Western Culture

If Columbus didn't discover the "New World," someone eventually would have; all the things that he is blamed for would have been blamed on someone else. Don't blame Columbus, he was just a navigator. CHARLES W. LeCOMPTE Santa Barbara

A mediocre book on an important topic always is disappointing. When the treatment also is shallow and vulgarly argued -- as is the case with Bruce Bawer's "Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom" -- this reader is inclined to get up with a sour sense of resentment over time wasted, the sort of feeling that comes from being seated next to a garrulous bore at a dinner party.

In a controversy that has attracted national attention, Stanford University's faculty is debating proposals to make the freshman Western Culture program better reflect the achievements of women and minorities. One plan, which U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett has ridiculed, would drop the required reading list that includes such classics as Plato's "Republic" and Dante's "Divine Comedy."

cairo -- It was a boyhood of miniskirts and stern-faced imams. As Ahmed abu Haiba grew into a man, he felt a kinship with the clerics who recited the Koran in badly lighted television studios, but he feared they didn't stand a chance against the new Western temptations of pop divas pouting about carnal pleasures and broken hearts. The screen beyond Abu Haiba's clicker was changing; the iconic images that defined Islam were being challenged in the 1990s from the Internet and Hollywood fantasy absorbed by tens of millions of satellite dishes humming on rooftops across the Middle East.

China's chief justice vowed to crack down on severe criminal offenders, blaming "the infiltration of decadent Western ideology and culture" for exacerbating the national crime rate. Ren Jianxin, president of the Supreme People's Court, resurrected the Marxist theory of class struggle to justify a harsh anti-crime campaign that sent hundreds to the execution grounds last year. Authorities have vowed to continue the crackdown.

Sixteen years after its tumultuous revolution, Iran is in transition. To just what, however, is unclear. On one front, many of the revolution's early images--from reverent theologians and chador-clad women to gun-toting zealots--are fast fading. Last month, theology students protested the lack of experienced instructors and quality books--and demanded the seminary director be fired. "A revolution within a revolution," a Tehran journalist remarked.

While the world readies for the 21st century, this nation is expending energy keeping parts of the 20th century out. It has no television station, and satellite dishes are banned except for diplomats and foreigners. There are three lawyers. And the only newspaper comes out once a week. Political parties are outlawed, the head of state is an absolute monarch, and there is a national dress code. The capital has one traffic light--which is not plugged in.

"H ave you seen those rooms of furniture by Jean Lowe at South Coast Plaza? Such lovely decorations and sweet little scenes painted everywhere." "Now wait just a minute. Did you see what those paintings are about? She's blaming us for wearing diamond rings and cotton shirts, for drinking coffee and eating meat. She's whining about the perfectly ordinary things nice people do, just because there is pollution and some people have to kill animals or mine diamonds."

A mediocre book on an important topic always is disappointing. When the treatment also is shallow and vulgarly argued -- as is the case with Bruce Bawer's "Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom" -- this reader is inclined to get up with a sour sense of resentment over time wasted, the sort of feeling that comes from being seated next to a garrulous bore at a dinner party.

Re "Making Room for Muslim Educators," Oct. 12 Germany is sowing another whirlwind in introducing Islam into its public schools. While the aim is "to better integrate" the Muslim community, and the teaching of Islam is to be "sensitive to Western culture," the actual effect can only be to weaken Western culture and the civilization that nurtured it. As noted, "Learning Islam in school will finally give Muslim children the feeling of being...

To a rumbling bass line and the essential mirror ball spinning overhead, nine young contestants spill nervously out from behind the curtain. The audience is mostly young men who have been squirming in their seats waiting for the show to begin. But there are young women too, in lipstick, sneakers and scarves, shivering against the winter chill that penetrates the Kabul wedding hall.

WE probably don't think much about the rather bland doors we pass through in our daily lives. The one we close behind us with relief, at home after a hectic day. The one we open gently to check on a sleeping child. The doors we enter on our way to worship, to visit parents or to shop. Each of these doors triggers a shift in our emotions, a transition from one state of mind or social context to the next. Yet the doors themselves reflect none of that.

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, euthanasia, drug use, prostitution -- in the Netherlands those are perfectly fine. But the one thing the Dutch apparently will not tolerate is what they perceive to be intolerance. In defense of their cherished tradition of gedogen -- which loosely translates as "to live and let live" -- the Dutch are ready to force the assimilation of conservative Muslim immigrants, who are deemed intolerant of fabled Dutch tolerance and must therefore no longer be tolerated. Got that?

Re "Making Room for Muslim Educators," Oct. 12 Germany is sowing another whirlwind in introducing Islam into its public schools. While the aim is "to better integrate" the Muslim community, and the teaching of Islam is to be "sensitive to Western culture," the actual effect can only be to weaken Western culture and the civilization that nurtured it. As noted, "Learning Islam in school will finally give Muslim children the feeling of being...

Who asked, "Am I my brother's keeper?" (Was it Cain, Noah, Abel or King David?) What happened on the road to Damascus? (A: Jesus was crucified. B: Mary met an angel of the Lord. C: St. Paul was blinded by a vision from God. D: Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss.) Only a third of the American teenagers in a nationwide Gallup poll last year correctly answered the first question, attributing the quote from Genesis to Cain.

At Garfield Medical Center, elderly patients rehabilitate their dexterity with games of mah-jongg. In the kitchen, the staff prepares meal trays for patients brimming with braised tofu, soy sauce chicken and sweet and sour beef ribs. For breakfast, Chinese rice porridge is more popular than oatmeal. The nurses, meanwhile, are friendly but watchful as families visit patients, keeping an eye out for those sneaking in an acupuncturist late at night or some old-world herbal remedies.

American Indian and Western Relic Show--A carving depicting a religious dance, left, will be among works from Native American and Western culture on display Friday through Sunday at the Pasadena Center. * Peace Day '98--A 3-point competition will highlight Saturday's celebration of multi-culturalism and peace at the Westwood Recreation Complex starting at 11 a.m.

At 66, Zhou Yude is an elder statesman of Chinese culture. As the recently retired director of the Institute of Chinese Traditional Opera, he can draw on more than 20 years of study to lecture at length about the nuances of a regionalized performance art that dates back 1,000 years.

Berenice Geoffroy-Schneiter knew she had tapped into something when a friend who worked for John Galliano told her recently that the designer had become "hypnotized" by India. "His collection that season was all about India," said author and art historian Geoffroy-Schneiter of the Paris-based designer. "Like everyone else, he had succumbed." What Geoffroy-Schneiter now describes as "Indomania" has resulted in "Indian Beauty: Bollywood Style," a slim illustrated book recently released in the U.S.