Opinions

In my opinion, you already know the joke about every body having an opinion, so I won't repeat it here.

Here is an opinion that is, I think, shared by many, if unexpressed. It may even be more
factual than mere opinions normally are.

If you have been to the Mad Science page, then you may have seen a link to the HalfBakery,
where among the mad ideas are also many opinions, a few of which are mine.

As this lone world of humanity spins into the future, events will always cause opinions to be formed.
On September 11, 2001, in the cities of New York and Washington, certain events took place that
overshadowed most of the others in the world that day.
Many people formed opinions that day. This one is mine:

"Those who choose to build can always prevail against those who choose to destroy,
because it takes more knowledge to build -- and knowledge is power."

===================

In April of 2002, conflict in the Holy Land began getting out of hand. Here is an overall opinion
that should best be expressed as a series of editorial cartoons. I could wish to be artist
enough to draw them, but since every one is simply 4 scenes involving a pair of talking heads,
that description should suffice as introduction:

COPYRIGHT IS WAIVED, AND COPYLEFT IS cLAIMED
ON THE FOLLOWING FIXED-FONT TEXT/DESCRIPTIONS:

---------------------------------------------
Note: It may be essential, politically correct,
to always draw the Mullah on the right.

---------------------------------------------
1 (cartoon with shared speech balloons)

             --------------
            | "Greetings." |
             --------------
-----------------||-----------------
/ "I'm sorry, but I find it difficult \
\     to speak of peace just now."    /
------------------------------------
    //                          \\
(Rabbi)                      (Mullah)
(maybe they should look like twins, except for headgear)
-------
2
Rabbi: "Reminds me of the old dispute
         between Isaac and Ishmael."

Mullah: "Worse than those infidel Hatfields
and McCoys in America."
-------
3
Rabbi: "Right. They were different families,
but our ancestors were half-brothers."

Mullah: "I heard that those Americans resolved
their dispute, but I didn't hear how."
-------
4
Rabbi: "They started marrying each other."

------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------
1
Rabbi: "Greetings, descendent of Ishmael."

Mullah: "Greetings, descendent of Isaac."
-------
2 (interwoven balloons)
Rabbi: "I have a delicate question to ask..."

Mullah: //ALERT! ALERT!// "I'm ready."

Rabbi: "Do you believe that God rescinds His promises?"

Mullah: "NO! Why do you ask?"
--------
3
Rabbi: "Well, in the Torah God promised the Holy
Land to the descendents of Isaac,
but in the Koran..."

Mullah: "Allah's Last Message to Man supercedes
all that came before."

Rabbi: "But if the Koran can be interpreted as
         God rescinding promises made to the
         descendents of Isaac, why couldn't He
         rescind promises made to the descendants
         of Ishmael? What if He already has?!"
--------
4
Mullah: "You're suggesting that if we deny the
         Holy Land to the descendants of Isaac,
         we could be in trouble."

Rabbi: "Well, aren't you?"

-----------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------
1
Rabbi: "Greetings, descendent of Ishmael."

Mullah: "Greetings, descendent of Isaac."
--------
2
Rabbi: "Do you think it's interesting, that God
         promised the Holy Land to the descendents
         of Isaac -- and here we are today -- and
         God also promised to make the descendents
         of Ishmael into a great nation -- and
         indeed your nation stretches from Morocco
         to Malaysia?"

Mullah: "Allah akbar!"
--------
3
Rabbi: "So I wonder, why do the descendents of
Ishmael think they need to claim the
Holy Land, too?"

Mullah: "Mohammed was here, so we have to come here."
--------
4
Rabbi: "Yes, and Jesus was here -- lived most of
         his life here -- so the Christians have to
         come here, too. But they mostly just visit;
         they usually don't move in to stay. Yet many
         of the followers of Mohammed -- who was only
         a visitor here -- did move in to stay. Why?"

Mullah: "That was a millenium ago. Maybe they were too
         busy conquering everyone to think about that.
         The Holy Land just came with the rest of the
         territory."

Rabbi: "But do they really have to keep it, today?"

