Word: prophets
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Holy War. The very word jihad is ambiguous. In some parts of the Koran, it means any "struggle" or "striving" in the cause of Allah-such as leading a righteous life. But in other sections of the holy book, revealed to the Prophet after he and his followers had begun the successful conquest of their Arab neighbors, jihad takes on a military tone. Small wonder: Mohammed is said to have led 26 or 27 battles...
...recalled the time in 1948 when his father met with a group of fellow Palestinians to plan for the war against Israel. "They proclaimed King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan as commander of their army," he said, "and several members of the group proposed that Abdullah, a descendant of the Prophet, should ride on a white horse like a caliph at the head of his troops. Twenty-five years later, their sons are fighting with some of the most sophisticated weaponry ever used...
...deeds surrounding Watergate began to spill into public light last April, Wally Hickel began to look like a prophet. The Anchorage Times editorialized in praise of his foresight, his book about his frustrated struggles within the Nixon Administration (Who Owns America?) found a clutch of new readers, and Hickel began to be the most sought-after Republican speaker in the state. His new status is so solid that many of Alaska's southeastern business men are urging him to run for Governor, and oil interests have already pledged their support if he decides to run for the Senate. Both...
...founder and chief prophet of vexillology, Political Scientist Whitney Smith, coined the word from the Latin vexillum, or military standard. Smith set up the Flag Research Center in Winchester, Mass., to keep tabs on all the new national emblems and to provide a learned voice on the aesthetics of flag design. The time was the early 1960s, when the newly independent nations of Africa were running such a profusion of new standards up the flagpole that it was impossible to know what to salute. Today the goal of his organization is to introduce new standards of quality in flag-making...
...That prophet would have more to mock today. Shortly before he died, Duchamp complained: "In my day artists wanted to be outcasts, pariahs. Now they are all integrated into society." The épater la bourgeoisie act gets harder every day. Each new outrage is given a price tag and immediately sold to some collector−frequently as an investment. The vast, despised leviathan−the middle class−has entirely swallowed the artist and his followers. Yet this too is an irony that Duchamp might have enjoyed. As the Philadelphia Museum visitor walks through Duchamp's striking prefigurations...