Digging around in my ongoing excavation project of hundreds of dusty, old artifacts buried in my files from my years of autodidactic pedagogy about the horrors of Islam, I found this excellent critical analysis of the demonization of Milosevic — and by extension, of the Serbs. Written crisply, clearly, sharply and with copious documentation by Francisco Gil-White, and published back in March of 2006, it should be required reading.
How to lie with (or without) statistics: An examination of Patrick Ball’s indictment of Milosevic
Just to tantalize the reader with one quote from Gil-White:
“As this piece will show, Patrick Ball’s own data directly contradict the hypothesis that Milosevic’s government carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign against Albanian civilians in Kosovo. In other words, when Mr. Ball concludes that there was such an ethnic cleansing campaign, he is doing so in defiance of his own analysis. This does not inspire confidence in the various ongoing efforts to assign blame around the world (listed above), and which feature Mr. Ball’s work rather prominently.”
Postscript:
The acerbic Serbian-American film critic, John Simon, tells me that Ivo Andric’s famous book title (see the pic up top) -- which I remember reading in my teens, when the only Muslims I knew were dimly Orientalist fantasies which subsumed the Turks of Andric's terrifyingly true tale -- should be more accurately translated, On the Drina, a Bridge.
As I wrote back to him:
That more accurate title (“On the Drina, a Bridge”) is much better. The other one (“The Bridge on the Drina”) has the feel of a fixture, historical furniture, a museum piece; while this one, aside from implying hope as you suggest, also implies accident, suddenness, and/or the felicitous or tragic concurrence of humans doing what they have to do under adventitious or adverse — or both — circumstance.
But I have grown to dislike the word “bridge” in its hopeful connotation — what with all the “bridge-building” going on these days among Western Amnesiacs of History with a people who throughout history have only used bridges to invade, plunder, slaughter and, if anyone’s left, subjugate (all, of course, after an initial “invitation” to take the Shahada…)
Deconstructing the Myth of Milosevic and the Serbs
Digging around in my ongoing excavation project of hundreds of dusty, old artifacts buried in my files from my years of autodidactic pedagogy about the horrors of Islam, I found this excellent critical analysis of the demonization of Milosevic — and by extension, of the Serbs.
Written crisply, clearly, sharply and with copious documentation by Francisco Gil-White, and published back in March of 2006, it should be required reading.
How to lie with (or without) statistics: An examination of Patrick Ball’s indictment of Milosevic
Just to tantalize the reader with one quote from Gil-White:
“As this piece will show, Patrick Ball’s own data directly contradict the hypothesis that Milosevic’s government carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign against Albanian civilians in Kosovo. In other words, when Mr. Ball concludes that there was such an ethnic cleansing campaign, he is doing so in defiance of his own analysis. This does not inspire confidence in the various ongoing efforts to assign blame around the world (listed above), and which feature Mr. Ball’s work rather prominently.”
Previous installments of my H-Files series:
Episode 1: The Al Aqsa Mosque: Architectural Supremacism and Insult Against Christianity
Episode 2: Algeria in the 90s — a premonition of the “Arab Spring”
Episode 3: 60s sexpot actress Brigitte Bardot grew up, condemns Muslims in France
Episode 4: Paul Berman: Another “expert” who thinks “Islamism” is the problem, not Islam
Episode 5: Black Widows and Basayev: Some random notes on the Jihad in Russia
Postscript:
The Serbian-American film critic, John Simon, tells me that Ivo Andric’s famous book title (which I used for my essay pic up top) should be more accurately translated, On the Drina, a Bridge.
As I wrote back to him:
That more accurate title (“On the Drina, a Bridge”) is much better. The other one (“The Bridge on the Drina”) has the feel of a fixture, historical furniture, a museum piece; while this one, aside from implying hope as you suggest, also implies accident, suddenness, and/or the felicitous or tragic concurrence of humans doing what they have to do under adventitious or adverse — or both — circumstance.
But I have grown to dislike the word “bridge” in its hopeful connotation — what with all the “bridge-building” going on these days among Western Amnesiacs of History with a people who throughout history have only used bridges to invade, plunder, slaughter and, if anyone’s left, subjugate (all, of course, after an initial “invitation” to take the Shahada…)
- See more at: http://1389blog.com/2012/10/16/the-h-files-episode-6/#sthash.SB3XydFN.dpuf
Deconstructing the Myth of Milosevic and the Serbs
Digging around in my ongoing excavation project of hundreds of dusty, old artifacts buried in my files from my years of autodidactic pedagogy about the horrors of Islam, I found this excellent critical analysis of the demonization of Milosevic — and by extension, of the Serbs.
Written crisply, clearly, sharply and with copious documentation by Francisco Gil-White, and published back in March of 2006, it should be required reading.
How to lie with (or without) statistics: An examination of Patrick Ball’s indictment of Milosevic
Just to tantalize the reader with one quote from Gil-White:
“As this piece will show, Patrick Ball’s own data directly contradict the hypothesis that Milosevic’s government carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign against Albanian civilians in Kosovo. In other words, when Mr. Ball concludes that there was such an ethnic cleansing campaign, he is doing so in defiance of his own analysis. This does not inspire confidence in the various ongoing efforts to assign blame around the world (listed above), and which feature Mr. Ball’s work rather prominently.”
Previous installments of my H-Files series:
Episode 1: The Al Aqsa Mosque: Architectural Supremacism and Insult Against Christianity
Episode 2: Algeria in the 90s — a premonition of the “Arab Spring”
Episode 3: 60s sexpot actress Brigitte Bardot grew up, condemns Muslims in France
Episode 4: Paul Berman: Another “expert” who thinks “Islamism” is the problem, not Islam
Episode 5: Black Widows and Basayev: Some random notes on the Jihad in Russia
Postscript:
The Serbian-American film critic, John Simon, tells me that Ivo Andric’s famous book title (which I used for my essay pic up top) should be more accurately translated, On the Drina, a Bridge.
As I wrote back to him:
That more accurate title (“On the Drina, a Bridge”) is much better. The other one (“The Bridge on the Drina”) has the feel of a fixture, historical furniture, a museum piece; while this one, aside from implying hope as you suggest, also implies accident, suddenness, and/or the felicitous or tragic concurrence of humans doing what they have to do under adventitious or adverse — or both — circumstance.
But I have grown to dislike the word “bridge” in its hopeful connotation — what with all the “bridge-building” going on these days among Western Amnesiacs of History with a people who throughout history have only used bridges to invade, plunder, slaughter and, if anyone’s left, subjugate (all, of course, after an initial “invitation” to take the Shahada…)
- See more at: http://1389blog.com/2012/10/16/the-h-files-episode-6/#sthash.SB3XydFN.dpuf
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