I just learned from Wikipedia that the Latter-Day Saints hold the Garden of Eden to have been located in Jackson County, Missouri, right around Independence. After the Flood, when Noah's family ended up in Mesopotamia, they named the local rivers Tigris and Euphrates and whatnot to remind themselves of back home in America, as a later generation of Americans would name bits of the New World after Utica and Montevideo and Cairo.*
Also about the genius crank and sometime small-time rock idol David Rohl, who places it in eastern Iran, in the plain below the Caucasus near Tabriz, a more fragrant and evocative theory to this old helpless Orientalist (I normally manage to hold this disgracefully [jump]
*Which they obviously didn't, come to think of it; they named all these towns after places they had never been and of which they cannot have had any very precise ideas. I mean, not Plymouth or Boston perhaps, but Alexandria? Lebanon, PA?
colonial and old-fashioned attitude back, but the name "Tabriz" just makes me feel a little faint; if I can admit to it, is that a sign that it's not so bad?).
So, "West of Eden" for that part of the world where the departure from the Garden seems closest and most catastrophic...
Baghdad is hosting the Arab League summit for the first time since we blew it up, a sign of the return of Iraq to the community of nations, or partway; Juan Cole says Prime Minister al-Maliki is being snubbed by about half the members, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who sent only ambassadors, not foreign ministers, as a sign of their displeasure that nothing is going to be done about Syria.
Iraq seems to have taken on the responsibility of representing Shi'a to the League, of Iran (which of course is not Arab) and the Alawites ruling Syria (which has been suspended), and maybe the Shi'ite revolutionaries of Bahrain as well—Maliki is said to want to call for discussions of the treatment of minorities in the Arab League states, Berbers, Kurds, Christians, and of course those Shi'ites. I wonder how old Wolfowitz and Kristol and the other "intellectuals" of the Bush years are enjoying the spectacle of Iraq as a proxy for Iran, made in the USA.
Meanwhile, the Times has painted a really spooky picture of Israel's Prime Minister and Defense Minister locked in a ghastly embrace, forming a tiny subcabinet for the planning of the attack on Iran and its imaginary nuclear weapons program, depressive Necessity and cheery Sufficiency nourishing their folie à deux in the opposition of the IDF, Mossad, and much of their own cabinet, not to mention the governments of virtually all their allies.
In my fantasy, the Israeli right is all located in some kind of gloomy Andalusian palace, in a play by some French, or more likely Belgian writer I haven't actually read (Montherlant? Ghelderode?)—a Montsalvat, where they mutter their way through the rituals of a religion none of them believe in and wait for doom: Ariel Sharon lies in a coffin surrounded by lit wax tapers, his gigantic body swelling and receding with his breath, stuck round with IVs delivering his food and drugs, Lieberman gibbers madly, hallucinating, and Netanyahu cowers in a dark corner from which Barak tries to tempt him with little treats: "Bibi, want a candy bar? Bibi, want to look at dirty pictures?" And Sara Netanyahu is there as well, screaming her way down enormous halls, freezing the blood of everyone who hears. As for Barak himself, "que diable est-il allé faire dans cette galère?"
And Haaretz notes that President Abbas, who had been expected to threaten to disband the Palestinian Authority with a letter that would
And Shaul Mofaz beat Tzipi Livni in the Kadima primary: Haaretz, again, says
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| Title page of Basilius Besler's Hortus Eystettensis (1613). From the Chicago Botanic Garden website. |
Also about the genius crank and sometime small-time rock idol David Rohl, who places it in eastern Iran, in the plain below the Caucasus near Tabriz, a more fragrant and evocative theory to this old helpless Orientalist (I normally manage to hold this disgracefully [jump]
*Which they obviously didn't, come to think of it; they named all these towns after places they had never been and of which they cannot have had any very precise ideas. I mean, not Plymouth or Boston perhaps, but Alexandria? Lebanon, PA?
colonial and old-fashioned attitude back, but the name "Tabriz" just makes me feel a little faint; if I can admit to it, is that a sign that it's not so bad?).
So, "West of Eden" for that part of the world where the departure from the Garden seems closest and most catastrophic...
Baghdad is hosting the Arab League summit for the first time since we blew it up, a sign of the return of Iraq to the community of nations, or partway; Juan Cole says Prime Minister al-Maliki is being snubbed by about half the members, led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who sent only ambassadors, not foreign ministers, as a sign of their displeasure that nothing is going to be done about Syria.
Iraq seems to have taken on the responsibility of representing Shi'a to the League, of Iran (which of course is not Arab) and the Alawites ruling Syria (which has been suspended), and maybe the Shi'ite revolutionaries of Bahrain as well—Maliki is said to want to call for discussions of the treatment of minorities in the Arab League states, Berbers, Kurds, Christians, and of course those Shi'ites. I wonder how old Wolfowitz and Kristol and the other "intellectuals" of the Bush years are enjoying the spectacle of Iraq as a proxy for Iran, made in the USA.
Meanwhile, the Times has painted a really spooky picture of Israel's Prime Minister and Defense Minister locked in a ghastly embrace, forming a tiny subcabinet for the planning of the attack on Iran and its imaginary nuclear weapons program, depressive Necessity and cheery Sufficiency nourishing their folie à deux in the opposition of the IDF, Mossad, and much of their own cabinet, not to mention the governments of virtually all their allies.
In my fantasy, the Israeli right is all located in some kind of gloomy Andalusian palace, in a play by some French, or more likely Belgian writer I haven't actually read (Montherlant? Ghelderode?)—a Montsalvat, where they mutter their way through the rituals of a religion none of them believe in and wait for doom: Ariel Sharon lies in a coffin surrounded by lit wax tapers, his gigantic body swelling and receding with his breath, stuck round with IVs delivering his food and drugs, Lieberman gibbers madly, hallucinating, and Netanyahu cowers in a dark corner from which Barak tries to tempt him with little treats: "Bibi, want a candy bar? Bibi, want to look at dirty pictures?" And Sara Netanyahu is there as well, screaming her way down enormous halls, freezing the blood of everyone who hears. As for Barak himself, "que diable est-il allé faire dans cette galère?"
And Haaretz notes that President Abbas, who had been expected to threaten to disband the Palestinian Authority with a letter that would
include an ultimatum on the part of the Palestinians, saying that if their demands were not met, they intended to turn to the international community, urge that Israel uphold international law, and demand that Israel take direct responsibility for the situation in the West Bankhas decided not to after all, after pleas from Obama.
And Shaul Mofaz beat Tzipi Livni in the Kadima primary: Haaretz, again, says
Livni was portrayed as an honest leader, who wasn't prepared to compromise and abandon her principles. But in the end, she paid a heavy price for this.(This is in an editorial supporting Mofaz! As in, Vote for Shaul, he's dishonest enough!)
