With today being Christmas many Americans make their annual appearance in what was once a a weekly tradition. Attending religious services has been on a steady decline for decades. Continue reading
Achmed Abdullah (1881-1945) was not a psychic, but over a hundred years ago he foresaw the future of Islam’s battle with the West.
Abdullah was born on the borderland between Afghanistan and India. Of mixed parentage, Abdullah was raised Muslim. He claimed to be educated on the continent and received a college degree in England, though the schools Abdullah supposedly went to have no record of him being there. Abdullah immigrated to America sometime around 1910. College degree or not he was well versed, educated and opinionated.
In the mid-teens he became a writer of some note, penning many articles for major magazines. Over the course of his writing career he wrote over two dozen books and by 1920 was also writing for the cinema. His two most famous screenplays are The Thief of Baghdad (1924) starring Douglas Fairbanks and The Lives of A Bengal Lancer (1935) starring Gary Cooper. Abdullah’s autobiography, The Cat had Nine Lives (1933) is extremely dubious as he professed to be related to Russian royalty among many of his unsubstantiated claims.
Early in his writing career Abdullah wrote a piece of non-fiction that you can tell is from the heart. In this story, he tells of the racial prejudice he encountered in his travels around the world. He recounts the historic injustices inflicted upon Asians and Muslims. Abdullah writes of his frustration with Christian and Western civilization’s assumption of superiority over any other culture. Abdullah saw the west’s attitude as racist and driven by subjugation and greed. Ironic, considering Abdullah was on his way to making a very good living from Western civilization.
From the article:
“You Westerns feel so sure of your superiority over us Easterns that you refuse even to attempt a fair or correct interpretation of past and present historical events. You deliberately stuff the minds of your growing generations with a series of ostensible events and shallow generalities, because you wish to convince them for the rest of their lives how immeasurably superior you are to us, how there towers a range of differences between the two civilizations, how East is only East, and the West such a glorious, wonderful, unique West.”
Abdullah’s article “Seen Through Mohammedan Spectacles,” was published in October 1914 by a very influential monthly scholarly magazine, The Forum.
The 13 page article which can be read here in its entirety, ran just months after the outbreak of World War I.
The article is forgotten today. Now is a good time to re-read it to better understand long held grievances from a non-western perspective. Continue reading
Thomas Jefferson circa 1780 the 3rd President of the United States. Born in Virginia, he drafted the Declaration of Independence,
The United States faced a population problem in 1782. There simply weren’t enough people living in the U.S.: just over 2.7 million according to the census.
Some citizens proposed increasing population by inviting foreigners to settle in the United States.
Thomas Jefferson was firmly against using immigration by “inviting (foreigners) by extraordinary encouragements” as a means of increasing population. Jefferson was not against immigration for people who wanted to come to the United States on their own.
Jefferson’s belief was to allow population to increase naturally through its native stock and continue to allow immigration at its natural pace. While Jefferson wasn’t speaking against any particular group of immigrants flooding our shores, he knew that foreign allegiances and ideas could cause great upheavals. Jefferson questioned whether increasing population just for the sake of increasing population was a wise move for our young country.
Jefferson espoused civilized values, the current “Western ideals” that the United States was founded upon and that are currently under attack by terrorists. Continue reading
Al Dark – Giant Star And Religious Man
Dark Deed
New York: Alvin Dark of the Giants plows home safely from third in the eighth inning of the game with the Phillies at the Polo Grounds May 27. Action came in Don Mueller’s grounder to Eddie Waitkus at first. Eddie ran in for the ball and threw to catcher Andy Seminick in an attempt to nail Dark, but the throw was late. Umpire is Al Barlick. Phillies won, 8-5. credit: (Acme) 5-27-50
(UPDATE 11/13/2014 – Alvin Dark dies of natural causes at age 92)
Al Dark is 92 and living in Easley, South Carolina. He is at peace with his life and can look back on a very successful fourteen year playing career in which Dark compiled a .289 career batting average, had over 2,000 hits and was a three time all-star.
Alvin Dark at home in Easley, SC in a 2012 photo: Erik S. Lesser for the San Francisco Chronicle
Dark said in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle on the eve of his 90th birthday, “I never drank, never smoked, never chewed, never anything like that. It was all against my sports upbringing. I feel very fortunate. And very happy. God blessed me.”
After his playing career ended in 1960 at the age of 38, Dark managed four teams over the course of 13 seasons winning the pennant in 1962 with the Giants and the World Series with the Oakland Athletics in 1974. Athletics owner Charlie Finley dumped Dark after the 1975 season when the team went 98-64, but the Athletics were swept in three games by the Red Sox in the divisional playoffs. Finley had previously fired Dark in 1967 with the Kansas City Athletics.
According to sportswriter Harold Parrott, Finley fired or technically “did not rehire” Dark, not for losing the playoffs in 1975 but for something Dark said at a prayer meeting!
Dark recounted what he said in the prayer meeting in his autobiography When in Doubt, Fire the Manager: My Life and Times in Baseball, “You know — and I’m saying this with respect — Charlie Finley feels he is a fantastic big person in the game of baseball. And he is. He has accomplished things, and I give him credit for building up the ball club. But to God, Charlie Finley is just a very little bitty thing that’s lost, and if he doesn’t accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior he’s going to Hell.”
Shortly after he was fired Dark claimed he held no grudges against Finley and delivered a sermon at a church in Louisville saying, “I really care for Charlie Finley, my family and I pray for him; in fact we have Christians all over America praying for him.”
When later asked by a reporter, “Would you ever work for Charlie Finley again?”
Dark said, “If I thought that was what the Lord wanted, certainly.”
Crosses On The Lower Manhattan Skyline
This lighting display in the financial district of Manhattan was a surefire way to attract attention during the Easter celebrations of 1956.
3/29/1956 New York – Huge crosses, formed by lighted windows blaze above New York’s skyline as part of an Easter display in Manhattan’s financial district. This scene photographed from the roof of the Municipal Building features 150-foot-high crosses in the following buildings (L-R) the City Services Co.; City Bank – Farmers Trust Co.; and the Forty Wall Street Corp. (United Press Telephoto)
In 1890, Almost 10% Of The World Contained “Nondescript Heathens”
Click to enlarge
This plucky statistic is from a chart entitled “Estimated Number of all Creeds” in S.T.W. Sandford and Sons Book Of Information published in 1890.
The 32 page booklet was given away by the company to promote their patent medicines. Dr. Samuel T.W. Sandford was made wealthy during the mid to late 19th century by selling his cure-all Dr. Sandford’s Liver Invigorator. The information is presented in almanac-like fashion, yet interspersed with advertising for Dr. Sandford’s products on practically every page. Most of the information presented is basic “did you know” material. But the chart caught my eye.
The world’s estimated 1.3 billion people are broken down as follows:
| Number of all people | Proportion to total Number percent | |
| Buddhists | 405,000,000 | 31.2 |
| Christians | 399,200,000 | 30.7 |
| Mahomedans | 204,200,000 | 15.8 |
| Brahamanists | 174,200,000 | 13.4 |
| Nondescript Heathens | 111,000,000 | 8.3 |
| Jews | 5,000,000 | 0.6 |
A 19th century Anglo-American viewpoint that over 100 million people could be described as “Nondescript Heathens” would not be considered anything out of the ordinary.