Category Archives: Humor and Satire

Sahara, My, My but it’s Dry

Humor and Satire, Music and Dance, Orientalism

Vaudeville loved Orientalism. By the time Valentino played The Sheik, images of Middle Eastern scenes were well represented on stage and in music. Some of the lyrics from this time period are very clever. My personal favorite is a prohibition song from 1920 called “Sahara, We’ll Soon Be Dry Like You,” sung by the great comic singer Billy Murray. To hear this original Edison Diamond Disk recording in a digital format, click here.

Here are the words. Why not click above and sing along…


Sahara (We’ll Soon Be Dry Like You)
Words by Alfred Bryan, Music by Jean Schwartz

Verse 1: King Rameses went to pieces seven thousand years ago,
And pass’d a law that Egypt must go dry.
He took the liquors from the “shickers” all the way to Jericho,
But kept his little toddy on the sly.
The desert of Sahara flow’d with honey so they say,
Till prohibition came along and dried it up one day. Continue reading Sahara, My, My but it’s Dry →

Revenue Sharing, but not Drug-free

Afghanistan, Luke R. E. Publican, Osama Bin Laden, Taliban, Terrorism Issue


[The American plan to convince Afghan farmers not to grow poppies: some good old cow dung smothered in politically expedient B.S. Photo from the New York Times.]

In the old days (before 9/11, the posters for Osama dead or alive, the seeming fall of the Taliban, Operation Shock and Awe, etc.) before terrorism merited an all-out war, there were more socially-minded wars on the American political scene. An earlier Texan (so early he was Democratic) named Lyndon Johnson started a War on Poverty. The wealth of Bill Gates shows how well that succeeded. Then Betty Ford helped launch a War on Drugs. Casualty figures for this have been withheld by the government for insecurity reasons. Indeed, today’s New York Times has an article that suggests the War on Drugs has fused with the War on Terrorism and we are losing on both fronts. “Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday.” writes David Rohde in his article “Taliban Raise Poppy Production to a Record Again.” He adds, “Here in Helmand, the breadth of the poppy trade is staggering. A sparsely populated desert province twice the size of Maryland, Helmand produces more narcotics than any country on earth, including Myanmar, Morocco and Colombia. Rampant poverty, corruption among local officials, a Taliban resurgence and spreading lawlessness have turned the province into a narcotics juggernaut.” Continue reading Revenue Sharing, but not Drug-free →

Little Mosque on the Prairie

Film and Video, Humor and Satire, Islam in America, Islamophobia

It started with Little Joe on Bonanza; you’ve seen the reruns and you’ve hummed the theme song. Then Little Joe went family fare and moved into a Little House on the Prairie. This is the television icon of conservative, what-a-wonderful-life-we-all-had-in-the-good-old-days Americana, if ever there was. I have watched a seemingly infinite number of reruns of both programs, but to my knowledge the only Orientals in sight were Chinese; no Muslims crossed the prairie.

So it is certainly time for a Little Mosque on the Prairie, even if it debuts in Canada rather than Kansas. Yes, fellow Americans, Muslims can be funny and not just the butt of Islamophobic jokes. It may not be surprising that nearly 2 million viewers tuned into the premier of the new television series on CBC. Continue reading Little Mosque on the Prairie →

Famous General Supports Iraq War

Film and Video, Iraq War, Luke R. E. Publican

America has a number of famous generals who now serve as icons of our legendary military prowess. General Washington beat the red pants off of Lord Cornwallis. General William Tecumseh Sherman put the heat on those good old southern white boys down in Georgia. General Custer died with his boots on, as did all the men he led into battle. Then there were the heroes of World War II, the most cinematic being General George C. Scott, I mean General George S. Patton. It turns out that General Patton, like all superheroes, has risen from the grave and returned to tell it like it should be (since “like it is” is not going so well) in the War on Terror and Iraq. If you would like his revamped take, then all you need to do is go to YouTube and see him read the Patriot Riot Act, courtesy of a 21st century impersonator and vintage 20th Century Fox (no relation to Fox News this time) footage.

If you are disappointed that the footage here is from the movie, then rest assured that General Patton has indeed been seen, though not as many times as Elvis. Just ask Don Imus.

