opinions. Whenever the Quraish reached out for him, he reached out for them. Mu’awiyah (we know in the Arabic tradition they call it Sh’ar Mu’awiyah, the hair of Mu’awiyah) is one of the most brilliant politicians in human history. He is a case study. The leadership secrets of Mu’awiyah would be a bestseller. Mu’awiyah said. ‘If there was a hair of a relationship between me and somebody else, if he pulled on it, I would release; if he would release, I would pull. A hair of relationship; just to keep that opening there, that potential.’
You should be thankful to have people like Mockbul Ali inside the Foreign Office. I have a good opinion of that young man. He’s a bright young man and has good intentions. He’s there representing your community. You live here, you pay taxes, this is your government. This is not Rawalpindi; this is not Karachi; this is not Cairo. This is not some funny place off in the middle of the Muslim world where if you say anything against the government, suddenly you’re in chains, being dragged away. No. This is a country that you are citizens of; [Arabic verse] ‘I swear by this land and you are a lawful citizen of this land.’
You are citizens; this is not subjection; you are not subjects. The British are citizens and subjects, but this is something superficial. The Queen can’t just arbitrarily send you off to the prison. We should be wary of some of these laws being passed as they are against the essential nature of this country, and we have to remind the English – ‘You are the people of the Magna Carta; you are the people of Habeas Corpus; this is your tradition – you gave this to the western world. You are the people of John Locke and you are the people of John Wesley, who this glorious hall is named after, one of the greatest reformers in western civilisation, who worked with William Wilberforce.’
I want to tell you about William Wilberforce. This was a man, who from the early twenties was with a group in Clapham. One day, 132 black Africans were thrown overboard on a ship called the Zong. It was a slave ship coming from West Africa to the Americas. It was an English ship. 132 black people were thrown into the ocean and drowned, and this was considered legal by the laws of the land. This group of young people, who still had that spark of hope, recognised how despicable this act was, how unacceptable this act was, and they started a small group of abolitionists, to end the slave trade. At a time when almost every single Member of Parliament was supported by the slave lobby. Things haven’t changed all that much. But Wilberforce did not give up. He worked day and night – he was an incredible connector; he connected with people all over the country, got people to sign things and he brought these in as a Member of Parliament. He worked with beautiful people like Hannah Moore.
Several years ago I suggested to the Muslim women in this country to start up a Hannah Moore Benevolence Society, because you should know Hannah Moore. You should know who Hannah Moore is. She’s a beautiful Englishwoman. She was stunningly beautiful in her looks. When she came to London, she took everybody by storm. She was a playwright, she was a literary figure, she was a poetess, she was all of these things, but in the end she had a spiritual conversion and she became one of the staunchest anti-slavery spokespeople in this country. She started night schooling – one of her greatest contributions.
This is England to me. England is not the tyranny of Ireland; that’s the worst of human nature that you find in any civilisation. That’s not England to me. England to me is these incredible ideals embodied by people like Florence Nightingale. I love Florence Nightingale. I have studied and read all of her works. I told my wife – you’re the only woman I know who is jealous of a woman who died over a hundred years ago. I fell in love with Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale said England needs to go to the Sufis. She wrote this in her book. She said England needs to go to the Sufis. Florence Nightingale entered the Sultan Hassan Mosque, where Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa gives the khutbah, and she said for the first time, she found what she was looking for. She said, I never found this in the churches of England. She said, I found equality, and that there was a place for women in this religion.
You know, they chased her out with a stick, and yet, she said, I don’t blame them. She went to Al-Azhar, she was struck by the spirituality, and she says in her diary, ‘I’ve heard in my heart something telling me turn to Mecca, face Mecca, face Mecca, all of humanity is one, we are all under One God, and there is salvation for all of us. I kept hearing in my heart there is no God but God, believe in the One true God.’
