Discoveries Arabs Never Made

Islam's contribution to world culture in 1915
*See end note about this picture

The title of this post was going to be "The Culture of the West vs that of Islam". But then I thought: Culture? Islam has a culture"?

Saying "the culture of the West versus the culture of Islam suggests two cultures put on the same level, as if they were two parallel entities. Two realities of equal weight and value." (Oriana Fallaci)

In her book, The Rage and the Pride, famously known as "a sermon to the West", Oriana Fallaci says, "Behind our Western culture there is Homer, there is Pheidias, there is Socrates, there is Plato, there is Aristotle, there is Archimedes. There is ancient Greece with its divine sculpture and architecture and poetry and philosophy, with its principle of democracy. 

"There is Ancient Rome with all its grandeur, its universality, its concept of the Law, its palaces, its amphitheaters its aqueducts, its streets built all over the then known world. There is Jesus who died on the cross to teach us the concept of love and justice. There is also a Church...there is Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Donatello, Raffello, Lorenzo il Magnifico...There is also Erasmus, and Montaigne and Thomas More and Cartesius.

Common Sense from Joan Rivers

Sometimes she has a foul mouth, but Joan Rivers makes sense when she calls for actors to stay out of politics. Her peers, who are running around the country shilling for same-sex marriage or global warming or attacking the governor of Wisconsin, need to shut up. A few years ago my daughter complained about a Dixie Chicks' concert she attended where they started promoting their liberal pro-abortion views. "That's not why I went," she said and she took her daughter and left.

Here's what Joan said outside the White House Correspondents Dinner in May:

“Actors should act. Politicians should do politics. Very often actors--actors should do what we should do. I think we are so influential in our thoughts that I think you have to be careful before you come in half baked.” 

Read the article here.