Кто я без тебя - (Who am I without You)- TOKiO

This is EXCELLENT : the music goes so well with the clip. It could very well be a clip about the war in Iraq, if it were not in Russian...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbhQD5PniT0

Если Да - Yesli Da (If Yes) - TOKiO

A second tune, very U2-like..I think.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=96EA51BB255CD469

TOKiO - When you crying (Когда ты плачешь)

This Russian group is musically gifted and very versatile. It's a change from Alla Pugacheva...

Sacco and Vanzetti

This painting I saw last August at the MOMA in New York has been on my mind a lot. The commentary on the audio-guide was not entirely satisfactory, it sounded as if something was amiss, as if the commentator was not fully knowledgeable. His interpretation was only historical and I cannot help but feel that he missed the symbolism used by Ben Shahn.

If I look first at the three men behind the coffins, I notice that two of them are holding lilies, particularly white lilies. Now white lilies are the symbolic flower used at Easter, symbolic of the Passion of Christ, but also in a more general way of all martyrs' passion. Indeed, these two men may be merely regular undertakers, with their top hats, black frock-coats and the customary long faces imposed by any death. But standing on both sides of what appears to be a judge, they evoke the Trinity.

There has been more than one Trinity painting, and the most famous is probably Andrei Roubleev's Icon of the Angels' Visit to Abraham. In the same way, Ben Shahn has given iconic dimension to the painting. The judge with his red sash confirms again the martyrdom, red being the color of martyrs in Eastern Orthodox iconography. As it is, one can think of the Roman centurion standing by Christ's cross and confessing that yes, they have killed the Son of God.

The judge also appears to be losing his life. Has he realized his mistake? His skin color is in the same tone as that of Sacco and Vanzetti's in their rigor mortis.

The two columns in the background stand as vertically as the two coffins are horizontal. All these black and white lines (columns, stairs, the border above the poster) echo the architectural dimension of the three persons standing above the coffins. The same tone of brown has been used for the closed door of what one can imagine to be the court, and the coffins. The background, also neatly delineated, remains in the distance and the eye is really drawn to the three characters standing above the coffins, more than to the coffins and the sacrificed Sacco and Vanzetti.

I am still at a loss at understanding the meaning of both the poster, except that it would appear to be someone swearing to tell the Truth, and only the Truth, as well a the column-style lamppost on the side, which, by its constrasting color theme, seems out of context.

Tempera on canvas, Ben Shahn, 1931-32.

Do they take the Hippocratic or the hypocritical oath?

Once more the world is upside down because of the recent terrorist bomb alerts and the moronic attack on Glasgow Airport...
But what is really and deeply bothering me is not so much that again the Muslim, home-grown or not, connection, is being quoted as responsible.
What is deeply unnerving is that these people, including the 8 arrested so far had nor just "advanced degrees or education" as some papers have reported, but that they were doctors, as in, physicians.

I wonder whether these guys, wherever they studied their medicine, Paskistan, Australia, India, the UK, or Planet Mars, took what I assumed what the traditional compulsory oath, i.e., the Hippocratic Oath. I am not sure that it allows murder or acts of terror! If we cannot trust our physicians any more, who?

I am includimg here the original Hippocratic Oath: there is no chance a radical Muslim would take that oath, because of the references to all the Greek Gods, for God's sake!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_classical.html

But the modern version is rather neutral and I am including it hereunder.

Now the secular version includes a paragraph that is indeed bothering. Here it goes: "But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God."

So are they thinking that it is in their power to try and take the Infidels' lives?

To me, it is simply playing God ...although it is clear that they should not even consider that!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/doctors/oath_modern.html

Because if they did take this oath, then it was the hypocritical one, wasn't it finally?

There was a special oath created for Muslim doctors. It is based on the Qu'ran and can be found at
http://www.islam-usa.com/im2.html

The text states plainly: "Therefore, make us worthy of this favoured station with honor, dignity and piety so that we may devote our lives in serving mankind, poor or rich, literate or illiterate, Muslim or non-Muslim, black or white with patience and tolerance with virtue and reverence, with knowledge and vigilance, with Thy love in our hearts and compassion for Thy servants, Thy most precious creation.
Hereby we take this oath in Thy name, the Creator of all the Heavens and the earth and follow Thy counsel as Thou has revealed to Prophet Mohammad (pbuh)."Whoever killeth a human being, not in liew of another human being nor because of mischief on earth, it is as if he hath killed all mankind. And if he saveth a human life, he hath saved the life of all mankind." (Qur'an V/35)

If only the arrested physicians acted by what they profess to be The Truth!