Posts Tagged ‘culture’

Benefit Concert

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

mozart

I’m off to Prague

Friday, March 3rd, 2006

We are both off on a 5 day jaunt to Prague with our niece. Planning to see Don Giovanni at the Estates Theater in Prague on the occasion of Mozart’s 250th birthday celebrations. I’ll be taking lots of pictures, as apparently this is mecca for Mozart lovers. This is where Don Giovanni had its world premiere in 1787.

Looking forward to the sights and sounds, even if it is still wintery weather.

On cartoons and civilization

Saturday, February 4th, 2006

From the Washington Post, an interesting article on the brouhaha arising from newspaper caricatures.

The article provides some thought-proking commentary on the 12 caricatures appearing in a Danish newspaper.
On sacrilege:
…We may cluck about the lack of freedom in Iran, but we have grown very orthodox about the way we speak of religion in our own public square. The curious thing about sacrilege is that it very often strengthens true religion as much as it reaffirms the right to challenge it.
The closing paragraph proposes an interesting theory.
So perhaps these cartoons really do crystallize why Islam and the West are incompatible and must hunker down for a “long war.” The only other option, it seems, is to remember that if vastly different worldviews can find no accommodation on a subject, then perhaps it’s too early, in human history, to have the conversation.

Interesting in that it reminds me of old Star Trek episodes where the crew lands on a “primitive civilization”. How odd to find that this primitive civilization is, indeed, all of us.