She was a Unitarian, she was not a Trinitarian. This is Florence Nightingale, one of the great icons of the British people. This was a woman who was given a Qilada, this extraordinary medal by the Sultan Abdul Majid of the Ottoman Empire because she came and served the Turkish soldiers that were victims of the Crimean War as well as she served the British soldiers, because she didn’t differentiate between people. This is England to me. This is the England I want to see. This is the England I want to remind these people of, who they are. They’ve forgotten who they are. These are the people of the great reforms of the western civilisation, and we of all people should be reminding them. We share these things with you. You’ve forgotten who you are like we’ve forgotten who we are. This is the age of senility. We’re all in spiritual dementia. This is the old age, the dotage of humanity, and we need reminders. We’ve got collective Alzheimer’s Disease, and some of us have “sometimer’s” disease – we forget and then we remember. This is England to me, and it flows in my blood; I have ancestors from this land, this is my qawm. Ya qawmee – this is what every prophet (saw) said to his people, Oh my people. They weren’t following his way, they were fighting and they were opposing him. Ya qawmee, [Arabic] He didn’t say [Arabic]. ‘No you’re wrong, I want good for you [Arabic] I just want to help, as much as I’m able to.’ This is our teaching, to go out and to engage these people.
I was on an airplane, and this man came up to me, and he said, ‘Brother, I love your work!’ I said, “Masha’Allah, thank you so much.” He said, “No, no, really, its just so amazing what you did, it’s incredible…Let me ask you one question.” I said sure, and he said “Why did you give up singing?” So after I sang him a few bars of Peace Train, one of my favourite songs, I told him I lost my voice. No, I said that’s Yusuf Islam! We have the same name. There’s three Yusufs tonight, it’s Yusuf muka’ab, Yusuf to the third power.
_____________
But I want to end with a story about one of my favourite people. Who can tell me, and not from the Ulema, who can tell me who Sayyidina Umar’s favourite poet is. People say “Sayyidina Umar liked poetry?! Didn’t he just listen to the Qur’an?” The favourite poet of Umar ibn al Khattab was Zuhair ibn Abi Sulma. Who is Zuhair ibn Abi Sulma? He is the father of Ka’ab ibn Zuhair, the man who wrote the Burda (The Poem of the Cloak). He is also the father of Ka’ab’s younger brother who became Muslim before Ka’ab. Zuhair did not meet the Prophet, he died one year before. But I want to tell you a little bit about why Zuhair wrote his mu’alaqa and I want to use this as a metaphor for what we need to do.
The Arabs call something ayam al arab. Ayam al arab are the days of the Arabs. That’s why Allah changed ayam al arab to ayamillah. [Arabic] because the Arabs had their days, Allah has His days. The days of the Arabs were momentous things that happened to them, they say [Arabic], they used to write their history in their poetry.
There was a war called harb ud Dahis. You know who Dahis is? It’s amazing we know his name. Dahis was a horse. It’s called the War of Dahis, the Horse. And Dahis was owned by a man named Zuhair ibn Uqais al Absi. He had a friend who was from the Dhibyan tribe – Hudaifa bin Malik, who had a horse called Ghabra. Now, Hudaifa was very jealous of Dahis, the horse of Zuhair, so he asked him to race. So the two horses, they decided they’d race a hundred arrow shots – they shoot one time, two times, for a hundred times and then they race. Well, the horses started out, and Ghabra was winning, but once it got into the heavy sand, Dahis took the lead. There was a group of Dhibyanites who were hiding in ambush, and they ambushed Dahis and stopped him from winning the race, so Ghabra won. So what was the bet? A hundred camels. So Hudaifa said “Give me a hundred camels because you lost.” And then the Abs people said “No, we saw the ambush, he didn’t lose. You lost; you cheated, give us a hundred camels.” They kept on and on and on.
Finally, Zuhair ibn Qais got so angry, he killed the brother of Hudaifa. He threw a spear at him and killed him. That started the war between ‘Abs and Dhibyan. You know how long that war lasted? Forty years – over a stupid horse race.
Much later – after many many people were killed from ghatafan, to the point where you know what Zuhair ibn Qais ended up doing? He went to Oman, became a Christian and spent the last days of his life weeping over the war he started. Because he said he could never look at anybody from his tribe, because he had caused so much suffering and bloodshed amongst these people.
