run for your life
And now, I suppose as retaliation for Sunday's entry, I am getting multiple emails from an Internet crush site. It won't work, Internet crush site; per my eighteen-month cycle, I am monastic until February 2003.
From Subcomandante Marcos via bhikku, Waste Land limericks!
The Thames runs, bones rattle, rats creep;
Tiresias fancies a peep--
A typist is laid,
A record is played--
Wei la la. After this it gets deep.
Quoting frequently from the Koran, Mr. Moussaoui framed his trial as a struggle between a devout Muslim willing to die for his religious beliefs and a group of "pagans, Jews, Christians and hypocrites." He described himself repeatedly as a "slave of Allah."
Still, Mr. Moussaoui made clear that he stood by his not-guilty plea and said that he wanted "to defend my life." He reminded the court, "I am innocent until proven guilty," and he said he had been repeatedly rebuffed in his efforts since to hire capable Muslim lawyers.
Prosecutors offered no objection to Mr. Moussaoui's request to defend himself. Justice Department officials in Washington said they were perplexed by the request, although one senior official said Mr. Moussaoui "may believe, incorrectly, that he can avoid the death penalty if he creates the appearance of some sort of anti-Muslim prejudice within the government."
I have to say, it strikes me as pretty myopic to assume that Moussaoui wants to avoid the death penalty. If in fact he was originally supposed to be martyred in September but the planning went awry, then what better way (in his worldview) to die now than to be put to death by the Godless state after condemning it at length, with great publicity, in orthodox Muslim fashion? I'm sure that counts as death during jihad, meaning a backstage pass to Paradise and so on. And—as Moussaui has already noted—we'll play right along, because we are the country that gasses people.
