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Paris

The Paris horror. I'm just shaking my head. Western imperial policies over the past 100 years and a religion rife with violence have combined to create a terrible, terrible situation. Part of me just wants the West to declare total war and start wiping out Muslims everywhere. Part of me just wants to erect a giant wall around the non-Israeli Middle East and leave the Muslims to themselves. Neither seem like good solutions, so I guess I'll just pray and garden.

And drink, thinking about GKC's "Omar and the Sacred Vine."

Jesus Christ also made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. But Omar makes it, not a sacrament, but a medicine. He feasts because life is not joyful; he revels because he is not glad. "Drink," he says, "for you know not whence you come nor why. Drink, for you know not when you go nor where. Drink, because the stars are cruel and the world as idle as a humming-top. Drink, because there is nothing worth trusting, nothing worth fighting for. Drink, because all things are lapsed in a base equality and an evil peace." So he stands offering us the cup in his hand. And at the high altar of Christianity stands another figure, in whose hand also is the cup of the vine. "Drink" he says "for the whole world is as red as this wine, with the crimson of the love and wrath of God. Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle and this is the stirrup-cup. Drink, for this my blood of the new testament that is shed for you. Drink, for I know of whence you come and why. Drink, for I know of when you go and where."

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