So, what happens? There was a man, Al-Harith Al Absi, Harith ibn Awf. This man asked his cousin, Kharijah bin Sinan, “Which tent of the Arabs do you think would not let me marry his daughter?” And she said, “Definitely Aws Atta’i – he would never let you marry his daughter.” So what does he do? This is a typical male problem. He gets on his camel and he heads for this guy’s tent to ask for his daughter. Of all the things he can’t get, that’s the thing he wants – this is a human problem. So he gets there, and this man Aws comes out and says, “Good morning. What are you doing up here, ya Sayyid al Arab?” Al Harith said “I want to marry your daughter.” Aws said “Get the hell out of here.” I mean really, that’s pretty much what he said! This made Al Harith furious and he left.
So what does Aws do? He goes into the house and his wife asks him “What happened, who was that?”
He says “It was Al Harith bin Awf, As Sayyid al Arab.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to marry one of my daughters.”
She said, “If he is the Sayyid al Arab, why didn’t you marry on of the daughters to him?”
He said “That’s a good point, it’s just that he caught me off guard and I was angry.”
And she said, “Well go make amends.”
He said, “I can’t. What’s done is done.”
She said, “What do you mean what’s done is done? You mess everything up and then you’re not going to go fix it? Go out there!”
And he says, “What do I say?”
“Just tell him you got him in a bad mood. And tell him to come back and we’ll work things out.”
So he goes, and Al Harith initially is angry, but he comes.
What does Aws do? He says, “I want you to choose one of my daughters. I have three daughters.”
The first one comes out. She says, “I don’t want to marry him.” Remember, Arab women had no rights.
He says, “Why not?”
She says, “ First of all I’m not that good-looking, I’m not his cousin, and he’s going to take me far away and he’ll grow tired of me, divorce me, and then what?”
So he says, “Good point. Bring the second daughter.”
She comes. “I want you to marry this man. What do you say?”
“Look, my first sister is better looking then I am, I don’t have any talents, and I don’t want to go far away from you because who is going to protect me if he gets feisty with me?”
“Good point.”
Finally the hope is on the last daughter, the little one, Buhaysa. She comes in, and he says, “Listen, Al Harith wants to marry you. What do you say?
She said, “ Well, given that I’m the most attractive of my sisters, I’m extremely talented, and I have a most distinguished father, I don’t see how he could refuse me, and then if he treats me badly, God will definitely let him have it!”
So he says great, and they get married. As they’re moving out, they set up a tent next to the house, he goes in to consummate the marriage (that’s a nice word for things people do on their wedding night). So when he gets in there, she says, “What kind of a woman do you take me for? We’re right next to my father and my brothers. Let’s go.” So they ride off and a little way out, he tells his cousin, “Listen you go up ahead, and I’ll catch up with you later.” He stops by the side and sets up the tent. She says, “What kind of woman do you think I am? This is the way people who take women in wars behave! Take me to your home, slaughter sheep, make a big festival!”
He thinks, “This is a high minded woman.” So he takes her and then his cousin says, “Did you do what you wanted to do?” He said no, and explains to him. So they get back, and he does a big festival. When it’s all done, he comes in, “How’s things now?”
She said, “I want to ask you one question. What kind of a man are you? I thought you were a man of honour but I want to ask you one question: How is it that you can delight in women when there are people, Arabs, right now killing each other over a horse race? If you want me as a wife, go out and spread peace amongst these men, and end this bloodshed.”
He goes out and tells his cousin, and the cousin says, “This is a high minded woman, and she will give you great sons, so let us go and do this.” They went out and got the Abs and the Dhibyan to agree that if they were to count all of the dead, whoever had the most killed, these two men would pay 3000 camels from their own wealth – to end this war.
And this is when Zuhair wrote his mu’alaqa in praise of these two men, for what they did. But I think it’s Buhaysa that he should have written a mu’alaqa about, because that is where it has to come from. It’s the women in our homes – they are the one who can change this situation more than anybody else. Our women need to be like Buhaysa and get our men squared away. I really mean that. You are the vicegerents of God.
Extremism is here to stay folks. This is the most extreme society, and I’m talking about the whole globe right now. We’re in the most extreme conditions in human history. We’ve got extreme eating. When I grew up, small was like this, medium was like that, and large…..Now, that’s medium! That’s extreme eating. I used to eat with 10 people around a plate. And now people are walking around, unable to control themselves anymore. They are having to take out Victorian seats in the theatres of England because the American fat behinds can’t fit in them anymore. This is our reality – we’re extreme. We’re eating extreme.
