Word: secularity
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Iraq in 1969, at 32, he nationalized the country's oil industry and used the revenues to launch a massive program to modernize the country's infrastructure: roads, bridges, factories, universities, hospitals. By the late 1970s, Iraq was the Middle East's most progressive state--rich, modern and thoroughly secular. A Baghdad political scientist described Saddam to me as "the world's best Vice President--until he became the world's worst President...
...architects had hoped that toppling Saddam would set in motion a train of events that would see liberal democracy triumph in the Arab world. Instead, the biggest beneficiary from his demise has been Islamic fundamentalism. Saddam's execution marks the final nail in the coffin of Arab nationalism, a secular ideology of pan-Arab unity and independence. Originating with the Arab Revolt against Ottoman domination of the Middle East nearly a century ago, the ideology took on a militant edge following Arab independence after World War II. Partly as a reaction to Israel's defeat of the Arabs...
...away for years, and have created new branches of the family they grew up in. This trip into the past may be pleasant or painful. But for most people, whether or not they are practicing Christians, the soundtrack of that wayback machine is Christmas music: the religious and secular tunes, the novelty songs and ballads. Grandma has spun these standards for a half century or more, replacing the 78s with LPs, then cassettes and now CDs. The formats change; the songs and feelings don't. Some time in the next few days, you'll hear Bing Crosby sing "White Christmas...
...richer reminder of how lovely three voices singing as one can sound than this album by the New Jersey sibs: soprano Terre, contralto Maggie and alto Suzzy. The sisters' neo-traditional sound works wonders on a range of Christmas songs. A third of the 24 cuts are of secular songs, including a Caribbean-flavored "Deck the Halls," a "Sleigh Ride" whose percussion is horse-clop tongue clicks and a very heavily Brooklyn-accented "Winter Wonderland." Even the infectious title track has an folk-rocky vibe. Overall, though, the program is liturgical, the tone inspirational, the impact indelible...
...jazz pianist whose voice was too lyrical and intimate to be shut up. He put that silky, highly palatized tenor to splendid use in this collection, which was everybody's second Christmas album. (You couldn't play Bing all the time.) Like Crosby, Cole mixed the religious and the secular songs, his vocals lending a silky cohesion to the enterprise. Best remembered is "The Christmas Song," by Robert Allen and Mel Torme, which Nat first recorded in 1946 and made his own. He had us at "chestnuts...