-----------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------
1
Mullah: "Greetings, descendent of Isaac."

Rabbi: "Greetings, descendent of Ishmael."
--------
2
Mullah: "Doesn't your Torah say something about
how the Jews originally claimed the
Holy Land?"

Rabbi: "Yes. God told our ancestors to exterminate
         everyone who was already here -- so they did."
--------
3
Mullah: "It occurs to me that no matter how much
         you might want to not share the Holy Land,
         these days, maybe you shouldn't act to do
         anything like that again."

Rabbi: "That would be nice, but we seem to be
         running low on choices, these days."
--------
4
Mullah: "That's not what I meant. You know the old
         cliche` about what goes around comes around?
         If I believed in bad karma, I'd wonder if
         your ancestors' actions somehow set your
         people up for the Holocaust...."

Rabbi: "And we certainly don't want to go
through that again, right."

-----------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------
1
Rabbi: "Greetings, descendent of Ishmael."

Mullah: "Greetings, descendent of Isaac."
--------
2
Rabbi: "I happened to think about the fact that
both the Jews and the Palestinians are
immigrants to the Holy Land."

Mullah: "Because all the original inhabitants
were killed?"

Rabbi: "Yes..., well, both peoples have lived
in the Holy Land a long time, so
both think of it as being home."

Mullah: "I can actually agree with you on that!"
--------
3
Rabbi: "But there is a difference. The Jews
         immigrated twice, in ancient times and
         in the 1940s, whle the Palestinians
         only immigrated once, a millenium ago."

Mullah: "They kicked you out a millenium ago,
         you mean."
--------
4
Rabbi: "Well, you know the cliche` about what goes
         around comes around? Maybe it's the turn
         of the Palestinians to be kicked out."

-----------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------
1
Rabbi: "Greetings, descendent of Ishmael."

Mullah: "Greetings, descendent of Isaac."
--------
2
Rabbi: "As you know, your people are indeed a great
nation today, and reasonably wealthy, too,
because of all your oil reserves."

Mullah: "Allah akbar!"
--------
3
Rabbi: "It occurs to me that some parts of your great
nation could easily afford to accommodate a
large number of devout Muslim immigrants."

Mullah: "You're talking again about kicking the
         Palestinians out of the Holy Land, aren't you?"
--------
4
Rabbi: "Well, where they live now, they have little
         wealth, little peace, little security, and
         probably little hope about the future. But
         elsewhere, all those things should be much
         easier for them to obtain, especially if they
         were invited to go elsewhere. So why not?"

----------------------------------------------------------
Please pass the above Peace Proposal on!

The overall notion,
"The Muslims are going to have to share their territory,
and leave the Jews alone", was originally suggested by
someone who said it was a Divine Inspiration, and who
does not wish to be annoyed with messages. (Regardless
of the source of this inspiration, it may be better than
having no ideas at all, about that crisis!)
Vernon Nemitz merely tried to interpret and provide
some historical context to the suggestion, so as to
make it seem to be a plausible lesser-of-evils.

END OF COPYLEFT MATERIAL
----------------------------------------------------------

=================

In the future there will be more events, and more
opinions. A few will make their way here.

The recent Space Shuttle disaster may be worthy of an opinion piece.
Hmmmmmm.....

Until that is written, here is a couple of old opinions that I combined together
into one file (simple virus-proof .RTF format): Con_and_Pro. If you read the
whole thing, you may wonder what my personal religious stance is. Or maybe
not, if you have already read the stuff on the Fiction page. So...am I against
Religion and for God? Could be! Certainly I'm entitled to my opinion!

Some opinions of others, that I have encountered over the years,
I enjoy thinking about, even if I don't personally agree.
For example, I was visiting some friends once, and during the course of
conversation I happened to mention this opinion that I had read somewhere:
"Women should be obscene and not heard."
Promptly one of the women present mumbled something-or-other.
"What did you say?" I asked.
"I was being obscene and not heard," she replied.
(A most excellent touche` to a bad opinion, in my opinion!)

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