Look at the extreme sports in this country. You know what Sky Television says? It says ‘If your religion is football, then worship with us.’ They call us idiots because our community kill people over what somebody said about the Prophet (saw) and yet they kill each other because some football team beat another football team.
There are sufaha everywhere, but really, what is more stupid, to kill over a stupid football game or to kill because the greatest person in your life has been desecrated, denigrated? They’re both wrong, but don’t call our people fools and not call your own people fools. This is extremism at its worst. Look at the pornography that they have, the denigration of these poor women. You know, the word in Arabic for oppression is related to the word for prostitute, because prostitutes are the most oppressed human beings on the planet. And there’s sexual slavery all over this planet. Some of the biggest downloads in the Muslim world, on Google, according to their own statistics, is pornography.
What’s happened to people? Really – think about this. We’re in extreme conditions. We need the abolition from our nafs. The Arabs say, [Arabic] The free man is a slave as long as he desires other than God, and the slave is a free man as long as he is content. This is real abolition. This is what William Wilberforce is about – his movement needs to be resurrected, but we need liberation from our own egos.
Jazakumallahu Khairan. It has been an honour. I love you, I love this country. I want to see good for this country. Really. And this Government – there’s much to say about the bad things of this government, and you know my criticism. I’m against the war in Iraq. I want the war to end. I want these British troops home. I don’t want them over there. I don’t want the American troops over there. I am against this – I have always been against it. Really, I am completely against it, on both sides – they’re both unacceptable. It’s terrorism on both sides. They’re both terroristic conditions. You’re terrorising people in their homes, using cluster bombs in Lebanon. Really, this is terrorism, and it needs to be condemned as terrorism. And I condemn it. We all condemn it. So we need to recognise that.
But this Government has much good in it, and our teachers teach us, [Arabic] If you’re in a blessing, watch out, you better guard it, because once you lose it, it’s gone, and disobedience is what causes it to be lost. And the Arabs say that Allah (Most High), He said that, [Arabic] A ni’m, if you don’t recognise them, [Arabic] Losing your blessings is what teaches you your blessings, so before you lose them, count your blessings. [Arabic]
Jazakumallahu khairan. Wasalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu.
Dr. Ingrid Mattson at Cambridge University on 12th October 2008. This presentation is brought to you by The Radical Middle Way Initiative and the Cambridge University Islamic Society.
You can also listen and watch this lecture online.
Al-Salam ‘alaykum.
[Opening du’a]
Prince Qazi is my hero as well, but Mufti Mustafa Ceric has been my hero for a longer time. May Allah protect him and all of us, and continue him in his leadership. To me he is an example to all of us of the kind of leadership that we need, which is real wisdom and steadfastness, in the way of enormous challenges.
We need not just knowledge, but we need this to be able to develop this prophetic character of being able to hold our heads up in dignity but in a humble way, not in an arrogant way. This is the prophetic way, and this is what we see in him and in other leaders who have been such examples for us and have allowed us to move forward and grow in the face of enormous challenges in recent years.
Muslims have always been highly adaptable to diverse situations, which is why Islam is a world religion and not just an Arabian religion. It’s why Muslims have been able to live in all climates and cultures, adopt and adapt, all different language groups, and to make them sacred languages by infusing them with the spirit of the Qur’an. So we need to be able to understand what is needed for our time, and since I’ve had the opportunity to serve the Muslim Community in North America, I’ve had to learn many things that I never thought I would have to learn about. And one of those things is how people receive messages, and what it does to them psychologically, even physiologically, because psychological events have a physiological impact on the brain.
So neuroscience has shown, for example, that when people look at images of someone from their group – a group that they identify with – and that means their ethnic group or their national group – a group that they consider to be ‘their people,’ that when people look at those images they experience that event. That perception is experienced as a trauma, as a psychological trauma. It leaves an impact in the brain. When we perceive things, neurological connections are formed, new connections in the brain are formed. So it’s not just a thought or a memory, as people would have thought in medieval times: that we have images floating around in our brains that can simply be flushed out. But it leaves a real, material, impact on our brain.