Luke R. Publican

Laughter that Lasts 12 Centuries

Ethics, Humor and Satire, Literature

The honor of being the greatest writer in Arabic prose, at least in the eyes of numerous Arab literati for the last millennium, belongs to the Iraqi Abu ‘Uthman ‘Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz. Born in Basra in 776 C.E., a full millennium before our own nation was founded, Jahiz lived most of his life between the recently founded Baghdad and Samarra. He is the acknowledged master of Arabic adab literature, an eclectic form both entertaining and instructive. The elegance of his writing is matched by the grounding of his reflections on the ordinary and the lowest parts of the social order.

One of his most entertaining works that survives is a satirical look at misers and the nature of avarice. In a culture that idealized hospitality from the poor Bedouin’s goat-hair tent to the sumptuous silk cushions of the sultan’s palace, this is a telling admission that not everyone abides by the social norms. Continue reading Laughter that Lasts 12 Centuries →

What Went Wrong: A Top-Ten Review

Iraq War, Luke R. E. Publican

What went wrong in Iraq? It seems as though it might make more sense to ask why didn’t anything go right. When Operation Iraqi Freedom began, the good news was that a brutal tyrant named Saddam Hussein had been ousted from power. For the billions of dollars thrown at modern Mesopotamia, the result is now in painful hindsight a bloody (and I do not simply mean the British expletive) mess with no good in realistic sight. The litany of bad news has morphed into a politically untenable tsunami, destroying all good intentions in its wake. One of the top stories in today’s news is the alarming rate of deaths among contractors working alongside the American military in Iraq. In the first three months of 2007 almost 150 were killed, often because they tend to be “soft targets,” but increasingly because U.S. troops are stretched thin outside the surge-happy capital. Even Chatham House, hardly a left-leaning lean-to in British politics, has neon-lighted the handwriting on the Babylonian wall with a recent report by Gareth Stansfield, who argues in a paper released Thursday that “Iraq is on the verge of being a failed state which faces the distinct possibility of collapse and fragmentation.” You know things are really bad when the U.S. military creates its own shared channel on You-Tube.

The reasons are so obvious four years after the patriotic fever orchestrated by the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz gang of neocons that it almost seems trivial to keep repeating them, so perhaps the best thing is a Letterman-like line-up of the top ten real stupid mistakes made so far (it ain’t over until the fatuous voter sings) by recent U.S. foreign policy in Iraq: Continue reading What Went Wrong: A Top-Ten Review →

Hamas and Ibn Khaldun: Going for the Cycle?

Humor and Satire, Islamic History, Israel, Palestine

I am not an expert on the Palestine issue, nor am I trained to think in the apocalyptic terms sometimes engaged by pundits who forget that political science is more often an art or even impure fiction than a replicable analytical technique. But the ongoing in-fighting between Hamas (the neo-bad guys) and Fatah (the paleo-bad guys) is too intriguing to pass up. Today’s BBC News has a comparison of the two parties, following the resignation of the interior minister. Much of the speculation in the media is about tactics: Will Hamas ever give up support of violent acts against Israelis? Will Israel stubbornly refuse to negotiate with a group it would rather see fade into oblivion? Will the United States promote this democratic experiment as a bridge or a barrier on the so-called road map to peace? In all this I cannot help but think about what the famous 14th century North African savant Ibn Khaldun would have said if he could be interviewed from the grave for the New Tunis Times. It might go something like this… Continue reading Hamas and Ibn Khaldun: Going for the Cycle? →

Apocalypse Watch: The Man Who Knows Squat

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Bible and Holy Land, Israel, Luke R. E. Publican, Palestine

Most people find it hard to take cartoons seriously, apart from political satire and that can become a deadly issue, depending on the target. Given the recent Danish cartoon controversy it would seem that comics and religion do not mix well or at least settle well for the believers who see themselves as the target. But what about comic relief for the political struggle between Israel and the Palestinians? Fundamentalist tract artist Jack Chick, whose comic empire is dedicated to winning souls for Christ by drawing on God’s hate, has been using his pen to spread a rather sinister version of the fundamentally reduced Gospel for over 40 years. One of his more recent offerings is called “The Squatters” and it provides a virtual roadmap to apocalypse. Continue reading Apocalypse Watch: The Man Who Knows Squat →