Iraqi Christian women at church in June. (Source)

Over the last few days, things have grown dire for Christians in Mosul, a city in northern Iraq. From a July 18th New York Times story: 

By 1 p.m. on Friday almost every Christian in Mosul had heard the Sunni militants’ message — they had until noon Saturday to leave the city.

Men, women and children piled into neighbors’ cars, some begged for rides to the city limits and hoped to get taxis to the nearest Christian villages. They took nothing more than the clothes on their backs, according to several who were reached late Friday.

The order from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria came after Christians decided not to attend a meeting that ISIS had arranged for Thursday night to discuss their status.

“We were so afraid to go,” said Duraid Hikmat, an expert on minorities who had done research for years in Mosul. He fled two weeks ago to Al Qosh, a largely Christian town barely an hour away, but his extended family left on Friday.

Since 2003, when Saddam Hussein was ousted, Mosul’s Christians, one of the oldest communities of its kind in the world, had seen their numbers dwindle from over 30,000 to just a few thousand, but once ISIS swept into the city in early June, there were reports that the remaining Christians had fled.

Interviews on Friday with Christian elders and leaders suggest that in fact many had hung on, hoping for an accommodation, a way to continue the quiet practice of their faith in the city that had been their home for more than 1,700 years. Chaldeans, Assyrians and other sects, including Mandeans, whose Christianity is close to that of the Gnostics, could still be found in Iraq, and many made their home on the plains of Nineveh in the north of the country, an area mentioned in the Bible’s Book of Genesis.

Friday’s edict, however, was probably the real end. While a few scattered souls may find a way to stay in secret, the community will be gone.

A YouTube video shows ISIS taking sledgehammers to the tomb of Jonah, something that was also confirmed by Mr. Hikmat. The militants also removed the cross from St. Ephrem’s Cathedral, the seat of the Syriac Orthodox archdiocese in Mosul, and put up the black ISIS flag in its place. They also destroyed a statue of the Virgin Mary, according to Ghazwan Ilyas, the head of the Chaldean Culture Society in Mosul, who spoke by telephone on Thursday from Mosul but seemed to have left on Friday. 

Yesterday, Pope Francis spoke out on the Iraqi Christians dire situation:

The pontiff in his traditional Angelus blessing on Sunday offered prayers for Iraqi Christians who “are persecuted, chased away, forced to leave their houses without out the possibility of taking anything” with them.

Christians departed Mosul this week for the largely autonomous Kurdish region after they were issued anultimatum to convert to Islam, pay a tax or face death. It’s the latest exodus of Christians from the city where communities date from the first centuries of Christianity.

 From another New York Times story from yesterday, some Christians opted to convert:

... Some — just a few, and because they were not healthy enough to flee — submitted to demands that they convert to Islam to avoid being killed.

“There are five Christian families who converted to Islam because they were threatened with death,” said Younadim Kanna, a Christian and a member of Iraq’s Parliament. “They did so just to stay alive.”

Between Mosul, Gaza, and the Malaysian Airlines flight shot down in Ukraine, it has been an extremely rough weekend for innocents caught in battles not of their choosing. Please pray.

Jay Z: a 21st century poet?

John McWhorter, writing at The Daily Beast, answers with a definitive yes:

To utterly naïve anthropologists sent to document the ways of Americans in 2014, one of the first things that would strike them is that this country is quite poetry mad. No, they would not find well-thumbed volumes of Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, and Billy Collins laying around the typical living room. However, they could not help but notice that a great many people under about 50 regularly go around listening to and yes, reciting poetry—rap, that is.

 

Rap is indeed “real” poetry. It rhymes, often even internally. Its authors work hard on the lyrics. The subject matter is certainly artistically heightened, occasioning long-standing debates over whether the depictions of violence and misogyny in some of it are sincere. And then, that “gangsta” style is just one, and less dominant than it once was. Rap, considered as a literature rather than its top-selling hits, addresses a wide-range of topics, even including science fiction. Rap is now decades old, having evolved over time and being increasingly curated by experts. In what sense is this not a “real” anything?

 

The only reason rap may seem to nevertheless not be “real” poetry is a skewed take on language typical of modern, literate societies: that spoken language is merely a sloppy version of written language. “English,” under this analysis, is what’s on a page, with punctuation and fonts and whoms and such. Speech is “just talking.”

That means that to us, poetry is written poetry, that which sits between covers and is intended to be read, quietly, alone, with tea, likely chamomile. Never mind that in fact Jay-Z has released a magisterial volume of his lyrics as a book: generally, rap is intended to be heard on the fly, often in a concert arena. Surely there is a key distinction between that and the strophes of John Berryman or Gwendolyn Brooks?

 

But if there is, it’s a matter of style and tone, not basic classification. Partly because of its orality and partly because it is so relentlessly “of our times,” rap tends to be profane—but profanity does not disqualify something as poetry. One might not like poetry laced with profanity—but that’s something different, and quite frankly most of young America likes it just fine, just crazy about the poetry they have grown up with.

 

Overall the idea that poetry is serious only if it’s on a page and read with tea is actually rather parochial. An epic like Beowulf was composed for the ear, with careful alliterations within each line. Somalians’ poetry, again, written down only as an afterthought by outside observers, has such intricate rules that to us it seems more like a puzzle than art. Spoken is not broken.

Great points. Read the whole thing here. IMHO, rap can be poetry. I say "can" because, well, some of it just isn't. I know I'm quickly becoming a crotchety old lady spouting off at how bad today's music is, but really, a lot of rap music coming out now is not only NOT poetry, it's bordering on being not music.

There. I said it. And I'll happily sip some chamomile tea alomng with the other relics of time gone by. Ha.

Although I have four cousins who are part German, I'm backing Pope Francis, uh er, Argentina.

Well, not really.

The "it" is Brazil losing to Germany in the World Cup, which happened on Tuesday. Boy did it ever happen. Losing is one thing, but seven to one!? This is only my second World Cup, but I knew I was watching history.

Perhaps you're wondering what this has to do with "The Simpsons"? Well, a few months back, they aired "You Don't Have to Live Like a Referee" in which Homer lands a plumb spot being a ref at the World Cup because of his outstanding morals (!) in only calling fair plays during soccer games (this is a throwback to an earlier episode where as a ref he threw daughter Lisa out a game; so if he's so honest he'd throw his own little girl out, the officials believe he could not be bribed and restore some integrity to soccer officials). In the alternate Simpsons world, Brazil and Germany wind up facing each other in the final game.

After some obligatory jokes about "German blitzkrieg" and "Brazilian waxing", or "Nazis" versus "Nazi harborers" (and an elderly man chiming in that both titles are correct), the game commences.

In the end, Brazil loses, but by a much more respectable number. Who knew real life could be stranger than fiction? Sadly, the Brazilians stream out the stadium, still singing "Ole", which is a lot calmer than what's really happening.

For a really good piece on Brazil's historic loss, check out Sam Borden's post at The New York Times (H/T: Rod Dreher)