Thursday, November 29, 2012

"I follow the Buddha and Goodness": Final messages from Tibetan self-immolators

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A thousand years from now, scholars will shake their heads knowingly and scoff at the legends of the great Bodhisattva army of Tibetan self-immolators. They will assure their colleagues and students that all such stories are just so much romaniticized nonsense.

Who could believe such things? Who could imagine such things? Who could do such things?





"There is no freedom in Tibet, His Holiness Dalai Lama is forbidden to return home. Panchen Lama [the second highest ranking Lama after the Dalai Lama] is in prison. Numerous Tibetan heroes have made the sacrifice of self-immolation. I don't want to live anymore, there is no meaning in living… We are the son of Snow Lion, the offspring of red face Tibetans. Please remember the dignity of Snow mountain."

"Tibet needs freedom and independence. Release Panchen and let Dalai return home. I self-immolate to protest against the Chinese government! Father, please don't be disheartened because of me. I follow the Buddha and Goodness. My wish is that six million Tibetans will learn their mother tongue, wear Tibetan clothes and be united." 

"Greetings to my dear brothers and sisters, and especially my parents, the kindest of all in this world. I am setting myself on fire for the sake of Tibet. The long life of His Holiness the Dalai Lama must be assured. It is my wish that the sun of happiness may shine on the land of Tibet."

Sources:

Last Words of 19 Tibetans Who Committed Self-Immolation (fromGlobalVoicesOnline.Org).

"May the sun of happiness shine on Tibet," a self-immolator’s last words (from Phayul.Com)


Wednesday, November 28, 2012

does it ever end? (apparently not)

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that's right, she's a контральто:




Поющие гитары - Тачанка:





a beautiful rendition of Katyusha (Катюша):




some excellent crowd shots in this one:




a catchy tune featuring rotary dial phones and helpful subtitles in english and chinese:

Friday, November 16, 2012

No True Pagan: The David Duke Litmus Test (Two Case Studies)

While some people concern themselves with the fanciful vagaries of "crypto-fascism", we here at EGREGORES prefer to focus on the real thing. It turns out that if you really want to find people who claim to be Pagans (or Heathens, or Hellenes, or Traditionalists) but who are, in fact, Fascists and/or Nazi sympathizers just looking for a new way to peddle their old poison, it's really not too hard to spot them. Just check to see whether or not they are standing next to David Duke.

Anyone who would be caught dead with David Duke is No True Pagan in my book.

But how, you ask, does one apply the much vaunted David Duke Litmus Test in practice? To answer that question, lets take a look at two case studies: Galina Lozko (leader of the pseudo-Pagan "Native Faith" movement in the Ukraine), and Greg Johnson (editor of the proudly white supremacist Counter-Currents website, and who claims to be critical of Christianity and sympathetic to Paganism).

What might happen if, for example, one were to do the simplest possible google search, and just put in two names, one of them being "david duke" (no quotes in the actual search - nothing fancy) the other being the name of the person to whom the David Duke Litmus Test is being applied? The results for "galina lozko" and "greg johnson" are given below:

The search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=galina lozko david duke

Very first hit:
http://www.icare.to/article.php?id=4859&lang=en

The search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=greg johnson david duke

Very first hit:
http://www.toqonline.com/blog/david-duke-interview-1/

Further evidence of the linkage between Galina Lozko and Daid Duke:

Further evidence of the linkage between Greg Johnson and David Duke:




Sunday, November 11, 2012

Heathens and Hellenes

OOPS! Wrong kind of "Goth". Sorry!
The Germanic word "Heathen" can be traced back to the mid 4th century (348), when Ulfilas produced his Gothic translation of the Bible. Ulfilas used "Haiþi" as a Gothic equivalent of "Hellene".

Lets take a look at Mark 7:26:

ἡ δὲ γυνὴ ἦν ἑλληνίς, συροφοινίκισσα τῶ γένει· καὶ ἠρώτα αὐτὸν ἵνα τὸ δαιμόνιον ἐκβάλῃ ἐκ τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτῆς.
[Greek text, link: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/gnt/mar007.htm#026]

wasuþ~þan so qino haiþno, Saurini fwnikiska gabaurþai, jah baþ ina ei þo unhulþon uswaurpi us dauhtr izos.
[Ulfilas, 348, link: http://www.wulfila.be/gothic/browse/text/?book=4&chapter=7]

erat autem mulier gentilis Syrophoenissa genere et rogabat eum ut daemonium eiceret de filia eius
[Jerome (Vulgate), ca. 385, link: http://www.drbo.org/lvb/chapter/48007.htm]

Soþlice ðæt wif wæs hæðen, Sirofenisces cynnes. And bæd hine, ðæt he ðone deofol of hyre dehter adrife. 
 [West Saxon Gospels, ca 990, link: http://wordhord.org/nasb/mark-ws.html]

And the womman was hethen, of the generacioun of Sirofenyce. And sche preiede hym, that he wolde caste out a deuel fro hir douyter.
[Wycliffe, 1389, link: http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/biblical_studies/wycliffe/Mar.txt]

The woman was a Greke oute of Syrophenicia and she besought him yt he wolde caste out ye devyll oute of her doughter.
[Tyndale, 1526, link: http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/tyndale/mar.txt]


(und es war ein griechisches Weib aus Syrophönizien), und sie bat ihn, daß er den Teufel von ihrer Tochter austriebe.
[Luther, 1545, link: http://www.bibledbdata.org/onlinebibles/german_l/41_007.htm]

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It is also worth taking a look at some modern commentaries on this passage (taken from here: http://bible.cc/mark/7-26.htm):

"all heathens or idolaters were called Ἑλληνες, Greeks, by the Jews; whether they were Parthians, Medes, Arabs, Indians, or Ethiopians. Jews and Greeks divided the whole world at this period."
Adam Clarke

"A Greek - The Jews called all persons 'Greeks' who were not of their nation. Compare Romans 1:14. The whole world was considered as divided into Jews and Greeks. Though she might not have been strictly a 'Greek,' yet she came under this general appellation as a foreigner."
Albert Barnes

"The woman was a Greek,.... Or Gentile, an Heathen woman, which made her faith the more remarkable. So the Syriac, Persic, and Ethiopic versions call her; which she might be, and was, though she was a woman of Canaan, as she is said to be in Matthew 15:22, for though the land of Israel in general, was called the land of Canaan, yet there was a particular part, which was at first inhabited by Canaan himself, which bore this name; and is the same with Phoenicia, of which this woman was an inhabitant, and therefore she is afterwards called a Syrophoenician."
John Gill

Also check out this closely related post:
Defining Paganism: "Where your treasure is, there is your heart also." 
Ulfilas preaching to the Goths.