What’s important about that? What’s important is that in a world in which we are flooded with images – and traumatic images – we are being changed as human beings, by what we are seeing. And that the flood of negative images, the flood of traumatic images of people being blown up, of people being abused, of people being tortured, is traumatising us in a real way that has caused us as human beings to be unhealthy, and unstable, unless we have a way of dealing with this. Unless we have a way of taking this event and responding to it in a healthy way that forms a healthy brain and a healthy personality. Its why people who are highly compassionate in their close relationships feel compelled to in fact respond in often a very violent way and even transcend their own limits of ethics and morality, in order to protect those they perceive to be their group members, because of this experience of trauma. So we need to really understand what’s happening with human beings in our age, in this age when you are flooded with these negative images in order to respond appropriately.
I’ve spent many years speaking to people about Islam, public groups, audiences, church groups, civic groups, large and small gatherings of people, and what I’ve noticed over the past decade is that, let’s say within the last four or five years, responses to what I have to say have changed. So I would say that ten years ago, non Muslims were generally open to learning. They would acknowledge that they didn’t know anything about Islam or that they knew very little, that they didn’t know Muslims, and so they were open to hearing what we had to say – who we were, how we perceived ourselves and how we defined ourselves. In the last four or five years that has changed.
What I find is that the audiences I speak to have already established a perception of what a Muslim is, what Islam is, and are now very sceptical of what I have to say. I’ve had people stand up in the audience – so imagine this- an ordinary person saying ‘but what you don’t understand about Islam, or what you don’t know about Muslims is this,’ so they are claiming knowledge of Muslims, a knowledge that trumps my knowledge (a knowledge of a professor, a knowledge of someone who’s a leader of a Muslim organisation, who has this experience). And it’s not simply an act of arrogance – they really do believe they have knowledge of Muslims in Islam. So what’s happened? And here again we have to understand how the Muslim mind works.
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There’s something called the ‘anchoring affect’ which is that the first time you hear a piece of information about a new concept or event, that forms the category or the de facto position in your mind with respect to that event or that piece of information. So that anchors the information in your brain and afterwards, everything you hear about that subject will be weighed, measured or compared against that initial piece of information. And so if new information comes in, people will either treat it sceptically, they can change their mind but it takes more work, or they can reject it because it conflicts with what they have already learnt.
So what we’re dealing with now with regard to non-Muslims and their relationship to Islam, is not a blank slate, they are not simply ignorant to Islam – what our scholars would call ‘jahl baseet’ – but they have this complex ignorance, meaning that they think they know. And as I said, it’s not a question simply of arrogance, but we all as human beings, as people that process knowledge in this way, are susceptible to the same thing. With other pieces of information, with new events, people, we also do the same thing. So how can we deal with this? How can we deal with people who have been traumatised by very violent events, who see a continuing reaffirmation of their fear, because of the continuing flood of traumatic images of who they consider to be their people being harmed? And then people who already have in their minds, this information anchored, about what Islam and Muslims are. So how do we deal with them?
But we need to first understand that this is their state of mind, and extend some compassion to them, acknowledging that. Because it’s a state of mind that is fear and that is easily manipulated. So we need to have compassion for people, but also then, with wisdom, guide them to a new understanding. So first – and this is why we constantly find non-Muslims waiting at the end of a two-hour talk about general Islam, to ask one question which is, ‘why have Muslims not denounced terrorism? Why are they not louder about the voices of the extremists?’ and then of course all of us are very frustrated because we do this all the time. We say that we’ve denounced violence and acts of terrorism all the time, but of course that information doesn’t stick in the way that the bad information does. Those images are not traumatic. A benign image is not traumatic so it does not affect the human brain in the same way. It doesn’t stick. You may see a piece of information in which it says that Muslims met, and they spoke and they talked about what we have in common, but you read it and then it’s gone. It’s more of an ephemeral event.
