Thinking about the origins of exclusivity, various biblical suggestions as to how to deal with idolaters spring to mind like a gazelle in wellington boots: Exodus 34 12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst…
More from Disraeli’s dad, this time on the peculiarly Spanish (continental?) fondness for long titles: The Spaniards then must feel a most singular contempt for a very short name, and on this subject Fuller has recorded a pleasant fact. An opulent citizen of the name of John Cuts (what name can be more unluckily short?)…
Chávez’s anti-gringo rhetoric forms the basis of his appeal, but new evidence (which may gull the gullible and disturb yet the already disturbed) suggests that the guiri–the Spanish gringo–may have actually originated in what should perhaps be renamed the República Guiriana. Here’s Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo in Historia general y natural de las Indias (1535)…
Nineteenth century nationalism and anti-Papism made it easy to forget the extent of Spanish influence in the Low Countries during the sixteenth century. Much of this influence was literary, with translations and localisations of Spanish classics appearing rapidly and serving as models for several generations of Dutch authors, but Iberia’s greatest gift to the Provinces–like…
“And as we find in a book of laws called Digesto that city used to be called Guiris because it was created by Garfeus, son of Canaan and grandson of Noah.”
The news (via Normblog) that the Iranian justice system has strung up a mentally incapable and unrepresented 16-year old girl for getting to know a boy shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to anyone who has heard the stories of those who escaped the revolution or the various officially sanctioned torture and murder…
When the inspector calls, the chief weapon of fundamentalist fishermen–particularly those with long white beards–is Genesis 1:26-28: And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all…
I’m intrigued by this excerpt from a discussion of The Arab-Israeli Cookbook, a new play by Robin Soans (who apparently also once wrote for The Two Ronnies): A professional hommos maker who lives close to the border of the West Bank reveals that he is losing customers from villages in the West Bank because they…