So these statements that we’ve been making, and as Shaykh Ceric said, in our various capacities all these statements and events and documents, they didn’t stick with people. And they were still under the impression that most Muslims were complicit in the statements and extreme actions of those other Muslims. This is why it was important to have a message – a positive, accurate and truthful message – that stuck in people’s minds. We needed a message that would stay there, and lodge in the brain and be able to dislodge the previous information that was anchored there, and therefore one of the reasons why this message is very important. Because it’s a message that sticks. Because it’s written in a way, it’s been presented in a way, which sticks with people. It could easily have been another message; it could have come from other quarters. It’s not necessarily that the precise way this has been written, or the exact numbers of scholars or individuals who signed onto this was the perfect mix. But it’s the one that performs the job the best, and because of that, it’s one that we should all adopt and promote.
The more people that speak about it with its trademark name (I don’t know if its trademark, it should be if not), we should speak about it over and over and over and use a common word, talk about a common word. Because then we will have a message that will stick with people and that will be able to dislodge these former misconceptions. So that’s important. And this is part of strategy in teaching and in giving information. And this is something that Muslims have always understood, that it’s not just about the message, but the form of the message.
Allah subhana wa ta’ala revealed the Qur’an in a beautiful form. It’s not just the information that’s given by Allah subhana wa ta’ala, but it’s the form that the Qur’an was revealed in that made it stick with the people. It is of course God’s word, God’s word revealed in a form that is perfectly receptable to human beings. So we need to understand that the medium, as Marshal McLewin said, is the message. So we need to grab onto to it for that.
I don’t want to take up too much time, so let me say a few other things about the common word.
________________
I think it was also important psychologically for Muslims that show that Muslims can exercise leadership. We’ve been in a defensive position for a long time. And this is not just problematic, not just in terms of psychologically and emotionally draining where we are always having to defend ourselves, but it also shows our lack of setting aside our proper role among humanity, which is that Allah subhana wa ta’ala sent us the message of Islam to be leaders, to be moral and ethical leaders. And we haven’t played that role.
So the fact that this came from the Muslim Community, not simply as a response to the Pope (because it would have been easy just to respond), but as a new way, a new form of engagement, is very important. Because it’s a reminder to ourselves of our role we need to play on this Earth. And let me say now, that now that it’s clear that we’ve done this, we need to continue to implement it and carry it forward; we should start getting in the habit of being moral and ethical leaders.
If we look at the global economic crisis that’s happening for example, we see that Muslims have not been leaders, and looking at issues of economic justice. Although there have been some very outstanding individuals, in terms of the global economy, we have been followers, which is why a number of Muslim countries will now be dragged down as the United States is drowning the drowning man is pulling down others with him. But here’s an opportunity for Muslims to stand up forward again with leadership; Islamic finance is based on justice and equality and shared risk which is the opposite of financial principles that have dragged the whole world down into this economic crisis. I hope that Muslims will once again rise (Muslims other than myself – this is not my area of expertise but it’s the area of expertise for many others) to the occasion, and show some leadership and say ‘look, there is a better way.’ And the better way is one in which excessive consumption is something that we shun. We want people to improve their quality of life, but in a way that is fair, just and allows people to live in a community mercifully and that also does not do enormous damage to the Earth.
Finally I would like to say, that I cannot but echo more strongly what Shaykh Mustafa Ceric says about the obligation on your part to implement this message. It’s one of the most satisfying things I’ve seen in the last year is the way that in America Christian groups and local communities have responded to this. What’s interesting to me is that across the United States there have been many communities – small churches that have reached out to Muslims in their neighbourhood – wanting to have interfaith engagement. Kind, compassionate and ordinary people, who out of this innate sense of compassion for other human beings reached out to Muslims because they felt that – and saw – that Muslims were under attack and did this as a gesture of kindness and neighbourliness, from their understanding of what a Christian should be. But in response to that intuitive and spontaneous gesture of outrage, there were ideologues in both communities – both in the Muslim Community and Christian Community – who tried to prevent this natural kindness and neighbourliness and compassion from coming together, who said you can’t work or you shouldn’t speak with those people because they’re utterly unlike us.
So our ideology can get in the way of our fitra, our natural kindness, justice and compassion for each other; this natural sense that we do have a connection. That means there needs to be an ideological response, or a theological response, if I can put it in a more positive term. So the common word is very important for that, and for what we’re doing, because look at our leaders – both Muslim and Christian – have said; they’ve affirmed that our outreach to each other is something that is good and that is necessary.
A small community in my neighbourhood, a small community of Franciscans, the Muslim women, and Christian women primarily, had been getting together for coffee and conversation for a number of years. they took this document and the whole community had a receiving/welcoming ceremony for it. It’s a beautiful thing on a very small scale, but in the end, those are the people who are going to protect us, who are going to speak for us, who are our allies, and on a larger scale, in a place like the United States, who are going to vote for those leaders, who are for engaging and dialogue, or who are for conflict and disharmony.
So please, take up the document, take up the challenge, think of all the creative ways you can implement it, and I believe it will continue to be (and we will see over time) even more important than it was in the beginning.
Thank you.
Al-salam ‘alaykum.
Today’s column is presented as a public service for Muslim readers. Call it a list of Things Not To Say If You Are Muslim. The need for such…
By Leonard Pitts Jr
Syndicated columnist
Today’s column is presented as a public service for Muslim readers. Call it a list of Things Not To Say If You Are Muslim.
The need for such a list is illustrated by a New Year’s Day incident at Washington’s Reagan National Airport. An AirTran Airways flight was delayed two hours and a group of nine Muslims — eight family members and a friend — was refused permission to fly after two teenage girls overheard a member of the group say that sitting near the engines would be particularly unsafe in the event of an accident.
The girls told their parents, who told flight attendants. Next thing you know, 104 passengers are cooling their heels as the plane and all its baggage are rechecked by security officials. Even after the plane was cleared to fly and the group — eight of them native-born U.S. citizens — was determined to be no threat, they were still not allowed back on the plane. They wound up paying for seats on another carrier. AirTran initially refused to apologize for the incident, but quickly backtracked.
So there you have No. 1 on the list of Things Not To Say If You Are Muslim: Do not say anything about air safety. Granted, that’s a staple, albeit morbid, topic for skittish fliers the world over, but you are not “the world over.” You are Muslims in America, post Sept. 11. You may not discuss air safety. Not even to say, “For criminy sake, Malik, take your Valium and shut up; flying is perfectly safe.” If you discuss air safety even to defend it, we will have to conclude that you are a terrorist.
No. 2. Do not use “gee” words. Do not say jeepers, gee-whiz, Jesus or Jehosophat. Someone listening in may think you said “jihad” and we will have to conclude that you are a terrorist.
No. 3: Do not say jihad. If you do, we will have to conclude that you are a terrorist.
No. 4: Do not discuss movie history. Eventually, someone will observe that “Ishtar” was one of Hollywood’s all-time biggest bombs. Someone listening in will report that you plan to blow up Hollywood and we will have to conclude that you are a terrorist.
No. 5: Do not talk sports. Somebody might say, “Boy, I hate the Dolphins.” Then Homeland Security will have to shut down SeaWorld, Shamu will have to be guarded by unsmiling men in sunglasses … and we will have to conclude that you are a terrorist.
No. 6: Do not discuss the weather. If someone says, “I can’t believe it’s raining again today” and someone else says, “Weatherman says it’s going to be even worse tomorrow,” and then the first someone says, “Any more of this and we’re all going to drown,” someone listening in will report a plot to blow up the levees and flood the town. And we will have to conclude that you are a terrorist.
Indeed, it occurs to me that it might be easier to list the things that are safe for you to talk about, that won’t make some eavesdropper think you an evil, America-hating outsider. There are two things. The first: lawsuits. There is nothing more reflective of American values than suing the so-and-sos who have mistreated and embarrassed you.
Indeed, one of the detained Muslims told The New York Times, “We have not ruled out the possibility of legal action.” It struck just the right tone, saying to skeptical fellow Americans in no uncertain terms: Hey, we are just like you.
The second thing on the list of safe topics: baseball. Yes, I know what I said about sports. Baseball isn’t sports. It’s hot dogs, blue skies, homeruns, Americana at its most iconic.
Besides, it’s OK to say you hate the Yankees. Most people do.
Yes, you may think it pathetic that Americans have become such a skittish, paranoid lot that you can only talk about lawsuits and baseball without arousing suspicion. But look on the bright side:
Spring training begins next month.
Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@miamiherald.com
2009, The Miami Herald
